After the tension-filled events leading up to freeing the small village, it was a strangely awkward feeling that now I would be sitting idly at a table, waiting for a cup of tea.

“Truly, we appreciate what you and your crew have done.”

“They’re not mine; in fact, I’m tagging along for now.”

The man from earlier, the one who had been the voice of the captured group, had apparently been the village planner. After I’d come back into the village, a few other villagers and I scoured the place, but after finding no more raiders, they had begun to pick their way through the wreckage that the raiders had left behind.

“By the way, the other boy-”

“Zet.”

“Zet.” The village head nodded, “-will he be joining us?”

“I belie-” I was cut off as the curtain hanging from the door frame, the actual door had been smashed to pieces, was swiped to the side, revealing a tall young man leaning on a crutch.

“Sorry for the wait.” Zet nodded to the village head before shambling next to me, dropping heavily into the chair pulled out to my side. “Not exactly used to these.”

“We’re sorry we couldn’t do more for you.”

Zet shook his head before opening his mouth. “What you’re doing looking after ‘Ronika is enough. I’ll survive.”

“Well, shall we get onto discussing details?”

Once more, I was filled with awkward trepidation. I wasn’t the one who should be sitting here. It should have been Dayvin, Veronika, or anyone, and yet here I was.

To be fair, Dayvin had insisted Zet be the one to stand in for him, and Veronika had been out cold still, her slow breathing the only sign she was alive.

“I cannot stress how much your intervention means to us. Had you shown up much later, I’m not sure there would be much of a village left to find.”

“Why were they here in the first place?” Zet questioned, leaning forward.

“And that is where things get….. complicated. I was informed that your crew came here searching for a girl, am I right?”

Zet and I shared a quick look before nodding.

“Well, it has to do with that. The girl you are looking for is Rosalina Emriess.”

“I thought she never made it here?” I perked up, unsure where the village leader was taking this.

“She didn’t, or not here, but she arrived close by, we found out.”

“Mind cutting out the riddles?” Zet leaned back, sighing. “We get it, you enjoy storytelling, but there are lives at stake here, something I shouldn’t be reminding you.”

The man coughed into his fist before nodding. “Right you are. To be quick about it, Rosalina never did show up, and after her mother grew worried, she sent word back of an issue potentially arising, that same notice being what reached you, I presume. Several weeks passed when these raiders suddenly descended upon our village.”

“Why?” I questioned.

“Well, it wasn’t a coincidence.” The village head chuckled darkly. “They were paid to come here and desecrate the village, occupy it for a while before wiping us out completely.”

“I still don’t see why go through all that? And how does that girl play into it?” Zet folded his arms in front of his chest.

“Because of whom leads them.” The head looked back, rubbing at his eyes. “A Magic Knight.”

It was as if the temperature dropped several degrees in the tiny house, my tea suddenly as cold as ice.

“A magic knight?” Zet hissed.

“Yes. We don’t know how powerful he is, but his presence alone crushed any hope of throwing off our occupiers. Not to mention, they had our loved ones as collateral.”

That explained why the villagers who outnumbered the raiders several times over seemed content to be cattle to the slaughter.

“Raiders aren’t known for their discipline, so everything we know we heard from them talking amongst themselves in front of us. Apparently, this…. Man, needs Rosalina, something special about her blood or something along those lines, the raiders didn’t appear to know exactly why either.”

“What about her mom?” I added, curious what had happened to her.

“Whatever this man is doing, he apparently tried to involve her as well, but all we know isn’t she didn’t make it….”

“Oh.” I lowered my head. “Apologies.”

“It’s… it’s fine. Just hard. A village like ours normally shouldn’t attract attention like this, so we weren’t prepared.”

“About this magic knight.” Zet interrupted. “Where exactly is he right now?”

“Less than a day out.” The village head shuddered. “He set up a camp at the base of Sun-splitter Peak.”

“They’ve needed you guys this long because they’ve been siphoning off resources then.” I answered.

“Yes.” The head nodded. “That’s what we figured. But whatever he is doing there, he is close, or at least the raiders that would send word back and forth seem to believe so.”

“So they decided to enjoy in their last chance of merriment.” Zet spat, recalling the scene of the smoke billowing out from the village.

The village planner shuddered but never said a word confirming it.

Why would he? We had seen it with our own eyes.

