Masha’s question hung in the air between them. Fragile and desperate.
"Dante... will we ever go ho?"
He didn’t answer right away. Just stared into the bonfire. The flas danced in his dark, unreadable eyes.
The silence stretched. Each second made the crushing weight of her fear heavier.
She had been the student council president. She was supposed to be calm. A pillar of strength.
But in this dark, bloody forest, she was just a scared girl. Clinging to a fading mory of a life that felt a million worlds away.
When he finally spoke, his voice had no warmth. Cold and final as a closing tomb.
"There’s no way ho, Masha. Not for now."
The words hit her with physical force. The air left her lungs. The last sparks of hope turned to ash in her chest.
"Derek’s final piece of information was about the wish," he continued. His tone purely analytical. Like discussing a tactical problem.
"The Goddess grants a blessing to the first survivor. A wish. But Derek specifically said we can’t wish to go ho. That ans it’s forbidden. A rule even she can’t or won’t break. A fundantal limit of this world."
Her face, which had been turned toward him with desperate hope, fell.
She was speechless.
The final door had just been slamd shut and locked.
They were trapped.
Not just in this forest, but in this entire brutal reality. The fight, the killing, the Bone Dragon... it wasn’t a trial to be overco.
It was just the violent entrance exam to a new kind of prison.
He must have seen the despair on her face. Because he added, "But why not make this world our new ho?"
She looked up, startled. "What are you saying?"
"Like I said," he stated. His logic sharp and unyielding as glass. "We can make it our ho. We don’t have to be slaves or soldiers. With the power we’re gathering, with the intelligence we have, we can carve out a piece of it for ourselves."
"We can rule it. We can live happily."
The word ’happily’ sounded alien coming from him. Completely empty of the emotion it was ant to hold.
She stared at him, trying to understand the mind behind those eyes.
He saw this world as problems to solve. Kingdoms as lands to conquer. Happiness as a state of ultimate control.
"That’s not what a ho is," she said. Her voice barely a whisper.
The words felt weak and sentintal. A mory from a world of comfort and safety.
"A ho isn’t sothing you rule. It’s... it’s where your family waits for you. A place where you share monts. Where you laugh. Where you feel safe."
She swallowed hard.
"It’s where your loved ones are. It’s not about power."
He tilted his head. A gesture of genuine curiosity.
"How can I know what that feels like," he said. His voice flat. Without a trace of self-pity. "When I don’t even have anyone of that sort?"
Masha flinched as if he had struck her.
The statent was so simple. So direct. It cut through all her argunts.
She looked into his eyes then. Truly looked.
They weren’t sad.
They weren’t bitter.
They were empty.
The eyes of soone who had looked out at the world his entire life from behind a wall of glass. Observing feelings and connections he could analyze but never truly feel.
The eyes of a person utterly and completely alone.
Her own grief and fear seed to shrink in the face of that profound emptiness.
She moved from her log and sat on the ground beside him. A silent offering of closeness.
"Do you know who they were?" she asked softly. "Your parents?"
"No," he replied. His gaze returning to the fire. "Never seen them. I grew up in an orphanage. The only thing I heard, from so older staff, was that they left on the steps because I was a mistake. An accident they wanted to erase."
He said it with the sa detachnt he would use to describe a goblin’s stats.
No pain in his voice. Just the cold statent of a fact.
And sohow, that was more heartbreaking than any tears could ever be.
He had processed the core tragedy of his existence as simple data. He wasn’t a son. He was a rounding error.
"Dante," Masha said. Her voice thick with an emotion she couldn’t na.
Pity, but also deep, aching respect for the sheer strength it must have taken to survive that kind of emptiness.
"You’re not alone now. You have us. You have , and Eric, and Jin, and the others. We’re... we’re your team. We’ll be there with you."
He didn’t respond. But she felt him listen.
"And speaking of others," she continued. A small, sad smile touched her lips. "There’s Erica."
At the ntion of her na, Masha saw the faintest flicker in his eyes. Confusion? Annoyance? She couldn’t be sure.
"I don’t know what happened to her when you collapsed," she said. Choosing her words carefully. "But it was like watching a switch flip."
"The shy, quiet girl who used to hide behind is gone. In her place is sothing else. Sothing fierce."
She paused.
"Whenever it’s about you, she becos... intense. Scary, even. It’s a terrifying, unhinged devotion. I saw it in her eyes today."
"She would kill for you, Dante. She would kill anyone, even one of us, if she thought they were a threat to you."
She leaned in a little closer. Her voice dropping.
"When you were unconscious, she held you. Never left your side. She looked at you not like a leader, but like you were the only thing in the universe that mattered."
She let the silence sit for a mont before finishing.
"You are special to her, Dante. In a way that I don’t think even she understands yet."
"So whatever you think about your past. Whatever you believe about being a mistake..."
Her voice softened.
"Don’t forget that now, in this world, there will always be soone waiting for you."
"You are not alone anymore."
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