"THERE IS A LIGHT IN THE SNOW!"

 

A yell came from the guard tower quickly causing the whole village to awaken.

 

It had been a dozen years since the last time they saw someone outside of the village. They got their food from the livestock they cared for and fire from the frostwood they mined underground.

 

This small village numbered 40 people of all ages. When they heard there was a man they didn’t grab their weapons, instead they went to the gates waiting for the man to arrive. Their village was amidst the endless frost, anyone who could make their way here had to be extremely powerful.

 

One of the villagers was an 18-year-old girl called Alice. Yet unlike the other villagers, she wasn’t excited by the arrival of the stranger. If they truly were so powerful, didn’t that mean he could easily take their village and extort them? Or perhaps they would even kill their cattle, killing them all.

 

Grabbing the falchion she had lying around in her tent she quickly went over to grab it and started sharpening the blade. If the stranger came here with bad intentions she wouldn’t hesitate to stab them. After all, even those mystical mages couldn’t survive a blade to the neck. Right?

 

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With a fireball floating in front of him, Jay vigilantly made his way through the snow. This was quite the challenge since the snow was stacked over a meter high. But with the fireball to melt the snow before him it still didn’t take long for him to reach the town walls. The walls were mostly made of large bricks of solid stone, and a few small holes could be seen in the exterior.

 

It was only when he managed to get to the gate that he felt something was off. When he approached the large gate a metallic smell covered the area, the smell of blood.

 

Unsheathing his sword, Jay slowly walked through the gates. A few meters before him he saw dozens of bodies of all ages laying in the snow. Each of these corpses was extremely fresh and he could tell they had only been killed a few minutes ago. But what was even more alarming was the expressions the people had at the time of their death. Nearly all of these people were smiling and seemed extremely excited. Furthermore, each of the corpses only had a single slash, most of the time cutting open their necks, the killer was extremely efficient.

 

He slowly started making his way through this odd town. It looked like snow-shoveling was by far the most common thing for these people to do. There were shovels all over the place and only a small layer of snow on the path. After going through half the village he reached the ranch. There were quite a few cows here each of which seemed healthy and well-fed.

 

After a moment he decided to walk up and inspect one of the cows. After all, it was possible their names would give him an idea of where he was.

 

Yet, just as he was about to hop the fence he felt a thick killing intent coming from behind him. Turning around, he saw a girl about 18 years old wielding a falchion which was covered in blood. Not just the falchion, the girl herself too, had blood splattered all over her clothes.

 

"YOU... I KNEW YOU DIDN'T COME WITH GOOD INTENTIONS!!"

 

Enraged the female quickly leaped at him swinging her falchion at his neck. Her technique seemed quite decent, but her weapon couldn't even be compared to his own. Leave alone, when sword intent and magic were included.

 

When he struck out with his sword a fine red line made its way forward reaching a meter further than where his sword had actually been.

 

This fine red line, something that seemed to minuscule, soon turned into Alice’s worst nightmare. When the red line connected to her stomach blood splattered all over once more, a deep cut had appeared.

 

Blood seeping out of her wound she felt scared and helpless. She had heard in her past that mages could kill people without even lifting a finger, yet she had never expected these rumors to be true. Regret and sadness could be seen in her eyes as he looked at Jay, barely able to utter a few words before fainting.

 

"You, why?"

 

Unbeknownst to her, these words had saved her life.

 

Having experienced her sword skills and hearing these words Jay realized that she might not be the one who had killed the people at the gate, and so she brought her to a nearby tent.

 

After bandaging her wound and laying her to rest Jay looked around the part of town he hadn't checked before. But even once he had checked everywhere twice he saw no sign of the murderer.

 

Disappointed, he could only wait until Alicia awakened. He had already securely bound her to the bed and took away the falchion. Making sure he could see her hands at all times he started practicing magic while waiting for her, thus further increasing his mana to 5.

 

It wasn't long before she woke up. As expected the first thing she did when she woke up was panic. Since after all she was bound to a bed with a stranger sitting in a chair next to her.

 

"Why did your sword have blood on it?"

 

His voice was stern and cold. Making one feel utterly uncomfortable.

 

"I-Because I was forced to kill them. You bewitched me!"

 

The girl cried as she spoke. It was clear she had difficulty talking about what happened.

 

"Tell me everything that happened in detail. And then perhaps you won't die."

 

Since she didn't seem to have much choice Alicia started reciting what had happened with difficulty.

 

It all happened a few hours ago. She was in her hut 'preparing' for his arrival. After sharpening her blade she started arranging her things. She had some basic armor, a spare weapon and a few other miscellaneous items such as bandages.

 

When she was organizing her things she noticed something odd out of the corner of her eye. When she approached it she saw there was a small glass ball that seemed to be filled with some sort of blue mist.

 

Thinking it might be one of that mage's weapons she promptly destroyed it releasing a mist all over her room.

 

After a moment of shock, the view before her changed. The mist subsided as it revealed her demolished tent, outside were a bunch of savages that were slaughtering the villagers she cared so much about. She quickly ran forward to their aid and started killing the savages. The savages didn’t seem skilled at all as they barely tried to defend at all.

 

Despite having lost a few people everything seemed like it would be okay, they then her vision faded. And a moment later, instead of the corpses of the savages she had killed. The corpses of her friends and family laid there.

 

"The mist..."

 

Lost in deep thought he thought back to his previous encounter with the misty orbs. That time he broke an orb with white mist inside which stopped the mist's effects. The fact that the villagers died with smiles meant they hadn't seen their death coming. Alice loudly slashing villager after villager wouldn't have such an effect.

 

Then he recalled what happened last time just before the mist arose. It was as if time stopped. After a few minutes, he came to the conclusion that the mist must have some sort of ability to stop time. And it was probably also what had interfered with his legacy.