Beyond the problem regarding the Nuller and the Magi, Mavin drove to the Webman Company to check on the progress of the technology. He had expected that there would be trouble regarding the loss of the power. Even as he drove to the Webman Company’s main building, he had noticed the dwindling sources of power being depleted on the air.

The world’s Magi and Nuller would probably lose their heads at the thought of their source of power being gone. They would soon move to enterprises, businesses, and organizations in hope they could sustain a level of influences. The crippled secret societies would make it easy for the Hounds and the Huntsmen to care of the nest of demifiends east of the mouth of Pustalo.

He parked his car next to the Webman Company building. He got in the building, approached Rigel, and listened to all the preparations being done. Mavin noticed that they were competent enough to handle the affairs on their own. Rigel himself was a professional, a businessman, statesman, and silver-tongued individual trained exclusively by Old Fred.

Mavin raised his hands in surrender at the sight of his work. He let Rigel handle the procedures while he then left the Webman Company, drove to the Academy where he walked the waxed floorboards of the paper-scented library. He stayed in one of the study booths where he spent time alone.

When the sunlight painted the rooms orange Mavin left the study booth and walked around the Academy. There was a spot located on the bell tower of the Academy. The entrance was barred by chains and the keys were available only to the keepers. He didn’t have time to look for the keepers, so he ran to the wall, clung to the edge, and pulled himself until he reached the roof tiles. He twisted on the edge of the bell tower with his eyes traveling around the Academy. It was then that he noticed that the building around the literature department was still lit up. He saw a figure on a yellow dress walking out with her canvas. She stopped next to the car, and went inside.

Mavin watched the car drive to the Imperial Palace where she lived. He thought back to the past when he arrived at this Academy. With a hardened heart he saw the Princess in the Imperial Palace, afraid, and shaking at the blood she was coughing. Truthfully, she did not have much time left in the world.

It was sunny during that day, he recalled. She was holding on to that handkerchief he gifted back then. Before the tragedy in Jorvi, before the hill, he had sent that letter. He had not seen her after the tragedy, his mind was on things to come. But when he saw her pale face, and that blood on her mouth. Mavin thought of a method. He had thought that there might be a way for him to enhance her strength. Truthfully, he had come in contact with the Nuller and the Magi because of their methods. Their methods were not applicable to what her disease was. The human body was fragile and not even their spells could easily tamper what they couldn’t see. Perhaps they could strengthen the body enough to make it strong enough. She rejected that reliance.

She had a wish however.

That she would spend the remaining time of her life with the person she was betrothed.

Mavin was tempted to do it. He was tempted to run away from all of it. To just spend the rest of the time she had in a safe country, and watch her pass.

The Mavin Tomas that he saw in the memories did so.

He would have done it if he didn’t know what was to come.

The life of one against the life of the many that he had come to know

In her case she had given up on herself, knowing that it was a foolish resistance from the hands of Kismet. An incurable disease in which her blood would clot, and the more time passes, the harsher the clotting would be. She would bleed from all of her orifices and there was nothing to do other than keep her in check.

It was nothing more than useless resistance. She knew that by the time a cure would be developed she would not benefit from it, but the people who would meet such an unfortunate disease would in the future. For the time she had left, she wanted to experience happiness.

In the memories of ‘Mavin Tomas’, he saw what would happen. Nothing more than a cameo as they visited the heir of the Tomas Family sitting on the graveyard where he buried her. A future where he was a broken drunkard who could only be forced to take responsibility in hope that Lazon could be revived.

To become someone who could dedicate their life in hopes to salvage something out of a broken world destroyed by their fight. No matter what route, what scenario, and ‘IF’ that he could dig out from those ‘memories’. He would lose her. He would lose everything because he ran from all of it.

It was a choice that he had to make.

He had barely hesitated from telling her what he wanted. That he would allocate the resources of Sahus Hospital to research on her disease. She would spend the remaining time she had being tested with needles and drugs. He had helped consign her to these tests that reminded her of her disease.

She might be able to spend time outside, do her duties, and act normally. But the truth was that she had to deal with the needles and tests until her body could no longer afford to do so.

Mavin could not stay with her throughout these tests.

He had to find the boons so he had given up on the right to marry her. Mavin could remember her tearfully signing the document, her eyes burning cold as he told her of the tests that would be done to keep her alive.

“What?”

