Leaving his spectral form behind, Emrys appeared high atop a cliff. The cliff offered a breathtaking view of a village below. Emrys had decided that this village would be his next destination.
It had been three years since Emrys had begun wandering. During that time, he had spent most of his days traveling from one attacked village to another, occasionally passing through attacked cities as well, to the point where he had now become something of a hero to humans.
The village was called Fondval, a name Emrys had never heard spoken before stumbling upon it almost by chance.
"Wherever the wind takes me."
That was exactly how Emrys had lived during those three years. And he meant it quite literally. He followed the direction of the wind to guide him unless something caught his attention.
The philosophy he had adopted to protect himself mentally after becoming blind and before meeting Dubs had imposed itself on him once again, but this time of his own free will.
And he could only thank the wind for bringing him here.
An intact village.
A commodity that had become so rare in recent years that Emrys remained still for a moment at the edge of the fields, almost suspicious of such tranquility.
He removed his mask, making his armor disappear before putting it away at the bottom of his bag. He was simply wearing ordinary clothes, worn down by the road. His steel-colored eyes glimmered faintly with a metallic tint, and his white hair, usually slicked back, was completely loose, fluttering in the wind.
No one here knew who he really was.
God, this feels fucking good.
It wasn't that he hated his armor. Far from it. He hadn't realized it before experiencing it, but carrying the name Faker, as discreetly as he tried to be about it, always ended up turning every interaction into some kind of performance. The villagers he saved always looked at him with that same gratitude tinged with fear, that respectful distance reserved for legendary figures rather than ordinary human beings.
But that was only when people saw him in his armor. Every time he had appeared before people, it had been in his armor, so much so that his true appearance was unknown to everyone. Because of that, whenever he wanted to move around discreetly without dematerializing, he did so in his true appearance.
"Are you looking for somewhere to sleep, young man?" asked a middle-aged woman, who was busy hanging laundry in front of her house, when she saw him stop at the edge of the main road.
"If that's possible, yes," Emrys replied with a polite smile. "I can pay if you have room."
"Oh, we're not exactly short on room for travelers around here," she replied with a soft laugh. "The village inn will welcome you without any trouble. Follow this road to the square, you'll find it easily. It's the biggest building."
Emrys thanked her and continued on his way, his Haki effortlessly mapping out the peaceful contours of Fondval. Modest stone houses, carefully maintained vegetable gardens, children laughing somewhere nearby, a sound he hadn't heard in far too long without it immediately being followed by screams of terror.
However, Emrys did not go to the inn right away. Thanks to his Haki, he had noticed a scene nearby that he couldn't simply ignore.
A little girl was being bullied by other children. Emrys couldn't see her, but judging by her current emotional state, the little girl had to be on the verge of tears.
"Hey, kids..." Emrys tried to intervene, but someone else suddenly beat him to it.
"Hey, you punks! Leave Iklia alone!" shouted a youthful voice.
A little boy about the same age as the girl ran past Emrys, approaching the group of children.
He had bowl-cut blond hair and ruby-red eyes.
Emrys felt the little girl's emotional state change the moment she saw the boy running toward them. He could imagine a smile forming on her face from the sheer joy she was feeling.
"Rou!" she cried as the boy positioned himself between her and the bullies.
"Damn, it's him again," one of the bullies cursed.
"Wasn't he supposed to go hunting in the mountains today?" another asked.
Panic was visible on all of their faces.
Except for one person.
"Who cares? Even if he's strong, we're more numerous than him this time. We can take him!" shouted the one who seemed to be their leader.
There were about six bullies, including their leader. Yet the boy didn't seem panicked or afraid at all. There was even a certain confidence emanating from his gaze.
There was no doubt he was about to beat the crap out of them.
"Hey, kids. Cut the crap and go home," Emrys said.
But before they could even begin their fight, Emrys stopped them.
It's not that I care about all this, but watching a bunch of kids fight isn't exactly interesting to me.
Finally noticing Emrys, the bullies reconsidered and immediately ran away.
"Tch. Kids these days," Emrys muttered.
