The air was cool, spiced with the freshness of damp soil and a little smoke rising from the village chimneys.
Haruma was feet away from the dusty shorts trail leading to the settlement, a small pouch of coins in his belt.
It was Elya who had made this task mandatory for him.
"If you live here, you contribute," he said.
She had given him a list, stuffed some coins into his hand, and sent him out alone.
It wasn't that he minded. His body ached from a few days of physical training, and a trip to get supplies sounded… rejuvenating.
Or so he thought.
…..
The village was hardly a metropolis — wooden houses lined the dirt roads, ribbons of smoke flowed from kettled chimneys; the scent of baked bread and dried herbs hung in the air.
The market was alive, vendors calling out their goods — fresh vegetables, preserved meats, leather goods, knickknacks carved from bone.
Haruma wove through the crowd, deliberately.
It felt normal.
He briefly forgot that he was in another world.
And then the square went suddenly silent.
The air changed.
A sensation crawled up his spine, slow and creeping.
Haruma, who had turned toward the sound, saw that it was coming from the village center, where people were beginning to gather.
Something was happening.
Something wrong.
….
A man was on his knees.
He was middle-aged with ragged clothes and a bruised, bloodied face. A heavy iron collar clamped around his neck, chained to the wooden platform under him.
A priest stood before him, adorned in dark robes embroidered with a golden insignia—the sigil of the Church of the First Light.
Next to the priest was a Templar knight in white and gold armor, a longsword hanging at his side.
But the knight's was so stifling.
Even standing completely still, he exuded an authority that pressed like a lead on everyone.
Haruma curled his hands into fists.
That seemed wrong somehow, though.
The priest raised his hands, his words booming across the square.
"To deny the First Light is to deny your salvation, your very own!"
Haruma's breath hitched.
This was an execution.
The Man's Last Words
The kneeling man wheezed, blood spattering his mouth.
Yet, he did not look afraid.
His eyes dark but steady, he looked up at the crowd.
"I have seen the truth," he rasped, his voice raw.
"And your Goddess is a lie."
Gasps rippled among the assembled villagers.
The priest's face darkened. "Blasphemer."
The knight strode forward, pulling his blade from its sheath in a slow, deliberate manner.
Haruma's heart pounded.
They were going to kill him.
Right here. In front of everyone.
No one spoke. No one dared to move.
The condemned man stared at the mob, at the faces he saw in the crowd—then, for a split second, his eyes fixated on Haruma's.
And he smiled.
"You are clean."
A whisper. Barely audible.
But Haruma heard it.
And in that moment, a profound, cold dread settled into his bones.
The knight's sword came down.
The noise of steel meeting flesh was deafening.
The wooden platform was sprayed with blood.
The crowd did not cheer.
They did not speak.
They simply watched.
As if they had encountered this before. As if this was normal.
Hakuma cleared his breathe, his stomach felt like it was going to rupture.
The priest turned to the crowd that had gathered.
"Let this be a warning to everyone."
"The First Light accepts people who believe."
"And burns up those who don't."
An Unshakable Feeling
Haruma quietly left the village.
His arms were heavier than before with the supplies.
His mind echoed back the words of the doomed man.
"You are clean."
What the hell did that mean?
Why had he smiled at him?
Why did Haruma feel like… that execution was related to him?
The chill in his stomach didn't let up.
Even when he retraced his steps back to the Blackwood, back toward the cabin, back to the only thing that felt secure,
he couldn't shake the sense, not as big as what he felt in his stomach, that he had just seen something more important than he appreciated.
Faruma walked through the door, which groaned open.
Elya looked up from her chair by the hearth, her face inscrutable. In her hand was a whetstone, and she was sharpening a dagger with slow, careful strokes. There was the resonant scrape of steel on stone echoing through the cabin.
Haruma remained silent as he stood there. He felt cold, even though the fire blazed.
Elya's eyes turned to the supplies in his arms. She noticed how his hands shook.
"You're late."
Haruma sighed, placing the supplies on the table. He didn't respond.
Elya didn't press him.
She only took a moment to look at him before laying aside the whetstone. A silence formed between them, heavy but unacknowledged.
"What happened?" she finally asked.
Haruma hesitated.
He didn't know how to put that into words.
The blood. The sword. The man's last words.
"You are clean."
Those words stuck to him like a curse.
"There was an execution," he said softly.
Elya's face remained unchanged.
"The Church?"
He nodded.
For a long moment, she was silent. Just sat there, watching him, eyes sharp but not unkind.
"Sit."
Haruma gulped and followed her instructions. He could hardly feel the chair he was in, his mind stuck at that moment in the village square.
Elya leaned forward with her arms on the table.
"First time you have seen somebody die?
Haruma's breath caught.
The question was blunt. Simple.
He considered lying, telling him he was fine.
But he wasn't.
"Yeah."
Elya sighed and rubbed her temple.
"Hmph. "Of course, you look like you saw a ghost."
Haruma clenched his jaw.
"It wasn't only that," he said. "There was something about the way they did it — the way that crowd just… stayed there. Like it was normal."
Elya was quiet for a moment.
Then, sighing to herself, she sat up and went to the hearth. She filled a metal kettle, poured hot water into a wooden cup, and set it before him.
"Drink."
Haruma frowned yet reached for the cup.
It was warm, bitter, and herbal. He didn't know what it was, but it steadied his shaking hands.
Elya retook her seat, her gaze far away.
"It's a thing — people get used to things," she said at last. "Even things they shouldn't."
Haruma swallowed.
"You don't sound surprised by it."
Elya scoffed. "Because I'm not."
She leaned back a little, crossing her arms.
"You think that was bad? The Church has done worse. Much worse."
Haruma tightened his grip on the cup.
"Like what?"
Elya's gaze darkened.
"That's a conversation for another day."
Haruma didn't push.
The silence came back, denser than it had been before.
He glanced at Elya. She felt different now, somehow.
She wasn't as sharp. Not as closed-off.
We had rarely seen her… tired.
"You remind me of my son."
The words came so quietly, so unexpectedly, that Haruma almost thought he hadn't heard her right.
His fingers clenched the cup.
"You had a son?"
Elya didn't look at him.
"Had."
A simple word. But it had a weight that hung in the space between them.
Haruma didn't know how to respond.
At last, she exhaled and turned to look at him once more.
"Finish your drink. Then sleep."
Her voice was steady but… softer. Not as cold as before.
Haruma nodded slowly and took another sip.
A warmth spread through him, but the cold in his chest had not fully dissipated.
He got one thing. As the fire crackled between them.
She hadn't shared with him anything else about her son.
And she wasn't going to.
Not yet.
But the fact that she said anything at all?
That meant something.