Despite the crushing emptiness still gripping his chest, Alphard lifted his head and fixed Charlotte with a gaze charged with unshakable determination, catching her off guard enough that her eyes widened slightly at the sudden shift in her employee.
"I'm staying," he declared, his voice steady. "And it's not for the pay. It's because you already know exactly what I'm after, boss."
"And what is it you want?" she asked, studying him silently.
"Knowledge. Beyond that, I need your help — I need to go to the ruins of the God of Beasts."
Silence claimed the office once more for a long stretch. Charlotte sat frozen, stunned by the drastic shift in the young man's attitude, while the mere mention of the God of Beasts stirred a deep unease in her.
"The God of Beasts?" Charlotte asked, fixing him with a deeply searching stare. "Do you have some connection to that entity?"
"No," Alphard answered. "I want to find out why the Lament Gem was in that old woman's possession, and whether Valentin had any connection to it, given everything we uncovered during the mission."
Charlotte stayed quiet for a moment, composure intact. She rose from her chair and crossed to a tall shelf packed with thick volumes and files.
She pulled out a large, leather-bound tome and returned to her seat. She opened it across her lap and flipped skillfully through the yellowed pages until she found the entry she was after.
"The ruins of the God of Beasts are located in the city of Fercluse, according to these records."
"Could I take the book home with me?" Alphard asked.
Charlotte fixed him once more with a piercing stare, hunting for the smallest crack of hesitation or deceit in the young man's features.
"Why the sudden urgency to find its location?"
"You said it yourself, boss — I need to gain knowledge. This is nothing more than a set of historical records that'll help pave the way to the ruins without exposing me to unnecessary risk."
Charlotte nodded soberly, making it clear she expected the volume returned promptly.
"You can fund the expedition with the money I already gave you," she added, closing the matter. "Philip could go with you again."
"No... I'd prefer Antonie come with me," Alphard countered without hesitation. "He has far more knowledge on the subject, and he'll know how to guide me better."
"Fine. But if you don't come back with something of real value, you won't be authorized for another trip like this unless it's absolutely necessary. The gem's already secured, but I'll admit there's still more worth looking into."
Charlotte rose and returned to her desk, settling back into her usual seat.
"Anything else you need?"
"No, boss."
"You're dismissed."
Alphard didn't hesitate for a second. He left the office, the book pressed to his chest, and walked briskly toward Antonie's office.
Reaching it, he knocked gently on the wood, and almost instantly, the echo of approaching footsteps sounded from within.
"Hey, Alphard. How'd the mission go?"
"Went well, Mr. Antonie."
Antonie waved him in. Alphard accepted the invitation, stepped inside, and settled onto the sofa, setting the tome carefully beside him to keep it safe.
"What do you need, Alphard?"
"Boss will give you the details herself, but I need you to come with me to Fercluse."
Antonie stopped reading mid-sentence, fixing his full attention on Alphard.
"Fercluse?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "Have we been assigned a mission out there?"
"I need to go to the ruins of the God of Beasts," Alphard repeated, steady.
A flicker of astonishment crossed Antonie's face, and he fell silent, sinking into his own thoughts for a moment.
After a stretch of deep consideration, he began explaining, in a measured voice, just how significant that place truly was: those ruins had stood since immemorial times, raised long before either Victoria or Saint-Cyr existed as nations.
Their origin belonged to an era far more distant — even predating the Fourth Period.
Without wasting a moment, Alphard opened the book and showed it to Antonie. The two of them leaned over the pages, poring through the ancient passages, dense with chronicles of the Fourth Period's political intrigue.
Still, the records made clear the ruins of the God of Beasts dated back several millennia; in that distant era, humanity had worshipped that deity and followed its Door, though the manuscript never specified which one it was.
As they worked through the content, fascination took hold of Antonie, his usual caution giving way to a palpable excitement, impatient to set off and investigate the site in person.
Alphard, by contrast, kept a level head, reminding him they'd need thorough preparation, along with informing Helena and Alexi in advance to spare them any unnecessary worry.
