"Cardinal Mark Alfaro. He destroyed his carriage and will be traveling with us for the rest of the journey."
Despite all the accumulated fatigue, Raven's mind buzzed as it immediately kicked his danger trigger alarm.
It felt like someone was drilling into his brain, but he forced himself to look forward.
A tall, burly, middle-aged man with broad shoulders, who looked like he would not even fit through a door.
His long, dark brown hair fell on his shoulders, and his strong, angular face gave him the look of a wild, battle-hardened look.
Even his beard and moustache looked like they were trimmed roughly, not for the sake of elegance.
His eyes were lightly amber-toned, full of vigor, and his weathered skin suggested what kind of man this was.
"Greetings, your Grace," Raven bowed down due to basic courtesy, his voice relaying his apparent tiredness.
"I am Raven Marlowe, son of Morris Marlowe and the younger brother of her grace, Cardinal Eve Marlowe."
He introduced himself politely.
Mark took one look at Raven and said, "You look like you mixed ale with opium and chugged it straight down."
Honestly, he wanted to call him a monkey or whatnot.
But he refrained from doing so.
After all, he was the beloved younger brother of his star disciple.
"That speculation wouldn't even be that far from what happened to me last night." He quipped, letting out a dry chuckle.
"Your sister told me to punish you greatly for overstepping your boundaries and defying a direct order from her." His eyes sharply measured him from head to toe, judging him like a hawk.
"What do you think?"
"I am ready to accept whatever punishment it is." He replied humbly, not wanting to make a scene. "I am at fault here, and it's only fair that I get punished."
Suddenly, his mana flared as he glared at Rave with murderous intent weighing him down.
"What if I execute you right here, right now, for defying a direct order from a Cardinal?" His voice was threatening, growling in a low voice.
Last time, Raven was helpless in front of the silver woman.
But here, it was different.
He was already pissed off from last night.
His eyes brushed off Eve as a grin formed on his face, despite all the pressure.
His bottled-up rage and frustration, paired with his fatigue from everything, had him stranded on an edge.
And the backing he had was the final nail in the coffin.
"I'd like for you to actually try it." He said, dropping all the honorifics.
Sure, he was subconsciously sweating from the fear, but this sudden rush of adrenaline kept his stupid, haughty grin over his face the entire time.
His hair was a mess, his face was a mess, and so was his body.
Everything combined with his expressions made him look like a madman.
It was only after a minute that Mark retrieved his mana and climbed inside the carriage.
Eve followed him, and everyone sat down.
The face-off between Mark and Raven continued for a while before Mark pulled back and exhaled.
"Good," His tone wasn't that of an complement, "Since I would be leading the project Arbiter, I'd like to see the same attitude in there as well."
Raven's grin was long gone and was replaced with a cold expression that made it seem as though he was looking down on everyone.
He felt replying to this man was no longer a necessity.
It was beneath him to even waste a word on this man.
"I want to see if you actually have the skill to back down this attitude of yours." He warned him, not feeling insulted by his attitude at all.
He just wanted to have some fun with this guy, since he had Eve's request to punish him.
He was just a bit taken aback, since this was not how Raven was supposed to be, from Eve's description of him.
"Raven," It was Eve this time.
Raven's expression immediately did a backflip.
He became docile.
"Go to sleep," She advised, "We will take a detour through the river to have you washed up."
Raven's adrenaline drained, and he felt the rush of drowsiness hit, only harder this time.
He was safe; the Cardinal was no threat to him.
And his brain could no longer process any more information.
Every bit of energy was squeezed out of him.
Even the hunger was ignored, and his eyes closed shut.
And seconds later, his mind wandered off into dreamland.
…
"How bad do you want the punishment to be?" Mark slowly asked Eve, his tone relatively normal.
Sensing his breathing even out and his body calming down from all the shivering, both the Cardinals were now sure he was asleep.
"Anything that does not traumatize him is fine," Eve answered, sighing, "He wasn't like this before, you know."
Her voice carried a hint of nostalgia.
"When I stayed out on missions mostly, I only ever heard how naive, brash, and stupid he was."
"Even when I went back home, he was exactly as described in those letters."
Mark listened to her with great curiosity.
Eve only ever talked about how much she loved her family.
But this was the first time she was talking about her younger brother like this.
Maybe it was because he was going to be under him for a while, but it was still interesting nonetheless.
"But 'that' incident changed so much I knew about him." She looked outside, appreciating the vast vegetation in the State.
"The kidnapping one?" Mark asked, confirming his speculations.
Eve nodded.
"He became a lot more… crueler than I remember him."
Out of every change that she could see in him, this was the one that shocked her the most.
Just what had he faced inside that place?
Her anger for the Church of White Moon only grew worse since the day she noticed this change in him.
"That can be a good thing, in a way," Mark said, not minding how she felt.
She was way too emotional about him.
Even though nothing showed on her face, the time he had spent teaching her, he knew.
"Just…" Eve was at a loss for words, "Don't go overboard."
"Don't worry," He said, lying back down in the carriage, "I specialize in taking 'special' care of rebellious guys like him."