Behind him, the boy, Rou, helped the little girl, Iklia, back to her feet. She blushed as she took Rou's hand and said to him with a radiant smile,
"Thank you, Rou. You saved me again, as always."
At the sight of that smile, it was now Rou's turn to blush. He looked away and scratched the back of his neck.
"Tch. I wouldn't have to do it every time if you didn't let people push you around so much."
The scene made Emrys laugh inwardly.
Hahaha. Well, well, well. The kid is a tsundere.
Rou turned around, began walking away, and said,
"Come on. Your grandfather must be worried."
The girl stared at him for a moment as he walked away before starting to follow him. Then she stopped and turned toward Emrys.
"Ah, I almost forgot. Thank you very much, mister," she said, bowing to Emrys.
"Iklia!" Rou shouted.
"I'm coming, I'm coming."
Having finished thanking Emrys, she hurried back to Rou's side.
"Sigh. These damn brats. They somehow managed to make me feel like shit," Emrys muttered as he continued toward the inn.
Almost thirty-five years of being single if I count both lives. I really need to find myself a girlfriend.
Once he found the inn, it turned out to be warm and welcoming, run by an older couple who greeted him with disarming simplicity, without asking a single question about his white hair or the strange absence of a gaze that could have betrayed his blindness to anyone remotely observant.
"Are you traveling alone?" the innkeeper asked, a round man with an easy smile, as he served him a bowl of steaming stew. "It's not very safe these days."
"I'm used to it," Emrys replied, savoring the smell of the dish even though technically he had no need for it. "And this village seems relatively untouched, at least."
"We've been lucky, yeah," the man replied, his smile taking on a momentary seriousness. "We're a little off the main roads, surrounded by hills and mountains that discourage quite a few people from coming this way. It's protected us so far."
Emrys nodded, appreciating the warmth of the room, the quiet chatter of the few customers sitting at the tables, that almost forgotten feeling of normality.
The following days passed with a slowness that Emrys found himself appreciating.
He helped a farmer repair a fence damaged by the passage of a herd of wild beasts, his hands accustomed to wielding a sword adapting without too much difficulty to the far more modest tools of agricultural work. He shared a meal with a large family, listening to the grandfather's stories about older times, long before the war had turned the entire world upside down. He even played, one afternoon, an improvised ball game with a group of children who burst into laughter every time he deliberately missed an easy throw.
"You're good with children," remarked a young woman named Lira, who ran the little fabric shop in the center of the village, when she saw him return from the improvised game, his hair tousled and a genuine smile on his face.
"I've never really had the opportunity to find that out before," Emrys admitted, slightly surprised by his own answer. "I don't usually stay in one place for very long."
"A traveler at heart, then?"
"I'd say more of a wanderer, but that works too."
Lira smiled at him, a warm smile that demanded nothing more than what he was willing to give. "You should stay a little longer, then. Fondval has this little something that makes you want to settle down, even for the greatest of wanderers."
Emrys didn't know what to say immediately, an unexpected warmth settling somewhere in his chest, a feeling he hadn't experienced since his years with Dubs.
So he stayed. One more day, then another, then yet another, without ever consciously deciding to extend his stay, simply carried along by that rediscovered normality he hadn't realized he had missed so much.
He learned the names of most of the villagers. Old Joran, who told unbelievable stories about creatures from the hills that no one else had ever seen. Little Elna, barely six years old, who insisted on showing him a new stone every day that she considered particularly beautiful. Little Iklia, whom he had seen upon his arrival, who lived with her grandfather. Little Rou, who was the apprentice of a former soldier turned hunter, along with his friends. The village blacksmith, a taciturn man named Bern, whose modest workshop reminded Emrys, with a touch of nostalgia, of Dubs's forge, only much smaller, much less impressive, but just as filled with that same passion for shaping metal.
"You should think about opening a forge, human," Bern suggested one evening, after noticing Emrys's immense talent for the craft. "I swear, I've never seen anyone as skilled as you. Even I can't hold a candle to you."
