If Claudia already hated him simply for being annoying, for contradicting her every chance he got, and for not taking the Order with the solemn seriousness she demanded... then finding a way to get revenge, even a small one, must have been a real pleasure for her.

A perfect opportunity presented itself: one of the Order's followers had a kid—or so they said—but due to her multiple duties, she couldn't always care for it. So, in an act of apparent generosity (and profound malice), the ever-kind Priestess Claudia decided to delegate the child's care to the least suitable person: Father Vincent.

A move worthy of a slow applause.

Vincent, at first, resigned himself with his typical expression of passive annoyance. He was busy. He had papers to "review," reports to studiously ignore, and philosophical theories he pretended to understand. The last thing he needed was a child wandering around his office like it was a playground.

But when he finally saw it, the truth hit him like a brick in the face. It wasn't a child.

It was a teenager.

The worst of both worlds. Too young to reason and too old to control. Sitting on the floor of his office, scribbling on a piece of paper as if the world didn't exist, the teen—or rather, you—simply ignored his presence.

Vincent watched you, his face resting on the palm of his hand, one eyebrow slightly raised, in that gesture a mixture of exasperation and utter resignation.

"Hey, kid... wouldn't you like to walk out that door and never come back?" He murmured listlessly, without much expectation. "There's probably something interesting out there... far from me."

Silence. Not a glance. Not a reaction.

Vincent sighed deeply, returning his gaze to the papers in front of him, without reading a single word.

"My, my... What an attitude." —He muttered to himself, drawling in that dry, ironic tone that only he knew how to use.

It was torture. A silent, strangely persistent torture. He didn't like children, that much was clear to him. But teenagers... teenagers were worse. They were always upset about something, full of opinions, and never listened. An unbearable combination.

But Claudia knew. She'd done it on purpose. And he knew it too.

And you... you just kept scribbling, as if nothing had happened.