[HELLO, AUTHOR HERE! Just a quick note to let you know how much your votes and comments motivate me to keep going! While I may not always be able to reply because of work and other responsibilities, I see every single one, and they really affect my mood and drive to continue writing. So, thank you so much for the support! I hope you enjoy the chapter, and I apologize if there are any errors—I finished this up pretty late!]
Everyone at the guild decided to disperse after Varlog's little history lesson. Varlog, along with Yilla, were staying behind under Marcy's watchful eye, at least until the king made his decision after hearing Nickelson's... 'truthful' account of what had transpired. The odds were favorable for Varlog and Yilla, given the deal they'd struck with Nickelson—promising to keep quiet about Liliac's rampage, which had been witnessed by Van, Cerille, and Liliac. Varlog remained calm, confident that things were under control for now.
Van gave one last glance at Varlog. The look was a cue—Varlog was signaling that now wasn't the best time to catch up or form any plans. Van understood this from their brief exchange. He trusted Varlog enough to know that if anything important came up, Varlog would find a way to reach him.
With that in mind, Van nodded and made his way down to the counter shortly after Lalyn had left. He settled there just as Amoria and her daughter, Lizzy, were preparing to leave.
"Van..?" Amoria called out as she stood at the front of the guild alongside Lizzy, the last two remaining after Lalyn had left. Apart from Marcy, who had to stay behind to guard Varlog and Yilla, everyone else had already gone. "Aren't you coming?" she asked.
Van sighed, glancing over at her while Varlog and Yilla retreated back into their rooms.
'I guess it's time to tell her I'm no longer her guest…' Van thought, a faint unease stirring in his gut.
"...?" Lizzy made a soft, confused sound as she noticed the tension between them. 'Did he not tell Mom he was leaving?' she wondered, seeing her mother's expectant look.
Marcy, after observing the building tension and silence that followed Amoria's question, sighed. "Alright... I've got some things to check in the storage," she muttered, making herself scarce as she disappeared into the guild's storage room behind the counter.
'I thought she already heard me talking outside with Anne along with the others... She even congratulated me with the rest of them for having a simple conversation with a kid... Either way, she must've heard about the house contract,' Van thought, scrutinizing Amoria's calm, expectant expression.
'But despite all that, she's still asking me to come back with her? Come on, Amoria. You can't really be that frustrated about me living somewhere else.' Van sighed to himself.
'Well, it doesn't really matter what you're frustrated about.' Van steeled his resolve, focusing on the image of Alicia in his mind. 'I've made up my mind. I told Alicia, and now I'll tell you. I'm done making decisions and not following through with them!' He recalled the moment he decided to leave the party with Amoria, only to be compelled by Magus to stay.
'I'm done with it!'
'So why does the idea of not going with her bother me so much? Especially now when I'm about to tell her?' Van's thoughts swirled as he remembered Amoria cooing at him before he had gotten into the bath at her house.
"Are you sure you don't want this sweet older lady to help you bathe...?" Her voice echoed in his mind, as did the memory of her affection. She had shown him care—bringing him food, clothes, and a room—without expecting anything in return. Something that not even the demons did.
Thinking about her now, Van couldn't help but feel something toward her. But rather than viewing her as a lover...
...he saw the image of his mother from his original world plastered over Amoria, and the longing for her warmth crept up again.
"Van? What's wrong, come wi%#$!7@+14,2^#@#^=#23$@!!^$#—" Amoria began, but Van, his mood suddenly shifting, interrupted her abruptly.
"You can't seriously still say that! Come on!" Van cut her off, the turmoil of his inner thoughts spilling out. "I'm living in my own place now. This is my decision, and I'm sticking to it! It's better for you and your daughter. Get the hint!" His words were sharp, piercing, though he hadn't raised his voice. But the effect on Amoria was immediate and palpable, as though each syllable struck deep.
Amoria's expression hardened as her eyes locked onto Van.
