"You've changed a lot. You."
Ragna turned his head at Grida's words.
It was his sister's voice, speaking as she watched him train alone under the moonlit night. He hadn't asked why she sat on the floor instead of using a chair.
It was probably because she found it bothersome.
"Me?"
"Yeah."
Ragna simply nodded at her words, sweat dripping down his face and falling off his chin.
"Everyone will be surprised when they see you like this."
Once again, Ragna just nodded.
It seemed like he didn't care whether anyone was surprised or not.
His expression suggested he didn't mind at all, giving a half-hearted nod as if he didn't care one way or the other.
"Well, in the end, you'll end up going back home," Grida said.
"I'm not going back."
"Then?"
"I'm just stopping by for a bit."
"Why?"
"Just to grab something."
Is that really the case? Grida stared at Ragna for a while, then stood up, dusting off her backside. Dust rose into the air as she stood on the dry earth.
"Alright, you'll handle your business your way."
Grida was just curious about how much Ragna had changed. Even after she left, Ragna kept swinging his sword.
He was going back to his family, but to get what he needed, he would need to push forward even more than now.
And...
'I don't have much time.'
That's why he spent every possible moment training, trying to improve. When he swung the sword, the path became clear.
It had always been this way since he was young.
He could see where he could go, how far he could reach, and what would happen if he kept training.
It was all laid out before him.
Even without doing anything, the path appeared before him. Even without struggling or fighting, the way was already open. Then, did walking that path really have any meaning?
The past memories surged like a tide in his mind.
"Become a knight." His father had said that.
"Why should I do that?" Ragna had asked.
His father looked at him with the eyes of someone encountering a creature for the first time and said:
"Do you need a reason?"
Those who were fascinated by the sword, for its own sake, were the ones called Yohan. Ragna couldn't be like them.
He didn't enjoy swinging a sword.
"Don't you find this fun? Why not?" Everyone around him had asked, but the answer was always the same.
"Why would I find it fun?"
"Don't you get excited when you beat someone, or surpass yourself? Isn't it fun?"
They'd said that. Ragna couldn't agree. Beating someone? He knew that even if he couldn't win today, he would win in a month. The outcome was obvious. It was an unchanging fact.
"What are you talking about? Are you some kind of prophet?" To those who spoke of it like that, Ragna proved them wrong. But the process itself was unbearably dull.
The difference in talent made all the difference. Ragna knew that.
Even though only talented people were gathered there, Ragna was the most outstanding among them.
That's why it was boring. A boring life.
He would die swinging his sword like this.
He almost knew what that death would be like.
'Is this how I'm going to die, walking this predetermined path while swinging my sword?' A new sword technique?
A new path?
There was nothing new.
Only what was already decided.
The talent granted by the heavens should have been a blessing, but for Ragna, it felt like a curse. God had given him talent and taken away all desire to use it.
Leaving home, he met Enkrid.
"Why go this far?"
He had asked him that.
"Right now, I'm swinging my sword to survive. But I don't want to live like that."
It was a time when he thought his basics were lacking and he was messing up. Even then, Enkrid's will remained unchanged.
His path was straight.
His will was that of a resolute one.
Just like how he taught the past memories, Ragna swung his sword in the present.
Ping.
The sword swung horizontally, leaving only a small crack in the air before disappearing inside a line.
The moonlight chased after the trail left by the great sword.
As Ragna continued to swing the sword, the moonlight followed the blade, and the blade teased the moonlight as it ran.
Dozens of silver lines appeared in the air, vanishing in a continuous loop.
Ragna's mind was filled with Enkrid's words, and they would often resurface at unexpected moments.
"I want to live according to what I believe is right. I want to wield my sword for the poor and sick, for honor, and for the people I love."
Talent should have been washed away by the rain and crumbled. Limits should have forced him to kneel in defeat.
Ragna saw that future in Enkrid.
And Enkrid cast away every future that Ragna had seen.
Carrying the burden of everything that clung to him like a curse, Enkrid walked with determination.
He didn't wear the clothes of despair and defeat.
