He walked, and the sound echoed throughout his hideout.

Many empty stares were on him, yet he doubted any were actually looking. The amount of Essence needed to reanimate a corpse was surprisingly little, yet one could not hope to produce an intelligent servant either, even if the materials themselves had only recently departed. Besides, he didn’t need an intelligent servant, at least not most of the time.

With arms behind his back, he walked, and as if answering to his thoughts, a few muffled voices came his way. He ignored them, however. Much like a background sound you grow so used to, his mind had long ceased to register it all together. In the end, the process of unlife was a painful one, and his experiments didn’t regard something so useless as morality and empathy. Yes, in his experience, they would often be nothing more than an obstacle for growth.

Wondering how to proceed, his steps soon took him to his study, shelves full of scrolls and flasks filled with thick liquids of grim colors; some useful, some important, some just for fun. He couldn’t but feel a sense of pride every time he came by that scene, even if the cold rock that made the natural walls surrounding his most important workplace were not of his taste. For he knew that If any disciple of magic were to come by this place, they would be amazed by the amount of knowledge stored within. Yet his pride didn’t come from just the amount he had managed to gather over the years, but rather the fact that a good part of it had been penned by his own hand.

Indeed, a good disciple of magic would appreciate his own personal insights of the eternal pursuit of The Root, their minds slowly but surely becoming enlightened. And if they were really good…

They would soon realize the school to which these scrolls belonged to.

Yes, morality and empathy were often obstacles for growth.

Such were the words of his mentor.

Focusing his mind once again, he sat at the wooden yet comfortable chair in front of his desk, grabbed a parchment, some ink, and began to write down the results of today’s experiments.

Subject 1.

His Essence greatly rejected the process, even beyond what is common with minor undead minions. When I came by his cell, his figure had swelled, and soon after his members exploded one by one, staining the whole place with his blood and the potion I injected him with.

Note: procure another robe, that one has no fix.

Subject 2.

Despite his initial resilience, the pain of the process soon won over his mind, and his Essence stopped fighting after sometime. It seems that among his Order there is a rank system, and his was the lowest one, which makes me wonder if their blessings are also directly related to their rank, including their mental fortitude.

Such revelation, if proven true, would make the case of Subject 4 all the more curious.

A female voice, pained but strong-willed, shook the cave with a scream then, drawing him out of his thoughts.

“She got rid of the gag again, it seems.” He told himself, alone in his study, before standing up and reaching out for his wand.

Today he’d try another method.

Slowly but surely, Avaln opened his eyes.

The first thing he noted through his muddled mind was a pressure around his left shoulder and a good part of his arm; the second, a lash of pain that ran through his torso after trying to reach out for it with his right. He did, however, recognize the sensation on his skin: bandages.

That notion brought him back to reality, suddenly recalling all that happened yesterday. Or was it yesterday? How long had he been lying on the bed? Mira’s house by what he could gather from the roof he saw at first, and by what now his wandering gaze could tell him. Not much, however, given how he could fairly guess it was a late hour of the night.

Aching, one leg first, then the other, he slid through the sheets into a sitting position, using the pain to further shake off that lingering mist surrounding his thoughts. By what he could gather, his mana had yet to recover fully, and he knew such a thing should tell him how much time had passed since he lost consciousness…

But the fact was, he had yet to measure such a thing. Indeed, he’d reached the Tempered Essence realm not long ago, and got into a fight he barely won right after, if such a thing could be considered a victory.

“Victory, uh?” He repeated in a whisper, falling on the bed once again, an arm covering his gaze as his left side flared from the sudden movement.

It didn’t feel like it.

A part of him knew that being alive should be considered as such, that the people he came to care about were safe should be considered as such, yet…

It was frustrating.

He lifted his right hand towards the roof, and stared at it. That same hand had wielded the spear that took Kiener’s life, that same weapon that protected him from many attacks aimed to take his life. His mind went back to the memories, a blur of pictures, of sensations, of urgency, his sight registering movements his mind never came to process, yet his body did. Danger, threat, sweat and blood, muscles aching after blocking, then shifting into a counter all too easily resolved by the swordsman.

He was two minor realms higher than you. A voice inside him said. His own inner voice, trying to comfort his troubled heart.

Yet Avaln only shook his head, a head he knew that shouldn’t be attached to his shoulders.

Because he was aware, painfully aware, just like the flares coming from his left side, that he only survived because Kiener’s hands had been tied behind his back.

He had a mission, to kill an adventurer a great realm higher than him. And so, he held back, kept his own state as intact as possible, and Avaln knew that even when the swordsman declared he’d go all out, he did so while keeping his real goal in mind.

Avaln had never been in the picture, not really.

And that had been Keiner’s mistake, for not only he did not care about his opponent, but also constantly underestimated him. Avaln used that, and even then…

He barely won. And not alone.

I trust you, Mira.

When he said those words, he didn’t really know what they meant. A gut feeling, perhaps? That maybe the elderly woman wouldn’t just leave him there? He was glad such a feeling proved right, for her intervention marked the difference between life and death…

Her intervention, and that pale blue Essence that enveloped the spear.

He didn’t know who, nor how, nor from where, but someone had most definitely altered the spear’s path, turning a critical miss into a critical hit.

A sigh escaped his lips, and he couldn’t but shake his head in an effort to align his mind. There were more important, pressing matters in front of him.

The rest could wait.

Nodding to himself, his right hand brought forth the index finger, then began to trace a rune all too familiar to him, pouring half of his remaining mana into its shape, hoping it may prove enough for his injuries to heal. If not, he thought then, it should at least allow him to stand up without losing consciousness again.

