When Sophia awoke, she was first shocked. After, when she realized what happened, she thanked Dyon profusely, swearing to pay him back in any way she could.
Dyon only laughed and waved it off. He didn’t save her for the credit. Plus, he got a valued experience out of saving her life. When he became a genius of runic vein theory in the future, she would definitely be among those he thanked in his mind.
As for the three disciples Arthurian injured, Dyon simply gave them pills. The valley was closing soon, so despite their injuries being less severe, he didn’t have to time to heal them personally. It was a good thing none of them knew much about alchemy and pills, or else they would have been shocked by the level the pill reached.
It wasn’t long before the group of six began walking toward the edge of the outer valley. They all knew that there was a large elephant in the room that they weren’t speaking of, but there was nothing they could do about Violet’s deathly silence. It seemed as though she had not even breathed in the last few days.
Giving Dyon a meaningful look, Sophia and the three disciples walked off ahead, slightly disappearing into the fog.
Dyon couldn’t help but cringe when he saw this. Did they really think he was her boyfriend? Dammit.
‘If I try to avoid this, they’ll think I’m insensitive.’ In the end, he could only grit his teeth and walk beside Violet. Although he didn’t particularly care about what others thought of him, he had his own moral line to follow as well. He couldn’t leave a woman who had just gone through something like this alone, despite him not having a good initial impression of her.
After almost another hour of complete silence, Violet suddenly spoke. Her voice was clear and firm, once again, as though nothing had happened.
“How did you manage to escape the Grandmaster?”
Dyon smiled weirdly, but still answered. “Our month-long contract was up a while ago.”
“Oh? I’m surprised she kept her word.” Violet muttered absentmindedly.
Dyon could only silently chuckle. It was true that in those sorts of situations, it would be more likely for the sun to rise in the west than for a woman of Clara’s caliber to let something go so easily. But, Clara was his wife, no matter how abrasive she is, she wouldn’t make things too difficult for him.
After another long silence, Violet couldn’t help but break it again.
“Are you going to make me say it?”
Noticing the odd tone in her voice, Dyon frowned in confusion. “Say what?”
“You asked me what I thought about you when you stopped me from killing those three. Do you really need a woman to ask you for an explanation? Shouldn’t you be active and provide it for yourself?”
“Uh…” Dyon’s words became stuck in his throat. In any other situation, he would draw a clean line between them no matter how her feelings were hurt. But, he almost didn’t have the heart to do so just two days removed from those events. The process of ‘letting someone down easy’ wasn’t so easy at all in this situation. Dyon felt like whoever came up with the saying should suffer punishment for being so misleading.
Seeing Dyon unable to answer, Violet pressed. “I didn’t kill them because of your word. Is it that your word means nothing?”
Her voice cracked, a flurry of bottled emotions overflowing. “I get it. You don’t want a woman who’s been tainted like me. Who would want a wife seen so casually by another? Am I worth nothing now?”
The complex emotions in Dyon’s eyes lit. That wasn’t it at all! He wanted to roar. But, no matter how he tried to frame it in his head, nothing came out right.
With his speed of thought, he must have thought through thousands of possible responses in that moment, yet none seemed to fit.
Dyon knew in his heart that Violet’s plight wasn’t the reason he didn’t want her. If the words she was saying came from Ava’s mouth instead of her own, Dyon wouldn’t hesitate to take Ava in arms.
The difference was clear. Violet was only seen naked, while Ava, although she fell unconscious, was legitimately anally raped. It wasn’t to belittle what Violet had gone through, but it was to prove that Dyon wasn’t judging her based on merely being seen by another man considering he was willing to accept Ava despite far worse being done to her.
He just didn’t have those kinds of feelings for Violet. And although his relationship with Ava wasn’t romantic either, she had a place and pedestal in his heart Violet didn’t.
Maybe the largest difference between the two was that Ava would never try to leverage her situation or entrap Dyon on moral standings like Violet was doing now. This made the irony of it all that this very situation would never occur between him and Ava. In fact, if Dyon knew Ava at all, even if she did grow feelings for him, she would rather die than tell him about it for fear that he would only accept her feelings out of pity.
When Dyon reached this conclusion, his heart steeled.
“Violet, I’m sorry. I can’t accept your feelings.”
Dyon didn’t turn to see Violet’s face fall or her devastated reaction. Or, more accurately, he couldn’t. Because the moment his words sounded out, the valley trembled and their nearly three-month adventure came to an end.