"Shade!"
That Sunday afternoon, as Shade emerged from the basement, marveling that he had only been away from home for two days yet felt as though he had not returned for over a month, footsteps sounded on the stairs. Dorothy then rushed down and hugged him directly.
"I'm fine. You don't need to worry so much."
"If you were really fine, I wouldn't believe that you chose not to come home last night."
The Miss Writer, who knew him quite well, secretly wiped away a tear before speaking. Shade was left speechless by that, so he could only set Mia down first and let her dart upstairs on her own before taking Dorothy's hand and walking upstairs as well.
"I really am fine."
He emphasized it again. Dorothy nodded and even said with a smile:
"Now I know that if you weren't well, you definitely wouldn't have had the time to specifically take a bath before coming back."
"Mm."
"Priest Augustus came by yesterday."
Dorothy did not notice Shade's hesitation. As they entered the 2nd Floor living room together, she added:
"Priest Augustus? What did he want?"
"Of course, he came to see you. Such a huge incident happened in Randall River Valley, and word has already spread throughout the entire world. I think that aside from those people deep in the ruins of the New Continent, where information travels poorly, everyone knows what happened early Saturday morning."
She had Shade sit down, then cheerfully brought a teapot out from the kitchen. She seemed to have expected Shade to return around this time:
"Priest Augustus knew you had been active in Randall River Valley recently, so he came specifically to check on you and confirm whether you were connected to what happened in the Southern Kingdom. But when he saw