“Now, ordinarily, I would beg for you to help us do something about this magic knight.” The head sagged inward as if dealing with a harsh reality. “But as you’re group was only a bronze ranked party to start with, and now you’ve lost members, it would be far too much for me to ask you to try to apprehend him. We appreciate that you have saved those you can, and we will compensate you with what we can, but we will be evacuated from here to the next village over tomorrow.”

“Why?” I sputtered.

“Because what else can we do? If this man returns to find the state of the village, what is to say he won’t finish us off himself? It would be pointless for us, villagers with no fighting experience, to try to resist.”

I looked at Zet again, where I could see the thoughts churning away in his head.

My throat tightened up, dry as if I had fallen face-first into a dune again. I wet my lips with my tongue, summoning my bravery.

“I’ll go.”

“Really?”

“What?” Zet stared at me, his turn to sputter. “Rook, think this through-”

“It’s okay Zet. I’ll go alone.” I quickly added. “Anyways, only Dayvin and Tez are in any shape to fight right now, right?”

Zet grumbled before finally nodding in answer.

“Then they will be needed here. I’ll- I’ll go alone and handle the magic knight.”

“Bo- Sir.” The village head corrected himself, suddenly addressing me more highly. “Can you really do it?”

“Well,” I smiled weakly. “I’m a bit of a magic knight myself.”

“Wonderful!” The man clapped his hands together before rushing to the curtain separating indoors from the slow rise of the morning rays. “I’ll go inform some of the others!”

And just like that, he was gone, leaving Zet and me alone.

“A little excited, isn’t he?” I tried smiling at the older boy, but he glared at me.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do something so stupid? This guy is a magic knight, bad news. Why throw yourself out like that?”

I rubbed at the fabric hiding the tiny beginning of a band circling my wrist. “I’m the only one who has a chance to do something, so I ought to, right?”

“Adventurers, not heroes.” Zet frowned lightly at me. “That means we know when we are out of our depth. What good does it do anyone to go die fighting some magic knight?”

“I’m a magic knight too-” I mumbled before quickly adding a quietly whispered “-technically.”

“You said it yourself; you’re barely one!”

“What does it matter?” I felt my voice rising. “I’m not even really part of your group!”

“So?” Zet pounded a fist on the table. “I just found out the person who was like a mom to me nearly died doing this damned commission, and it wasn’t even technically part of it! I don’t want to see anyone go toss their lives away at this point.”

I couldn’t help but be impressed, reminded of the words Dayvin had told me.

Guess he really does act like a leader sometimes.

“Look, Zet. I must.” I finally laid my hands on the table as if surrendering, unwilling to fight it anymore. “Because if I don’t, who knows what will happen to that girl? And who knows what he wants her for. Can we rest easy knowing some guy is out there doing who knows what?”

The more I talked, the more I convinced myself that I was making the right choice, even if deep inside, the idea of confronting some mystery magic knight terrified me.

What if he is another Sage Hunter?

I shook my head at the thought, casting it away. I had to remind myself that while I had encountered powerful figures like few ever would, it didn’t mean everything that went bump in the dark was a tyrant or cataclysmic monster.

Mom would go to her rescue.

I was decided, and Zet must have seen it in my expression, finally softening.

“Fine. Go. But you better survive, okay? How else do I tell people I was there at the beginning of the next Ornnax adventurer if you go and die?”

I watched as Zet pushed himself from the chair, grabbing at his makeshift crutch and slowly limping his way out of the house until I was there alone with just my thoughts for company.

Why?

Why had I done it?

Bravery? Because it had to be done?

Why?

I felt my brows furrow as I leaned over, resting my forehead on the table, my tea was all but forgotten.

What came over me?

I knew what came over me. It was painfully obvious.

I’m compensating.

I’d taken my first life today, not just one, but several. I’d seen the bodies of villagers strewn through the streets and other terrible things. Of the original count of villagers, perhaps half were left.

At best.

I felt powerless, faced with that death, that suffering. I had been powerless to do anything about it. Sure, I’d killed some raiders, but that didn’t make the queasy feeling fade from my gut.

I need to prove myself here and now. That what I’m doing has a reason.

I had killed. That was undeniable. If I didn’t do anything, I felt as if there were dark hands reaching from the shadows, waiting to drag me down with them.

I can’t just do nothing.

There was only one way to dispel this feeling, this growing revulsion with myself and what I’d done, of what had happened.

