Natasha snapped out of her daze and quickly pulled away from Dante.
If it hadn't been for the system message, the two of them might have stayed like that for who knows how long.
She then went ahead and checked the task message.
[Chain Mission: Save Dante (2/3)]
[Task 2: Reveal your condition to Dante. Share your past with him and regain his trust.]
[Time Limit: 2 hours]
'…Reveal my past to him?' Natasha's eyes lingered on that line, and a small wave of unwillingness rose up in her heart at the thought of it.
Honestly, she had already been thinking about how to explain things to Dante. She could dodge the questions about her past, but there was no way he would take her words at face value like he once had.
She didn't want to lie to him again, but she was deeply uncomfortable talking about her past with anyone.
'Haha… maybe this is my punishment for hiding things from him in the first place,' she thought wryly.
And just her luck.... the system's task was exactly that.
Now there was no way she could avoid it.
Snapping out of her thoughts, Natasha looked over at Dante, who was staring at her intently, as though waiting for an explanation.
Unlike before, the anger in his eyes was pretty much gone.
But he still had a resentful look on his face.
"Have you calmed down?" Natasha asked with a bit of relief, seeing that her hug had actually done the job.
"Don't think I'm going to forgive you just from one hug. I'm not that cheap!"
Dante pretended to be pissed off and said it with an annoyed face after catching the relief on hers.
"If you won't let me leave, then I'll make you hate me enough to throw me out of this house yourself!" he said with a determined look.
While Dante was running his mouth, Natasha turned and walked toward the wooden cabinet by the bookshelves.
'Where the hell is she going? Don't we have a lot to talk about?' Dante was thrown off by what she was doing, but he kept his act up anyway.
"Hey, I'm talking to you!"
"Where are you going?"
"Master!"
Just as he called her that, Natasha pulled out a wine bottle and two glasses. She turned around and asked with a teasing smile, "Didn't you say you weren't going to call me master anymore? What happened to that?"
"That word lost its meaning the second you decided to hide the truth about my condition!" Dante quickly shot back after slipping up.
"Oh? And did you think you were the only one with broken mana circuits?" Natasha said with a mysterious look on her face.
'Tell me something I don't know, Master. Something like your measurements.' Dante wanted to say that out loud so badly, but he held himself back.
He wasn't stupid enough to blow his cover just because he couldn't keep a joke to himself.
"What do you mean by that?" Dante looked at her with a confused face. "And what does anyone else having broken mana circuits have to do with me?"
"Oh? What if that someone was me?" Natasha reached over to the table and asked with a smile.
"Impossible! There's no way!" Dante shook his head, refusing to believe her. "I heard you're an incredibly powerful awakener!"
"Yes. I was," Natasha replied with a hint of melancholy as she sat down. Her voice cracked a little at the end as she added, "I was so strong that I couldn't even protect myself."
"You… what are you talking about?" Dante pretended he had just picked up on the fact that something was wrong.
"Don't you want to drink? Come on, let's drink together," Natasha said as she opened the bottle and poured two glasses.
Dante sat down across from her with a wary look in his eyes as he took the glass. "Just so you know, I'm not getting fooled a second time."
"Yeah yeah, I know my student is very smart," Natasha said with a dry smile before drinking the whole glass in one go.
Dante was a little caught off guard by that and took a sip himself. 'Damn, this is some good stuff!'
"So how much do you know about the awakener world?" Natasha got straight to the point.
She had to keep things narrow so she could finish the task before the timer ran out. Dante was more than happy to play along, since he also wanted to save time.
"I know awakeners are superhumans who cultivate this energy called mana. With mana, they can pull off all kinds of crazy stuff, and even nukes aren't a match for them." Dante started explaining, making sure his answers were close enough to the truth without being completely on point.
About a minute later, he finally wrapped up.
"That's good to hear," Natasha said, quietly wondering who had told him all that.
"Now, where should I start…"
"Ever since I was young, people called me a genius. The savior who was going to rebuild Eden's Gate....." She spoke with a nostalgic look in her eyes.
Over the next hour, Natasha talked about her childhood at Eden's Gate and then moved on to how quickly she started making a name for herself in the awakener world.
The two of them kept drinking, and empty bottles were slowly starting to line up on the table. Dante was clearly at his limit, so he just stored them in his inventory.
Natasha, on the other hand, was starting to get drunk. She could have cleared her head in an instant if she wanted to, but she was choosing not to.
Soon, the topic finally landed on Kingsley and his family. Her face twisted in disgust as she talked about Victor chasing after her like a simp and then forcing her into marriage by threatening to destroy Eden's Gate.
Dante could see the rage and the hate in her eyes as she continued to speak. Somewhere along the way, his reactions stopped being fake and started becoming real.
Before, he had only felt a little sympathy because they were in similar situations.
But now, watching Natasha pour her heart out, spilling her deepest secrets, basically laying herself bare in front of him, he couldn't bring himself to fake his reactions anymore.
Even though he already knew every character in this world was a real person, this hit him hard.
However…
Dante was committed to walking the path of a villain. He didn't want to tie himself down to anyone yet, and he didn't have the strength to afford doing that either.
His greatest strength was being nothing to everyone.
He wasn't completely against the idea of having loved ones someday. It just wasn't the time for any of that.
With all that said, his fate and Natasha's were tied together the moment she accepted the system.
For him to get stronger, she needed to get stronger. He didn't mind doing this, even if it meant deceiving her and putting on an act until he defeated the protagonist.
'Naturally, I need to become his daddy first.'
"…I really wasted my whole life, didn't I?"
Natasha's cracked voice pulled Dante out of his thoughts.