“That sly little runt! —Ariene, listen carefully! Leave me and grab onto Yuria! No matter what, don’t let go of her!” Roa yelled with urgency. 

This baffled Ariene. Roa was in no state to be left alone, and she could see with her own eyes that Yuria was in no danger. Nonetheless, she quickly slipped away from under his shoulder and followed his words almost instinctively.

When she left, Roa slumped back down to the ground with grit teeth. 

‘What a laughable situation,’ he thought. It seemed that the advantage of him knowing how the future would play out was non-existent. If things had gotten to this point, then what use was there to him regressing? 

No. It was not that he was lacking, nor was he insufficient; just this one week had already been quite fortuitous. He had managed to lay out the beginning of a path that could potentially lead him in a direction vastly different from the past, one that he hoped would have quite the effect on the looming future.

His line of sight drifted towards the shadow of his death, the shade of the One-armed King. “It would’ve been nice if you stayed like that forever,” Roa groaned.

Frozen meat thawed in just a couple of hours—he forced himself up from the ground with that thought in mind.

A stagger in his step, he brought his gaze back to the location of the group in front of the wish tree. He could not tell whether it was seconds or minutes that had passed since Ariene rushed to join them, but it was no surprise to him that they were no longer there.

The distance to the tree wasn’t that far; Roa hobbled forward as if he were at the last stretch of an arduously long journey. When he was close enough that he couldn’t see past the wish tree’s girth, he laid himself down with his back against its trunk.

“Long time no see, huh? Damned defective tree…” Roa scoffed. “I know it’s impossible, but I did want to try cutting you down. Seems like I just lost that chance…”

Roa followed a simple plan: handle the three mentally unsound goats and take out the wish tree. —Burn it, fell it, as long as it was taken care of before its will was invoked. If things had proceeded smoothly, maybe the Spirit Domain would have stayed as it was, dormant. 

“—So much for that,” he flippantly uttered. It was a huge ‘maybe’—mostly wishful thinking.

Roa didn’t want to dwell on the unintended results. Success would have just bought them some time before the Spirit Domain’s imminent encroachment. It wouldn’t have been a permanent solution.

So putting that aside, he moved on to a less important thought. One that crossed his mind just briefly.

 If he died again… would it be possible? Would another shade manifest in his image? For Roa, who dealt with shades frequently and hated them with a passion, the idea was harrowing.

“Damn tree. Hurry up and send me out, else—pretty soon there might be two of me like that idiot running around,” he beckoned.

By now, all sensation in his body had turned numb because he was afflicted with extreme cold. He was relieved from the agony of his broken bones, but his condition had worsened enough that he could no longer lift a finger.

Only around his face did a portion of his senses remain in touch, and allowed him the feeling of a delicate tickle landing on his nose. 

“I-It’s about damn time,” Roa stuttered. A butterfly had landed, illusory in appearance, as if it would pass through his fingers if he tried to catch it. It was from one of the myriad lights floating about the wish tree that it had descended from.

—You. What is it that you wish for?

A question loudly presented itself out inside of Roa’s head, not through spoken words nor visual stimulus, but through the influence of an imposed will, communicating with his spirit. It was a novel experience for sure, some may even go as far as to describe it as contact with the divine.

The sensation wasn’t like how when he and Solitaria would converse with telepathy, where there was actually room for decent conversation. This one-way imposition towards his spirit, thoughts being asserted unilaterally, Roa found nauseating.

One didn’t need to talk as the Wish Tree would dig past all pretenses and connect directly to one’s spirit. Once Roa’s spirit came into contact with the will of the Wish Tree, an abrupt change took place—the myriad lights flashed brightly and the question posed was altered.

—Again. Do you want to make the same wish?

Roa was asked in the same manner as before, however, various emotions were elicited from him as aside from the question, a vague image was also brought up in his mind.

A damp embrace. The sound of rolling waves. A bed of gold-colored sand. The sky, an auburn blaze with the sun slowly setting down across the horizon. Locks of dark hair swaying softly with the caress of a salt-scented breeze. Eyes a deep shade of blue, radiating with love towards the object reflected within them—therein, the face of a young boy, asleep on her lap.

The spitting image of a young Roa Fariche.

When the image was overlaid with a familiar humming tune, Roa held his breath. The feeling of a needle piercing deadcenter on his forehead burned through the numbness of his cold skin, and any cluttered thoughts he had all turned to aggression.

It was at this moment that all restraints he had on his bloodlust shattered.

“No. Send. Me. Out.” Roa growled with a hoarse voice. It was no lie that the tree could grant wishes, however, a wish granted by a being which possessed no wisdom had a way of easily turning corrupt.

Making that one mistake was enough. Roa wouldn’t forgive himself if he had allowed this tree to once again sully the only memory he had of his mother.

With him keeping his desire in check, the tree had no choice but to acquiesce.

Soon, blood rushed through Roa’s body as a sudden wave of nausea brought back some heat in his chest. His vision turned blurry, and his sense of balance had him looking down when he would try to look up—a familiar disorientation, followed by the loss of his consciousness.

What awaited him when he next opened his eyes was relief; his lungs were able to breathe with ease, and he could feel his own skin when he curled his fingers and toes. He was no longer afflicted with the extreme cold.

“Clean bandages… How long was I out for?” Roa dazedly uttered, awakening once again as a mummy on white sheets, the infirmary’s white ceiling overhead.

A man, sitting at a small ornate table nearby, raised his curled mustache from his cup of tea and answered Roa’s unwitting utterance, “Hm? Young man, it’s been no more than half a day… since yesterday—a day and a half you’ve been asleep.”

