CHAPTER THREE

Hero to Some

Sunlight lit the mid-morning sky a bright robin's egg blue by the time Cyrus stumbled upon his destination. His limbs ached with tiredness and he could feel the sun beating down on his head, the air seeming to stir lazily in the hollow where his lungs should be. Deep down, past his exhaustion and the eerie stillness of his mind (a stillness that had descended onto him the moment he had thrust the dagger into... no, he couldn't think about it) he had two dimly registered thoughts.

The first was a realisation: that for all he may have memorised the twists and turns of an isometric video game map, that knowledge was practically useless in the very non-isometric, very real world. North of the village, what a joke – the path to the old hut had been overgrown and barely visible, let alone navigable, and he'd found himself diverted down a small, dried up stream and into the woods for longer than he cared to admit. The whole journey from the edge of the village had taken nearly an hour of cursing and mumbling, each step painfully slow as he trudged along in a haze of sleep deprivation and post-adrenaline burnout.

The second was a succinct four words. Wow, what a dump.

Nestled in the centre of a little clearing, the hut he'd spent so long trying to find was a run-down old thing, cobbled together with slabs of rock in all shapes and sizes, its heather-thatched roof spotted with lichen and sunken in over one corner to expose the room beneath it. Parts of the stone walls were threaded with creeping vines that displaced the rocks beneath them. Coupled with the overgrown vegetation in the little clearing it made the hut appear as though it was growing up out of the earth, rather than being slowly reclaimed by it.

Thick tufts of grass and weedy wildflowers dragged against Cyrus's dirt-stained breeches as he trudged up the uneven path towards it. The doorway was littered with leaves and twigs blown in over the years, the door itself having long rotted off its hinges.

His nose itched when he walked inside, dirt and dust and bird droppings mixing with the damp smell of the rotting roof – unpleasant as it was, it at least helped to chase away the phantom scent of copper and ozone that clung to his skin. He ignored the faint stench of mildew as he wandered further into the hut, away from the corner with the sunken-in roof where the scent was thickest. The moment he found a patch of floor that was dry and mostly free of leaves and droppings, he dropped unceremoniously to his knees and tossed his bedroll to the ground, collapsing on top of it.

With a breeze rustling the wildflowers outside and the chirping of birdsong spilling in through the open doorway, Cyrus let the exhaustion take him and fell into a dreamless sleep.

South of the old hut, where the forest met the rolling plains, a sleepy farming village was situated between fields of tall grasses and hardy crops. Its sturdy oak houses were low, with very few reaching more than one storey high. They sprawled outwards next to wide pathways with no concern for running out of space; not when flower-spotted, flaxen plains spread out for miles around.

On the outskirts of the village, past the well at the centre and the tiny market square, one of the few ranches in Goldacre stood with rustic wooden structures forming a rough circle around the perimeter, separating its grazing grounds from the open fields just beyond it. Away from the farmhouse in a rickety old stable a young man ran a brush over the long, shaggy coat of its lone occupant. Straw-coloured hair obscured his eyes and his clothes were rough and worn, dusted with dirt and mended with mismatched thread all over. His movements were steady and methodical.

"Hey, it's the demon! I found the demon!"

A childish voice rang out from the fields, followed by a round of gleeful cackling from a gaggle of village children. The young man's hand paused in its motions, his body going still. The steed shuffled in place with a dissatisfied huff. He ran a hand down the old beast's flank in silent apology and resumed his work, gaze fixed on the hair he was carefully de-tangling as a small shadow darkened the doorway to the stable.

The child looming in the doorway was not much different from any of the other village children; he was scruffy, dirt-smudged and brown haired, carrying a stick proudly like it was a sword.

"The demon's brushin' our horse!" the child crowed as his friends squealed in exaggerated fear. There was very little for a rambunctious child to entertain themselves with in a village so small. "Who said you could get near old Sadie, huh!"

He brandished his stick righteously at the young man, miming swordplay from a safe distance next to the stable door. Bolstered by the "demon's" lack of acknowledgment, the child pushed forward, further emboldened by his friends' laughter.