I needed to make things right in the only way I could.

Killing a few raiders won’t make things right.

I picked my head back up, swallowing a deep breath as the mana circulated through me, abating the tension in my shoulders.

If I couldn’t avoid killing, if I’d have to do it in the future again, I had to come to terms with it, and prove there was a point. The only way I could do that, I’d subconsciously decided at some point, was to bring that girl home.

One way or another.

I stood up abruptly, grabbing the tea intending to swallow down a swig, but I dropped it immediately.

Still hot.

Deciding to ignore the tea, I turned toward the curtain, stepping out.

And face first with Tez, who hopped back with a yelp.

“Oh. I thought Zet was still here.”

“No.” I rubbed at my neck, suddenly aware of how close my face had been to her face. “He left a bit ago.”

“Oh. So, what’s the plan?”

Crap.

I’d been hoping Zet would be the one to inform her, but there was no getting around it now.

“Uh. You and Dayvin will be staying here, watching over the village.”

“Oh.” Tez seemed deflated before she suddenly looked at me with suspicion. “And what about you?”

“I-” I paused, trying to think of the best way to say it, before finally giving up with a shrug and deciding to just plunge straight ahead. “I’m going to Sun-splitter Peak.”

“Alone?”

She must have heard from some of the villagers if she wasn’t questioning why I needed to go.

“Yeah. Alone.”

“Bull.”

“I have to.”

“Yeah, and I say bull.” She crossed her arms, looking stubbornly at me. “We’re a team, aren’t we?”

“For now.” I answered, looking away as I did. “But it won’t always be that way. And you can’t get involved here.”

She looked hurt for a moment before she stuck her chin out, eyes narrowing. “Why, because I’m a girl?”

“Wh-what?” I stuttered, surprised at the sudden accusation. “No! It’s just…. There is a magic knight involved! Who knows how powerful they might be?”

“So you should bring help.” Tez nodded as if the matter was settled.

“Yes- wait, no!”

“There, that settles it.” Tez smiled as if satisfied before she began to strut away. “You may have plans to go on and become some grand adventurer, and my brother may be content to watch from the sidelines, but I have no interest in only ever basking in the glory of the stories of the greatest adventures. I want to live it as well.”

I stared as she sauntered away, finally shaking my head in disbelief. It was something I imagined Veronika, had she been healthy and had no one to worry about, would have done as well.

Well, that’s probably where she got it from then.

There was still somewhere I knew I had to go before I prepared to leave, so walking through what remained of the village, I kept my eyes open for where I’d heard an impromptu field hospital had been set up.

Small as the village was, it was only a short walk until I found it, rows of injured villagers lain out in a small pavilion space.

“Took you some time to show.”

My eyes tracked the voice, landing upon a man swathed in bandages and wraps but otherwise seeming better than most.

“Dayvin.”

“Heard you plan to apprehend the one behind this yourself.”

“Didn’t expect the news to travel that fast.” I sighed before I walked toward him.

“Yeah, well, you should have seen the look on the village head’s face when he came all but running over here.”

“I can understand wanting to bring the one responsible for all…. This-” I waved around us at our surroundings and the rows of injured. “-but I just didn’t expect it would mean that much.”

“You’ve got to understand, kid; people are complex things. This isn't just about justice for those who watched friends and family abused and killed before their eyes.”

“It isn’t?”

“No.” Dayvin shook his head. “What it’s about is revenge. Often, humans are cruel beings when wronged. Imagine how these people likely feel.”

“Oh.” That was all I had to say. I’d been under the assumption that the glint in the eyes of the villagers was simply a thirst for justice, but knowing what I’d been told now, I could only see it as something darker, brutal.”

“Anyways, it’s not me you came to check on.” The way Dayvin said it told me he wasn’t asking me a question.

“No.” I admitted. “How is Veronika doing?”

Dayvin shrugged, but he couldn’t hide the flicker of worry that escaped his tightly controlled composure. “She isn’t doing great, but she isn’t dead yet. The villagers who can will be evacuating to the next village over, where they will also be looking to find help. I wouldn’t doubt that in the end, Kar’anza is abandoned, those who lived here simply merging in with other nearby villages.”

“What about those who can’t evacuate?”

“They’ll be staying here in the meantime. Worst case scenario, you piss off this magic knight enough he comes down and slaughters us all.”

“Oh.”

