2

John stared at the silhouette of the young man as he disappeared from his view. Thinking about what he said, he swiped the air and a hologram appeared. It was a face of a young-looking woman in her prime. "I think you should prepare…"

["for what?"]

"Allan will come early to the gym tomorrow…and he is unstable."

["Why!!?? What happened to him?"]

"Master is dead. And I have received a package through the Obsidian information guild. Master sent it. It was addressed to both of us."

[I see…I guess it was a big deal after all…what do you think? What will our priority be from now on?]

"I think master knew we were digging about his past and Alan's origins. We'll talk more later tonight. There's some disturbance in the forest about 300 km from the city gates"

["that idiot of a city lord still can't do anything without you huh? Well try and advise him that he should not come to the diner for the time being. Even if we seek to profit from the master's assets, there shall be no third person involved in this thing. If I was still fit, the Erwins would not get pushed around so much. I wonder if we are grateful to old man Johanness for training us in those days…"]

"DIANA! Nothing about the master in an ungrateful tone. If not for him, your Erwin family would be history by now. He saved us when we were at our lowest, chased, and especially when our daughter was in your hands. So whatever restrictions he had imposed on us, we will get an explanation for all of that tonight. I hope we do…"

["Yeah you're right. What about Diana though? I think I should send her to Alan tonight. Even if he is a bit different, he is still a child. I will take care of him from tomorrow, but Diana will at least keep him himself. We don't want another incident like last time."]

"Hey, you are not thinking of making Alan an Erwin right?? I will not let him take my daughter. And I think I have sufficed the ambitions of the Erwin family, right? There shall no more be any young men falling into the traps of Erwin women…"

["You're coming home tonight right…??"]

"---"

["Hey speak up— "]

"Hey John, what happened? You're sweating hard right now", the city lord asked.

"Nothing man, btw you have those tiger supplements on you??"

"you're not that old to use something like that. You are still young. And stop dawdling now, we have to go. I have a feeling this one will be a bit tricky."

Sometime later, a heavily armored convoy left the city gates and headed for the suspected spot.

Erwin's residence, a white manor, is more like a castle situated at the center of the b19 city. It was the biggest and most expensive area of the city, non-commercially. Beside was a dome-shaped translucent shield covering the entire training arena. And in the middle of it, fighting a huge golem was a beautiful young girl in a tank top and shorts. With twin daggers in her hands, she was slashing the golem such that it was almost shredded and only the bare minimum structure was left unharmed.

"Diana" the young girl turned around and there was Rose, aka The Thorned Rose of Erwin, the lady of the Erwin house. She was a Battle Demon, but due to the injury she incurred right after her delivery, she now had a poor level of a Battle Master.

"Yes, mom? Why are you in here? Dad forbid you from overexerting yourself didn't he?"

"You should go and see Alan. Old man Johanness died, he would need someone."

"WHAT!? Then why are you so late? And that bastard not telling me stuff like this when he called me just now!" And with that, she started running away." Oi girl, at least change your outfit, that must smell— ooof sweat...Humph, like Father like daughter not listening to a word I say." Even when saying that, rose was very happy that her or their intentions didn't have any negative intentions on their daughter's relationship with Alan. As in her case, her family was annihilated due to her parents fixing a marriage before their child was even born. She didn't want to do the same thing to her daughter and wanted her to get along with Alan, while also not wanting to become siblings.