The moment Ragna saw someone walking that way, he felt a chill. Was walking the predetermined path that important?
Had he really walked that path himself?
Enkrid asked that with his actions, life, and will. Ragna couldn't answer.
So he had to walk himself.
Just like the man in front of him, he had to confirm whether his path was right. At that moment, Ragna began to enjoy swordsmanship.
It was an extraordinary experience, one after another. The past memories continued to lead Ragna forward.
***
"Will you be going to Juri's house?" Annie, the healer and alchemist, asked.
"Yeah."
Since there was nothing to hide, Ragna answered honestly.
Annie paused for a moment, then suddenly looked him in the eyes and asked. "Are you interested in Juri? Or maybe you like the younger people there?"
"That's a bit unpleasant," Ragna muttered as Anne grabbed her neatly tied hair, pulling it back as she spoke.
"Then why are you going?"
"Just to watch."
"What for?"
"Do you think a person has to have a reason to do something, can they not just do something because they want to?"
Ragna asked, and Anne paused for a moment before answering.
"I don't know."
She was too busy looking after her own future to care about what anyone else was doing.
Anne's attention was limited.
"Tell me about your story." Ragna had changed.
He was different from the Ragna Anne had known, even different from the Ragna she first met. "...What story?"
"You were shocked when you saw Magrun."
Was it because he couldn't find the right path, or was it that he just wasn't aware?
Anne muttered to herself, still meeting his gaze.
"That's not a curse; it's a disease. To be precise, it's a disease that spreads like invisible powder in the air. And that disease killed more than a hundred people in the city I lived in."
Anne lost her parents, relatives, and friends back then. She survived by sheer luck.
No, it was because of her talent.
She had learned the basics of alchemy from Raban when she was young. It was thanks to that that she survived.
But now she knew. Raban was her enemy.
No, her true enemy was her teacher.
There was someone who had raised the alchemist Raban. He was the one who created the disease.
Anne knew that.
"The disease that spread where I lived was still under research. That's why it disappeared without a trace. The plague rumors spread, and in the end, even people who weren't infected burned to death in flames."
The people who were born with the disease should have died back then.
What Anne saw were those who were born with disabilities, just like her parents. The ones who had a lame father and a mute mother who burned to death.
Seeing that, Anne realized there were two paths ahead of her. To seek revenge, or to walk an entirely different path.
Anne chose the latter.
The target for her vengeance was too insignificant to focus on.
In fear, the poor secretly set fire to the tents made of straw in the middle of the night. It wasn't just one person.
Some people in the poor village ignored it even when they saw it. There were even those who encouraged it.
Pretending not to see, encouraging, acting, or just leaving it alone. Who should she blame?
The world? The nobles?
The wealthy commoners who just watched? The guards who protected the area?
Some of the guards, no matter whether they got sick or not, tried to help by fetching water to put out the fire.
"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."
One of those guards was the one who apologized. He even showed tears.
Anne didn't know him, but she didn't think he needed to apologize. In that moment, Anne found her own path.
It was a road she would walk for the rest of her life. 'I won't lose to a disease like that.'
She made a vow and set her resolve to erase the fear that disease brought.
Recently, thanks to the fairies migrating to the city, she had gathered a lot of valuable materials. It was a great opportunity to push forward with the research she had only imagined before.
So she did.
When she told Ragna she had stayed up for several nights, it wasn't an exaggeration. Could there be a medicine that cures all diseases?
Anne asked herself.
It was a difficult question to answer, but she already knew the answer. 'There isn't one.'
No, there is.
It doesn't exist, but it does.
There is no medicine, but there could be someone who knows how to cure every disease. She decided to become that person.
'That's what I want.'
Her goal was clear, and the road she had to follow was also clear. There was no room to look elsewhere.
That was why Anne couldn't pay attention to others.
"I need to go to where the disease spread. It probably started with mushrooms or flowers. I need to find and confirm it. That way, I can make a cure."
"Will everyone die if they get sick?"
"Yes, whether it's sooner or later, I believe they'll die." Anne answered firmly, then continued.
