Miles took a deep breath. He let it sit unstirred in his lungs for a solid five seconds before exhaling just as time resumed.

He had made his choice.

"Hey," his decision to address the still-kowtowing girl caused many people to focus on his person. "Pick yourself up and stop this pitiful act. Unlike me, you actually have the strength, skill, and prestige to flirt with C Rank Dungeons, so carry yourself like it."

Silently, the girl picked herself up. Though, she was unable to look Miles in the eyes as she asked, "So..."

"We are hitting up an F Rank Dungeon first. Maybe, a couple if my special circumstances call for it," Miles bluntly said with an even tone.

"What?!"

"Bruh, he's really simping out, right now..."

"Dude, you seriously going to pick that disgrace over a stacked group?"

Miles ignored all the irrelevant bystanders and their unimportant comments. However, he couldn't ignore the uncertain look the girl was giving him so he added, "It's the price you have to pay if you want me to stick around with you as your Healer."

"Oi..." Harrold coldly called out to Miles.

Meeting his eyes, Miles saw everything he needed to reassure himself that he had made the right choice.

"Look, it seems like you don't know who that worm is. Maybe you've been living under a rock all your life, or something. But, whatever the case, I'm extending another chance to forget her and join us."

"Hmm..." Miles hummed thoughtfully as he admitted, "I don't really know anything about her—"

"Then let me enlighten you," Harrold cut him off. "She—" he pointed venomously at the girl, who at this point looked like she would give anything to transform her hood into something that could cover her more completely.

"—used to be the Sinking Moon Clan's heiress. Then she tried to steal a godly supreme artifact, killed her own father — the then-patriarch of the Clan — and even after being saved by his words, to simply be exiled and not executed for her actions, she cursed her Clan openly."

"For a time, no one could make sense of her actions." Harrold chuckled, "But now, after having her Class Awakened, everything makes sense."

"She's an archer," Mile pointed out the obvious, not really seeing the connection that apparently let "everything make sense."

"No, dude..." Harrold shook his head and looked at Miles like he was an idiot, "She's not just an 'archer.' She's a fucking Moonshot Archer! Did you drop out of school or something? Moonshot Archers used to be the main branch of the Sinking Moon Clan, but their negative inclination and evil nature slowly caused them to die out from infighting with the rest of their clan and rushing to the forefront of the frontier."

"Thanks for the explanation and the chance, but… I'll stick with my decision," Miles said.

"Welp, good luck then," Harrold said, the sarcasm bleeding through. "If after all that you still want to go with the traitor bitch, I can't imagine anything else I say will have an impact." Turning his back to Miles, Harrold adopted a vicious tone as he said, "Soon enough you'll understand the consequence of your choice."

As Harrold left, Miles caught sight of one of the spearman's teammates put down his CrysTel in a manner that seemed suspiciously like he had been recording the whole conversation.

Miles ignored the action in favor of turning to the girl. He continued to stare at her until eventually, she said, "So..."

"Yes?" Miles asked.

"Why are you just staring at me..."

"After all this time..." Miles took a deep breath, causing untold apprehension to manifest in the girl, "...I still don't know your name."

"Yvette... No surname."

"I'm Miles. Miles Trainer," Miles extended his hand for a handshake.

Yvette accepted the handshake and the two promptly left to finally take on their first Dungeon.

…

"Tell me," Half an hour into their journey outside the town walls for the first time, Miles rekindled the conversation, "How much of that guy's words were bullshit?"

"Er… What?" Yvette paused, unable to believe he'd start this conversation now.

"You've got a pretty bad reputation, so I'm guessing the exile part was right. But traitor? All the 'evidence,'" Miles rolled his eyes, "he gave sounded so forced and contrived."

"H-how so..." Yvette looked hopeful.

"You were clan heiress, right? Why would you have wanted to steal something you probably would have inherited if you waited for long enough? Moreover, why would you want it before you even had your Class Awakened? Even more ridiculous is the idea that a Classless child, heiress or not, has the ability to kill their Clan's leader."

"Even with my lack of foreknowledge, I understand that Clan Leaders are the strongest members of their Clan," Miles narrowed his eyes. "They're supposed to be the vanguard force, taking on the most dangerous missions, sanctifying the most dangerous Dungeons, Rifts, and Towers. Even if his body was failing him, his sheer Magical Intent should have been enough to kill or, at the very least, stop you with just a thought; and I mean that even after you awakened to C Rank prowess."

