Karina opened her eyes slowly, one hand going straight to her head the moment the pain made itself known. It took her a few seconds to sit up, and even then she still didn't fully understand where she was.
"Lady Karina," Raka's voice came clearly to her ear. "You're awake."
"Mm… yes…" she murmured, still dazed.
The movement settled the pain in her temple… and with it, the memories.
She went still.
Then she opened her eyes a little wider and quickly turned her head, searching the room for the figure she most wanted to avoid seeing. No one was there. Her gaze swept across the space until it stopped at the large window. It was already night outside; darkness covered everything beyond the glass.
"…Where is he?" she asked quietly.
"He hasn't returned," Raka replied. "He's been out for several hours."
Karina lowered her gaze and covered part of her face with one hand.
"…This is horrible…"
Raka could understand that. After everything that had happened that day, the last thing his lady wanted to do was see the man who had brought her to the tower. Even so, it didn't take him long to bring her back to reality.
"You need to find him."
Karina lifted her head sharply.
"No."
"You need to."
"I don't want to!"
"Lady Karina," Raka continued, more firmly, "with the power that individual has shown, if he truly had bad intentions, there would be nothing we could do to defend ourselves."
Karina didn't answer.
"When he rescued you in the forest, I tried to analyze him. But I got nothing."
Karina looked at him, still frowning.
"Nothing?"
"Nothing," Raka repeated. "His capabilities surpass mine."
Karina opened her mouth to say something and stopped.
Ever since he had saved her, Raka had become her anchor point. Not only someone she could trust, but someone whose experience spanned decades she could barely imagine. If Raka said something like that, then it wasn't a detail she could ignore.
Raka fell silent for a moment.
There was something he hadn't told his lady, and that was that the tower they were in had not been built. He had seen it appear out of nowhere, whole and complete, as if the world had accepted its existence in an instant. Raka had lived long enough to believe he knew the limits of magic, and that did not fit any of them. It wasn't a matter of complexity or power; it didn't feel like magic at all. If he had to put it into words, the closest thing would have been a miracle.
But he felt that this wasn't the time to reveal it.
"That is enough," he continued. "Lady Karina, if he truly had bad intentions, there would be no way to stop him."
Karina pressed her lips together.
"…I don't like it."
"You don't need to."
Karina closed her eyes for a moment. Her mind focused on Muno, on her father, on her duty.
She couldn't stay hidden in a room forever.
"…All right…" she murmured at last.
She stood carefully and walked toward the door.
"I'm going to… look for him…"
Her steps, however, were much more cautious than her voice pretended. She slipped out almost on tiptoe, as if part of her was still hoping that, with luck, she wouldn't find him at all. And if that happened purely by chance, well… then nothing could be done.
Raka, clearly perceiving his mistress's thoughts, could only resign himself in silence.
Karina opened the door carefully and stepped into the hallway. Magical light illuminated everything with a constant, clean white clarity. She looked around and couldn't help spending a few seconds simply taking in the place. Even now, in the middle of all the chaos she was in, the craftsmanship of that tower left her impressed. Everything was flawless, refined, more perfect than anything she had ever seen before, even inside her own family's castle.
Then she noticed the other three rooms on that floor. Her first thought was that he must be in one of them. With that suspicion in mind, she moved toward the central opening, looking more for some escape route below than for Satoru himself.
And there he was.
He was seated on the lower floor, on one of the sofas, and was already looking in her direction.
Karina froze.
There was no way to pretend she hadn't seen him.
She lowered her head, accepted the inevitable, and began to descend the stairs.
***
Karina came down the last steps slowly, without lifting her gaze any more than necessary. Even so, when she reached the lower level, she couldn't help raising it.
Satoru was already watching her.
There was no pressure in his gaze. He was simply there, attentive, as if he had been waiting for her for some time.
Karina tensed for barely a second, holding his gaze on pure reflex. She was not going to be the first to look away.
But the attempt didn't last long.
It was enough to look at his face for the heat to rise to her cheeks without warning. Before she could stop it, she looked away with a gesture of open frustration.
