"Do you trust Manyu, Barion?"
As a light rain tumbled from the endless skyline, Pale posed that question to him. Her voice was filled with a kind of distrust that made her own opinion on the matter quite clear. The stagecoach followed along behind them through the flowered stretches of the northern countryside.
"Do I trust him?" He repeated, "I'm not entirely sure what you want me to say."
"Do you really think that someone who once desired the destruction of this world would agree to help us so easily?" She elaborated, "I don't understand why you didn't kill him 500 years ago. Isn't that precisely what the Hero is destined to do?"
"I didn't kill him because…" Barion considered his next words, "...Well, I won't say that he didn't deserve it. He did, but at the same time, there wasn't any need for it. We'd already beaten him, so what would have been the point?"
"But…" Pale stammered, "He's the Demon King!"
"Former Demon King."
"You know what I mean!"
"That's true. You could say he was responsible for everything that happened 500 years ago." Barion relented, "-At least, that's what I've always believed. But with what's been happening recently, sometimes I wonder if that's the truth."
"...What do you mean?"
"It's strange. If I tried to explain it, you'd think I'd lost my mind." He warned, "But, to say that Manyu was responsible for kicking off the Demon Age 500 years ago… somehow, I feel like there's more at play. At the very least, I don't trust him in the sense that I don't believe he's telling us absolutely everything he knows."
"Well, that's what the sorcerer said." Pale recounted, "It almost sounded as if he was waiting to meet you before telling the full story."
"The two of us… we're…" Barion muttered, "...No. Don't mind me."
"Barion, I'm still reeling from the fact that both the Hero and Demon King of 500 years in the past are still alive." She stared at him with a straight face, "I'm almost hurt by the fact that you think anything else could possibly surprise me."
"We're linked. Me and him." Barion finished his thought, "Not physically, or even spiritually, but… somehow. I could feel it when we fought all those years ago--his reasons for fighting, his ideals… it was like seeing my own reflection in a puddle. Maybe that's why I couldn't kill him."
"Why not ask him?"
"I will." He answered resolutely, "When we set up camp for tonight, I'm going to get to the bottom of all this strangeness. I don't want to feel like some piece in a greater game anymore. Manyu has the answers we need. I'm sure of it. Dorma was right to seek him out."
From his perspective, it almost seemed like everything was falling into place. A shared synchronicity between the opposing forces of the world, melding to create an unknown future. Soon, the five of them would reach Gria, the forefront of resistance against the tides of Demons threatening to destroy the world yet again, and just like before, the fate of the entire conflict would likely rest on his shoulders. There had to exist a method to the cycle's madness--a purpose, or a reason for its existence. Even without the Sword of Light, he would find that reason and eliminate it, to guarantee a future where the world would no longer have to live in fear.
As the sun dimmed and the stars appeared within the fathomless sea of darkness, he couldn't help but be reminded of his time in the Steppe. Just like then, he scanned the abyss--feeling his heart tremble, tugged towards an invisible presence hanging like a dreamcatcher from the astral ceiling. The voice of Luna, so far away, muted and inaudible. He blinked, and like that, the ringing in his ears disappeared.
"Dear oh dear…" From the budding campsite, Manyu sighed, "I was hoping that we would have more variety in our meals now that we've joined up with Barion's wagon, but…"
"Rations are not intended to be particularly stimulating." Fusala educated, "The bland flavour and high caloric content creates the most efficient meal for long journeys. One is less likely to eat needlessly when they do not enjoy the taste of their food."
"I suppose we have you to thank for creating such culinary masterpieces?"
"Alchemical desiccation allows for an unprecedented shelf-life and eliminates potentially dangerous bacteria from multiplying."
"Do you even have a sense of taste?"
"Yes." Fusala confirmed, "But I prefer to remove it when eating these rations."
"Of course you do."
"Don't be so harsh on her, Manyu." Barion interrupted, "The Steppe's completely bare of life at the moment. The three of us would have starved to death without Fusala's help."
"What a strange situation this is…" He stared into the campfire, "To think I'd be breaking bread with the man who nearly killed me 500 years ago."
"I wanted to speak to you about that."
"I'm sure you have a lot of questions." He replied, "If I must be honest, I'm interested in hearing just how much of this situation you fully understand."
"How did you become the Demon King?"
"Getting right into it, aren't you?" Manyu smirked, "But is it really so productive to be questioning me about my own origins when you could be finding ways to bring the cycle of Demon Ages to a close?"
"You won't answer?"
"If you're insistent, then I don't mind entertaining you for a while." He relented, "Just like you, I was chosen to fulfil a purpose, although my destiny wasn't known to me until I was practically forced into the position."
"Were you born in the Steppe, like I was?"
"No. I was born into a baker's family in Gria." He revealed, "Of course, there wasn't much baking to be done in those days. Not only were the mills destroyed and their workers killed by Demons on the regular, but things in the countryside were just as bad--or even worse. Flour became expensive, and bread even more so. I remember spending my afternoons as a boy chasing after rats to ease our expenses, or knocking on the doors of the upper districts to see if any of their pets had died recently."
"Things were never perfect in Gria, even after it was all over…" Barion remarked, "So, you lived under King Meridon II?"
"That's right. I know I don't have to tell you how contentious his reign was."
"I heard stories about his supposed cruelty. Of course, he kept a good attitude whenever he spoke to us, but that was only because we were the only ones capable of stopping you."
"Not only did he mismanage the refugee crisis originating from the Lunar Dominion, but the people of Gria quickly found their freedoms being stripped away from them by the day. First, we could no longer leave the city, then we couldn't buy or sell anything at the markets. The city began rationing its supplies, but not fairly. Only the able-bodied and wealthy were given enough to survive. Children, the elderly and the poor were suddenly left behind. Even if a father or a mother could feed themselves, they wouldn't have enough left over to keep their children alive."
"I don't suppose it was any easier for you?"
"I turned to thievery, naturally. Most children did." He continued, "But even that wasn't easy. Ration centres were heavily guarded, and if you were caught lifting even a crumb more than you were entitled to, it was the gallows for you. My mother always gave me her share--partially to turn me away from stealing, but more so to keep me alive. Between her and my father, there wasn't enough to go around, and within a month, they had both become too weak to work. They died slowly, and the city did nothing to help them. They weren't even given proper burials, just loaded onto wheelbarrows and dumped somewhere where we wouldn't be able to see them."
"...What happened then?"
"I wouldn't stay there any longer. I couldn't." Manyu took a breath to calm himself, "There were already a number of clandestine efforts to move people out of the city. Even a countryside littered with Demons seemed a better option than wasting away in that terrible place. I used every spare piece of silver I could scrounge up to bribe the guards, and just like that, I was left to fend for myself. I couldn't have been older than 9."
"That would have been… around the same time my own family was murdered by Demons."
"Then you understand what the next few years were like for me." He replied, "Wandering aimlessly through a broken world, praying every night that a horde of Demons didn't stumble upon the nook I'd hidden myself in. Going from one destroyed village to the next, picking their scraps clean. It was no way for a person to live."
"To think we were doing the exact same thing at that time…"
"I found a church, in a village torn to pieces by Demons." Manyu recounted, "Perhaps I felt in need of some guidance, so I prayed for the first time in my life. I could barely believe my eyes when the Goddess answered me."
"The Goddess of Light spoke to you?"
"Yes." He paused, "Do you know what she told me?"
"What?"
"Hm." He looked down, "-That I was destined to save this world."