There was an odd tension in the air. It would have likely made anyone else uncomfortable, but Sylas stood in silence as though he hadn't noticed anything at all.
He had already felt that something was wrong long ago, he was incredibly sensitive to such things. Honestly, he didn't need such confirmation.
From the moment Gregory appeared, he had already warned Cassarae about him. But there were some things that couldn't be avoided even if you were prepared.
Plus, Sylas still didn't have a full understanding of the situation just yet. Maybe he was still overthinking things. After all, Cassarae wasn't exactly a woman who would be overly cheery all the time.
"Thank you for your hard work, everyone." Cassarae gave them all a curt nod. "Sylas, come with me."
She turned away and left after a swift inspection of things.
Sylas took a sit on Cassarae's couch. Looking at the gloominess on her face, he found himself becoming more amused. A small smirk quirked on the corner of his lips, so subtle that most wouldn't notice it at all. But that seemed to be the greatest provocation to this lioness.
"What the hell are you laughing about?!"
Sylas rubbed his nose. It was really only Cassarae and his mother that would pick up on that. "Go ahead, laugh it up. Giggle until glitter comes out your ass, come on!"
"Thanks, Sherlock," she spoke with a huff, spinning around in her chair so that she wouldn't have to look at Sylas' annoying face. "He was too useful. By the time I felt that something was wrong, it was already too late. Without him, the village would have already collapsed."
"What happened?" Sylas asked.
After an annoyed huff, Cassarae explained the situation.
It seemed that the salt water wasn't the only problem, neither were the portals. It all boiled down to an honest mistake on her part, and something that Sylas had seen coming before she spoke it.
The issue wasn't actually Gregory and Gregory alone, but rather how Cassarae and Olivia had interacted with the spawns.
It was a matter of philosophy and a contradiction of the mind. It was too difficult for them to take the spawns as the living beings that they should.
Cassarae didn't mention any of this in her explanation. She was able to pick up on a lot of the little details, like how no one approached her for a bonfire dance they held two weeks ago, or how most felt more comfortable reporting things to Gregory instead of her... but she hadn't been able to see the big picture.
That was just how things were with Cassarae. She was more of a live-in-the-moment person than Sylas was. As for Sylas, it was difficult for him to not step out of the frame if he didn't have to.
"You know what the problem is?" Sylas said after a long while.
"It's that damn annoying bastard." Cassarae said through gritted teeth.
"Maybe, but that's still too surface level."
"Don't patronize me, Sylas, or else I'll sic my dad on you."
Sylas suddenly coughed, sitting up as though he was afraid that he would choke. Seeing this, Cassarae couldn't help but sputter with laughter. She laughed so hard she fell out of her chair.
The problem wasn't that Sylas felt fear. Fear wasn't something he experienced, father of an ex of his or not.
The problem was something else entirely.
Sylas cleared his throat. He couldn't remember the last time he had ended up in such a state, it was best he ignored it and moved on.
"The problem is that you're not treating them like they're human."
Cassarae slowly pulled herself up off the floor. Placing her hands on the desk, she stared at Sylas intently as though she was trying to see something. But after a while, she nodded.
It really was too hard to treat these villagers like they were human when you literally watched them spawn from thin air. However, she had to admit that no matter how hard she had tried before, she wasn't able to find any flaws.
They all had perfect back stories, each one had a distinct personality, there was no copying and pasting, nor were there any slip-ups in their "software". If there were, she certainly wasn't smart enough to pick them out.
But the issue was that all of this only made it creepier, made it feel as though human life was so cheap that this "system" could reproduce it in a product that was indistinguishable from the authentic version whenever it wanted.
Then, probably as a subconscious result, she ended up letting Gregory take more and more control of things so that she wouldn't have to face this problem herself. Then, before she knew it, it was already difficult to reverse things.
The worst part about it all was that even if she knew the problem and could even return to the past for a redo, the situation would likely end up much the same. Well, maybe it wouldn't be identical, but problems would arise nonetheless...
That was because, even now that Sylas had pointed out the crux of the matter, she wasn't sure how to fix it. At least not immediately.
She would probably not be able to treat these people like they were real any time soon, and even if she could start right now, it wouldn't come off as authentic.
On top of that, she had problems being fake. It was the reason her mouth was so sharp in the first place. She rarely filtered herself.
"Don't gloat." She said, giving Sylas a glare.
"I didn't say anything, City Lord."
"Alright, City Lord. Are you going to tell me how you ended up in this situation? Why did you open up your portal here? And what did Professor Broussard do?"
Sylas saw the changes to Cassarae's expression before she exploded. He let out a light sigh and then covered his ears a bit.