"Oh, that's because there's actually not much difference for me," Dorian answered nonchalantly as he played with his blonde locks.
While his answer was casual, Ashen's feelings were far from that.
'He just said that there's not much difference between twelve years and twelve days for him.'
A normal person might take it as a joke, but Ashen knew Dorian well enough to say with confidence that he was speaking with complete sincerity.
The next guess would be that Dorian had turned into a complete lunatic in the years he hadn't seen him, and that would have been Ashen's assumption—if not for his recent discovery of the supernatural side of this world.
'That means Dorian is actually from that side... and if he's lived long enough to make his distinction between years and days blurry…'
Then… wasn't he currently in the presence of a complete monster?'
His heart started beating wildly at the notion. If it wasn't Dorian standing in front of him but anyone else, he would have bolted long ago.
The horrifying realization that he couldn't sense an iota of mana from him, even though he was standing right there, made all his earlier conjectures gain way more credibility with physical evidence now presented.
Mana was always present in the living, no matter how weak, small, or different they were. As long as they had life force, they would undoubtedly have mana.
And with his current perception, sensing the mana of someone just a couple of meters away was child's play.
The only exceptions would be if such a person had perfect control of their mana, or a cloaking technique.
'Both of which don't contradict that Dorian is extraordinary anyway...' he thought bitterly.
"That's quite the range of emotions you're going through there. I can feel the gears in your head turning from here, hehe."
Dorian was as jolly as ever, keeping that teasing smirk on his face, content to see the man before him wrack his brain over a question he would be glad to answer if only asked.
He kept casually stroking his goatee while humming quietly until Ashen eventually let out a resigned sigh and decided on the straightforward approach.
'I'm an idiot, aren't I?' He silently chided himself.
He'd overthought something that was simply in front of his eyes from the start.
'First, he came and sat right beside me and I didn't even notice until he spoke...' He remembered what happened earlier during his nostalgic trip.
'Second... he didn't look like he'd aged a single day despite it being twelve years since I last saw him...'
He really wanted to bang his head against a wall for overlooking such an obvious fact. It seemed the last few days were really taking a toll on him.
Even the fact that such an abandoned building had stayed this way for so long without any government intervention was strange in itself—and that was just one of many small inconsistencies he should've picked up.
'Anyway, it seems this asshole wasn't even trying to hide, so might as well ask directly.'
"So, are you actually some kind of living relic or what?"
Dorian was about to nod before he caught himself. "Hey! How many times have I told you, be polite to your elders!" Dorian spoke in mock indignation. "Even if you want to be rude, you can still do it politely!"
"Uhh... Dorian, the living artifact...?" Ashen innocently tilted his head.
"See! You can do it if you try!" Dorian even looked proud despite being practically called a fossil in a more 'polite' way.
"Heh."
"Huhu."
Soon they both started chuckling, and the awkwardness that had lingered despite the reunion finally seemed to melt away.
"Well, I can see the marks left behind by magical contracts on you, which means that you know the other side already, so I guess it's okay to tell you..." Dorian nodded to himself. "But don't tell anyone, alright?"
"...Sure." Ashen didn't talk much about him to others anyway, so he just nodded.
The moment he did, the air around Dorian suddenly changed. It felt heavier, as if the weight was a manifestation of the significance of his own existence.
'The simple act of revealing his true identity carries such a phenomenon...? ' Ashen looked bewildered.
Dorian leaned back on the broken chair, which did nothing to diminish the severity of the scene. His smug look was completely washed from his face.
"I am Dorian Everly, the first Transcendent. My Sin is『Sloth』." His brown eyes darkened. "A pillar among the seven Sin Lords, governing decay and abandonment..."
The moment the last two words were spoken aloud, Ashen felt the classroom around him begin to rot. Not quickly, but with the inexorable certainty of things left untended.
Paint peeled from walls in slow, curling strips.
Wood warped and split.
The very air grew stale and thick.
He felt himself withering, alone in this decaying space that stretched endlessly in all directions. Time moved differently here—seconds felt like hours of solitude.
He couldn't even get his bearings before Dorian's voice struck again, impartial as a death knell, despite his vanishing from his vision.
"...evasion and degradation."
People appeared in the rotting classroom—faces he recognized, faces he loved.
But every time they reached for him, every time they called his name, his body moved on its own, turning away, stepping back, fleeing.
Their expressions grew hurt, then disappointed, then empty.
And with each avoided gaze, with each dodged embrace, he felt something inside him crumble.
His mind grew cloudier, his thoughts more scattered, his very self dissolving at the edges.
"Stagnation and decline."
Movement.
The very concept became foreign. His limbs felt impossibly heavy, as if gravity had increased tenfold.
Even thinking required tremendous effort.
The classroom around him stopped changing—not because it had finished decaying, but because change itself had become impossible.
He was trapped in this moment, this place, this feeling of absolute motionlessness.
Minutes? Hours? Days? Time lost all meaning when nothing could progress, when nothing could improve.
And slowly, so slowly, he barely noticed, his memories began to fade. Who was he? Where was this? Why did any of it matter?
"Inertia and... melancholy."
Everything.
Stopped.
.
.
.
Sad...
.
.
.
.
.
...sad...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
...why?