The Conciege
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ROTLE- Chapter 82- Watcher's Intent
🕑 Added 2025-01-20 14:33:07 +0000 UTCValdan stared at Aiden as if he was mad.
“What is going on?” he asked. The confusion that colored his face seemed unsure, as if it doubted itself as the correct emotion.
“You’re good with a knife, right?” Aiden asked, knowing very well that Valdan was. The dagger was not his choice of weapon, but he had seen Valdan with a knife enough times to know that the knight knew how to use it.
Valdan nodded very slowly, like someone suspecting they had just been caught in a scam. “I am.”
“Good.” Aiden gestured at the circle he’d drawn on his neck. “Then cut.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
Valdan’s confusion shifted into a scowl of displeasure. That was good. Any emotion was better than the sulky one he had been carrying in the morning.
Aiden still couldn’t believe the reason Valdan had been sulky was because he’d killed Derendoff. It was ludicrous, considering the fact that Derendoff had almost killed him.
Valdan’s lips pressed into a thin line. He had something to say, questions to ask, but he was limiting himself, holding back. He probably thought Aiden would just lie to him.
Aiden could see it in his eyes. Valdan wanted to ask about Torat. And his fear was right. Aiden would answer the question, and it would be a lie.
“Valdan.” They were running out of time. The stable boys were already on their way with the jepats and Aiden could not avoid to leave here without having the task done.
“I’d do it myself,” he said, hoping to motivate Valdan. “But…”
He held up his hand and showed them how much it trembled. It was a slight tremor, easily ignorable. But when you performed a task such as this, you needed still hands.
Aiden still could not believe he’d landed a blow on Torat. He’d done it, yet it remained impossible to imagine. The thought felt difficult to hold in his mind. He’d sparred with Torat a thousand times, as a recruit, then as a direct student. Even as a fellow instructor.
He had never, in his life, landed a blow on the man.
Almost five years in the Order and over level fifty and you land a blow now? Aiden wasn’t sure if it was the excitement of it or the fear that made his hand shake so much.
Torat had always taken it easy on him whenever they sparred—on anyone fifty levels below him actually—but he still had never landed a blow, so he knew Torat had also been taking it easy on them earlier. Surely, the last thing Torat would want to do was kill the princess and her cohorts.
But something had been terribly off about the fight. Torat had seemed weaker somehow. Distracted, too.
Aiden could understand the distraction, but the sense of Torat being weaker continued to worry him.
“Alright,” Valdan consented in the end, “I’ll do it.”
“Thank you.” Aiden tilted his head backwards, exposing his neck. “Just the skin will suffice.”
Elaswit gave him a worried look and the stable boys stopped just in front of the stable’s wooden gates. They looked very confused.
“Shouldn’t you sit down for this?” Elaswit asked with a shaky voice. “Maybe lie down? I can’t imagine that it won’t be painful.”
“It will be.” Aiden shrugged. “But these things happen. Besides, I’ve got a potion right here, so I should be good in a few hours.”
Valdan shook his head. “These things do not happen, Lord Lacheart.”
“Sure.” The tone of Aiden’s voice came out sarcastic. “Go for it, Valdan.”
Valdan stepped forward and placed the point of the knife to his neck. His hand was steady, the touch delicate. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.
“I certainly don’t want to do this, but I have to.” Aiden swallowed, then held his tongue, flattening it against the roof of his mouth. The last thing he wanted was to have to swallow during the process. “Just stick to the line.”
He really hoped the circle he’d drawn was large enough. He’d added a little extra diameter to the thing just to be sure.
When Valdan pressed the blade to his neck and drew blood, Aiden shut his eyes tight. The pain started out slight. A slow trickle like a prick from a needle. Then Valdan moved it down the line, going left. It stopped becoming a prickle then.
The pain tried to crush Aiden. With no adrenaline flowing through his veins, his body did not dull the pain in the slightest. A small grunt threatened to bubble up from him and he bit back against it. He stiffened his neck, tightening his muscles. Locked as he was, he held firm as Valdan continued.
Aiden kept his eyes closed through the entire ordeal. Waiting for the end seemed to last forever, going for minutes on end. At some point Valdan’s steady hand shook. Aiden felt the knife cut slightly into the circle and his breath caught in his chest.
