“Where is that person?”

“She is where she should be.”

Two people sat at a table on a terrace with a magnificent above-ground view of a lush green plain.

A man and a woman.

Both were sipping their tea while pretending to enjoy the scenery.

Running out of tea, a girl about ten years old came over and began pouring tea into their cup.

“Thanks, Shania. We should be fine from now on.” The woman thanked the girl before she silently left the terrasse, leaving the two by themselves.

“I see...Say, I have a question for you.”

“What?”

“From where did that “Maa” pseudonym come from?”

“Why would you ask?”

“For no reason, it is just that among my fellow Church executives commented that it did sound like a name a toddler would come up with, so I was curious. After all, it would be funny if it were really the case.”

“... It is as you thought. It was indeed, “him” who came up with that name, that was called me.”

“I see.”

“So, how was your reunion?”

“Very entertaining, you and your organization were in the heart of the topic. It seems that they held your newly founded Aristocracy in very high regard.”

“… It is good then.”

“But, if I were you, I'd keep a close eye on ArchBishop Sunnivah as he really wants the head of that one white friend of yours.”

“I know.”

“You should also monitor Holy Paladin Aubrecht, though the fact that he is now barricaded himself in the Beaufort Castle makes things much easier. I pity that man; I begin to genuinely think that he haunted and cursed by that child ghost… ”

“... Sorry… it was just an expression, by that, I didn’t mean anything.”

“I know… I was curious, don’t you feel any guilt or shame over betraying those you should consider your comrades?”

“Guilt?...Shame? maybe I should but I believe that person amount much more, I do not feel any guilt, I do not feel any shame. I will wholeheartedly betray and kill any of them as long as that revering person orders me.”

“... There was a time when I thought you were different from the other fourteen, but now I realise you are no different from them, in fact you might even be worse than any of them.”

“But I won’t say I don’t understand you, I used to be a firm believer, maybe because of the teaching I received from my family about the Cult of Seven, I saw everything that happened to me as their doing, that I was guided by them, but it wasn't until later that I realized that I was just following my own whims and warped my own mind into believing that everything that happened to me, or what I was doing, were orchestrated by the apostle, but it was not the case. I was enslaved by my own twisted delusional faith.”

“That’s how human beings are, they follow what they believe in, no matter how twisted it is, Divine entity or not, but so long as our objectives align, who would care what you believe in?”

“I can at least agree with you on that point… Now that I think of it, I have another question for you?

“What could it be?”

“Was he there?”

“Who?... Oh, Him, yes he was present, accompanying his beloved Holy Paladin.”

Suddenly the man burst into laughter, he tried to stop himself but couldn’t.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh~ nothing it’s just that to think that when they were wondering about you and your organization’s whereabout, the son of the woman they want dead was present spectating over their “secret reunion”, it get even funnier your own blood and flesh was present completely unaware that they were playing about his own mother, you can’t imagine how much I wanted to burst into laughter during that whole masquerade/”

Calming his laughter the man continued, “Are you sure it is safe letting him be around the same people you loathe so much?”

“... Though I don’t particularly appreciate the situation, I do think it is not a bad thing for him to be so close to a Holy Paladin, no one will ever make the link between him and I, and it is his life. I have no words over what he does with his life… That was the path he choose … this is the one I choose.”

“You might think of me as a horrible mother and an egotistical person, which I am; but I believe that the first and foremost duty is to offer children wide and varied paths, an opportunity to choose for themselves, and that's what he did, he got that chance, but I as a parent have the duty to offer "him" the best I can make myself, him who was robbed of that path, which is why doing all of this. Just like you I don't care about all those inequality between nobles and commoners; to me the world is fine as it is, but this world did not give him the opportunity he deserved, the opportunity to choose, which is why I believe it should be changed. Though it won't compare to the length a certain friend of mine went for "him," this is the best I can do for him.”

“... So, that’s how it was.” Raising his cup of tea to the woman,“To a better future, noble and commoner together, To the Aristocracy.”

Responding to him, she also raised her cup, “To a better future, noble and commoner together, To the Aristocracy.”