The plaza of Alpime was alive in its usual early-fall bustle. Merchants hawked spices and wool, children chased each other past the water fountain, and the air carried the faint scent of baked bread wafting from the corner ovens. Amidst the rhythm of the crowd, Mina walked stiffly, clutching the violet chest like a cursed relic.
She told herself she was strong enough—she was stronger than most kids her age—but no amount of physical fitness eased the way the box's cold surface seeped into her arms, nor how the old Eastern seals seemed to squirm against her palms.
Still, she held her chin high. I'm not giving Ashe the satisfaction of saying "I told you so."
"Ashe," Mina finally broke the silence, her voice low as though even the chest might overhear, "do you remember where Jill's farm is? I feel like this thing is going to sprout legs and walk us there itself."
Ashe didn't even glance at her. He walked ahead casually, hands in his coat pockets, eyes flicking lazily across the plaza. "At the end of the Kilmann Route. Entrance's just south of Western III, our outpost."
Mina groaned. "So basically… a long walk."
"That's what legs are for." Ashe said in return.
Her teeth clenched. Why does he always have to answer like that…
The two made their way from the plaza's stone paths to the southern gate of Alpime. The guards barely glanced at them, too busy laughing over dice games in the shade of the gatehouse. Beyond, the world opened wide into the Wild Vein Route, where open fields of tall yellow grass swayed like an ocean beneath the breeze.
Mina's arms ached, but she pressed on. Her stubbornness wouldn't allow her to lag behind Ashe.
"So," Mina muttered as they followed the dirt road lined with weathered fences, "you wanna take a break and lay at home first? The outpost's on the way anyway."
"Nope," Ashe answered without hesitation, his tone as flat as the horizon. "Haven't even broken a sweat. It's fall, anyway—perfect walking weather."
Mina rolled her eyes. Show-off.
But secretly, she was glad he declined. She hated admitting it, but if they stopped now and she had to sit with this chest for even five more minutes… she'd probably throw it into the nearest ditch.
As they crested a gentle slope, the watchtowers of Tropico Outpost Western III came into view, banners of pale blue flapping weakly. Smoke from the chimneys curled lazily into the crisp air.
But Mina's attention snapped forward, her steps halting.
A tall figure strode toward them from the outpost gates. Broad-shouldered, black-haired, his twin sabres gleaming at either side. His gait was steady, carrying the quiet confidence of someone used to battle.
"Ashe," Mina whispered quickly, "that's—"
"I see him."
The figure's shadow stretched across the road until his face came into clear view.
It was Trevus Regulus, B-ranked Adventurer of the Tropico Guild, and Leader of Party Five.
"You two?" His deep voice carried mild surprise.
Mina lit up instantly, her earlier stiffness evaporating. "Ah, Trevus! Heya!" Her tone was far too bright for someone lugging a cursed box, but Trevus had always been like a big brother to them.
Ashe, on the other hand, was measured. "Something the matter, Trevus?"
The older adventurer clicked his tongue, brows furrowing. "I was expecting Harlen here. He was supposed to bring the chest himself, and we'd deliver it together." His gaze shifted to the violet chest in Mina's arms. "Don't tell me… he bribed you two?"
Mina blinked, her grip tightening. "W-wait—you're not gonna take it away, are you? If you do, then all our nine hundred notes and four silvers will just… vanish…" Her voice trailed into a pitiful whine.
Trevus sighed but quickly shook his head. "Keep the money. That's Harlen's mess, not yours."
Mina's face brightened instantly. "Really!? Oh, thank Stayne—"
"But," Trevus cut in, resting his hand on Ashe's shoulder, "since you two are already involved, you might as well see it through. Escort me. We'll deliver it together to Jill Kilmann."
Before Mina could argue, he lifted the box from her arms with effortless ease.
"Finally!" Mina squeaked, shaking out her tingling hands. "Ugh, my arms were going numb!"
