Looking up through the tree canopy, Luke realized it was still daytime. Sunlight slipped between the leaves in golden threads that danced across his face, and the distant call of birds felt like an echo of a dream refusing to fade. Then he felt something warm and soft beneath his head. When he turned, he froze. He was lying on Allison's lap.

For a moment, he didn't move. His heartbeat spiked, thoughts scrambling to make sense of the situation.

How… did this happen?

Allison stirred. Her lashes fluttered before her eyes opened, and a quiet yawn escaped her. She stretched lazily, utterly at ease, as if the world beyond the trees didn't exist. Luke scrambled to sit up, his face hot, nearly tripping over himself in the process.

He coughed lightly, pretending composure he didn't feel. "Looks like the war hasn't started yet," he muttered, trying to sound casual, though his mind was still spinning. He had no idea how his head had ended up in her lap while she slept, but he decided not to ask too directly.

"You're awake," she said, studying him. "You were making some weird faces in your sleep. Looked like you were having a nightmare."

"At first, yeah. But then… it turned into something else. A memory, I think. One of those that hurts, but still pushes you forward. Guess that's what it was, regret mixed with motivation." He hesitated, then added, "Did you… put my head on your lap?"

"I did," she said simply, without the slightest hesitation.

Luke blinked, thrown off by how easily she admitted it. "You shouldn't… do that with just anyone."

"My adoptive mom used to do it when I had bad dreams," she said softly, smiling faintly at the thought. "And you're not just anyone, Luke. You're my friend."

Her words carried a warmth that disarmed him more than any fight ever could.

This was the real Allison, not the commander surrounded by followers, not the strategist in those tense war meetings. This was the one he'd met long ago, the one who smiled without walls, the one who still believed in small comforts.

He considered retreating into the cave but didn't move. The calm in her eyes, so at odds with the coming battle, said enough. Maybe she, too, was fighting her own private war, a quieter one no one else could see.

Luke sat beside her. "You nervous about… the war?"

"Something like that," she said, lying back on the grass and gazing at the treetops.

For a while, only the sound of wind through the leaves filled the air. The silence between them wasn't awkward; it carried the easy kind of trust that didn't need words.

Then she asked, her voice quiet but sincere, "What was it like… growing up with your adoptive family?"

Luke lay down beside her, eyes fixed on the same patch of sky. They both knew what the question really meant. Depending on how the next few hours went, this might be the last real conversation they ever had.

"It was hard," he said finally. "Because in my head, I wasn't a kid who needed adopting. One day my mom was there… and the next she was gone. And she never came back."

He exhaled slowly, the memories heavy but steady. "I grew up confused."

"You were a kid," she murmured.

He gave a quiet laugh through his nose. "Yeah. But honestly? Until about a minute ago, I don't think I've been any less confused since I was five."

After a pause, he added, "Living in the house where my mom used to work… it always felt strange. I never knew what I was supposed to be. Was I a guest? A burden? A son? Did they see me as the kid of an irresponsible maid who disappeared, or as someone they truly wanted to keep?"

Memories stirred within him. "That's what made everything so confusing while I was growing up," he said. "They didn't go to an orphanage to adopt me. I was just left in that house. I wasn't their son by blood, and I wasn't chosen either. I was simply dropped off with a promise that my mom would come back for me."

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He drew a slow breath, as if testing the shape of the words before letting them go. "And I was scared. Scared of loving that family, only to find out I was just a guest to them. I think that's why I grew up the way I did, why I couldn't accept the idea that anyone besides my mother could care about me. Because deep down, I was terrified of being disappointed again."

The sound of the forest filled the silence that followed, leaves shifting, distant birds calling somewhere beyond sight. Allison watched him quietly, her expression soft but unreadable.

It was the truth he'd spent years avoiding, the one that had shaped him more than he'd ever wanted to admit.