"T-talk quickly," she muttered, crossing her arms. "I want to leave as soon as possible!"
Satoru did not respond immediately.
"I'm waiting for your questions," he said at last, with the same calm as ever. "And even when we're finished, I still won't let you leave yet."
Karina jerked her head up.
"What!?"
Her anger rose almost instantly, but before she could continue, Raka spoke.
"Lady Karina."
His voice alone was enough to make her stop.
"Allow me."
Karina pressed her lips together, clearly annoyed, but she didn't interrupt him.
Raka inclined himself slightly, maintaining a formality that contrasted with the tension in the scene.
"I appreciate your patience. My name is Raka, and I would like to understand the reason for your help… and also why you would not allow my lady to leave."
Satoru observed him for a moment before replying.
"I am currently in an alliance with the Muno family. In exchange for their support in my research, I offer stability to the region. Helping her was part of that."
Raka nodded softly.
"I understand."
"As for the second matter," Satoru continued, "there is still work to be done. Once it is finished, I will take her back personally."
Raka asked nothing further. Not because he had no more questions, but because he didn't consider them necessary. He thought that with someone like this, the answers that truly mattered would not come through mere questions.
Karina, on the other hand, wasn't thinking about any of that.
"My family…?" she asked suddenly. "Are they all right?"
Raka hesitated for only an instant, but did not intervene.
Satoru answered directly.
"They are."
Karina didn't react right away.
"And the demon?"
"Dead."
The word landed with all its weight.
"…Dead…" she repeated quietly, as if it still hadn't fully settled in.
She turned her head slightly.
"Raka…"
"If it concerns him," he replied, "then it is possible."
Karina said nothing more. She lowered her gaze, and her body began to tremble faintly. Her hands clenched into fists, tense, as though she needed to hold onto something.
A few seconds passed.
"…They're really… all right…" she murmured.
She looked up once more.
"My family is all right?"
"Yes," Satoru answered.
That was enough.
Karina rose quickly and, without hesitation, bowed toward him.
"…Thank you."
Though she was still uncomfortable with the matter of him being "undead," her greatest concern was no longer there. The demon was gone, and her family was safe.
She felt no annoyance or disappointment when she realized that everything she had done had not been necessary. If anything, that only confirmed what had truly mattered. She had never become an adventurer for one reason, despite all her dreams and fantasies. And that same reason was what now gave her peace.
Her family.
She straightened with a calmer movement, letting out the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding.
Satoru observed her for a moment.
"Is there anything else?"
Karina looked away slightly.
"…Hey," she murmured at last. "What's your name?"
"…Satoru."
She repeated the name silently, as if she needed to fit it in among everything else, and said nothing more.
***
The next morning, Satoru silently observed the small food supply he had gathered the day before. It wasn't much. Under normal conditions, it would have been enough for several days.
But not in this case.
He remembered how much Karina had eaten and knew it would not last at that pace.
He made no comment about it. He simply closed the bag and set it aside before shifting his gaze. Then he raised one hand slightly.
An Elder Lich appeared at his side.
"Take this to her," he instructed, handing it a change of clothes.
It was part of what had been prepared in Muno for her return.
The creature bowed in acknowledgment of the order. Then it activated a flight spell and rose to the top floor.
In its place, Satoru began thinking about how to replenish their supplies.
A few seconds later—
"Wah! S-Satoru!?"
The cry came down from the upper floor.
Satoru remained silent. He glanced slightly upward, then looked away.
He would speak to her when she came down.
It didn't take long.
Karina descended the stairs with quick steps, stopping only when she reached the last level. Her expression still showed traces of her recent surprise, though she was trying to regain some composure. She was now dressed in much more suitable traveling clothes than her old dress, which had been ruined by dirt and cuts in the forest.
"…Good morning," she murmured, avoiding looking at him directly.
"Good morning."
A brief silence followed.
"Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?" she asked, trying to divert attention from what had happened upstairs.
"Yes. There isn't enough food to sustain your current level of consumption."
Karina frowned.
"I don't always eat like that…"
The reply came out faster than she intended, losing force at the end.
She looked away, visibly uncomfortable.