While her mother was thinking, rose went to her room and changed into an inconspicuous outfit, and brought out a face mask. In this age, wearing a face mask was not associated with hygiene or hiding scars, it was automatically turned out of practice when Homo Sapiens aka the humans from the Prime Homo System was exposed to the vast universe and came into contact with the other "living beings" as termed by them. It was also before the universe learned of the dreadful Prime Humanity, who were the initial explorers of the Prime Homo System, as they went to the cosmos not for exploring, for conquering. it caught the universe around the Prime Homo System to be caught off guard, as they couldn't imagine to what extent the beings called homo sapiens would go just for satiating their desires. hence, it took only a brief period for their entire species and even their home planet to be annihilated. and it was not because of war, they merged with other species from the universe and it got their bloodline so thin, that they became no more. as for their home planet, it also served as an example for the universe as to how cruel the prime humans could be, as they destroyed their planet with their own hands, well not that they knew that it was already done halfway before they discovered the life outside their planet, but who cares...it still caused dread among the beings of the universe. As it was common for other species to capture a species' home planet and then force them to agree to their demands, or enslave them directly as the home planet was a spiritual place for a species or race. It made the Prime Humans virtually unbounded as they couldn't be tied up now.

Diana then proceeded to put the mask on her face and removed her wrist computer and replaced it with another, it was extremely easy for a large family like theirs to get another identity while being under the radar of the Ashtar federation. well, the old man's organization also helped a lot, but that wasn't known by rose and Alan, as they didn't have a clue about the matter. When she got out of the manor and sped into the alley to Alan's place.

[HIDDEN DEW]

It was the sign, placed on an old and kind of rustic bar in one of the least populated parts of the B19 city. It was a mystery to both rose and Alan, that how a bar, in the middle of nowhere, where there were only a handful of customers visited was able to get by. it was the reason why Alan was so fixated on getting control of the bar's business account from the old man and was also studying business from a young age. {Well, his intelligence was also a part as he was somewhat related to the prime humans, as all in the Ashtar federation were, but his bloodline was thickened. Not that he knew about that of course.}

As rose entered, she first saw the close sign on the ground. she was speechless. "You know it's supposed to hang on the front door? And who the hell uses these board signs anyways? Just get a hologram projector already."

"Yeah yeah as the young lady says...it'll happen just as the lady says. But I wonder where the money will come from? And who the hell will see it? It's already a deserted place anyways."

"Shut it smartass. I was just saying... It's just that it takes me a while to synchronize myself to you. being a young lady who looks down from above on everyone takes a toll on me. It feels nice when I come here...well secretly anyways. I don't understand what the issue will be if we are seen publicly together, you are a topper in the school anyways, so it shouldn't be all that strange for the young lady who performs mediocre in studies to get helped by the topper student right???"

"Well, it's as you say...but I don't think things are like this. I don't think I will ever be able to live as I did now. things are not as simple as they appeared to be for the both of us." after alan finished speaking, he went up and hugged the beautiful lady, not the girl, lady in front of him. because as soon as Diana dropped the sweet and beautiful young lady persona, she becomes a lady, not mature per se, but being alone with Alan for so long so many times, she also became somewhat like him. listening to him speak several stories from her childhood, which were not some children's fairy tale stories, she became aware of her place in society and how she should behave in front of people. even her parents hadn't seen her being in a lady form. They thought her daughter was still the innocent daughter in front of them. it was when she was 13 when she said to Alan that he had tainted her and he had to take responsibility. When she saw Alan being blown off by the statement, she concluded that he knew the context she was talking about and it was at that moment she decided to be with him. {well, her inspiration also came from reading surplus novels}

Being up close with Alan, she saw a blood tear in the corner of one of his eyes, she wiped it off and made some thinking gesture. then she looked him in the eye and said," You can let it go now. I am here now." it was only then that the boy started crying, well he wasn't exactly making any sniffling sounds, but his body was trembling and he started exerting force while hugging Diana. when it went beyond the bearing capacity of Diana, she pulled his face up and kissed him. it was a long but sad kiss and proceeded to pillow Alan on her thighs. That made the boy go to sleep. when he woke up sometime later, he felt his hair wet, on the back of his head he realized he made her cry.

He also started wondering whether he should let her be involved with the things he was about to do, keep her waiting for him until he sorted things out, or just leave her entirely so that she doesn't get involved with the trouble directly.