And a few breaths later, as the Essence from the rune flowed inside him, he closed his eyes and allowed his mind to go back to that fight, that moment, analyzing every movement, trying to gain insight from Keiner’s swordsmanship.

After a while, instead of recalling every detail, Avaln began to add variables instead. What would have happened if he hadn’t jumped into the air when Kiener provoked him? Was there a choice? And what about wave the river? Should he have delayed his attack? Was there a way to feint it?

Throughout the rest of the night, Avaln fought Keiner inside his mind, the experience all too vivid, the sensation quite familiar to his training until now. Multiple times he thought to have gained the upper hand, only to be countered and killed a moment after, the swordsman’s ghost all too aware of Avaln’s skills now, his blade aimed only at the latter’s neck instead of someone behind, further along the road.

Avaln nodded, almost unconsciously.

He was determined to make the most out of that victory.

“Thank you, elder Mira.” Said the woman, using the title everyone who weren’t close to her would place before her name as sign of respect.

Mira didn’t know the woman well, and in fact she could count with her fingers the time they had interacted during her time in Gale, yet after treating her child, a skinny blond girl who wasn’t past four years old, she couldn’t but empathize with her.

That child was the only family she had left, after all.

The elderly woman shook her head, then brought a hand to her face in a gesture as if to get rid of the exhaustion. It had been three days since the attack, and Mira, as the only person who knew a bit about healing, had been in charge of taking care of the injured. During the first day she did so without a complaint, but by now she had half the mind to slap the brat inside her house awake, so that his healing skills could be put to good use.

But the other half was the reasonable one. Such powers, for the common people living in the village, could become a curse more than anything.

Even more than the work Keiner had put in clearing half of them.

Mira shook her head again, this time in frustration. She thought she’d been thorough when assisting Rei during the attack, thinking the enemies there were the only ones, but when she saw the bloody blade on Keiner’s hand, she realized how wrong she’d been.

Returning her mind to the present, she stood up and found her way through the wooden house, pointedly not looking at the lingering stains covering some walls, furniture and planks on the floor.

You would expect such a swordsman could make a cleaner kill. She thought to herself, not insensible enough to voice it.

With a small cloud of dust, she stepped on the trodden dirt of Gale’s main street, her gaze catching many people lifting bags full of their belongings, others crafting stretchers out of linen and wood, which would be used to carry their dead and bury them in their selected spot. Mira recalled the mass grave dug to the south of the village, where they were throwing the bodies of those families without survivors, their faces grim, some stern looking, others with regret painted on their features, knowing that if circumstances allowed they would have buried them properly…

But Mira knew it was the best course to take if they wanted to avoid diseases.

In a village as small as Gale, everyone knew each other, they shared misfortune and joy, the former more often than the latter, and so their hands were rugged, their hearts hardened, and their choices decisive. Anything less would steal from them the few truly happy moments they were bound to experience throughout their lives.

The wisdom of the common people. She once heard someone close to her say, long ago.

But as she watched how a family carrying their belongings left the borders of Gale, she couldn’t but wonder if the village would survive.

Avaln’s gaze found the few notches on the shaft of his spear, its ivory untarnished despite the blood, dirt and lack of maintenance. On his part, at least. Given how clean and sharp the blade was, he could surmise Jeff, the crafter of such a wonderful item, had a hand in it, which in turn made him wonder how long he’d been unconscious.

There was only one way to find out, he thought then, moving his left shoulder, realizing the pain was still there but had greatly subsided. Indeed, he could now move with partial freedom.

And so, he rummaged inside the drawers and closet at one side of the room, hoping grandma Mira wouldn’t mind him borrowing another set of clothes from Dan, her…

“Wait…” He couldn’t but stop what he was doing for a moment, wondering out loud. “What was Dan to her?”

He was clearly family, given that they lived together, but what? Grandson? Niece? Son? Lover?

He left no stone unturned as he pondered the answer, and that thought brought another, as if by the hand. A memory, not so old, just ignored because of the importance of what happened after, and of the conclusions drawn from it.

“Just like the grandma here, and that girl, I had no information about anyone by that name. Information only a few months old.” Keiner’s words in response to Avaln’s claim of being Of Gale.

The question nudged at him as he found an acceptable set of clothes and put them on, blue and made to be worn tight, with several cords to adjust to one’s figure around the arms and legs. Given his skills, he found them appropriate.

Yet his mind was far from focused on them, his steps quickly taking him out of the room, through the corridor leading directly outside. There, he found Mira talking with a group of villagers at one end of the street, and the sight was all too familiar to him.

There was trust in their interaction with her, the kind of trust Avaln recognized as one built through years of shared experiences. He knew such expressions from the times he had watched Arthur talking with former students, or families who adopted an orphan who had been under his care…

How could someone as relevant to the community as Mira, and Rei for that matter, pass unnoticed by informants that didn’t need to be all that competent to scout a village like Gale?

To his mind came that strange technique the elderly woman had used when fighting Keiner, dissolving into mist almost as if she wasn’t really there.

“Master Avaln? You are up?!” A voice came from behind him, pulling him out of his thoughts.

He turned around, finding Rei’s pale blue gaze staring at him in surprise, yet not shock. The girl knew enough about him as to infer the means he had used to recover so quickly.

His inner doubts came back, however, breaking the charm of her hue.

“Rei… “ He hesitated.

The girl cocked her head to the side. “Yes?”

He wanted to ask her, to know if Keiner’s words held any weight, for his gut was telling him they did, yet such a notion was unbelievable when compared to what he himself lived by their side.

“Rei… I… “

Yet the question never found shape.

The very thought was interrupted by Mira’s house suddenly exploding.