"Yesterday was… different."
Satoru did not press the point.
"Can you cook?"
"No."
Satoru nodded.
"Neither can I."
Karina sighed softly.
"Until recently, I survived on whatever I could find. Fruit, mushrooms… Raka taught me how to tell them apart. But it's not enough."
The last part came out in a whisper.
Satoru merely nodded again.
"Then we hunt."
Karina did not reject the idea immediately.
"I don't have a problem with hunting animals…" she said, but her expression shifted. "It's just…"
She stopped for a moment, clearly uneasy.
"I can't do all the rest."
The thought of bleeding, gutting, and cleaning an animal ran through her mind, giving her a small shiver.
She remained silent a little longer before adding:
"And I don't want to eat anything that was touched by a zombie… or a skeleton."
Satoru did not argue the point.
There weren't many other options.
Hours later, the two of them were already on their way.
The path pushed deeper between the trees, growing narrower and more inconvenient with every step. The roots forced them to watch where they stepped, and the low branches broke the line of travel with irritating persistence. Karina walked a few steps behind Satoru, still not entirely used to moving beside him. It wasn't exactly fear, nor pure embarrassment, though there was still plenty of that left.
It was more that discomfort.
Karina kept walking behind him, silent at first, though that calm didn't last long.
"Hey…" she began at last, looking at his back with a mix of doubt and annoyance. "What exactly are you researching?"
Satoru did not stop.
"It isn't something I need to tell you right now."
Karina frowned.
She didn't insist.
Not because she didn't want to, but because she was already beginning to understand that extracting information from that man was like trying to force open a stone door by shoving it.
So she changed the subject.
"Then… the demon. How did you defeat it?"
"It wasn't a problem."
Karina puffed her cheeks slightly at once.
"There it is again!"
Her annoyance escaped before she could hold it back.
"I ask something and you always answer like two words are enough!"
Satoru looked at her from the corner of his eye.
The complaint did not seem particularly unfair to him.
He stayed silent for a moment, then, as if reconsidering whether it was worth answering more clearly, he spoke with greater explanation.
"I did not begin the fight directly. It was my subordinates who forced it back first."
Karina lifted her head at once.
He actually answered?
"Your subordinates?"
The surprise was obvious.
Even a low-ranking demon was still a demon. Under normal circumstances, it took a group of soldiers to face one safely, and that was assuming everything went well. The fact that he spoke of subordinates capable of driving one back so casually was much harder for her to accept than his own strength.
"It was an offshoot," Satoru clarified. "Only a separated part of the original. Its true body was elsewhere."
Karina kept looking at him, still incredulous.
That explained something, yes, but not enough.
It was still unbelievable.
Not only because of him, but because of those "subordinates" he mentioned so naturally.
"After that, I…"
Suddenly Satoru stopped and raised a hand.
Karina frowned, confused, only to startle when an arrow embedded itself in the ground before them, cutting off their path.
Then came the laughter.
Five bandits emerged from between the trees, spreading out just enough to block the way without rushing. They carried swords, knives, and bows in varying condition, wearing pieces of hardened leather, scraps of stolen armor, and the grime of people who had spent far too long living among violence and wilderness. They moved with the confidence of men who had done this many times before.
One of them whistled the moment he saw Karina.
His gaze dropped shamelessly over her, with a lust so openly ugly that it churned her stomach. Even without fine clothes, Karina was still a beautiful young woman, with curled golden hair and a figure difficult to hide. It had always been a distinctive trait of the women in her family to possess well-proportioned bodies, generous chests, and wide hips.
"Well, look what we've got here…" one of them muttered with a crooked grin. "What a doll."
Another let out a low laugh, staring at her chest without the slightest attempt to hide it.
"With a body like that, I wouldn't sell her right away."
"Let's enjoy her first," added a third.
Disgust rose in Karina so fast it tightened her jaw. She raised her fists and settled into a stance almost on instinct, even with her stomach turning.
"What disgusting people…"
One of the bandits, however, had already stopped looking at her. His attention had shifted to Satoru.
And then another did the same.