“If you’re going to stray, stray outside the circle,” Aiden muttered when Valdan paused and nothing happened. “Whatever you do, do not go inside the circle.”
He could feel Valdan’s eyes look up at him. There was a moment of silence accompanied by the short relief of no pain. Then Valdan continued and the pain returned.
A few minutes later Aiden was sitting on the floor with sweat soaked hair. He had his head up, eyes to the sky and blood trickling down his neck. His coat sat carefully on the wooden fence of the stable, his shirt taken off at some point to save it from the trickle of blood.
His chest rose and fell with every breath he took and a weak grin touched his lips. He’d survived it.
With everything he’d been through since returning to the past put into perspective, this was not supposed to be the ordeal that it was. But when you considered the fact that the slightest mistake could’ve left him paralyzed for at least twenty four hours, it put the tension and worry into perspective.
Elaswit walked up to him and offered him a canteen filled with water. Aiden kept his head fixed in place as the health potion he’d taken continued to slowly work its way through his system. The injury was already healing even if very slowly. It was the thing with health potions. It boosted your health stat back to whatever it was supposed to be. The injury was a different case. The healing process sped up, but it did not simply disappear in the blink of an eye.
Some injuries left behind the discomfort of their existence. Although there were potions that pushed the healing process a step further, mending broken bones a little too quickly. If you wanted the complete healing process, mending skin and bones and the entire works, you needed someone with the [Healer] class or some variation of healing skill.
“What was that about?” Elaswit asked after Aiden took the canteen from her.
Aiden raised the canteen to eyesight, knowing his body didn’t really need water. It was just his human reflexes asking for it. It was like waking up in the morning and having the urge to eat breakfast even if you weren’t hungry.
It was habit.
Aiden placed the canteen down on the floor next to him. In the world he now lived in, habit got you in trouble. It didn’t matter what the habit was.
The action caught Elaswit’s attention, but she didn’t address it.
“So, are you going to tell me what that was about?” she asked, folding her arms over her chest.
Aiden touched his neck, just at the bottom where his chest began. The blood there had dried. What he needed now was water to wash it clean and a new set of clothes. It pained him to leave the trench coat behind, but any good tailor could make a new one for him.
“During our little spat with our friend in the morning, I got a notification,” he said simply.
“A notification that what?”
“That I had been marked with something called [Watcher’s intent].” Aiden met her gaze. “Do you know what that is?”
Elaswit shook her head. “Never heard of it.”
“Me neither. Ergo,” he gestured at his neck, “this.”
“What does being marked have to do with cutting off the skin of your neck?” Elaswit asked, appalled.
“Because I got the notification when he grabbed my neck.”
“And you remembered it?” she asked with some suspicion.
Aiden let a small smile touch his lips. “The word ‘marked’ isn’t a very favorable word. So, yes, I remembered it.” He picked himself up from the ground so that he stood a little too close to her. He had almost a head on her in height. “I wouldn’t let you mark me even if you asked nicely. It stands to reason that I wouldn’t let some random stranger do the same.”
“But he wasn’t some random stranger, was he?”
Aiden turned his head to find Valdan walking up to them. In one hand were the reins to three jepats. All three steeds followed quietly behind him. The stable boys had transported all their belongings from their previous jepats to these new ones.
They had given them new saddles, but their belongings remained intact. Aiden’s three swords hung from the side of one of the jepats. The axe that had been a reward from his victory over Belle in the Naranoff estate was secured efficiently to the creature’s thigh. The axe head was covered with the same cloth.
Aiden reached for his coat on the fence but stopped himself. For the sake of caution, he could not take it. A sigh slipped from his lips as he walked up to his jepat.
Valdan watched him with a suspicious gaze. “Not a random stranger,” he repeated.
Aiden paused next to him. “Yes, he was not.” Then he completed his journey to his new jepat.
He unfurled his sack of clothes and picked out a pair of black pants, a white cotton shirt and the only other pair of boots he had. With a frown, he waved in the direction of the stable boys. One of them hurried to meet him, crossing the distance at the speed of a child who hadn’t gotten his interface yet. A boy without magic.
“Yes, my lord,” the boy greeted with a slight bow.
“‘Sir’ will do,” Aiden corrected him, holding up the clothes in his hand. “Where can I get changed?”
