[Jehona]

The Vice-Captain gave them another briefing the night preceding their departure from Cora, this one blessedly devoid of theatrical endeavors. He marked several points of interest, stressing upon them the need to pass the other settlements the Royal Knights were stationed in—for one, to get a better scope of the situation in each area, and for two, to replenish some of their exhausted resources.

Some, because supplying the volunteers deepened the dent in the Kingdom’s treasuries. The stipend given these days was a modest shadow of the one given in the past. Vice-Captain Greco appeared a little sheepish as he gave them a sum that padded their pouches a meager bit, keeping another sum to send their families.

It would disappoint Cinder Village’s head most terribly.

Early in the morning and at the town’s gates, Vice-Captain Greco told them, “I’ll send Flynn to Cinder to deal with your village head.” A dark edge sharpened the look in the Vice-Captain’s eyes, one that promised payment of utmost misery as he said, “We don’t take well to coercing people in our name.”

“What I would do to be there and see Gustav’s face that moment,” Stella mused, smile wide with vindication. Jehona felt the same.

In ordered lines, the Knights gave them a salute of farewell. Some of them—the ones Jehona met at the training grounds—waved at her with tear-glistened eyes.

Puzzled, Jehona waved back.

Her gesture only served to make their tears fall.

It baffled her so much that she wondered aloud, now a good distance away from Cora, “What’s wrong with them?”

Much to her ire, it was the Suspicious One who answered, his smile as infuriating as ever, “The demise of a beauty is always a tragedy.”

“Oh?” Jehona smiled back with absolutely no sincerity, only sinister intentions. “Then I’ll spare you such a sight by taking your life.”

Suspicious One opened his mouth to retort but then didn’t. His steps slowed to reach a halt as he shifted his sights from one side to the other. It got them to stop as well, searching for whatever he sensed to no avail.

“What’s the matter?” Stella asked, but Suspicious One didn’t answer.

Jehona didn’t know if she sensed the same thing as Suspicious One, she just knew that someone was staring at them—not with a predator’s gaze, but something just as intent.

She followed it to a fixed point, a patch of green studded with small, white flowers, just a few steps away from the edge of the road.

Upon first glance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary in that quaint little image of nature. But Jehona discerned a distortion in the arrangement of the patch’s flowers, a repetition, as if the closest flowers to that patch were reflected in all details—from the number of their petals, to their placement on the ground.

Jehona reached down to take a stone and throw it at the patch, watching it knock and then bounce off an unseen barrier with a faint, but telling sound.

She headed to the patch, stopped at its edge and knocked against what should’ve been air, but felt like wood.

Within a blink, the scene changed, and Jehona’s sights met a wooden stall covered with a white, heavy cloth, a middle-aged man with the most impressive mustache standing behind its small counter.

“Young lass, what eagle eyes must you have!” he praised.

Jehona pointedly looked back at Suspicious One, smug.

Suspicious One pretended as if he never heard a thing, giving an unprompted explanation to William and Stella, “He must’ve used Light energy to conceal himself.”

“Correct!” Mustache praised again. “My, what an impressive bunch! From which land you hail?”

“Cinder Village,” William answered him.

The awe vanished from Mustache’s features, replaced by utter bewilderment. “Never heard of that one before… could it be that you are from Lunaria?”

Was Cinder’s name so obscure that it could be assigned to another continent?

“It’s close to the southern border of the Kingdom,” answered William again. Jehona admired his patience.

“A knowledge gained, I suppose,” muttered Mustache to himself before ushering her companions close. “Come, come! Look at the wares I’m offering!”

Jehona prided herself on her sight, and the fact that she saw nothing but piles of books had her momentarily doubt herself.

“What wares?” Stella asked, foregoing the self-doubt Jehona experienced. “All I see is old books.”

“They’re not even books,” Suspicious One added, picking one out of the pile and skimming through it.

Curious as to what he meant, Jehona picked one as well, only for her eyes to be struck with a mess that could be barely called handwriting.

“You’re right, they’re not books.” Mustache’s cheer didn’t falter at their lack of enthusiasm. “They’re memoirs, relics or, perhaps, humanity in written form!”

They all stared at him.

“And you’re selling them?” Jehona had to ask.

Her inquiry seemed to bring Mustache back to earth. “One has to make a living, especially in these trying times.”

“And why would we be interested in some memoirs?” came Stella’s voice, heavy with disinterest.

“Or humanity in written form?” Suspicious One looked rather pleased with himself at that jab.

Again, Mustache showed an admirable amount of self-assuredness, continuing on as though he wasn’t outright mocked, “They’re logs written by volunteers like you. Some date back to the early days of Aldric’s invasion, while others are as recent as a few months prior to this day.”

William took a log for himself, interest evident in his eyes as he read. Perhaps the log he took wasn’t like hers: written with elbows. “Why do you have so many of them?”

At that, Mustache appeared a little hesitant.

Stella squinted at him. “You stole them?”

“No,” Suspicious One cut Mustache off before he found a more diplomatic answer. “He took them after their owners died.”

Mustache’s silence was incriminating.

Jehona put back the one she had in hand, inwardly apologizing to the scribbles for the disrespect.

A pile of these, and as many were the owners…

“You’re making me into a fiend,” Mustache objected. “I only travel the land and take those I find on the way. Most of the time, they’re the same logs I sold, only with more notes added to them.”

“Even better, a regenerating business,” Suspicious One said with a smile, clearly aiming to make Mustache squirm.

Mustache finally had enough. “All of these logs have one thing in common: their owners wanted their words to be read after their deaths. They wanted their notes to help others achieve what they couldn’t. I merely facilitate those last wishes of theirs with an insignificant fee.”