I’d come to learn Dayvin wasn’t exactly great as sugar-coating his words, but I wished he tried a little harder for once.

“Win, or we die more than likely.” Dayvin shrugged. “Always the chance that even if you didn’t go, he would come back after achieving what he is after. If it were Veronika, she would have gone into a lecture about the implications of having raiders deal with Kar’anza means the guy probably is looking to keep a low profile.”

“Meaning he would check for survivors anyways.”

“Raiders probably were in for a double-cross and never realized it.” Dayvin half grinned. “At the very least, serves the bastards right.”

“You seem rather collected given the circumstances.” I pointed at, to which Dayvin gave me his signature shrug.

“Veronika believed in you, so I will. You’re meant for greater things than running simple bronze rank commissions, the upper limits of what we take care of. Just word of warning.”

“Yeah?”

“Remember, the girl was being escorted by an Iron rank adventurer as well as being with a caravan.”

“Given the number of raiders, unless they all managed to catch the adventure by surprise, it’s unlikely they could have managed to pull that off so cleanly.” I followed his line of thought, the words spilling from my mouth.

“Meaning it wasn’t the raiders that attacked them.”

“No.” Dayvin gave me a depreciating smile, “whoever this magic knight is, they were strong enough to kill an iron rank adventure.”

Looks like I finally got some frame of reference to work with.

“Mom, were you strong?”

“Hmmm.” My mother looked pensively out the window as she gently bounced me on her knee. “I’d say so.”

“Were you the strongest?”

“No.” My mother laughed, a single strand of her hair slipping from her bun and into her face. “Not by a long shot.”

“But you were an adve-advent, ad-ven-chure-er!”

I could remember my mother smiling at child me and my attempts at saying a word longer than three syllables.

“Maybe one day you will go off on your own. Remember, an adventurer is more than just their rank. Aside from those who stand at the very top, Ornnax, you can never be sure if an adventurer has earned their rank through small diligent efforts or singular heroic acts.”

“Iron rank. Huh..” I looked up at the sky, pondering it over.

Could I beat an iron rank?

It was a tricky question to answer, my mother's words reminding me not to think of rank alone. At the very least, I had heard that the captain of the guard from Theronhold in charge of our region back home had once been a Steel rank adventure.

Meaning, for all I know, this magic knight might be as strong or stronger than them.

It was sobering, given I still had the memory of how not even the captain but one of his underlings had dealt with both myself and Sar-

Wait, wasn’t it just me?

My heart skipped a beat, but the memory seemed to resolve itself. It had been just me that had been tested, and I’d been dealt with as if I were no more than an annoying gnat.

I’m stronger than back then.

For one, I had grown adept at modulating the degree of my ruptured body. I’d be able to fight for longer at speeds that me from a month ago would have struggled to fend off.

Does it really matter?

Regardless, I had to do this. I had to believe I would prevail.

“Enough chatting with me.” Dayvin interrupted my thoughts, pointing nearby. “You came for her after all.”

I followed his pointing finger until my eyes landed upon where a woman lay, deathly still save for her slowly rising and falling chest.

Veronika.

I slowly paced over before kneeling to sit beside her. Part of me wished she were inside, something felt wrong about all these people being outside, but I could understand why it had to be this way. Taking injured folk, many with varying degrees of infection, and cramming them all together was a disaster in the making.

“Hey, Veronika.”

Veronika, of course, did not respond.

“I’m…. I’m sorry this happened. It’s my fault. If it weren’t for me, you never would have decided to take this commission.”

Silence.

Of course, this village would have been wiped out, and who knows what else.

“I’m going to take a risk. We know where the person behind this is. I’m going to go deal with him myself.”

Still more silence.

“Well, Tez is coming along as well, I guess.” I added after a moment.

Silence.

“I’m… I guess what I wanted to say was thank you. You guys picked me up, someone you’d never met before, and went out of your way to welcome me in. It’s my fault-”

No. I’m not the one who did this.

“-it’s my fault I couldn’t do more. I hope, next time, things will be better.”

I stood up, wiping my face.

No, I wasn’t crying. I just had sand in my eye.

I think that’s everything.

All I had left to do was to find Tez, and then I would be se-

“Rook!”

Well, that was easy.

Nearby, Tez had arrived; next to her was the village head. She gestured me forward, but before I went to follow her, I cast a single glance at Veronika, then at Dayvin.

