Born In Ashes: The Enigma

As the door opened, a blonde-haired woman in a maid outfit entered the room. The woman had a rather small build and a petite body. She stood around 170 cm tall, had fair skin, light green eyes, and appeared to be in her mid-twenties.

Azrael glanced over his shoulder, and although he was seeing the woman for the first time in years, he recognized her instantly.

'Lia.'

As Lia entered the room and saw Azrael standing in front of the window, she was taken aback and quickly bowed her head.

"Please forgive me. I thought you were still unconscious, which is why I entered without your permission."

'Things are getting annoying…' Azrael thought, inwardly sighing as he picked up on the details he had just noticed. 'It will be difficult not to arouse the suspicion of someone like her.'

"It's fine," Azrael said calmly, despite being slightly annoyed by the situation. "Can you tell me what happened earlier?"

"We are still unclear about the cause of the sudden phenomenon," Lia responded, "But we just received information that it wasn't only our planet that was affected—it impacted multiple galaxies."

"Multiple galaxies…" Azrael was stunned by Lia's words, and his mouth twitched slightly.

'Just what kind of world is this?'

"You don't have to worry about it, young lord..." Lia said calmly upon hearing the surprise in his voice. "Although multiple galaxies were affected, aside from people losing consciousness, there doesn't seem to be any other problem."

"By the way…" Azrael suddenly heard footsteps as Lia walked forward and stopped right behind him.

"Are you feeling better now? There is no problem with your body, right?"

"I am fine," Azrael replied, pulling back the hand he had been using to pet the monster outside the window and turning around.

"I simply lost consciousness because I exhausted all of my cosmic energy."

"May I?" Lia asked with a nod, still reaching out to check his condition herself.

Azrael didn't hesitate and calmly placed his palm into hers. As Lia grasped his hand, Azrael felt a stream of energy invading his body.

He focused his attention on Lia's face to gauge her reaction and soon noticed a deep frown forming.

"Your body seems to be extremely weak, and the muscles look as if they have suffered from poor nutrition. Your cosmic energy is recovering at a steady pace, but there is another strange energy within your body—it looks similar to cosmic energy but is completely different."

Azrael wasn't surprised by her words and answered naturally.

"I am not sure about the weakness of my body—it might be due to what happened earlier. As for the energy similar to cosmic energy that you are sensing, it's from a recovery pill I took."

Lia's expression didn't ease, even after hearing his explanation. She continued checking him for a few more seconds before her eyes narrowed.

'Did my excuse fail?'

"Young Lord…"

Lia tightened her grip on his palm and moved closer.

"By any chance… are you skipping your meals?"

Azrael was taken aback by the unexpected question, but he soon understood why she asked it.

"Of course not," He said, shaking his head. "Even if I skipped meals, I wouldn't become this weak in just a few days, right?"

"Well, that's true." Lia let go of his palm and took a step back.

"You must be hungry. I will go and bring breakfast for you right away."

Azrael nodded, and just as Lia was about to leave, he stopped her.

"By the way, how is Kael?"

"Unlike someone who didn't wear his protection prop," She said, voice laced with sarcasm, "Young Lord Kael wore his properly, so he is completely fine."

Azrael ignored the jab in her tone, touching the pendant hanging from his neck and nodding.

"Should I bring something for that guy as well?" Lia asked suddenly, just before leaving the room.

Azrael glanced behind him and saw the monster, who was looking at him with its tongue hanging out.

He thought for a second before nodding his head.

Seeing his response, Lia didn't say anything further and quietly exited the room, softly closing the door behind her.

Azrael closed his eyes and focused all his senses. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes and sighed.

'As I thought…' He muttered inwardly, noting that he couldn't hear any footsteps as Lia walked away.

'She clearly made footsteps while walking when I was around—but not after leaving the room. It's like... she is acting like a completely different person outside my presence.'

Earlier, when he was pretending to be unconscious while the butler and Lia came to check on him, he clearly heard their footsteps from outside the room.

From that, he concluded that it was indeed possible for him to hear events happening outside.

Before Lia arrived, most of his attention had been on the monster outside the window, but he was still partially aware of the external environment.

And yet, he hadn't heard any footsteps or noises until she opened the door and walked in—at which point her footsteps became clearly audible.

'She is definitely an assassin… But the question is: is she here to protect me, or to keep an eye on me?'

Azrael looked at the monster outside the window again and gently patted its head.

'I answered her doubts about my weak body and the strange energy from the Cosmic Affinity Pill with the best excuse I could think of, considering my situation…'

He turned his head to glance at the drawer beside the bed.

'There are a few energy recovery and other basic pills in there, so she shouldn't be too suspicious when I say I took one to recover my energy.'

Azrael had thoroughly searched the room before Lia arrived, hoping to find anything that might help him in his current situation. During that search, he had discovered a few pills and potions in the drawer.

Since they were already present in the room, he believed it would be a reasonable cover to link the energy surge in his body to one of those.

"Assassins tend to pay close attention to people's behavior and their surroundings… I just hope my behavior wasn't too far off from the real Azrael of this world."