"And to think... people really do talk like that." My voice came out low, almost a whisper.
A few hours had passed since it happened, but for some reason the situation was still stuck in my mind.
"Maybe I don't interact with other human beings enough," I sighed, my fingers slowly gliding along Axel's back. The cub.
Although his size wasn't all that frightening, his murderous intent had been enough to scare off the group of boys, who had most likely never faced a magical beast.
He barely met the requirements to be a level 1 beast, yet in some respects Axel was far more capable than full-fledged level 1 beasts.
And now, with his mission accomplished, he lay beside me, breathing calmly, his golden eyes watching me with an almost human expression... confused, as if trying to understand the reason for my bottled-up frustration.
"That rehearsed speech... full of clichés. Do they practice it in front of the mirror? Or do they read too many stories about defeated villains before dinner?" I sighed, shaking my head and letting out a muffled laugh.
Axel gave a soft growl in response, perhaps trying to imitate my frustration, or perhaps just hungry.
The whisper of pages being turned in the distance, the faint creaking of the library's aged wood, and the rustle of the wind outside created a peculiar calm.
After a minute of silence, footsteps sounded behind me, short, shuffling steps, along with the soft sound of heavy fabric brushing against the stone floor.
"Don't take it to heart, young Alexander," said a serene voice, almost like a calming spell cast into the air.
I turned around slowly. It was the old librarian, plump and short, with gray hair as unruly as cobwebs and glasses so thick they looked like the bottoms of bottles.
His robes were stained with ink and dust, but his eyes, hidden behind the lenses, shone with kindness and an intelligence aged by time. At least, that's what everyone says when they first meet him.
'If only they knew he's a chatterbox, addicted to telling stories and reading books,'
I smiled involuntarily.
"I'm not... I've already forgotten it," I replied with a slight smile, resting my hand on Axel's head, and he immediately closed his eyes with pleasure.
The old man nodded, satisfied, crossing his arms over his protruding belly.
"Good boy. Resentment, after all, is a slow poison... but a certain one. It kills the heart first, then the mind." His voice sounded like the pages of an old book, firm but softened by time.
"I know..." my voice dropped to a more thoughtful tone. "There are countless stories about kings who ruined kingdoms, armies that destroyed themselves, and entire families that were wiped out... all because of blind revenge."
"But at the same time," I continued, "revenge can also be born from forgiveness. The coldest kind. Not out of resentment, that would be impulsive, childish, but from the understanding that some debts must not be forgotten. Water is repaid with water. Goodwill with goodwill. But blood... blood with blood."
The librarian fell silent, watching me with slightly widened eyes. He slowly stroked his thick mustache, as if digesting each word as carefully as he analyzed ancient manuscripts.
"I see that your studies have truly borne fruit," he said at last, in a tone somewhere between respect and surprise. "Such understanding of your family's motto... and of the human soul... at such a young age. Fascinating."
He smiled out of the corner of his mouth, with barely concealed pride, and leaned forward slightly, like someone about to confide something important.
"Boy, are you really sure you don't want to be a scribe? A researcher, perhaps? The peace of knowledge is a gift, even in this cruel world. Why follow such a dangerous path?"
My answer came quickly but calmly, with the weight of someone who had thought about it a great deal.
"Because it's necessary, sir. Especially for me... since I'm a Dracknum."
"Oh?" The old man raised an eyebrow, curious. "And what exactly does that change?"
"Countless things," I replied, turning back to Axel and stroking his neck.
"Imagine five people. A scribe. A researcher. A farmer. A housewife. And a warrior. If each of them found themselves alone facing a magical beast... who would survive?"
The old man hesitated, but answered seriously. "The warrior, perhaps. The farmer... who knows, he might lose an arm. The housewife... probably not. The researcher and the scribe... those poor souls would have little chance."
"Exactly." I paused and looked at him. "But now imagine that one of these people is a noble, especially one from a large and influential house, no, one from a medium or smaller house. Better yet, imagine that one of them is a Dracknum. One of the direct line, no less."
The librarian's expression stiffened slightly, and he seemed to understand where I was going with this.
"We're targets." I continued. "Out of envy, political interest, ancient hatred. And even if we avoided every human conspiracy... we'd still have the beasts."
My voice hardened, like steel tempered in cold water.
