90: Subtle Distraction

Subtle Distraction

By the afternoon of the next day, nonchalantly walking through the streets of the capital, a group of three turned off into an alley way as they kicked a ball around by passing it to one another every couple of seconds.1

It was Lilia, Sara, and Dante.

"Too slow! Ha!" The only non-human in the group exclaimed, juking the blonde as she nearly tripped over her own two feet in the process.

"H-Hey, you're way too good at this!" Sara uttered in a disapproving tone, quickly regaining her balance as Dante gracefully slipped by, kicking the ball towards a slightly impaired redhead.

Lilia caught it between both feet somewhat clumsily before knocking the ball backwards with the butt of her heel as she turned around in order to follow it's path.

Noticing that Sara was beginning to catch up, Dante ran forward while leaping over a heap of barrels sitting in his way, which allowed him to cut in front of the blonde as he was naturally faster than the both of them combined. Running next to the redhead now, it set up for an easy pass that gave him the opportunity to make it all the way to the end of the alleyway with the ball, which caused the trio to end up on an entirely different street.

"Woohoo! Our team wins!" Lilia celebrated in delight, a smile on her face as she raised the only arm that was currently available.

In contrast, Sara's head hung low as she proceeded to overexaggerate her loss. "Oh, come on! It's me against the two of you! How is that fair at all?"

Making a good point, Dante nodded in agreement after kicking the ball up into his arms before tossing it at the girl. It made the grumbling child quickly stop her false act as she raised both hands in order to catch it. "Yeah, that's true. It was definitely an unfair match. However, the real purpose behind it was successfully achieved." He gave a lighthearted chuckle, nudging his head towards Lilia while quietly mumbling the last part of the sentence.

Following his line of sight, the blonde immediately noticed the smile on the redhead's face as she glanced around the environment in an attempt to find a shop that all of them could go check out. Turning back towards the black haired boy, he winked at her, which caused Sara to slightly blush as the realization eventually dawned on her.

It was to cheer their friend up. The girl's spirit had essentially been fractured by her father's cruel abuse, which had already been occurring years before they even met. It was sad to think about as well considering she had just began to find her own self-confidence albeit with the help of Dante, but it was unfortunately disrupted, especially since Lilia wouldn't be able to train her swordsmanship or anything like that with a broken wrist. Even then, once it did finally heal up, Flute would most likely reject the idea of going straight back into training.

Dante certainly wasn't going to oppose the woman, especially when the circumstances surrounding the situation were already so serious.

His reasoning behind inviting the two girls out on a day of roaming the bustling capital was to lighten up the whole authoritarian-like mood that usually festered around Lilia's home, which was obviously due to Augusta's relatively narcissistic behavior constantly affecting their day-to-day lives whenever he was around. Most of the time, it was when they were trying to improve their swordsmanship, which resulted in a lot of bad experiences in the process. The grizzled man was somewhat of a perfectionist and had a very critical judgement when it came to their training, so it wasn't like any of them received much positive reinforcement to keep going either.

If anything, it just motivated them to get better so that they could fuck him up instead, which honestly might have sort of been the point as well. Dante held a small amount of pride that he was able to get that at least, but still experienced quite a bit of confusion when he looked back on the disturbing memory. That very odd sensation he felt all of a sudden when Augusta tried attacking him had constantly been invading his thoughts ever since.

The feeling was reminiscent of suffocation, more so due to the fact that there had already been a preconceived notion floating within Dante's mind that the capital was tainted with corruption, and that had originated from his mother's lips. Not only that, but she also explained that it was like this for every kingdom, which was a really unfortunate occurrence due to the resulting outcomes.

Arranged marriages, slavery, and the abuse of power that nobles were infamously known for was just a few that had come to mind for Dante. While he wasn't exactly a fan of those kinds of people, he could understand their perspective in a way. Since a baby coming out of their mother's womb, who was probably either forced or basically had no choice but to procreate with those sacks of shit in order to survive or live a somewhat better life, all of those growing children were instantly given a life full of privilege and the ability to enact their will onto others with their own carnal desires. The only thing really limiting that sort of usage was people of even higher rank that were most likely doing the exact same thing.

Growing up in that kind of environment was probably hard to deviate from for the people that were essentially born into it. Adding onto that, everyone else in their family probably encouraged them the entire time as well, which only made the problem even worse than it already was to begin with.

However, Dante still didn't think it was justified enough to do horrible shit like that.

Feeling a tug on his arm, Dante realized after coming out of his thoughts that Lilia was pulling him along. He quickly found out what direction they were going and noted that a small restaurant seemed to be their next stop.

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