The immaculate black clothing, the golden details, the cloak—everything about him looked incredibly expensive, standing out absurdly in the middle of the forest.
"That other one's good too," one of them said, narrowing his eyes. "Look at those clothes."
One of the younger ones spat to the side.
"Let's kill him and take them."
The other smacked him on the shoulder without taking his eyes off Satoru.
"Don't be an idiot. His family might pay us a fortune to ransom him back, or we could sell him as a slave for a high price."
Satoru observed them one by one, his gaze hidden beneath the shadow of his hood.
"Well," he said at last, "this is convenient."
The word left Karina almost more confused than the bandits themselves.
She didn't have time to think what exactly was convenient about it.
Around him, magical arrows began to form one after another, suspended in the air with a cold, unreal glow, floating around Satoru as if they had always belonged there. The bandits barely had time to understand what they were seeing. One opened his mouth, another took half a step back, the one with the bow tried to raise it—
The arrows shot forward.
Four skulls broke at the same time.
There was no resistance. No struggle. No chance for anything. The magical projectiles pierced through their heads with brutal precision, and the bodies dropped at once, heavy and useless, as if someone had extinguished the light inside them.
The last bandit froze.
He looked at his companions on the ground. Then at the arrows still fading in the air. Then at Satoru, who was already walking toward him.
All color drained from his face.
"W-what… what the hell…?"
He took a step back.
But it wasn't enough.
By the time Satoru stopped in front of him, the man no longer looked like a confident bandit, but an animal that had just realized it had entered the wrong territory.
"Where is your camp?" Satoru asked.
Karina could never have imagined something like that.
When she heard they were going after bandits, the image that formed in her head had been of a filthy camp, yes, with armed men, perhaps a sudden clash, something confused, dangerous, and unpleasant. Not this.
After learning the location of the camp, they advanced without delay until they reached it. By the time they arrived, Satoru had already made sure there were no hostages and no one being held there by force. Only then did he summon that creature.
Karina saw it appear and, for an instant, felt her entire skin prickle.
It looked like a horse… if someone had taken the idea of a horse and dragged it through a nightmare. Its body was skeletal, wrapped in flames that gave off neither warmth nor pleasant light, but a dark, heavy, unnatural presence. Every movement of it felt profoundly wrong, and the worst part was not its appearance.
It was what it did.
The bandits fell.
Not from blows, not from bites, not from a savage pursuit. They fell as though death itself had come too close to them. Some collapsed in mid-scream, others while running, others while still raising their weapons.
It was clean and... impossible to stop.
Karina preferred not to think too much about it.
When Satoru declared the matter finished, the camp had become a silent place, covered by the thick weight of what had just happened.
Then came the practical part.
They gathered provisions, sacks of food, usable tools, some blankets, and whatever could still serve for the journey. Satoru did it quickly, without disorder, as if sorting resources after a massacre were the natural continuation of the previous scene.
Karina watched him for a moment, her body still a little stiff from the infernal horse, until he lifted one of the sacks and offered it to her.
"Carry this."
"Huh?"
Karina blinked.
"Me?"
She took it on reflex, but the moment she felt the weight, she looked down at the sack as if she had only just realized something.
"I have to carry this…?"
She didn't say it because it particularly bothered her. In truth, it didn't.
She was simply surprised.
At the castle, servants always handled that sort of thing. She had never needed to worry about it herself. Even so, she adjusted the sack in her arms without further complaint, settling it carefully.
Satoru was already carrying more than she was.
With the supplies secured, they set out again.
***
The road widened somewhat after the bandits' camp, enough that it could be called a road without that sounding entirely laughable. The earth was still uneven, marked by old tracks and puddles dried from earlier rain, but at least branches no longer struck them in the face every few steps.
It was Karina who first saw the people sitting off to the side of the road, in broad daylight, neither hiding nor moving much when the two of them approached. The sight unsettled her more than if they had suddenly leapt out of the brush. They didn't look like raiders or travelers.
They looked like people waiting.
