Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

A respite.

That's how Eren labeled the time he got to spend with Sara.

The butcher was able to keep Sara's status a secret from Reva Rain. The latter had a steady supply of mortals she could use in her demonic rituals. So she didn't see the need to micromanage her henchmen.

Eren would take time to meet Sara whenever he found a window from his daily activities. This carried on for a few years.

The two eventually became intimate with each other. A steady progression of their bond.

Of course, the contract he was forced to sign with Sienna made things a bit difficult for him and Sara. However, the blind girl got over it eventually, trusting Eren's words instead of getting intimidated by the restrictions placed on him.

It was the first time in a long while that Eren felt that he should do something about someone else. Thus, he ran through the same process Katalina had to go through in the current timeline. And just like Katalina, he eventually found out that there was no cure for Sara's condition.

In both timelines, Sara took the news of the healers' inability to cure her positively. She asked Eren to stop struggling, telling him she was fine with whatever cards she had been dealt with.

Eren found it difficult to let go of Sara's problems for his own reasons. He knew at the time that it was Reva Rain's defective technique that was the reason behind Sara's condition.

Eren couldn't tell anything about what he knew to Sara or anyone else for that matter. And he never even bothered to request a cure from the Paladin of Pain.

With a copy of the defective technique as a reference, he spent his time finding a cure for Sara in silence. A task that did not yield any fruit.

Still, things between Eren and Sara were going well. And the couple stayed happy taking simple joys out of life.

Until one day.

One of Reva's henchmen found Sara.

In no time, he recognized that Sara was suffering from a defective ranking technique. Unlike the benign butcher, the man did what he was asked to do, killing Sara after torturing her.

Eren was sure that Reva had somehow gotten to know about his little escapades– his life away from the bloody job of organ harvesting. The Paladin of Pain sent the guy to finish what Eren couldn't.

Eren's lifeless shades came back to him instantly when he heard about what had happened to Sara. He was too shocked to act or respond for a few days. Those days were a blur for the butcher. However, he could remember the day when he snapped out of his self-induced misery on his own.

Eren's wrath knew no bounds.

The butcher found the guy before killing him in the most horrific way possible. He also suffered the consequences of hurting his own guild member, damaging his mana core in the process.

The damaged mana core meant that Eren wouldn't be able to become a high-ranking entity in his life. In spite of his diligent efforts, it capped his potential, obscuring his already gloomy future.

However, the butcher didn't care about his future at the time of killing Sara's killer. He knew that his future was already too dark without Sara's presence in it. He did not have anything to look forward to anymore.

Of course, Eren also knew that Reva Rain was Sara's real killer. She just didn't see the need to paint her own hands in Sara's blood, treating her like the ordinary mortal she was.

No matter how hurt he was, Eren was a realist. He knew he wouldn't be able to do anything against Reva Rain no matter what he did. He also didn't confront Reva about it, denying her the pleasure of gloating in his face.

In Escalon Guild's eyes, Eren held even less value than he already had because of his damaged mana core. It didn't care about the butcher or the guy he had killed due to some personal dispute.

Ultimately, Escalon guild allowed Eren to end his contract with it, giving him the freedom he didn't need. By this time, Reva was also done with a mentally and physically exhausted Eren. She didn't bother retaining him when he applied for contract termination.

In a way, Sara helped Eren free himself from Reva Rain's control. The fact that he couldn't or didn't want to do anything with his freedom was a different matter altogether.

No other establishment would hire Eren when he was at his lowest. So he was forced to become a mercenary for hire. And since nobody wanted to form a team with him, he was forced to do solo missions.

In the past timeline, Eren accepted solo missions one after another and drowned in his vices until one of the missions claimed his life. This was the reason why he didn't see death as something bad in his past life. He was able to see it as a much-needed respite from the life he had to live.

Sara's untimely death was a tragic chapter in Eren's past life. Of course, he wanted to do something about it in the current timeline– rewrite it anew. However, he was unable to locate the blind girl.

***

Katalina had become a ranker in the past timeline as well. And since the past timeline did not have the White Raven guild, she had to join a very strict establishment to secure ranking resources for herself.

Katalina became very busy with the assignments she had been given by the establishment. She stayed away from Sara during the time the latter was dating Eren.

As a result, Eren was not able to recognize Katalina's connection with Sara when the two met in the Titus tournament. That and the fact that he ignored Katalina's talks for the most part.

Eren tried to find Sara in the current timeline as well. However, he found out that she and her family were not at the same place they were in the past timeline.

There were various obvious and less obvious reasons for Sara's family to have been shifted to a different location on the current timeline. They could all be linked to the butterfly effect Eren had generated by introducing various changes to the current timeline.