Lacerta walked through the opulent halls of the Velin mansion. Just like the last time he was here, everything was flawlessly crafted—the paintings that lined the walls, the smooth wood and marble surfaces, the crystal chandeliers glittering overhead.
He had run into at least a few dozen guards on his way to the garden. Spoon had said he would find Rusk there.
The estate was massive, just as he remembered, but it was clear where Haldran Velin's priorities lay. The man valued strength over splendor, focusing more on the raw power of his guards than on expanding his gardens.
Though, considering the kingdom they were in, that wasn't surprising... he was probably just one of many.
He walked through what looked to be an outdoor training area where various guards sparred with one another. Some of them stopped to watch Lacerta as he passed—their glances weren't anything malicious, merely curious.
Soon enough, he saw him: the familiar, dark-red-haired man, swinging a wooden sword against a training dummy with ruthless repetition. His palms were slick with sweat, cracked and stained with dried blood. Gritting his teeth, Rusk brought the sword down in one final, shattering swing, and both blade and dummy exploded into splinters of wood and hay.
He's training himself to ruin... Is he always like this?
As if sensing a gaze on him, Rusk turned, wiping sweat from his forehead. His eyes met Lacerta's, and for a moment, they clouded with guilt before he forced a neutral expression.
Rusk: ["Glad to see you're up."]
He was trying to hide it. But Lacerta saw it anyway. He felt it almost physically, a sharp twist in his gut—because that guilt wasn't supposed to be on Rusk's face. It belonged on his and his alone.
Lacerta: ["Yeah. Thanks for bandaging me up. I heard you were the one who did it."]
Lacerta didn't know why he was thanking him. The bandages had been useless, but the words came out anyway.
There was a moment of silence as Rusk dropped the broken wooden hilt and looked straight down at Lacerta.
Rusk: ["I'm sorry, kid."]
Lacerta blinked, caught off guard.
Lacerta: ["Sorry? For what?"]
If anything, he should be the one apologizing. Lacerta was the one who was there since the beginning. He was the one that agreed on the plan to split up. If he had been just a little faster, Glenn wouldn't have…
Rusk: ["For showing up late, after your friend got killed. For being too damn weak. It's just like what happened years back with the bandit attack… I failed because of my own inadequacy!"]
Lacerta: ["He wasn't... a friend. Did you get his body? At least...?"]
He asked with a blank look. The way Rusk's face fell was answer enough.
Lacerta's eyes dropped to the ground. He remembered Glenn burying his own comrades after the fight with the Witchbeast—a ritual that, at the time, Lacerta couldn't comprehend.
But as Glenn had put it: Respect. Mourning. A final kindness.
Glenn had offered his friends that final kindness.
But now Glenn was dead. Alone, buried under countless tons of dirt and rubble, all because of him.
Lacerta's fists clenched, that familiar, frustrating heat swelling in his chest. What was the point of this strength of his? This absurd talent that allowed him to pick up a sword and understand it in a single breath?
He'd failed not once, but twice. First with Glenn's comrades. Now with Glenn himself.
Would someone else with his power and talent have done better?
Would someone else have saved them?
The world was truly cruel to grant him such a gift only for him to squander it.
The world was truly a cruel thing, to grant someone like him such a gift, only for him to be so inadequate.
Lacerta: ["You shouldn't be apologizing..."]
He turned away, unable—unwilling—to face the man who refused to assign blame correctly.
How could Rusk not be blaming him?
Why was he taking the weight onto himself?
Why did people keep refusing to see who the real failure was?
Lacerta: ["...It's all my fault anyway."]
It was nonsensical. Completely and utterly nonsensical.
——————————————————————————————
He walked down the path in silence, seeing and hearing no one. The wind, the rustle of leaves, distant footsteps—everything felt muted, swallowed by the heavy emptiness made him understand that he was utterly alone.
He stopped abruptly, his head slowly lifting from its downward bow. His purple gaze drifted up toward the sun.
Why do I feel this way?
Why am I like this?
From a logical standpoint, it didn't make sense. None of this crushing, suffocating weight did.
He barely knew Glenn. Aside from the few days they had spent traveling together through the Buddheim Jungle, they were strangers—temporary allies bound by circumstance. In fact, Lacerta hadn't even bothered to learn about the man, considering him nothing more than a guide. A tool. A means to an end to achieve his goal.
Therefore, the loss of a mere guide shouldn't have caused this much anguish. But this intense ache in his chest... this tightness in his throat... this unbearable heaviness settling somewhere deep within his psyche...
Logically… logically—
Lacerta: ["——Hrk…"]
And then, it made sense to him, realizing it with the kind of clarity that almost physically hurt.
He had been trying to apply logic to something that, by its very nature, defied it. Emotions didn't follow the same rules as everything else.
A warmth bloomed behind his eyes, sudden and overwhelming, blurring the edges of his vision until the world lost all sharpness. When he brushed a trembling finger along his cheek, he felt the wetness of tears streaming down his face.
Crying. So this was sadness.
Is this what Glenn felt when his comrades died? Or was this only a fraction of his pain? A mere shadow of the grief Glenn had carried with quiet dignity?
How could the man continue to smile after everything that had happened? Surely, any normal person would have looked at Lacerta with burning hatred. After all, he possessed the power to kill the very beast that had taken Glenn's friends.
So why hadn't he?
Why had Glenn looked at him with something closer to warmth, instead of blame and anger?
Why had the man treated him like someone worth talking to?
Lacerta: ["——Argh…"]
Perhaps, he thought, he should have gotten to know Glenn better.
Henceforth, Lacerta understood what he needed to do from this point onward. Not because he was noble, nor because he wanted to honor Glenn.
But because the alternative—the crushing weight of helplessness, the intense heat of guilt—was something he refused to feel ever again.
The goal that was more important than learning more about himself, who he was and where he'd came from before losing his memories. No longer was that his primary goal—the Big Man could wait.
—Strength.
Not his current level of power he's been relying on.
Not the effortless talent he'd taken for granted.
But something far more absolute in comparison.
Perhaps, if he continued to get stronger and stronger until nothing could get past him…
Until nothing could slip through his fingers…
Until no one under his watch ever died again…
Then he wouldn't have to feel this painful emotion ever again—this anguish. Because he hated it.
He hated how it clawed at his insides... He hated how it exposed every flaw... He hated how it reminded him exactly where he went wrong, where he failed, where he was weak.
And through all that supposed God-given talent, a weakness—his weakness—had taken multiple lives.
Rubbing his eyes with his black sleeve, he glared up with reddened, feverish eyes and let out a shaky breath. The tears dried, but the heat behind them didn't. It intensified into something more grim.
He knew what he had to do.
He had to become stronger.
No matter what it cost.