A low groan escaped Julian's lips as consciousness returned, not with a jolt, but like a slow, reluctant tide. It was a peculiar exhaustion, not the deep ache of battered muscles, for his body felt strangely whole, unnervingly fine. Instead, a profound mental fatigue weighed on him, a heavy fog smothering his thoughts. The last thing he remembered was the searing backlash of the {Dimensional Rend}, the spell devouring his magicules with a voracious hunger, and then Luthern's boot connecting with his ribs. The memory alone sent a phantom pang through his side.
He was lying on a surface so impossibly soft it felt like being cradled by a cloud. The urge to sink back into oblivion was a siren's call. But the memories, sharp and insistent, broke through the haze: the fight, the overwhelming power of Luthern Varn, the arrival of that unsettling, smiling figure. His eyes snapped open.
He pushed himself upright, the incredibly soft blanket pooling around his waist. He moved with cautious, probing gestures. He lifted his shirt, expecting to find a spectacular bruise painting his ribs. There was nothing. His skin was unmarred. Even the residual ache of channelling the devourer spell was gone, leaving only the hollow, mental fatigue in its wake. His fingers brushed against the familiar, reassuring shape of his wand, tucked securely under his shirt against his side. Someone had not only healed him but had also ensured his weapon was within reach. The implication was both confusing and deliberate.
His eyes scanned the room, taking in the small, well-designed log cabin. The air smelled of pine resin and old paper. In another bed beside him, Elrik was sleeping soundly, his chest rising and falling in a steady, peaceful rhythm. He, too, looked untouched by their ordeal, his rest deep and untroubled. A small measure of tension left Julian's shoulders.
His attention was drawn to a simple wooden desk nestled beneath the cabin's only window. The desk was cluttered with the artefacts of a solitary life: stacked books, scattered papers, and a small bottle of ink that seemed to swallow the faint light with its deep blackness. Yet it was the mask that truly captured his gaze. Resting beside a neatly arranged stack of parchment, it was a smooth, pale-white visage, featureless but for the markings that gave it form: a horizontal curve with two vertical lines like fangs where a mouth might be, and above them, two long, arched slits that suggested eyes. At the very centre sat a single red dot for a nose.
And then there was the figure. Seated at the desk with their back to him, they were a picture of composed silence. Shoulder-length black hair fell against the collar of a well-fitted white cotton shirt. The only movement was the steady, quiet scratch of a pen on paper. The person did not indicate that they knew he was awake.
Instinct, honed by fear and betrayal, took over. Julian's hand closed around the haft of his wand under his shirt. He slowly, silently, began to draw it forth, his mind already racing through incantation fragments, weighing the risk of a preemptive strike in such confined quarters.
The scratching of the pen stopped. The figure didn't look up.
"Tell me," a voice said, calm and conversational, yet it seemed to fill the small space of the cabin. "Is attacking an unarmed person who has offered you shelter and care the customary 'thank you' where you're from? It seems a rather... ungrateful way to start a conversation."
Julian froze, the wand half-drawn. The voice was the same, that androgynous mocking edge he remembered from the city streets. The Guide.
The Guide dipped the pen into the inkwell and continued writing, the gesture dismissive. "A wiser course of action, magician, would be to see to your friend. Ensure he is well. Then, perhaps, we can discuss your misplaced aggression."
Julian's jaw clenched. Every instinct screamed at the danger of turning his back on this enigmatic figure. Yet, the logic was undeniable. This creature had intervened against Luthern. It had brought them here, to safety. It had healed them both and had even returned his wand. If harm had been the intention, it had had every opportunity to deliver it while they were utterly vulnerable.
Challenging it now would be both foolish and futile. Someone who could face down Luthern Varn with a laugh was not someone to be overcome by a hastily cast spell in a log cabin.
Prioritising the immediate, knowable threat, he turned his attention to the sleeping boy. With a final, wary glance at the writing figure, Julian let his wand slide back into its hiding place. He swung his legs over the side of his bed and turned his focus to the sleeping boy, his mind a whirlwind of unanswered, chaotic questions.
Julian's eyes narrowed, finally taking in the Guide's changed appearance. The long black coat was now draped neatly over the back of the chair, revealing a simple, well-fitted white cotton shirt underneath. The contrast was jarring; the mundane clothing made the figure seem almost ordinary, yet the aura of playful menace remained, undiminished.
After several firm shakes yielded only drowsy mumbles, Julian's patience snapped. Elrik just burrowed deeper into the blankets with a sigh, muttering something about "I've just fed you, let me sleep" A flash of irritation crossed Julian's face. With a barely audible sigh and a subtle twitch of his fingers, he summoned a handful of cool water from the moisture in the air and let it splash gently onto Elrik's face.
