Over the next few days, Oren's presence in Erdream slowly became more natural.
Most saw him roam the streets aimlessly, as though his wanderings were little less than a patrol.
And so, that's what he called it.
Even though the myths depicted a cunning and cruel being, he was slowly becoming more of a benefit to the people rather than a hindrance.
Oren often patrolled the Lake District lost in thought.
He favored the artillas, a small light blue flower that bloomed in the winter season. They were the most common flower in Everdream.
As he slowly observed nature, he began noticing the some elderly smile when they saw him approaching, whikst others coward in fear.
The children had slowly became more at ease around him, but most were still afraid.
Especially for the children.
For them, Oren had especially made an effort to appear less threatening, cleaning up his appearance and doing small deeds.
He wanted them to feel safe around him, all of them, the men, women, elderly, and young.
And so, he usually looked like a serene man with a measured cadence.
The way he carried himself seemed strange to the people around him.
He was overly outgoing in a way that felt contrived.
His strides were always long and deliberate, not matching the man they thought the immortal demon was.
They saw a seasoned and contemplative man, often introspective of his own duties, carrying out each good deed with deliberation.
But In truth, Oren was only spectating them, he watched the people take joy in things that seemed so simple.
Things that made them laugh, cry, smile, and forget their troubles for a while. Perhaps once, he would have been able to bathe in that joy.
But he understood them and their mundane emotions.
Maybe that was why he could only watch them from afar.
Still, he took what little joy he could, even if he did not believe it was meant for him... it was meant for everyone.
In retrospect, what he was doing for the people may have been a pointless act of kindness, because persuasion was not what he sought.
It was attrition for those who still despised the Immortal Demon.
If he could not find the Erol that Selvar was looking for himself, he would eventually need help, and that would be much easier if they did not want him gone.
Because of this, he made sure Selvar rarely left the manor because, unlike most slave owners of their time, the relationship between the two was not so black and white.
But that did not mean there weren't boundaries.
Since Selvar had never stepped beyond that line, the villagers had convinced themselves, out of some twisted hope, that he was simply well-behaved and needed no punishment.
As a result of that deal, he and Selvar lived on the same floor, despite there being three in the manor, which led to quite a few encounters in the hallways and on the stairs.
Other than the hellos and goodbyes and talks about the wager, they should have remained unacquainted.
For Selvar never left the manor without him, making him quite the reserved person.
But whenever they talked, he listened attentively, and Oren could not deny that he was polite.
When sitting down with the regulars, Selvar always wore a calm and introspective expression, only smiling when making quick-witted jokes.
When they brought him food, despite already being fed, he ate it, not only to keep the show of being a slave, but to not waste their effort.
He had this habit of always sniffing the food nervously before trying it.
It was obvious that he was unsociable to a degree, but when they had conversations on matters unrelated to their deal, a layer of that behaviour seemed to shed.
When Oren thought about it, he had gradually grown acquainted with Selvar, becoming friends in a way with a boy who, perhaps, he should have never met, if it were not for that fated day.
Recently, Oren even discovered that he liked reading books.
Up to that moment, he knew nearly nothing about his interests, yet one day, when he entered his room, he had seen books, papers, and records scattered across the desk and floor.
Well, there was not a large variety of entertainment indoors, so he was not surprised.
Selvar seemingly covered up his loneliness and secluded demeanor with books, even if he himself had not noticed, Oren had.
And so he made sure to start keeping an eye out for books and other literary pieces, going so far as to lend him the books in his master bedroom.
Feeling that it was Oren's own fault, most interactions were measured rather than rash, unlike the pale, black-and-white personalities of the people around them.
Nevertheless, everything was going much better than he had originally thought.
The morning light slowly crept across the village, pale rays of crimson hidden beyond the border whilst Oren sat outside of it, at the edge of the grey fog.
A dozen fish sat beside him, a large pile of guts and blood, his emerald dagger in hand as he went to pick up another one.
Earlier that day, he had decided to take his first step towards creating the Erol, so he went fishing, borrowing the only wooden fishing rod left at the manor and heading to the lake.
But sadly, he had broken it in the process.
'Tssk.' He stared down at the fish as the mist brushed against his skin.
'You all better have been worth it.'
They were a murky grey colour, sullen and dirty, whilst a few rare ones lay scattered throughout, shining brilliantly, their viridian scales glinting through the batch.
He frowned as he began contemplating.
Realistically, when creating Erols, he would need something of high quality, something that was either on par with or above what the user already possessed.
This time around, he did not have the pleasure of using creatures with improved eyesight and a smarter accumulative mental state than humans.