"I was afraid of the day they'd tell me they didn't want me there anymore," he continued. "So I pushed away every bit of kindness they tried to give. I didn't know what I was supposed to be. Should I forget my mother? Accept their love? Was I a guest? A son? A burden?"

Luke's voice cracked, but he didn't stop. He let the breath out slowly, the sound thin and exhausted.

"That's how I lived, from five to eighteen," he said. "And now, after a year away from them, I just want to go back. Hug them. Tell them they weren't the only ones who adopted me. I adopted them too, my family."

Allison stood and looked down at him. "So it took you fourteen years to realize they loved you all along? And you still complained about the system calling you dense?"

He cleared his throat. "When you say it like that, it makes me sound… kind of dense."

She flicked his forehead lightly, a smile tugging at her lips. "Don't worry. We'll make it back to Earth. Once we activate the third mechanism, the portal should open. If everything goes right, all eighteen hundred of us will return."

Her expression dimmed, her gaze turning distant. She leaned closer, close enough for him to feel her breath on his ear, and whispered, "But if it doesn't… I won't be mad if you run through that portal and leave us behind."

He sat up abruptly. "I'd never do that," he said firmly.

"I'm just saying, when the timer's close to running out and the war's still raging, you'll have a choice. You could leave us. I know you could. And I wouldn't blame you for it. Honestly… I'd rather you did. At least one of us would make it out alive."

He frowned. "And if it were the other way around? If you had a way to escape, would you run?"

"No," she said, standing again. "I'd stay. I'd die with you. With everyone."

"Then why would you tell me to run?"

"Because I would," she said simply.

It didn't make sense, and the simplicity of her answer only tangled his thoughts further. Why would she even say that to him? He studied her face, trying to read the meaning behind her calm tone, and finally asked the question that had been circling in his mind.

"When we go back to Earth… theoretically, you'll return to the same place you were before the tutorial began. That means… your family's house, right?"

Allison's family situation had always been something he struggled to fully grasp. She'd spent most of her childhood locked away in a castle by relatives who barely tolerated her. Later, she was adopted by a distant aunt, someone who actually cared for her, but that fragile peace was shattered when the God of Assassination took her life. After that, Allison was forced to return to the same cold family, trapped once again behind gilded walls until, on her eighteenth birthday, she accepted integration into the system just to escape.

But when everyone returned through the portal, she'd end up right back where she started, the place she'd run from.

"I have a plan," Allison said.

"And what kind of plan is that?" he asked.

Before she could answer, the sound of footsteps brushed against the grass.

"There you are," came Evangeline's voice.

She appeared, dressed as always in that ninja-like outfit, or maybe it was some kind of old Japanese style; Luke couldn't tell. Behind her came the rest of the group: Jack, Mason, Eleanor, Ronan, and Erza Grimhart, followed by a few maids. Anne and Charlie trailed close behind.

"I don't smell lunch," Erza remarked.

"Me neither," Jack added.

"Lunch?" Luke asked, frowning.

He stood, facing the growing crowd.

"Evangeline said you invited everyone for a feast," Eleanor said.

Luke turned toward the ninja, who cleared her throat awkwardly. "I said you probably invited us. Probably."

"So I came all this way for nothing?" Erza muttered. "I left a meeting for this?"

"Oh please," Evangeline said. "We all know you weren't interested in listening to Oswald and those idiots from the Haven. The second I mentioned Luke might be cooking, you practically jumped out of your seat."

"I did not 'jump,'" Erza protested. "You're exaggerating."

"Lying... is bad," Anne murmured without looking up.

Luke sighed as the group immediately slipped into bickering.

"All right, all right," he said, raising a hand. "I'll make something. After all, we could all be dead tomorrow."

The group quieted at that, and together they started walking toward the cave, a last shared meal before the war.

As they moved, Charlie hurried to catch up to him.

"How was the picnic?" he asked with a faint smile.

Without answering, she opened her system interface and showed him a new notification glowing across the translucent screen.

[Princess Charlie has acquired a Race Skill: Bloodline of Vespertilio]

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