Chapter 932: A memory (2)
"I’m proud of many things. Cryptic is just convenient."
Gerald smirked, settling back against the trunk like he had all the time in the world and none of it belonged to Lucavion.
"I’m just saying," he continued smoothly, "you should try being more like me. Life’s easier that way. More enlightened. Less... constipated."
Lucavion narrowed his eyes. "Is this before or after the part where you sip tea and lie about everything important?"
Gerald lifted his cup. "It’s all one part, kid. A single, fluid style. Mysterious. Elusive. Effortlessly charming."
Lucavion snorted. "Charming?"
Gerald sipped again. "Ladies like that, too."
"Ladies," Lucavion repeated flatly.
"Mm. This master of yours?" Gerald gestured to himself with his free hand, grin widening. "Broken many hearts."
Lucavion blinked, gaze utterly devoid of belief.
"...Sounds like an involuntary virgin to me."
The silence that followed was immediate.
Gerald’s hand paused mid-sip. His smile froze. An almost imperceptible vein twitched at his temple.
Lucavion leaned slightly forward. "Did I strike a nerve, Master?"
The older man set the cup down with unusual care. "No."
"You sure?" Lucavion tilted his head innocently. "Because I think I saw your soul flinch."
Gerald exhaled slowly through his nose. "With a face like that and a dull personality to match, it’s no wonder you’re projecting."
Lucavion stiffened. "...What did you just say, old man?"
"I said—" Gerald’s grin returned full-force, unrepentant and gleaming—"you are a dull piece of crab."
"A what?"
"A crusty little crustacean, scuttling around pretending to have depth. What? Is it wrong?" Gerald opened his arms mockingly, his tone rising in a parody of offended innocence. "Oh no, did the lifeless stoic get offended?"
Lucavion rose to his feet in one smooth motion, jaw tight. "Say that again. I dare you."
Gerald stood too, dusting off his coat like this was just another warm-up. "Crab. Dull. Face like someone dipped a noble’s ego in cold tea and forgot to stir."
Lucavion’s eye twitched. "You want to fight that badly?"
Gerald didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink.
Instead, he sighed—deep and dramatic—as if he’d just been asked to share his rations with a squirrel.
"You want to bully an old man," he said, shaking his head with mock sorrow. "Youngsters these days... no respect for their elders. No shame."
Lucavion scoffed. "The said old man in question just—"
But before he could finish, Gerald leaned forward with a sharp glint in his eyes and a grin that had absolutely no business on someone nearing sixty.
"Go on then," he said, voice lowering to a playful purr. "Try it, crab-boy. Raise your hand. Show me you’re not scared."
Lucavion’s hand twitched instinctively, but he didn’t move.
Didn’t even breathe for a moment.
Not because of pride.
Not because he was being mocked.
But because he knew.
The moment he’d started cultivating seriously—when the starlight first responded to him, when its rhythms and pulses entered his perception and began to whisper truths deeper than his eyes could see—something else had awakened with it.
A realization.
Gerald’s presence had always been strange. Inconsistent. Hidden beneath the rags of sarcasm and tea-stained laziness.
But once Lucavion had felt mana directly... he couldn’t not feel it.
The space around Gerald didn’t just hold still—it bent. Folded. As if reality itself remembered to behave only because Gerald hadn’t told it otherwise. Every leaf that didn’t sway near him. Every breeze that avoided his skin. Every pulse of mana that dared not ripple unless allowed.
Lucavion hadn’t noticed it before.
Hadn’t understood what it meant.
But now?
Now he did.
This was no ordinary man. No retired adventurer, no eccentric mentor playing games.
Gerald was a force.
A being cloaked in too many layers of humor and lies for anyone to truly see. But the moment starlight entered Lucavion’s life, so did clarity.
And with that clarity came respect.
Not fear.
But something colder. Quieter.
The certainty that crossing Gerald wouldn’t end in a lecture.
It would end in the sound of the world reminding Lucavion just how small he still was.
He exhaled slowly, letting the tension roll off his spine.
Not that he’d ever actually do it anyway.
Gerald annoyed him—endlessly, infuriatingly, almost recreationally.
But that didn’t mean Lucavion didn’t respect him.
In fact, it was the opposite.
He respected him too much.
Far too much to ever raise his blade, even in jest.
Even if the old bastard deserved a boot to the ribs once a week.
"...Tch." Lucavion sat back down, smoothing his sleeve with practiced calm. "You’re not worth the paperwork."
Gerald chuckled, utterly victorious, taking another smug sip. "Good choice."
Lucavion let the silence settle for a breath.
Gerald was back to sipping his tea like nothing had happened—as if the verbal spar hadn’t just grazed divine warfare levels of ego bruising. But Lucavion’s mind was no longer on the insults. Not entirely.
"...That girl you mentioned," he said suddenly, gaze lingering on the dirt, on the flow of a breeze that refused to go near Gerald. "Back at Hollowveil Ridge."
Gerald didn’t look up, but his eyes shifted—just slightly. Alert now. A beat passed before he lowered the cup.
"Hm. Right," he murmured. "That one."
Lucavion didn’t press, not yet. He waited.
And Gerald—after a long breath—gave a slow nod.
"There was a kid back then. Young one. Couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen." His voice had dropped into something quieter now, the edge dulled—not in dismissal, but in memory. "She was about your age when I first met her... maybe a little younger. Scrawny. Stubborn. Stupid."
Lucavion raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like you’ve got a type."
Gerald ignored him.
"She was about to die, you know. First time I saw her. Middle of Hollowveil’s ravine line, past the cliff drop where the fog thickens like paste. Whole nest of things down there—slitherfangs, marrow-beetles, things that chew bones before they kill you."
His voice paused, not for drama—but like he remembered the smell of it.
"She had a sword in her hand," Gerald said finally. "No coordination. Grip was all wrong. The hilt barely fit her fingers. And that sword... it was shaking so hard, I thought the damn thing would fly off and kill itself to escape her."
Lucavion said nothing.
Because somehow, he could see it.
That image burned too easily.
"The way she stood, you’d think she was protecting something behind her," Gerald went on. "But there was nothing there. No home. No family. No mission. Just herself. Just... surviving. And she still raised the sword. Even when it was pointless."
Lucavion’s fingers tightened slightly.
Gerald’s gaze turned distant again, lost somewhere far beyond the firepit and tents—somewhere behind a veil of fog that only he could still see.
"She didn’t have talent," he said, slowly. "That much was obvious. But she had training."
Lucavion tilted his head. "Wait, I thought you said she was uncoordinated."
"She was," Gerald replied, voice calm, almost low. "Shaking. Stiff. Terrified. But the way she gripped that sword—wrong as it was—there was something underneath it. Like muscle memory from a memory she never truly owned."
Lucavion frowned. "That doesn’t make any sense."
Gerald smiled faintly. "Kid, sense is overrated. You should know that by now."
Lucavion rolled his eyes. "So what—you’re saying she was trained?"
"Oh, absolutely. But trained poorly, or maybe just too early. Someone had drilled the basics into her. Step here. Brace there. Don’t cross your wrists. The kind of stuff you only forget when you’re trying too hard to survive."
He paused again, tapping his fingers once against the porcelain rim of his cup.
"But when you looked closer," he said, "it wasn’t just wrong. It was... too right. Too textbook. That kind of grip only shows up when someone repeats the same thing over and over until they think it’ll save them."
Lucavion’s gaze dropped slightly. A quiet chill passed through his spine.
"What do you mean, ’too right’?"
Gerald shifted, setting the cup aside. "Kid... you’re familiar with that, aren’t you?"