Sometimes, people feel like they're the center of all things.

They place themselves at the core, watch everything around them, and imagine the world turning for their sake. As if all the things they long for will naturally come to them.

But at other times, they feel just how small and insignificant they are.

They feel their own helplessness.

Karin was exactly like that.

With everything that had happened lately, all she could do was watch, accept, and bear it. She had truly felt how powerless she was.

From Arnold's departure, to facing enemies too strong to fight, to being expelled, to the helplessness she felt after encountering the Ancient Spirit Tree, and now this—

She watched that petite girl clink bottles with Arnold again and again, laughing as they drank and talked about things she couldn't understand.

All she could do was watch.

She wanted to join their conversation.

But how was she supposed to?

There was no place for her in that cheerful scene.

"I should've brought my harp!" Caro shouted drunkenly, alcohol already going to her head. Her eyes were unfocused, her cheeks flushed red. "I'll show you what a truly talented Bard looks like! I'll write a poem in the name of the Ancient Spirit Tree, and compose a song too! Lemme think—the title will be... uh... One Hundred Years of Solitude!"

She shamelessly stole the title of some famous work. Just the title, of course.

Arnold's face was a little red too. He waved a hand.

"What's so hard about that?"

"Aren't there bottles right here?"

At lightning speed, he filled empty bottles with different amounts of water, then picked up two sticks.

"You can just use these to tap them!"

"Oh! Arnold, genius!!"

Caro slapped Arnold on the back, then grabbed the two sticks and started tapping away, swaying a little as she did. It was completely off-key, totally improvised, and supposedly her masterpiece, One Hundred Years of Solitude.

"In—hic... in the ageless years... beneath a sky full of stars... al-alone... a streak of gold... gold shining on the world... borrowing mortal wis... tasting a thousand years of soli..."

She sang the poem in a slurred mumble.

It sounded like her tongue had stopped listening to her.

After a while, she gave up. Her tongue just wouldn't cooperate anymore. She leaned straight onto Arnold.

"The hell is this—what kinda booze is this? Why's it so strong?"

The liquor brought from Fanlin House was much stronger than last time. Caro hadn't even drunk that much, and she already felt limp all over.

"At times like this, you've gotta drink something strong," Arnold said, looking at Caro as she struggled to keep her eyes open and seemed close to passing out. He took the chance to gently pat her head. "That's the only way the things in your heart come out, right?"

"Thanks."

In the end, the girl still closed her eyes. Her uneven breathing showed she wasn't sleeping very comfortably after drinking too much.

Arnold picked her up and walked toward Karin.

When he stopped in front of her, he asked, "Mind if I set her down here for a bit?"

Karin nodded.

Arnold then placed Caro beside a large tree next to Karin, letting her lean against it as she slept.

He took out another bottle of liquor.

"Want one?"

In the pitch-black night, Karin turned off her skill, Night Vision.

She could've seen clearly in the dark to begin with. Besides, there was still a little dim light from the magic lamps in the park.

But if she couldn't see his face clearly...

Maybe that would be better.

Karin nodded. She took the bottle.

Her fingertips lightly touched the cap, and it popped open. She didn't drink like Caro and Arnold, chugging straight from the bottle.

Instead, she took a small sip with quiet elegance. She was still drinking straight from the bottle, but there was a natural grace to it.

Unexpectedly, Karin was the one who spoke first.

Arnold should've been the one with something to say, yet Karin asked first, "About the Ancient Spirit Tree... if Melissa or Helen were called over, they could solve it, right?"

"Fanlin House has already posted a quest through the Adventurers' Guild. Melissa and Helen aren't the only Heroic Rank priests and mages around. It just depends on whether anyone wants to take it. They'll probably see it anyway. Do we really need to call them specifically?"

"If it's just a quest, they might not take it. But if you call them, they'll definitely come."

Hearing that, Arnold looked at Karin with faint amusement.

"Are you sure?"

It was an ordinary question. A perfectly normal one. There wasn't any extra emphasis in his tone.

But to Karin, it was deafening.

She wasn't sure.

That was only her own feeling, her own assumption. In truth, whether it was Melissa or Helen, what kind of feelings they actually held toward Arnold...

She didn't know.

Arnold let out a soft chuckle.

"There are a lot of things I can do. And very few things I can do."

"This crisis doesn't necessarily need me to solve it. Can the Ancient Spirit Tree become human? And if it succeeds, will it let these people go?"

"I'm not sure either."

"But that's beyond what I can do. What I could do is already done. If I do more, that's just sticking my nose where it doesn't belong."