Antonie waited, somewhat restlessly, for Charlotte's authorization so he could begin his own preparations. In the middle of that wait, Alphard voiced a question that broke the silence and immediately caught his mentor's attention:
"Do you have the relic for my Key 2?"
Antonie shook his head, though he admitted he'd already acquired a couple of Key 2 relics belonging to different Doors.
"Your Key 1 is called Smile, and that concept ties directly into the nature of your relic," he explained, slipping into a lecturing tone. "These names aren't just decoration — they serve a real function, guiding the search for relics. Still, the search itself is complicated, since we don't know the identity of most Keys beyond Key 3. Though, out of curiosity... you're already feeling the pull to ascend this soon?"
Antonie added that the relic tied to each Key also carried a direct connection to the concept of sacrifice.
Because of that, the naming tended to lean heavily on metaphor; a veil of abstraction that, at times, made interpreting the concept unbearably confusing.
"It's not that," Alphard clarified, frowning slightly. "I feel like the energy's flowing fine inside me, but there's something that seems to be holding it back."
"That's Digestion still working its way through," Antonie answered calmly. "Once the process fully completes, you'll reach the full potential of your current level, and you'll feel the power moving through your body as naturally, as vitally, as your own blood."
Alphard turned his mentor's words over for a moment before asking:
"You'd told me before that, once I made the sacrifice, I wouldn't notice any immediate change. But right now, I don't feel anything at all... does that have anything to do with the Digestion?"
"Yes and no," Antonie answered, settling back into his seat. "Something similar happens alongside the Digestion of Power when the sacrifice occurs. It's known as the Soul's Deception, and it's a process triggered simultaneously with the other. If Digestion is the little bag adapting to hold the new strength, the Deception is, essentially, a spiritual mechanism that keeps you from collapsing under the loss you've suffered. Without that process, you'd have handed over everything you sacrificed completely, and your soul would've been left too damaged to sustain the power at all, even if the Digestion itself went off without a hitch."
"So basically — Digestion is the bag, or the soul, adapting to hold the weight of the stone, which is the power, and the Soul's Deception is what gives it the resilience it needs despite the sacrifice, and at the same time keeps it from sacrificing everything at once."
"That's right," Antonie nodded. "In theory, if the total amount you're set to sacrifice represents a hundred percent, the Soul's Deception holds back around thirty percent of that. The rest is genuinely given up as the offering, but that preserved portion keeps your soul from collapsing under the loss, letting you hold onto a fragment of yourself."
"What kind of magical theory is this, even?" Alphard murmured, letting his body sink heavily into the armchair. "I'm exhausted from the trip... I need to get all of this sorted out in my head."
"That's normal. It didn't happen exactly the same way for me, but it's essential that you organize these rules properly in your mind, especially with something this significant."
Alphard nodded silently. He lifted his gaze to the ceiling, framed by dark, unadorned wooden beams, free of any ostentatious decoration.
"I think it's best I head out."
He rose, tucked the book under his arm, and settled his top hat onto his head with an unhurried gesture.
"See you tomorrow, Mr. Antonie. Thanks for everything."
"Sure thing, Alphard. Be careful out there."
Alphard made his way through the thick darkness of the underground floor, cut only by the faint yellow glow of the gas lamps. Stepping into the elevator, he began meticulously reviewing every rule in his head, determined not to let a single one slip, ready to write them all down in his notebook the moment he was safely home.
But just as the metal cabin came to a stop, its doors sliding open, and he set off toward the building's exit, a cold, intrusive thought seized his mind entirely.
Helena's lessons! On top of that, I never even got the chance to warn her I wasn't coming home last night. She's going to kill me.
Alphard rushed through the doorway onto the cobblestone street and raised his hand to flag down the first carriage passing by.
The rattle of wheels and the steady gallop of the horses marked out a short but tense ride, during which he barely managed to organize his thoughts. Before long, the carriage slowed as it finally rolled into the streets of the Bercy District.