“Yes, I am asking you to be well,” he planted his forehead on the ground. “Please, do not give up on yourself. Maybe it is hopeless, maybe in the end, it would not benefit you, but please do not let this sickness defeat you.”

She stared at him miserably. She gave a hollowed out laugh and raised her head with her eyes half-squinted. She looked at Mavin with apathy, as if she had lost a part of herself. “Very well,” she coldly said. She turned her eyes away from him. That desire she had was gone, and all that was left was her stern dedication to ‘saving herself’ as Mavin had forced her to.

Even if it’s meaningless in the end.

Even if it resulted in her being used as a way to cure the disease she would have had to endure the 'treatment' even if it meant being tested for the rest of her life.

“I told you so,” Mavin said quietly. He was glad that even though she had been undergoing testing she could continue to do what she wanted. She had enjoyed painting in a canvas greatly, and that hobby of hers never changed. Though seven years were enough to heal some of the wounds of the past choice.

He had never thought of himself as someone who could only do this by himself. He heavily relied on the grace of his family to do what he wanted. He knew better to cut himself off from the manpower and ability to do so. His choices had always been about what was the best for the Empire and Lazon.

His cousin Derrick understood this greatly, and though he had made it clear that he could not reveal them. Though he was sure that among the people he knew, Cousin Derrick had deduced that there was something that happened on that hill. He also had known of the Nuller and the Magi and the boons so he was able to construe what Mavin wanted, hence the reason why Old Fred and Cousin Derrick would not allow him to be part of the operation.

How Mavin craved to be the one who would deal the hammer blow to the demifiends in east of the mouth of Pustalo. He had already done the job in the south of Lazon. He would love to put them down. He had wanted nothing more than to destroy that nest of filth.

But they wouldn’t allow him. That was the deal. For his Cousin knew that if he would go into that nest. There was a chance that they wouldn’t return. Mavin would not rest until that nest was dead.

The destruction of the famed nest.

The firepower that would be used will act as a show of force to those who would dare to fight the Empire in the future. It could achieve so many things for the Empire.

They would drop a sun in the heart of that nest.

The Nullers would be alarmed. The Magi were afraid of the power that the Empire would hold. This was only possible because of the newly discovered vast resources of Lazon, the knowledge and cooperation with the Holmians, and the interest of the Empire aligning with Lazon.

He had already told the Emperor of his desire to eliminate the demifiends from the very start.

A vendetta that he was willing to achieve no matter what the cost. He had many justifications, but personally, the fire that burned his heart burned more brightly than his desires for anything else. The fires were consuming him and he could feel his insides burned. Although he said that he would have definitely killed Natalya, he couldn’t do it out of the reason that she understood what it was like to take the heads of people.

That sentimentality could get him killed, considering that she had been looking at him dully. She had that look of pity when meeting him, as if she mocked him for whatever goal he was going for. He wanted to keep someone who understood what it was like to take the heads of people in the war with a rifle to understand.

Mavin wasn’t asking for pity or forgiveness from others.

He wasn’t altruistic enough to believe that he did it all for the sake of the world. He was only trying to save the home he knew and the Empire that they lived in. All the actions he had taken, from the purge of the demifiends in the south of Lazon, to association with the Holmians, and his actions in the war were all for the sake of a goal. Though he did not kill Alfred Silheid deliberately, he had been planning to rid the head of the snake. The treaty of Flost was a threat to his plans, and so he had  made sure it would go well.

All for the sake of destroying the nest of demifiends.

“Then what?” Mavin asked himself. He could recall that there was trouble in the east.

He had thrown away thirteen years of his life for the sake of this goal.

He needed the boons to achieve this goal.

But every boon had a price. He didn’t know what it was, but he was sure that he was running out of time as well. Though he had strengthened himself to handle the price. He was sure that it wouldn’t be long before he would find himself being lost. The fact alone that he would climb the bell tower out of a whim meant that he was losing control. He was like an old dog trying to find a place where he could die.

In his case he was someone who’d climb tall places to look at the moon. It was a habit of his back then. To climb hills and giant trees to looked at the night sky. He had not done this for the last thirteen years, and this time he had the whim to do it. There was nothing much that he could do other than wait.

“Robert…I wonder how he is doing?” Mavin asked.

He had found someone who shared the same sentiment with him. He might not be able to do the deed personally, but he would have to send Robert inside the nest soon and get what he had wished the moment he decided to follow him.