Gray had a very, very long dream.
Long enough for him to cross the high wall that Ye Yinlin had built with her Authority, and peek at the remnants of memories forcibly erased in his mind.
Knox City, many years ago.
At that time, he and Lobelia were still just eighteen-year-old boys and girls, having just successfully conquered the first Labyrinth.
The two sat covered in mud outside the Valhalla Gate, busy imagining how future bards would sing their names.
He disliked Lobelia’s flamboyance and willfulness, and she detested Gray’s conservatism and forbearance.
But at that time, fate hadn’t yet shown them the cruelty of the future, so they could still tolerate each other’s flaws that should have been unbearable, bickering like a pair of happy enemies.
In the summer of their eighteenth year, the chirping of cicadas was annoyingly noisy.
Gray remembered sitting with Lobelia by the commission board as usual, waiting for a suitable quest to refresh, and then that girl appeared.
She had silver hair flowing like moonlight, and a pair of burning crimson eyes.
It was said the girl came from the Imperial Capital and was a promising Adventurer.
It was said every decision she made could turn passivity into initiative and despair into hope.
So beautiful that even Lobelia, who had prided herself as the number one beauty of Knox since childhood, felt ashamed and silently lowered her proud head.
“Join my party! Even though it’s just me for now…”
The girl stood in the sunlight, reaching out her hands to the two greenhorns, smiling even more dazzlingly than the sun behind her:
“But I promise you, this party will bring supreme glory to everyone!”
Even though she looked younger than them, at that moment Gray felt she was more like a ‘senior’ worth following for life, a ‘captain’ who could embrace everything.
The newly founded ‘Dawn Blade’ was still young.
They didn’t know what impact this party would have on the Kala Continent in the coming years.
Shield Guard, Priest, Assassin, Second Magician…
As the team was completed, the Labyrinths they conquered became more difficult, and their achievements became more astonishing.
However, the treatment they received was far from matching their merits.
The Military Department was wary of this team that refused to obey orders yet possessed great power, guarding against them at every turn.
The Church held a grudge because they had forcibly entered the Holy City and publicly executed the former Saint who was disguised as a Demon Race, causing the Church to lose face.
In those dark days, only that silver-haired back always stood at the front, blocking all the open attacks and hidden arrows for them.
Until that day three years ago.
Everyone in Dawn Blade received the highest-level special compulsory quest, and this team’s consistent creed was to never give up on any life and never refuse any plea for help.
That morning before departure, Gray clearly remembered the silver-haired, crimson-eyed girl turning back, waving at him, a hint of imperceptible fatigue in her smile.
“Hey, Gray, after this mission, let’s go have a drink together, just the two of us? I have something I want to tell you.”
That promise became a lie that could never be fulfilled.
In the end, he never got to hear what the Captain wanted to tell him.
Then, there was an endless expanse of blood red, and a collapsed Labyrinth.
The dream came to an abrupt halt, and a feeling of falling made Gray suddenly wake with a start.
He instinctively tried to sit up, but found his body as if pinned by something heavy, unable to move at all.
Opening his eyes, what came into view was the ceiling of Katy’s living room, and a delicate sleeping face close at hand.
“Hiss… huff”
The golden-haired girl was lying on top of him like an octopus, her arms tightly wrapped around his neck, one leg carelessly straddling his waist, her face buried in his chest, sleeping soundly.
They were so close that Gray could clearly feel the soft curves of the girl’s body and the warm sensation pressing against his lower abdomen, rising and falling with her breath.
Whoa!
As a healthy adult male, Gray’s body instinctively had some reaction in this morning environment.
Gray quickly arched his body backward.
If Miss Katy woke up and found herself being pointed at by a gun, he would never be able to explain!
Just as he was busy adjusting his position, the sad scenes from his dream were rapidly fading like fine sand.
He futilely tried to grasp the details, but could only watch them slip through his fingers.
He couldn’t remember why he had done that, why after being sent out of the Labyrinth due to severe injuries, he immediately went to find that eccentric elf assassin and asked her to use the Authority of [Erasure] to delete most of his memories related to that battle and the Captain.
Finding himself completely ignorant of that past, Gray somewhat regretted what he had done back then.
“Mm, mmm.”
The girl in his arms let out a soft murmur.
Her long eyelashes fluttered a few times, and she slowly opened her eyes.
Her azure eyes were still misty with the haziness of just waking up.
“Good morning, Mr. Gray…”
“G-good morning, Miss Katy!”
Gray hastily struggled out of the girl’s arms, jumped off the sofa, and turned his back to her to straighten his clothes, especially the hem of his shirt and his waistband.
“Um, I’ll go prepare breakfast. What would Miss Katy like to eat?”
“Anything is fine.”
“Roger that!”
Watching the young man scurry away to the kitchen stove in a fluster, Katy, who had half sat up, rubbed her eyes and curled a mischievous smile at the corner of her mouth.
Heh, a small fry is a small fry.
