A Bittersweet Reunion
When I turned my back on Florene’s ashes, one important detail suddenly struck me.
Marcus will return when I die.
That was what she had said. But she had never told me where he would appear… or when.
She had left me with this huge hole of hope in my chest—and now I was the one stuck trying to figure out how to fill it.
“…Arghhh!”
I hunched over, frustrated with myself.
How could I forget something that important?
I’d been too busy sinking into the mood of her death. Too busy letting the sadness sit on me like I’d known her for years.
I didn’t even know Florene that well.
Asahi turned and looked at me.
“Hm? What’s up?”
I rubbed the back of my head and gritted my teeth.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” I said.
But it wasn’t anything.
The question stayed with me anyway, pressing at the back of my mind.
I’ll ask Syria, I thought. She might know.
Then I straightened up and forced a smile when I looked back at Asahi.
“Let’s get going,” I said. “I’m sure the others are worried sick by now.”
“Okay,” he said. “But… how do you suggest we do that?”
“Hm?” I blinked. “What do you mean?”
Asahi exhaled loudly, brows lowering.
“How do we get back through this maze of a forest?” he asked. “The path is gone.”
I finally looked around properly.
And he was right.
The road he had used to get here no longer existed. The signs of battle were gone, too. No scorched earth. No shattered trunks. No proof that this place had held a war just moments ago.
Florene’s final magic had restored everything.
“Well…”
As I looked around, wondering if we were lost, the woods showed us mercy.
A path opened ahead.
Trees bent away from each other with a low groan of bark and leaves, leaning aside as though they had been ordered to make room.
Both of us turned at once.
“Well,” I said, staring at it, “there’s a road.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“But it looks sketchy.”
“Yeah,” Asahi agreed, looking from the path to the woods around it. “But we don’t really have a choice. If we—”
He stopped.
A bright light flared beside him.
Both of us threw up our arms against it on instinct.
When the glow faded, Rita stood there.
She didn’t say a word at first.
She went straight to Asahi, grabbed him by the shoulders, and immediately started checking him over—head to toe, front to back, like she was searching for wounds hidden beneath his robes.
“Hey, Rita!” Asahi said, startled.
She ignored him.
Only after she was sure he was intact did she step back.
Then she finally spoke.
“I’m glad you’re safe, Master.”
I blinked.
Rita’s voice reached me clearly.
Not inside my head. Not through Asahi.
I heard it with my own ears for the first time.
It was calm and beautiful—like a high, clear vibration traveling through metal.
Asahi looked at her, confused for a second, then relaxed.
“I’m fine,” he said simply.
Rita lowered her head.
“Please forgive me for disappearing when you needed me most. I could not manifest in these woods because of the low density of light manacules.”
“I know,” Asahi said. “And I don’t blame you for that.”
She straightened again, regaining her usual posture.
Even during the frantic searching and the apology, her face had barely changed.
It remained calm. Fierce. Elegant in a way that didn’t feel human.
I stared at her.
“Wait… she can talk?!”
Asahi looked at me like I’d said something stupid.
“Uh, yeah,” he said. “How do you think she gets her thoughts to me?”
“How am I supposed to know?” I shot back. “She’s always so reserved. I’ve never heard her say a single word out loud.”
“Yeah, well,” Asahi said, already done with the argument, “she does.”
Then he turned back to Rita.
“Rita. Since you’re here, can you check whether that road actually leads to the others?”
He pointed toward the path.
Rita nodded, rose to about human height, and looked down at it.
She didn’t move forward physically. Instead, her gaze seemed to travel through it—like her sight was sliding along the road itself, deeper and deeper into the woods.
After a few quiet moments, she lowered herself again.
“It is safe,” she said.
“Thanks,” Asahi replied. "You can go now. I'll call when I need you."
Rita nodded once, and after that, she shone in bright light. Warping out of existence.
Then he started walking.
I followed, though part of me still wanted to ask Rita to speak again just so I could hear her voice one more time.
But she was gone.
We walked for some time before the path ended. And when it did, the flower field opened before us.
Reina, Mariada, and Urizee were still there.
But the first thing I noticed was that they weren’t relieved.
The mood around them looked… wrong.
It was quiet and stiff.
Unusually too calm.
“I wonder what’s up with everyone,” Asahi muttered.
“Yeah,” I said.
As we got closer, I called out:
“Why is everyone so gloomy? We just came back from winning the toughest fight of our lives.”
No one answered.
Mariada turned, looked at me with tired eyes, and only said:
“Oh. You’re back.”
That alone made something in me tighten.
I kept walking anyway. And then, when I got close enough to see over Reina’s shoulder, the world narrowed.
A figure was kneeling among the flowers.
My eyes widened at once.