The boy froze like a deer in headlights and Aiden raised a brow at that. Seeing his expression some life came to the boy. He raised a finger and scratched his cheek awkwardly.
When he turned his head, Aiden followed his gaze. They both looked at a small shed right next to the stable. It was attached to the wall with the door ajar.
The boy was probably worried that Aiden would feel too important to use such a small shed right next to the jepats.
“Keep the car warm,” Aiden told Valdan, walking off in the direction of the shed.
Leaving Valdan confused by his statement, Aiden headed off, wondering how much he would tell Valdan. Inside the shed, he found it funny that he didn’t care what he was going to tell Elaswit.
You really treat her terribly, he thought as he changed his pants.
He slipped on the shirt next. It was a taxing ordeal trying to ignore the pain in his neck. The new boots came on last.
Finally changed into his new clothes, Aiden dallied a little, simply standing in the shed. His mind was active, thinking and calculating. The Order had sent Torat after him specifically. Why?
Only one thought came to mind.
Vanisi.
She had probably reported him to her handler. Said handler must have sent the report up the proper chain of command. But it hadn’t been that long. With that in mind, Aiden doubted the situation warranted sending Torat.
As for cutting off the skin of his neck and changing his clothes, he’d lied to Elaswit. He had not gotten any notification. What was happening was strictly a matter of precaution. For all he knew, it was just unnecessary pain he had put himself through.
But he couldn’t risk it. Back in his time as an executioner, there was an enchantment of the Order that he’d been taught. How it worked was that you placed it on a specific part of your body. When it came in contact with anything or person of your choice, you activated it and it marked the person.
You, as the wielder of the enchantment, didn’t get a notification and the person marked did not get a notification unless the two of you were above a certain level. That level being level two hundred.
Aiden remembered using the enchantment very often even though not many members of the Order used it. So why did he worry that Torat had used it? The answer was simple. It was because Torat had been the one to teach it to him.
Now he just had to convince Valdan to change his clothes. Aiden paused as the thought came to his mind.
Did he touch Valdan’s skin?
For all he knew, Torat might be capable of having more than one of the enchantments even though carrying more than one was not advisable.
Aiden scratched his head violently. He hated all this.
As if his current dilemma was not enough, another problem came to mind as he stepped out. Dressed in completely new clothes besides his underwear, Aiden felt slightly refreshed.
“Stable boy,” he called as he walked up to Valdan and Elaswit.
The same boy who had shown him to the shed hurried to attend to him. “Yes, sir?”
“What do you know about our destination?” he asked.
The boy shrugged. “Nothing, sir.”
That wasn’t very surprising. “Take this.” He held the clothes and pair of boots he’d changed out of to the boy. “Please call the stable master. And burn this while you’re at it, along with that coat on the fence.”
The boy took the clothes with a slight gleam in his eyes and Aiden grabbed him by the collar before he darted off.
He turned the boy by the head so that their eyes met.
“Burn them.” He emphasized on the words. “Don’t pawn them. Don’t wear them. Don’t sell them. Don’t give them to anybody. Burn them. Got it?”
The boy ran off with the clothes. Aiden watched him take the coat from the fence before running off into the stable.
He sighed when the boy was out of sight. He’s not going to burn them.
Aiden couldn’t say that he blamed the boy. The clothes of a young lord had to sell for a lot of money even if you pawned it for a cheap price.
Closing his eyes, he reached into the storage space of the ring on his finger. An inventory came up in front of him. There were only four things inside and they stared right back at him. Three bank cards and the royal pass.
Those were three things that he could not misplace on this trip.
Elaswit and Valdan walked up to him.
“Why do you need the stable master?” Elaswit asked. “I thought we were in a hurry.”
“I need to know how much the stable master knows of our journey,” he said.
“They know how far we need to travel,” Valdan said.
Aiden kept his eyes on the stable. “Do they know our destination? Do they know if we’re going east or south?”
“They should not,” Valdan replied, voice showing signs of impatience.
Aiden could not blame the man. There were probably a thousand questions playing charades in his head.
“Will we speak of our assailant from this morning?” Valdan practically bit out the words.
Aiden turned so that he faced the knight, but reached for his new jepat and drew a sword free. Thinking better of it when the steel was halfway drawn, he slid it back into its sheath. “When we are away from the stable,” he answered Valdan.
