Chương 1: The Hero is Dead

'Hero' A Hero is a bearer of extraordinary fate. They are marked early in life through omens, possessing extraordinary physical vitality and an abundance of mana far surpassing that of ordinary men, for according to the oldest prophecies preserved by the Scriptoriums of the Archivum Ardentia, Heroes are not born without purpose. Heroes are born to defeat the King of Demons, He Who Severs the Worlds Between.

However, history also records a troubling truth: while Heroes are notoriously difficult to kill, they are not invincible. They remain mortal vessels bound by flesh, circumstance, and the whims of chance. Four so far have perished, slain by the very demons they were destined to defeat, so it is for this reason that the Archivum Ardentia often repeats a quiet warning to those who pray:"A Hero may shape the fate of the world, but fate itself does not guarantee a Hero's survival."

—Excerpt from 'Compendium of Heroic Phenomena', 990 AN Edition, Written by Naghari the Sage The Hero was dead, and Orland had killed him. He stared at the gold hair plastered to the mud, waiting for a shoulder to twitch. He waited for a groan—or maybe even a curse—but more than that, he expected the Hero to push himself back up and laugh like the fall meant nothing to him. That was what Heroes did in the stories templars preached on the streets. All Heroes had fates grander than deaths in dark places.

But nothing moved except for the thin lines of blood creeping away from the Hero's head. … Shit. His throat tightened as he looked up. The rope bridge hung in pieces across the chasm above him. One side still clung to the far trees and the iron staples hammered into stone, but the other side had snapped, now dangling in a mess of broken planks and knotted ropes.

It was just supposed to be another normal day of hunting lesnik foxes—six-tailed foxes with mild hypnotic capabilities—by one of the salt rivers outside of town he knew they frequented for bathing. Lesnik foxes were far from the most dangerous or valuable beasts to hunt, but their scented tails were typically used as offerings for hypnotic-type relics, and wealthy men in town paid decent money for them. That was why he liked this river hunting spot outside of town. It was his river. His spot, only his.

Nobody else was supposed to know about it. Then the Hero showed up. Golden-haired. Clean-faced. Etched sword at his hip and an embroidered cloak too nice for the edge of a salt river. The young man called out to him and asked for directions to Rusalka, offering coins in exchange. Just a single flash of gold and Orland's stomach twisted so hard it hurt. One gold coin was worth a hundred curons, and that was a week of food, probably even two if he minded which baker he bought his bread from.

He didn't hesitate to accept the request. Of course he didn't. All six tails of a single lesnik fox would only sell for twelve curons at most, and him catching one a day was already a fortune with his luck, so he led the Hero through the forest like a good guide, taking the fastest route back to town… and that meant using the shortcut: the rope bridge. Obviously, he wasn't the one who'd built the shoddy bridge, but he used it all the time.

He knew which planks shifted, which knots bit into the rope, and he knew where to place his steps to make it not sway too much. It'd never betrayed him—until it did today. He blinked hard a few more times as he pushed himself up onto his knees, trying to shake the buzzing out of his ears. It was all… rushing back into his head. Those sounds. Those sensations. Wood cracking, rope screaming, the Hero's extra weight yanking the world sideways.

They'd fallen into the chasm together, and somehow, only Orland was crawling out of the mud now. And the Hero… His chest prickled as he looked at the young man lying face-down in the mud again. No way. Is he… actually dead? Well, maybe the planks were rotten. Maybe the staples were rusted. The chasm winds were strong, and maybe the Hero had been drinking on the road when he tipped over the ropes. There were plenty of reasons and excuses he could make, but at the end of the day, he had chosen the bridge.

He had said 'this way' like he knew better, and he'd dragged the Hero across. He'd killed the Hero. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. What do I— A heavy thump suddenly rolled through the ground. He froze, every muscle pulling tight as his head snapped up at the chasm's edge.

He'd been hearing those footsteps for days now—sometimes at night, when he slept under pine boughs after staying out too long, and sometimes in the afternoon, when he washed his face by the river and the birds suddenly went quiet—but lesnik foxes were local. So were brusnik toads, gnilks, and a dozen other relatively mundane magic beasts that he hunted in these woods.