The effect was instantaneous. Elrik bolted upright with a sputtering gasp, flailing for a moment as if drowning. He blinked rapidly, water dripping from his hair as he took in the unfamiliar wooden walls, the strange mask on the desk, and Julian's unamused expression. Then, the memories of the tavern, Luthern's terrifying power, and the violent confrontation came rushing back. His eyes widened in panic before landing on Julian, and a wave of sheer relief washed over him. He sank back against the headboard. "We're alive," he breathed, a dazed, sleep-addled grin spread across his face. "I knew we'd make it!"
A fresh wave of irritation washed over Julian at Elrik's blithe dismissal of their near-death experience. In a voice straining for calm, he gestured sharply around the room. "Yes. We're alive. But if you'd care to look beyond your own relief, you might notice we are not safe. We are in an unknown location, with no idea how we got here, and our... host..." He jutted his chin toward the desk, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
As if on cue, the Guide chose that moment to finish his writing. He set the pen down with a quiet finality and picked up the black hat from the desk. In one smooth motion, he placed it on his head, tilting the brim down so it shadowed the upper half of his face, leaving only his sharp jaw and that perpetually smiling mouth visible. He spun the chair around to face them, flashing a playful peace sign.
"Have you missed me?! Welcome your great saviour!" he announced, his voice a cheerful mockery of a heroic fanfare.
Elrik stared, his brain visibly struggling to place the hat-shaded smile and the flamboyant tone.
"...Um, who are you?" His confusion was met with an exaggerated performance of devastation. The Guide clutched his chest as if struck by an arrow, slumping forward in his chair with a dramatic gasp.
"How lame of you!" he wailed, his voice shifting into a deeply wounded, childlike whine. "You promised to stop by tomorrow and play again! You said, I'll be back! Oh! My heart! It's broken! Truly, truly broken!" He flopped a hand over his forehead, the very picture of a betrayed theatre actor.
The melodrama finally jogged Elrik's memory. "Wait... you're the card magician! From this morning!"
The Guide perked up instantly, his despair vanishing as if it had never been, though a pout remained. "The card magician, thank you. The only one who matters."
Julian looked between them, bewildered. "You know this... person?" he asked Elrik, his tone implying the word person was a generous term. He filed the question away for later; it was a mystery for another time. The immediate concern was the one currently sitting backwards on his chair, having hooked his legs around the front chair legs in a display of impossible flexibility instead of sitting normally.
The Guide leaned forward, his smile widening beneath the shadow of his hat brim. He rested his chin on the chair's backrest. "How stra~nge," he sang, his voice a teasing lilt. "I've provided medical care, luxurious accommodation, and salvation from a truly nasty end... and yet, I still don't hear any praise? Or thanks? The silence is just... deafening."
Elrik's eyes were wide with a mixture of awe and residual fear. "You... you actually faced down that old monster?! And he just... left?!" The admiration in his voice was unmistakable.
The Guide basked in the admiration, leaning back in his impossible pose and waving a dismissive hand. "Of course! Luthern Varn is a formidable name, but names are just stories people tell to feel important. I, on the other hand, am what makes those stories look quaint." With each word from Elrik, his arrogance seemed to swell, his smile growing sharper, more self-satisfied. After a particularly effusive thank you from the young man, the Guide gave a final, haughty nod. "Indeed. It would seem my precious time was not entirely wasted on you."
His gaze, from under the shadow of his hat, slid to Julian. He waited, expectant, the silence stretching. Julian's face was a stony mask of resentment, the memory of their first meeting in Marcaine, the condescension, the cryptic warnings, the sheer frustration of it all, rising to the surface like bile. Yet, beneath the annoyance, a single, burning question refused to be ignored: What did he mean by winning in the end? What did he mean by luck won't help?
The Guide's mouth twisted into a petulant pout. He crossed his arms. "No answers for stone-faced ingrates. I only share my unmatched wisdom with those who show proper appreciation."
Julian's jaw tightened, a muscle twitching in his cheek. He took a sharp, quiet breath through his nose, the words like gravel in his throat. "...Fine."
The Guide perked up instantly, leaning forward with predatory glee. "He~h? Fine what? Who is the greatest?" he prompted, his voice a singsong taunt. "Who is the greatest?! Who is the most handsome and strongest to ever exist, huh?!" He waited, practically vibrating with delight, relishing every second of Julian's profound discomfort.
Julian forced the words out, each one a tiny death of dignity. "You are." His chest burned with humiliation.
"The greatest saviour?"
"...Yes."
"The most magnificent entity in all the realms?"
"...Yes."
A beat of perfect, satisfied silence followed. The Guide sighed contentedly, as if he'd just tasted an exquisite wine. "Lovely~" he purred. Then, his tone shifted back to its casual, conversational mockery. "Well, since you asked so nicely... I just wanted to look cool!"