Trevus glanced at her in surprise. "Hm? You didn't apply mana-reinforcement to—" He stopped, realization dawning, and grimaced. "…Crap. Sorry, I forgot you're a Null, Mina."
The word cut sharper than he intended.
"Tch." Mina's face darkened, her fists tightening. She hated it. Hated how people always forgot. Or worse, pitied her.
Nulls (Absentis Absentia)
(A Null is an individual born without functional mana-pathways. The anomaly originates in the womb, where the fetus fails to form conduits for mana circulation and absorbs only a small fraction of its mother's supply. This absence is often noted by the lack of maternal mana-drain during pregnancy. At birth, a Null possesses a measurable mana-pool yet have no means of accessing or expelling it, rendering all forms of spellcasting permanently impossible. Though regarded as defective within mana-reliant societies, Nulls demonstrate notable very high resistance to external magical influence, being largely unaffected by curses, pacts, or other similar afflictions. Mina is one of many across the world.)
Mina stomped ahead, her voice clipped. "Let's just get this dumb quest over with."
"M-Mina, wait—I didn't mean it like that!" Trevus called after her, clearly flustered.
Ashe smirked from behind, his tone laced with mockery. "Real smooth, Trevus. Real smooth~"
The older adventurer scratched the back of his neck, sighing heavily.
By the time they regrouped, Mina had cooled only slightly, walking stiffly but no longer storming. The three of them fell into step together, their shadows stretching long across the dirt road as they made their way toward the entrance of the Kilmann Route—toward Jill's farm.
The road stretched long beneath the amber skies of fall. Cicadas hummed lazily in the tall grass, their song carried on the wind, while the mountains of the Central West cast deep blue shadows over the distant horizon. The dirt path wound like a ribbon through the Wild Vein Route, leading ever closer to the dark ridges that marked the Kilmann territory.
Mina led the way with her arms folded behind her head, still sulking but refusing to look as bitter as she felt. Ashe trailed in the middle, eyes shifting every so often toward Trevus, who carried the violet chest as though it weighed nothing—though Ashe could feel that wasn't quite true.
The faint shimmer of mana reinforcement gleamed across Trevus's hands, like a transparent second skin. Ashe narrowed his eyes, watching carefully.
Mana-reinforcement… he's holding it together with that much output…
just for holding a box?
Trevus glanced down at him, cleared his throat, and adjusted his grip on the chest. His tone was calm, but carried the weight of someone who had rehearsed the explanation before.
"Because this isn't some trinket. This is a Spiritual Artifact. And these things follow no predictable rule. Some are harmless, but others…" He exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing at the seals. "…others can destroy a city block down if handled carelessly."
"The thing sealed inside this one… falls around Level Two on the artifact spectrum."
Mina half-turned, her amber-and-crimson ringed eyes catching Trevus's in curiosity. Ashe, however, tilted his head. "So… what kind of level are we talking about?"
"There's a spectrum," Trevus replied. "One through Four. One being a mild nuisance—like cursed jewelry that whispers at you. Four being catastrophic—artifacts that can bend or shatter whole ley-lines if they wake up."
"And Level Five?" Ashe pressed, brows arching.
Trevus gave a humorless chuckle. "Level Five isn't on the scale. It's disaster without a name. Theorized, but… impossible. If a thing like that existed, it wouldn't be sealed. It would've already ended us."
The road crunched beneath their boots as the silence sank in. Even Mina, usually quick to scoff, kept her tongue this time.
Still, Ashe's curiosity burned. "So what happens if someone without reinforcement just… picks it up?"
Trevus's expression darkened. "Depends. Sometimes nothing. Sometimes it burns the skin right off. Additionally, if your innate mana quality conflicts with the artifact, it'll react violently. Worst case? The artifact worms into your mana-pathways, corrupts them, and turns you into a husk. Or worse."
