*
Tok.
'...She's gone, huh.'
As the door clicked shut, Ashen couldn't help but feel a small pang of loneliness. The room felt emptier without that little bundle of joy lighting it up. But Seraphine had classes, and he had no right to complain.
'I've got my own problems to deal with. Focus.'
He was about to pull up his status window to check out his new spell when a low groan cut through the silence.
The bed creaked.
Then came a choked, almost mournful cry.
"JENNA!"
Ashen turned his head slightly.
Braun lay there, drenched in sweat, his breath coming in ragged gasps. His flushed cheeks and furrowed brows made it clear; whatever he was dreaming about, it wasn't pleasant.
Ashen gave him a moment to settle before speaking.
"...A nightmare?"
Braun startled, like he'd only just realized he wasn't alone. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he exhaled sharply.
"Yeah. Sorry if I woke you."
"No problem. Been up for a while."
"That's a relief," Braun muttered, still trying to shake off the remnants of his dream.
Ashen debated giving the man some space, but something in Braun's eyes made him ask anyway.
"...You wanna talk about it?"
"..."
Silence settled between them.
Then, surprisingly, Braun didn't shut him down.
"...No," he started; then hesitated. His fingers twitched. His knee bounced once. His lips pressed together like he was holding something back.
A mumble. "My savior at least deserves to know the truth."
His shoulders tensed, but then he shook his head, as if clearing away doubt, and finally looked Ashen in the eyes.
"You remember what Cornelia said about how they pick recruits?"
Ashen frowned at the sudden shift. "Yeah… something about 'choosing from the dregs of society.' Made kidnapping sound like charity work. How could I forget?"
Braun let out a weak chuckle.
"Well, I don't know about the others, but I was one of those dregs."
Ashen's frown deepened.
"What do you mean?" His confusion bled into his voice. "Didn't you say you worked as a butcher? That's an honest job. That doesn't put you in the same category as the lowlifes she was talking about."
His voice softened. "You even have such a sweet daughter…"
Braun shook his head.
"That was my job, yeah." His fingers curled into the sheets. "But it wasn't my only job."
Something in his tone made Ashen pause. A sinking feeling crept up his spine.
So he stayed quiet and let the man tell his story.
Braun took a deep breath, his eyes shadowed with a mix of guilt and resolve.
The only sound in the room was the soft hum of the ventilator, its mechanical sigh swallowing the silence.
His fingers curled into the sheets, gripping them like an anchor before he finally spoke.
"My job as a butcher… it was real. I worked hard at it, made an honest living, and provided for my daughter, Jenna. But it was also a cover." His gaze drifted, lost in some unseen memory. "I wasn't always just a man cutting meat. I was a spy, Ashen. Worked for an organization that thrived in the dark, doing things no honest man would touch."
Ashen's brows lifted slightly, but he didn't interrupt, letting Braun's words fill the space between them.
"It started decades ago," Braun murmured, his voice thick like cold tar. "I was barely ten… just another gutter rat with ribs poking through my skin, scrounging for moldy bread in trash heaps."
"Some nights, I'd chew on leather scraps, just to trick my stomach into thinking I'd eaten."
"If I were lucky, I'd find a damp awning to sleep under when the rain came. If not… the alleyways had teeth. Older kids, gangs, even stray dogs; anything hungry enough would take a bite outta you."
"One wrong step, one wrong glance, and you'd wake up with a boot in your ribs or a knife at your throat. And nobody… nobody ever checked if you were still breathing after."
Ashen listened intently, trying—and failing—to reconcile the image of the hulking man before him with the half-starved kid Braun described.
It just wouldn't stick. But he stayed quiet, letting him continue.
"I was desperate, like any other kid in those alleys. And they knew it." Braun let out a humorless chuckle. "They offered me shelter, food, the promise of never going hungry again… I took the deal before they even finished talking. It wasn't a choice…it was simply survival."
His expression softened with nostalgia for a moment before hardening again. "Even after the harsh training, the mental conditioning, the discipline drilling… if someone had told me to go back to the slums, I'd have laughed in their face and called them a crazy bastard."
But then his voice dropped, bitter. "Good things don't last. Once I learned how to blend in, how to earn trust… the missions started."
He rubbed a hand over his face, as if trying to scrub away the shame. "The higher-ups in the organization called us 'dregs'—people with nothing left to lose, easy to recruit, easy to control."
"And once you're in, there's no getting out. You follow orders, or they make sure you—and everyone you love—pay the price."
By the time he finished, his voice was steeped in bitterness.
"Cornelia hit the bull's eye when she called us dregs, at least for me."
Ashen tilted his head slightly, his voice careful. "What did they make you do?"
Braun let out a resentful laugh. "What didn't they make me do?" His voice was sharp, a blade sliding between ribs. "I stole secrets from men who trusted me. Left trails of bodies—some guilty, most just… in the way." His jaw tightened. "Even my marriage was just another mission. Getting close to a target. I didn't hesitate to marry a stranger, to have a child…"
Ashen blinked. "Wait—Jenna? Is she…?"
Braun nodded, a sad smile ghosting over his lips. "Yeah. She's the only thing I don't regret." His fingers clenched slightly before relaxing. "When my wife found out who I really was… she left. Took one look at the life I led and walked away. Left Jenna with me."
Fragility oozed from his tone. "I've been raising her alone ever since, trying to keep her safe while I lived that… double life."
Ashen exhaled, still processing. "So you've been juggling being a dad and a spy? How the hell did you even manage that?"
"Badly," Braun admitted, his voice cracking faintly. "Some days, I left her with friends for weeks at a time, not knowing if I'd come back. Missed her birthdays, her school plays… all because I was halfway across the world, pretending to be someone else."
Ashen sat with that for a moment, his voice quiet when he finally spoke.
"That's… heavy."
And now, he understood. That overly serious expression Jenna had in her picture… It wasn't just her personality. It was the weight of a childhood shaped by uncertainty, waiting for a father who might never come home.
Braun's jaw tightened, his eyes darkening. "My last mission was the worst."