A heavy, dead silence filled the small cabin. Julian and Elrik just stared.
The Guide's grin didn't slip. "Kidding!" he chirped, though the glint in his visible eye suggested he was only partially so. "That was certainly a reason. But the real one?" He tapped a finger against his lips. "That's a secret."
"Huh?!" He wanted to protest and argue, but the guide immediately continued explaining.
"Consider it your punishment for walking away from me the first time. I did say it was your own choice. And choices," he added, his voice dropping a fraction, losing its playfulness for a chilling instant, "have consequences. You'll have to deal with not knowing... Wait," he raised his hand to his mouth in realisation. "Could it be...that you regret your choi~ce?"
"Egh—" Julian turned his gaze immediately.
"Well, if you're willing to recognise your past setbacks, I might reconsider extending an offer your way!" The tension in the room spiked.
The tension in the room sharpened. "Forget it," he snapped, his voice cold. "I don't need to know. I was just curious. I don't need you. I was doing well for an entire year in this world on my own."
The tension in the room spiked. The Guide's predatory grin returned, wider and more unsettling than before. He rested his head comfortably on his arms, his voice a soft, venomous purr.
"So, you're doing well, he~h?...So, doing well means getting trapped by a criminal organisation, blindly accepting anything you are told to do, refusing to take action until the very end, and then calling it a try. Getting beaten up every day by an old man, and instead of learning from him, you prioritise your foolish, nonsensical pride, which only causes you harm."
The words were a lash, precise and cruel, laying bare every one of Julian's consecutive failures and insecurities.
Elrik just stared, his head spinning. He'd thought Julian had it all figured out, strong, smart, a real survivor. Everything Julian had told him about Cerberus and that scary old man, Luthern, he'd just... accepted. It was easier that way. But now, hearing the Guide say it wasn't just bad luck... that it was because Julian was too proud to make better choices...
It was like a crack had appeared in a solid wall. Julian didn't seem weaker, exactly. Just... more like a real person. Someone who could mess up. For a second, a weird thought flickered in Elrik's mind: 'What if there's more to the story?'
Rage, white-hot, erupted in Julian's chest. "You—!" he shouted, his composure shattering. He lunged upward, his wand snapping up to point directly at the Guide's smirking face.
"Julian, no!" Elrik grabbed his arm.
But it was over before it began. In the blink of an eye, the wand was simply... gone from Julian's grasp. They hadn't even seen him move. The Guide was now examining it, turning it over with idle curiosity.
"Oh dea~r, someone is short-tempered, hehe~," he teased. With a flick of his wrist, the wand vanished.
Then, before their disbelieving eyes, he produced not one, but four identical wands, each one balanced perfectly on a different fingertip. He wiggled his fingers, making them dance. With another effortless flick, he gathered all four into a single bundle in his palm, as if they were nothing more than a magician's cheap props. He looked back at them, his smile utterly innocent.
"Looking for this?"
The wand sailed through the air in a perfect arc, landing neatly in Julian's stunned grasp. He caught it on instinct, his fingers closing around the familiar, sacred grain of the wood and the cool, impossible weight of the Hihirokane shard. His breath hitched. It was real. It wasn't an illusion or a cheap replica; it was an exact duplicate, down to the most minute rune. His mind reeled, not just at the act of creation, but at the sheer blasphemy of perfectly replicating artefacts considered unique in all the world. To create such a thing, on the spot, with materials rarer than dragon's teeth... it defied all logic.
Elrik gaped, applauding softly. "Whoa! How did you do that? That's incredible! Was it a glamour? A duplication spell?"
Julian said nothing. He just stared at the wand in his hand, then at the one still held loosely in the Guide's fingers, the sheer impossible power of the act silencing him more effectively than any threat.
Amidst their astonishment, the Guide continued, his voice a melody of mockery. "Unfoundedly arrogant, impatient, and unwilling to admit your mistakes. Man! You really put a lot of effort into building this bridge of failure! Hahahaha!"
The laugh broke the spell. Annoyance, hot and defensive, surged through Julian, burning away his awe. "I had no choice!" he retorted, his voice sharper than intended. He took a step forward, gesturing with the duplicate wand. "I was dumped here without a warning! No knowledge, no resources! If I'd stayed on the streets, I would have been dead or enslaved in a week. Cerberus offered protection. What was I supposed to do, refuse and get myself killed? And Luthern..." He snarled the name. "He was a jailer, not a teacher. If I'd had a real guide, a proper teacher from the start, everything would be different! My beginning dictated my path!"
He was building momentum, trying to assemble his arguments, to make this infuriating creature see the inevitability of it all.
Elrik listened, a frown creasing his brow. Some of Julian's excuses sounded familiar, the kind he himself might have made. But hearing them laid out so defensively... they rang hollow.