Lizzy, standing beside her, shot a look of surprise in Van's direction, her eyebrows rising.
"Liz," Amoria called sternly, pulling her daughter's attention back to the moment.
"M-mom?" Lizzy asked softly, her eyes shifting from Van to her mother, uncertain.
"Go home. I need to talk with Vanny here," Amoria said, kneeling in front of her daughter with a reassuring smile. "Okay?"
"A-Alright, mom," Lizzy replied with a nod, casting one final glance at Van before turning away and leaving the guild hall. As she disappeared from sight, Amoria stood still, her focus on her daughter's retreating presence before the room quieted.
"Are you... unhappy staying with me, Van?" she asked, stepping closer, her tone softening, her once-steeled gaze gentler now.
"Do you not like how I treated you?" Amoria questioned, closing the distance further. Her words only deepened the twist in Van's chest.
"Should I have been... softer? Maybe... apologized for what I did throughout the night?" Her questions multiplied, each one cutting deeper, until Van instinctively backed away, trying to maintain distance.
"Tell me... talk to me. I want to understand so I can—" she started, but every word she spoke only raised his agitation.
"You have nothing to apologize for," Van finally said, meeting her gaze with an intensity that halted her mid-step. His fists clenched as he looked at her with burning eyes.
"Nothing. Abso-fucking-lutely nothing." His voice was firm, though laced with an unmistakable tremor.
"And you know what? I'm done. I'm done pretending. I don't know WHY exactly you look at me the way you do. I don't deserve ANY of it. And I know what you want, but your intentions are VERY misplaced. I'm not the good person you think I am."
Amoria took in his words, but remained composed, still stepping closer. "Do you... want to tell me about it?" she asked, her voice now steady, yet inviting.
"You know what? Fine. Fucking fine," Van chuckled bitterly, swinging his arms with exaggerated motion. "Marcy was right. I can never be part of your families. Might as well make it final," he growled, voice low and edged with anger.
"Don't… don't say something so cruel," Amoria's voice wavered with emotion. "I just want to help… to ease a little of your pain. You're worthy of being loved, Van. You're a good, kind person who's just been dealt a difficult hand—"
"You've all been brainwashed," Van cut her off, his teeth clenched in frustration, the words spilling out like poison.
"Van, please, stop it," Amoria pleaded, her voice quieter, but still firm. "This isn't you. Saying something so cruel, so harsh..."
"I'll rephrase..." Van took a sharp breath, his chest rising and falling unevenly. His grip tightened as though he were wielding a weapon, a greatsword poised to strike. His words came out slow, deliberate, "You, and every woman Magus has ever come across, have been brainwashed—physically and completely—to love him unconditionally. And it's all thanks to the gracious hand of your beloved goddess, the bitch you revere so much. Is that clear enough for you?"
The air in the room thickened, tension pulling taut. Amoria's face remained unreadable, but the way her breath hitched, the subtle tightening of her shoulders, gave her away.
"You think I'm some good, kind person? A savior?" Van's voice lowered, the venom dripping from each syllable. "All that bullshit you believe about me—I'm done pretending. I'm done hiding what I really am."
Alicia's voice echoed in his mind—her words a haunting reminder that he was never the hero they thought him to be.
That he is not a good person.
He stepped closer, his gaze dark and unflinching, towering over Amoria, who instinctively recoiled.
"Your children, Amoria," his voice dropped to a murmur, though the words still sliced through the silence, "they are nothing more than the results of mass hypnosis, sanctioned by that goddess you worship."
Amoria flinched, the weight of Van's words crashing into her like a physical blow. Her eyes widened briefly, and her lips parted as if to respond, but no sound came out.
"Marcy was 100% right." Van's voice was now cold, his stare unyielding. "I shouldn't be near your children, nor should I try to help them. I'm not a good person. I kept my mouth shut, even when you cried about cheating on me—letting you think it was your fault all these years. But it wasn't. It was never you." He paused, his voice trembling for a moment. "It was me. All of it."
