Reno set out for the village that very morning.
I watched him from my bedroom window. His white hair fluttered in the wind, his steps light yet filled with purpose. The fifteen-year-old boy never complained, never hesitated. He simply... moved.
He was going to be an invaluable asset.
I turned away from the window. On the table, the map of the Varen territory remained spread out. I marked the village with red ink, then the main roads, and finally the borders of the Marquis's lands.
The spiderweb started here.
Reno arrived at the village as the sun climbed high.
He headed straight for Harkon's warehouse—not by the main road, but through the narrow alleys behind the market. He had mapped these routes since he first started observing the village. Clever.
Harkon was waiting inside. His face was still pale, but this time he wasn't trembling. Perhaps he was growing accustomed to his new position. Or perhaps he had simply resigned to his fate.
"Young Master Reno." Harkon bowed—far too low for a merchant to a noble. A sign of fear, or perhaps an attempt to gain favor.
"I am no young master." Reno's voice was flat. "I am merely a messenger."
Harkon nodded quickly. "O-of course. What does the Countess desire?"
"The list." Reno extended his hand. "Every villager indebted to you. Names, amounts, collateral. Everything."
Harkon hesitated for a fraction of a second, but it was only a moment. He walked to a corner of the warehouse, opened a wooden chest, and pulled out a stack of parchment. Debt records. Dozens of names.
Reno took them, his eyes moving rapidly as he scanned each one.
Borin. Farmer. 10 coins debt. Collateral: Farmland.
Mella. Widow. 5 coins debt. Collateral: House and livestock.
Korr. Small trader. 15 coins debt. Collateral: Shop and stock.
And many more. Names of the trapped. Names of the desperate. People who would be eternally grateful if someone offered them a way out.
"From this day forward," Reno said, folding the parchments and tucking them away, "you will not collect their debts."
Harkon blinked. "N-not collect? But... the Marquis—"
"The Marquis doesn't need to know." Reno looked at him coldly. "You will continue to send reports to him. Tell him the farmers are starting to pay, bit by bit. He'll be pleased. He won't suspect a thing."
"Then... their debts?"
"Erased." Reno turned toward the door. "But not for free. They will pay in another way."
Reno started with Borin.
The farmer lived on the edge of the village in a simple wooden house with a thatched roof that had begun to leak. When Reno arrived, Borin was sitting in front of his home, staring at his parched fields. His face was hollow, his eyes vacant.
It was the face of a man who had lost all hope.
"Borin."
The farmer looked up. His eyes widened at the sight of a young man with white hair and red eyes—an unusual appearance in these parts. "W-who are you?"
"I am a messenger from Countess Varen."
Borin's expression shifted—a mix of fear and confusion. "The Countess...? What could she want with a poor farmer like me?"
Reno sat beside him. Not on a chair, but on the ground. Leveling himself with the man.
"I know you owe Harkon ten coins. Twenty percent interest. Three months overdue."
Borin looked down. "I... I have no money. The harvest failed this year. The rains never came. I can't even feed my family, let alone pay a debt."
"Your debt is erased."
Borin's head snapped up. "W-what?"
"The Countess has settled your debt with Harkon. You owe nothing." Reno stared at him. "But the Countess needs your help."
Borin looked at him with disbelief. "Help? From me?"
"You live at the edge of the village. Every day, you see those who come and go. Merchants, travelers, strangers." Reno leaned in. "The Countess wants you to observe. Who passes by. Where they go. What they carry. No matter how small the detail."
Borin fell silent. "I... I'm just a farmer. I don't understand—"
"You don't need to understand." Reno stood up. "You only need to see. And report. Someone will meet you every week. You tell them what you've seen. That is all."
Borin stared at him for a long time. Then, slowly, he nodded. "If it pays my debt... I will do it."
Reno nodded. "One more thing. If you see anyone with this symbol..." He showed a small slip of paper with a drawing of an eye within a circle. "...report it immediately. Do not delay."
Reno repeated the process with Mella, Korr, and several others. By the end of the day, he had recruited five people.
Borin the farmer. Mella the widow. Korr the trader. An old hunter named Daren who lived by the forest. And a tavern maid named Lissa who heard every scrap of gossip in the village.
Each was given a simple task: Watch. Listen. Report.
They didn't know about each other. They didn't know who else reported to Reno. If one were caught, the others remained safe.
A spiderweb.
Reno returned to the castle that night. I was waiting for him in the dining hall, the map still spread before me.
"Five people," he said, sitting across from me. "Everything is set. They will report to me weekly."
"Good." I marked five points on the map. Borin's house at the border. Mella's house near the market. Korr's shop at the center. Daren's shack by the woods. The tavern where Lissa worked.
Five eyes. Five ears. A solid beginning.
"There is one more thing." Reno looked at me seriously. "While I was in the village, one of them—Daren the hunter—said he saw something. A stranger at the border. Not a villager. Not one of the Marquis's men."
I looked up sharply. "Description?"
"A grey cloak. His face was obscured. But Daren said..." Reno hesitated. "He saw a symbol on the sleeve of the cloak. An eye within a circle."
My heart hammered against my ribs.
The Eternal Eye.
"What was this person doing?"
"Just observing. From a distance. Then he vanished into the fog."
I stared at the map, circling the border in red ink. They were here. They were watching.
"Reno." My voice was calm. "Tomorrow, return to the village. Meet Daren. Get every detail. Exactly where he saw this man. When. Which direction he went."
Reno nodded. "You think they're... the Eternal Eye?"
"I don't know." I touched the symbol in the Count's diary, which I now kept under my pillow. "But we are going to find out."
That night, I sat alone in my room.
The Count's diary was open on my lap. On the final page was that same symbol—the eye within the circle.
The Eternal Eye. A secret organization that guarded the balance. The Count had been a member, and he had chosen me.
Why? What was my connection to them?
In the corner of my vision, the blue screen flickered to life.
[ SOUL GUIDE SYSTEM – SLEEP MODE ]
[ Data Recovery: 14% ]
[ New Fragment Detected: "Building a Network". ]
[ Description: Information is a weapon. You know this better than anyone. In your past life, you built empires from the shadows—not with swords, but with words. With secrets. With the people no one else bothered to count. ]
[ Query: Continue recovery? ]
I stared at the screen for a long time.
An empire from the shadows. People no one bothered to count.
I looked at the map on the table. Five red dots. Five ordinary people who were now my eyes and ears.
This was only the beginning.
"Not now," I whispered.
The screen vanished.
But this time, I didn't refuse out of fear. I refused because... I wanted to build this myself. I wanted to feel the process. I wanted to know that this spiderweb was the result of my own work, not just a lingering memory of a past life.
I would find out who I was. But I would do it on my terms.