Dayvin said nothing, only nodding his head once.

I swallowed, standing up and chasing after Tez and the village head, who had taken several steps away, out of earshot from anybody nearby.

“I ran into him earlier, he asked me if he knew where you were, said he had something he forgot to mention to you earlier. Lucky for him, I’m going with you, so I told him if he stuck with me, we’d find you before you left.”

I couldn’t lie; at the very least, having Tez with me gave me some form of relief.

“What is it?” I asked, turning to address the village planner.

“It’s about Rosalina. If- if you find her and she is okay, her mother told me that in case anything ever happened to her, she was to be taken to Dunehold.”

“What about her father?”

“That’s where I come in.” Tez chimed up. “I’ll head back here, then return to Enudtstrif with the rest of the Red Foxes. We will inform the father that his daughter is okay and that you took her to Dunehold.”

“But I don’t know how to get to Dunehold.”

“This might help then.” The man handed me a ring, a single red crystal splinter contained within a glass bubble.

“What is it?”

“It’s a Wayfinder. A mage transfers mana from a specific location into a gem and then breaks it. The splinters will always turn to point at their original mana source location. Useful for out here in the desert where the winds can change the geography and landmarks on a day-to-day basis. This one is attuned to Dunehold.”

That is useful.

“I couldn’t take something this precious.” I tried to push it back toward the man, but he shook his head.

“You’re misinformed if you think this is precious. In Dunehold, you can buy this for a little more than a few Dansh. If you’re really getting taken for a ride, then you might even be charged a Gilly, but no more than that.”

Oh.

I sheepishly grabbed the ring, putting it on the index finger of my left hand as I tried to ignore the growing flush in my cheeks from the embarrassment of coming across as the country bumpkin I really was.

“What about the commission?” I turned to Tez, changing topics.

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves, but I’ve got the commission notice we received from her father with me. After retrieving Rosalina, you take it with you and take it to the Adventure Guild in Dunehold and explain everything. Since you were accompanying us as a probationary commission, they’ll fast track your license.”

My real adventurer license.

I was so close.

Just had to go beat an unknown magic knight of unknown strength upon a peak sitting just outside one of the most hostile places in not just Haerasong, but the entire world.

Or so I’d heard.

Focus Rook. One thing at a time.

“Anything else?” I asked the village head.

“No.” The man shook his head. “Actually, just, one thing.”

“Yes?”

“Make him pay for what he did to us.”

“…humans are cruel beings when wronged. Imagine how these people likely feel.”

Those words had only been said to me minutes ago, but seeing the sudden hunger, the hate in the eyes of the docile-looking village head, I could fully appreciate what Dayvin had meant.

“He’ll get what he deserves. We’ll make sure of it.” Tez answered for me before grabbing me by the shoulder. “C’mon, it’s time to go.”

I wanted to say something else, but there was nothing, my lips glued together.

Maybe it’s for the best.

------------------------------------------------

“Wow.” I whistled, a hand over my eyes as I looked out and up.

“Yeah. We didn’t see them last night because it was dark and the clouds, but now that the sudden is out… yeah.”

We stood outside the village, facing where we needed to go. Ahead of us, mountains so tall they pierced the clouds.

The Helena mountain range.

We wouldn’t be tackling those, but the outer crest, the much shorter ring of peaks that acted as a natural barrier between the mountains and the outside world. One of those peaks would be our goal, Sun-splitter peak.

“Why is it called that anyway?” I turned to Tez, curious.

“Why is what called that?”

“Sun-splitter Peak.”

“Oh.” Tez pointed toward one of the peaks, looking vaguely like the rest from this distance. “Legend has it that long ago, a piece of the sun hurtled down from the heavens. When it crashed down, it upheaved the land, forming the Helena mountains. Sun-splitter peak is where it was thought that the piece of the sun which split off landed originally.”

I imagined a land long ago, the sun fracturing and falling, forming the mountains before us. Knowing the reputation they had, part of me believed it.

“If we head out now, we should reach it a little before the sun sets. Let’s go.”

I watched as Tez began to walk, chatting aloud as I stood firm, watching her back.

You can still turn away, run away.

For a moment, I felt my foot rise, my body angling to simply walk away.

And then what?

Then what?

Resolving myself, when my foot stepped back down, it was not to walk away but to follow quickly after Tez.

Too late to turn back now.