Valdan held his tongue after that.
The stable master returned with the stable boy not long after. He was a large man, portly in the way that said his wife fed him well not a sign of gluttony and excessive eating.
He had a thinning head of hair and a black moustache. He slowed to a stop when he got to them.
“My lord,” he greeted once more with a bow, eyes darting between Elaswit and Aiden. He bowed to Valdan.
Valdan gestured politely to Aiden. “My companion has questions for you.”
The man turned to Aiden. Elaswit still had her shawl about her face, concealing the lower half of it, so she was not recognized as the princess that she was.
“What do you know of our destination?” Aiden asked.
“Nothing… sir.” The man hesitated with what title to call him. “I was simply informed that I was to prepare three of my finest jepats and higher a [Mage] to cast a speed spell on them. I simply assume that you have to get to a destination in a hurry.”
“Spelled as they are, how far do you think they will go before reaching their limits?”
“In my opinion as a stable master?” the man asked.
Aiden nodded.
Folding his arms over his chest, the stable master gave it some thought before answering. “Six towns. Seven if you wish to ride them to death.”
The man winced at the second sentence. He liked his jepats safe. It was clear that he didn’t like what the jepats were about to be used for.
Regardless, Aiden was happy with the information that he had. The cannibal town was four towns away so that was good. Those were gambling odds Aiden was more than happy to work with.
Aiden gave the man a respectful bow. “Thanks for the conversation.”
Elaswit still looked confused, but Valdan’s expression was now neutral. Certain that he would be getting an explanation, his patience was restored.
Aiden claimed the reins to his jepat from Valdan and mounted the creature. He waited patiently as the others took their turns mounting theirs and it wasn’t long before they were gone from the stable.
Less than an hour later, they navigated their way through a busy town, doing their best not to trample on any innocent passersby.
Their current location was the city of Fairbin. It wasn’t a major city or an important one, but it was a busy one. Buildings of bricks and stones lined the streets and their roads of packed dirt so firmly beaten down that it raised no dust when trampled upon was wide enough to hold four lanes.
Aiden and the others moved slowly along it, occupying two of the four lanes. They kept the pace of the carriages and jepats around them, slowing down every now and then for one random citizen or the other to pass by.
“The man,” Valdan said in a gruff voice after a woman carrying her child passed their front.
Elaswit leaned a little to the side. She wasn’t going to press the issue like Valdan, but she was more than curious to know what was happening.
“I don’t know his name,” Aiden started.
“You were a little specific about keeping him alive for someone that doesn’t know his name,” Valdan pointed out.
Their jepats continued to trudge forward. From what Aiden remembered from checking the map not too long ago, the exit out of the city wasn’t very far now.
He kept his eyes on the whisper of breeze from the skill [Pathfinder] as he answered.
“All I know is that he is most likely from some shadow organization. Assassins maybe. Information brokers, possibly.”
Valdan glared at him. “You killed a former knight despite the king’s pleas but stopped me from killing an assassin?”
There was a temper in his voice. It wasn’t necessarily rage, but it was something.
“Assassins maybe,” Aiden said, ignoring the harshness of Valdan’s voice. “Information brokers, possibly. I was not sure. But I didn’t think he deserved to die. And by your gods if you bring up Derendoff one more time, we just might have a problem.”
Valdan was in a hurry to open his mouth and Aiden finally met his glare.
“Derendoff was what he was,” he said, allowing his tone to be harsh. “And among the reasons he met such a fate was his attempt to kill me when I was weaker. You can hold his death as close to your heart as possible. You can judge me for it as much as you’d like. But do that in your mind. Do not disorganize my thoughts with your judgement.”
Elaswit looked completely awkward on her jepat.
Aiden followed the flowing wind as it turned to the road on the right. Before he made the turn, he pulled the sword he’d used to fight Torat, blade and scabbard and let it fall to the side of the road.
People hopped out of the way, fearful of a sword randomly dropped. As filled with classes and skills as Nastild was, not everybody had a combat class. There were people who lived their entire lives never being qualified, determined, or talented enough to reach level ten and gain a class. Amongst those that gained classes, only a small number of the simple masses with their domestic classes ever made it to level fifty.
“What was that about?” Elaswit asked as they made the turn.
