Chapter 59: The Way Home

Seraphina set the empty milk tea cup on the armrest of the bench. The straw at the bottom let out one final, gurgling death rattle. There was absolutely nothing left to extract.

She placed the cup aside with a completely blank expression, as if the person who had just waged war against a vacuum hadn't been her.

Uriel was smart enough not to ask "where's mine" again. Those two cups were probably never his to begin with. He crunched the last bit of the ice cream cone, licked the crumbs off his fingers, and stood up.

Getting the clothes tailored was a no-go for today. Walking into a tailor shop with Seraphina and describing an edgy, black-and-white military uniform would be the equivalent of detonating his own cover.

The next time the Witch appeared in front of Seraphina, all it would take was one look at that outfit and a quick mental cross-reference with today's shopping itinerary. Every piece of the puzzle would snap into place.

Uriel tagged the task as postponed and decided to just play the role of the dutiful shopping companion for the rest of the evening.

The moment that thought fully formed, Seraphina spoke.

She tossed the cup into the nearby trash bin and turned to face him. The streetlights caught her light brown hair, tracing the strands in pale gold. Her voice was calm, delivered with the weight of a fact that didn't require debate.

"If you have something you need to do, just go. Don't worry about me."

Uriel's expression didn't slip.

He shook his head and shoved both hands into his uniform pockets.

"Nothing at all. Let's head back."

Seraphina gave him a look. It wasn't long, but it was long enough for Uriel to feel completely seen by someone who simply couldn't be bothered to call him out.

She turned and started walking toward the other end of the commercial street. Uriel fell in beside her. After a while, he realized the direction was wrong. This wasn't the way back to the inn.

"Aren't we going back?"

"Taking the tram."

Seraphina didn't look back. She crossed the small plaza at the end of the commercial street and stopped in front of a platform Uriel had never noticed before.

Two rows of iron rails stretched out from the platform and disappeared around the bend of the street. A single car was parked on the tracks. It was surprisingly close in width to a train carriage, painted deep blue, with the Royal Capital Municipal crest traced in gold paint along the side.

Neat rows of glass windows lined both sides of the car. Warm yellow light spilled from inside, revealing rows of cushioned seats and attendants in crisp uniforms.

Holy hell. The capital actually has a public transit system.

Wait, no. Should I call it the Royal Streetcar?

Uriel looked up at the ornate station sign. Elegant script listed every stop along the route.

He had always assumed public transport in the capital was limited to horse carriages and his own two legs. He had no idea there was a tram system. It was something too expensive for commoners and too beneath the nobility, which was exactly why it had never appeared anywhere in his daily orbit.

Seraphina was already on board. She stood at the doorway, buying two tickets from an attendant. The attendant was a middle-aged woman in a dark blue uniform. She took Seraphina's bank card, tore off two stubs, and handed them back.

Seraphina took the tickets, walked down the aisle, and chose a window seat for two.

Uriel followed and sat down next to her. The synthetic leather cushion was unexpectedly comfortable. It was easily half a tier softer than the sofa back at the inn.

The car wasn't crowded. Less than half the seats were taken. An old gentleman in the front row was reading a newspaper. In the back corner, a woman holding a grocery basket was dozing off. Across the aisle, a young couple sat together, the girl leaning her head on the boy's shoulder with her eyes closed.

A couple. A shoulder.

Uriel's brain immediately started queuing up the preset dating sim cutscenes. What if Seraphina gets sleepy and her head drops onto my shoulder? How do I handle that romantic event flag? Pushing her away is too cold. Not pushing her away is too intimate. The safest countermeasure is conversation. Non-stop conversation until we reach our stop.

"Seraphina."

She was watching the streetscape slowly scroll past the window. She turned at the sound of his voice.

"Why don't you feel like a noble?"

Seraphina blinked. She turned to face him fully, and a faint trace of interest crept into her tone.

"What do you think a noble should be like? Arrogant and rude?"

She tilted her head. The polite smile was still there, but her delivery carried a slightly teasing lilt at the end.

"Stereotyping is bad, Uriel."

Uriel scratched his cheek, his tone carrying a genuine attempt at damage control.

"That's not what I meant. I think it's because you were raised well."

Seraphina folded her hands on her knees. She tilted her head slightly, and her hair slid from her shoulder to her chest.

"So is the next topic going to be family backgrounds? Getting to know each other's households. That sounds a lot like a matchmaking interview, Uriel."

Her tone was perfectly light and breezy, but the word "matchmaking" still made Uriel instinctively press himself deeper into the backrest.

"No, no. We're only a couple in name, right."

"Right. You still remember we're only in name."

Uriel shut his mouth.

Wait.

Something about the trajectory of this conversation was off. The things she had said on the bench earlier about finding another guy like him not being easy, and how he was different. Now she was pointing out that he still remembered it was in name.

Had he unknowingly walked into some kind of self-incrimination trap? In trying to prove he had no ulterior motives, was he just making himself look more suspicious? His brain ran through several rapid calculations in a few seconds and then flat-out gave up.

