I ventured inside the town.

The sheer size of everything; people walking around in droves, the variety of different cart pulled walking through the city. My world forcefully expanded, my head was spinning.

‘Calm.. calm.. calm down,’

I struggled to keep my breath steady.

The fear of leaving a familiar place, the fear of this inhospitable world, and the simple fear of getting lost; they all compounded.

My breathing was ragged; I wanted to hide.

Still…

I stepped forward.

I had a hunch that if I backed down now, that if I backed down in fear; that it would become an unshakable habit.

And that I couldn’t allow.

But first, I leaned on a nearby wall and sat down.

‘S-sh-shit.’

‘Where is that place..?’

As I sat there and tried to immerse in my thoughts, I realized my legs were trembling.

‘Get a grip!’ I said to myself as I grabbed my thighs and tried to stop the tremors.

It took a while, roughly 10 minutes.

10 minutes during which I watched a lot of different people pass by me. Some tall, some short, some pretty, some ugly, some young and some old.

But all of them were elegant, and smiling, or at the very least not scowling.

I would later come to know that in Avdarth (the empire), such citizens were a rarity. In all likeliness, only a tiny minority of these citizens were mages, while the rest devoted themselves to some form of physical or intellectual labor.

There was a huge inequality between those who reached the standard of mages and those unable to do so. Standards of living were at their maximum for mages and other nobility titles, whereas at the bottom of the ladder you’d find cripples like me — or much more commonly — those whose ability to fight were inexistent in relation to the rest.

The strong lords over the weak.

And thus this kind of abnormality where everyone seemed not only satisfied, but happy with their positions should have stood out to me.

How could I have known, though?

After having observed these people, I stood up and started asking people for directions.

It took a while, most ignoring the oddity that I was.

A tiny brat with a weird helmet.

In fact, it was weird.

Most people seemed to go out of their way to avoid me.

Still, after much effort, I found someone who gave me directions to where I should go. He had first looked at me, confusion apparent on his face, then asked me if I was sure I was going there.

When I answered in the affirmative, he paused even more confused and asked “by foot?”

“Yes,”

After a pause of reflection, he gave me directions.

I thanked him and went on my merry way, glad to have made some progress.

“So next, past ‘Les doigts délicieux’ turn…”

“Turn…”

“Was it left?”

“Or maybe ...”

“Damn it!”

I had totally forgotten.

I had followed the directions of this kind ubos and walked more resolute than ever toward my destination. But now I had no idea where I was.

Worst.

I had forgotten the way back.

“W-what do I do?” I said as I franticly paced around me, trying to remember what path I had walked. But everything melded together, every building looked identical to the next, and soon enough, I wasn’t even sure if I was finding my way back or losing myself even more.

“Fuck..”

“Fuck!” I said in anger to blow off some steam.

People still passing by me.

In retrospect, the contrast between the harsh word I was using and my small stature, along with the eerie helmet, probably didn’t help, making me more approachable.

[...]

“Fuck,” I panted, most of the frustration replaced by exhaustion instead.

“It seemed I had overreached myself... hahahaha what an idiot,” I said as I sat against a nearby wall.

‘Let’s find that library some other day…’

I had given up on the prospect of reaching the library, say nothing of reading books for today. I wasn’t running away. It simply wouldn’t be wise to continue — not that leaving had been wise in the first place.

With that settled, I sighed and tried to stand up.

But when I tried to get on my feet, I couldn’t.

‘Uh.’

I tried again.

‘Eh...’

I tried again.

‘What the hell..?’

As I forced myself to stand up, using the wall as a support, I finally managed to get up, but my legs were lead.

Or at least that’s how they felt.

‘What the hell... why?’

I couldn’t understand my current state, for sure I had walked quite a while, but there was no way I was this tired. In fact, I had walked way more back at the manor, so why?

Someone had to have somehow turned my legs into lead, or else it didn’t make sense. This didn’t make much sense either, but it made more sense than me being tired after only that much.

The mystery wasn’t a mystery, in fact it was so simple it was funny.

Stress.

This single word.

I had overextended myself, and the stress from the experience had tired me more than usual.

I acted compelled by urgency, I had to get back home and rest.

After forcing myself to ignore my state and deciding to walk back.

I asked this time for the way back.

This time, however, no one was kind enough to answer.

