The pitiable kid, the outcast of the magic world, the noble without a name; he was lying on the ground.

Unconscious.

His blood had stained the ground of a crimson red. And Romuald standing up with difficulty, as if a heavy weight had just been removed from his back.

As if to add to this idea, his hair was disheveled and his face the image of confusion, loss and maybe a bit of hope. He was certainly pitying the child before him, but his eyes... his eyes… they were shining with surprise and marvel at the kid's unsuspected power.

“What a weird kid…” Romuald said.

“He had shown wisps of pressure yesterday, but this... THIS!”

He quickly came back to his senses, “Hey Albert, hurry and bring your healer here. The brat will seriously die at this point.”

From the behind of a nearby tree, a dignified man wearing a demonic half mask appeared, followed by a young man wearing a face mask.

Albert and Scar.

“Well, well, well, this kid keeps surprising me,” Albert said with a joyful voice, not fitting the situation at all.

Following him, Scar looked at the body of the kid with disdain. “Cheh.. what a weakling.”

Pressure erupted at these words; it was obvious Romuald had taken offense to them, and he wasn’t about to let his student get insulted like that.

“Keep your mouth shut and do what you’re here for, you wanker.”

“Or I might actually kill you.”

Scar wanted to shrink back, but in bravado retaliated or at least tried to do.

“F-“

SLAP

Albert struck the back of the youth’s head, making him bite his tongue.

“OUTH,” he said, tears in his eyes from the sudden surge of pain.

He was promptly ignored by Albert, who seemed even more perplexed than before.

“Well, well, now, who would have thought? The kid grew on you, did he?”

“The warning applies to you to Albert…”

“He’ll probably hate your guts for that, you know?”

“SHUT UP!”

“There were many other ways for you to make sure, so why that?”

“I said shut up...”

Albert shook his head. He was having some fun teasing his older brother. He knew exactly the reason. One only showed true battle spirit when pushed to their limits, when there was a real possibility of death and while they had been fighting for 2 days now at fairly high intensity, the brat genuinely didn’t see Romuald as a threat anymore, more like a cool uncle. Which is why, even if he had shown wisps before, they were far from the ones he had exuded in his state of utter despair and rage. And with two days on the clock, there was no other way to make sure of the potential of this ability than to push him to the limit, to the brink of death. Still, he knew while his dear brother was strong, the strongest amongst the Galvrungs and even a contender for strongest amongst the humans, if only he hadn’t thrown away his future, he wasn’t nearly as proficient with words.

“Alright, I get it. Scar, go heal him, or this softy will kill us,” Albert said playfully.

“Don’t give me—“

‘That’ Scar tried to say, but the choking pressure from Romuald’s aura and Albert’s cold death stare quickly led him to reconsider.

“Che... yes sir.”

He went at it and healed him, scanning the kid with his eyes for his own curiosity. He said nothing, as it was obvious Romuald wasn’t happy with himself and he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of any sudden outlash. But the way Romuald had broken the brat’s bones was clean, too clean. In fact, the way they had been broken, it wouldn’t be impossible for them to even regrow stronger.

‘Cheh, what a softy,’ Scar thought before quickly glancing at Romuald to make sure he hadn’t somehow read his mind.

Albert, whose expression was enigmatic, was looking at the night sky with a lot on his mind.

‘Looks like despite his strange eyes and three heads, good ol’ Nathanel failed to see.’

#

I woke up in my makeshift bed. Back at the shelter. As I recalled what had happened, I teared up. I looked around me, but Romuald wasn’t there.

Was I reading too much into this? Did he really just beat me up to teach me a lesson?

Even if I was, this was too much.

I stood up, trying to walk around and change my thoughts. I did so for a bit until I realized. Wait, weren’t my…

Yes, my legs had definitely been broken. There was no way I had imagined all that. What the hell is going on?

Despite my body being fully recovered, I went back to bed. I was physically healed, but my mind hadn’t quite recovered. Part of me didn’t want to sleep. ‘It’s not the time to sleep’ ‘I am in danger’ ‘Let’s run away from here’

I wasn’t quite making sense, but I had enough of trusting anyone. Who was to say that he wouldn’t kill me when he came back? Another part realized that my body was now healed. Yes, I had been in a plot of some sort, but this was probably to make me stronger, right?

I foolishly chose to trust him; the prospect of being betrayed by one I had begun to trust too much to bear.

My mind took over my body. I dropped back onto my bed. Trying my best to make sense of the situation, forcing my consciousness to stay grounded, to stay awake, to stay present. But my head, like lead, was heavy. And it’s despite my best effort that I yet again I fell asleep.

##

While Helmet was sleeping back at the shelter. A lonely man, with one eye and a glorious mane of hair, was gazing at the night sky. His body was littered with scars, as if representing all the hardships he had gone through. The moon was full.

Or would it make more sense to say the moons?

In the sky, three luminous orbs gravitated around each other in order of size. The biggest at the center, gravitated around by the bigger itself, gravitated around by something quite big.

This view never ceased to amaze him and to bring soothing to his heart. This lonely man was, as you’ve guessed, Romuald Galvrung.

After looking at the moon for quite some time.