“I’m just very worried that if our friend could place a tracker on my neck, he could have placed it on any of the weapons that he touched.” Aiden gave Valdan a pointed look. “Or any clothes that he touched.”
Valdan ignored Aiden’s look. “Then why did we let him live? It would’ve been safer to kill him.”
Aiden laughed a little. “I can understand me killing people. This isn’t my world. But you killing people at the slightest drop of the word ‘safety,’ that certainly does not sound like you, Valdan.”
Valdan did not share in Aiden’s amusement. Not that Aiden had expected him to.
Aiden shook his head, wincing slightly from the slight sting of his neck.
“Shouldn’t you wrap that?” Elaswit said. “I’ve got a piece of cloth you can use. Even better, I have a potion that would do it in one go.”
Aiden waved her suggestion away. “It’s not that deep. It should heal by the time we get to our destination. As for not killing our friend, it was because he did not deserve to die. You clashed with him, Valdan.”
Valdan frowned.
Aiden continued, pushing past Valdan’s frown. “You should know just as well as I do that he was trying to kill us. The attack wasn’t even premeditated. Something about us took him by surprise.”
“Must’ve been quite the surprise, seeing as he knocked me out with his aura,” Elaswit said, frowning uncomfortable.
Clearly, she didn’t like how easily she had been disposed of.
“There was something he was trying to do,” Aiden said. “Something he was looking for.”
“Yes,” Valdan agreed. “You. He was looking for you.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Aiden said. “We already know he was looking for me. I meant what made him attack us.”
Elaswit raised her hand as if to draw attention to herself. “He used [Detect] on me.”
Valdan nodded. “Me, too.”
Two of them looked at Aiden.
“He tried with me but I’m fairly certain he failed.”
“Why are you so sure?” Elaswit asked.
“Use it on me,” Aiden said instead of answering.
Elaswit’s eye twitched slightly and he brough up his blackened arm. Elaswit looked surprised by the action. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?” Valdan asked, looking from one of them to the other.
“My skill,” Elaswit said. “It worked but not the way it was supposed to.”
People had a habit of squinting a little whenever they used visual skills. Most people argued that it was a habit developed from childhood. Anytime a person tried to see more than they were already seeing, they tended to squint.
Valdan squinted and Aiden placed the arm in front of his face. The knight scowled. Using the skill out of nowhere had probably been intended to make a point.
“It doesn’t work that way,” he grumbled.
Aiden smirked. “And yet it does.”
“How did you even know it would work?” Valdan asked, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He was definitely impressed but didn’t want to show it.
As for how he’d known, when he’d found out that even the [Sage] couldn’t get any information from the hand if he flexed it, he had tried a few tricks with Ded. The outcome was that if his blackened arm stood between a person and their target, [Detect] would focus only on the arm.
Curious about how exactly it worked, he had intentions of seeing if the arm somehow attracted activated skills somehow. Especially since in its red state it didn’t allow him weave enchantments.
“So how did you know that he was questionable?” Valdan asked, refusing to leave the topic.
“I had a quick chat with Elaswit’s mother before we left the palace this morning,” Aiden answered. “And she warned me about a group called the Order.”
Elaswit paled suddenly and Valdan’s jaw tightened.
“From what she told me,” Aiden continued, “I just assumed that if someone I’ve never seen or heard of suddenly turns up looking for me, it just might be them.”
“You should’ve let Valdan kill him,” Elaswit said.
“And make an enemy of the Order?” Aiden snorted. “No thanks. You’re a princess and he’s a knight. You have the certified backing of a kingdom, I’m just some kid. The moment I’m useless, I’ll have the backing of no one.”
“The kingdom will always protect you,” Elaswit said.
Aiden nodded. “I’m sure you believe that, Elaswit. But from where I’m sitting, it’s kind of hard to believe it.”
They lulled into an uncomfortable silence after that. Aiden kept his head straight, wondering if he shouldn’t have mentioned the Order at all. It had just happened, an easy enough lie that he hadn’t had to think about.
“So the Order is aware of you,” Valdan muttered.
Aiden looked at him. In the distance the city gates could be seen. “Why do you say that?”
Elaswit gave him a curious look. “You just said it.”
“What I said was that your mother told me about the Order so I jumped to conclusions out of caution. I never said they were the ones after me.”