He'd never heard those footsteps before, which meant something huge and foreign was moving through this forest, and he was sure it didn't care about boys or Heroes. Thump. Closer than he liked. Thump. Real, real close. Fear made him think fast. He dragged himself over to the Hero's body and ripped the torn cloak apart, fingers shaking once before he forced them steady. It wasn't his first time looting a dead man. The secret was to not think about the dead—the only people who'd judge him for it were the living.

Biting his lip, he searched for his first and most important target: coins. Always coins first. His fingers quickly found a pouch hanging around the Hero's belt, so he tore it free and loosened the cord with his teeth. To his fortune, three gold coins spilled into his palm, and his heart nearly jumped out of his chest. Three hundred curons! It was enough to last him an entire month, but as he kept searching with higher hopes, he soon realized three gold coins was all the Hero had. There were no magic rings.

No ambush-detection necklace. No barrier brooches. No luck-enhancing charms. Even the simple etched iron sword had snapped on the way down, and if it had any magic in it, it'd already seeped into the mud. He stared at the body now, disbelief twisting his face.

"That's it?" he whispered.

"That's all you've got?" Another thump, even closer now. He glanced up for a second before he forced himself to keep searching. Heroes aren't supposed to travel empty-handed. Where's your shine? Where's your relic sword? Where's all the stuff people talk about in taverns?

But just as he was about to give up and accept the fact that this Hero did, in fact, travel like a complete pauper, he felt under the Hero's stomach to check if there was anything being squashed—and his eyes widened as he pulled two items out from under the young man's coat. The first item was a golden mask that seemed like it'd only cover his eyes. The visor was pure black glass, too reflective to see through, but the mask itself was heavier than he'd expected as well.

It weighed almost as much as a full brick, which it definitely didn't seem like at first glance, but… the second item was much more interesting. It was a right-handed gauntlet. Pure gold and built like a proper piece of work as well, nothing like the cheap steel braces the guards in Rusalka wore. The metal wasn't dented at all after such a long fall, and there was even a faint carving on the palm: a five-pointed star set in the middle of a purple gem.

Judging by the strong whiff of warm mana drifting off both items, they were relics. Magic relics from the gods. He couldn't resist a grin as he lifted both items above him, letting the sunlight shine off the gold. Even if I don't figure out how to use them, they'll at least sell for something, right?

But if someone saw him with them and decided they looked like relics nobody could've possibly thrown out in the middle of a forest, they might figure Orland was a thief, so he quickly scooped up some mud and smeared it over both relics, filling the seams and dulling the shine. Once he was done, he immediately shoved both of them under his rags, stuffing it in his pants. The bulge was definitely suspicious, but what else could he do?

If he ran with his head low, his shoulders hunched, and made himself look like nothing but a malnourished fourteen-year-old boy—which he was, fortunately—nobody would pay much attention to him. As he crawled onto his feet, his gaze drifted down the Hero's body again. The Hero's face was turned away. Orland couldn't see his eyes. If he did see the eyes, maybe he'd find blame there, or anger, or some last condemnation, but… instead there was only mud and golden hair and the stillness of a dead body.

Another thump shook the ground. … Gotta hurry. He scrambled to the chasm wall, boots slipping on wet stone. The climb wasn't straight up. It was a jagged slope where the earth had crumbled away into sheer drops, but he grabbed at whatever he could—root, rock, thorny brush—and hauled himself up, teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached. He nearly lost his grip once when a root tore loose in his hand. Pain flared in his palm, but he'd spent his whole life climbing treacherous places for scraps.

He'd crawled under wagons to retrieve dropped hornrabbit nails, and he'd scaled fences to reach star orchards when his stomach was empty and his pride was the only thing keeping him upright. If there was one thing he could do, it was climb. He climbed. He climbed until his soles tore. He climbed until his lungs dried. He climbed until his fingers found leaf litter and soft soil—until he rolled onto flat forest earth, and until he sucked in air that didn't taste like mud. Fin… ally.

He got to his feet immediately, hands still shaking, and didn't let himself look down. He could still hear the chasm wind below, and he could still imagine the corpse—but he didn't look. While the heavy footsteps neared, he turned into the woods and ran straight back to Rusalka. It took him maybe ten minutes—or twenty, or thirty, he couldn't tell—but he eventually broke through the last line of pines and reached the dirt road that led up to the town's outer fields.

