"Tim is preparing a special dish for you," Mafilda spoke calmly without lifting her eyes from the basket.
And indeed, Tim arrived at that moment and placed a plate in front of Kayden. "They've been carefully cut... especially for you."
Kayden laughed without realizing it a soft laugh that seemed to come from his old heart, before it was torn apart. "My teacher, ... who forced you to cut fruit?" Kayden spoke cheerfully with light sarcasm. 'Wait a moment, are these Kayden's feelings? Are some lost memories and emotions returning?' Ren Yuan wondered anxiously.
Tim pointed his finger at Mafilda, who was still following her work with utmost precision.
Kayden was silent for a moment, then muttered in resignation, "Never mind."
Tim sat across from him and began staring at the basket. "I miss training lessons..." He spoke in a soft voice, as if talking to himself.
"I think I... want to train again," Kayden admitted, in a tone that carried a hint of hesitation.
"What did you conclude?" Tim asked, raising his gaze.
Kayden took a breath, then said honestly, "I can control my spiritual power... theoretically. Practically? All I've done is run everywhere."
A muffled laughter came from Mafilda's direction, and he knew he would pay for it later somehow.
"Do the same thing... with the rest of your body," she spoke in a low voice.
Kayden felt an unfamiliar warmth emanating from her words. He looked toward her her green eyes like a silent forest, her short black hair swaying around her shoulders, as if she were made for this place.
"I'll try," he spoke this time with rare determination, as if placing a promise in his heart.
Tim looked at him and nodded. "You're strong. It won't take long."
But Mafilda immediately disagreed. "He needs his time. Everything must take its time. It's not about strength... but about time, the right timing."
Kayden didn't fully understand her intention, so he turned his gaze to Tim, who was staring at him as if trying to interpret the idea himself. But he soon shook his head, resigned.
"Aren't you... a little obsessed with time?" Tim asked her, smiling a small, somewhat confused smile.
Mafilda shook her head without answering. Tim sighed. "Where... where does your allegiance lie now?"
Mafilda replied calmly, "To Lord Arthur, follower of the venerable Lord Edmaniel. But... as you know, there are things engraved in bone that do not fade easily."
Kayden interjected, tilting his head slightly with genuine curiosity, "What do you mean?"
"Time is the only prison from which there is no escape... even if you travel through it," Mafilda recited the words calmly and sat steadily, as if reading from a holy book. "Those are the words of my great lord."
Kayden slowly raised his head. "Ron Feng!?"
"Indeed, Lord Ron Feng. Your pronunciation of his name is very casual," Mafilda said with slight surprise.
Kayden slowly shook his head, then thought carefully. 'Ron… means glory… roughly? And Feng? Does it mean storm? Oh, I wish I had paid a little more attention… Is it the pinnacle?' Kayden felt an inner confusion swirling in his head. The name seemed deliberate.
"The great lord..." Mafilda muttered in a tone imbued with rare fascination, "My words cannot describe him... his presence alone is enough to change you."
But Kayden was drowning in a spiral of more rational thoughts. 'He's the lord of time, time itself... Did he love physics? The sentence sounds familiar. Did some scientist say it before?… But there's no way to verify here. Wait, isn't he afraid of being exposed this way? Or does he not care? Is he strong enough to remain without fear? And are there… are there others like him? Transmigrators?' He raised an eyebrow sarcastically.
'Should I switch my allegiance? Leave Edmaniel's team and join the other side? But… I never followed him from the beginning. Arthur did, not me.'
Before he could dive deeper, his inner voice was cut off by a sudden question in Tim's voice: "Why did you abandon your lord?"
Mafilda answered simply, painfully: "I lost in the war."
Then she immediately asked a similar question: "And you, why did you leave your lord?"
Tim smiled as he recalled the memory. "I didn't leave him. I was just a trainee in the Theodore family's house. But Lord Richard, Lady Isabel's father, saw something in me and asked me to come and train the firstborn... but the surprise was that it was a female."
He laughed lightly and continued, "Lady Adele was strong… so I trained her anyway."
Then he looked at Mafilda and asked with clear curiosity, "But what made you raise Kayden?"
Kayden in turn looked at Mafilda, curiosity renewed in his eyes.
She pointed her finger toward him and said, "When the twins were born, Lady Isabel went into shock. She wandered around the mansion as if she had lost her way, barely sleeping, barely eating… she even lost weight."
Then she continued in a less harsh voice, "The difference between the children was small, so Mary and I decided to divide the responsibility. She took care of Lord Henry, and I took care of Lord Kayden."
She sighed, then added in a warm tone, "But… Kayden used to cry constantly with Mary, and only calmed down when he was in my arms. So I decided to take care of him alone, and since then, I haven't left him until he grew up."
That explains a lot… Kayden thought as he stared at her.
'She's closer to being a mother to him… and that's why Kayden holds that deep respect for her, and that awe at the same time…'
His thoughts were interrupted by Tim's voice as he placed his hand on his chin thoughtfully. "This reminds me… young Lord Kayden loved winning unnaturally. He was never satisfied with second place." Then he looked at him with a perplexed gaze. "And that makes me wonder… what could drive a boy like him to reach despair?"
But Kayden didn't answer. He simply returned to eating the fruit in silence, as if everything said was just noise in his mind, full of questions that had yet to find answers.
"All of this… because I was a sacrifice," Kayden spoke in a low voice. "I was chosen to be material for a demonic ritual… a ritual prepared by a lady I thought was trustworthy. Everything happened because I believed a girl… a girl who planted within me a desire for suicide, like a poisonous plant that grew slowly." He paused for a second before continuing. "I was suffering in silence, suffering from something I didn't even understand. Then… she appears before me again, with all her insolence, as if nothing happened. She warns me, repeats her words as if she's the victim. Did I kill her mother? No. All I did was share my research, and she was the one who stole some of it. Nothing between us was ever fair."
