There was no doubt about it—Elsa was the giving tree.
Grey glanced at her from the corner of his eye. He didn't want to admit it, but she had helped him—more than anyone else ever had. Without her guidance, without her knowledge and support, surviving in this cruel world would've been nearly impossible. He knew it the moment he opened his eyes in this unfamiliar place. The world was unforgiving.
That's why he chose to leave the Ravenwood mansion.
With such a massive gap between his personality and the original Grey's, it was only a matter of time before his so-called parents would notice something was off. And when they did… well, there was only one outcome.
Death.
So when they cast him out, he was actually relieved. According to the butler, he hadn't been officially disowned—just thrown away. That small difference mattered. It meant he still carried the Ravenwood name. And Grey intended to use that to his advantage.
They had exiled him out with a single hope —they simply expected him to die.
And after facing the monsters and seeing what true power looked like in this world, Grey understood why. Without strength, he was nothing. A bug, easily crushed underfoot. Surviving wasn't easy. The decision to leave the mansion, to aim for the Academy, was correct.
But now… things had changed.
With Elsa around, survival no longer felt like a desperate gamble. She taught him many things—about monsters, hunters, skills, the world itself. In Grey's mind, she had become something like the giving tree.
But he knew.
She wasn't helping him out of kindness.
He had his doubts before, but after a month of bloody battles and brutal experiments, those doubts had solidified into certainty.
She had lied about the rune.
She told him it came from a monster core, that runes could very rarely be born from one. At the time, he believed her. But something never sat right. The power of the rune… it was too great. Far beyond the abilities of a mere D-rank monster.
There were only two possibilities.
Either she had replaced the rune before giving it to him...
Or the rune had never come from that monster at all.
He leaned toward the first.
Because the power he now held—when pushed to its limits—could rival A-rank monsters. Perhaps even someone like Elsa herself. The only question was: what was he willing to sacrifice?
And then there was the memory.
The first time he activated the rune, Elsa had asked what he sacrificed. He told her: memory.
He hadn't told her it was a memory from his previous life.
And she had been surprised. She said it must've been something precious—for a memory to grant that much power.
Grey, however, couldn't even recall what the memory was.
But even so, one thing he was certain of… it was just a feeling, faint yet unmistakable.
That memory hadn't meant much to him.
Grey considered himself a cautious and calculating person. Someone who didn't take reckless risks. He didn't believe for a second that he would sacrifice something truly important on his very first try.
No—he must've deemed the memory useless. Something with little personal value, just enough to trigger the rune.
So why had it granted such immense power?
His hypothesis was simple—because it was a memory from another world. A different life. Something deeper, something that didn't belong in this reality. The rune consumed it as if it were pure fuel, and the power that followed was unlike anything else.
As long as he was willing to give up pieces of that past life, he could become even stronger.
Strong enough to fight Elsa herself.
How could a rune like that come from a D-rank monster?
No. It didn't.
Which left only one question unanswered:
Why would Elsa give him something so powerful?
He smiled faintly, coldly, as he watched her from a distance, golden eyes narrowing.
He knew why.
Because to her, he was the perfect tool.