Rusalka sat on the side of a giant salt hill, sprawling and cluttered, roofs layered like scales and its tall stone walls built to keep out beasts and bandits and whatever else travelled the autumn wilds. It was impossible to not find Rusalka once anyone was close enough, because the smell of salt permeated the air even from a distance. The town lived off salt, after all. Salt in the ground, salt in the trees, salt in the bread and on the fish, salt in the sweat of every man who worked the salt mines in the hills.

Delving deep into the woods was the only way anyone could ever get a fresh breath of air. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. No beast behind me? He glanced around and swallowed. No more heavy footsteps, but that was still no reason to not go as fast as he could. It was only when he reached the eastern gates in a ragged shuffle that he finally forced his breaths steady, slowing down so he could blend into the stream of people entering and leaving town.

Just take it easy. Nobody's going to— But the spear-holding guard on duty stopped him as he passed under the gate, making him flinch.

"Stop." Gateguard Boris held out his spear and barred the way forward.

"Tag." Orland scowled up at the man. The other boys in the slums called him Crooked-Eye Boris. Supposedly his one remaining eye was always bloodshot because he used to fight in the northern demonic war, and some demon slashed his face with a poison that gave him the eyesight of a jewel mole. That, or he'd gotten into a fight over cold brew with Crooked-Nose Dmitry. It was probably the latter.

The man's pride had pride, and he was infamous for getting his highs off giving boys hard times entering and leaving town, so Orland chose to believe he'd gotten his eye kicked in over something stupid.

"You know I don't got a tag," Orland grumbled.

"Just let me pass." Boris narrowed his one good eye, ruffling in his waist pouch for one.

"Stay here."

"Oh, come on, do you really have to—""Chisel me blind, kid. Shut it." Orland didn't argue more than that. It was one thing to talk back against a normal guard, but all gateguards in Rusalka were armed with frost-type relic spears. He didn't have a death wish here, so he pinched his mouth shut and let his heart thump. He won't notice anything. He won't. It took a while, but Boris eventually fished out a golden, rectangular piece of paper.

It was blank when he took it out, but the moment he grabbed Orland's wrist and slapped it on, black ink washed over the surface.

Name: Orland Rusalov Grade: Common-1 Title: None Title Ability: None Acquired Skills: None (0/10) Might: 8 Dexterity: 8 Resilience: 9 Clarity: 9 Mana: 117/117 (+9/hr) Relics: None As usual, Orland had no idea what half of the words on his tag read—literacy was a skill far beyond most slumborn in Rusalka—but he could read numbers. He knew numbers.

Supposedly, everyone born in Ostravia had high mana capacity and regeneration because of some super thick 'leylines' under the earth, blessing everyone with stronger mana cores, so the hundred-seventeen plus nine probably referred to that. Whatever the other small numbers alluded to, though… eluded him.

Well, he also knew how to read his name, and he knew he had nothing to it.

'Relics' was also another word he could read, and he knew a big fat 'none' was what it read next to that one. … So the relics I picked up don't show up on my tag unless I'm equipping them. Lucky me. Crooked-Eye Boris eyed him a few seconds longer before peeling off the tag and shoving him through the gate.

"Don't be causing trouble now. I'm always watching you." Orland didn't even bother responding to that. Before any other gateguard could decide he looked suspicious on account of his looks alone, he sprinted through and away from the gate, rounding immediately down into the slums. Here, in the lowest part of town at the base of the salt hill, the buildings were all run-down.

They'd never really recovered from the Great Fire that'd burned the whole place down seven years ago and turned it into a district of shacks and sheds. The air was always thick with cooking grease and latrine stink, the streets were muddy and wet, and unlike the well-off crowd at the gates, nobody who lived here had much of anything to do, so everybody stared at him as he trudged through the streets. The only thing he could do was keep his head low and try not to look back at anyone.

Not the couple of wrinkled old women hauling water from the well with floating bucket relics, not the man with the flat cap trying to sell a basket of salted turnips with magic signs hovering around him, and definitely not the group of older boys snickering at him as they shaped their clay pots on the front porch of their master's shop, wearing soil-moving gloves. Still, even with his head lowered, it was difficult not to notice that something was different about the town today. There were flags.

