My Grim Reaper Class: I can kill anything.

Chapter 78: We All Need to Cry Sometimes

Nathan left the Vaelith mansion around three in the morning.

No one stopped him. The night servants barely registered his passage. The outer guards saw him but, apparently, Lord Erenn’s instruction about Nathan being a full guest with all resources included freedom of movement at any hour.

He went out into the forest.

Activated Soul Sense.

The skill expanded. It detected all the forest’s nocturnal creatures within a wide radius. Detected the guards at the outer posts. Detected, farther away, approximately an hour’s walk to the east, a specifically recognizable presence.

*Liaraen.*

*She’s at the ruins.*

Nathan began walking.

Without activating Pale Rider. Without hurrying. He’d cover the distance at a normal walking pace. He didn’t need to arrive fast. He needed to arrive at the right moment.

Aelthoren’s nighttime forest was different from the daytime forest. The birds’ sounds had ceased. Other, more subtle sounds had taken their place. Insects with specific patterns. Small mammals moving among the roots. The residual sound of wind through the high leaves.

Nathan walked for nearly an hour.

Approximately when the sky began to show the first signs of dawn, he reached the colossal tree’s base.

The ruined Sael’thoryn mansion rose above him.

The hanging balconies. The empty windows. The collapsed walkways. And the interior rooms on the upper levels, barely lit by the moon descending in the west.

Nathan stopped approximately ten meters from the tree’s base.

He looked up.

Looked specifically toward the second level.

Soul Sense confirmed she was there.

Nathan thought about it for a moment.

*I could turn around. Go back to the Vaelith mansion. Let her vent alone tonight and find her in the morning when she decides to return on her own.*

*...*

*That’s not what she needs.*

*Kalen told me to stay with her. Not to solve things. But staying includes being present when the sprout needs it.*

*And Sprout is never going to ask for help. Because her aristocratic education won’t allow it.*

*Good.*

*I’m going in.*

He approached the tree’s base.

Looked at the spiral staircase.

And entered.

---

The mansion’s interior was, surprisingly, larger than the exterior facade suggested.

Nathan noticed it as soon as he crossed the lower threshold. The colossal tree had interior chambers carved into the living trunk itself, incorporated into organic growth over centuries. The main entrance opened into a circular vestibule approximately ten meters in diameter, with the ceiling disappearing into darkness above. Spiral staircases carved upward through the trunk’s interior. Side doors led to chambers that had apparently been halls, libraries, and ceremonial spaces.

And everything was in ruins.

Fallen furniture. Collapsed shelves. Remains of tapestries frayed by time hanging from the walls. Vegetation growing in corners where moisture had entered through broken windows. And dust. Dust covering everything with a uniform layer.

Nathan looked at all this for a few seconds.

Then, quietly, to himself, with his usual cynical smile:

"It’s going to take me years to find her."

He began climbing the spiral staircase.

The steps were of the tree’s own wood, carved with elven precision but covered in the same dust as the vestibule. Nathan walked carefully. Soul Sense confirmed Liaraen’s position two levels up, toward the tree’s east side.

Approximately ten minutes later, he reached the second level.

A circular hallway with several doors distributed around it. All of the same dark wood from the tree’s interior. All with carved inscriptions Nathan didn’t understand but that apparently identified the original residents of each room.

Nathan followed Soul Sense.

And reached the last door in the hallway.

He stopped in front of it.

The door had an inscription—the one that had apparently identified this room as Liaraen’s during the years she’d lived here. The wood was slightly chipped at the edge. The knob was worn.

Nathan looked at it for a moment.

Then he pushed the door gently.

It was slightly ajar.

It opened without resistance.

And Nathan entered.

---

The room was small.

Approximately five meters wide by five meters long. A narrow bed against the left wall. A small desk against the right wall. A circular window at the back with a view of the forest, the carved frame collapsed but the opening intact. Remains of a hammock hanging from two hooks in the wooden ceiling. Shelves with books that apparently hadn’t been touched in months.

And everything, absolutely everything, covered in dust.

*This room seems to be the smallest in the mansion—either Sprout was very modest, or her parents really treated her as the youngest.*

On the bed, sitting with her knees drawn up against her chest and her head resting between them, was Liaraen.

She didn’t move when Nathan entered.

She didn’t raise her head.

She just remained there.

Nathan stood in the doorway.

He looked.

Then he spoke.

"Sprout. I was going to knock, but I was afraid the door would turn to dust."

Liaraen didn’t respond.

Nathan advanced two steps into the room.

He looked around. Looked at the shelves. Looked at the hammock. Looked at the window.

"Wow. Someone should clean their room once in a while."

Liaraen didn’t respond to that either.

Nathan stood in the center of the room.

Without moving closer to the bed.

Without saying more.

Just being there.

About thirty seconds passed.

Then, without raising her head, in a voice muffled by her knees:

"Nathan."

"Yes."

"Leave."

Nathan looked at her.

"Sprout."

"Leave. I want to be alone."

"Understood."

"Then leave."

"I can’t do that."

Liaraen raised her head.

Her pale green eyes were red. Her cheeks were stained with traces of old, already-dried tears. Her hair, which had been perfectly arranged at dinner, was partially disheveled. And her expression—the first Nathan had seen from her since the revelation—was a mix of exhaustion and irritation.

