"—and that’s how I first met with Heon. Hadn't I already told you about it?"

"No, this is the first time you told me about it. You only told me about the part where you met during and prior to your joint confrontation against Aurora and Uncle Kiady."

"Really?… I thought I already had. Well, now you know how we met. I don't really believe in fate, but if there were an illustration I would concede to being that of fate, it would be how we met and met again."

A couple of months have passed since my reunion with Maa, my arrival at the fortress, my reunion with my mother, and the voicing of my assistance throughout "the mother’s" endeavor. And yet nothing has happened since I agreed to help her, which has allowed Nia and me to live a rather mundane, journeyless, and bloodless life for more than two months.

Once again. I was in the fortress with Nia, in my room, which, up to this point, could be said to be both mine and Nia's room.

I was sitting on the room’s sofa with Nia laying her head atop my shoulder, telling her about how I first stumbled upon Heon.

"Do you miss her?"

"I do think of her from time to time; I admit I miss her," I admitted melancholically.

Noticing the gloomy mood I out of the blue conjured, I reassured her, "though how we parted ways was a little too sudden. I'm glad we ran into each other again and shared that, shall we say, brief journey, and that I regret no part of it."

Silently she nodded, finally leaving my eyes, to say a few seconds later, "What do you think will happen next with Aun—Erm, with the Mother."

"About that… I really have no idea," I confessed. "I really thought that "she," as hurried as she told me she was, would immediately put us to use after we offered our assistance, but it turned out they don’t need our help for anything, at least not yet."

For two entire months, Nia and I were literally given nothing to do. Well, in Nia’s case, she, under Maa’s guidance, was taught some basic noble customs, but apart from that, nothing else worth calling a task was given to us.

I'm not complaining; after all, with Maa free of most of her aristocratic business, we had plenty of time to catch up, which I must admit I was grateful for the mother of.

I could also say that it was relatively the same for my mother, Barbara, as the few times she was around, we could talk and waste time in the fortress garden.

The same thing could also be said for Nia and "the mother," with whom she’s getting along so well.

As such, it could be said that our time spent here, in the fortress, was more like a long holiday than time wasted in vain.

There was nothing to complain about, but—

"It just doesn’t feel right, don’t you think?"

"What doesn’t feel right?"

"To stay still for so long... It just doesn’t feel like us, don't you think?"

"I'm fine being like this, lazing around and doing nothing," Nia said, a teasing tone in her voice."I thought you did too, but it seems I was wrong."

Looking at her head now laying on my lap and remembering everything that had happened in the previous few not-so-eventful months, I thought, "Well, put like this... Perhaps I was wrong. It wasn't bad at all," I said with a smile.

"Is that so? Hum!… Say Ronandt?"

"Hum? What is it?"

With a not so innocent smile on her face, she asked, "What is that thing pressing against the back of my head?"

"I… I don’t know, but I think you shouldn’t mind it."

"And how am I supposed to do that?" she said, scoffing.

"I don’t know… Hey, Nia. Wanna see some magic?"

Before she could even give an answer, I proceeded onward with a rather salacious trick of mine.

Nia, noticing it, immediately burst into laughter, "What was that? That was so creepy, hahaha."

"I don’t think I like how you call it creepy. After all, it took me so much time to achieve such a perfect "mastery" of this particular art."

"Still, it was creepy."

"Wanna see more of it? I've got a few more interesting tricks up my sleeve."

"Down your pants you mean. Well why–"

Before Nia could give me her answer, our door was suddenly knocked onto. After a glance at Nia, who, for a moment, immediately sat properly, tidying her dress up, I finally said out loud for the knocker to hear, "It’s open."

The door opened, and a female silhouette saying "I'm getting in" walked into the room.

Looking at who just barged into our room, we both mumbled, "Shania."

"Did I interrupt something?" she inquired, her brow furrowed suspiciously.

"Hum? Interrupting something? No. Did she interrupt something, Nia?"

"No, she didn’t. "At least, I don’t think so." Both Nia and I pretended.

While glaring at us, her eyes still had that mean expression she always has when looking at us. Both Nia and I knew she was nowhere near believing our lie, but we both knew she wouldn't waste time commenting on it.

She first heaved a seemingly exasperated sigh, then flatly announced, "The mother summoned us, the three of us."

She quickly made her way to the room exit after saying these, saying, "That's all I had to say," but before she could leave, I called onto her.

"Wait… Shania."

"What?" She flatly asked, in a voice as bored of me as ever.

I'd grown so accustomed to her cold treatment by this point that I was completely fine with it.

"Is it finally it?"

"If by "it," you mean something useful for you to do, then your answer is most likely "yes."

***

As I walked into the room that usually serves as a reunion room, I, along with Nia and Shania, was greeted with the sight of Maa, who had at her side Lidya and, of course, "the Mother."

"Here you finally are," the Mother said from atop her throne, as we had made her wait longer than necessary.

"Good morning, young Lord, Princess Nia," Maa and Lidya greeted.

"Good morning, Maa, Lydia."

"How are you two doing today?"

"Quite good, may I say, Maa. I hope it is the same for you two."

"It is indeed, Young Lord. It is."

"Quite good, may I say, Maa. I hope it is the same for you two."

"It is indeed, young Lord. It is."

It felt strange to be here, in this room, with Maa around, since from the moment she announced her intention to withdraw from all of the aristocracy's businesses a few weeks before, she had been living vicariously on her promise to do so. For weeks, though she'd remained a guest of the aristocracy's fortress, she didn't get involved in anything aristocratic-related. So much that it seemed that she and Lidya were even avoiding making any reference to the aristocracy at all, which overall granted Maa and me the opportunity to experience something that made us slightly nostalgic of the old Rosetta's Manor's days.