Amoria's hands clenched, her trembling betraying the calm she tried to maintain.
"Twenty-three years," Van continued, his voice lower but sharper, every word a blade cutting through the silence. "I knew about Magus's abilities for 23 years. And I said nothing. We saw all of you as pawns—nothing but objects to manipulate, to defeat Alicia."
He stepped forward, his voice rising. "And now?" He smirked bitterly, his words laced with venom. "She's my wife. My. Wife." His words lingered in the air, a declaration that seemed to freeze time itself.
Amoria's lips quivered, her gaze slowly dropping to the floor as her legs shook under the weight of his revelation.
Van's eyes flared with intensity. "The same woman who killed Millina... who slaughtered thousands of humans... the one responsible for OUR companion's death?" He inhaled sharply, his voice erupting in a roar. "I LOVE HER!"
The room fell deathly silent, the weight of his confession hanging in the air, suffocating.
Van gritted his teeth, trying to suppress the image of Amoria that crept back into his mind—the comforting, motherly presence she had once been to him. He fought it. Hard. But the soothing image of her blurred with the loving image of his own mother from his previous world.
"I don't need you," he hissed, his words shaking as though he was convincing himself more than her. "I already have someone else that I love!"
Amoria stared at him, her lips barely moving. "You..." She could only whisper.
"Bastard...!" she finally cried out, her voice shaking with fury. Her grip tightened on her staff, her knuckles white with the pressure.
Suddenly, icy tendrils erupted from the floor, forming an ice prison around Van, courtesy of Lalyn. Marcy, positioned at a distance, raised a crossbow, her eyes trained on him with deadly precision.
"We really have..." came a voice from the shadows, sharp and cold.
"...Misjudged you, Van," said one of the assassin sisters, stepping forward, her knife gleaming under the faint light.
"You're as rotten as Salem..." her sister finished, both now flanking Van with their blades drawn, their voices dripping with contempt.
Marcy's voice cracked as she screamed, "To think... I actually let you near my child... you bastard!" Tears filled her eyes, spilling over as she aimed her weapon at him, trembling with emotion.
The guild hall transformed, the atmosphere shifting from confusion to outright hostility, as weapons were drawn and Van found himself surrounded. The weight of their betrayal pressed down on him from all sides.
Surrounding him.
&7^(14*%2@^23(*Surrounding him^7#^14$@#23&—
"Van?" Amoria asked, "Are you coming with us?"
"Hmm?" Van hummed, his attention back to the present, out of breath momentarily. "Sorry, was lost in thought..." He said as he scratched his head.
Amoria slightly furrowed her brow as she noticed the delay in his response. What he said just now felt like an excuse, "Are you... Alrig—"
Van immediately cut her off, waving his palm in front of her, "Yeah, yeah, haha, I'm really fine. I..."
"You're sweating..." She said softly as she scrutinized him.
'Fuck... Get your head straight..!' Van scrutinized himself internally.
"Oh, this?" He said as he shot his eyebrows up, wiping his forehead, "I've spent the rest of my day with this armor... Gotten a little hot, you could say." He argued with a casual expression, blinking rapidly as he looked at her.
'I..'
'... Like that about you, you know?' Amoria thought as she looked at Van. 'As much as I hate how you feel the need to do it around us... Around me...'
'I just love how... bad you are at lying,' she continued, watching his eyes flicker away every so often. Those lips, slightly pursed, and the lump in his throat that moved whenever he swallowed hard. 'If you were any good at it... you'd realize that someone with resistance as high as yours can't sweat, not even for a moment, whether it's under the scorching sun or inside packed armor. I know this because I've spent plenty of time with someone like that. The only time he ever broke a sweat... was when he was stressed out.' Her thoughts brought forth the familiar image of Magus.
'I hate that you feel the need to do it... because I hate the feeling I get when something burdens you, and you won't share it with me... I always did, even back then. I... I know it may sound pathetic... but I do... I really do want to make amends,' she thought as time seemed to slow around her as she looked at his awkward, tense form.
