Horace watched the golden cocoon expressionlessly, quietly wiping away the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
"You spoke very well, Miquella."
Horace's voice was strangely calm, with something close to disappointment buried beneath that calm. "But-how could you be so foolish? To actually attempt to charm a true god."
He could not understand it. Hadn't Miquella done very well when impersonating Godwyn?
Merely altering his senses without touching any rules would never trigger his Great Runes.
He had been about to agree. He had already been seriously considering that argument about how "the wise are destined to be kings," and the idea of selection through the Dreamscape.
He had even felt that this child was more mature than he had thought, and that the mechanism was not without merit as a reference.
Yet Miquella had done something foolish and entirely superfluous, insisting on shaking his will.
"When I was young, I imposed a Great Rune upon myself: my will shall never waver."
Horace watched the golden cocoon, a trace of self-mockery in his voice. "I never thought I would end up using it on you."
From the very beginning, this measure had been intended to guard against Miquella's charm. Horace had already come to think it unnecessary.
A good child like Miquella would never play dirty tricks on him... Who would have thought his tolerance would be taken as indulgence?
The golden cocoon trembled slightly.
Miquella was indeed shocked. Everything had changed. The future he had seen was not like this. How could this happen?
He had run so many simulations... This was the first time such a great discrepancy had appeared. Previously, there had at most been differences in the details of their words, and even those had required Miquella to introduce variables himself.
In his projections,