Taking advantage of the time we were staying in town, Adrian finally had room to look after the family he hadn't seen in so many days. Time slipped by, and before we knew it, it was already late the next day. Seeing that his mother seemed to be in decent spirits, he finally seized the right moment and, choosing what he thought was an appropriate opening, made it clear where he and I stood—as lovers.
To be honest, the instant Adrian said those words out loud, my scalp practically prickled. Being "the girlfriend" under a boyfriend's mother's scrutiny was, without a doubt, a first for me. It was… way beyond my level.
"So you're saying you plan to formally propose—to the angelic race?"
Hearing that her son was about to get engaged, Madam Heidilun's face immediately showed shock. She finally couldn't hold back and spoke up in opposition.
"How can that possibly be allowed? Angels are the Lord's servants. And you—my son—are actually forming that kind of relationship with the Lord's servants. That is an extreme disrespect toward the Lord! What's more, we have only just received the Lord's grace and protection and been saved. I absolutely cannot allow this to happen!"
Adrian and I had anticipated religious resistance like this from the start, given that his mother was a devout believer. We had already talked through a response and agreed on a strategy: we would basically copy what Cyrae had done to calm the crowd before—follow her train of thought, guide her along, and argue our case with reason. In theory, it shouldn't have been too hard…
"You don't need to worry about that at all!" Adrian said at once, staying perfectly on script. "Since the Lord already sent messengers to help with this, that means He clearly doesn't mind our little matter. Besides, within the angelic race, there has never been a taboo against marrying humans since ancient times—there are even quite a few precedents you can point to!"
But things went the opposite of what we'd hoped. Madam Heidilun's stance was unbelievably stubborn. Seeing that I was about to argue too, she immediately stood up, grabbed Adrian as if forcing him along, and refused in a tone that was already a bit unpleasant.
"This is not the right time to discuss this. The mayor's victory banquet is about to begin. We'll talk slowly after the banquet."
With that, the conversation slammed straight into a deadlock. Adrian looked genuinely caught off guard, but with his mother insisting like that, he couldn't exactly push back too hard. He could only let her pull him away for the moment, shooting me an utterly helpless look as he went.
And yes—night had indeed fallen. The celebration the mayor of Boyak Town promised began on schedule, opened with great fanfare.
In truth, a border town tucked deep in the mountains could only throw so grand a victory feast, even if it pooled the entire town's resources. To people like us who had seen larger worlds, there was nothing particularly special about it.
Not to mention, the town had just suffered days of raids. The whole thing happened suddenly, with little preparation, and the supplies they could scrape together were extremely limited. At best, it was basically a large communal dinner.
That said—no matter how simple it was, it was still far better than eating cold scraps while camping outdoors. There was no need to describe the banquet in detail. Once everyone had eaten and drunk their fill, the feast dispersed, and people returned to their temporary lodgings.
But lying alone on the huge, luxurious bed in the mayor's guest room, I couldn't fall asleep no matter what I did.
The scene from earlier—Madam Heidilun opposing me and Adrian with all her might—kept replaying in my mind. I didn't know why, but I couldn't shake the feeling that although she truly was devout, she also seemed to carry a kind of prejudice against me, an angel. For example, she was clearly far more respectful toward Cyrae. Could it be because the color of the wings I'd shown earlier was different?
Either way, it felt better to try clearing up misunderstandings before things became irreversible than to just lie there staring at the ceiling doing nothing. With that thought, I jumped out of bed without hesitation and decided to go to Adrian's mother's room right now—to talk to her privately.
But when I reached a spot not far from her door, I could already hear Adrian's voice from the hallway.
So Adrian was inside her room, talking with her about something. I hesitated, wondering whether it was appropriate to knock at this moment… and then I suddenly heard Madam Heidilun begin telling her son about what she had experienced during that communion with the divine:
"Yesterday, when the Lord personally summoned me… it's true that I couldn't hear most of what was said clearly. But your girlfriend's name—mixed in among it—I couldn't have mistaken that."
