Arterion was sleeping soundly on a bed topped with animal skin and thatch underneath. One could guess how comfortable he was just by the sound of his snoring. As a slave, for two years he had only been sleeping on the soft soil and grasses of the ground. Although his current bed was no match from the cotton bed he had when he was still living in his mansion, it was still better than sleeping on the cold, hard ground.

He felt the first warmth of dawn through the slit in his window which made him wake up. The joy he felt knowing that everything that happened last night wasn’t a dream and was in fact reality, made him ecstatic. But it also meant that the events that happened in the camp were also real.

Arterion subconsciously put his hand above his left eye as he remembered that bloody scene. It was becoming some sort of a habit for him. Shaking his head, he stood from his bed and reached for a bucket of water at the side of his room. He washed the dizziness of his face and looked at a small-piece of mirror hung on the wall of his shack.

It was quite a peculiar sight as the outline of his left eye was a tinge of crimson-red. Paired with his light violet eyes it was fairly noticeable; albeit one has to get close to face to see it clearly. Arterion put on a shirt made of linen and made his way out his room.

It was spring, and the breeze of dawn was light and refreshing. This was his new life, he thought. He walked up to the corner of Gerald’s house were a bunch logs were piled up. Last night before he was sent to bed, Gerald told him about the work that needed to be done. Besides Mila, a lot of the work done around the village needed to be done by a capable man; cutting logs for fire, setting up the fences, farm work, and all that. Mila can’t possibly do that alone.

As if fate was reading his thoughts, Arterion saw Mila tending to the vegetables in the garden. Combined with the gentle light of the rising sun shining down on her face, Arterion immediately felt this morning was ten times comfortable. There was just something about her that soothes the senses.

Mila who seemed to feel someone’s gaze turned at him with a smile and said, “You’re awake! Father always leaves before first light so I wake up quite early and make him some breakfast. If you’re hungry there are some leftovers in the pantry. Just eat your fill.”

Seeing the smiling Mila, Arterion felt a throb on one of his hearts. ‘Angel’, he thought.

“Ah.. No thank you. For yesterday as well..” Arterion who pulled through from his daze hurriedly replied.

“No problem!” Mila smiled and returned to her work.

Gerald’s village wasn’t big to say the least. Together with Mila and him, there were only approximately eight families currently living in the village. It was more of permanent campsite rather than a village. It was small and everyone knew each other well, it was a good community. As the sun was rising ever higher, the children of the village arrived one by one and watched Arterion with curious eyes.

It was then a man who looked to be in his early 30’s had also come to watch Arterion. He wore a brown linen shirt and cloth pants. His leather boots were stained of mud, a testament of how much he had worked on the farms.

“Hey young man! Haven’t seen you around here? What’s your name?” the man asked in a gentle tone.

Arterion stopped from cutting the logs into manageable pieces and looked at the man. From the pile on his side, it looked like he had done nothing but cut logs, but there wasn’t sweat on his face at all. Arterion’s stamina was just too abnormal, the man also found this to be strange.

“How are you doing? My name’s Arterion.” He replied in a polite manner.

“Arterion huh? Okay then. Look I need some help with some of the machinery for the farm, can you also come and help?” the man asked.

“Oh and the name is Nell.” The man said with a smile.

Arterion followed the friendly man named Nell to one of the fields of the village. The machinery looked like a cow made of metal and copper cogs. Nell told him that this machinery helps them till the soil for crops and there were only two of it in the village which were shared between eight families in rotation. Arterion was quite amazed about this equipment as they showcased the innovative nature of mankind. It might not be as intricate as Dwarven technology, but it was still useful and efficient.

This was how Arterion went about his life in the village. Every morning he would cut logs and help Mila with her chores. It was only a matter of time until the two of them eventually grew close with each other. Arterion also went about helping the other families in the community, making him liked and well-known by everyone.

Arterion found out that Gerald usually went away for long periods of time. Now two weeks has passed since he started living in his village yet Gerald hasn’t come home once. This made Arterion understand just why Gerald was willing to take a stranger like him into his village. A lot of the men here were usually busy tending with the farms and their animals, meaning that everyone was too busy to rely on each other. Especially for his daughter Mila who was always alone for the majority of his work.

