As the night arrived, all of us sat on the white rectangular white metal table in Tanya's mansion's dining room.

However, Leo was no longer in here because Mehrad came and picked him up by force because he has things that he had to settle about the demolition of the discontinued slave shops.

And as expected, Tanya kicked the 2 of them out without any hesitation, before their argument could break another one of her properties. 

I wandered my eyes throughout the area, the cemented walls of the dining room were painted gray while the roof and the floor were made of white porcelain-like tiles with some black right where the dining table was located.

One of the butlers put several huge cloche plates on the table and revealed the food. As expected, the food they served was mostly from the ranches and the farm, like beef, pork, and a big ass turkey.

"Let's eat," Tanya announced while sitting at the base of the table.

I was sitting on her left side at the side of the table, Misha was sitting next to me and Karoon was sitting right in front of me.

Right behind where Karoon was sitting were 3 half oval-shaped glass windows with light gray curtains hanging on them. Every space between those windows were black tall porcelain vases standing with leaves sticking out on them.

I picked some part of the already chopped turkey in front of me and put some on Misha's plate.

I took a bite and tasted the rich taste, I could taste some seasoning that resembles thyme and parsley. 

Mom loves to cook with those spices that's why I'm familiar with it even though I'm not the one doing the cooking.

"How was it, Mister Casimir?" Karoon asked with enthusiasm in her eyes.

I nodded. "Yeah, it's very delicious."

She immediately clapped her hand and shifted her gaze to Tanya who just nodded on her.

"Are you the one who cooked it, Karoon?" I asked.

"Yes, I am, I'm glad that you like it." She veered her eyes to Misha. "How about you, Misha? Do you like it? What do you think? Is it delicious?"

Misha paused for a second, stared at me for a moment then nodded to her. "It is delicious."

Was she trying to say something when she stared at me first before answering Karoon?

I'm aware that my cooking is not good, so you don't have to be that considerate to me.

Karoon happily nodded to her response before taking a bite of her food.

"By the way, I hope Misha didn't cause you much trouble all day, Karoon."

"Not at all. She's kind and obedient. However, she really loves talking about you. She was always like, do you know, big bro Casimir can do this, do you know, big bro Casimir did this before and do you know big bro Casimir is like this. All she wants to talk about is you and she could be very talkative when you are the topic of the conversation."

Misha? Talkative? What?

"Really?"

"Yes, and she also talked about the boy named... Yoran? Myoran?"

"Yohan?"

"Ah, yes, that name."

I gently patted Misha's head. "Yohan is a good guy."

As I turned my gaze to the person sitting between us 3, I found her just silently watching us while enjoying her food.

"So, Mister Casimir, how's your day with Tan-tan?"

"I think she's pretty cool, I guess?"

Karoon responded to my answer with a huge grin.

That's not the answer to her question, isn't it?

"She's asking what happened to the tour, Casimir."

"Oh, right, of course. It's good, I learned a lot of things about the facilities of the faction and now, I could easily come up with the plan to carry out the transformation of the town. With your faction's help, I'm fairly confident that we can execute it."

"That's great, once you come up with a concrete plan, just tell me about it, I'll help you with it," Karoon replied with a smile.

"Maybe she doesn't look like it, but Karoon is the main architect of this faction, if you are aiming to build something decent, she's the best choice you have to handle all of it," Tanya announced with such pride in her voice.

She's really proud of her, isn't she?

"Oh, Tan-Tan is praising me again."

"I am not. Don't look at me like that, it's irritating."

After we finished our food, I decided to walk outside and take a breath of fresh air.

As I walked out at the back part of the mansion, I found the quadrangle arena where I fought Tanya.

I sat on the tea table under the tree and wandered my eyes throughout the area.

It's dark and peaceful here.

I closed my eyes to feel the gentle and cold wind touching my skin.

After a few seconds, I opened my eyes and gazed upon the stars and found a peaceful sensation within me, so I remained looking up for a few minutes while unmoved.

"You are just here, Misha is looking for you."

I stared at Tanya and found her standing a few meters away from me while crossing her arms.

"Is something bothering you?"

"No. Not really."

She loosened her arms and approached me. "Are you sure? Maybe I have the answer to your little question."

I'm pretty sure you have.

I exhaled. "You said you already met a meruem before, could you tell me what kind of person that meruem was? What really meruems were in this world?"

She paused for a few seconds before answering my question. "You are a natural born destroyer, your tribe was known for their unquenchable thirst for death and destruction. Due to their terrifying ability to easily adapt in every battle they were in, they were dubbed as the very embodiment of catastrophe itself. That's what meruems are. Your people have no sympathy or compassion... just bloodlust." She slowly exhaled and closed her eyes with noticeable pain in her expression. "Long ago, in order to protect themselves, humans and demi-humans banded together to drive your people to isolation, which they somehow managed to do. But given that it would only take one of your people to cause a massive uproar in the entire world. Isolation wasn't enough. Furthermore, the truth that meruems isolated themselves not because they were afraid of the wrath of the entire world but because they just felt like doing so, was strong evidence of how dangerous they could be if they chose to."

"I don't know where you have been all this time that you don't have any idea about the history of your own tribe, but allow me to tell you this. One of the closest friends I had was a meruem. She's violent, remorseless, and most of the time extremely unsympathetic, she would kill anyone or even trample an entire kingdom without a second thought if she felt like it. But at the same time, she's genuine and protective, she couldn't feel compassion nor know the idea of it, but she could express it without even realizing it. She's a very terrifying person, however, I can say that I prefer her more than many other deceivers in this world who're hiding the real monsters inside them just to get a hold of me who they thought they could use for their own advantage."

"Is that the reason why you are kind to me?"

"Don't get me wrong, just you being a meruem is more than enough reason for me to eliminate you. You are a threat and that won't easily change. However, my tolerance for you is due to an entirely different reason."

"Maybe you can tell me now why. While we're still having a friendly moment here, you know?"

She didn't answer and just smiled. "How about spending the night here, I already have your rooms prepared for the 2 of you." She walked back to the mansion.

I followed her. "Yeah right, what's the point of hiding it on me if it's very apparent that you're not even making an effort to hide it? I'm pretty sure I would discover it anyway."

"Perhaps, it's for the reason that watching your curious face is quite entertaining."

"Wow, thank you very much."

"My pleasure." 

"That's not what I meant!"