A shiver traveled down Ashe's spine. He rubbed his wrist unconsciously, as though his own mana veins itched just from hearing the description. Mana corruption… that's worse than death for a mage, its like stripping them off their ability to cast magic ever again.
Then his eyes flicked forward—to Mina, who was stretching casually as though the conversation were about someone else. "Wait… Mina carried it earlier. With bare hands."
Mina turned her head back, walking backwards now with a smug grin. "Yup. Didn't fry me. Didn't even tingle—well, not exactly. It felt… weird, like something was tugging at me. Not painful, though. More like… holding a squirmy cat that doesn't wanna sit still."
Ashe blinked. "And that didn't hurt you? At all?"
Mina shrugged, resting her hands behind her head again. "Not really. Just creepy."
Trevus slowed his steps, brows furrowing in thought. "…It must be because you're a Null."
Mina's smirk faltered.
Trevus quickly raised his free hand. "I don't mean that as an insult this time, Mina. Think about it—Nulls don't have mana-pathways. No channels, no circuits, nothing for spiritual energy to flow through. So when an artifact lashes out, there's nowhere for it to latch on. You're effectively immune. No curses, no burns, no spiritual corruption. Nothing sticks."
For a moment, Mina just stared at him. Her lips parted, then closed again.
Her lips curled into a small, defiant smirk. "Immune… huh?"
Trevus blinked, almost startled by her confidence.
He admitted slowly. "Yes. In a way, Nulls are untouchable. Only immune to curses, magical afflictions, corruption of mana-pathways…"
For once, a shimmer of pride replaced the annoyance in her eyes. So what if I can't use magic? That means things that terrify them can't even touch me.
Ashe raised a brow at her growing grin. "Don't get carried away, Mina. You might be immune to magical afflictions, but you're still very much not immune to someone blasting your face off with a fireball."
Mina froze mid-step, her grin fading into a pout. "…You just had to ruin it, huh?"
Trevus chuckled despite the tension earlier. Ashe smirked in quiet satisfaction. Mina, however, stomped ahead again, muttering to herself.
Still… she couldn't completely wipe away that fleeting moment of pride. For the first time in a long time, being a Null didn't feel like just a weakness. It felt like… a kind of armor no one else had.
The canopy thinned as the road sloped gently downward. Where once the branches above had been thick with green, now the leaves shifted into warm fire-tones—orange, crimson, and amber. They crunched underfoot with every step, a constant chorus of autumn sighs.
After a few more minutes, the forest broke away entirely. The three stepped out into the clearing, and the sight waiting before them rolled wide as the horizon.
Trevus halted first, his boots scuffing the dirt. He let out a low breath, almost reverent. "Still the same as I remember…"
Before them spread the Kilmann farmland, stretching in neat rectangles that quilted across the earth. The soil had already been tilled, most of the crops harvested and stored away weeks ago during the Harvest Festival. Now only stubble remained, dark furrows like stripes across the land. Scattered farmhouses dotted the distance, their chimneys coughing out lazy trails of smoke.
To anyone else, it was a quiet, peaceful scene.
But something was… off.
Mina narrowed her eyes. "Hey… wait. Do you see that?"
Figures dotted the fields, moving between the rows. At first glance they looked like ordinary farmhands, busy at work even though the harvest was done. But when Mina dragged Ashe closer to the wooden fence lining the path, the hairs on her arms rose.
"Ashe… look. Look closer."
He leaned over the fence, squinting. At first his jaw slackened with awe—then his eyes widened.
Because the thing tilling the earth nearest to them wasn't human at all.
Its body was vaguely humanoid, its limbs corded with fibrous green muscle, like vines braided together. Its hands were long, plantlike fingers tipped with rough knuckles. The head was… a pumpkin. A perfectly round pumpkin, carved with jagged triangular eyes and a crooked grin, the sun shining through the hollows where a face should be.
The creature paused, noticing them. Slowly—far too slowly—it turned its head until its gaze fell on the three by the fence. And then, as if mockingly human, it raised one leafy hand and waved.
