Chapter 570: Chapter 569: Fated Omen
The group finally all turned to leave.
Just as Ishii was the one about to leave, Varkesh suddenly called out.
"...Wait."
Everyone stopped to quickly turn around. Not a second went by before Bailey’s head quickly peeked out from the doorway.
Seeing everyone abruptly turn towards him, Varkesh found himself entirely certain why he had spoken.
He didn’t believe that he would see any of them ever again. There was no reason to care about what happened to them after this.
But Ishii left a part of him that wanted to warn them.
If the guild eventually marched against Noah, then he wanted to tell them not to go.
More specifically, he just wanted Ishii not to go.
He wanted to tell him that whatever connection they believed they shared with the demon, they still didn’t understand the monster that now lived within that forest.
And if they thought they understood him, then it was better not to take the risk. They could go after all of this was over.
He didn’t want another person’s death weighing upon his conscience, especially someone like Ishii.
But his gaze slowly pandered towards the door, eventually settling upon Bailey.
Throughout the entire conversation, she had never truly hidden what she was feeling.
If anything, she was the easiest person in the room to read.
Every time he spoke about the demon trying to avoid a fight, the others looked relieved.
She didn’t.
Every time he admitted that the demon gave them an opportunity to leave, the others seemed to relax as though they had just been reassured that the person they once knew still remained somewhere beneath everything he had become.
She only looked more unsettled.
To anyone else, it would’ve looked like nothing more than a frightened young woman desperately searching for the truth.
Perhaps that was exactly what it was.
Yet Varkesh had spent too much of his life around people whose expressions never matched what they truly intended.
His instincts had kept him alive for too many years to dismiss the feeling now.
It wasn’t enough to accuse her of anything. However, it wasn’t enough to distrust her completely either.
But it was enough to remind him that trusting Ishii also meant placing that same trust in every person standing beside him.
He couldn’t bring himself to do that.
Because of that, the warning gradually disappeared before it ever reached his lips.
Several moments passed before Varkesh quietly shook his head.
"...I only wanted to thank you."
"For believing me..."
A faint smile appeared across his face, one that carried more regret than joy.
"And... I hope this world never changes you."
Ishii processed the words quietly to himself. Even he couldn’t make a promise that he would remain the same. He had already changed so much.
There was a time when he believed every life deserved the same respect.
A time when he believed that even his enemies should be treated with dignity.
But that version of him had been left behind long ago.
Too many people with power had proven themselves unworthy of it.
Too many innocent people had suffered because those responsible for protecting them chose convenience over responsibility.
There were even moments now where Ishii found himself wishing certain people would simply disappear from the world altogether.
It wasn’t a belief he was proud of.
But it was one he could no longer deny.
A garden couldn’t flourish if no one was willing to pull the weeds.
Rather than offer a promise he wasn’t certain he could keep, Ishii lowered himself into one final bow before following the others out of the room.
After the door finally closed, Varkesh returned to his seat and reached for the bottle once more.
The liquor tasted better than before. Or perhaps it was simply his mood.
A faint warmth settled within his chest as he replayed the young man’s words.
Ishii had reminded him that people like Gwen weren’t as rare as he once believed.
—
The walk back to the others was quieter than normal. No one was interested in discussing the things they had just learned.
For some, the information was a lot to take in, leaving them with far more to think about than they had anticipated.
Whatever decision they eventually reached regarding Noah, it wasn’t something any of them wanted to decide while emotions were still running high.
For others, it was simply because too much of what they had heard wasn’t meant to be spoken about so openly.
As a result, the group quietly made their way through the crowded streets, each person occupied with their own thoughts.
As they passed random adventurers and civilians alike, they would pick up a conversation about Varkesh and the failed mission.
The lives lost were treated as mere gossip for people safe behind the city’s walls. While only a small portion worried about what effects this would have on the city itself.
However, there was someone who wasn’t thinking about the earlier conversation at all.
Amara walked slightly behind everyone else. Her steps were heavy, almost as if her current thoughts were weighing her down.
Although Bailey hadn’t noticed, Amara had been watching her throughout the latter half of the conversation with Varkesh.
It wasn’t Bailey’s expressions that caught her attention.
It was a thread...
Where everyone else had a thread protruding from their chest. Amara witnessed Bailey’s thread go from crimson-black to eventually disappearing altogether.
That sign had the biggest impact on her since the first incident it ever appeared.
Bailey was fated to die.
It wasn’t a situation that Amara enjoyed being aware of. But at the same time, she wasn’t filled with a sense of panic either.
There had been a time when every thread she discovered left her desperate to change what she had seen.
She cried over people she barely knew, exhausted herself searching for ways to save them, and blamed herself whenever those efforts failed.
Eventually... she came to terms that her gift wasn’t meant for her to save everyone.
The one who gave her this power was Anubis himself. The god who neither killed nor saved, or did he give exceptions to the innocent and the wicked.
His role was to weigh everyone’s hearts equally and judge them equally.
So instead of taking on a responsibility that was never hers to fill, she at least wanted to be the one to give them the opportunity to avoid their fate.
Or to at least make amends for their sins before they met Anubis to be judged.
However, when it came to this particular threadless fate, her thoughts differed.
Because this fate, in particular, was one that was fated to happen regardless of what you did or even what she did for that matter.
Only someone whose authority was equal to or detached from fate could change it.
That acceptance didn’t make it easier. But it at least didn’t weigh on her own heart so heavily as before.
But the lack of a thread itself didn’t bother her as much as the reason why it changed in the first place.
It only appeared during their conversation with Varkesh.
That wasn’t a coincidence. They spent the entire discussion talking about one person.
Whether Bailey eventually died because of Noah, because of something connected to him, or because of a decision she would make after today’s conversation, Amara couldn’t tell.
Her ability couldn’t show her the reason or how it would happen.
Still...
The fact that her thread disappeared made her instinctively believe that Noah stood somewhere along that path.
Amara didn’t know how strong Varkesh truly was beyond his reputation as an A-Rank adventurer.
During the latest mission with them, when they went to assist with the undead, she had witnessed people with black or red threads being saved by him alone.
So, killing Bailey while he was around would mean the source of that death had to be particularly powerful.
She intended to tell the others.
Everyone already knew about her gift, and if Bailey truly died sometime in the future after Amara chose to remain silent, then she had no doubt that her silence would be questioned by the others.
The problem wasn’t whether she should tell them.
The problem was understanding why the thread disappeared in the first place.
Amara couldn’t determine whether Bailey’s death was simply connected to Noah...
Because if Bailey truly intended to move against Noah, then warning everyone wasn’t as simple as saving a friend.
It meant interfering with someone whom Anubis himself had acknowledged as an equal.
Amara wasn’t arrogant enough to believe she understood the intentions of a god.
Which was precisely why she found herself hesitating.
"Are you alright?" The gentler question pulled Amara from her thoughts. She finally noticed that she had fallen even further behind them.
And it was Ishii who slowed his pace until he was walking beside her.
The two were the only ones who fully believed in Noah’s character; he could only assume she was worried about what would happen once the guild eventually decided to move against him.
Before anyone had the opportunity to continue the conversation, two figures suddenly appeared.
One stepped into the middle of the road ahead of them.
The other landed soundlessly several paces behind.
The abrupt movement caused everyone to stop almost instinctively.
They all quickly assumed the worst because they appeared just as they left the meeting with Varkesh.
It was just too coincidental.