He sure has a lot of energy early in the morning.
Speaking of which, in anime it’s usually the heroine who does something like ‘good morning [something]’ for the hero.
It’s rare to see the reverse…
Why do I inexplicably put myself in the role of the heroine again?
Katy slapped her still-sleepy head, then noticed the lingering loneliness in Gray’s eyes.
“Mr. Gray.”
The girl straightened her messy nightgown, hesitated, then tentatively asked, “Did you have a nightmare? I remember before I fell asleep too, you were shouting something like ‘Captain’…”
“The so-called ‘Captain’, is she the grey replica we saw in the Labyrinth, the one that severely wounded Mammon with one slash?”
Gray’s hand, which was pouring milk, paused slightly.
After a long silence, he nodded, his voice hoarse.
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me about your previous party?”
Seeing that he finally admitted it, Katy simply put on an aggrieved look, twisting her fingers around the hem of her dress, lowering her head at a forty-five-degree angle to show grievance.
“Is it because you don’t trust me? Or is that Captain much more important to Mr. Gray than me and our Black Crow Squad?”
“Of course I trust you, Miss Katy. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have felt safe entrusting my back to you in the Labyrinth.”
Gray sighed, turned around, and looked helplessly at the aggrieved Katy.
“It’s because I don’t remember myself.”
He briefly told his current Captain about how he had once asked a teammate to use an Authority and delete key memories.
“What?! ”
Katy’s eyes widened in surprise.
This time it was genuine surprise.
Delete memories?
Did that former white moonlight hurt Gray this badly?
“Memory is a very important thing to people!”
The girl’s expression turned serious.
She walked up to Gray and said earnestly, “Running away is not only shameful but also useless, Mr. Gray. You should get those memories back. Only by facing the past can you move toward the future!”
“And…”
The girl’s eyes rolled, and she puffed out her chest.
“As the Captain of the Black Crow Squad, I have a responsibility to care for my members’ mental health, so Katy will help too! Let’s go find that elf assassin together!”
‘Hehe, as long as we find the memories, I’ll know who that Captain really is!’
‘That guy Gray has been obsessed with her for so many years, and she’s terrifyingly strong. This Seat wants to see just who that Human Limit is!’
Katy didn’t realize at all that she was fiercely jealous of herself.
Of course, she would never admit to being jealous.
“Stop, stop.”
Gray, with a headache, pressed down on the eager girl.
“I haven’t even said I want to recover my memories. And Alin… her name is Ye Yinlin, she’s elusive. Where would we find her?”
“I don’t care, I want to find! Anyway, elves all live in the Holy Branch Forest. At worst, we’ll search every tree!”
Katy thought he still had feelings for that white moonlight and didn’t want to face it, and a sour taste spilled in her heart.
She hugged Gray’s arm and began to act cute:
“Take me with you, take me with you! Just think of it as the Black Crow Squad going on a trip to the Holy Branch Forest to celebrate conquering the Third Labyrinth. Mr. Gray is the best~”
“Miss Katy, stop shaking. If you keep shaking, my arm will break…”
Just as the two were tussling and the atmosphere was becoming ambiguous, crack
a very faint crisp sound came from the balcony outside the window.
It sounded like a kitten stepping on a dead branch, or the sound of something scraping against glass.
Both of them stopped moving at the same time.
Katy, who had been clinging to Gray’s arm and acting cute, instantly had a sharp look in her eyes.
“Is it Sister Eve?” she asked in a low voice, leaning close to Gray’s ear, but there was no trace of laughter in her tone.
The young man shook his head, and his eyes instantly turned cold.
That pair of iron-gray pupils reflected a sharp, cold light.
“Eve should still be in the Holy City, busy with meetings. Lobelia and Ingram should be with her as well.”
He said softly, his right hand already reaching unconsciously toward the spot on his waist where he usually kept his knife.
What Gray didn’t say was that besides the sound, he also sensed a killing intent, a cold killing intent that was suppressed but still pierced his skin like a needle.
Although he didn’t realize, this killing intent was actually mostly coming from the golden-haired girl beside him, who was holding his arm and looked harmless.
Katy looked at Gray, who had instantly switched to serious mode.
The morning light fell on his resolute side profile, his posture like facing a great enemy yet instinctively protecting the girl in his arms.
‘Tsk, you love showing off so much. Haven’t I already admitted you’re a little handsome? Do you have to keep making that cool expression? You know, the highest evaluation a man can give to another man’s looks is basically just “a little handsome,” or else “that’s basically me.”‘
‘And Noctiluca naturally couldn’t admit she wanted to be someone like Gray, who had beautiful girls by his side since childhood, had strong combat power, and additionally had a mysterious identity that’s a huge asset.’
The next second, the girl’s gaze toward the window also momentarily shifted to the brutality and cruelty belonging to the 13th Calamity Pillar.
‘Which blind little thief dares to steal from This Seat? Courting death!’