I waited in the workshop for three days, waiting for Owl to come back, passing the time by watching Tapio work and chatting with Nina about the world I now lived in.

Tapio taught me the advanced secrets of weaponsmithing in his break time, surprised at how easily I grasped the basics.

“I think I’m the wrong person to teach you,” he said after I perfectly replicated a turquoise dagger that freezes what it stabs on contact. “You’ve got perfect control of Qi, yet nothing to channel it through. It’s a real shame, honestly.”

He taught me, but I couldn’t use the knowledge.

That was the problem, it seems. Because I couldn’t manipulate proper tools, I couldn’t make my own equipment. Because I didn’t have a body that held Meridians, the sorceries and Arts of this world were locked away from me. Because I didn’t have a human body, I couldn’t engage in any of the martial traditions that were available for learning.

Because I was stuck in this accursed form, I could only use equipment, other Relics, and my Stigmata of wind.

Maybe one day, I’d be able to receive a body and function like a normal person. Until then, I was stuck in an awkwardly shaped drone that had a semi-legendary sword-turned-gun and its carved-down imitation strapped to the top.

“Tell you what,” Nina said over an online chat, “Give me a few months and I’ll be able to scrounge up enough metal to create a human-ish body for you. Sounds good?”

A few months. If only I had that much time to wait.

Four days, Owl said. I had four days to make my decision. Then she’d leave to take Whitelight or die trying.

By the third night, I started to realize she wasn’t going to come back to elaborate on what she meant. That I would either have to trust her blindly, or let her march to her death for a cause she didn’t give a shit about.

I couldn’t do anything about it for the last two days, and tonight would change nothing. I was pretty sure both Nina and Tapio were starting to get tired of me, so after the clock hit midnight, I decided to go for a walk on my own.

Time stood still in Hadron Alley, with every ornamental clock frozen at 8:59 PM and a sky frozen in the throes of mid-evening. I wandered up and down the streets, eyeing the glitzy guarded storefronts that lined the single street city. The few people in the street quickly averted their gazes, and those who didn’t had to stifle greed or laughter as they passed by.

I wouldn’t be attacked, but that didn’t mean anybody wanted to associate with me. Especially after news about the corpse-dragging drone made minor waves in local social circles, a mysterious machine puppeted by the vengeful ghost of a former Relic Hunter.

Getting tired of aimless wandering and pulled by curiosity, I approached Bahamut and Associates, a workshop advertising mechanical limb replacements and magical golems. Rang the doorbell twice and waited patiently for a receptionist to answer, as per the instructions etched carefully onto a thin steel welcoming plaque.

A young man in overalls answered some time later, a pair of emerald goggles suspended over his eyes. He lifted the goggles, staring at me with his bare brown eyes. I waved hello and asked if they would be available for a quote.

Halfway through my request, he slammed the door shut and locked it thrice.

All other workshops I visited rejected me, like I was a curse that would end up getting them killed. I was allowed to enter other locations like places of worship and clothing stores and hotels, but for the most part, I was outright ignored, or politely told to leave the premises by the gaze of those around me.

Time stood still in Hadron Alley, with every ornamental clock frozen at 8:59 PM and a sky frozen in the throes of mid-evening.

No matter how far I walked, the faces didn’t change.

I rejoined society, but there was no place for me in it. No chance to get in. Even though Hunter society was allegedly already a merry band of willing outcasts united by martial, magical, and mercantile arts.

In this place where time stood still, nothing would change.

I tried asking Nina for an explanation as to why this was happening, and she told me that I was already in the news. Tapio single-handedly ran one of Hadron’s top 20 workshops, and since I was caught dragging his body around, rumors that I was under investigation by the Oracle Bureau themselves and should be avoided at all costs.

By now, everybody in Hadron knew about me. Information was a Hunter’s lifeblood, and those who chose to be in Hadron knew when they smelled bad blood in the waters.

Ironic, isn’t it?

In only a few days, I’ve become an outcast in a city of outcasts.

It’s so funny it made me want to vomit.

Was this karmic retribution for what I’ve done? I didn’t know. I was afraid to even consider the possibility — all I could focus on was the murky sadness and regret plaguing me.

I shouldn’t have gone after Owl. If I hadn’t pried, maybe she would still be willing to talk to me. I wanted to warn her about what I saw, but how could I do it without sounding absolutely insane?

I didn’t know anything about her. I couldn’t face the problems she had without knowing. As I came to a stop underneath a lamppost, I realized that I was wandering around empty streets looking for something to distract myself instead of trying to search for her. All out of self-pity.

I was only thinking of myself.

Pity turned to contempt.

Why am I like this? I should be happy for what I’ve received, so why do I feel this way…?

Contempt turned to misery.

You should be happy. Why aren’t you?

This is what you wanted. What you fought for. Why aren’t you happy?

Don’t look away. Never look away. This is what you brought with your own hands.

I couldn’t blame that mysterious woman in good faith. I hadn’t seen her for some time, and I was self-aware enough to realize when something was my fault and my fault alone.

Suppressed memories came bleeding back, weighing my mind down into the inky sea I was barely treading in.

