The dining room fills with the comfortable chaos of a family meal.
Lyralei is practically bouncing in her chair, fork halfway to her mouth, eyes sparkling with that familiar look of grandiose dreams.
"You know," she says, gesturing dramatically with her piece of bread.
"Once I master my Celestial Light Weaver class, I'm going to be the most famous light mage in the entire kingdom. Maybe even the continent!"
She takes a bite and continues talking through her food, completely forgetting her manners. "I'll have my own guild, and people will travel from all over just to see my amazing light magic.
"They'll write songs about me! 'The Legendary Lyralei, Bringer of Dawn' or something equally awesome."
"Don't talk with your mouth full, sweetheart," Elena says gently, but she's smiling at her daughter's enthusiasm.
"And I'll have this huge tower made of crystal where I can practice my magic," Lyralei continues after swallowing, getting more animated by the second.
"And maybe... maybe I'll even get to work alongside other famous heroes, and we'll save people together, and..."
Her voice trails off, and her cheeks start turning pink.
He can practically see the gears turning in her head as she gets lost in some fantasy that probably involves a certain blonde-haired someone.
"Maybe there'll be this really cool, handsome knight who fights alongside me.
"And we'll be this unstoppable team and people will talk about how perfect we are together..." She's basically daydreaming out loud now, her fork forgotten in her hand.
Marcus chuckles. "Sounds like you've got it all figured out."
"Oh, speaking of handsome knights," Elena says with that innocent tone that immediately makes Lyralei freeze like a deer in headlights.
"how's young Marcie doing these days?"
The effect is instantaneous. Lyralei's face goes from pink to bright red in about half a second, and she nearly chokes on her food.
"W-what?!" she sputters, her voice cracking.
"Why are you bringing him up?! I wasn't talking about him!"
"Oh, weren't you?" Elena asks, still maintaining that perfectly innocent expression.
"I just thought since you mentioned handsome knights..."
"I-I was talking about... about knights in general! Not any specific knight! Definitely not Marcie!" Lyralei is waving her hands frantically, accidentally flinging a piece of food across the table.
"Besides, why would I be thinking about him?! He's just... he's just some guy who lives nearby! It's not like I like him or anything!"
The lady doth protest too much, he thinks, grinning as he watches his sister dig herself deeper into this hole.
"Well," Elena says casually, cutting her food like she's discussing the weather.
"if you want to see him, we could always go over to their house after this. The Aldrin family are lovely neighbors, after all."
Lyralei makes a sound that's somewhere between a squeak and a dying whale. "NO! I mean... no, that's okay!"
"We don't need to bother them! They're probably busy! Very busy people doing... doing busy things!"
"Are you sure?" Elena continues, clearly enjoying watching her daughter squirm.
"It's been a while since we visited. I'm sure they'd love to see you."
"MOM, PLEASE!" Lyralei practically shrieks.
"I can't just... I mean... what if I say something stupid?! What if I trip and fall on my face?! What if he thinks I'm weird?!"
"Why would he think you're weird?" Elena asks innocently.
"BECAUSE I AM WEIRD!" Lyralei wails, burying her face in her hands.
"I practiced conversations with him in my mirror for three hours yesterday!"
The table goes silent.
Marcus coughs, trying to hide a laugh. Elena blinks in surprise. And he just stares at his daughter, who apparently just confessed to being even more funny than he'd imagined.
"You... practiced for three hours?" he asks slowly.
Lyralei's head snaps up, her face now roughly the color of a tomato. "NO! YOU HEARD WRONG!"
Marcus then turns his attention to his son, probably trying to give his daughter a chance to recover from her mortifying confession.
"So, son," Marcus says, cutting into his food, "tell me more about this class of yours. You said it was unique?"
He swallows his bite of food, trying to figure out how to answer without revealing the whole 'slowly turning evil' situation.
"Yeah," he says carefully. "It's called Twin Demon Swords. Pretty powerful, apparently."
"Twin Demon Swords?" Marcus's eyes widen with genuine interest and pride.
"A unique-tier class? That's... that's incredible, Yaramel. Do you have any idea how fortunate you are?"
"I'm starting to get the picture," he replies, though 'fortunate' isn't exactly the word he'd use for a class that comes with a warning label about personality corruption.
"The abilities are pretty intense too," he continues, trying to keep things vague. "Dual-sword combat, enhanced speed, some... special techniques."
He's definitely not mentioning the demonic clones or the fact that his system literally called him a bastard.
Marcus beams with pride, but there's something else in his expression—a flicker of something sad and distant.
"A unique class..." he murmurs, almost to himself.
"Your future is so bright, son. You'll never have to worry about... well, about ending up like me."
The way he says it makes something twist in his chest. There's a weight to those words, a history that the implanted memories start to fill in.
Marcus Jerick. Never awakened anything above common tier. His class was something basic—Merchant.
Something practical but unremarkable. And his father—Yaramel's grandfather—had been... disappointed.
The memory surfaces with uncomfortable clarity.
a younger Marcus standing in this very dining room while an older man—his father—shouted about "weak bloodlines" and "disappointing successors" and how Marcus would "never amount to anything with such a pathetic class."
He can almost hear the echoes of that old man's voice.
"Common tier? COMMON TIER?! My son awakened a common-tier class?! What kind of failure have I raised?!"
Marcus had been crushed. Spent years trying to prove that his class didn't define his worth, but the damage was done.
The old man never let him forget that he was a disappointment.
And now Marcus is looking at his own son with such pride and relief, like he's living vicariously through this awakening, like maybe this makes up for his own perceived failure.
The sadness in his father's eyes is unmistakable, even though he's trying to hide it behind his smile.
He sets down his fork, looking directly at Marcus.
"Dad," he says, his voice more serious than it's been all day.
"I'm going to make you the proudest father in this entire world."
Marcus blinks, surprised by the sudden declaration.
"I mean it," he continues, and he's surprised by how much he actually means it.
"Whatever this class can do, whatever potential it has, I'm going to use it to make sure everyone knows that Marcus Jerick raised an incredible son."
And even as he says it, a darker thought creeps into his mind.
But if this demonic corruption thing is real, if I really do end up turning evil with no way out... I'll make sure to stay away from all of you. I won't let whatever I become hurt the people I care about.
The thought surprises him with its intensity. When did he start caring this much about these people? This family that's technically not even his?
Marcus's eyes get a little watery, and he reaches over to clap him on the shoulder.
"Thank you, son," he says, his voice thick with emotion.
"That... that means more to me than you know."
"Group hug!" Lyralei suddenly shouts, apparently recovered from her Marcie-related meltdown and not wanting to be left out of the emotional moment.
"Absolutely not," he says immediately.
"Come on!" she insists, already getting up from her chair. "Family bonding time!"
"I said no, brat."
But she's already wrapping her arms around both him and Marcus, and Elena joins in from the other side, and suddenly he's trapped in the middle of a Jerick family group hug whether he likes it or not.
"This is stupid," he mutters, but he's not really trying to escape.
"You love it," Lyralei says smugly.
And damn it, maybe he does.
They're all laughing now, even him, and for just a moment he can almost forget about demonic corruption and and slowly turning into whatever monster this system has planned for him.
For just a moment, he can pretend he's just a normal seventeen-year-old kid with an annoying little sister and parents who love him.
Even if it won't last forever.