"The timing of death will be up to luck. Magrun coughed up blood, and the family head is also infected, right? Some people are fine, while others will suffer and are unable to do anything. It's because the disease affects everyone differently. It's not a curse."
Ragna nodded and replied.
"Sometimes, when I visit Juri's house, the kids greet me."
It was a sudden statement. He said it just because it came to mind, but Anne accepted it well.
"So?"
"So, I go."
Juri's house was the place that took care of the orphaned children of Border Guard. Anne had asked earlier why he was going there, and now he had finally answered.
"You're quick to answer."
Anne murmured, relieved.
There was nothing to worry about.
She had wondered if Ragna had become lovers with Juri. As long as that wasn't the case, everything was fine.
She murmured those thoughts and left.
Ragna, on the other hand, moved beyond his thoughts, shifting his feet as he cut, slashed, and thrust.
He started with an upper horizontal cut, then twisted and slashed again, cutting diagonally before swinging his imaginary sword with a sideways glance.
Following that, he slashed down with the force of his attack, aiming for the top of the opponent's head.
The end of all these movements was a counterattack.
The imaginary opponent changed their step, dragging their foot and slashing their sword. Ragna read the trajectory of the opponent's sword.
The imaginary enemy tried an upper horizontal slash from a ceiling posture.
Ragna assumed that his sword would bind with the opponent's and pulled back, closing the distance to strike his fist at the spot where the opponent's face would be.
Whoosh.
It was, of course, a punch thrown at thin air.
After all, it was just a sword and fist aimed at an imaginary opponent.
"That felt like it was deflected by my move," a voice echoed.
It was the same person who had been leaking his presence for a while now—the one he referred to as the leader.
"If you actually tried it, you'd know it's different," Ragna replied, letting his sword droop as he answered.
"Sometimes, you can settle the matter before the bind state," Enkrid remarked, having unexpectedly approached.
It seemed he had just finished his late-night training and, after washing up, there was no sign of sweat on him.
The spring night breeze was cool, mixed with the subtle scent of flowers.
"The Saint said there's already someone in the city doing what he wanted to do. A place called Juri's House," Enkrid continued.
Juri, the woman who sold marmalade, had taken in war orphans, children who lost their parents or were abandoned by them, and raised them.
At first, there were only a few children, but now the numbers had grown, and more people were working there.
Because of this, there was always a shortage of Kronas. Someone had been donating Kronas regularly to Juri's House.
"Yeah."
"They say you gave all the gold coins you took from Krais to her?"
"It takes quite a bit of Krona to care for children."
"That's just how it is when you're raising people," Ragna responded casually.
"Why?"
Enkrid asked, his voice full of pure curiosity, as Ragna remained silent.
"Those kids didn't necessarily want to become something or do something. I just thought, why can't they live like others?"
Do they really need a dream?
Do they need to live with a burning desire?
Ragna was saying that not everyone had to live like that, just like his own childhood.
"Is that so?" Enkrid replied indifferently.
There were people who just wanted peace in their later years, and others who wished for today's normal day to repeat tomorrow.
On the other hand, there were those who hoped that tomorrow wouldn't repeat today.
"I just wanted to help."
Ragna added.
"They say when a person changes, it's because their time has come. They say that in the West."
"Are you cursing me?"
"No, it's just something I heard from Rem."
"I need to do one thing, and I'll return." Ragna's sudden statement was clear.
He wasn't talking about returning to the Yohans; his home was here now.
"I wasn't worried. See you tomorrow."
Enkrid turned and left. Ragna nodded indifferently. The moment when no one was left, Ragna sheathed his sword and covered his mouth, coughing lightly.
'Fate.'
Red bloodstains were on Ragna's hand. His insides felt tight. Perhaps it was the sign of illness. It felt like destiny was asking him, How much longer do you think you can live? He had thought he was walking a predetermined path, but now, it felt like an entirely unexpected one. Strangely, that thought made him smile.
'If my life ends like this, what will I leave behind? What can I leave?'
It was after Ragna began helping at Juri's House that these questions arose in his mind.
'What will remain behind me?'
He still didn't know. Ragna thought as he walked.