It was late night at night when Gerald finally returned home. Arterion and Mila welcomed him together and helped him unpack his things. He was staring at Arterion with a strange look, which made him uneasy.

“Kid, come with me for a sec.” After unpacking, Gerald immediately called out Arterion.

Arterion nodded and followed Gerald to the living room. The atmosphere was quite intense with Gerald just looking at Arterion without saying a word. He finally broke the silence with a sigh and asked,

“Arterion boy, I am going straight to the point, it was about that camp we found ya in. Remember the first time I took you? The other guys wanted to loot the place for anything valuable.”

“Yes I do remember that, but what seems to be the problem..?” Arterion replied with a puzzled tone. He gulped a mouthful of saliva just by recalling that camp.

“Well.. after we went back home, I’ve seen those guys again with this trip I just came from. And they told me some weird things.” Gerald adjusted his posture and looked more serious than ever. He continued, “You see, when they went to loot for valuables they told me the aura of that camp was.. Demonic or Devilish in nature, or well, at least something about that place felt wrong. I didn’t know if you noticed but a lot of the corpses were dried up even if you told us only a day had passed since they were killed. This is one of the signs of a demonic or devilish presence; life energy hates Demonic Mana and Devil Mana so they try to leave a place infested with it as soon as possible.”

As Gerald told this piece of information, Arterion once again subconsciously put his hand over his left eye. It seems there was more to what happened than he thought. Gerald didn’t seem to mind his mannerism as he continued,

“The equipment and goods found at that place were also rotting and can’t be used anymore. Even their armors and weapons weren’t spared but that was not the weirdest part. A lot of those guys I was with had keen eyes and they noticed that among all the corpses and guts, they didn’t find a single heart.”

At this point Gerald also looked grim as he seemed to remember something. He then looked at Arterion as if to read his reaction to all of this.

Arterion felt his stomach turning and covered his mouth from letting out a gag. He was sweating profusely as he didn’t know how to respond to Gerald.

Seeing Arterion’s horrified reaction, Gerald’s looked softened. He said, “Don’t worry kid, even if we’re only six hours away from Evening Forest I’d protect all of you from any demon or devil! Hahahaha! I don’t know if you’ve already guessed it by I’m an Adventurer and Gold ranked at that!”

‘No.. no that’s not it’ Arterion just wanted to say this thought out loud. Gerald seemed to misunderstand why Arterion had this reaction. The last thing he saw when he woke up was that he was holding a bloodied sword in the middle of that camp. Among all the dead, he was the one left standing.

‘But what about the hearts?.. What the fuck happened to their hearts?!’ Arterion covered his mouth shut as he panted hard. It was only then that he realized that during the first moments he regained his senses, his mouth tasted of the sweet, irony flavor of blood…

Blech!

Arterion couldn’t hold it anymore as he vomited on the floor.

“Oy! What’s the matter kid? Mila, help him out! It’s fine, leave that all behind you. I just told you this because I thought it might help get some closure as to what really happened to your friends. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

‘No that isn’t the case..’ Arterion shook his head as he wanted to say these words so bad. But he can’t! This was his new life! What would happen if Gerald knew that he was the one responsible for the fates of those men? Would he be thrown away again?

Seeing Arterion’s state, Mila rushed over to help him. Gerald continued in a soft tone, “What about this kid, I’ll teach you some tricks to protect yourself. It might be useful for you in the future. Some time, I’ll also be taking you with me to some adventuring. Would you like that?”

Gerald comforted Arterion as much as he could but Arterion could only nod in acknowledgement. Gerald didn’t know what was really troubling Arterion, or what sort of realization dawned over him.

Arterion felt dizzy from everything that happened and he suddenly felt weak and sleepy. His head started to hurt once again and he fell to the ground.

Mila panicked to pick him up while Gerald also rushed over to him. Arterion could see their mouths moving but he couldn’t hear a single word from their mouths. His vision was spinning, and he blacked out only to hear that familiar, mysterious and melodious laugh once again..