"My Ma says horses won't let bad people ride 'em, so don't even think about trying to steal her!" he taunted, waving his stick higher. "Sadie'll get you with her huh- hippuh-"

"Hippomans!" one of his friends supplied, giggling.

"Yeah, her hippomans! You'll be dead before you can get out the village!"

Hippomanes, the young man corrected in his mind, still staring straight ahead as he worked the brush through a particularly stubborn knot. And the child was wrong. Even if the beast still had the dark, star-shaped mark on her forehead, it had long stopped secreting poison in her old age. The dark horn that used to be there had been shed years ago – now the spot only leaked an oily substance that had to be gently cleaned off every other day, so it didn't get in her eyes.

"I bet the demon's scared," a girl giggled from outside. "He's all quiet, 'cause he thinks the horse is gonna kill him!"

The steed shifted restlessly under his hands as the children cackled, her hooves shuffling back and forth in the straw scattered over the ground. Agitated by the noise. He stroked her mane, shushing her silently. The little ringleader was knocking his stick against the wall in an effort to showboat; they would be bored of his lack of reaction soon.

"See, it's getting angry 'bout the demon putting his hands all over it!" continued the girl amid peals of laughter.

Frustrated with no longer being the centre of attention, the boy struck the wall again, louder this time. He held the stick in front of him with a huff.

"Yeah, well, he better be scared – ain't anyone else who's gunna give him a job once Sadie figures out he's evil and kicks his head off!" he declared. "Ma shouldn't've let him near the animals anyway! He'll turn them all crazy and, uh, mess 'em up! Demon freak!"

The directionless bluster of the boy's threats was lost on the gaggle of children outside; they were far too excited at the invitation to jeer at the silent young man, echoing demon freak! in their high pitched voices. That seemed to be the limit for the old steed, who let loose an agitated squeal and reared back slightly on her hind legs, landing on them heavily again with a thud that stirred dust from the ground.

"It's crazy! Run, run!" the children yelled as they fled, more glee in their voices than any actual fear. Seeing his friends running off without him, the little ringleader let out a yelp and turned tail to follow.

"Hey! Wait for me, you traitors!" he shouted as he hopped back towards the doorway, threats forgotten.

The horse watched the last of the kids run giggling towards the village, ears flicking back and forth. Its distress was largely mollified when the young man held a small, misshapen turnip out towards it; an apology for yanking on its hair so suddenly. He placed it on the ground so he could continue with his work – the horse nudged the vegetable with its nose, causing it to skitter forwards across the floorboards.

. . .

As always, when the sun dipped low in the late afternoon sky, brushing against the top of the old oak forest and casting the first of the trees' long shadows across the village, the young man knocked on the door to the ranch owner's cottage. It opened almost immediately and the woman inside looked him over with a stern eye.

"Alright, boy, you're done for the day?" she asked, brusque and businesslike as she dusted her hands on her apron.

He nodded.

"Mucked the stables?"

He nodded.

"Fed the mouflon?"

He nodded.

"Gave Sadie 'er brushing?"

He nodded. She gave him a sharp nod back.

"Good. Wait there a moment," the woman declared, shuffling back into the cottage and shutting the door behind her.

It only took a few moments. Soon the ranch owner returned with a small burlap sack in each hand and deposited them in his arms in a curt manner.

"'Least half of that barley's for the doe, you hear me? She'll be overdue for kidding by now, so keep an ear out," she ordered at his blank expression, the second bag having caught him off guard. She stepped away from him then, seeing no need to prolong the interaction – he was dismissed with a short wave as she shut the door behind her.

The young man walked the same path across the ranch as he did every day, cradling the sacks in his arms carefully as he trod towards a small barn painted orange by the lowering sun. Lazy bleating greeted him when he pushed open the barn door, followed by a nagging butt of the head as the farm's lone male mouflon sniffed insistently at him, lured in by the smell of grain. He pushed the beast's head away with a firm hand.

Even for such a small ranch, there were very few beasts being kept here. Years ago there had been many more animals, ones that would eat grass from his dirt-smudged hands when he visited them at the fence. But the ranch owner's husband had passed, and with him half the labour that the farm required, so many of the creatures had been sold over time or eaten for their meat. It was unfortunate for the animals (and for the ranch owner, he supposed). But if it weren't for their misfortune he would still be shuffling between whatever odd jobs the villagers deigned to give him, making his home next to tree hollows and in old storage sheds.