"The death rate from magical beasts reaches about 15% of the kingdom's population every year. Fifteen percent! And that's not counting accidents, bandits, disease, or wars. Now think... how much higher does that rate go for someone with noble blood, exposed, surrounded by enemies and expectations?"
"Thirty percent?" the librarian ventured, already worried.
"Between thirty and sixty." Silence fell over us like a heavy blanket. Axel yawned, indifferent to the gravity of the conversation.
"Yes... that's the reality of a noble." I said, standing up and stretching my shoulders. "For the common people, life is already hard. But for us... besides the beasts, there are the plots. Poisonings, broken alliances, spies, assassinations disguised as accidents. One misstep, and you become a story told at dinner parties."
The old man said nothing. He simply crossed his arms, his eyes behind the lenses now clouded with thought.
"I didn't choose this world. But I choose how to live in it," I finished, my voice low but firm as tempered steel.
'Although so far, I've only chosen how to survive...'
I mocked myself inwardly.
The time I spent in the Black Forest, especially in the remnants of Erebus, had changed me. Not only physically, but inwardly. That forced isolation made me face truths that, in a gentler world, I might have kept ignoring.
I came from a peaceful world, or at least that was how the land seemed to me compared to Asgardia. There, the greatest conflict was internal. Here, death lurked in every shadow.
I considered abandoning everything that smelled of danger.
I fantasized about becoming a scholar shut away among books and maps, living off the past and explaining the present.
After all, even in my previous life, I had walked a similar path. It was natural. Comfortable. And even cloistered away, I could still explore the mysticism of this world.
But as the days passed, as I grew more and more familiar with Alexander's memories, something in me began to change. A spark, a raw and undeniable conviction: in this world, those who have no power... have nothing. Not even the right to exist in peace.
The illusion that knowledge alone was enough vanished like smoke. Strength was necessary. The ability to assert my presence. To protect what mattered.
And worst of all, for a Dracknum to choose the path of a scholar, that is, a pacifist at a young age, meant giving up the ability to use mana, which would put me at even greater risk, especially since Leopold had said the kingdom would go through turbulent times. Giving up on learning ways to protect myself would be suicide.
After all, understanding a world is useless if you can't stay in it long enough to live your own story.
Axel stretched out on my lap, extending his front paws with a guttural yawn, then lazily wagged his tail, as if reminding us that, despite the seriousness of the conversation, the world still turned at a simpler pace.
The old librarian watched the gesture with a faint smile, and at last nodded in silence, not as someone merely agreeing, but as someone recognizing something profound. It was a gesture heavy with meaning, almost like an invisible seal placed on my words.
The tension dissolved like mist in the sun.
"But enough of complex matters," I said, raising my hands in a theatrical gesture of surrender.
"Actually, I really need you to explain a few things to me." I pointed with my chin at the pile of books on the table, thick volumes with dusty covers and cracked spines, some with cloth ribbons hanging out like the tongues of old sages.
The old man followed my gaze, and his expression softened even more.
"Ah, of course. Of course!" he exclaimed, visibly brightening as he walked to the table with short steps.
"Perfect, I'm full of questions, especially about this fortress, and above all about that enormous thing over there." I pointed to the side, where three tables had been pushed together and a closed book sat on top of them.
Though it didn't look like it, after 10 days of reading, I had finally finished it.
"You really are an avid reader," the librarian began.
"Of course." I puffed out my chest. "Knowledge is one of the greatest powers men possess."
The librarian looked at me and burst out laughing. Perhaps the fact that I was still a child, and I must say a rather cute one, contributed to it.
"It's rare for me to have such a childlike and pleasant companion, especially at this time of year." His voice now carried an almost melancholy tone, but was still warmed by the pleasure of teaching.
"Oh... if you'd like, I can come more often to—" I began to say, with a friendly smile, already thinking about how much that company did me good.
But he interrupted me with a raised hand and a short, good-humored laugh.
"For the record," he said, adjusting his glasses with his index finger, "I have a family, vacations, and even visitors, you know?"
He gave a sarcastic smile as he picked up one of the books with exaggerated care, as if handling a newborn.
"It's just that... it's rare for anyone to come to the library, especially at the start of the year. Everyone is still busy trying to keep their New Year's resolutions or catching up on sleep after the Judgment."
"Or running away from books..." I added with a crooked smile.
"Or running away from books," he agreed with a solemn nod, as if mourning an entire generation lost to willful ignorance. "But not you. That I admire."