Hundreds of crisp, bright golden flags were strung high between rooftops in the nicer, higher whitequarter district near the top of the hill, where the buildings were large and the streets were always swept clean. They rippled in the wind, and on each and every single one of them was stitched a crest he felt he'd seen before, but… where? Where, where, where? His face paled a little as peeked under his rags and opened the palm of his stolen gauntlet.

There, on the palm of the gauntlet, was a five-pointed star—and that same gauntlet was the crest on every single flag. … Oh. Rusalka's expecting the Hero today. Orland's stomach cramped. He forced himself to keep walking, but every step felt heavier now. Were people going to look for the Hero? Were people going to look for him? He moved faster, cutting through two alleys and a narrow lane where fish guts dried in the gutter.

He passed a salt-cutter's yard where men stacked floating white blocks with magic bracelets and sang off-key. He passed a bakery where the smell of fresh rye strengthened by some magic incense hit him like a punch, and his stomach twisted again—not from hunger this time, but from the thought that he might never eat anything again if he got caught. Home. Just go home first, hide the goods, and I can figure it out later—"Oi, Orly!" A whistle cut sharply through the alley before him.

"Got a good hunt today?" He froze as six men stepped out from behind the bakery wall, standing in his way. Shit. He knew that whistle from Yarik Flat-Nose, the bald man standing in his way. Every half-starved rat in the slums knew it. They were goldsniffers—at least, that was what Orland liked to call them. They were cowards, but thieves all.

Their patched coats and wrapped knuckles made them feel like gangsters, and if a boy wasn't careful with which alleys he used to traverse the slums, he'd be cornered, beaten, and robbed of all his coins, however few he may have had on him. Orland usually avoided them carefully. The rules were no walking past the bakery after midday, no passing the fishgut lanes if Yarik Flat-Nose was lounging there with his clay pipe, and no looking too full, too happy, or too desperate. But he was careless today.

His head was too full of relics and fear to remember ordinary dangers.

"I'm talking to ya, Orly!" Yarik called again, spreading his arms as if greeting a brother.

"Come then, little river-rat. Pay yer road-salt. I smell something on ya!" Road-salt. Their 'share'. Usually, if they caught him returning to the slums after a good hunt, he'd hand over a tail, a claw, a pouch of beast teeth—whatever kept them from beating him too badly. It wasn't worth losing an arm or a leg over a few curons, and they usually left him alone after he handed over everything they could see bulging from under his rags. But today, he couldn't afford to pay them. Not today. He turned tail and ran.

The goldsniffers shouted at once, and their sandals slapped mud behind him as he cut left through a narrow lane. Someone grabbed at his collar and missed. Another man cursed as he kicked over a bucket, and dirty water splashed across his ankles. Orland ducked under a hanging laundry line, shoved through a curtain of wet shirts, and heard Yarik snarl when cloth tangled around his face.

"Come back here, Orly!" he roared.

"Whatcha got hiding under there, eh?" Orland burst into a yard full of cracked barrels and stacked salt crates. An old woman shrieked as he vaulted a low fence, landing hard enough to jar the stolen gauntlet against his ribs, but he hissed and clutched his rags tighter. If that thing fell out, he was done. Done.

"There! Cut him off by the tanner's drain!" someone shouted. Smart bastard. Orland changed direction instantly, skidding through more mud and throwing himself under a cart loaded with turnip sacks. He crawled fast, and a goldsniffer's hand plunged after him, fingers catching the back of his shirt, so he kicked blindly and felt his heel strike a nose. The man yelped. Orland wriggled free and came out the other side into a lane that smelled of piss and old cabbage, and then he kept running.

A brick flew past his ear and cracked against a wall. He didn't look back. He ran past a drunk sleeping under a shrine shelf, past two children fighting over a fish head, past a broken well where magic buckets rose and fell without anyone guiding them, and at the last second, he leapt onto the well rim, sprang to the side wall, and hauled himself up onto a roof of warped planks. The boards groaned under him.

"Get down here!" Yarik roared below.

"Climb better!" Orland shouted back. Then he sprinted across the roof, jumped the narrow gap to the next shed, and dropped behind a row of hanging hides. He crouched there, chest heaving, one hand clamped over his mouth as the goldsniffers thundered past beneath him. Their curses faded towards the wrong alley, and he just breathed through his fingers, listening until the last footsteps were gone.

