Chapter 534: A Promise to Return

The forest had been a failure, but it wasn’t like he expected it to work. In his opinion, the lighthouse was more believable than the forest; its story was way too ambiguous, unlike the lighthouse.

But the difference between the two was that the story of one was made by humans, and the other by a monster. Humans were a lot more creative than monsters; at least, in most cases, there are probably monsters that are very creative.

But on average, humans always win.

Either way, after Keres informed everyone, they were sad, of course; after all, they had gone through hell to get here, and they got nothing in return. And just like before, Keres had to come and boost their morale.

...

He found himself smiling at his words for whatever reason; it was different from before, but he didn’t know why. It was just another speech.

Even with another failure, Keres already knew where to head next. Having prepared in advance, from what Sofia told him, the next stop was an observatory; they didn’t know what it had been built for, or if it even worked anymore, but it was an interesting place to visit.

Not only for the observatory itself, but also for the many records and documents left behind by the researchers behind it.

The only thing is that this plan wasn’t fully set; Keres was still deciding if that was the route he wanted to take. He had planned in advance, but there were also other routes he had planned; it all depended on which he wanted to take. After all, he had many other places that they could visit, so he had to decide if that was the one he wished to go to.

Not a lot of people were even aware of this so far.

...He only knew because Sofia told him.

Speaking of his sister, she hasn’t left his side all that much, only when she needed to; most times she was right next to him, asking him questions, and of course, he would ask back. He also wanted to learn about his adopted siblings.

Though... most things she said about their home Kingdom weren’t that good. Their father seemed to have fallen into a deep depression, and to try to make himself happy, she had broken his promise to their mother and taken other women under his wing.

He had a lot of brothers and sisters now, most not blood-related, but there were some newborns who shared his blood.

Sofia was in no way happy about it; she had tried to stop their father, but he wouldn’t.

There was also an active fight for the throne between all of them, as they tried to make their father proud, so he could give them the crown when they grew up. He didn’t doubt that a lot of women had taken advantage of his father’s depression to make their lives better.

He doubted that even a fraction of the women that his father had taken loved him, and definitely not close to how his mother had loved him.

...

It almost made him ashamed of his last name, to see how things have turned out.

He wanted to meet some of them one day to see how that name affected them, how they acted.

As Keres was still planning their route, Aether got time to hang out around the camp, this time, without his hood, and to his surprise, many people recognized him, those from the Academy, that is, even if they were his seniors.

They didn’t know him that well, but they had heard his name and seen his face. And a lot of his popularity came from the challange him and Lilith had broken the record together, after all, it was a big thing.

He would have expected them to be mean to him, since they also knew that he was from the Withered, but to his surprise, the majority had nothing against him, probably because in a place like this, such things just didn’t matter.

There were exceptions, but there would always be exceptions. So he wasn’t that mad about it.

...It did feel nice to finally have people to talk to. But it was a bit exhausting, talking with so many people, so he did retreat after a while to take a breath, but he didn’t escape Sofia’s gaze, who came up to him.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself a lot more." She said, smiling, something she didn’t do so often before.

Aehter chuckled. "I could say the same thing for you. You seem to be a lot more... lively than you were before, and definitely nicer, before you were kinda grumpy."

"Of course I’m happier; a big stone has been lifted off my heart." She said, wrapping her hand around her neck as she rubbed his head jokingly.

...

"But I did want to ask, if we get out of his place... do you plan to return to us?"

...

He opened his mouth to speak, but he didn’t. He wasn’t sure himself; he didn’t feel like this was the best time to answer that question. At this time, he didn’t even know himself what he wanted to do. A big part of him did want to go back, to see his father again, and probably also claim the throne, while stopping this little war his siblings were having.

But at the same time.

...

Whenever he thought of the Withered, he felt the small fire burn inside of him. When he remembered their suffering and what they had to go through. Could he really let them down...

Could he ever look at himself like he used to, knowing that he had abandoned them?

"I..I’m not sure yet. But... If I have to say for now... I don’t think I would go back home. Not now.

I feel like there are many other things I still wish to do, and that I won’t have the chance to if I got back, since I would be caught up with other stuff."

...

"I will come back one day, but I don’t think that day is in the near future."