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D13.
To make a belated excuse, Dante really didn’t mean to upset Ei.
It was just a result of him thinking that he should stay out of Ei’s eyes as much as possible for she might just question him, and he wasn’t determined to hide in the first place either. He just wandered around where Ei didn’t know her way around.
Ei’s reaction when she saw him disappearing was a little… different from what he thought, but his recent insecurities prevented Dante from considering what she might have been thinking all this time.
He just thought that if he doesn’t get in her sight, she’ll just do something else, and by the time Ei is interested, he’ll sneak back up and stay as usual.
And it’s already been several days since his expectations of her collapsed.
“…”
After escorting the lost Ei back to their room again and again, Dante realized that he had been seriously mistaken.
There were two things he didn’t expect. The first was that Ei had been determined to ask about his concerns, and the second was that she was looking for him more diligently than Dante expected.
Looking at Ei, whose daily routine was to search the Magic Tower in search of him, Dante felt a genuine sense of crisis.
He felt threatened that once captured, he might never escape again.
Dante would rather have his intuition wrong, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
“Just know that if you get caught, you will really die by my hands.”
“…”
Ei’s voice, which had become accustomed to speaking into the air, was starting to show clearer anger.
The Master of the Magic Tower, who once did crazy things to get her wrath, was now living a hidden life in fear of consequences.
The things he had brought, intently to ease her mind at least a little, didn’t seem to have much effect. As Ei really seemed to want nothing but Dante to come out, she rather got angry at him for disappearing after piling things in front of the room.
…Although seeing her searching for none other than him, he felt a bit… a little bit happy.
Dante had no choice but to hide himself more thoroughly, as he vaguely expected that if Ei knew how he felt, she would be genuinely angry.
It wasn’t bad to be able to take care of the things he had been hiding from Ei while he was alone anyway. And the fact that he wouldn’t be questioned, since they hadn’t met in the first place, was one of the advantages, in a way.
But everything else was nothing good. That he had to watch Ei from a distance, and that he had to tremble in fear as he imagined the future that she would catch him someday.
Dante, who loved spending time with Ei more than anyone else, was getting into a difficult situation. If he had hidden it well before she noticed his insecurities, none of this would have happened to him.
If she had heard it, she would have shouted, ‘If you just let it go, it will be over!’, but Dante, who still had no intention of doing so, thought so.
That from now on, in front of Ei, he will work hard to manage his facial expressions.
He might have acted a little more cautiously if he had noticed that Ei and Lisa were forming an alliance and making useless promises.
***
And after a few days, the day Lisa returned to the Magic Tower after another outing.
“Why are you here now?”
Lisa, who was sitting on the desk and shaking her legs, said harshly as soon as she saw Dante enter the room. It was a way of speaking that showed she didn’t care about the fact that he was her master and  she was his familiar.
There was a certain distance from the lovable and charming tone she used to use in front of Ei, but Dante, who had seen Lisa like that, didn’t pay much attention.
“What matters if you know?”
Dante glanced briefly at the place where Lisa was sittingㅡto be exact, what Lisa was sitting onㅡthen asked as he organized the rest of the scraps of paper scattered on the desk.
Following his hand, the scattered papers began to gather one by one. Some papers contained Rook’s report, while others contained Dante’s random handwriting.
The only thing in common in the content of the papers that were all over the place was that they all contained the word ‘degenerates’.
But as soon as Dante gathered the papers together and raised his hand, the contents were all gone.
Dante looked down for a moment at the wads of paper that looked like they were brand new, then turned his head back to Lisa.
Lisa, who would normally have quickly reported only what he ordered and then disappeared, today, didn’t say anything and just stared at what he was doing.
Before he could even frown, feeling strange about the attitude.
“Master.”
“Hm.”
With a face as if she couldn’t tell his intentions, Lisa asked innocently.
“Why do you keep not seeing Sister?”
“…”
Dante paused on the spot for a moment, then moved again as if nothing had happened.
However, his face hardened and he couldn’t immediately think of what to say, so it was only after a series of actions, such as putting away the papers and taking out the communication tool, that he was able to open his mouth again.
“I already told you why.”
“Hmm.”
Upon hearing that answer, Lisa’s purple eyes briefly turned to the right, then returned to Dante’s direction.
If he had been looking straight at Lisa, he would have noticed that the child’s eyes were looking somewhere, but unfortunately he was only looking at the communication tool on the desk.
Although it’s such a pity.
“Can’t you just tell Sister everything?”
“Not yet.”
“So when are you going to tell her?”
“…After it’s all sorted out.”
That answer was too ambiguous for Dante himself to think about, and there was no way Lisa wouldn’t have noticed it.
Lisa, who looked at Dante for a moment as if he were a strange person, immediately snapped at him.
“Then, does Sister keep waiting for Master in the meantime?”
“…”
He really had nothing to say this time. It was only from Dante’s point of view that they didn’t meet until the matter was resolved, because Ei had to wait for him recklessly without knowing the circumstances.
He should have said something instead of running away at that time. However, in front of Ei, his lies didn’t come out well. It was like that before, but even more so now.
It was because after Ei returned to him, he always felt overwhelming emotions when he looked at her, without even having time to think deeply.
Dante didn’t answer, just turned around, and Lisa sighed and jumped down from the desk.
While bringing out random words that don’t fit the context at all.
“Just know that I couldn’t help it.”
“…?”
“I like my Sister more than Master, you know.”
The child’s hand on her waist, pretending to be brazen, seemed cute at first glance, but Dante was more concerned about what Lisa said than her actions.
It was in no time the strangeness he felt in his mind to turn into ominous.
“Why are you suddenly talking about this?”
“I don’t know. Don’t try to know. It’s a promise between Sister and me.”
Then she raised her head to the fullest and put on a smug expression.
“And even if you don’t want to know what the promise is about, you will!”
Promise? He’ll find out even if he doesn’t want to?
Hearing those clueless words, Dante’s head spun quickly.
And when a thought finally crossed his mind.
“Wait, now you!”
Even if he shouted urgently, it was already too late. Lisa started running away from the spot in an instant, and disappeared out of the room before he had time to follow.
Bewilderment and absurdity, before even wandering between them.
As Lisa disappeared, something gripped his back.
It was a force enough to resist, yet he couldn’t. For he knew at once who was holding him.
And the person who caught Dante seemed to be well aware of that fact.
“Actually, I thought it would be better to prepare something like a rope.”
“…”
“But Lisa said that wouldn’t work.”
Someone who doesn’t know the situation might think it’s a scene of lovers hugging each other, but in reality, it wasn’t like that at all.
A person who had a premonition that he wouldn’t be able to escape now, and a person who hugged the opponent’s waist as hard as she could.
It seemed that Ei was smiling lightly behind his back.
“It’s been a while, right?”
“…Mm.”
Dante felt a sense of dread for the first time in his life, in a low, dismal voice.