The moment Marcus sent the message, the group chat, which had been quiet, immediately came alive. Silas replied, 'Emy can mend clothes? Did her own clothes get torn?' Lucien asked, 'Does she like that particular outfit? 'If it's just a regular piece of clothing, why not just toss it and buy a new one if it's ripped?' Marcus looked at their replies, frowning slightly. He quickly clarified, 'I phrased it wrong. It's not that she needs her clothes mended, it's that she knows how to sew. Did any of you know that?' Marcus finished, but worried they still wouldn't get it, so he explained again, 'Just now, Calum's shirt got torn, and Ms. Tibarn took it and sewed it for him.' Corvin, still tied to the bed, saw the messages in the group and instantly sat up under Emma's blanket. Corvin said, 'Isn't mending old, damaged clothes something only the poorest, lowest-class therians do?'Why would Emma do something like that?' Yeah. Why would Ms. Tibarn do something like that? Creak! Silas suddenly came out of his room, walked past the living room without even glancing at Marcus, and went straight to Edric's room. Out of all of them, Edric had met Emma first. He was also the one who changed Emma's identity. A big part of Emma's past had been erased by Edric. When Lucien and Silas had met Emma, they only knew she lived on F268, in a small villa provided by the Interstellar Empire government. Her life had seemed average—not rich, but definitely not so poor that she couldn't afford new clothes. They'd just always assumed Emma had always lived like that. Later, they'd found out she was human.They'd wanted to look into Emma's past. But when they tried, they realized someone had altered her records, and it was Edric who'd done it. Knowing Edric was hiding her identity, they stopped investigating and just quietly helped Edric clean up any remaining traces. It made it even harder for anyone to find out Emma's real background. Seeing Silas head for Edric's room, Marcus followed right away. Just as the two of them walked into Edric's room, Lucien came in behind them. Inside, Edric looked at the three of them, pressing his lips together. He'd seen the group chat messages just now. Without waiting for them to speak, Edric started talking. "I don't actually know any more about Emma's past than you do." Lucien, Silas, and Marcus all frowned. Silas asked, "But you helped hide Emy's identity, so you must've looked into her past first. "What did you find out?" Lucien and Marcus looked at Edric as well. Edric said, "What I found was that Emma was just like the other females who've appeared in the Empire. "She just suddenly showed up." "She didn't turn up on F268 at first—she appeared on a planet outside the domain. "She'd ended up in a forest. She hadn't awakened any ability yet. So she nearly got eaten by beasts. "A hunting party that was out after beasts found her and brought her to the city. "That's where Emma got her ID. Since she hadn't awakened an ability, she lived in the lowest-grade government housing and got the minimum government support." "Later, when she did awaken her ability, her situation got a bit better, but she didn't have money for beast cores to boost her powers, and there was no family to help her. "She wanted to hunt beasts on her own to get beast cores and grow stronger."But as a newly awakened female, no one wanted to team up with her, so she had to go out there alone…" A newly awakened female, hunting beasts by herself. Even without Edric saying it, Lucien and the others knew how dangerous that was. "After working hard and growing her ability, she finally moved to F268. "That's where she met Alaric. "She got seriously hurt hunting a beast back then, and Alaric saved her." That was why Edric had never had an issue with Alaric—Alaric had saved Emma. As he told the story, the pain in Edric's voice was impossible to miss. "Before Emma matched with us, her life was always tough. "I wasn't even the first to reach her. Damian was. "Damian told me Emma was really poor, driving a thirdhand gravicar that was already a few centuries out of date."As Edric finished, the room fell utterly silent. It was as if the air had turned heavy, making it hard to breathe. Silas' face was filled with guilt and heartache. "I should've checked on this long ago. "How could I have been so dumb as to think Emy would just be fine living here alone?" Marcus just stood there, his mind filled with the image of a tiny, fragile figure all alone on a desolate planet. Facing vicious beasts that could leap out at any time, she was forced to step alone into a deadly, dangerous forest, risking everything just for the hope of a little bit more strength...