"Nathan."

"Yes?"

"Leave. You’ve done your part. You brought me here. I’m here. Now leave."

"Sprout."

"You don’t understand."

"What don’t I understand?"

She looked at him.

And with her voice simply broken:

"Nathan. Were you kidnapped for over a year? Were you locked in a box during that time? Are your parents dead because they were looking for you? Is your sister missing without a trace?"

Nathan looked at her for a full moment.

Then he spoke, with a calm voice he himself hadn’t heard himself use in a long time.

"Sprout."

"Leave."

"I understand you better than it seems."

Liaraen looked up at him.

Nathan didn’t give her time.

"Aren died when I was seven," Nathan said.

Liaraen fell silent.

"And from that day on, for the next twelve years, I carried the silent certainty that the wrong brother had survived."

Liaraen didn’t speak.

Nathan continued.

"My father—an accident with a cart. Quick. He didn’t suffer. But I did. And my mother died after. It wasn’t exactly that the illness killed her. It was that she stopped fighting at some point. And I noticed it even though we never said it to each other."

Silence.

Nathan looked down at the floor for a moment.

Then he looked up.

"And when she died, Sprout, I fell apart."

Liaraen looked at him.

"I didn’t tell you this on the journey—I decided to omit it. After my mother died, for about five months, I got drunk every day until I lost consciousness. Every day. I’d go to the factory in the morning, carry boxes until sunset, go to the bar closest to the warehouse, and drink until I couldn’t process who I was or where I was."

Liaraen’s eyes were now completely fixed on him.

Nathan continued.

"And for five months, every day, I thought it should have been me who died. Aren had potential. Aren wanted to be an adventurer from age five. He had visible magical potential before the minimum Seal awakening age. The adults commented that he was going to be someone notable. And I was the normal son. The one who carried things and had no aspirations and no specific interest in anything beyond surviving. Apparently the wrong brother had survived. My parents had died for the wrong child. All the sacrifice had been useless because I specifically wasn’t worth what it had cost."

Nathan paused.

Ran a hand over his face.

Then he continued.

"And at five months, the factory went under. No more work. No more reason to get out of bed in the morning. No reason to go anywhere."

Liaraen waited.

Nathan looked at her.

"And at that moment, Sprout, I thought something different. I thought that if I was still alive, after everything, apparently there was a reason. And that if my parents and Aren had left me behind, the only way I could honor them was to try, even once, to be someone they could be proud of from wherever they were. And that Aren had wanted to be an adventurer. And that if I could be an adventurer for him, maybe his memory wouldn’t be completely lost. And maybe I could also start having a specific reason to keep waking up."

Silence.

Nathan looked down at the floor again.

Then he looked up.

"And that’s why I came to Greywall. That’s why I accepted the Seal from the man in the alley. That’s why I registered at the guild. That’s why I did everything I did after. Aren never knew I was going to try. My parents will never know. But I’m trying. And I’ve come further in one month than I had in twenty-two years."

Silence.

And on the bed, Liaraen kept looking at him.

With her pale green eyes now completely moist.

With new tears starting to show on her cheeks.

And with a specifically small voice:

"Nathan."

"Yes?"

"I didn’t know."

"I never told you."

"I’m sorry."

"No."

"I’m sorry for asking if you understood."

"Sprout."

"I’m sorry."

Nathan approached her.

Four steps. He sat on the edge of the bed, beside her, but without invading her immediate space.

"Sprout."

"Yes?"

"You don’t have to apologize. You needed to say it. And I needed to say what I said. We both needed this conversation."

"Nathan."

"Yes?"

"I need to cry."

"We all need to, always."

"And I can’t cry alone. Every time I start crying alone, the aristocracy kicks in by reflex and stops it."

"I don’t understand that—but I’m just a commoner."

"Nathan."

"Yes?"

"Can I cry with you?"

Nathan looked at her for a full moment.

Then he extended his right arm.

"Come here, Sprout."

Liaraen moved slowly.

She closed the distance between them.

And for the first time since Nathan had known her, Liaraen Sael’thoryn—second daughter of a major elven house, fourteen-generation bearer of Yeva’s Seal, trained from age four to maintain composure in any circumstance—leaned against the right shoulder of an F-Rank human Hunter.

And cried.

She cried like a sixteen-year-old girl who’d lost her parents and her sister and her home, after surviving a box for over a year, after a month-long journey that nearly killed her twice, after holding her aristocratic composure while two people who loved her more than the aristocracy allowed them to express embraced her on an esplanade that same afternoon.

She cried for a long time.

Nathan held her.

Saying nothing.

Not trying to solve anything.

Not trying to turn the crying into concrete actions.

Just held her.

And in the second-level room of the colossal tree mansion that had been in ruins for six weeks, in the dawn light beginning to filter through the circular window without a frame at the back of the room, two people who had met approximately twenty-five days ago shared the most specifically honest moment either had ever shared with anyone else in their entire lives.

And that was the reason Nathan had come to Aelthoren.

Not to complete an escort.

To be here. Now. In this room. Holding Sprout while she specifically finally broke down.