So he would have to use the whole batch and hope they would amalgamate into something of use to Selvar.
Since Erols were born from remnants of life, fragments inherently tied to what they once were, carrying traces of the life they once contained and inseparable from World Energy, the risks of utilising such abominable life... there were too many to count.
But it was not as though he had spent his life refining the technique for creating Erols and understanding their fundamentals.
'I know the basics, still using animals was...' It was an unfamiliar method, but Oren remembered enough to know it might work.
He glanced forward toward the fog.
'Does it even exist? Can I even create it?'
If what Selvar said was true and the World Energy was most bountiful and potent within its depths, then here it was weakest.
But it was better than nothing.
'Still, how long will this take?'
He calculated the possibilities.
'A few days... Weeks. Perhaps even years.'
His memory was no longer as sharp as it once was, making the exact answer difficult to determine.
'I may be immortal, but Selvar is not.'
He glanced to the left, his own intrigue getting ahead of him.
The mountain slope...
He sighed hesitantly before continuing, surgically beheading the fish.
Crimson blood shot across the vibrant grass as he carved out their eyes with uncanny precision.
The fog hung in the air, cold against his skin, as he continued that same pattern for an hour or so.
After finishing each one, he readied them, slowly placing them into the fog.
When he finally finished, Oren marked the grass surrounding the location with the fish blood, then returned to Erdream.
As he entered the gate, he noticed something.
'That's... new.'
By the entrance, in front of the terraces, instead of stands and shops, a wooden platform stood there, painted dark brown, with unlit lanterns laid on top, unorganised.
'Was this the performance those guards spoke of the other day? Why is it I haven't heard a thing about it since?'
Oren smiled.
'I wonder what it will be.'
As he passed several people, he chose to hand out the remaining fish to the guards and locals, continuing on to the manor.
But for some reason, Oren noticed a crowd gathered around it.
He squinted, his stride gradually shortening as he looked at the commotion.
'What happened?'
But as he crept towards the group, he heard a recurring name.
'Elder...'
He had heard from several regular visitors of the manor that the elders of Unison had grown increasingly strict toward outsiders after the Sunwane.
The word caught in his mind, then vanished as he joined the crowd, breaching the gap between the people as he made his way toward the centre.
By then, everyone had already shifted around him, scattering as though he was the plague.
Then Oren saw him.
There was man who appeared to be in his sixties standing in the space.
For someone of that age, his body was remarkably refined, carrying a strength that belied his years.
He looked almost youthful, despite the long grey hair that fell around his shoulders and the thick grey stubble covering his jaw.
His robes were equally impressive, made from expensive-looking fabric that marked him as someone of importance.
Yet what caught Oren's attention was the sword in his hands.
He held it with both hands, the blade pointed directly toward him.
'Me...?'
His grip tightened around the sword until his knuckles whitened beneath the wrinkled skin.
There was no hesitation in his posture.
No fear. Only animosity.
Oren's gaze moved through the crowd searching for an answer.
But there wasnt any.
"I have come to slay thee, immortal demon."
The elder looked him up and down before he spoke.
"Devil, you killed thousands of people in order to create abominable life. Do you think I'll sit down and accept you living here freely?"
His eyes scanned the crowd.
"People of everdream, you are in danger."
He grinned daringly, facing Oren.
"You think I will let you use them as you did the other villagers? In devilish acts, your accursed experiments... Your very name is a bad omen."
Oren froze in his tracks, but before he could understand what was happening, a man suddenly pushed through the crowd and rushed toward the elderly swordsman.
The man looked awfully familiar. Only when he heard his voice did he recall where he had heard it before.
"Please, don't do it!"
The man's voice carried through the gathered villagers.
"He saved my life. The Immortal Demon saved my life! He did! I promise... it was him! At the lake last night, I swear he did."
The elderly man turned toward him and, for a moment, and said nothing.
Then he calmly pushed the man aside, forcing him back toward the crowd without taking his eyes off Oren.
"Stand aside. You mustn't get hurt."
The man whom Oren saved stumbled back, but he did not leave.
No one left. Instead, more gathered around.
'He's a higher-up?'
The elder's voice was calm as he surveyed the crowd.
"Demon, you can leave. I will let you go, but at a small cost..."
The elder's eyes wandered for a moment before returning to him.
"You will give me your knowledge and insight on Erols, the manuscripts you have on them, and any other valuable information.
Otherwise, you will die by my blade, and it will be the end of your little old legend."
Oren slowly took a step forward, the wind tousling his hair and robes as he assessed the situation.
The man was not Enlightened, but he carried the flamboyance of one, despite already being at an overwhelming disadvantage.