There was a man of around forty at the front, though hunger made him look older. His cheeks were slightly sunken, and the clothes he wore, once perhaps carefully maintained, were now dirty, faded, and worn by use. Beside him sat two young women, perhaps in their early twenties, dressed in simple garments that, for a moment, reminded Satoru of the kind of poor, functional fabric Liza and the girls had worn in their worst days. They were not as worn down as the man, and their faces were in better condition, but there was something in all three that spoke of long misery, not a misfortune of only one night. Behind the man stood a smaller figure hidden beneath a hood.
The moment they saw them approach, the man lifted a hand in a broad, visible, deliberate gesture.
He did not want to appear hostile.
Satoru stopped. Karina did the same.
The man stood and lowered his head politely.
"Forgive me for stopping you, sir. We do not wish to cause trouble. We only wanted to offer an exchange."
Karina immediately felt uncomfortable. Not because of the phrase itself, but because of the tone. There was no pleading in it. No shame either. It was too direct.
The man placed a hand on the small figure behind him and pushed it a step forward.
The girl removed her hood.
Karina went still.
She couldn't have been more than ten, perhaps eleven. Twelve at most. She was small, thin, with soft features and a face that, even beneath exhaustion and malnutrition, already hinted at a future beauty too obvious to miss. Her eyes weren't swollen from crying, nor did they tremble with fear.
That, somehow, was worse.
"She's my granddaughter," the man said. "She's smart, obedient, and learns quickly. And you can already see she was born pretty. In a few years, she'll be even more beautiful. If you're interested, I could trade her for one sack of food."
Karina needed a full second to understand what she had just heard.
Then she turned toward him with absolute disbelief on her face.
"What?"
The word came out hollow at first, as if her mind still hadn't fully accepted the scene. Then indignation hit her all at once.
"What do you mean, trade her? She's a child!"
The man didn't answer immediately.
The girl herself was the one who spoke.
"It's all right," she said with an unnatural calm for her age. "If it helps the village, then it's fine."
Karina stared at her, unable to look away.
The girl lowered her eyes briefly, then lifted them again to Karina.
"My lady, I promise I won't get in your way at all. I won't seek any real position, I'll obey you, and I won't cause problems."
The sentence was so strange that it robbed Karina of her ability to be angry over the misunderstanding. It only left her even more disoriented.
"What…?"
She didn't even know where to begin.
The two women beside the man exchanged a brief glance. One of them smiled, as though trying to make the impression gentler.
"We don't mean to offend you, miss. We only want to trade. If the girl doesn't interest you… we also offer company for a little extra food."
The other woman maintained her smile.
Karina felt her stomach turn cold.
It wasn't only horror. It was the brutal sensation of not having an immediate answer to something that should have been easy to condemn. She wanted to call the man a monster. She wanted to tell them they were insane. She wanted to drag the girl away from there.
But before she could, the girl spoke again.
"Grandfather doesn't want to sell me for a bad reason," she said. "It's just… what's best for me and the others."
Karina turned back toward the man.
This time, he spoke.
"I don't like it. But the options ran out a long time ago. She's too young to help with hard labor, and if things keep going like this, she'll die anyway. Or worse, some knight from the fort will kidnap her and use her until he gets bored."
Something in his tone sent a chill down Karina's spine.
The man lowered his gaze slightly toward Satoru.
"At least you seem like a decent man. And frankly, you look rich enough that even your scraps would be better than what we can give her."
Satoru remained silent, watching.
Karina swallowed.
"What happened for things to get this bad…?"
The man let out a slow breath and, as if he had been waiting for the question more than for compassion, answered with the same harsh frankness with which he had made the offer.
"First, the harvests. For the past three years, we've barely gotten anything from the soil. What little grows is only enough to keep half the village alive. Then the monsters increased. More beasts, more attacks, more fear of going outside. We were already in bad shape because of that."
He paused briefly.
"Then we started selling whatever we could. First tools, then animals, then women to slave traders whenever one passed close enough to bargain."
The two young women lowered their eyes, but neither seemed offended by the mention.
The man continued.
"The bandits in this area don't attack us because they're like us. People from nearby villages who lost everything and ended up living like this."
"Sometimes those same thieves are our customers," one of the women said with a short laugh.
