Troi entered the transit to make his way to class with deep-sunken eyes, teeth uncleaned, and hair barely groomed.
It was two days after he successfully managed to save Cassandra from a fate worse than death.
A broken mind swallowed by madness from the grief of seeing her father die was a cog in the gears of fate shot and destroyed by none other than him.
Yet it came with repercussions.
His body still ached with soreness as he tried to move it.
And the thought that without his blue shield, he would've been cut into two by a single strike from the twin daggers of terror, caused small cracks in his will.
"I'm too weak,"
He says to himself as he looks through the glass window of the transit that occasionally rumbles.
The happiness he felt by completing one of the main missions was gone as that of a speeding bullet.
"My dagger....."
A small tinge of sadness could be felt in his voice as he had some sentimental value in his lost dagger.
After all that short steel blade was the very weapon that helped him reduce the populations of the forest wolves in Santos De Ellen and accompanied him in his past endeavors.
Now it was no longer in the mark on his chest but on the chest of the Terror that he left running with her tendrils tucked beneath her legs.
"What a waste...."
His mind then turns to Reynold.
Then a sigh left his mouth.
'How the hell am I supposed to make Cassandra and him meet now?'
Troi scratched his head, after all, she was one of the main heroines and served as the mage in Reynold's harem.
Without her ice-cold spells to freeze the enemy in their place and cause blizzards in her wake, he knew that the chances of shattering the bad ending of the novel were equal to how low the temperature was in Antarctica.
Then his sore body shivered.
The Bad Ending.
He could still recall it vividly in his head.
The bloodied sky.
The ashen land.
The heaps of corpses of monsters and men.
The starless night.
The fear and hopelessness, Gwen and Reynold felt.
The immense pressure of the Sovereign and the archdemons of sin.
His right hand started to tremble.
'Do I even stand a chance?'
The same despair that affected the protagonist and the heroine started to creep into his mind.
He shook his head instantly.
'No.'
He clenched his quivering fist as tightly as he could.
'I have not suffered and endured this far to give up like that.'
He took a deep breath and composed himself.
'Let's think about the positives.'
He soon started to calm down as he thought about the things that were going for him.
'Now that Duke Greyfold was alive, he would serve as a strong figure to fight against the monsters and demons, and maybe Cassandra would grow faster now that her father could teach her.'
Troi then opened his bracelet to look at the current news.
He soon started to nod his head.
'Okay, not a single piece of news about the Craw family, it means the Coldfeathers still had no idea that they were the perpetrators'
Troi uttered a small smile as they were still a way to make Cassandra and Reynold meet.
He planned to go to their house once again donning his metal mask and black trenchcoat and tell them the masterminds behind the assassination attempt on Greyfold's life and then reveal that it was Reynold who discovered it and he was just there to deliver the message.
It was clearly not a well-thought plan but that was the only one he could have thought of.
As if Cassandra confronted Reynold, she would know soon it was a lie.
"But hey at least they would meet right?" Troi uttered to himself to justify his shitty plan.
It was getting clear Troi was getting a little bit desperate.
He then let out another sigh.
'My dagger....'
That small tinge of sadness in Troi's heart from losing his dagger could not be shaken as easily as he hoped.
For even he did not know how much of a sentimental person he was.
He then reached for the mark on his chest through his uniform.
The insignia with a thousand eyes soon opened and then a dim purple light briefly shined.
Then with his brown gaze looked upon the object he took from his
It was a copper bullet with dust at the tip and without a casing indicating that it had already been fired.
There was no reason to keep it anymore.
It did it's job, it's purpose.
But as Troi stared upon it he felt a little bit rejuvenated.
For it was no ordinary bullet.
But none other than the very thing that snuffed the archdemon of pride out of this world.
Of course, if he told anyone about this information they would look at him with strange eyes at first.
Until they examine the dust at the tip then Troi would be regarded as a hero.
Fame, Money, and Women.
He could have it all and the power lies in his fingertips.
But he had no plans on doing that.
For him, this bullet was a reminder, not a way to gain glory.
It was evidence.
That his efforts were not in vain.
That he has a chance.
That he has a shot.
At shattering the accursed ending that now lives in his mind.
'I wonder how the deadly sins are reacting across the sea'
He let out a chuckle.
'I wonder how shocked they are that one of them died for real'
'They can't even try to get information as the shield of the crown still lingers'
He knew pride was gone for good for Aergia can only resurrect those who died near her presence.
'Once I get stronger, she will be the one I had to assassinate first'
Troi then looked through the glass window again.
He then started to think of ways to make himself stronger.
But before he could delve into them a voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
"That's a nice bullet,"
A soft-spoken voice that was emotionless and as cold as the magic of Cassandra.
The smell of lilac encumbered his nose.
He froze up like a kid who was caught stealing candy from a jar by his mother.
He did not dare to turn his head.
He did not want to turn his head.
No, He WILL not turn his head.
Countless thoughts now rang in his mind as he gazed at the glass window of the moving transit.
'I must be dreaming, yes'
'I couldn't sleep that well, last night after all
'Yes, I must've been imagining things,'
'Yep, that must be it,'
'There no reason to turn to look'
Gwen stood there with her head tilted confused at the sight of the dark-skinned man clearly lost in his thoughts.