The thing that lies beyond love and hate

Lucifia finds herself staring distantly at the manor before her as the rest of the group collects themselves. They have no idea what just unfolded before them, except Lu who knows the answers to all their questions.

However, nobody is approaching her about the matter even though she played a hand in the confusion they're in. It's because she's involved that nobody dares to go near her.

Even Hagurd, who has come to trust Lu after removing his suspicions of her, finds himself unable to even look at her as he searches for the magic circle that Adela talked about.

As he continues to search for the teleportation spell in the snow, he comes across a dented helm belonging to one of the fifty knights that Lu slaughtered. Hagurd couldn't stand to look Lu in the eye because the massacre she committed is now painted in a different light for him.

To him, Lu murdered these people not to protect them but because to her people -humans are inferior beings that she can kill without feeling any sympathy for. He's only come to this conclusion because of Lu's involvement with the worst of the worst, the Cerulean Witch.

Hagurd believes that witches should be regarded as people, and just like people, some are inherently evil. To him, one of those inherently evil people is the Cerulean Witch.

'Why am I even hoping for something that may not even be here? What if this is just a setup to kill us all?' Hagurd doesn't know it in himself that the reason he's hoping for the Cerulean Witch's words to be true is that he wants to be proven wrong about her. He's also desperate for an escape that will take Aranea safely away from here.

"And where have you been, squire?" Hagurd asks looking at Basil who's helping him search for the magic circle. "Or I guess in this case since I'm no longer a knight of Aspen I should call you by your name."

Basil sees the leather pauldron on Hagurd and how it's missing the coat of arms of Aspen on it. He looks at his pauldron and he holds onto it, he tears the coat of arms off it as well.

"Captain, I know I might just end up being a burden by asking this but, can I come with you and Aranea?" Basil asks as he continues to search around, not seeing the look of concern on Hagurd's face.

"W, -What're you talking about? You can still get out of this mess. Think about this for a second. You'd be throwing away your entire life here. Didn't you say that you wanted to be a knight?" Hagurd argues for Basil to change his mind, but the boy has already made his mind up.

"I only said that because I admired you, captain. At first, I thought that you were such an amazing person by keeping the peace in the city and leading us.

But, recently I've grown to realize that the reason I'm following you, the reason I admire you, is because of your dedication to Aranea.

I don't know what it is about her, but I'm glad you didn't give up on her. I'm glad that the captain I'm following seems to find the good in everyone. Just like how you said that I was good enough to be a knight."

Basil leaves Hagurd speechless while the lad continues to search through the snow. The weight his words carried made Hagurd smile and almost moved him to tears.

Not wanting to embarrass himself, he quickly wipes his eyes and walks up to Basi, ruffling his already unkempt hair.

"C, -Captain!? Stop that, I'm trying to look for the circle!" Basil whines.

"You deserve this for being cheeky with your words again!" Hagurd laughs. He prays to the goddess that if he's going to have a son, he would want it to be Basil. "By the way, what's with that capital knight doing here? I saw her come with you so I didn't suspect her of anything but, is she with us?"

"I think so. He said that he's on Andrew's side, but I don't entirely know what's going on," Basil replies to Hagurd who's oddly confused about something.

"He?" Hagurd asks.

"I, -I think?"

Caron, the guy in question, looks at Melissa and walks up to her. He taps her shoulder to get her attention and holds up her rifle for her.

"This is yours, right? I'm sorry for what happened." With a cheery smile, he hands her rifle back and she slings it onto her shoulder.

Melissa responds as much as a brick wall to Caron, she didn't even show any gratitude to him. Caron takes it well, but the same couldn't be said for Aranea who's worrying for both Melissa and Lu. She's never found herself in a dilemma like this before wherein she has to choose which friend to comfort in their time of need.

"You're one of the knights that came here right? What're you doing?" Aranea asks simply to break the silence.

"How do I say this? Okay, let's just put it that I'm here for Andrew~" Caron radiantly responds to try and thaw out the cold and dreary atmosphere.

"I, -Is Drew this popular?" Aranea asks. She understands that Drew's good looking, but to have an equally beautiful knight fawning for him as well made her think she's fallen into some kind of trap.

"He is~ you could say he's wanted," Caron playfully says back to Aranea who completely misses the joke and begins assuming that Andrew has a flock of girls chasing after him on a daily basis.

"Anyways~ I'll go help the captain and his squire over there in finding whatever they're looking for in the snow." Caron skips towards Hagurd, doing his best not to trip on any of the snow-buried corpses littered around them.

"M, -Maybe we should help too, don't you think Melly?" Aranea asks while she's looking at three guys searching in the snow.

As Aranea watches them, her two hands hold onto Melissa's hand and she feels Melissa grasping back. Warmth spreads through Aranea's body, thinking that Melissa is fine, but as she turns to face her friend she sees a hateful yet conflicted glare pointing towards Lu.

Lu meanwhile, as Aranea can see, is still blankly staring in the distance while occasionally looking over her shoulder to glance at the dirt path that will lead her back to the plaza.

It's clear to Aranea, and especially to Melissa, that Lu wants to go back and be with Andrew to protect him. However, Lu knows that she owes Melissa an explanation and that she even believes that it's too late to turn back and help Drew.

No matter how much she wants to be there with him, to share whatever pain he's having, she couldn't take the first step because of Drew's words to her.

'I'm trusting you again to have their backs, Lu.'

While clutching her chest as she hears those words over and over in her mind, Lu turns back to face everyone only to see Melissa standing in front of her.

Her hate-filled glower that pricks the archdemon's heart made it clear to Lu what the feeling of betraying someone's trust feels like.

Melissa closes her eyes and hangs her head down. She then throws her fist against Lu's chest. The archdemon prepares to put up her usual antagonistic attitude, but before a word could leave her mouth, Melissa interrupts her.

"If ya want to go to where he is then go! The more ya diddle here thinkin' what ya should be doin' is wastin' precious seconds that could save that dumbass!"

"But I, -I-" Lu tries to hold her hand up that has the trinket, but Melissa even interrupts her in that by snatching the trinket from her hand.

"Forget what that idiot said!" Melissa looks up at Lu and shows the archdemon her heated glare with tears pouring out of them.

"It's unfair dammit! I hate ya, I really friggin hate ya! But I can't, not with that face your makin'! Not with what I'm seein' in ya …

But goddammit I don't understand this feelin'! I'm between being able to forgive ya and not forgivin' ya.

Ya went and betrayed my trust and I don't know how many secrets ya keepin' from us! But I can clearly see that ya really care for us, so why couldn't ya be honest!? Why couldn't ya trust us with this, to share some of ya problems!?"

Lu can feel Melissa's hand clutching onto her blue dress as she rants at her. She can hear her softly repeating the words, 'I hate ya' to her, but for some reason rather than feel hurt by this, Lu instead feels the pricking in her heart subside.

"-I, -I'm really sorry," Lucifia says while pulling Melissa's hand off her dress.

"Y, -Ya and that moron are the same. Doin' stupid shits to save others. Just what drives ya two to be this stupid!?" Melissa shouts back at Lu who smiles at her.

"I guess we are the same, and because of that I know what he's going through and I want to be there with him." Lu wants to thank Melissa for giving her the push she needs but feels that her words would fall short and meaningless.

"I promise. I'll explain everything to all of you and then you can decide whether or not to forgive me," Lu says while also preparing herself to lose the new friends she's grown to care for, but then Melissa's faint smile gives the archdemon some hope for forgiveness.

"Y, -Ya better or else I'm gonna put a bullet in your head!"