"At least the bandits leave us something," the other added. "The soldiers just take everything."
Karina looked at her.
"The soldiers?"
The man nodded, and this time the weariness in his voice carried something harder.
"The taxes were tripled. They said it was for the upcoming marriage of Baron Muno's daughter."
Karina felt a strange blow in her chest.
Her sister.
Soruna really did have plans to marry. That was true. But tripling taxes with that excuse… no. Her father would never have allowed such a thing. Even increasing the burden in hard times would already have been cruel; tripling it was madness.
The demon.
The understanding reached her instantly, and with it came a sudden guilt so sharp it almost burned her face.
They had been living like this. All this time. While she knew nothing.
The man kept speaking, now with a weary resignation.
"We couldn't refuse. If we did, the same thing would happen as in Tonze. The tax collector went there, demanded his due, and when they couldn't pay, he sold the entire village into slavery. No one is left now."
This time there was real anger in his voice.
"That bastard…"
Karina lowered her gaze to the sack in her arms.
The whole scene, all her indignation, all her disbelief, everything suddenly rearranged itself under a far worse realization: she had had no idea what had been happening. None at all. Not about the monsters, not about the hunger, not about the empty villages, not about people selling their daughters so they would at least not fall into the hands of worse men.
She felt ridiculous.
No. Something worse than ridiculous.
She lifted her head and spoke almost without thinking.
"Take it."
All four of them looked at her.
Karina tightened her arms around the sack and took a step forward.
"Take this and… and we'll give you the rest too."
She didn't say it as a proposal, but as an urgent need.
"We can get more later. We… I can go hungry for a day. I won't die from that."
She turned to Satoru, as if expecting him to follow her lead immediately.
"Let's give them everything."
Satoru watched her for a few seconds.
"I disagree."
Karina went still.
"What?"
It wasn't only disbelief. It was also irritation, guilt, and a kind of furious shame she herself hadn't fully realized she was feeling.
Normally Satoru spoke little, not because he had trouble explaining himself, but because he rarely saw a reason to. But when he believed something needed to be understood clearly, he had no problem speaking more than usual. And with Karina, precisely because of the difference in how they thought, he understood that leaving it at a dry refusal would only make her react worse.
"I disagree with giving them everything," he said. "I will give them part of it. In exchange for the information they've given me."
He set one of the smaller sacks on the ground.
It wasn't everything. But neither was it nothing.
The man looked at it as though he weren't sure he had heard correctly.
Satoru then shifted his gaze toward him.
"Where is your village?"
The man took a moment to answer, still stunned.
"To the west of here. About two hours away, if you travel light."
"And the soldiers' fort?"
The reaction was more tense this time, but he answered.
"Farther south, near the old stone crossroads."
Satoru nodded before looking away.
"Thank you, thank you very much, sir!"
The man bowed awkwardly. The two women imitated him. The girl held the edge of her hood between her fingers and also lowered her head.
Karina said nothing while they picked up the sack.
Then Raka spoke in a low voice that only she could hear.
"I believe this is the proper course. If they carried too much, we could not ensure they would make it safely back to their village."
Seeing them leave like that, relieved over a single sack of food, only made everything feel more bitter.
She walked a few steps behind Satoru, still holding the sack in her arms. The weight didn't bother her as much as the knot in her chest. In the end, unable to keep swallowing it down, she spoke.
"We should have been able to do more."
Her voice came out lower than she expected, but no less firm.
Satoru didn't answer right away. He kept walking with the same calm as ever, and the wind moving through the trees stirred the dark fabric of his cloak before disappearing farther ahead along the road.
"To help…" he murmured at last, almost as if speaking to himself. "What does it really mean to help?"
Karina looked up.
Satoru wasn't looking at her. His eyes stayed fixed ahead, yet his voice did not sound distant. It sounded as though he were organizing an idea that had already been circling in his mind for some time.
"Taking care of the immediate problem isn't enough. That only cleans the surface."
Karina didn't answer.
"Muno has been in decline for years," he continued. "With more and more monsters, criminals, hardship… and above all, fear. If all I do is solve one case at a time, nothing truly changes. I only delay the next one."
