Damien simply lay in her lap as he listened to her story. It got to the point where he even forgot about his own problems while he immersed himself in hers.

As it turns out, Rose had similar issues as him. The only difference was that she had been on the path to fixing them much longer than he was.

Rose continued telling Damien about her past in the final 6 years before they met each other. It was definitely heartwarming.

After their conversation on the mountain peak, James took his daughter back to the castle. The two of them became much closer after that. Rose wasn’t able to immediately set aside her prejudices and doubts, but she was now open to the idea.

Any arrangements for her marriage were canceled, much to the chagrin of those noble families, but James didn’t care. He only thought of the well-being of his daughter in this matter.

It was then that his favoritism for Rose started to show. She disdained most of her father’s other women, who were simply there due to political marriage, so she started to explore the lands of Apeiron.

And in those explorations, she discovered her love for adventure. Rose began training as much as she could, quickly showing her talent and stunning those in the upper echelon of the empire.

In just 6 years, she had reached 2nd class. She had joined the adventurers guild and taken on quests, evaded many assassination and kidnapping attempts with her own prowess, and made achievements that set her apart from the crowd.

She far surpassed her other siblings, but she held no desire for the throne. This left them to wallow in their jealousy without an outlet to remove it. In consequence, the battle for the throne became fiercer, but Rose didn’t care about this.

She ignored everything else and focused on what she wanted to do, only returning to the palace a few times a year to meet with her father. And on her most recent trip back, she met Damien. The rest was history.

It was a true coming-of-age story that made Damien feel like Rose was the protagonist of some anime. She overcame trials both physically and emotionally until she could stand before him as her powerful and unbridled self today.

Frankly, he was amazed. His respect for Rose was already high before this, but it felt like it had peaked after knowing her full story. He felt ashamed to face the same issues with much less strenuous circumstances.

But who could blame him? Even if trauma came into being on a mortal earth without the same strife as it had after mana was introduced, and even if the problems could now be considered mundane, that didn’t mean it would suddenly fix everything.

Mana was miraculous in every sense of the word, but it wasn’t omnipotent and it wasn’t biased. Even with such a drastic lifestyle change, it was impossible to just throw away old trauma.

His father leaving him while he was still a child impacted him heavily even though he was in his twenties now.

Regardless of the circumstances or how much Damien knew it was for his own good, the fact that he didn’t feel any familial love from his mother due to her busy schedule also left a deep impact on him.

The bullying he endured at school and the way people would lead him on simply to push him down later left him with trust issues. And these were only further amplified by the fact that he was betrayed and thrown into the dungeon to die.

And those two years he lived as a beast messed with his mental psyche. No matter how fine he may seem at the moment, it was simply because he didn’t have an outlet or a situation where he snapped.

The closest thing to this would be when he basically bombed downtown LA because he couldn’t hold back his thirst to kill Jin.

Damien and Rose spent the whole night talking. Their intimacy had reached an entirely new level as they threw away their inhibitions and opened up to each other about everything. It was a cathartic feeling for the two of them.

They ended up getting immersed in each other’s warmth, sharing some physical intimacy as well before the night ended. And finally, they fell asleep hugging each other close. The wholesomeness of the time they spent let them enter their dreams with happiness and ease.

***

In another part of the house, Claire was sleeping in her bed alone. However, she wasn’t able to maintain the same peace as the previous two.

She hadn’t told the kids yet because she didn’t want to worry them, but every night when she fell asleep, she’d have strange dreams.

These dreams varied from simple life experiences of her own to fantastical scenes she could never even imagine. It took her an entire month to even have an inkling of what was going on.

Tonight, she was having another strange dream. Yet, this one was leagues worse than the rest. She was in a place filled with darkness, the only reason she could see was that she had adapted to this environment.

She walked through a dense forest alone, but she could feel something following her.

She arrived at an abyss and was confronted by a wolf. She tried to run, but it tore into her legs, preventing her movement.

Luckily, this was a dream so she couldn’t feel the pain. There was one thing that was clear to her, however, and that was fear.

Pure, unadulterated fear.

She looked down at her body, which was currently that of a boy’s, and saw two swords in her hands. when she looked back up, she was already attempting to fight the wolf.

But it was futile. The wolf was simply that much more powerful than her. It tore into her body, leaving her hanging on the precipice between life and death.

And then, she charged once more. But this time it was more crazed, it was the move of an insane person. She watched as the body she occupied tore into the wolf, and she watched as one of its arms was torn off and eaten in front of it.

She watched as it climbed onto the wolf and used its single remaining arm to claw and scrape, and she watched as it tore its jaws into the wolf’s flesh.

The battle reached its climax as the human won, but the wolf charged into the abyss and fell, dragging the human along with it.

Within this abyss, Claire saw a small bit of light that reflected off of the short sword still in her hand. It was then that she finally saw the appearance of the body she possessed.

Short midnight black hair caked in mud, a face covered in blood, and a pair of piercing amethyst eyes. She knew who’s face this was.

“Damien!”

Claire woke up from her sleep in a panic, her back drenched in a cold sweat. Tears streamed down her face uncontrollably as she realized what she had just witnessed.

“My boy,” she sobbed, “just what did you have to go through?”

***

When Damien woke up, he couldn’t hide the smile on his face. The soft sunlight that entered his room through his window, the chirping of birds, and the girl sleeping by his side all brought him immense joy.

Seeing how Rose was using his arm as his pillow, Damien decided to stay in bed a bit longer. He simply enjoyed the scenery outside the house as he waited for her to wake up.

He wanted to look at her face a bit more, but he had no idea if he could suppress the urge to kiss her if he did so.

Unbeknownst to him though, she was already up, but thinking that his efforts to play it cool were cute, she pretended to be asleep. Within the hour, Rose finally opened her eyes. She similarly ended up smiling at the tranquil atmosphere that had enveloped them.

There were a few more days that the two of them could spend calmly before they had to start moving again, so they planned to enjoy it.

They left their room and headed downstairs to be greeted by Claire Elena and Zara, who had stayed with Elena during the previous night. She knew Damien and Rose were having an important conversation, so she didn’t want to bother them.

The group had a cheerful dinner as they talked about mundane things. They turned on the news, only to see stories of Niflheim’s destruction, but they paid it no mind.

A week ended up passing idly while the group relaxed. But there was no way to keep this atmosphere forever.

Damien and the girls sat on one side of the couch while Claire sat opposite them. The air around them seemed tense. Not being able to handle the tension, Damien finally spoke.

“Mom, please move to Apeiron.”