It was an office large enough to contain multiple crystal panes. The panes were attached to the wall, and the panes showed moving images of the city.

“Great isn’t it?” the woman watching the panes said. “Cover the city with enough crystal wards and obsidian then you get a 360 surveillance around the Barren Cities.”

“Lady Tania,” Adey said. “We brought the guy, and why is Machina lounging here?”

“Hey, Adey,” Machina said. “I was trying to convince her to increase my dues. Isn’t it odd that I am still not rich despite all that I did for this city?”

“Technically,” Tania wiggled her finger. “The craftsmen did all the work, and you are getting your patents, and the likes, just what we agreed.”

“Then why I am still working?” Machina asked.

“Oh my,” Tania looked at her and back to Adey. “Is her dementia getting worse?”

“Who knows? She’s older than the rest of us,” Adey said.

“You two,” Machina crosses her arms, chest raised. “Can’t you see that I am here?”

“Oh, we know,” Adey said. “The last time, you lounged on my home, spent one hundred years treating me like a maid.”

“But you are my MAID, Adey.”
“I quit that, Lady Tania, is there any way to get rid of vampirism?”

“I have ways,” Tania said

Machina widened her eyes, she crawled to where Adey was, puppy eyes that would have struck other’s heart. But alas, Adey’s heart was stone as well.

“You...can you just stop?”

“I will,” Machina said. She reclined on the couch, watching from the side, her head lowered.

“That being said,” Tania said. “I am Tania, the Obsidian Heiress, and current Overlord of the Demons, the Pale Shine Lady, and the Lady Protector of the Barren Cities, but they all call me Boss. And you…you smell of a time wraith.”

Alva stood stiffly. He stared at the Pale Shine lady who owes the city he was standing on.

“I am Alva,” he said, his right hand’s middle finger digging into his palms. “It is my honor to see the head of the cities.”

Tania smiled. She pushes her palms against her desk and folded her arms. Her ashen hair spread on her chair. She has a smile plastered on her face.

“Seriously, I will never understand the naming sense of humans. Still, I get what you are doing, though you do look pathetic, human.”

“...”

“I won’t pry, and I won’t meddle. This place is sealed by my own powers, and the only reason you are not being dragged out of by those fiends are because of me. Time wraiths are the antibodies of the time, they are the cells that restore the body that is called time. A man that escaped the confines of his lifetime, we are immortals here, beings that have escaped the usual lifespan, but this only natural for us, as for you, you have escaped it, but they are chasing after you. It means you are still a disease that is needed to be remedied. I fought time wraiths, took their powers, and become what I am today. I know one single truth from fighting them, however.”

Tania’s face became that of a growling lion. Adey, Machina, stared, their faces stoic as they watch their boss lady turned vicious.

“You can keep killing them and they just keep coming at you. No, they are beasts that can’t be killed. The only way to rid of them is to become a cell that they won’t have to fix. Or you get the favor of the Gods and the incarnations of your other selves and become a vessel of power. But what are you, Alva?”

“I’m just a guy who wanted to work on a tavern, and I was tortured for it. I won’t do anything, and I’ll work my due.”

He planted his forehead on the ground. His hands prompted forward, knees rooted on the floor.

“Please let me stay here for four years, and if I show promise, please let me work here. I beseeched you to have mercy on this one. I have nowhere to go.”

“And so the black wolf turns into a sheep, as they say. Very well, you will have your stay in this city. It doesn’t matter, what do you from now on. Isn’t that what you want, Alva?”

Tania swiveled her chair and watched the panes again.

“Leave me, all of you, I have cities to watch, and madness to close.”

“Come on now,” Adey said. “Machina, you’ll be taking the train, Alva’s coming with me.”

“Why would you want that lanky guy instead of someone like me?”

“Because he’s behaved, and you are not. See ya.”

“Adey!”

Adey went out of the room along with Alva. Alva placed his hands inside his pockets. Adey glances at him for a second.

“I can’t read you, Alva. You’re good at lying when it comes it, and so far you’ve done nothing to make you a threat. Still, there are times where you try hard to get something. Tell me, Alva, why do you still live?”

“I wish I know, Adey. I wish I know why I keep clinging on this life. Look at me, I am just nobody, a malnourished, and soon to be the fat bastard that does nothing but whine, and begs for mercy. A man should have ambitions, they should have a drive, and yet here I am, just nothing, barely living. Adey, I rather be dead, but yet I can’t stop clinging to this damn life!”

“I see. I don’t understand humans well,” Adey said. “Still, if you want to kill yourself, do it when there is no one to see it, and away from this city. Is that understood?”

“I understand. I’ll cling to my life, and when I have the courage. I’ll do what you say.”

“I don’t really get a self-destructive human like you. Hmm, I think you are harder to understand than Machina. I should stop associating with you.”

“That would be best.”

“I see. I’ll drop you off near your house.”

“That would be okay. Thank you, Adey.”

Alva was taken near his house. Adey left without a word and disappeared from Alva’s sight. Alva totters back to his home, he opened the door and used the walls as an aid to reach the bathroom sink’s mirror.

The black wolf grins inside the mirror. The crier, the shouter, and the howler did as well.