'16 years... And while times have been rough for me and the others, I cannot imagine what it must have been like for you. How... Lonely it must have been, especially if you felt the need to come back here. I... I realize it might be hard to see that I care about you, and that I'm sorry.' She briefly lowered her eyes in regret.
'So, I won't press you to talk to me. I won't ask where you've been as we were about to face the demonic presences yesterday, or... Make you explain why you got a house contract... instead of staying with me,' she thought, recalling how she had eavesdropped on his conversation with Anne earlier, when he'd mentioned the house.
"I see... you spent a lot of time in the armor, so it's understandable... Anyway, come on! Don't leave us hanging," Amoria casually urged with a smile.
"Amoria. Uh... I have a house of my own." Van's words caused her to flinch.
For a split second, Amoria choked on her words, but managed to keep her smile. 'Still... that doesn't mean I won't be... Sad about it... Or want to know how exactly you did it with your Untrusted skill, and my agreement with Sir Hicks to not let you buy a house.'
"Mom..?" Lizzy asked, noticing her mother's unease.
"Do you, now...? That's..." Amoria began, before Van gently cut her off.
"I know, I know. I didn't mean to offend you. But, I didn't want to intrude... So, I ran into Nickelson and we got a house contract." Van glanced briefly at Lizzy with a muted sigh. The words 'And now, your daughter will have an easier time' hovered on the edge of his tongue, but he held them back. "I came to the guild to pick it up. I should've told you first, and—"
"Offend me?" Amoria tilted her head. "What are you talking about, Vanny? That's great! I'm happy for you! I mean... Our door's always open, but the fact that you and your dear father got a house of your own is fantastic!" she congratulated him with a smile, while Lizzy frowned at Van's passing glance, her mind racing.
'Is he... Maybe mad at me?' Lizzy thought, recalling how, thanks to Michael's best efforts, Van had been chased by an angry mob. '... I guess I am partly to blame, since I didn't really try to stop what was happening. He may be mean... but he didn't deserve getting chased down by all those adventurers... He may be unpleasant, but he isn't the villain Michael makes him out to be...!!'
She thought back to the night Van had said to her, "I'm cool with being mean as long as you get some sleep," during his stay at her and Amoria's house.
Lizzy shook her head slightly, '... No, he couldn't have meant well...! Especially with what he did to Michael... But... what is it that he did to Michael, or to me? Shooed him off, using Michael... liking me as a weapon? It might have been cruel... but can that really be compared to getting captured or beaten up by a mob of adventurers...?!'
"Liz," Amoria called warmly, snapping her daughter's attention back to her. "Come on. We need to go back home!" she cheerfully and gently urged.
"A-ah... alright, Mom..." Lizzy replied, holding her mother's hand as the two left the guild together.
"Just remember," Amoria said, turning around just before they left, "You can always change your mind! I'll... we'll be here!" she called with a smile before turning her back to him once more. Van couldn't help but purse his lips slightly at her words.
'Whatever it is that you're keeping secret... however horrible you think it may be... I'll always be on your side... like I should have been before,' she thought regretfully as she left.
And as Van watched them disappear from view, he couldn't help but assure himself.
'... It's better this way,' he told himself. 'No one needs to know. If I keep it all to myself, no one gets hurt or burdened with some unnecessary truths. And besides... I'll leave this place once I'm done with this dragon threat...'
'It...' Van thought, clenching his fists silently as he stood in the darkness of the guild hall. 'It really is better this way. Without them knowing. I'm going to outlive them anyway, so... I have to outlive them while knowing they had some... some level of love left for me,' he reflected bitterly.
'They would hate me with everything in them if they knew...' His chest tightened, the realization striking him harder than he'd anticipated. He clenched his fists tighter, his nails digging into his palms. The weight of their eventual disgust—if they ever discovered the truth about Alicia—pressed down on him, suffocating the air from his lungs. His jaw clenched involuntarily, fighting the rising urge to scream.