“Then what other possible explanations would you have?”
Aiden shrugged. “I went to a certain store a few days ago with Ded and got him some nice Vambraces.”
“What store?” Valdan asked, suspicious.
“Not entirely important.” Aiden waved the question aside. “Let’s just say that it’s not very reputable. I was ushered into the backroom while Ded looked around.”
“What were you there for?” Valdan asked, changing the question.
“An enchantment of confusion.”
Elaswit shook her head. “My father will not be happy.”
“And that is why I’m trusting you not to tell him. Or your mother.” Aiden shot her a pointed look. He sighed after a moment. “Anyway, as I was saying, they refused to sell it to me because I’ve become a little famous in your underground world.”
“How?” Valdan and Elaswit barked in unison, completely baffled.
“Apparently, someone important has offered something of a bounty on my head. A certain someone who will no longer be able to pay said bounty, offered to pay for any useful information pertaining to me.”
Valdan scowled. “Derendoff,” he muttered under his breath.
“But that’s not possible.” Elaswit argued. “My father had him locked up.”
“But he still got word to his soldiers at his father’s manor,” Valdan opposed. “I assure you that it is very possible.” He looked at Aiden. “Did he mention Derendoff by name?”
“The Naranoff knight was what he called him.” The road was clearing up now so Aiden increased the speed of his jepat. “I figured there was nothing to be worried about.”
Valdan’s frown softened slightly. Guilt crossed his eyes. “That’s what you meant when you said ‘amongst other things’ wasn’t it?”
Aiden opened his mouth to answer but stopped himself. What exactly did Valdan mean by—
Oh.
Valdan was referring to Aiden’s claimed reason for killing Derendoff. Well, it wasn’t a set up, but it worked well enough for the story.
In response, Aiden frowned and looked away. Sometimes, you had to use your actions instead of your words to lie.
Aiden held up his hand and summoned the king’s royal pass from his storage space. It dropped quietly into his waiting hands.
“Let’s just get this over with,” he muttered as they approached the gate.
He had left Valdan and Elaswit with two lies, leaving them to the confusion of which to accept.
They were more likely to accept that Derendoff was the source of the problem. As real as the Order was, most people saw it as a mythical thing. Real yet mythical. The chances of the Order taking an interest in you was as high as the president taken an interest in some random citizen.
There was a popular saying on Nastild; only paranoid kings and kings doing the wrong thing thought the Order was after them.
…
It was dark. The night was aging gracefully as the moon took its turn to stare down at the world from its crescent form above.
Tarot stood in front of a store, staring at the sign board. Hanging from one end of it was a rolled up piece of skin.
He’s mocking me.
It was almost hilarious to think that a child was mocking him. But he wasn’t angry. If anything, he was intrigued. The boy showed a lot of promise.
More importantly, however, was the fact that he just couldn’t shake the feeling that the boy had recognized him. It annoyed him that he could not place the child’s face in any way.
Had he run into the boy when he’d still been living in the forest amidst his dragon’s hoard? There had been a few villages surrounding the forest that had worshipped the dragon. It wasn’t farfetched to think the boy had stumbled on him at some point.
Torat reached up and snatched the piece of skin from the signpost. He could only imagine how much pain the boy had gone through just to get the skin off.
So he knew I marked him.
Things were only getting more interesting.
Torat reached into his cloak and pulled out a small map. He held it up and the details of it elevated from the map. A red dot bleeped not too far away from him, moving around in a specific area and he ignored it. It was a man wearing the boy’s coat.
Another red dot bleeped exactly where he was standing. The piece of skin in his hands. He ignored it too. Another red dot was stationary somewhere close to the city gates. Checking the dot was important but Torat doubted he would have any luck there.
The final dot, however, put a smile on his face. It moved at a quick pace, heading north.
It seemed the knight had not found the mark he’d placed on him.
Torat rolled up the map and turned away from the store, slipping it back into his cloak. Aiden Lacheart could wait a few more days for him. He had the time, after all.
That’s if the boy was not the Aiden Lacheart he was looking for.
Comments
Keven Leigh
Such good writing. Fucking love this book
Ria Bell
All that dang effort just for his friend to not listen to him. Maybe he plans to seperate
the oldest dream
thanks for the chapterrr
