"Are you really leaving?"
"That's right. I'm leaving."
"Sigh... Those students are quite reluctant to see you go."
"I've let them down, but if I don't drag that brat back, I won't be able to eat or sleep in peace."
"All right. I'll help teach them."
"Thank you."
Larian fully armed himself and put on the war mask he had crafted. It was an important and wondrous thing in Aeldari society. As everyone knew, Aeldari emotions were extreme and intense, and they were far more sensitive to subtle feelings than humans.
Yet war was unavoidable in this dark universe. To keep Aeldari warriors from being affected by their own emotions during battle—driven mad by bloodshed and slaughter, or falling onto the path of the battle-crazed extremists—every Aeldari who needed to fight would craft their own war mask.
These masks were not really a kind of equipment, but a technique used to divide one's personality and soul. They separated the primary personality from a secondary one, and you could even give that secondary personality a name.
Thus, once you put on the mask, all compassion and kindness were locked away. You became a killing machine that obeyed orders without question, freely unleashing Cain's bloody fury. And once you took the mask off—
Bang! You became once more the innocent, pure-hearted, kind, and gentle girl from Ark Garden. Even when facing an Ork begging for mercy, you would feel pity.
Yet sometimes, after an Aeldari completed a massacre, even if her primary personality had no memory of it at all, she would still inexplicably weep for killings she could not remember.
Larian was one such person. Once he put on his mask, his war personality awakened. The gentle warrior instructor vanished, replaced by a cold slaughtering warrior, his face beneath the helmet