Chapter 33: After the End
Adeline assumed it would be a while before she would hear back from Benedict. It had been a week but no reply. Perhaps she overestimated his gratefulness towards her.
The week went by fairly uneventful for Adeline. At times like this, she missed the internet. Other than the disappointment of not receiving a reply from Benedict, she was doing well. Dimitri slowly got used to living there, he came out of his shell and spoke more freely with her father and siblings.
The Marquess had been doing some investigation of his own about the prophesied Saintess. If the Goddess gave Adeline the task just once... Maybe it was just a divine intervention and nothing serious. Maybe she wasn’t a Saintess and it was just a one-time thing. He really hoped she wasn’t, if she was, chances are that the Holy Temple might take her away. He was prepared to put his life on the line and fight for her but he thought about the consequences his sons might face, she wasn’t his only child, he was responsible for two others. It was a bit of a stressful period for him.
The Captain led his knights and rounded up all the refugees in the city. At first, they were worried, they thought they were going to be kicked out of the Empire. Even if they were mistreated, staying here was much better than leaving the Empire, if they were exiled, they would simply be fodder for the various monsters that lurked.
With the approval of the Marquess, they slowly helped them integrate into society. This was only a drop in the bucket. There were numerous districts and cities all over the duchy, one could only imagine how many were in the Empire. Still, every effort mattered.
Upon Adeline’s insistence, Dimitri joined the brothers in their training. He wasn’t interested in sword fighting at first but once he saw Aaron’s skill, he became inspired.
He has seen what the knights did for the refugees and decided that he wanted to be someone like that. He wanted to help others, and more importantly, he wanted to stand proudly next to Adeline, the lady he swore his life to.
Adeline didn’t know this was running through his mind, she didn’t take that oath seriously. If she did, she would be stressed as usual. Ever since the Goddess gave her the ominous ’advice’ she couldn’t sit still. She tried replaying the plot numerous times in her mind but there were only bits and pieces that came to mind. Her memory felt like it was altered. She tried her best to remember important details but to no avail.
If she knew that Dimitri wanted to become a knight she would’ve immediately tried her best to dissuade him from it. His destiny wasn’t to become a knight, but to become the Arch Mage of the Magic Tower!
The more the plot deviates, the harder it would be for her to have things under her control. Anything could happen, and her advantage of knowing what would happen in the future would become absolutely useless.