The Guide cut him off with a sound of disgust. "Nonsense," he stated, his playful tone vanishing, replaced by a flat, chilling finality. "Every word out of your mouth is nonsense. You're not describing circumstance; you're composing a symphony of excuses and blaming the conductor for the rotten tune."
Frustration boiled over in him. Julian stood up and advanced, trying to gather his scattered thoughts into a coherent argument. "You don't understand—"
"He who blames his destiny for his failure," the Guide interrupted, his voice dropping into a low, ominous register that seemed to suck the air from the room, "will never see the chain he forges for himself. And one day, he will feel the wrath of the very fate he cursed for his own weakness."
The words hung in the air, not as a prophecy, but as a simple, brutal statement of cause and effect. It wasn't fate that was punishing him; it was the inevitable result of the choices he made while hiding behind fate's name. The Guide looked at him, and for the first time, the smile that usually played on his lips was completely gone. There was only a cold, ancient knowing in the shadow of that hat brim. "I believe the message has been communicated clearly."
Julian's jaw clenched, a muscle ticking in his jaw. The Guide's words were needles, slipping into every crack of his carefully built defences. No retort came. No clever excuse. The truth in them, however much he hated it, lodged in his throat like a bitter, unyielding pill. At last, defeated, he bit his lip, averted his gaze, and turned, intending to slump back onto the bed.
But as he moved, his downcast eyes caught something else, the world beyond the window. From this angle, he could see it clearly. The brilliance flooding the cabin was no lamp, no spell. It was a vast, desolate expanse of white stretching to a horizon terrifyingly close, beneath a sky of endless black, pricked with scattered stars.
"What the—! ARE WE ON THE MOO—"
"Time's up." The Guide snapped his fingers.
Julian had no time to scream. His body dissolved into a cascade of glittering golden sand, collapsing in a soft whisper across the floorboards.
Elrik cried out, lurching forward in horror. "What did you do to him?!"
"Oh, relax," the Guide sighed, as if soothing a spooked animal. "I didn't turn him into a trinket. I merely sent the fool back to town. Consider it a time-out." He waved lazily at the heap of golden grains, which faded one by one into nothingness. "The sand is just for flair. Dramatic, don't you think?"
Elrik hesitated, trembling, before sinking slowly back into his chair. The terror faded, leaving only bewilderment. He watched the last sparks vanish. "Why?" he asked at last, voice small. "Why save us? I thought... I thought you were his friend."
The Guide's customary smile returned, sly and sharp. "Friends? How tiresome. I only wished to plant a seed or two in that thick skull of his. Saving him was a whim, nothing more, a little diversion." He leaned forward, shadows gathering beneath the brim of his hat. "You, however... You are the main event, Elrik. My true interest."
Elrik's eyes went wide. "All of this... because of a card game? Because I promised to play again?" The notion was so absurd he almost laughed.
But the Guide laughed, a bright, merry sound. "That would be delightfully petty! No, not quite. Though I don't think I've forgotten your promise."
A new understanding settled over Elrik. This man, if man he was, was not simply a saviour. He was something far more mysterious, his motives utterly opaque. He had the power to face Luthern, to save lives at a whim, yet no clear reason for that. "How did you even know we were in danger?" Elrik asked carefully.
The Guide tapped his nose. "My insight is unparalleled. I see the strings that bind the puppets." Elrik flinched. Puppets. He hated it, even as a metaphor. But it was not something he could contest. Not now.
"Then why was the old man, Luthern, after Julian?"
"That is Julian's concern. If curiosity gnaws at you, ask him yourself." The Guide's smirk widened. "Though I doubt he'll confess. Pride and all that."
A chill coiled in Elrik's chest. "Alan! What about Alan? Was he attacked? Is he safe?"
The Guide waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, Alan? Luthern hasn't touched him." Relief washed over Elrik. "Yet," the Guide added, his smile turning sharp, vicious.
Elrik froze. "What? Is he... is he in danger?"
The Guide's grin turned feral and gleeful. "Danger? Hah! Worse! He's being played like a pawn! And it is delicious!"
"What's happening to him?!" Elrik demanded, half-rising from his seat.
But the laughter died on his lips, and the Guide's face hardened into a mask of refusal. "That is Alan's business. And were your places reversed, he would not spare you a thought. That, I assure you." His voice held a cold certainty that chilled the air.
Elrik hesitated. He would get no more. He drew a breath, steeling himself. "But still... will you help him? Like you helped Julian?"
The Guide tilted his head, regarding him with serpentine interest. "I can offer support," he said softly, the words low and enticing, "but he can manage... probably."
A heavy, suffocating silence followed. Then the Guide leaned in close, "Enough digressions. Going to the main point now:" his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper that slid like smoke into Elrik's mind. "How does it sound to make a contract with me?"