"I had a very good teacher," Emrys replied with a nostalgic smile, thinking of Dubs somewhere far away.
I wonder if he's still making pots.
It was on the tenth day, when Emrys had almost stopped counting how long he had been staying in Fondval because he felt strangely comfortable there, that something disturbed his newfound peace.
It was nighttime, and Emrys, unable to truly sleep in the conventional sense, had grown accustomed to taking walks through the village's silent streets during the hours when everyone else was asleep, his Haki effortlessly watching over the surroundings out of pure habit rather than genuine concern.
That was how he sensed, at the edge of his consciousness, a presence he had never detected in Fondval before.
A magical presence. Strange. Dark, in a way that immediately reminded him of something he knew far too well.
A demon.
Emrys froze in the middle of the street, his entire body instinctively tensing, his mind shifting in a fraction of a second into the state of vigilance he had developed over three years of relentless combat.
He followed the trace of that aura, discreetly and silently, his Haki analyzing every detail with heightened attention. It led him to a small house set apart from the village, hidden behind a grove of trees, the very house where, he now remembered, old Joran and his family lived.
He approached cautiously, ready to intervene at the slightest sign of danger, and then perceived muffled voices filtering through the closed shutters.
"...you really have to stay hidden, understand? If anyone discovers you're here, the entire village will pay the price."
It was Joran's voice, but tinged with a worry Emrys had never heard from him during his cheerful stories about the creatures of the hills.
"I know," replied a second voice, deeper, strangely composed despite the palpable tension of the conversation. "I'm truly sorry to burden you with this, Joran. You and your family have already risked so much by taking me in that night in the forest."
Emrys felt his heart tighten, countless questions racing through his mind.
A demon. Hidden here and protected by villagers who had absolutely no idea of the danger it represented if they were discovered.
He remained motionless for a long moment, hesitating between several possible reactions. Burst in immediately and demand an explanation? Leave without saying anything, pretending he had never sensed anything?
But something in the tone of the conversation, that obvious tenderness despite the underlying fear, kept him from acting rashly.
"You should have let me leave a long time ago," the demon's deep voice continued. "I don't want Fondval to end up paying the price for my presence."
"And where would you go?" Joran replied, his voice breaking slightly. "Outside, there's a war. Stigma would exterminate any demon in its path, regardless of whether it had ever harmed anyone. You'll stay here with us for as long as necessary. We made our choice a long time ago, and we're not going back on it."
A silence followed. Emrys could feel the demon's heart filling with boundless gratitude and reverence toward the people present in the room.
And it touched him more than he expected.
He already knew that the probability of all demons being evil was almost nonexistent. But during those three years, he unfortunately hadn't encountered a single demon capable of showing mercy toward humans, to the point where he was beginning to lose hope and think that perhaps demons really were bloodthirsty beasts who took pleasure in the suffering of others.
Emrys slowly and silently backed away, leaving the small house without making the slightest sound, his mind racing.
They're hiding a pacifist demon. Apparently they've been doing it for years. And if Stigma ever finds out...
Honestly, Emrys didn't know how Stigma would react. He had never directly encountered any of its members, and everything he knew about them came from rumors.
Emrys returned to the inn beneath the starry sky, his steps heavier than they had been during those ten days, the peace he had rediscovered suddenly weakened by what he had just discovered.
He thought of Lira and her warm smile. Of little Elna and her precious stones. Of old Joran, whose sincere concern for the creature he was protecting said far more about its true nature than any theoretical speech about the morality of demons ever could.
He stopped in the middle of the silent street, raising his eyes toward a sky he could not see but whose overwhelming vastness he could nevertheless feel.
What am I supposed to do now?
He had no immediate answer to that question. But at least one thing already seemed certain to him, as clear as the starry nights he would never see with his own eyes again.
He would not let anyone hurt this village. No matter what it entailed, no matter who he would eventually have to stand against to keep the silent promise he had just made to himself.
Fondval had made its choice by welcoming a frightened creature rather than giving in to fear itself.
Emrys intended to make sure that choice would never become a sentence.