Chapter 160 - Change

Arriving quickly at the destination, Ethan knocked on the door and heard a voice answer him

"No need to knock, just come in."

Her dry, emotionless response led Ethan to twitch in surprise before sighing.

"Alright, I'm coming in then.."

Opening the door, Ethan saw Riveria writing a report with a rather serious expression as, now having some time to think he was still undecided about what to do to actually express his thanks to her, because unfortunately many things in the shop that would have been useful to Riveria were all too expensive for him, and he couldn't think of any gift in particular that would make her happy, if not something aimed at her equipment...

As Ethan posed this dilemma to himself, Riveria was the first to speak.

"You're incredibly late, Although I did expect this outcome you sure took your time..."

Her words brought Ethan back to everything he had been through in the last few hours, and although he wanted to apologize to her for being late, Ethan looked down before answering her

"It's true, I actually delayed a lot and I'm sorry I made you wait, but at the same time I can't apologize properly.."

"I understand"

This was all she told him, which led Ethan to nod while pulling out the text he had rewritten and when Riveria took a look at it, a frown appeared on her face.

"I can understand what it's written, but you have a long way to go..."

While Riveria whispered this, mostly talking to herself, she read the text quickly and, once she read it all, she sighed.

"If what's written here is true, this fox would appear to be on our side.."

But before Ethan could ask her how she found the solution, Riveria added

"I do not think that Maple could have given such a detailed explanation of her appearance without having had the opportunity to see it well. Most likely this fox is unaware of what really happened before Maple became part of the Dungeon, but more importantly, if the symbol was something that she entirely wanted to put on her, then what would be her goal? With all these options, I can only think of two things. The first, where this fox wants to take Maple to her side, and then use her for something evil, the second instead that seems more likely at this point, is that the fox is trying to protect Maple or to give her a force that..."

Rereading the content of the message, Riveria stopped in the middle of the speech while Ethan curious about what she was thinking, could only emit an 'mmh? ' before Riveria came to the solution.

"Read this part right, here Maple says the fox spoke of something related to a contract. I don't know if it's just a feeling, but I think the contract she's talking about... Is similar to our magic that allows us to use an element, only that we don't need to make a real contract since from birth it's as if we were already in a contract..."

Starting to talk to him quickly about his theory, Ethan felt overwhelmed by all the things Riveria was saying as, he had somewhat ignored the part where Maple told of their conversation, and this was because he thought determining an ally or not by simple words wasn't so easy. He was concentrating his mind on actions but if they were already limited in the foreground, It was obvious he couldn't come up with something like that...

Riveria, however, soon found herself unable to move forward in its speculations, and this because she didn't know the terms of the contract, nor what concerned the contract itself, and Maple didn't seem to know much either...

Now arriving at the same crossroads of possibilities, Ethan knew they had more information than before to proceed and this had increased the chances that the fox could be on their side, but unfortunately neither Ethan nor Riveria would trust her easily...

As she sighed, Riveria took her eyes off the paper, and the moment she did, she saw now Ethan's face was two centimetres away from hers while he was focused on trying to read it all over again, thinking that maybe he would discover something more..

Although at first Riveria was tempted to push him away, she sighed again before returning her attention to the paper in front of her, hoping to find something new to extort new speculations...

---

After a couple of minutes, both Ethan and Riveria had read it over and over again, but they hadn't been able to understand anything more, which led Riveria to sigh

"I don't think there's anything else to read here anymore, leave this here, I'll read it a couple of times later to see if anything else I can think of.."

Saying so, Riveria looked up again and noticing that Ethan now had an arm at the end of the table and his back was tilted toward it with his head now at the height of her shoulders, Riveria stared at him for a few seconds before determining he wasn't trying to do anything weird.

By the time she met him, Riveria had seen Ethan grow mentally, and she was very surprised that now, after more than 2 months, he seemed to have become a serious and determined man. This was because even though she had given her approval to let him have a relationship with Ais, Riveria was always doubtful of the true nature of the boy that should have been Ais' first love.

While Ethan was busy rereading the text for the umpteenth time, Riveria carried a hand over his head before stroking his hair for a second.

"You've done a good job, you don't need to strive to find a solution if it's not possible to find it, for now this is enough to know better our ally, or enemy."

Feeling Riveria's hand on his head, Ethan opened his eyes wide open before slowly moving his eyes to look at her, and found much to his surprise that Riveria was staring at him.