So, seeing her here in the location where I knew most of the Mother's plottings were born, I realized there must have been a reason related to our summoning here that so specifically brought them here.

Speaking to the person haughtily sitting atop her throne, I said, "I hear you finally have something for us."

"The fact is, I do. For the three of you—or should I say four of you, but since Aryan is busy with an ongoing task, he will be unable to attend this small gathering for the time being."

"The four of us, huh?"

I had predicted that the moment I gave her my support, "the mother" would have unleashed like a hound on the church's fourteen, an order that, aside from being unpleasant, wouldn't have bothered me much to carry out. After all, I had been planning to come after each one of them sooner or later. It turned out that my predictions were wrong. As of this very day, that order was never given to me.

"Yes, it is for that that I gather all of you here today," the mother explained. Her words caused me to frown slightly, but before I could respond, she clarified, "You don't have to worry, Faceless One. Mathilda is only joining us for the duration of this reunion; she is not returning to our aristocratic business, if that is what concerns you. Not that I would mind if she did."

Looking at Maa, I saw her nod, confirming "the mother’s" words.

"I see… So, after all this time, what is it that you've finally summoned us for? Concretely."

"I appreciate the motivation with which you take this matter, Faceless One," she said, a smile on her face, before continuing, "but I believe I first need to explain to the two of you what exactly took us so much time."

The mention of "two of us" seemingly made allusion to Nia and I, which meant that everyone in this room, including Shania, were aware, to a certain extent, of whatever was currently going on.

"As you two already know, before this current plan, I had planned to thoroughly crush and wipe out the church, which is, let’s say sadly and regrettably, on my way to my final objective. Unfortunately and regrettably, because the church is as flawed as it is now, it certainly fulfills some of its first premises of protecting humanity from monsters but also from people, as evidenced by the fact that, thanks to their mere existence, there remains a semblance of peace and security across the continent."

"My initial plan, upon returning to this world, was to completely wipe out the church, as I knew they would eventually get in my way, but after seeing, in the span of these few years that I have been around, humanity suffered enough, I have changed my mind. I cannot just wipe out the church; that would be too "extreme" and needlessly "genocidey". So I opted for a more diplomatic approach, which I believe should yield a more positive outcome than my first one. I hope you still follow me, Faceless One. Nia?"

"I'm not sure I understand everything, but I get that you don't want any more senseless bloodshed and don't just want to wipe out the church," Nia interjected.

"Yes. That’s pretty much it. I cannot simply wipe the church out, as, in its own sad way, humanity has grown too dependent on the church. The church, with its thousands of years of existence, has become the foundation atop which almost everything across the continent has been built. To be willing to tear apart these very foundations, one must be ready to see the continent crumble."

I was no expert in all that political stuff, having spent half my life in the woods, but I understood from what I'd learned years ago that she was indeed right: The church was needed.

"So I figured out the best we could do was change it. Perhaps not a complete change, but a change nonetheless, one sufficient to herald the dawn of a new era. There will, of course, be bloodshed, but less than what was initially planned. Since the disasters, the aristocracy has been working toward that goal for two, almost three years, and today we have something that has brought us closer than we have ever been to the change we are looking for. Can you guess what it is, Faceless One?"

"Our support?"

"Yes, but there is also something else. I have lately received, from a reliable source, intel about their corpses' whereabouts."

"Corpse?"

"Hum, maybe it would be clearer if I called it remnants. The apostles' remnants."

The moment "she" made mention of it, I remembered Kiady and Aurora, and of course their two siblings.

"The apostles... remnants," mumbled Nia.

"Yes, theirs. We need them to achieve our objective. Of course, by apostle’s remnant, I mean Kine’s, Djeem's, and Sora’s."

At the mention of Sora's name, Nia's expression stiffened, and I couldn’t help but understand her.

"As for the other apostle’s remnants, we all know what happened to them."

Gone.

Mostly by my hands.

"They are the ones I have heard whispers about; fortunately for us, those just happened to be the ones I have uses for. Unfortunately, each of these remnants is in the hands of several powerful, missing, and, shall we say, problematic individuals across the continent, which is why I require your help to recover them for me."

The room remained silent for a moment.

"Oya, none of you won’t ask me what we need those remnants for?"

"If the aristocracy needs these corpses, I will get them," Shania firmly announced.

I could tell from the smile on her face that Shania’s answer satisfied "the mother" very much. Soon, clearly expecting a question from us, her gaze shifted to Nia and me.

"Whatever you need those remnants for, I doubt it would be "appropriate" for me to hear whatever you plan to do with them, so no. I won’t ask."

"That’s an unexpected answer, Faceless One; I thought you, out of anyone, would be curious. Well then,… Nia? Do you have any questions? I’m sure you do."

"I do, but if Aunt needs to recover these remnants, I will recover them from whoever has them for you."

"As expected of my little Princess. Should we have a little talk after this meeting? But first, though I appreciate everyone’s enthusiasm, I think it would be best if, before I impart to you what we know of these remnants' whereabouts, we told you what first needs to be done before that. —Mathilda, please," she said, passing the speech to Maa.

Taking over speech, Maa proceeded to explain to the three of us the reason for her presence here and what specifically "the Mother" had mentioned earlier. It was only when Maa was done that "the mother" revealed to us what she knew of the apostle's remnants’ whereabouts.