One Last System

Mia sat at the table, sipping on her tea in silence.

Her face was disturbed.

'Just how did we come to such a situation?' she thought, annoyed with how the things developed.

Rather than sipping on a tea with this disgusting man, she would much rather look into the events at the auction hall.

Yet, here she was, stuck in this fancy restaurant that her team politely cleared out from all the other customers.

There were a total of five people beside Naida in the room, all seated around the fancy place.

"Sigh..." Mia slowly released the air from her lungs before finally moving her annoyed eyes at the man on the other end of the table. "Why don't you start talking already," she suggested, not willing to waste a single second more than necessary on this trouble.

Jenne already filled his role of causing a distraction. Any further energy spent on dealing with him would be a waste of time.

"I have what's called an adaptative soul," Jenne stated in a determined voice. His eyes were calm as he looked into Mia's face. "As much as others consider it a blessing, it was nothing but a curse for me," he added.

Mia raised her right eyebrow, taken aback by the sudden information. She then bit down on her lip, stunned by the potential consequences of this single statement.

"I've heard about it," Sander leaned over Mia's ear and whispered. "They say those who are preconditioned to reach great heights often are burdened with some weird constitutions," he informed in a low voice.

"In my case, I'm doomed to follow whatever path I was actively seeking in two former weeks," Jenne announced, shedding some light on his situation. "In other words, who I am is decided by my experiences of the past fourteen days," he elaborated a little.

Mia squinted her eyes as she took a deep breath. She needed a lot of air for her brain to process what she heard.

The girl turned her head to the side, sending a glance at Sander's face, only to turn it back in disappointment when he shook his head.

This time, Sander had no advice to offer her.

So, in the end, she decided to remain silent.

'Huh?' Mia twitched only to turn her eyes to the side. Outside, on the other side of the street by her window, some commotion appeared.

Mia quickly turned her eyes back to the man in front of her. She had no processing power to spare for paying attention to some meaningless scuffle.

"In other words," Jenne picked up the pace, clearly taking Mia's silence for an answer on its own. "Back at the Skyladder sect..." he muttered, only to turn silent and drop his eyes.

This topic was something that Jenne obviously was uncomfortable with.

He then shook his head and took a moment to gather his wits.

"Back then, I was but a tool in the hands of a certain faction within the Oloan sect," Jenne revealed, looking Mia directly in the eyes as he confessed. "They conditioned me to be a schemer. It's because of this nature of mine that I brought so many troubles on your head," Jenne admitted, lowering his eyes.

He couldn't withstand Mia's cold gaze at all.

'Hmm?' Mia's attention shook when she noticed a certain detail in Jenne's story.

'Could it be?' she thought, her right eyebrow rising on its own. The girl then shook her head, scoffing at the mere possibility of such a coincidence. 'But what if...'

"Faction? What's the name of that faction?" she asked, looking away as if she didn't care about the answer to this question at all.

"It's Sangakarts," Jenne replied without even a second of hesitation.

Mia's face visibly tensed up when she heard the answer.

'It had to be them,' she thought, clenching her teeth while keeping up a fake smile.

'Is this true? Are they spreading throughout the entire kingdom instead of just the Tuxi sect?' Mia attempted to figure out what was going on all on her own. 'Or is he trying to force me into conflict with the Sangakarts here?' she noticed the possibility.

Mia released a heavy sigh before closing her eyes and covering her face with the palms of her hands.

'I didn't really sign up for this kind of stuff,' she thought, despairing over her situation.

'Should I trust him? Or should I treat him as the necessary evil?' Mia asked herself, still feeling pretty repulsed by Jenne's presence.

The commotion outside continued to grow larger and larger.

"I will go check it out," Veila informed, standing up from her chair and finishing her cup of tea in a single gulp.

The drink was so great it would be an insult to the restaurant's owner to waste it.

She then moved towards the doors and closed them behind herself before scurrying off towards the disturbance.

"Still..." Mia shook her head, taking a long time to think her options through.

'Acting hasty will only bring me to my downfall,' she thought, ignoring all the courtesy of keeping the dialogue up.

If she was going to make such a massive decision, she was sure to take her time thinking it through!

"Still," Mia repeated her word after she finally took the grip of herself. "There is one thing that I absolutely must know," she announced, looking at Jenne along the bridge of her nose.

She didn't like this man at all. But his actions gave her the opportunity to cause a disturbance during the welcoming ritual. And now, she could finally learn about the trauma that Arthur had to suffer to react the way he did all the way back then.

"What did you do to Arthur back when everything went to shit?" Mia posed her question domineeringly, showcasing she wasn't going to take lies or stupid excuses for an answer.

Jenne raised his eyes and gulped his saliva down.

"I... I didn't do anything. But I know what happened to him," he stated, falling down on his knees, a look of extreme grief appearing on his face.

Then, Veila returned to the restaurant with a strange look on her face.

"What's wrong?" Mia asked, instantly alerted.

"It's nothing..." Veila dismissed the topic and even waved her hand away.

"Just spill it," Mia rolled her eyes.

Now wasn't the time to waste on pointless hesitation.

"There is a strange guy out there, just standing in place and refusing to buckle," Veila said, raising her hand and pointing right towards the middle of the commotion. Yet, as her eyes followed with the move of her hand, she froze in place.

"Huh?" Veila shrugged, uncomfortable with how surprised she was. "He was there just a second ago!" she exclaimed, her eyebrows riding all the way up to the top of her forehead.

"Huh?" Mia shrugged, forced by a strange feeling to look outside.

And for a moment, she simply stared at the now vacant place where the source of all the problems supposedly stood.

'Just what he was trying to see?' Mia mused, some innate gut feeling leading her questions.

And then, for a split of a second, she somehow pictured the situation from the other point of view.

Only to see herself having a pleasant tea with Jenne.

"If my information is correct, Arthur ended up brutally raped and used. If he didn't fight back, he would likely end up as a soulless slave," Jenne stated.

Everything clicked in Mia's brain.

She jumped out of her chair and rushed to the doors, only to bolt at her fastest outside.