He lowered his gaze and looked fondly at the tombstone, which was gleaming with a soft white light under the night sky. Reminiscing better times.

“It’s been some time, hasn’t it?”

“Maria.”

Ever since she had died. Romuald had come there every single night to talk to her and mourn; that was, until he took in the kid. She had died 10 years ago from the complications of a high-risk pregnancy. The result of their love, a young boy, had killed her. He was devastated by the loss of his dearest and as such had really conflicted feelings about his child. On one side, he loved him, since he was the last memento his dear wife had left before leaving for a better world; on another, he hated him since he was the one who had led her there.

He didn’t have quite enough time to sort his feeling though. The baby she had left behind, the one for whom she had suffered through a difficult pregnancy, the one that was supposed to be the jewel of their lives as hermits, this one died from heart failure, 2 years later and his life wasn’t quite a life either. Each and every day wrought with pain, the constant shadow of death, his only friend.

He should have lived only days, but thanks to healers and technology from the Galvrung headquarters they had maintained him alive barely.

He died in atrocious pain.

Romuald hated him? What a joke. More than anyone, he hated himself.

If she hadn’t fallen for a man like him and had gone for his brother instead. Or even if she had just never met them, she would most likely have lived a dignified life, respected, if not downright adored by all. But now...

And what to say about their son? If he had just let him die, he wouldn’t have had to suffer like he did.

“You’ve seen the kid I’ve been training, right?”

“Yes, that one. It’s not like there are many kids here though, hahaha.”

“He reminds me of our son, or at least what our son could have been.”

He paused.

“He would have inherited all of your intelligence and your peculiar talent at games, as well as your annoying deadpan humor and mental fortitude.”

“And from me?”

“Oh you already know, he’d have my irresistible looks,” He said with a thunderous laugh.

“For real though?”

“Let me think... probably my stubbornness.. oh we’d have butted heads all the time,” He said, barely holding back tears.

“Aargh fuck. it’s about to rain again...”

He paused again, choking his tears down.

“Still this kid. I don’t know how to treat him anymore.”

“These past few days, I felt a joy that I haven’t felt since before you died. Every day was fun, we’d train hard, I taught him these secret arts we used to talk about and that we were gonna ...”

[…]

“We ate some good meals, the one we used to eat.”

“Yea yeah, you know the ones!”

“Ahaha, don’t be jealous.”

“I was the best cook in the world.”

“Cheh, what do you mean, no?”

“What do you mean, you were better?”

He then laughed again, as if he was genuinely speaking with someone. Everyone looking from the outside out would think him crazy.

“But as I was saying, we’d have fun. But ever since that day when that weird black mark on his left hand reacted to his battle spirit, I’ve had a terrible feeling about him.”

“On one side I was gleeful, this kid.. my son.. no.. that’s not quite right is it..” He said shaking his head. Looking confused at his own thoughts.

“This kid would have finally had something to use as an actual weapon for himself in this world. He wouldn’t go down without a fight.” He paused again, a smile on his face.

“But there’s something... something extremely ominous about that mark.”

“As if...” He couldn’t finish the sentence. He had a really terrifying prediction about it. As if this mark was dangerous to him. If this prediction came true, his heart probably wouldn’t support it.

“Normally, you know me, he’d be dead.. but am I supposed to kill him too?”

He broke down crying, unable to hold back anymore. Usually, emotional attachments were inconsequential for him. He’d kill as soon as he felt threatened, as soon as he felt something off about someone, and he was one of the rare Galvrungs with the ability to do so.

But what this kid, or more precisely what the image of his dead son overlapping over the face of this kid, meant to him was too much for him to consider it.

“‘Listen to your heart?’ ‘Change that future yourself?’ “

“There you go again with your needlessly complicated answers.”

“How does that help? How am I supposed to do that!?”

“‘Not with that attitude?’ ‘Then do something you won’t regret?’ “

“Hahahaha, now you’re speaking clearly.. but still...”

[…]

He spoke like that for 30 more minutes. After having gotten council about how to handle this thorny matter, he confessed about something else, about how guilty he felt about the injury he had inflicted the kid today. For better or for worse, Romuald truly had this kid’s best interest at heart, but no matter how he tried to convince himself, what he had done was cruel, extremely so.

He then told her anecdotes that had happened with the kid. About how he whooped him single-handedly. That despite his lack of magic, the kid was a genius in other capacities, memorizing the charts in record time and possessing an excellent battle IQ. How, despite how he complained, he was extremely rigorous in his training. How at times his learning ability genuinely scared him. How he was proud of him.

When all was done, he prayed to the goddess of light, Arianne, for the souls of his dead wife and son. His heart feeling a bit lighter.

It was quite peculiar for a dark mage to pray to the goddess of light, but still he did.

As he walked away, a gust of wind surged, lifting in the air the flowers that were arranged around the tomb, forming the visage of a middle-aged lady. A lady whose beauty was simple. She wouldn’t make head turns, but from the wrinkles around her mouth, it seemed that in her youth she was one of those that reaped hearts with their irresistible, genuine smiles and laughter.

But watching the one that was now walking away, her slight natural smile only showed deep melancholy.

“Live on.” She seemed to say.