The man’s gaze fell upon Roa’s injuries and continued, “Remarkable resilience. Roa Fariche—are you perhaps from one of the southern sea tribes?”

“Huh? S-Sea?” Roa was taken aback by the sudden question. What was this about the southern sea tribe? His home city of Lyria was at the center of the continent Waylurne, and was nowhere near the sea. 

“No. Never been—I mean no, sir. Grew up right here in Lyria,” he answered, almost with his usual tone, but re-postured himself as he realized he was in front of the only academy professor in Luveris that he held in high regard. 

“Truly?” Noreau Philitte, the person in question, replied. “That’s disappointing. I would have hoped to have a chance to interact with one of them. You see, none too many of them have ever ventured into the mainland, and waters around the south sea are too dangerous to traverse just to meet one in person—Ah, I better stop myself before I ramble on! This isn’t a conversation to be had now. In any case, you’ve recovered well, but it seems you’ve chosen the wrong time to have woken up.”

Roa grew curious about Noreau’s sudden interest in the southern sea tribe and why he was asked if he was one of them. He was just about to insist on the topic when the door to the infirmary slammed open, cutting his conversation with Noreau short.

An ill-tempered shout rang across the room, “—Is the criminal awake!?”

“Criminal?! Where!?” Roa remarked, taking quick glances around before going back to the tip of a finger pointing right at his face. 

Was there another patient behind him? Roa even turned his head around twice to check. The moment he’d worked out that the word, ‘criminal,’ was referring to him, another three modifiers were suddenly added to his name. 

“Lowborn. Mischievous. Rogue!!! What have you done with the Seed of Fire!?” the man shouted, thrashing angrily towards him. Roa shrank back with a wry smile. The man would have jumped on his bed had Noreau not cut in between them.

“Noreau, unhand me! This matter has little concern to you! —Criminal! It’s time to confess, what have you done with the Seed of Fire!!!” The man’s nostrils flared, showing he was increasingly getting agitated. It didn’t take long before Noreau’s hands were shrugged off and Roa was crudely grabbed by the collar.

Emerald eyes, pointed ears, long silken green hair, a youthful appearance despite the aged demeanor—features common to a woodland fae. It was no wonder why this man was livid, he was the Seed of Fire’s handler, Ariene’s to be precise.

In which case, Roa found no reason to hold himself back against this particular fae. His eyes turned sharp as he was about to be violently shaken, and he manifested a spell under his breath, “—Quench.”

A miniscule amount of mana shot up to Roa’s flushed face before he took a firm grip on the woodland fae’s wrists. Then, he raised his head, shooting a well-prepared, conflicted expression forward.

“—It should have been me!” Roa exaggerated a crack in his voice, crocodile tears beginning to uncontrollably fall from just underneath his eyes. “Things just happened so fast! I—there was a monster, a little runt—no—an imp, yes an imp! Ariene, she… Heavens! It should have been me!”

“—Should have been? N-No! What do you mean by that!? Mongrel, quit sniveling! ” the woodland fae yelled, his heart rate turning erratic at the display. Roa cried, flailed, and yelled continuous drivel; it was a very convincing performance.

“Noreau! This whole incident happened on academy grounds! Whatever that thing was, Forest Riviere will have remuneration!!! And you! —Don’t think this will be the end for you!” It wasn’t until after Roa was slapped around  a few times that the woodland fae accepted that the Seed of Fire might’ve been lost, and stomped right out the door.

Roa would’ve felt more sympathetic had the thoughts of the woodland fae been about Ariene’s safety, however, he knew that it was far from the case. If anything, delivering the news to Forest Riviera might even have the entire woodlands rejoicing at the fact that she was gone.

Although temporary, at least with this, it wouldn’t become a problem if Ariene were to suddenly show up outside of the city of Lyria.

Roa heaved a sigh of relief and dispensed with his act. He turned towards Noreau who had been apathetic throughout and had not digressed from his cup of tea. In front of this aristocrat, there was no need to put up any false pretenses.

Noreau spoke to him with an intrigued tone, “You seem to be a man with… diverse talents.”

Roa scratched his head and flashed a dumb smile, “Thanks, but I don’t think I deserve such praise, sir.”

Noreau chuckled. He set down the cup of tea he held in his hand and locked eyes with Roa, “Now then, to the matter at hand. I presume you’ve prepared to tell me a different story from the one you gave my colleague, yes?”

Roa raised an eyebrow, impressed. He replied, “That would depend on how much trust you would be willing to give to a person like me.”

“Hm, trust is it? How about this?” Noreau reached into his coat and took out a certain object, a small adorned bag—the storage bag that Roa had pickpocketed from Novis. Obviously, Noreau had already rifled through its contents and discovered the copious amount of luminous crowns that Roa had gathered.

 “You tell me a story that’s worth listening to, and I’ll let you keep this,” Noreau said.

“Ah, that’s—” Roa let out a wry chuckle, the cat was out of the bag. “I concede. What is it that you want to know, sir?”

Before answering him, Noreau abruptly stood and pulled open the curtains blocking the space adjacent to Roa’s bed. To Roa’s surprise, there was another patient recuperating beside him, unconscious. 

Unlike Roa’s own peculiar appearance, this patient wasn’t wrapped up in bandages. Rather, except for a particular area on the patient’s head where a patch of hair seemed to be missing, he even looked relatively unharmed.

“First,” Noreau continued, brushing the hairless spot on Novis’ scalp, “Why don’t you start by telling me how this happened to my son.”

 —End of Chapter 18, End of Volume 1

Alkareel

There were many changes made to this chapter, which resulted in a delay in release. There might be some iffy parts as I've yet to read through this with a fresh mind. Even so, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! (Chapter edited as of 2/19/2023)