Better to just shut up.

Seraphina glanced at him. The look was like a bird landing on a branch for a heartbeat and then flying away. Light and fleeting.

She turned back to the window. The streetscape was slowly retreating. The light from the mana lamps washed in through the glass, flowing across her profile in shifting waves of light and shadow.

"My family isn't particularly special compared to other nobles."

Her voice had shifted. Compared to her millimeter-perfect polite register, or the sharp-tongued mode she used when teasing him, this was flatter. More relaxed. As if she had just remembered she didn't have to keep her guard up.

"My parents aren't involved in any power-struggle conspiracies, and they're not researching forbidden magic in the basement. Their biggest daily concern is probably what to eat and what to wear."

Uriel listened, and something felt wrong. The description was too normal. So normal it didn't sound like something a noble daughter would say.

No, it was fundamentally abnormal. Who introduces their family by specifically emphasizing that they aren't researching forbidden magic? That was the energy of a protest that proved too much.

Was her family actually researching something, and she was deliberately saying this to bait him into investigating? Or was she a victim of some kind, using this offhand tone to hint at something deeper?

Before he could rein in his increasingly unhinged theorizing, Seraphina spoke again.

"But I do have a somewhat extraordinary cousin. She's two years older than me. We grew up together. She should be preparing to ascend to Astral about now."

Uriel nodded.

Then his head snapped toward her, and his voice cracked through the quiet car like a whip.

"Then she's Orichalcum Rank? Two years older than you?!"

The old gentleman in the front row turned a page of his newspaper. The paper rustled loudly. The woman with the grocery basket in the back stirred and mumbled something in her sleep.

Seraphina raised a single finger to her lips. Her expression sat somewhere between resignation and I knew this would happen.

"I know you're surprised, but that was a little loud."

Uriel dialed his volume back down, but his thoughts were still exploding.

Two years older. Peak Orichalcum. Preparing to break into Astral.

What did that even mean? Lumina and her two partners had ground through three years of brutal training, driven out an ancient dragon, traveled everywhere, and survived countless real combat trials just to barely touch the threshold of Orichalcum. That alone had made him break out in a cold sweat.

And Seraphina's cousin had finished school at fifteen, gone straight into adventuring, and was now pushing for Astral in her early twenties.

He remembered the reading he had gotten on Lumina with Observer. She had just crossed into Orichalcum. That cousin was probably several full tiers above her.

Seraphina's expression was different when she said these things. The smile shrank by a fraction. Her brows were slightly furrowed. After she finished speaking, she let out a soft sigh.

It wasn't performed melancholy. It was the look of someone genuinely thinking about something that made her uncomfortable.

Uriel saw that expression, and a puzzle piece clicked into place in his head.

Her combat style. The way she had refined the most basic techniques to their absolute limit, without a single flourish. It wasn't sandbagging. She knew she couldn't match her cousin in raw talent, so she had chosen a different path.

No mana augmentation. No flashy feints. Just ten thousand repetitions of the same fundamental sword stroke, until the precision was carved into her bones. That was a fighting style that belonged entirely to her.

He felt like he understood.

"Your combat style is excellent. There's absolutely no need to compare yourself to her."

His tone was especially serious when he said it. It even carried a trace of warmth he hadn't noticed himself.

Seraphina turned to look at him. Her pale gray eyes were deep in the warm yellow light of the carriage. There was no gratitude in them. No joy. No offended displeasure either.

She just looked at him calmly and spoke.

"Uriel, I think you've misunderstood something."

"Huh?"

"I really like my combat style. I think of it as a gift."

Uriel's head tilted.

That didn't track. If she liked it, why had she frowned and sighed when mentioning her cousin? Wasn't it because she was frustrated she couldn't keep up?

The thought slipped out before he could stop it.

"I thought you hated her. You know, like always being compared to someone else growing up."

Seraphina's eyes shifted. The expression change was rapid. The polite smile was shoved completely out of her eyes, replaced instantly by the dead-eyed stare Uriel had grown very familiar with.

She closed her eyes and sighed again. This sigh was heavier than the last one. It carried the specific exhaustion of this is a long story and I really don't want to tell it but if I don't you're going to keep misunderstanding it forever.

"I do hate her. But not for that reason."

When she opened her eyes, something deeply complicated flickered in that dead-eyed stare. Uriel recognized that emotion. He had worn it himself recently. It was the exact look on his face when Leo clapped him on the shoulder and asked if he was into dudes.

"It's because she, uh, has zero boundaries."

Uriel's pupils dilated for a fraction of a second.

A fellow sufferer.

He could relate. His own mother had been discussing Seraphina's pelvic width just yesterday.

But Seraphina clearly wasn't finished. Her lips moved as she weighed her words.

Her fingers unconsciously curled a strand of hair from her chest, twirling it. Her fingertips tapped lightly against her necklace twice. The tram clattered as it swayed. A streetlamp swept past the window, and the orange light illuminated her profile for an instant. It looked almost pale.

"She's a Yuri."