Kayden fell silent, then breathed slowly and continued, "But I… accept the outcome."
That moment of calm was rare. If Ayerton were here, he might have risen from his seat, slammed his head against the wall, and shouted at him, "You fool, why are you admitting it so easily?!" But Kayden… needed to speak. He needed to clear his name, and even the name of the original Kayden himself.
'Perhaps Kayden was weak, indifferent, even a charlatan… but I'm more cunning than him, and more eager for conflict. I won't let her approach me again. This body is mine, and even if it's just a soulless vessel, I cherish it… more than anything else.'
He turned his eyes around the small room, then thought bitterly, 'Life without a phone… makes me think too much.'
Tim placed his hand on Kayden's head, then sat back down in front of him, saying with a small but steady smile:
"You… when you used to fall during training, your foot bleeding, you would get up faster than Roger himself. You are capable of so much, Kayden, even of crushing destructive desires like this. You… believe in yourself, even if you don't say it out loud. That's why… you broke that desire."
The words lingered in the air for a moment, before Mafilda joined in with a voice full of strength: "Kayden… you must walk with your head held high. There is no shame in anything that has passed, something that has gone and ended. We are in the present now, and in the future… you must be proud of what you will become, not what you were."
Kayden noticed then that she had used loaded words: ended, present, future…
He felt that her words were not just preaching, but a sign.
Tim muttered, looking at her with a smile, "You really have a smooth tongue."
Kayden laughed lightly… perhaps for the first time in a long time, a laugh that was not for sarcasm, nor for escape. But a laugh… for life.
"Tim, don't try… I won't marry you," Mafilda spoke coldly, waving her hand indifferently.
"But I don't want to marry you!" Tim answered quickly, as if denying a crime he hadn't committed.
Mafilda raised an eyebrow and stopped him. "Lying damn one, then why are you objecting?"
Kayden sat there, not fully understanding how the conversation had suddenly veered off onto this strange path. He was about to get up, but for some reason, he opened his mouth and added in a semi-serious voice, "Mafilda… you can marry someone better, just tell me." Then he looked at Tim and continued in a sarcastic tone, "But I'll object a lot… because no one here deserves you."
Tim burst out laughing and said, pointing to himself, "You now have girl-phobia because of that girl, and she hates men anyway! There's no place for me here… I should live in a church!"
"Amen!" Kayden replied immediately in a sarcastic tone.
Tim put his hand on his heart and pretended to despair, "I can't trust any girl anymore!"
Mafilda suddenly stood up, as if ignoring all the chaos, and said in a practical tone, "We're going to donate. Would you like to join?"
Kayden's features froze for a moment, and his mind seemed to stop working. "..." He had forgotten something.
He had wanted to go, really.
"I'll get my coat… wait for me a moment!"
He spoke with sudden enthusiasm and ran quickly upstairs.
He chose his coat carefully. It was long, reaching below his knees. Ren Yuan loved to show off excessively and hadn't gotten rid of that habit even in this world.
Saturday, Aren City – south of the capital.
The sky outside the house was overcast with heavy clouds, threatening imminent rain.
Although Sunday usually witnessed crowding, the number of worshippers this day was decent…
But the city, unusually, was immersed in a gentle silence.
Kayden sat inside the carriage watching the streets from behind the glass, his eyes half-closed, his mood rarely calm. 'This is like the first day I went out with my mother.'
The memory crept in lightly, and perhaps without permission, and surrounded his heart with unexpected warmth. The simplest scenes back then fascinated him: the signs, the cobblestones, even the smells of the bakeries.
As soon as the carriage stopped, Kayden got off lightly, heading directly toward the church. He moved confidently, as if this place belonged to him.
He entered, greeted Father Chase, then sat in a side pew and closed his eyes to pray.
He prayed for luck… for a life worth living… for a hope that never dies.
After a few minutes of contemplation, he rose from his seat quietly. He wanted to move to a quieter place… where there are no words and no eyes.
He looked around him, and in one isolated corner, he spotted someone he knew well. It was Adam.
Sitting there in the far corner, away from everyone, and… playing.
He wasn't praying. He was absorbed in a small game, fiddling with it as if the world didn't exist.
Kayden wasn't surprised. On the contrary… he stared at him for long seconds, then an idea occurred to him. I could ignore him… but annoying him would be more fun.
As for Adam, he didn't even notice Kayden at first, completely absorbed in his game.
Before Kayden could approach, Father Chase stopped him. "Kayden, don't go near him… he's being punished."
In an instant, Adam hid the cube in his hand and casually looked away as if he hadn't been playing at all.
"Punished?" Kayden asked.
"He never comes to prayer," Father Chase sighed. "And somehow manages to commit every possible sin without realizing he's wrong. I barely caught him! Ayrton escaped, and Adam was even harder to catch!"
"What exactly did he do?" Kayden asked as he pulled a chair beside Adam. Then he turned to the priest with confidence.
"Father, don't worry. I'll guide this sinner onto the right path."
Father Chase stared at him for a moment. "That's exactly what worries me."
Kayden froze. "Don't worry."
The priest rubbed his forehead.
"It feels like I'm putting two devils in the same room."
"When have I ever done anything wrong?" Kayden asked seriously.
"Please… reflect on your life."
"…"
With a helpless sigh, Father Chase finally gave up.
"Kayden, you're older than him. Guide him well, please."
Then he left, as if whatever awaited him outside was less troublesome than what he had just left behind.