I replied to her. "Sorry, granny. I’m not backing off. Not after hearing your emotional tale."

Her motherly anger surged instantly. "You... you aren’t still serious! Did you not hear a single word I said? He is too dangerous for you! Even S-rank adventurers failed against him!"

I shifted. The playfulness fell off my face and what replaced it was something I didn’t plan. Something deeper. A resolve that came from a place I couldn’t fully explain.

"I heard every word. Which is exactly why I can’t go back."

I stood up from my chair.

"You want me to walk away? Pretend I didn’t hear about a man trapped in a cage of misery for god knows how many years?"

I looked at her directly.

"Look, granny. I don’t care what life teaches other people. I’m the kind of guy who walks straight through whatever is thrown at him. Unbothered. I’ll even entertain myself along the way, laugh if I feel like it. But sometimes there is this feeling of empathy that doesn’t let me enjoy the view."

My voice dropped.

"And trust me. When it comes, it comes with a resolve to destroy the cage of someone whose story was worth shattering my own beliefs."

The old woman’s eyes went wide. "And you think you can break his cage? Do you even understand what you’re saying? Even hundreds of trained fighters..."

I cut her off. Grinned.

"Those fighters brought physical weapons. But I carry something far more dangerous than any blade or spell. A weapon that doesn’t need to pierce a heart to replay your entire life in front of your eyes while you feel yourself dying. Doesn’t need to reach the head to strip away every sense you have."

I tapped my lips.

"And this weapon is sharper than anything this world has ever forged. Words."

The old woman was worried beyond what her face could hold.

"You think talking will work? That it will make him surrender? Obey? Boy, I was there that night. He didn’t even hear Lady Mirena’s plea! He didn’t try to..."

"Don’t compare me to anyone else." My voice hardened. "And if you’re worried then remember this. I am a hero. If words fail, I will beat him back to his senses until he sits like a dog and obeys his master."

I waved my hand dismissively.

"But that won’t be the case. Not with the form I’m in right now. My talk no jutsu is at its peak recently."

She clenched her fists at her complete inability to stop me.

I added with a lighter tone. "See? I didn’t even try on you and you already look out of shape. So chill out here while we put that Dorian guy to rest."

Saying we made me realize Aria was still there. I turned to her and she was looking right back at me. Her face was carrying emotions I rarely saw on her. Something raw and Unfiltered.

She was either drowning in the sadness of Dorian’s story or she was putting herself in his place. Wearing his pain like it was tailor-made for her.

"Hey, Aria." I snapped her out of whatever dimension she had sunk into. "You’re coming with me, right? Don’t tell me you’d leave your comrade behind."

She blinked. Registered my words. And then nodded. Instinctively. Like a puppy agreeing to something at its most vulnerable moment without even processing what it agreed to.

I turned to leave.

"Fine."

I stopped. Looked back at the old woman when that words left her mouth.

She paused for a long moment. Then turned her gaze toward the door at the back of the cottage.

"I know you’ve been listening. So come out."

After a few seconds the door creaked open. The woman who had served us tea was standing there with her face completely ruined by tears.

The old woman read her like she had some kind of supervision to scan right through her. Then said calmly. "Bring it here. And hand it over to them."

-x-X-x-

Time passed,

We were now exploring the palace that was supposed to be some haunted nightmare. But me and Aria hadn’t spotted a single threat since we stepped inside. Couldn’t even sense or smell the dense suffocating mana the old woman had described.

All we could smell was an unpleasant stench similar to urine mixed with decay. Dead pests and insects were scattered across the floors and corners while a few alive ones scurried past our feet.

Aria held a pendant in her hand while I carried a small piece of paper.

I sighed. "Oh man, this really sucks. I never thought I’d be doing treasure hunting instead of actual hunting out here."

Aria stopped walking. "Do you really believe her words?"

I turned to her. "I don’t know."

"Then why are we doing this?"

"Because if it’s a lie, then nothing changes. I just curse the old lady for wasting my time and then forget everything that happened and sleep tonight with zero regret."

I looked at the dark corridor ahead of us.

"But if it’s true and I didn’t do anything, then those same curses land on my head instead. Coming in shifts. Haunting me even in my dreams."

Understanding hit her. She froze mid-step, processing what I said. But I kept walking. Kept searching.

After a few moments she caught up to my pace and said while walking beside me. "What do you think of the story? Even if it’s not true, what do you think of Dorian? Do you feel pity for him? Is that why you’re doing all this?"

I shook my head. "Pity? Not at all. That guy deserved what happened to him. He walked right into it with both eyes open."

Aria’s jaw dropped. "What the hell are you even saying?"

I smiled. "What? I’m just stating facts. That guy chose love. And love is the cruelest deal this world has ever invented."

She was staring at me like I had grown a second head.

"Think about it. What is love? Really? Strip away the poems. The songs. The fairy tales. What’s left?"

I held up a hand.

"A gamble. The biggest one any person can make. You take your entire world. Every wall you spent years building. Every scar you earned. Every part of yourself you fought to protect. And you slide all of it across the table to someone else. All of it. Which is all of you. Without any guarantee that they won’t flip the table over."

I kept walking. My voice steady.

"And the sick part? The payout isn’t even something new. It’s just your own world given back to you. Except now it has color. Now it has warmth. The mornings don’t feel like punishment anymore and the nights don’t feel like a sentence. The hollow version of you that was just waiting around for death or figuring out how to end things, that version wakes up one day and finds a light brighter than anything the previous day ever offered."

I glanced at Aria.

"That’s all love does. It takes the same life you were barely surviving and makes it worth living."

Then my voice got heavier.

"But if it goes wrong? If the table flips?"

I paused my steps.

"Then every color it gave you gets ripped out at once. And what’s left isn’t even the grey world you had before. It’s worse. Because now you know what color looked like. Now you know what warmth felt like."

I started walking again.

"Living without something you never had is bearable. Living without something you’ve tasted and lost..."

I sighed.

"What I’m saying is the gamble didn’t pay off for Dorian. So yeah. He brought it all on himself. His only crime was choosing to feel something in a world that punishes you for it. He decided that one person was worth the risk of losing everything. And he lost everything. Exactly as the risk promised he might."

I scratched the back of my head.

"I mean how could he not see it coming? How can a noble be genuinely kind enough to bind a commoner to their side like that? And even if they were, would the world around them ever allow it? I bet somewhere deep down he knew the gap in his path of so-called love. He just chose to ignore it."

’When did I start contradicting my own thoughts about love like this? I swear I don’t even care about this topic. This real Deculein bastard is definitely interfering with my mouth again.’

Then Aria who had been quietly listening through all of it spoke up. Her cold voice returning like a mask she was putting back on.

"You sure know a lot about this stuff. Who broke your heart?"

I laughed. "There is no one. Not yet at least. And don’t worry, I’m not weak enough to become the next Dorian."

She smiled at my words. A small, barely visible thing. Then she pressed the pendant against her palm and looked at the images inside it for a long quiet moment. Her eyes studying whoever was captured in that small frame.

Then she said something I wasn’t expecting.

"First time I think you’re right."