"What?" Adrian's voice shot up in disbelief. "You actually heard Feliciana's name… from your 'Lord'? If that's true, why didn't you tell me earlier?!"
It wasn't just me outside the door—this news clearly struck Adrian as unimaginable too. His voice couldn't hide the shock.
"I was just too excited at the time," Madam Heidilun retorted. "And I wasn't even sure then whether the name really referred to her."
It was obvious that she was bringing this up so late at night for a reason. From her description, after returning, she had turned the Lord's words over and over in her mind for a long time. She had finally convinced herself she could reach a conclusion: that the Lord's main purpose in speaking with her—and the general subject—had centered on me.
"Don't you find it strange?" she pressed. "Feliciana is an angel, yet her wings are blue. Every doctrine and scripture I've ever read says angels have white wings! White symbolizes purity and flawlessness. So the only explanation is that she made a mistake—or something else happened—and the Lord punished her and cast her aside! It might even be because of the relationship she has with you. In the end, this is the Lord's punishment. You can't keep walking down this dark path!"
As her reasoning continued, driven by her purely religious mindset, the whole thing veered completely off course.
It was exactly what I'd feared: she cared deeply about the color of my wings and was trying to use that to convince her son to give up on me.
"That's complete nonsense," Adrian snapped. "Haven't I told you a hundred times? That whole True Church framework is a lie—it has nothing to do with the angelic race at all. And Feliciana's wing color has absolutely nothing to do with what you're saying!"
Fortunately, her argument had no effect on Adrian whatsoever. After all, he knew me inside out.
But trying to explain, in front of his mother, the origins of elemental angels—and all the hidden details buried in ancient history—was obviously not something he could "just say" in two sentences.
In the end, because of the gap in their religious beliefs, a quarrel became inevitable.
Throughout it, Adrian kept trying to correct the false religious teachings that had been hammered into his mother's mind, but none of it worked—not even a little.
At last, the two of them could only part on bad terms. Adrian, furious, yanked the door open as if ready to storm out—only to run straight into me standing outside.
"Ah—um… I, uh… I just got here… to this… place…"
It was extremely awkward. I'd been so flustered by the eavesdropping that I hadn't even had time to hide.
And before I could even worry about what Madam Heidilun would think seeing me at the door, Adrian seemed to misunderstand the situation. He grabbed my hand firmly and spoke with solemn conviction:
"Don't worry. No matter how much my mother disagrees, I'm not abandoning my plan to propose. This is my decision. No one can interfere. We leave tomorrow—go to Norvale, and formally ask Elara for her approval."
The moment hit me hard again—I was deeply moved.
But after I calmed down, I decided it would be better not to pour oil on the fire.
If I wanted to leave a good impression, what I should do now was find a way to ease the conflict between them. But in Adrian's mother's eyes, I was the "source of the problem." How could I possibly speak in a way she would accept? That felt like an impossible question.
"You intend to stubbornly defy Heaven?" Madam Heidilun's voice rang out behind the door as she stood up. "If you go against the Lord's will, you'll suffer divine punishment sooner or later—and you'll end up just like your father!"
"That uprising in Parristol was suppressed long ago. I heard it from others who came back to the village, and they said you were involved too! Back then your father never listened to a single word of my advice, and in the end he fell into utter failure. Haven't you learned anything from that?!"
The instant she said "your father," my heart sank.
Sure enough, Adrian's whole body trembled. The pain of failing to fulfill his father's wish—after coming so close—was still a wound in his heart that had never healed.
"That's not the same thing…" Adrian started.
But he couldn't bring himself to keep arguing. He tightened his grip on my hand, turned, and pulled me away.
"Forget it. Let's go."
"Wait!"
And then—something shocking happened.
Adrian's mother suddenly convulsed. The light went out of her eyes in an instant, and her expression turned vacant and dazed.
We had seen this state not long ago: it was exactly what happened when she entered that "communion with the divine."
But this time, there was a crucial difference.
Even while in that trance-like state, Madam Heidilun still seemed able to respond to the outside world—she could speak, and she even raised her hand, stopping us from leaving.