Mina's stomach flipped. "Nope. Nope. Nope. That's creepy. Why is it waving like that?!" She clung to the fence, her face pale. "That thing's got a Jack-O face and it's just… just casually plowing crops?!"
Ashe, on the other hand, blinked, then let out a breath of wonder. "Wait a second… that's… that's incredible. I've seen golems before—stone sentries, clay guards, even transport constructs—but agriculture? That's actually genius."
Mina gawked at him. "Genius!? It's a pumpkin man! Do you not see the pumpkin man!?"
Ashe gave her a flat look. "Of course I see it. But look how smooth the coordination is. It's holding a plow, adjusting the soil depth, rotating at the right intervals—this isn't shambling at random. It's following farming patterns like it was born in the fields." He brushed his nose, excitement lighting his eyes. "I've never seen anyone program a golem this efficiently."
"You're such a nerd," Mina muttered, shivering as the pumpkin-headed thing tilted its carved grin their way again.
Behind them, Trevus shifted the occult chest in his arms, his hands still glowing faintly with reinforcement. His voice was level. "Jill's magic discipline has always been golemancy. And this… this is only a fraction of what she can do."
Ashe glanced back at him. "How many are there? Just in the fields we can already see…"
Trevus's brow furrowed in thought. "I've been here more than once. From memory, about forty. But that's only what she lets people see." He exhaled. "I know Jill is capable of far more."
Ashe shook his head. "That's impossible. Golem magic eats mana like wildfire. The constant upkeep, the energy reserves, the precision in their commands—not to mention making them coordinate with each other. Even master golemancers can barely keep five or six active at once."
Trevus looked at him steadily. "That's because Jill is a Surge."
The words hit heavier than the autumn wind.
Ashe froze, his mind clicking. Of course. Of course it explained it. Surges—mages born with mana pools several times the average, their bodies vessels brimming with raw energy. They were rare, powerful, and strictly monitored. A Surge without regulation was more dangerous than a battalion of armed men.
He muttered under his breath, more to himself than anyone else. "…So she's burning her mana directly as fuel. That's how she can maintain dozens of constructs without collapsing."
Trevus nodded gravely. "And Jill is the only licensed Surge within the Wild Veins Route. The Monarchy gave her that license precisely because no one else in the region could control such output without breaking."
Mina blinked, her expression caught between disgust and awe. "…Licensed Surge? Like… like a mage with a permit? What, do they carry around a special badge or something?"
Ashe pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's not like a library card, Mina. It's government recognition. Without it, someone like Jill would be thrown in a dungeon before she caused… this." He gestured to the fields, where two pumpkin-headed folk passed each other, one nodding politely to the other before returning to its work.
Mina shivered again. "Yeah, I don't care how official it is. Pumpkin men are still nightmare fuel."
Trevus, however, said nothing. His eyes were locked on the horizon where the farmhouse lay, his grip tightening on the sealed chest.
Mina's face had gone pale the moment the pumpkin-headed folk waved at her, and she hadn't quite recovered since. Every time another of the grotesque, carved heads turned in their direction, she would twitch, grab Ashe's sleeve, or mutter "creepy, creepy, creepy" under her breath.
It was almost comical if not for the genuine tremor in her voice.
"I swear…" Mina hissed as they walked deeper into the farm path, the crunch of soil beneath their boots mingling with the distant creak of wooden wheels and the hollow thuds of golems working the fields. "If one of those things suddenly runs at me with that dumb grin, Ashe, you better trip Trevus and run for it, got it?"
Ashe gave her a look that could only be described as deadpan. "…Trip Trevus? Really?"
"Hey, survival of the fittest!" Mina snapped, hugging her arms as another pumpkin turned its eerie face toward them from across the rows. "I'm not sticking around to become pumpkin soup."