Four mouflon lived there in the little barn, a handful of fluffy does and a lazy old buck who was frequently confused by his own rotating horns. Against the far wall, one of the does reclined on the ground while munching on some loose straw, her round belly reaching almost all the way to her hooves. She was indeed overdue to give birth: soon it would be five mouflon living there, or more.

He crouched beside her and poured a portion of barley into his hand. The doe snuffled curiously at the scent, enticed but seemingly not enough to get up from her place on the ground. Obliging her, the young man moved closer to rest his hand on the floorboards next to her head; she quickly chose the barley over her current snack, spitting out the straw and eating from his palm.

Half the bag of barley for one doe, a portion each for the rest. He would hopefully be left with enough for a stew afterwards, maybe porridge if the owner didn't mind him using some of the milk. The other bag contained the usual fare: potatoes, carrots, turnips and radishes; the smaller, misshapen vegetables that weren't fit for the market but still tasted just fine. His payment for the day's work, along with the roof over his head.

It wasn't so bad working here. The owner was curt, but she never cursed at him. He had two square meals a day and a place to sleep at night, up the ladder in the barn loft, and it was insulated in winter to keep the mouflon warm. Not even the village children were truly hostile, only bored; they didn't understand why their parents whispered about him in the market square. What they meant when they called him demon.

It would be foolish to ask for more.

Taking a pause from hacking at the grass in front of the run-down hovel he'd slept the day away in, Cyrus gazed balefully into the distance and snacked on the last of his candied fruits. The clearing looked rather pretty, really, bathed in the peach-pink light of the setting sun. It was almost enough to help him forget how badly he'd messed everything up.

He couldn't leave well enough alone, could he? The luxurious estate wasn't enough, the fact that he was waited on hand and foot wasn't enough, he couldn't simply sit back be satisfied with a world full of magic and a heart that actually worked. Instead he just had to go looking for answers, and now here he was: one answer down and with a hawk's head pendant burning a hole in his pocket.

Sweat dripped steadily from his brow as he tossed armfuls of grass and wildflowers into the ring of trees around the clearing. The perimeter was littered with cut grass at this point, alongside leaves, stray branches, dried twigs and old abandoned bird's nests – the result of Cyrus's hours-long battle to reclaim the hut from nature's clutches.

His fears of being a product of madness, a splinter personality broken off as a result of Cyrus Calvide going mad, were almost totally assuaged. The hut behind him was proof enough. He knew of it thanks to Next to Eden's tutorial, but the original Cyrus would have had no way to know of its existence, let alone the smaller details like the overgrown training targets out front and the way little flowering vines crept up the edges of the old stone well.

It was supposed to be a relief, knowing that his memories were real; that he wasn't invented from thin air in a hubristic noble's magical accident. Only now he was saddled with a problem so, so much worse.

Cyrus sucked mournfully on a candied jujube, staring out at the pitiful state of the Hero's supposed training grounds. A place the old monk should have used while taking the protagonist under his wing, giving him the skills he needed to defend himself and keep people safe. The original Cyrus had been a terrible bastard but he'd still technically contributed to the Hero's growth. The current Cyrus had been in the role for barely more than a week and he'd already overtaken him in regards to world-endangerment.

If you broke something, you fixed it. If you couldn't fix it, you replaced it. There was a demon invasion looming on the distant horizon and humanity's bulwark against it was down a mentor. The solution to his problem was glaringly obvious, one he'd arrived at the moment the Chalkydris emblem fell from the old man's pouch, but he was still allowed a moment to feel sorry for himself.

He summoned a ball of light, one much warmer and steadier than he'd managed just that morning, hanging gently in the air like a second sun. When the old monk had lit up their surroundings in darker patches of the forest, his had looked much the same. Identical even.

First Cyrus Calvide's body, then the old man's skills – did it still count as graverobbing if the victims had yet to be buried?

The least he could do was put it all to good use, he reasoned, popping the last morsel of fruit into his mouth with a sigh. It was time to fix up this dump.