Although he was ready to ask her what the hell she was doing, Ethan stared at her for a few seconds and finding normality in his eyes, he could only look away while her words resonated in his mind.

Feeling glad Riveria had finally said something good about him, he was going to thank her before a thought flashed into his head.

'Wait.. the way Riveria is treating me.. is similar to...'

Ethan didn't have the ability to read the meaning of every action performed by the surrounding people, and he was aware it was impossible to achieve such a thing without a real skill, but right now even though he didn't know Riveria so well, He was able to understand what was behind this innocent-sounding action...

"Thank you..."

Was all he uttered while looking completely at another side, Ethan hid his expression from the latter before adding

"Since we can't arrive to anything else, I think I should go..."

Although Riveria couldn't see the expression he was making, this kind of reaction led her to stare at him before starting to stroke his hair again

"If I have any news I'll let you know."

Responding with these words, Riveria stopped doing what she was doing to let him 'free' to go while the latter, without adding anything else, nodded before leaving the door.

Once out, Riveria sighed before crossing her arms to her c.h.e.s.t with a thoughtful expression.

'Perhaps in these months, I may have actually done something wrong.'

After all the time Riveria had spent 'caring' for their relationship with lessons and more, her relationship with Ethan had become quite twisted, because in addition to that, she trained him until now, and she was the person who actually saw him m.a.t.u.r.e the most during the entire period since Ethan entered Orario, and this obviously led Riveria to sometimes consider him as a nuisance.

But that now seemed very abstract as a concept, because Ethan had tried to make Ais happy, albeit with some problems and some mistakes, Riveria had no intention of being picky or contextualizing the choices he had taken so far, as those choices had led him to m.a.t.u.r.e to the point that Riveria almost didn't recognize Ethan now, compared to that of a couple of months ago.

'He still has a long and thorny path to follow, but even if that's the case, he is no longer alone'

Recalling some recent events, Riveria recalled that in addition to Lefiya and Ais, many other people had recognized Ethan and decided to become his friends, or as someone else, to have romantic feelings for him, and this could only make Riveria feel grateful, for after all this time, her efforts hadn't been in vain...

'Although this is the case, I hope he won't lose his focus on Ais, because otherwise I will have to teach him a good lesson.'

With these thoughts in mind, Riveria knew that her day was not yet over, so she quickly got up from the chair she was sitting on before looking at her hand, clenching it in a fist.

'All I have to do is check him closely so that doesn't happen.'

With these thoughts, Riveria also went to the door of her room before leaving it to go to Loki...

---

Now out of Twilight Manor, Ethan was out of breath for the speed with which he had run, ignoring everything and everyone in front of him while in his head he had numerous questions in mind, starting from the very reason why that Riveria's simple gesture had frightened and moved him so much that he had escaped in such a way.

'I hope she doesn't think something strange.. or that she feels like she was the trouble.. but it's Riveria I'm talking about, she wouldn't even mind my actions as long as I'm not teasing her...right?'

Being too accustomed to dealing with Lefiya, Ethan was starting to think all the girls thought a lot about every action they made, or they would blame themselves all the time, and even though he would normally doubt someone else, he had no intention of doubting Riveria, knowing this side of her all too well.

'Right. I may not know her personally, but that doesn't mean I don't know this part of the personality of the person who helped me so much. I know these things don't bother her...'

With this thought, Ethan managed to calm down a bit and in no time at all, he took a long breath before deciding to think about this at a later date...

(I have a discord server. discord.gg/cpVr5X8. You may ask me: "Why should I enter the server?". Well, I'm replying to every interesting question you readers are asking in my chapters, so, you should absolutely enter if you want to read my answers. Ah, and you can find some image reference of items in the story such as Light..! (Soon even Qienta).. so it's recommended to join, I frequently post polls as well, regarding things that(most likely) will be present in the story. One last thing, I post chapter updates in my discord right after I posted on , so I guess you can join to be able to know when I post chapters faster.)

(Poll going on in the discord: Who do you prefer? Qienta or Light? | Cat-girl or Renard(Fox) | Are you liking the interactions between Maple and Ethan? | Riveria: Adoptive Mother or Harem Member?)

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(Alternate Titles: "Riveria be like: Ais x Ethan shall remain unchanged over time!", "Ethan..what happened..?!", "Riveria and Ethan..I wonder how their relationship will develop?")