"How many years have passed since Elaine's departure?"
Damian couldn't recall, but it's true that at least thirty years had passed since Elaine died, sacrificing her life as a gift in exchange for his resurrection.
It might all sound very ironic given the current circumstances; the gift of a fairy is the same as resurrection, and at the time, he felt it like a dream from which he never wanted to wake. That feeling of having no responsibilities filled Damian with a distant desire, something he hoped to achieve someday.
The beautiful forest had been reduced to ashes back then. When Damian began the reconstruction of this beautiful place, there was nothing but earth. But as it is well known, as long as you have the idea, things can be built to a level that many might consider impossible.
Today, Damian, who had spent many years alone, has changed completely. He now seemed much more serious and indifferent to the things around him. The time he spent alone was used to create fake fairies for this magical forest, which he now considered a sanctuary that he hoped to use for his magical research.
The number of puppets he had created was waiting in this place, just waiting for the moment to receive an order to end all demons and finally free this world from the waves of war. But during this time, Damian discovered something that left him pensive, and that was that people were not as good as he had thought.
When the Northern Kingdom learned that Damian had defeated a quite powerful demon, they personally took care of giving him the entire magical forest and, of course, lands in the far north. They all expected him to participate in the war or to settle in the king's castle as the supreme mage of the court, something he, of course, rejected.
From hundreds of meters away, he could smell the corruption and self-interest of the nobles amidst the endless war that was ravaging the world.
Children were being sent to war, an act Damian considered an unforgivable crime, and he made sure that all those children were adopted by the people he had ensured to protect in the following years.
But even with Damian's kindness, everything was difficult from his position. As long as he didn't leave the magical forest, there was no possibility that his orders would be followed to the letter.
What also had him concerned during all this time was what made him inherit the Time Herald. Those memories activated a mechanism that gave him immediate access to a story about a dark mage who desired immortality. Through the darkest magic a living being could create, he embarked on an investigation that, for unknown reasons, ended up costing him his life.
What Damian couldn't understand was his connection with the black book that floated around him and how he could inherit from this same dark mage, who, by the words of the story itself, was not a kind man at all.
In his opinion, there was a large part of the story still missing and waiting to be discovered. Regardless of the true background of that book, there is no doubt that it is something incredible that has been saving his life during countless situations from which he probably would never have survived.
"Well, I think it's time to leave this forest and search for that woman who led me to the Tower of Mages." Damian knew that, from the beginning, his existence was shrouded in much fog.
The first of all was how he got memories of parents he didn't remember very conveniently and all that magic that was inherited from them. If all that were real, it wouldn't make sense for Syndra to leave him to his fate during the days in the Tower of Mages. If she knew his mother, it didn't make sense for the previous owner of this body to die in the first place.
"You must be as intrigued as I am, Elaine; my life is wrapped in many unresolved threads." Damian, standing in front of a tomb he had made with magical materials, was pouring out the last drop of cherry beer in his hands.
Damian regretted not being able to get this beer before and regretted that Elaine couldn't have had a real life and not one wrapped in responsibilities that she never had the chance to choose. If his companionship with Elaine served for anything, he hoped at least to have alleviated a bit of that loneliness that surrounded that little fairy.
"I know you were excited about the idea of being able to visit the entire continent. I understand you perfectly, dear sister." The smile on his face had disappeared. Spending so many years alone has its disadvantages as it is.
But now the time has come to leave. He had made sure to keep this forest safe from demons and malicious humans who only seek to cause problems.
Nothing else could harm this place that he had worked so hard to protect, recover, and maintain.
"Here I am, as young as thirty years ago and with the same goals as back then... Fulfilling my promise is what has kept me sane, but now I have to search for certain answers." Damian was in a forest surrounded by Sakura trees, some giant and others really small.
Looking at the tomb he had created with magic, Damian didn't move until he dropped the last drop of beer. "Goodbye, Elaine. I promise that as soon as possible, I will return to tell you many of my stories."
From now on, all he would seek was stability in this world full of desire and greed. He wouldn't stop until he had rid the world of all demons and established an order that truly cared for all the people who just wanted to live in peace. "I will use any means to protect my interests and those who accompany me on the way. Even if it means sacrificing part of my soul in this mission that I have given myself,
Damian's steps were slow; he wasn't in a hurry to end his enemies because sooner or later they would be found, and he would personally take care of killing them all.
But first, he needed to trust one thing, and that was to know things that still clouded his mind; he wanted to know the reason behind many things.
…
Southern Region, Beyond the Snowy Mountains.
The warm winds were a clear sign of being in the south, where crops are abundant and where the fewest demons are found. But even so, groups of these creatures could always be encountered abundantly.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
"Who are you, human? That amount of mana is monstrous." A demon, with its horns torn off, looked at a figure with white hair and blindfolded eyes walking towards him.
Damian, covered in the blood of these demons, looked at the last one of the group still alive. His smile devoid of any emotion formed on his face, and he asked, "How many more demons are there in this area?"
"What makes you think I'll give you an answer?" The demon would never let a human humiliate him like this; he had a clear purpose in coming here, and he would never let that go.
Crack!
Damian appeared next to the demon, holding his sheathed sword, and with exhaustion, he severed the demon's legs with a single blow.
"Argh!!!" The agonizing roar of the demon did not delay.
Damian's eyes were fixed on the suffering face of his enemy, and he said, "Does it hurt a lot? This is what you deserve for massacring the village a few kilometers from here; all of you are nothing more than vile trash."
"Hahaha..."
Damian gritted his teeth at the demon's laughter. His grip on the demon's neck tightened so much that the demon lost his life in a few minutes of suffering.
When he was done with all the demons in the area, Damian cleared his path, and the bodies lying on the ground were engulfed in blue flames that left no trace.
He had lost count of how many demons he had killed, but what he did know was that, no matter the number of demons he had exterminated, it would never be enough.
"I arrived late..." A female voice was heard about ten meters from where Damian was.
"You hide your magical power very well." Damian turned only to see an elf with silver hair, looking at him without showing any emotional fluctuations on her face.
"The same goes for you; I had never seen a human hide their magical power besides my teacher."
Damian approached the elf and asked her, "Is Flamme your teacher?"
"Do you know her?"
"She saved my life, or at least that's what I was told forty years ago. I'm Damian; what's your name?"
"I'm Frieren..."
Like all elves, Frieren has a pair of long, pointed ears. As for her physical appearance, she has a small and somewhat slender figure; her hair is gray with a silver hue, long and straight, reaching down to her knees when left loose.
"You must be confused; shouldn't I be an old man? The truth is, right now, I don't know who I am. I stopped counting the years I've lived after unfortunately obtaining a way to increase my lifespan." Damian could sense the confusion in Frieren's silence, which is why he spoke more about himself.
"There are many things in the world that I don't know." The distrust Frieren was expressing was significant, but when she remembered her teacher's words, she returned on her way to the cabin where they lived.
Damian didn't say anything either; he wiped the blood from his body and followed her outside the forest, where there seemed to be an open meadow where every tree seemed to have been magically removed.
In the distance, he could see a woman; she seemed to be in her final moments of life, which surprised Damian a lot. Is that woman the one everyone considers the greatest woman in the world?
"The smell of flowers is something that cleanses even the darkest soul in this world." Turning towards Damian, Flamme smiled and asked, "What are you doing here? You seem to be a very different person from that boy."
"Many years have passed."
"Years don't change a person like they did with you."