Chapter 152: The Strong Can Be Weak.

Seris slid down and stopped a few meters away from a wagon with a broken tire. It was covered in frost from the attacks of the frost-bats, the cold still clinging to its wooden frame and metal parts.

Chad and some of the surviving warriors were trying to fix it when Chad noticed Seris. He dropped the oversized wheel and turned to her.

"Seris, healers don’t need to do such manual labour, go get some rest, we’ve got this."

"Yeah, don’t worry yourself with this," the other warriors added.

But Seris wasn’t here to help. Observing Damien had changed her more than all the time she’d spent in the Tower of Mysteries. She’d been here for almost a year, and Damien had only been here for like a month, and yet he’d somehow found a way to never lose control of the situation around him.

No matter how chaotic things became, Damien always seemed to find a way to regain control. Even when people were angry, frightened, or ready to turn against each other, he didn’t hesitate. He simply looked at the situation, figured out what needed to be done, and acted.

Those confident eyes and calm instincts of his appeared to her as a sort of control, something she deeply lacked. She had spent so long reacting to everything around her, constantly trying to keep people alive while struggling with everything happening inside her own head.

Perhaps she could take the first step toward at least replicating that by confronting one of the sources of her pain.

It wasn’t something she wanted to do, but wanting to avoid something and being unable to avoid it were two different things. She had already made her decision before walking over here, and now that Chad was standing in front of her, she had no reason to turn back.

Chad’s expression froze momentarily. He could see that Seris was here specifically for him. He knew this day would come, but it didn’t mean he dreaded it any less.

"Seris," he said softly.

She raised her head and addressed the other warriors. "Hope you boys won’t mind if I borrow him for a while?"

They laughed and waved him off. "You can have him for as long as you want, he wasn’t that useful to begin with. Hahaha."

Chad shook his head helplessly and walked away with Seris. She was walking ahead of him, allowing him to keep pace, neither of them saying anything as they left the others behind.

The sounds of the warriors working on the wagon gradually became quieter as they moved farther away. Seris continued forward without looking back, her expression difficult to read. Chad followed behind her, his earlier smile becoming increasingly strained as he waited for whatever she intended to say.

After reaching a quiet place, she suddenly turned.

Chad’s smile gradually vanished before she even spoke, and when she did, he felt as if a knot had tightened in his chest.

"What ain’t you telling me, I mean. I more or less figured it out, but I still want you to say it yourself."

Chad looked away. "How did you know?"

Seris didn’t waste anymore time. "I overheard Yuri and you arguing while we were trying to survive in the ruins of humanity. Don’t look at me like that, the siege crossbow wasn’t that loud."

Chad nodded. "It really wasn’t."

For a few seconds, neither of them said anything. Chad’s eyes remained lowered, as though staring at the ground could somehow make the words he needed to say easier to find. It didn’t. He had known this conversation would eventually happen, and yet knowing something was coming had done nothing to prepare him for actually standing in front of Seris.

He took a deep breath and said lightly, "I was worried it was going to hurt you, I didn’t want you to hurt yourself because of something I did."

"Don’t give me the I did it for you spiel, I’m not as young as you think, I’m not a kid, at least not anymore." Her eyes were already red as warm tears gathered under their bridges.

Chad nodded.

He didn’t try to argue with her. There wasn’t much point. Whatever excuse he had spent all this time carrying with him suddenly sounded pathetic when spoken aloud, especially in front of the person he had been trying so desperately to protect from the truth.

"It was a few days after we all walked through the gate. Things were chaotic back then, the world wanted us dead, we wanted us dead and we were suddenly exposed to these unique abilities we barely understood all while trying to make sense of it all."

Seris shook her head. "Stop making excuses Chad, I was there too, I know how hard things were, but that wasn’t what I asked you."

"Right. I know." He raised his head.

For the first time since they had walked away from the others, Chad looked directly at her.

"I- I killed your older sister..."

The moment the words left his mouth, Seris felt her body go numb. The world around her seemed to lose its meaning as the confession settled into her mind, leaving her unable to immediately process what she had just heard. She slumped downwards and had to use the ice wall next to her to support her body, but even so, she was on her knees before she even realised it.

Her hands trembled against the cold surface, but she barely seemed to notice the freezing ice beneath her palms. Tears finally escaped her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as she stared at the ground.

"We were stuck fighting a horde of Eidolons," Chad continued. "She was brave, beautiful and strong. She fought with everything she had, while I turned around and ran, I ran and I left her to die."

His voice remained steady, but there was something painfully restrained beneath it, as though he had repeated those words to himself countless times before.

"She was screaming, I still hear her screams till today. She needed my help, she trusted that I was strong enough. But I wasn’t."

Chad’s expression tightened.

"I was weak, and I killed her."