The silence that followed was brief but comforting. I sat down at the table, pulling one of the books closer, and Axel lay down again at my feet, his body warm and solid, like a living stone of silent protection.
"So, where should I start?" I asked, more to myself, already opening the first volume.
The old librarian settled in beside me, the curious gleam rekindling in his eyes behind the thick lenses.
"At the beginning, of course," he said, with a wise smile. "Always at the beginning."
✦ ✦ ✦
Somewhere forgotten by the maps, the ground was a crimson carpet. The metallic smell of blood saturated the air, thick as fog. Shattered carriages littered the road, their wheels still turning slowly, creaking as if mourning the dead.
Fallen horses covered the field, bodies sprawled at grotesque angles, glassy eyes staring at nothing. Among the shadows, torn-off limbs pointed in impossible directions, as if even death had lost its way.
In the center of the carnage, two figures remained standing, untouched. The dust seemed to retreat from them, and even the wind hesitated, timid, to pass by their silhouettes.
The first was pale, with crimson eyes that glittered like embers in a face too cold to be human.
The second was feral: hair and eyes as black as pitch, blackened fists wrapped in an orange aura that flickered like living magma.
In his hands he held what remained of a knight's torso, and with a wide grin, he tossed the body to the ground like a broken toy.
"W-who... who are you?" The voice of the last surviving guard broke the silence. He was trembling, his sword barely raised, the metal stained more with fear than with blood.
Sweat ran down his pale face, and his wide eyes reflected the impossible. "What do you want...?"
The air around them thickened. The blood spread across the ground vibrated, and from the pool beneath the guard's feet, crimson spikes erupted, piercing through his armor and flesh in an instant. The scream died in his throat.
"Honestly... I'm getting tired of this." The icy voice belonged to Darius, the man with the crimson eyes. Beside him, Warwick, the one with the black eyes, simply cracked his shoulders, like a bored predator after the hunt.
Darius wiped his blood-stained fingers on the hem of his own cloak, like someone getting rid of mere dirt, but his narrowed eyes betrayed his irritation.
"How many more times is that bastard going to drag us into S-rank missions?" he growled, pulling a crumpled scroll from his inner pocket.
Warwick shrugged, his fists still smoking with orange energy. A crooked, almost amused smile spread across his face as he kicked a broken shield aside.
"Until he decides to start a war, maybe? The Dracknum, Ragnar's envoys, the conflict between Emberhold and Stormhaven..."
He raised his eyes to the gray sky, as if counting invisible stars. "Luckily, only the first one already has our names on its blacklist."
"All of this, the two of us. Just us." Darius crushed the scroll in his grip, his eyes flashing. "Does that bastard really want to paint a target on our backs?"
Warwick laughed softly, a harsh, animal sound that echoed among the wrecked wagons.
"He already has. Or have you forgotten? The entire Dracknum wants our heads."
The wind carried the metallic stench of blood, and crows were already descending in lazy circles over the bodies. Flies buzzed in chorus, like a funeral march played in advance.
In the past year, since the day they met the one they called only Mr. Unseen, their lives had become a succession of massacres.
A mercenary's life was hard by nature, but this... this was something beyond the ordinary.
The pay was excellent, no doubt: Darius was collecting vials of blood from exotic creatures, and Warwick had gotten hold of items from workshops that few people even knew existed. But sometimes the reward didn't cover the risk, and that was the reason for Darius's growing fury.
He raised the scroll, his voice full of resentment: "Enough! This will be the last time. We've already done five S-rank missions this damn year alone. That's enough to demand the right to refuse."
Warwick crouched beside a still-warm body, pulling a worn steel ring from its fingers. He turned it over between his own fingers, indifferent to the blood dripping from it. "Luckily, there are more people involved this time."
"That's not a reason for relief, idiot, it's a reason for concern." Darius opened his hand, and the clotted red on the ground trembled. The pools pulsed like open veins, crawling in crimson rivers until they formed a circle beneath his feet.
The empty bodies around them turned gray, dry as husks. "Which means this mission is going to be different from all the others. I just hope..." his voice dropped, almost to a whisper, "...to come back alive to tell the tale."
Warwick shot him a sidelong look and smiled, showing his teeth. "Then, Darius... you'd better make sure it's a good story."
The blood circle burst into crimson sparks, and the two vanished, leaving behind only the echo of the carnage and the smell of burnt iron.