'What do these people expect from me, the Immortal Demon? Do they think I'm cruel? Arrogant...? Will I perhaps even grant this elder a swift execution.'
His smile disappeared.
'If I did that, what would they think?'
Oren's gaze swept across the crowd.
'Would they accept me more than they do already...?'
No, severely injuring the old man would only confirm what the tales say.
'I need to end this quickly.'
Prolonging the fight would serve no purpose, for the man's endurance and stamina would fail long before his own.
Allowing that to happen would make him appear needlessly cruel.
Looking at the man, a smile found its way onto Oren's face.
"Alright, if we must fight, I will at least make it fair."
He lowered his arm behind his back. "I will only use one arm, and I will not dodge either."
Smiling, the elder spoke as though he'd already won.
"You repulse me. Do as you wish. This will be your last fight."
The old man glanced at the few women in the crowd, then back towards Oren.
For a second, it seemed the man was ogling them, but he dismissed it, slipping the grotesque emerald dagger from his robes into his palm and adding, "I will use only this."
Having used it to gut and behead the fish, it already looked gruesome and demonic, but in truth, Oren had yet to clean the trusty dagger.
A few gasps rose from the crowd as he held it comfortably in his palm and began circling his opponent.
'One shot.' He thought, slowly approaching the elder.
Watching his feet, then the blade held in the palm of his frail hands.
Catching Oren off guard, the elder was faster than he had expected, breaching a vast distance with little effort.
They stood only a few feet away from one another, watching each other intensely as the fight began.
From then onwards, their feet were caught in an elegant dance, flowing back and forth, both hesitant to attack.
Oren knew he could win easily, but he would still have to be careful about what he did.
There were children in the crowd, and their little dance was slowly getting closer to the people.
In front of him, he watched as the elder planted his foot on the concrete floor, preparing his onslaught.
'What should I do?—'
The blade came for his shoulder, glinting as it flashed forward in one swift movement.
It was powerful, unnatural, almost inevitable, as though the swordsman moved with absolute focus, positive that no attack would miss.
Oren did not move.
As the sword drew closer, he saw its jagged, unsharpened edge.
CHING!
He lifted his dagger, narrowly blocking the fierce strike.
Just as the realisation that such an unrefined blade would cause him much more pain than one which was sharpened sank in, the man lifted his sword above his head, bringing it down in a powerful vertical cut.
Gritting his teeth, Oren held firm as the weight of the sword pressed down against his dagger.
Another strike followed, lower this time, giving him nearly no time to recover.
As the elder struck down again, a sharp shock ran through Oren's wrist, his grip forced downward as he raised the dagger above his head.
If not for his quick reaction speed, his head would have suffered a jagged wound, disorientating him.
Oren's eyes shot up, but the position of the sword was no longer where he thought.
'It's moved!'
He only caught a glimpse of the blade.
Then it came, what seemed to be the final motion of the rhythm, a long diagonal movement, aiming from his neck toward his lower chest.
Oren brought his dagger up once more, parrying the blade away from its trajectory with a seamless movement, a small tremor running through his arm.
Keeping steady, he lunged forward, stepping into the elder's circle of movement, plunging the dagger into his wrist.
"Give up..." Oren hissed, his voice full of contempt, loud enough for the villagers to hear.
"Demon..." the elder murmured, "spare my life...—"
"I am not a demon...!"
For a split second, Oren's mind went blank as he twisted the dagger and stepped back, ripping it out of his hand.
The elder stumbled to the ground, a hoarse scream erupting from his mouth.
"Vile demon, malicious beast, you... you..."
Oren slowly approached the fallen swordsman, then crouched down, his dagger hovering at the man's face.
"...Give up."
He snatched the blade from the elder's frail hand, then slowly rose to his feet.
Holding the sword in both hands, he leaned back slightly, lifting it above the ground.
In a swift motion, it descended, striking the man's hair before falling on top of him.
"This fight... has ended."
...
After the battle, the people of Erdream reacted differently to him. The change was not vast, but it was a small nudge towards improvement.
Allegedly, the higher-up he had wounded was not as just and righteous as he seemed.
From what he had heard, the man was a person of sin, driven by lust and greed, setting up systems of payment that would only branch into generations of debt for those who could not afford the outrageous prices of living.
But what mattered was the people were no longer afraid. And though it came all too suddenly, Oren was content with it.
They no longer dreaded his patrols nor his small acts of kindness, which had once seemed like feigned kindness.
He could wander, and the people would not see it as a mischievous act.
They saw it as purity.
They were so easily swayed.
All humans were to him.
But maybe...
'There was no need to worry all along.'