Karina tightened her hold on the sack a little more.
She didn't want to admit he was right.
But she also couldn't get the image of the man offering his granddaughter with that broken calm out of her mind.
Satoru kept speaking, and this time it was clear that he wasn't doing it only in response to her. He was thinking aloud as well, joining together pieces he had until then only looked at separately.
"When I left Muno, the city still looked at me with distrust. I had eliminated the demon and the army, but that wasn't enough. Not because they doubted my strength, but because strength alone does not bring peace."
The wind moved again through the branches. Afternoon light filtered briefly through the leaves and struck his face, outlining his eyes before breaking once more into uneven shadows.
"To help isn't only to remove the danger above their heads. It is to make it so they do not have to live waiting for the next one."
Karina swallowed.
The words hit her harder than she expected.
"That doesn't change the fact that they're hungry right now," she murmured, still clinging to the most immediate part of the problem.
"No," Satoru admitted easily. "That's why I gave them part of it."
Karina stayed silent.
"But giving them everything would not have solved their situation. In the end, they would still have had the same problems hanging over them. The same ones that forced them into making this decision."
Satoru lifted his gaze slightly toward the road stretching ahead, as though he could see through the trees much farther than human sight could reach.
"That is what must change."
His voice did not rise. It didn't need to.
"If the land does not yield enough, I will heal it. If the sky does not cooperate, I will make it rain. If beasts invade their roads, I will drive them back. If bandits believe they can live off that fear, I will make them pay for it. And if the soldiers have forgotten what their duty is…"
This time he paused briefly.
When he spoke again, there was no harshness in his tone, but there was a certainty so firm that it sent a shiver down Karina's back.
"Then I will remind them."
Karina looked at him in silence.
There was no arrogance in his tone. He said it with an almost absurd naturalness, as if the problems that had dragged these lands into misery for generations were nothing more than an unfinished task.
And that was exactly what unsettled her the most.
He wasn't boasting.
He wasn't trying to impress her.
He was simply speaking like someone who knew, without the slightest doubt, that he could do it.
"I promised to stabilize Muno," he added. "That means restoring its ability to sustain itself. Not feeding its misery so it can endure one more day."
Karina lowered her gaze.
She thought of the little girl. Of the village. Of her sister. Of her father. Of her house's name falling on starving villages like a burden she hadn't even known existed.
And she also thought of something else.
Of what she had just heard.
It didn't sound kind.
It didn't sound merciful.
But it did sound… solid.
Like a wall impossible to move.
He hadn't said it exactly like that, but beneath his words there was something very close to a simple, crushing certainty: trust me, and everything will be fine.
Karina looked away with a small grimace, still uncomfortable with herself.
"You still sound arrogant when you talk like that."
Satoru did not seem offended.
"Perhaps."
The wind moved his cloak again, more strongly this time, before losing itself farther down the road.
"But it isn't arrogance if I'm right."
Karina looked at him from the corner of her eye.
And in the most irritating way possible, that answer did not sound like empty swagger.
It sounded like something a truly superior being could allow himself to say without the need to humiliate anyone.
They kept walking a few more steps in silence.
Then Satoru spoke again, still without turning toward her.
"The village is to the west. The fort is to the south."
It took Karina a second to realize he had already made a decision.
She said nothing.
She only adjusted the sack more securely in her arms and kept walking behind him, while the road continued opening before them through the broken afternoon light and the murmur of the forest.
*******
Author's Note:
First of all, thank you for continuing to read the story, and I apologize for the delay with this chapter.
There isn't too much I want to say about it, but I did spend quite some time working on the character interactions. I had several ideas in mind at first, though not all of them felt right in the end, so I decided to focus on the version that flowed better for the scene.
As for Karina, the next episode will likely be the last one centered on her and Satoru, so the story should start moving forward more steadily after that.
I also have a few ideas I want to implement before closing this part of the arc, especially regarding Satoru's development. I'm looking forward to how that turns out.
That's all for now. As always, feel free to share your thoughts on the chapter. It really helps me improve for the next ones.