In fact brushing aside their initial coldness as I approached them, the mere mention of the name Balmung, they looked at me as if they had seen a lunatic, then looked around them as if to make sure no one had heard me before sending me on my way silently.

That’s for those who actively interacted with me.

The rest who had stopped to hear my plea launched themselves back on at a noticeably hastened pace, as if scared away by the name.

“What the hell?” I said, shocked at the 10th such occurrence, unable to keep ignoring the signs.

It seemed to have something to do with the name.

‘Why though?’

On my next attempt, I didn’t mention the name, instead opting to talk of the manor — hoping dearly that there was only one such thing in Hedria.

This time, however, the response was much more positive.

“Oh, the Manor of the Crows,“ a sweet lady said.

“Yes, yes.. you’re on the right path, it’s about 10 minutes of walk from here... are you alone?”

“Oh, yes.. me and my friends are supposed to join in front of the manor,” I lied.

“oh, is that the reason for the disguise?” she said looking at me unconvinced, “Well alright then.”

“Keep following this road until you see the big fountain, then turn left and walk until you get on the main road, then once there you can’t miss it..”

“Thanks a lot, Miss,” I said, doing my best noble bow before going back.

“No problem… have fun?”

She looked at me taken a back before leaving too.

Soon enough, as the woman had said, I had found the manor.. and now that I was back; I felt stupid for having got lost.

‘You’re telling me I only walked that much!?’

Indeed, after turning left to the fountain and walking until I arrived at a road that was distinctively spacious, it was there — gloriously erected upon a mild hill.

“Whoah,” I said as I looked at it.

To me, this building was simply a big building. After all, from up close, I had no way to see what it looked like.

But from here..

It was breathtaking.

“The crows...” I said quite against myself.

“What the hell?”

I stopped admiring, walking forward — racking my brains to figure out why everyone seemed so scared whenever I mentioned the Balmung name.

‘Do all the great families have such a name?’ I thought as I walked towards the manor, trying my best to keep the exhaustion out of my mind.

‘The crows does have a nice ring to it.’

I said first with a stupid grin, turning sour when I remembered I had no right to that pride anymore.

I walked in silence, making the inventory of today’s successes; strategy that had kept me going during the past 5 months of research, a technique showed to me by mother.

When I thought back, there wasn’t much, but that small amount was fairly satisfying for me.

“I stepped outside.”

I may have failed to find the library, and I may be unduly tired, but...

But.

I stepped outside.

I had taken the first step, and that single fact re-plastered the earlier dumb grin on my face.

“I don’t need anyone!”

“Still.....”

“I’ll have to ask Gregoire to take me there.”

#

After walking back to the maid house, I walked toward the window I had escaped from.

As I looked at the height of the window, as well as at the cover ropes hanging from it.

And when considering how tired I now was, my only argument was a simple but quite convincing “Fuck it.”

I went below the window, took the excedent of the drape — that seemed to have remained there untouched for the entire duration of my absence — and wrapped it around me, like the most soft of cocoons.

And soon I fell asleep.

[…]

“J-j-JEREMY!!”

“Uh.?”

“Please say something!”

“G-g-g-great heavens!! What happened!?” He said, shaking me vigorously

‘I am starting to see a pattern which I don’t like’

I thought as I opened the cocoon a bit to peer outside.

There, a disheveled Gregoire standing, an expression of worry and reassurance showing on his face.

“Great heavens,” he sighed as he brought his hand to his chest.

“I thought you were dead!”

“Oh.” I said as I looked at him.

I guess it could indeed look like that.

“I am hungry”

“Uh?” Gregoire said.

“Oh yeah, for sure.. that’s why I came here.”

“Uh?”

I said, confused.

Before extirpating myself from the comfortable cocoon and looking at the sun, who was shining with all of its arrogant brilliance at its zenith.

“Wait.. what time is it?” I asked, thoroughly confused.

“Uh about 12:30.. why?” Gregoire asked.

“Uh!?”

‘uh...’

‘How long was I outside?’

Gregoire, not leaving me the time to solve that riddle, picked me up off the ground and cradled me like a baby.

“Now, now, you’ll need to take care of your health. If you get sick I’ll be in deep troubles”

“H-h-hey! I can walk”

“‘Deal with that yourself?’”

He said, a cheeky smile on his face.

He wouldn’t let me go.

I grumbled.

I had defeated myself.