His heart kicked so hard it felt like it wanted to abandon him and find a safer boy, but when he finally slipped out from behind the hides—-his legs still shaking—his muddy relics were still hidden under his rags, and he was still alive. Mine, he thought fiercely, staggering toward the northern alleys again. Not theirs. Not anyone else's. Mine. But his thoughts trailed off as he rounded a final corner and reached the mouth of his alley in the northern, lowest end of the slums.

He called this place his 'home', but it was just a crack between a salt shop and a collapsed shed. It was dark even in daylight because the buildings on either side blocked the sun, yet it was in that same dark where his homely, call-it-cozy little shed made of thrown-out wooden boards sat. Or at least, that was where it had sat. His shed was gone. His roof, his walls—his miserable little claim on existence—had been smashed and scattered, splintered boards laying in a heap.

Even his old blanket was tossed out onto the mud like a dead animal, and the owner of the salt shop who did it stood right before the destruction, holding a wooden stick in one hand. His face was already angry, but it managed to harden into something even angrier as he laid eyes on Orland.

"Look who finally decided to crawl back," the man snarled. Orland didn't even have time to blink at the wreckage before the man stormed forward and swung. He tried to dodge, of course, but even the inconspicuous wooden stick was a relic with bronze carvings on it, and it crackled with lightning right before impact to blind him. The stick cracked against the side of his head. White sparks burst behind his eyes. His knees buckled, and he hit the dirt hard enough to knock the breath out of him.

Instinct told him to roll and protect his ribs, but the second blow came down on his shoulder and the third struck his back, making his body jerk and flinch with each energized impact.

"You little plague!" the man shouted.

"How many times have I swatted you brats away? How many more times do I have to smash your little nests before you learn? You don't get to squat behind my shop like. A. Frosted. Rat!" Orland's vision blurred at the edges. He stared at the man's boots—cleaner than Orland's entire life—and kept his arms so tight over his mask and gauntlet that his ribs hurt, but after a few more strikes, the shop owner's breaths grew heavy. His arm slowed.

Finally, he spat to the side and shrank the stick back into its normal length, stepping back.

"One night," he growled, wiping his brow.

"You have one night to crawl somewhere else. If you're still here by tomorrow morning, I'll have the guards sicced on you, and don't think I can't. I sell salt to them. They listen when I speak." Then the man turned and walked away, still cursing under his breath. … Bastard. Blood ran warm down the side of his head and into his ear and mouth. His shoulder throbbed. His back burned.

He spat once, thick and red, and glared at the shop owner's retreating back as if he could carve a hole through the man with pure hatred. But now he had nothing left. That was his sixth wooden shed this month. The number of magic beasts outside of town was lowering by the month because of some demonic war spreading down from the north, which meant—without anything to hunt—he'd have no parts to sell for food. And without a shed, he'd freeze to death in the long nine-month winter, which was coming in…

two more months? At this rate, he'd be lucky to even manage to survive till the end of this month. Slowly, he turned his head and looked up at the upper district, vision blurring. The flags were still flying. The crests of the gauntlet snapped proudly in the wind above pretty houses and tidy manors, above clean streets where nobody slept in an alley and nobody got beaten for existing—and Orland stared at them until his eyes stung. What, exactly, separated him from the people up there? Was it karma?

Had he been born already owing the world something it'd never forgive him for? People like the Hero could stride through towns welcomed and celebrated, bearing magic relics and talents and natural abilities powerful enough to change the world, while people like him were strays destined to live in their shade. Shade, like even the gods didn't want them. Would he spend the rest of his life getting beaten and chased until one day someone decided it was easier to draw a blade than to keep swatting him away? …

He wiped the blood off his lips and started pushing off the ground. No. Absolutely not. If anyone wanted the mask and the gauntlet back, they'd have to pry them from his dead hands.

'Fate' was too big of a word for him to really understand, but he loathed the very idea of it. He'd never asked for a life in the shade. He'd never wanted to hunt for scraps and chunks. But such was his fate written by the gods, and gods, he'd lived by it for so long. For so long. So while it may have been a complete accident, now that he'd been handed a one-in-a-million chance to finally make something of his worthless life…

He crawled to his feet, and his gaze lifted once more to the flags flying the Hero's crest. A dangerous idea settled into place. He was short, thin, pale, and his scruffy hair was black as night, but… The town's waiting for the Hero to arrive, right?