I killed so many to end up here. Slaughtered the righteous. Failed to save those in need. Only to fail in the basics of coordinating with other people.

You’re a Spirit, came a whisper carried by the wind. Be whatever you want to be — but don’t expect to get along with humans.

What was the point of all this?

The urge to cry had long escaped me, leaving only a distinct emptiness and fractured dread.

Why was I still alive?

A shrill ring brought me out of my stupor. I latched onto it like a drowning man, using the irregular beat to pull myself back. Forced myself to read the caller ID.

Jaxl.

That’s right. I did help one person. He did promise to help me out in turn — I hadn’t seen him for a while.

Samson’s wishes rode with me as well. Then there were the memories that damned woman gave me.

See? I still had a few things to cling onto. No need for all this.

The call timed out. As I was figuring out how to call him back, I received an semi-anonymous message from an unregistered device:

JAXL HERE. MEET ME AT THESE LOCAL COORDS, POWER OFF YOUR SYSTEMS. IMPORTANT — ABOUT THE BODY I PROMISED YOU. REAL HUMAN BODY.

The coordinates were located on the far-side of Hadron, all the way by the residential section. Not that many people there, this time of night.

To be safe, I sent Tapio a message telling him I’d be busy for a bit, and then went to meet up with Jaxl.

It was better than throwing a pity party, that was for sure.

Contrary to the implications of his message, Jaxl made no attempt to hide himself. He sat on a bench in front of an apartment building, a big bouquet of white flowers rimmed with pink resting in his lap. When he saw me, he waved.

“You came,” he said, gesturing for me to come sit beside him. “And by the looks of it, it looks like you got a makeover.”

“Bold to assume it was me,” I said. A hop took me up to the bench, and the closest thing I could do was laying myself flat against the freshly painted brown wood. “How did you know?”

“I’ve been around, early in the mornings. Usually when you’re fast asleep.”

“You didn’t care to say hello?”

Jaxl grinned a big, saw-toothed grin. “If there are two things I’ve learned in life, it’s to not bother a dog or kid that’s playing, and to not bother a cat that’s sleeping.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, slightly annoyed.

He answered my question with a chuckle. “Means whatever you want it to mean.”

This side of Hadron was quiet, separated by an entire train through the countryside. Each house was a manor, and given the way space seemed to warp around down the narrow track that was Hadron Alley, there was plenty of space to go around.

Some houses were short and stout and as long as a school, and some were regal and tall, with upwards of five or six pointed peaks that had wind vanes pointing in all different directions. Most of them were plain three-story white houses, different in frustrating, spot-the-difference ways.

This was fancier than any suburb I thought existed in Hadron, and many times more quaint than my earlier interactions seemed to imply.

“Do you live here?” I asked Jaxl.

He scoffed. “Live? I don’t have a need for a house. Too much to do, not enough time to rest.”

Two blocks down, five kids played with foam swords and shields. One boy had tiny stubby horns poking out of his forehead, while another girl was slapping the other kids silly with a tail as big as her leg.

It was possible to live a calm life, even in a place as weird as this. To raise a family and love.

How quaint.

“That doesn’t seem healthy,” I said, tearing my gaze away from them.

“Some of us are workaholics,” Jaxl replied. “Work, work, work, then we drop dead. In a ditch.”

“That seems horribly depressing,” I muttered. “What if you die without experiencing joy? Without meaning? Doesn’t that scare you?”

“Life has no inherent meaning. Don’t read too much until it — you’ll only give yourself a headache.” Jaxl stood up and brandished the bouquet like a dagger, pointing to a thin silver gate between the houses. “And speaking of headaches, I got a place to visit.”

We traversed a long path of circular stones past the gate, walking far past the boundary that previously marked the end of Hadron. The mist grew around, urging us to turn back. Jaxl stubbornly pushed on until the mist gave up and revealed the scene it was hiding.

A green plain greeted us, home to countless tiny grey blank obelisks arranged in unnumbered rows and columns. Jaxl took a cobblestone path, following it until we arrived at some sort of red-roofed gazebo that housed a smokeless stone firepit.

“This is what being a Relic Hunter gets you,” he said, casually tossing the bouquet into the fire. “Take a good look. This is how many registered Hunters have died, and this shitty little firepit is supposed to represent everybody else.”

The pit’s flames greedily lapped at the flowers, coughing up thick trails of black smoke that were suctioned through a funneled chimney. In every direction, thousands of blank graves stood witness to the rising swirl of feathery ash pumped through decorative gates.

“This is also the only place we’ll get some goddamn privacy in the time being,” Jaxl said. “Listen up — I’ve found a way we might be able to get you out of that body. Did that old cat-bastard actually ever tell you about what Whitelight is?”

No wonder he brought me here. I didn’t think Jaxl would openly mourn a loved one in front of anybody, not even a rock-turned-drone.

I took a seat against the base of the firepit, making myself comfortable for the time being. “He hasn’t. Are you here to sell me on it?”

