<strong>November 22, 1994;</strong>
<strong>Eden city, Republic of Searvale;</strong>
At a nation that's located in the central region of the supercontinent, Azzy and his companions were sitting on the deck of a cruise ship as it sails in the Great Lake of Eden, the largest lake in the world.
His companions included his foster family, his future biological family, and teammates except for Calder.
It's not that he wasn't invited or something. Azzy asked him to join them but Calder refused to come on a vacation citing the reasons of being homesick. Whether it is a genuine reason or just an excuse is something Azzy didn't bother to think about too much as he wasn't close with him either way.
Anyway, during the past three days, away from all the attention of the media, Azzy traveled to the most popular tourist destinations in the world.
On the first day, he covered Novaria, the city of forts and palaces.
On the second day, he covered Wheldrake, a neutral region under the control of WAMO. It is roughly a ten thousand sq. km area but known to contain 172 world heritage sites, which are highly protected by the largest organization in the world.
And finally, on the third day, Azzy came to the nation of Searvale. It used to be a land of elves but now, just another democratic country ruled and inhabited by humans.
While everything on the land that is related to the elves disappeared over the passage of time, the sunken Eden city was still preserved. Hence was the presence of many ships in the Great Lake.
To further make it a tourist attraction, glass tunnels in the form of a maze, spread over 3 sq. km, were constructed at the bottom of the lake bed.
A tiny artificial island was constructed at the center of the lake. After docking at the shore of the land, Azzy and others went on their way to take the tickets and venture into the Great maze of Eden just like normal people.
By dusk in the evening, the eleven of them returned to the hotel to rest for a while before planning to go on for the fountain show, indoor ski resort and followed by dinner at the cruise.
However, the plans changed when Avia started experiencing stomach pain due to indigestion. Not intending to disturb the others, Affea and Oakley stayed behind at the hotel and urged everyone to continue with the plans.
As a result, the rest of the eight divided themselves into four pairs to go on their respective dates. Izora went on a date with her husband. Gideon, Estella, and Mia, Louis went for a double date as all of them are too shy to go on date with their respective partners alone.
This gave Azzy an opportunity to spend some alone time with Claire. He didn't plan it this way but since it happened, he used the time to the best of it.
Instead of going for some movie or Arcade games, Azzy and Claire just walked hand in hand, roaming the streets at a slow pace, chatting together about a number of things, shopping around, and eating street food from time to time.
Within no time, more than four hours passed away.
Azzy and Claire were in a dolphinarium, watching the last show of the day. There were screams from left and right as the dolphins performed several feats.
All of a sudden, Azzy's eyes were blocked by an envelope made of familiar energy. It was only sighted by him and no one else. "Hmm? Aunt?"
He raised his index finger and pressed on the envelope. It zoomed into his forehead and an audio message echoed in his head. She was asking about his whereabouts.
Azzy sent a text reply through the message card and continued to watch the show.
Ten minutes later, as the show ended, Azzy and Claire started walking back to the hotel instead of taking a cab despite the fact that it was like 4 kilometers away. Surely, it wasn't going to be a short walk.
As they were on their way to the hotel, Claire was talking about how she likes to have her own dolphinarium. Meanwhile, Azzy stayed silent, contrary to how much of a chatterbox he was, until a while ago.
Soon, they reached an empty street and Azzy halted his footsteps.
"Hmm, what happened, Rael?" Claire also stopped walking and looked at her boyfriend.
Azzy took a deep breath and said, "I wish to tell you something important, Claire."
"What is it?" It was then she finally realized that something is wrong with Azzy's behavior. The last time she saw this kind of reaction from him is when he revealed the death scythe. Is he going to reveal another one of his secrets?
After a brief amount of silence, Azzy took a deep breath and spoke as he looked into her eyes, "Remember the words I said when I accepted your confession on Valentine's Day?"
"Hmm?" Claire suddenly felt her heartbeat spike up as she recollected the memory.
Suddenly, something else clicked in her mind. She remembered Azzy's decision to go for a 3-day vacation with everyone.
Her eyes widened in shock and her voice quivered as she asked, "Rael, please tell me that you aren't leaving or something like that."
"I'm sorry." Azzy hung his head down to look at his feet as he apologized, "I think I have to leave, Claire."
Claire felt like her entire world turned upside down all of a sudden. Barely controlling herself, she asked, "For how long?"
This time, it was Azzy's turn to get surprised. He kinda expected her to get to the bottom of this matter but she only asked the time.
Nevertheless, he planned on telling her the whole truth. So, instead of simply replying, he raised his head and looked at her once again before raising his hand.
An hourglass with white sand appeared in his hand. "It's time that I tell you everything, Claire."
As Claire was taken aback to see the hourglass, which looked like a normal one as she can't sense anything, her divine sword spirit, Agatha, on the other hand, cheerfully commented in her host's head, "The Hourglass of time. I knew it. Azrael is the true heir to Lord Chronos, not just a selected individual."
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