"No, I wouldn't have."
"I love how honest you stay, no matter how mad you get," Ashen said with a light laugh as he sank onto the sofa across from her.
Alice tilted her head, her expression as stoic as ever. "Is that supposed to be a compliment?"
He shook his head, a small grin tugging at his lips. "No. Just an observation… and another entry in the file of 'why I love you.'"
Alice stared at him for a second too long before casually asking, "Where was this file when you decided to cheat on me with my best friend, I wonder?"
Ashen's lips twitched.
It was becoming routine now. Every visit ended the same way: sharp retorts, bitter resentment, and him trying, and failing, to smooth things over.
Still, he supposed he should be grateful. Being allowed in at all, being able to talk to her, was already more than he deserved. A little harshness was well within expectations.
"Alice…" Ashen ran a hand through his hair, her name leaving his lips in a low, apologetic murmur. "I don't dare claim I know how much my actions hurt you… and I don't dare shift the blame to anyone else…"
He sighed. "But you also have to take into account the circumstances back then."
"Well, what kind of circumstances would force you to stick your cock into her? I'm really curious." Her tone stayed even, almost detached, like she was commenting on the weather rather than reopening a wound.
Ashen pinched the bridge of his nose. "…I didn't go that far, though."
"…Does it matter?"
"…I guess not."
He knew better than to argue. Cheating was cheating, no matter how far it went.
"As for the circumstances…" His gaze drifted, words heavy with exhaustion. "Let's just say I wasn't mentally as sound as I'd have liked. Physical wounds heal eventually, but constant near-death brushes chip away at your sanity… slowly, but relentlessly."
His eyes turned half-lidded as he spoke, voice growing distant. "You knew how I was before Seravelle. Now imagine throwing that half-dead version of me into a place where one wrong step gets you torn apart by wolves… or slowly chewed on by swarms of tarantulas."
"…"
"That wasn't even the worst of it." His expression twisted. "The deaths, the carnage—I could handle those. But the constant feeling of missing home, my family, and you. The thought that I might die before making things right, or worse, come back to find out that those monsters had invaded Esperra and killed you all…"
He shuddered at the words, then shook his head hard, trying to banish the image. "That—I couldn't adapt to. No matter how much I tried. Everything else eroded me, but she became my anchor."
A faint, almost nostalgic smile curved his lips. "Seraphine was like a selfless mother… always worrying about everyone else. Always trying to keep us from losing hope."
Alice stayed silent, listening without a word.
"She was always the optimistic one, the one who never feared despite being the most vulnerable. So I tried to be her shield… from the violence, the obscenity, the… everything. Especially after realizing she was the same best friend you used to talk about."
He smiled weakly. "I knew how much you cared about her, even if you never said it outright. You treated her like a little sister. And I—" he chuckled softly, "I couldn't let you lose a little sister."
"…I treated her like a little sister," Alice said flatly, "and she thanked me by stealing my man. Don't mention it."
Ashen's grin turned sheepish. "Hey, no one stole me, and it was my idea, not hers. And above all, I'm sure you know how these concepts can twist us… especially Lust."
"Look at you, already defending her like a loyal knight, and you say she didn't steal you?" Alice looked at him disdainfully.
Ashen scratched the back of his head, brow furrowed. "That was a fact, though." Then he shook his head. "I won't deny that I came to love her… but everything I did was driven by one thing: keeping us alive."
Alice's eyes sharpened at his admission, but he pressed on.
"My main thought back then was how we could get stronger, fast, but safe. I didn't know what we'd face next, or when. I didn't even know if we'd ever be allowed to go back. For all I knew, letting Seraphine remain at the seventh step could've been the reason for her death. I couldn't allow that, so I did what I did…"
Alice's expression twitched. "Wait… she already passed the seventh step?"
Ashen nodded. "Yeah. Just before the tutorial ended. Crazy, right?"
Alice gave a small nod, the strategist in her acknowledging what that meant. Anyone who reached that stage in such a short time would be courted by every major faction. Seraphine would be treated like royalty wherever she went.
Still, that was that—and this was this.
Alice exhaled a slow, shaky breath. "What you did might've been logical, maybe even necessary… but it doesn't change what you did, Ashen. Cheating is still cheating."
Her impassive front finally cracked. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.
Alice couldn't even imagine the hardships he'd passed through. She'd come directly to the Ashbastion and hadn't gone through the Tutorial phase.
The main reason for her recruitment was her intellect and inventions, and how they would translate in a magic-filled world.
There was no need for her to go through the "Pruning stage" if they didn't expect her to fight anyway.
But that didn't mean she didn't have an idea what the average Esperrian went through before they enlisted with one of the Seravellian regimes.
She'd heard the rumors: the countless deaths, the betrayals, the debauchery and filthiness.
It was a culling, designed to cut off the naive and the average.
And while Seraphine was anything but average, she knew how naive she could be sometimes. Especially if she'd picked Lust, it would be easy for her to get swept away by the countless wolves masquerading as men.
But all of this was in the realm of logic. Alice, right now, only thought with her emotions, especially when it came to Ashen.
Ashen himself fell silent upon hearing her last words. He knew that talking more would be useless.
He didn't even want to talk anymore, since he noticed that every word leaving his mouth was an excuse, and it made him feel pathetic.
'No need to keep yapping. I'm a scumbag who wants to have two women for myself. End of the story.' He silently concluded.
Then, his mind switched to why he'd really been coming here constantly for the past two weeks.
It was far more important than his current relationship with Alice. As to what could be more important than that… of course, it'd be her survival.
As his thoughts summoned it, another hallucination assaulted him.
Alice's face paled, her chest suddenly had a hole through her heart, blood and tears smearing her visage…
Ashen barely flinched, now used to it.
But no matter how used to Liminal Dreamer's illusions he became, it was still heartbreaking watching Alice in such a state and having to pretend that nothing was wrong.
Thankfully, he'd mastered the art of pretending everything was fine ever since childhood, when his old rewind ability wouldn't stop pelting him with glimpses of the moments to come.
Still, the illusions were getting more frequent in the past few days, as if urging him to do something, or what he was seeing would inevitably turn into reality.
And Ashen didn't take this omen lightly.
He spoke once more, displacing the prolonged silence. "Actually, I came to ask something important today."
Alice tilted her head in a curious expression, indicating that she was all ears.
"…You haven't chosen your Sin yet, have you?"
She stiffened for half a second, then, remembering that the one asking was him, she relaxed.
"I did not, but how did you know? I thought I hid it well."
He gestured to his glowing eyes. "…You did, but my eyes are quite perceptive. At first, it was hard to judge with all those gadgets you have on you, but gradually, it became clear to me."
His eyes narrowed. "Your body hasn't changed much from the last time I saw you in Esperra. Still completely mortal. Everyone goes through the system bonding, so the only explanation I could come up with was that you were holding off on selecting a Sin…"
Alice was genuinely impressed by Ashen's observational acuity, especially since she knew he hadn't even spent a year in Seravelle, and he seemed to be full of surprises—from dominating her assigned security, who was at the sixth step, to his perceptiveness.
She took a moment to recompose herself and nodded. "Astute observation, but why do you care about this?"
Ashen let out a weary sigh and closed his eyes for a brief moment, remembering her last words from a ruined timeline.
"I'm... sorry… Ma-ybe if... I ...h-ad.. t-aken, Lust… things... would have g-gone differently...?"
His eyes opened, golden and resolute.
"I want you to choose Lust."