Yvette sighed with evident hesitation as she struggled to pull out her CrysTel. She manipulated it quietly for a couple seconds as Miles watched before she handed it over to him.

Miles recognized it was a video as he pressed the projected "play" button.

"...Breaking News!" The video began with a newscasting alert.

"-teen of the fifty members of the latest raid on the eastern front's Sky Divine Tower unfortunately perished or were left crippled in spite of the group's succes—" The reporter currently going over the latest news suddenly stopped as everything about the show dropped in atmosphere.

"Oh? Oh!" Much more intense music replaced the calm elevator-esque tune of moments prior as the reporter began, "It seems there has been a major incident in the Sinking Moon Clan. Before I say anything else, why don't we play the videos that were leaked as even I can't believe what I just heard without first seeing it."

The scene shifted from the reporter to that of a cloaked figure effortlessly assassinating a deathly ill man on his hospital bed before taking something from his inner shirt pocket. The scene shifted again to show the same cloaked figure enter the Sinking Moon Clan's Legacy Vault, approach the most heavily secured artifact that was literally propped up on a pedestal, and somehow disable all the security measures in place before taking what looked like a crystalline arrow.

Then a group of Sinking Moon clansmen appeared and subdued the cloaked figure. They removed it's cloak to reveal it was Yvette and after a moment of aghast pause, the clansmen decided to take her away and not outright kill her.

The scene shifted for a final time to show that the previously assassinated man's room was filled with people, two of which were outputting a horrifying amount of magic to resuscitate him. It was working, but only long enough for him to make a final request as the patriarch of the Sinking Moon Clan.

"My brother, Arlong… I'm afraid this is the end for me. So, please..." the patriarch was coughing up specks of blood as he spoke, "When you take my place... as patriarch of the Sinking Moon Clan… Please… Forgive my foolish daughter… As my final wish… Don't..." He died.

As the CrysTel began to project the reporter begin to give a recap of what just happened, Yvette canceled the video and took back her artifact.

She quietly waited for Miles' reaction.

"Seeing it for myself, I can now understand why so many people hate you," Miles said, his face betraying no emotion. "However, you still haven't answered my question, nor provided context for me to believe any of this is even slightly credible."

"Would my words do anything to change your view of me?" Yvette asked, biting her lip as her words died out in a whisper.

"I'd like to know both sides of the story, if possible, when trying to form my opinion."

"I… I was set up." Yvette started, pausing to see if Miles' expression would change. When it didn't, she continued, "I don't know how he did it, maybe it was Illusion Magic or some sort of Mind Controlling Spell, but I don't recall either assassinating my own father nor entering the Clan Legacy Vault. All I remember is going to sleep one day and waking up jailed, the next."

"But… I'm pretty sure I know who it was that set me up and why." Yvette snarled.

Looking at Miles' expectant look, she said, "I think it was my uncle, the one who became patriarch after dad died..." She couldn't bear to finish the thought.

"A move to usurp your father's position?" Miles asked, seeing how it was plausible. It wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary for a sibling of the patriarch to have comparable strength and connections to the big man himself. Moreover, it was infinitely more likely that they would be able to pull off this sort of scheme than the Classless offspring of said clan leader.

"Right. That bastard..." Yvette had tears in her eyes as she recalled, "To think I actually cared about him. I was so happy when he told me he had a friend of the family with the ability to identify what my Class would be before I turned of age. He promised he'd start my training a month before I turned fifteen and we'd surprise my father..."

As the light of her eyes dimmed, Yvette said, "Not even a week after his friend had told him I was going to be a Moonshot Archer, everything went to shit."

"So… you think that was the deciding factor?" Miles asked.

"Probably," Yvette shrugged her shoulders. "I'm the only person in the clan with the Class. Given it's disheartening background, it makes sense he'd cast me aside. It'd both let him take the position of patriarch and take an 'Evil Moonshot Archer's' chance to one day lead the Clan."

"Hmm..." Miles considered what he had heard about Yvette for a solid minute before he finally started walking again. "Well, patricide or not, as long as you don't betray the trust I've put in you, the baggage that comes from your past doesn't matter to me."