'But... Wait... No... NO... NO!! I actually don't need that anymore...!! Alicia's... Alicia's enough for me! She's all I'll ever need..!!'
But the pressure in his chest only grew heavier, as though his very bones were conspiring against him, pressing inward, puncturing his heart and squeezing his lungs.
'As long as she loves me... as long as Alicia loves me and I love her... I'll be alright...! So, stop feeling this way...!! STOP...!!!' He struggled to regulate his breathing, to chase away the suffocating tightness constricting his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing Alicia's image to the forefront of his mind—the softness of her lips, the warmth of her skin—
But then his breath caught. The pressure refused to fade, the image of Alicia in someone else's arms—even as jest—flickering into his mind like a cruel joke.
'FUCK OFF..!!! FUCK OFF!!! I'M OVER IT...!!! I'M ALREADY OVER IT..!!! I FORGAVE HER..!!! WE FORGAVE EACH OTHER...!!! IT HAD NO MEANING...!!! WHY DO I SEE IT AGAIN ALL OF A SUDDEN!!? I'M ALREADY DEALING WITH SOME SHIT, WHY SHOVE THAT AGAIN, BRAIN!!?'
'THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ME...!! NOTHING WRONG WITH REJECTING THEM...!!' He thought to himself, desperately trying to convince himself
Yet, the sword that had fractured his armor before now plunged deeper, cutting through the cracks. A sharp pain bloomed in his chest, like something cold and unyielding was being driven through his flesh, inching toward his heart. He winced, his hand instinctively clutching at his shirt, but no wound was visible. Yet the sensation persisted...
Real.
Insistent.
And it had no intention of fading.
Van's breathing quickened, every inhale sharp and shallow. His knuckles turned white as his grip tightened on the counter, heartbeat pounding in his ears like a distant drumbeat—relentless, unforgiving.
But he forced himself to believe it again. He was in a good place. He had a home in the demonic realm. He had Alicia, a love that would last nearly forever...
And then Varlog's words, like a ghostly presence, echoed in his mind just as his breath began to steady.
"... But you have to work hard to make sure no one steals her heart—"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!!" Van bellowed, his voice breaking through the stillness, flinging his arm in a violent gesture. A heavy gust of wind followed, rattling the room, knocking chairs and tables askew.
"What happened!!?" Marcy shouted, bursting out from the storage room, her eyes wide as she looked at Van—standing alone, his palm resting on a shattered section of the guild counter, the wood split beneath his fingers.
"Van...?" Marcy's voice broke the silence, soft yet laced with concern as she looked at his pale face, as if he'd seen a ghost. "What happened...!? Did someone—"
Van raised a hand, palm out toward her. "Nothing... I'm... I'm fine..." His breathing gradually steadied as he looked down, eyes wide, releasing the broken piece of wood he had gripped.
"... Stay here for dinner, and sleep," Marcy said, her tone softening as she took in his vulnerable expression.
"No... I... I need to go to my new house—"
"If you don't stay in the guild, and sleep in the room I've got available for you, I'll personally destroy that house before you even get to see it," she cut him off, her voice firm.
Van gulped, regaining some of his composure through her firm demeanor.
"I've got to watch over these demons anyway. Keep me company, helmet head," she said, though it felt more like an order than a suggestion.
His breath was still uneven, his body trembling as though he'd run a thousand miles, but her calm, unwavering expression grounded him.
"A... Alright."
"Good. Now, sit tight. I'm making dinner. For you and our... tenants," she said, stretching and securing a headband as she made her way toward the kitchen behind the bar. "Oh, and before I forget, I also have to give you something, so it all works out," She said before fading from view, causing Van to wonder momentarily.
Van sighed deeply as he sank into a chair at the bar. "Man... I'm more tired than I thought..." he muttered, feeling the tension slightly ease.