A last wish?

“How much is that insignificant fee?” Jehona inquired, and her companions looked at her, surprised.

Mustache perked up, his eyes on the money pouch tied to her belt. “For you only, I’ll just take five silvers.”

“Might as well give you all our money while at it,” Stella interfered before Jehona managed a reply, ushering her away from Mustache.

“These logs are highly sought-after!” Mustache shot back. “I only sell them to those I deem worthy!”

Stella appeared far from impressed. “Are we supposed to feel honored?”

Jehona stepped back into the scene to give Mustache his silvers, reasoning to her companions, “It wouldn’t hurt to try it.”

“It would hurt your pouch,” Suspicious One argued, a little mournful.

Jehona snorted. “Of course you’d think that.”

Getting his silvers, Mustache started going through his stock, searching for a particular item. It took a while for him to find it, dusting it off before giving it to Jehona. “This is the best one I have, and the only one that changed hands once.”

“The best one? What, you’re expecting to get it back soon?” Again, Suspicious One started his cornering.

“No!” Mustache roared, a vein almost popping. “This is out of appreciation for the young lass’s kindness.”

Jehona watched, a little fascinated, as her three companions cast Mustache looks of varying shades of disbelief, from the simple, the mocking, to the outright hostile.

Opening the log, she found two forms of handwriting, one neater than the other. Skimming a few initial entries, Jehona came to learn a little about the log’s history.

For starters, the original owner was from the Central Plains, while the second was from Luce City. The original wrote their entries as basic lists, lacking in details, while the second wrote theirs with meticulous detail, speaking of a high level of perceptiveness. The original’s writing ended abruptly on the fifth page, while the second, Jehona found after a skip to the end, extended throughout the entirety of the log, the last entry consistent of a few words: “Please, use this to find it. I do not want my efforts to be in vain.”

This purchase might’ve made her pouch significantly lighter, but Jehona didn’t regret it.

With that, they embarked anew. They were still within hearing-range when Mustache called out after them, “I wish you fortune in your quest, heroes from Cinder!”

It was the most genuine he ever sounded.

[William]

Due to the situation in Cora, finding enough resources to replenish their rations had been a challenge. Added to the fact that the items they brought from home had long since started dwindling, they reached upon a decision to have few, set times to eat on their way to Dokka.

Located east of Cora Town, Dokka was a small village known for its fruit farms. The only reason it hadn’t been a hub for Aslan Town’s refugees was due to the convoluted path leading up to it. Fortunately, Vice-Captain Greco noted on their map the best course to take from Cora, recommending them to spend a day and night there at the very least and take their time in restocking their supplies, because they for sure couldn’t depend on Aslan Town for it.

At the outskirts of Dokka, William’s sights were overwhelmed with fields of various fruits occupying the horizon. The road they walked in cut through a field, creating a tree-shaded path saturated with the scent of fresh apples.

William watched as his companions took a few apples from the branches dangling closest to them, one after another. From the immediate Yonten to the middling Jehona and to the hesitant Stella, all ended up doing it, letting out hums of approval at the taste.

It was so far from the time they settled upon for supper…

Curiosity piqued and hunger sharpened, William reached up a hand to take a delicious-looking apple, bringing it close for a bite, only for a loud, “Drop the apples!” to rise and startle him.

Surrounding them were furious villagers, pointing both weapons and farming tools at them. A villager standing at the front of the gathering cast a particularly scathing glare at William and the apple he had in hand.

William did as told and dropped the apple on the ground, inwardly wincing at the disrespect of innocent fruit.

Perhaps the villager at the front had thoughts running the same lane; his glare edged to lethal territories.

It took close to an hour to clear up the misunderstanding causing the villagers’ hostility to them.

Apparently, the West Gate’s influence reached beyond Aslan and extended its claws to Dokka. A group of the Gate’s followers established a stronghold in the area, conducting the same practices occurring in Aslan. However, Dokka’s villagers were more resistant to the takeover, and that defiance had its consequences.

“They’ve taken our children,” Dokka’s village head said, fury evident in his voice and gaze--and that melted away, its remainder a clear sense of loss, powerlessness. The only glimmer rose when he set his sights upon them once again. “You want to defeat the West Gate near Aslan, correct? Then… can you help with the situation here?”

“Those bastards are strong! They defeated our strongest people!”

The villager who glared at William at Dokka’s outskirts now looked pleadingly at him. “Please… my daughter is only three.”

“So, we’re still going with this raiding-the-bandits’-stronghold matter?”

“Yes,” William answered.

“I thought we’d be more careful.” Yonten looked at Stella. “Raiding a bandits’ stronghold doesn’t seem that cautious to me.”

“Earning the villagers’ goodwill will work to our advantage,” Stella defended herself.

William wasn’t interested in doing the same, and instead opted for another approach, “Besides, how can we stay in good conscious in their village with this situation going on?”

Yonten gave a perfunctory nod, clearly not agreeing with this course of action, but still went along with it.

It puzzled William somewhat, Yonten’s behavior. At first, in the incident with the Moon Dancer, William thought Yonten’s reluctance to pursue the source of the poisoning to be out of fear, but that didn’t feel right. After all, Yonten didn’t balk neither at facing Aldric, nor his Gates. It was only these detours he expressed doubts about.

What could it be?

“We can do a raid carefully,” came Jehona’s confident remark then.

William didn’t have the heart to tell her how little sense her words made.

Yonten regarded Jehona with fascination. “Oh, I’m definitely looking forward to what part you’ll play in this ‘cautious’ raid.”