“It's a sword that can divide anything, according to the legends.” Snapped his fingers at me, then opened and closed his index and middle fingers like scissors. “Might be able to use it to free you from that prison of yours.”

That didn’t seem right. “Tapio said it was something called a ‘Celestial Seed’. He was pretty insistent on destroying it when he explained why stopping the Rings was important.”

“He’s still stuck on that theory, is he?” Jaxl rubbed the back of his head, shaking his head in disapproval. “I don’t think he’s set on destroying it right away. Bet he wants to use it for something first before tossing it out.” He shrugged. “Can’t say he’s completely wrong about the weapon of mass destruction part, though. Nobody really knows how or why the empire fell, but I seriously doubt a single dinky weapon could do it. It’s better in our hands than somebody else’s”

Knowing what I knew about Project STAR, I kept quiet. STAR’s weapons were massive bombs and whole contraptions powered by ancient Relics; a single sword wouldn’t do it.

Still, it was worth a validation. All of the Relics involved were related to somebody called the First Heretic; anything dating back to so-called ‘antiquity’ would be suspect.

“Do you know when Whitelight appeared?” I asked.

“During the formation of the Frontier. Big ol’ sword that fell from the sky,” said Jaxl.

That ruled out it’s involvement with Project STAR, then. More importantly though, Jaxl brought up a point in his initial pitch that I couldn’t ignore.

“Wait, wait, what do you mean by prison? How did you figure that one out?”

“Educated guess. Completely artificial lifeforms aren’t really a thing outside of fiction. I did some thinking while I was running about and figured that was the most likely case — you were a human that was sealed in a rock, somehow, at an unknown point in time. Now you’re in a drone, so it’s an improvement.”

Sealing was a plausible theory. Then again, I had a whole lot of jumbled knowledge in me that didn’t belong to any one specific era, so I couldn’t be sure.

“Me and Tapio are planning on snatching Whitelight up before any other group,” Jaxl continued. “I’m pulling together a team that can pull this off. We’re going up against a lot of people, so I don’t blame you if you want to back out. But we might need you to pull this off.”

Can’t say I didn’t see this one coming. Tapio told me I could copy Relics if I tried; I could make a copy of Whitelight if I got near it and call it a finished mission.

“You’re making it sound like a heist,” I said, looking up at him.

“If you want to think of it like that. We are sneaking in and committing an act of theft.”

I was pretty sure this was the job Owl was talking about, but I went ahead and asked anyway: “Is Owl coming?”

“Yeah, she was the first that signed herself up. You two could work together when we actually execute the run.” He smiled and nudged me with his foot. “As you are, you’re basically the perfect infiltrator.”

Infiltrator? Like a spy? Like what Samson used to do?

“I don’t know about that one,” I muttered.

“You’re small, mobile, and can utilize a wind-based Arts or Stigmata. I still remember how you managed to tail me back in that ruin — you’ve got the natural sense of an ambush predator.”

Did I? I mean, I suppose I did consume a vast quantity of predatory animals in the initial stages of my existence. Not that I felt any more or less animalistic or impulsive.

“You are what you eat,” I mused, quietly.

Jaxl gave me a strange look, then said, “Anyway. You in? We’ll be getting to work tomorrow; lots of prep work that needs to be done.”

It was a job for Kon Atelier and its allies, to somehow sneak between all the major players in the Frontier and snatch a one-of-a-kind Relic before anybody could notice. The Rings wouldn’t be the only people opposing us — I was certain we’d have to face other Relic Hunters and organizations that would benefit from Whitelight.

I did want to help, to make a difference this time around — even if it was only to prevent a few people I knew from dying pointless deaths. But there was still one thing that didn’t sit right with me, something that was completely glossed over in this little debrief.

“I need one more answer.”

“Shoot.”

“Why are you doing this? You aren’t the type of person that would do something this big for free. Do you want Whitelight as well?”

Jaxl’s eyes widened. Then he guffawed, clutching his stomach in an attempt to contain his amusement. “Me? The only use I have for that is to separate salt from sugar. Young Hunters these days, I swear. Relic this, Nexus that, need to learn a specific Arts to even leave your home. Give me a goddamn break.”

His gaze settled on the eastern horizon, at the place where grassy fields met pink evening. Far in the distance was Hadron itself, a tiny line of grey toothpicks sticking from the earth.

“I’m after the bastards that used to control Whitelight. I’ve got a few questions I’d like to ask them. With my fists.”

I see. Jaxl was after somebody pulling strings behind the scenes, and so was I. I too had a few questions I’d like to ask that woman I kept seeing. With my fists, of course.

In the small chance that the person we were looking for was one in the same, all the better.

This was an opportunity to protect my new friends while also escaping the gemstone rock I was stuck in. After that, I could venture and find a place here without having to worry about not being human.

This sounded a whole lot more exciting than mindlessly grinding jobs and requests, anyhow.

“I think we’ll get along very well,” I said, retracing the path that returned to civilization. “As long as you keep up your end of the bargain, I’m in.”

“Yeah, yeah, I haven’t forgotten,” Jaxl said, clapping his hands together. “I’m a man who keeps my promises. Every last one of them.”