"You used to love sticking your nose into things."

"Yeah."

Arnold didn't deny it.

"But people have to grow. Back when I first became an adventurer, I met a few seniors. They told me that for an adventurer, the most important thing was to always hold onto your original resolve. Otherwise, one day, you'd definitely regret it."

He spoke of a past no one else knew. Maybe only Cassipero knew a little of it.

"I followed that principle. I held onto that original resolve. I treated everything with the greatest passion I had."

"And of course, you know how that turned out, don't you?"

At this moment, what kind of look was in Arnold's eyes?

Karin wanted to see his expression.

But she didn't dare.

She was afraid to see it. Afraid to see Arnold's anger, Arnold's mockery, or perhaps—

"But I forgot one thing. No, saying I forgot isn't quite right. I got one thing wrong."

Arnold took out another bottle of liquor. With a flick of his finger, the top of the bottle vanished.

He gulped it down in big swallows, then let out a satisfied, "Ah! That's good!"

He looked genuinely refreshed.

Only then did he finally say, "I forgot that from the very beginning, I never wanted to be an adventurer. That so-called original resolve of an adventurer? I never had that in the first place."

Karin finally couldn't hold back anymore.

She activated Night Vision and looked at Arnold's face.

It was an expression of release.

A gentle smile.

There was no anger in it. No mockery. No pain.

Maybe only a trace of helplessness, and relief.

"That was something I borrowed from Cassipero. It was her original resolve as an adventurer. I said I'd become an adventurer with her, but back then, I had no idea what an adventurer was supposed to be like. So all I could do was learn from her."

"I should thank all of you."

He said it solemnly, with complete sincerity.

"If I hadn't left behind the identity of an adventurer, and if I hadn't met Caro, I probably never would've remembered the ideal of the person called Arnold."

"Not as the Dragon Slayer."

"But as... right, as the ideal of a False Hero."

He wasn't joking.

He meant it.

"Come to think of it, that nickname really wasn't wrong at all. I really am a False Hero. After all, even my ideals as an adventurer were borrowed. And once I gave those things back, I realized something."

"I'm kind of useless, actually."

He scratched his head awkwardly.

"I finally found a girl I like, and in the end, she doesn't even see me as a man."

As he said that, he crouched down and poked the sleeping Caro's cheek where she leaned against the tree.

The girl let out two slurred, incomprehensible sounds, making Arnold reveal a doting expression.

"Got any advice on that?"

"I've been studying this stuff, sure, but I also want to hear a girl's perspective."

He just kept talking.

Saying things that, in the past, could never have been heard from Arnold.

And to Karin, those words brought the deepest despair.

This person was different.

This person was not like her.

After being expelled, Karin had been lost.

She didn't know where she should go, or what she should do.

She thought of Arnold.

If it were Arnold, then the two of them would be able to understand each other.

Maybe they would argue. Maybe Arnold still resented her. Maybe they would even fight.

But in the end, they would definitely understand each other...

At least, that was what she had thought.

But it wasn't like that.

The existence known as Arnold had not sunk into regret or sorrow.

He had walked out of it.

She remembered what Arnold looked like when he left.

That Arnold was completely different from the Arnold before her now.

They had been abandoned.

No—

In the beginning, they were the ones who abandoned Arnold.

And so, they too were abandoned by Arnold.

This man had chosen to make peace with the past. He had chosen to let go of those ten, nearly twenty years of life as an adventurer.

"Come to think of it, I was planning to come find you all at the very end and get to know you again."

"I mean, how do I put this? Before that, I wanted to make her fall for me first. Then we'd become a couple, get married, and only after that would I come see you all."

"Because, well, you know... getting expelled is kinda embarrassing."

"I wanted to hold my head high a little, too."

He had let go of his past relationships.

He had cast everything aside.

He said, "get to know you again."

He intended to meet them under a different identity.

As for being expelled, the Arnold now described it as "embarrassing."

He wanted to hold his head high.

To Arnold, the members of the Demonhunt Squad now felt like...

Right. Like coworkers.

Like the relationship between clerks at the Adventurers' Guild counter.

Karin knew that some clerks would slander each other and compete over strong adventurers.

He had abandoned the special bond of an adventuring party.

The bond of facing life and death together.

The so-called ties between teammates—

He had thrown all of that away.

To Arnold, they were now only...

Acquaintances who had once taken adventurer quests together.

Nothing more.

The breeze from the lakeside drifted over.

For the first time, Karin felt that the wind was so cold.

Her heart was sinking into the abyss.