Trevus, walking ahead with the chest braced carefully in his arms, chuckled under his breath. "You've got more courage than you think, Mina. You carried this artifact all the way from Alpime, barehanded no less. Yet a few vegetable constructs make you quake?"
"Vegetables are supposed to be eaten, not look like they're gonna eat me back!" she shot back, puffing her cheeks in frustration.
Ashe almost choked on a laugh, though he tried to disguise it with a cough. "You've developed a… what do we even call this? A crippling phobia of pumpkins?"
"Don't you dare name it!" Mina said immediately, glaring daggers at him. "If it's a phobia it'll just… stick forever! I'll be branded 'the girl who's scared of jack-o'-lanterns' or something. No thank you!"
"Too late," Ashe smirked, his white hair catching the sunlight as he leaned in close to whisper, "Pumpkin Princess."
Her fist shot up instantly, thumping against his shoulder. "Ashe!"
"Alright, alright, sorry!" Ashe laughed, rubbing where she'd hit him. Still, he kept sneaking glances at the strange farm constructs with genuine curiosity, taking in how each moved almost independently yet worked in harmony. Incredible… Jill Kilmann isn't just a farmer. She's a pioneer. If she can make this work at scale, Elynthia's entire food supply chain could change…
Meanwhile, Mina tried very hard not to look anywhere but straight ahead, her muttered curses at Ashe giving her enough distraction to keep walking.
The path cut cleanly between two sections of fields, lined with wooden fences patched with vine ropes. Overhead, a flock of birds wheeled in the crisp autumn sky, their cries sharp and fleeting. The sun hung warm and golden, casting long shadows that stretched from the pumpkin-headed golems across the earth like fingers reaching.
Eventually, the fields gave way to the heart of the farmstead.
There, in the middle of the cultivated expanse, stood a farmhouse. Its walls were weathered but well-maintained, painted in earthy tones, with a porch that creaked under the wind. A single rocking chair rested at its front, swaying gently.
And in that chair sat a peculiar figure.
At first, all they could make out was the broad brim of her hat—tall, conical, casting her entire face in shadow. The style was unmistakable, reminiscent of the witches of northern folklore. A newspaper was open in her hands, the pages rustling softly as she read. The scene was so still, so oddly mundane, that it clashed violently with the grotesque atmosphere of the fields.
Trevus slowed his steps, his posture tightening ever so slightly. "She's here."
As if she had heard him, the woman's hand moved. With unhurried grace, she tilted the brim of her hat upward.
Two sharp glints of orange shone back at them from beneath the shadow. Not glowing, not aflame—just eyes that caught the sunlight with an intensity unnatural for ordinary humans.
Ashe froze, breath snagging in his throat. A spill of black hair slipped free from beneath Jill's hat—straight, silken, cascading past her shoulders. The sight tugged at a memory unbidden.
She's black-haired… like Nira.
He swallowed hard. Nira—one of their companions from Party 5. That same sable shade marked her heritage, a living echo of an old Elynthian saying carved into cultural memory: "Black and White, prodigies both."
Children born with hair dark as midnight or pale as snow were said to walk paths set apart from others—toward greatness… or ruin. Myths, legends, even living figures bore those colors like the brand of fate itself.
And Ashe knew the weight well. Every reflection of his own white hair was a reminder: prodigy, potential, expectation—chains he had never fully escaped.
And now this Jill Kilmann bore the other half of that legend.
He felt a strange weight settle in his chest.
Mina, however, didn't catch on to the cultural significance. She squinted at Jill from under her bangs, whispering just loud enough for Ashe and Trevus to hear. "…Why do her eyes look like she just ate a whole basket of pumpkins too?"
Ashe groaned. "Mina, please."
Jill's newspaper lowered with deliberate grace, the black ink smudged faintly along her pale fingers. Her lips curled into a faint, knowing smile as the chair rocked back. The porch creaked beneath her boots where they rested against the railing, a posture that radiated casualness yet carried an undertone of dominance.