“Sir Marcus!!”
I rushed forward without thinking.
Reina didn’t stop me. She didn’t even move.
In fact, she looked… angry. Disappointed. Like she wanted the moment in front of me to disappear.
But I didn’t care.
Florene had told the truth.
Marcus was back.
“You’re back, old man!” I said.
Then I stopped. Cold.
My feet froze before my mind caught up.
Marcus looked up at me—and his eyes were wrong.
Tiny red points I know very well glowed under his brows. His stare was sharp, mechanical, and fierce in a way that made my whole body pull backward before I consciously chose to move.
“Oh… uh…”
I raised my hands and laughed weakly.
“I mean… you’re back, sir?”
The red vanished almost immediately.
His eyes closed instead, like he was holding something inside himself very tightly.
“It’s good to see that you are still alive and well, young Krai,” he said.
I laughed again, thinner this time.
Then Reina spoke.
“‘Young Master,’” she corrected flatly. “Not ‘young Krai.’”
Marcus stared at her, not saying a word.
The words themselves were simple. The way she said them was not.
Her tone was too composed. Too sharp. Eyes narrowed, lips barely moving, disappointment hanging off every syllable like frost.
Clearly, she was not happy to see him.
I looked at her.
Then at Marcus.
Then back at her again.
I had no idea what had happened here in the time we’d been gone.
“So…” I said carefully, forcing my attention back to Marcus. “When did you return?”
“Not long ago,” he said. “Right after you defeated Florene.”
“You know about that, huh?”
"Yes."
Before the conversation could settle, Reina spoke again.
Same coldness. Same mood.
“Young Master,” she said, “don’t talk to this man.”
“Hm?”
"He is not who you think he is."
I turned to her, baffled.
“What do you mean? This is Marcus, is it not?”
Reina’s eyes shifted to him.
And when she answered, her voice didn’t shake even once.
“I don’t know who he is,” she said. “But he is not Marcus.”
“What?”
She didn’t explain.
She didn’t argue.
She simply turned and started walking away in the opposite direction as if staying another second in his presence would be a mistake.
And I was left there, suddenly feeling like I had arrived in the middle of a conversation no one wanted me to hear.
“What’s going on?!” I demanded.
The question wasn’t aimed at one person. It was for all of them.
Marcus’s return should have been a joyous thing. Instead, the air had soured.
“It’s nothing too important,” Marcus said, rising slowly from the flowers. “She’ll get over it soon.”
Get over what? I frowned.
“Reina?” I called after her.
She spun around so fast it stole the breath from my lungs.
“Young Master,” she snapped. “Let’s go!”
The ferocity in her face made me pause.
When I looked at Mariada, she only gave me a careful smile—one that said too much and nothing at all.
Then Reina turned to her.
“Mary,” she said. “Prepare to take us back. It seems there will be no need to say our goodbyes.”
“I would, but—” Mariada began.
But Asahi stepped in.
“Can we wait a little?” he asked. “I still need to go to the elf village.”
Reina lowered her face at once.
“Right,” she said, the edge in her voice softening. “Pardon me. We can go there now.”
She started toward the forest.
Then Mariada’s ears twitched.
“That won’t be necessary,” she said quietly. “It seems we’re already surrounded.”
Everyone stopped.
All eyes lifted toward the canopy.
At first, the forest looked normal.
Still. Too still.
Then voices came down from the leaves.
“Who are you?”
“What are you doing in these sacred woods?”
I blinked and looked upward.
“What… are those the elves?”
“Yes,” Marcus said beside me.
I hadn’t sensed a single one of them.
There were too many.
Their presence was hidden so well that it was like the forest itself had swallowed them.
“Answer us,” another voice demanded. “Why are you here?”
“We came to meet Florene,” I said, raising my hands slightly. “That’s all.”
Silence followed. Then murmurs came from above.
“Florene? Does he mean the Guardian Spirit of these woods?”
“That would explain the surge of mana we felt.”
Did they say Guardian Spirit? I narrowed my eyes.
They were talking among themselves now, but their bows stayed drawn.
“Are you the ones who angered our Guardian?” the leader asked, voice harder now.
“No, no—we were just having a small fight,” I said, trying and failing to sound harmless.
“Fight?”
My answer only made them more cautious.
After a brief pause, one of them descended from the canopy. He landed lightly, expression unreadable, and he immediately raised his bow.
“A small fight, you say?” he said.
His eyes swept across us all.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to come with us and explain this ‘small fight’ in greater detail,” he said.
I laughed nervously.
He was serious.
And with the number of hidden bows around us, we didn’t really have the option to refuse.
Still… It worked out either way.
We had wanted to go to the village. The elves had simply decided to become our escorts.
