"Eres… I'm sorry. For not believing you. About Dad… About everything."

Larpard's voice cracked at the edges, barely louder than a breath, but heavy with years of guilt.

"Larpard…" Ereskia whispered, her ears twitching, her heart catching in her throat.

Right…

At first, Larpard had clung to hope, just like Ereskia did. He couldn't accept it, that his father would simply be gone forever in some forgotten dungeon. It didn't make sense. Heroes like him didn't just vanish.

So he held on, tightly, with both hands, with all of his heart. He believed, he waited.

But time… time is a cruel, patient thing.

It doesn't break hope all at once.

It erodes it.

Day by day. hour by hour, whisper by whisper…

No matter how long they waited, there was no word, no message, no miracle.

The prayers they sent into the void came back empty.

The neighbors stopped offering comfort and started whispering behind closed doors. There were now pity in their eyes, and sometimes, cruel jokes hidden behind forced smiles.

And their mother… she tried her best. Gods, she tried. But even the strongest hearts fray in silence. At night, she'd cry alone, thinking her children couldn't hear her. But they did. Their cat ears were sensitive after all, picking up their own mother's soft sobs muffled through walls, as if her grief might be quieter if she wept in secret.

And slowly, all that waiting, all that aching hope… began to rot.

Hope turned into something sharp and heavy.

Into doubt.

Into shame for still believing.

Into fear that maybe it was over.

And the longer he hoped, the worse it would hurt when nothing ever changed.

So his mind did what it had to do.

It let go.

It sealed the door tight and called it "acceptance."

It called it "growing up."

It called it "moving on."

It was easier that way.

Safer, too.

And so, Larpard buried his hope, stuffed it down somewhere dark, and chose numbness instead.

He told himself it was maturity, that it was the right thing, that someone in the family had to be practical, had to face the "truth."

And to make that truth feel real, he convinced himself that Ereskia was the one who was wrong, that she was chasing ghosts in her grief. That she needed to let go, for her own sake.

But that came with a price too.

Because two hearts pulling in opposite directions can only stay together for so long before something tears.

And so, Larpard and Ereskia, they fought, again and again.

Friction turned to fire. Words became weapons, cutting, angry, defensive.

He remembered shouting things he didn't mean. Words meant to shield himself from pain, but they landed like arrows in her chest.

He didn't just lose his father.

For a while… he lost his sister, too.

And now—

Now that they were standing in the very place their father might have vanished into, now that there were real signs, real hope. he couldn't hold it anymore.

The dam cracked, and tears welled in his eyes, slipping down his cheeks before he could stop them.

"…I'm sorry," he whispered, voice raw and small. "I'm so sorry."

Ereskia turned to him, her own eyes softening.

She didn't speak at first. Just took a quiet breath and stepped closer. And then her hand came up, gentle and steady, brushing the tears from his cheek with the back of her thumb.

"It's okay," she said, voice low and warm. "It doesn't matter anymore, right? All that matters now… is finding him. And bringing him home."

Larpard nodded, jaw clenched, shoulders trembling. He gripped her hand tighter, grounding himself in her presence.

And just like that, they stood there for a long, still moment, just the two of them, hand in hand beneath ancient runes glowing along the walls, the light pulsing in slow, steady rhythm.

Like a heartbeat.

Like the ruin itself was breathing with them.

Then, Lucian glanced back over his shoulder. "You two good?"

Ereskia drew in a deep breath, squared her shoulders.

"Yeah," she said. "We're good."

And so the three of them pressed on.

Step by step.

Deeper into the dark.

Toward the truth waiting below.

----------------------

As they continued their descent, time seemed to stretch and fold around them, swallowed by the quiet.

Step after step, deeper and deeper, they walked.

But weird… despite being an ancient ruin in an S rank dungeon, there was nothing here that tried to harm them. There was no traps. There was no monsters, no shifting walls or cursed sigils.

It was… peaceful.

Too peaceful, in fact.

The stillness was unnatural, like the calm eye of a storm.

Still, a subtle unease began to coil in Ereskia's chest again. That crawling tension she couldn't quite name, a sense that something wasn't right.

But when she looked down at her hand, still clasped tightly in Larpard's, her worries softened.

The boy was smiling.

No, beaming. His eyes gleamed with a rare light of hope. That wild, childlike happiness she hadn't seen in him for so long, not since before the incident with Dad.

And for the first time in years… she smiled with him, genuinely.

Because somehow, they had crossed the greatest chasm between them. The hurt, the anger, the years of misunderstanding each other, it was finally starting to heal.

And now she could already picture it, their father stepping through the door again, a proper reunion.

They hadn't told their mother anything about this journey, not yet.

So, she would probably cry a lot too.

----------------------------

A few minutes later, the group finally reached the end.

A chamber.

"We're here,"

Lucian stepped forward first.

The moment their boots touched the threshold, the ground responded.

A soft hum rippled beneath their feet as ancient glyphs carved into the stone floor ignited with a sudden pulse of light, like waking veins in a slumbering giant. The glow spread outward in elegant patterns, bathing the room in a mystical, bluish-white radiance.

The chamber slowly revealed itself.

It was vast, spacious enough to house a cathedral, its ceiling vanishing into gloom far above. The floor was made of old, weathered stone, etched with worn circular patterns and faded lines.

Pillars lined the space. They were all massive, timeworn columns carved from the same dark rock. Some still stood tall and proud, while others lay broken, cracked and crumbled in heaps like the bones of ancient titans. Dense mana shimmered in the air, clinging to the stones like morning mist.

But aside from the pillars and the glowing glyphs, the chamber was barren, empty.

Except for one thing.

In the very center of the room stood a colossal stone slab. It was monolithic and silent, like an altar or monument of some sort. Its surface was inscribed with lines of indecipherable runes, of language from a civilization long buried by time. They pulsed faintly, like the beat of a sleeping heart.

Ereskia stared, breath held in reverence.

But Larpard was already moving. "Come, sis!" he called, grabbing her hand and tugging her toward one of the intact pillars.

He stopped in front of it and pointed.

"Look! Dad's sword marks!"

Ereskia followed his gaze.

And there they were.

Carved deep into the stone pillar were massive gashes, gouged with such force that the rock had splintered around the edges. And not just splintered, black crystal had grown along the cuts, jagged and unnatural, still faintly pulsing with residual energy.

The crystal crackled softly, like embers cooling after a forgefire.

Ereskia's breath caught.

Her legs froze.

She stared at the marks, her vision blurring as tears welled in her eyes.

"It's really him…" she whispered, hand trembling as it rose to cover her mouth. "It's really Dad…"

Because there was no mistaking it.

Only one weapon in this entire world could leave this kind of mark.