In the Shadow Realm, woven from black and white, Gwayne, Amber, Betty, and an unnamed Hedge Mage sat around a crude wooden cottage. Before them lay the lunch Betty had just prepared, simple slices of bread, fried sausages, and some vegetable soup.
It was all devoid of color, like an ancient black-and-white photograph.
Gwayne had no intention of touching the food in front of him. Cooking might be possible in the Shadow Realm, but he really couldn't be sure what would happen if a living, breathing human (presumably) ate Shadow Realm food.
Amber and Betty beside him likewise hadn't touched their utensils.
The Hedge Mage across the table didn't urge them. He simply ate his own meal in silence, perfectly quiet.
A strange, unspoken understanding hung over the cottage.
Gwayne was the first to break the silence. "How long have you been here?"
"A very long time," the Hedge Mage set down his utensils, polite as could be. "I settled here in the second year after leaving the Arcane Society."
"You were a member of the Arcane Society?" Gwayne asked, somewhat surprised. "I assumed you'd always been a Hedge Mage."
"I was originally a second-tier member of the Arcane Society," the Hedge Mage said quietly. "By their standards, I was a mediocre caster. I was good at calculation and reasoning, but I lacked the ability to translate those into spell models. In other words, my casting level would never advance beyond the beginner stage. That kind of mage isn't welcome in the Arcane Society."
"So they kicked you out?" Amber found this hard to believe. She knew that a genuine mage was precious, even a mediocre one. "Mediocre" was only relative to arcane masters; in ordinary people's eyes, even a mage who could only produce a tiny fireball was an extraordinary figure. Even if these low-level casters weren't valued within the Arcane Society, they surely wouldn't be thrown out on their ear.
"I left on my own," the Hedge Mage shook his head, then turned to look at Betty. "For my daughter. To cure her, I had to leave."
Betty stared blankly at the Hedge Mage, then nodded in muddled agreement.
Gwayne didn't press the matter further. Instead, he fixed the Hedge Mage's eyes with his own, right hand resting on the hilt of his longsword, and said slowly. "You should know why we're here. We don't have much time to waste."
The Hedge Mage's stiff, sluggish expression finally shifted slightly. His body trembled, and he lowered his head. "...Ser, I'm not sure what you mean."
Betty looked nervously at Gwayne. "My lord?"
Gwayne frowned. After a moment, he took his hand off the Pioneer's Sword's hilt and softened his tone. "Then we'll wait a little while."
The Hedge Mage bowed his head and continued eating his meal in silence. His only extra movement during the process was to occasionally lift his head and glance at Betty beside him.
Food was always finite, and Gwayne couldn't wait forever.
The Hedge Mage ate the last bite of sausage, then carefully mopped up every last drop of soup in his bowl with a piece of bread. He finished his meal, looked up toward Betty, though his eyes weren't actually focused on her, but on somewhere much farther away. His body swayed as if trying to stand, but after several attempts, he couldn't manage it.
In the end, it was Betty who helped him up.
"Father, I have to go now," the girl said, steadying the Hedge Mage by the arm and only letting go once she was sure he was stable. She shuffled over to Gwayne's side. "Lady Rebecca and Lady Hestia are still waiting for me, and my lord has come for me too."
The Hedge Mage's lips moved, and at last he gave a gentle nod. His expression had grown calm, and he carefully recited his instructions.
"Don't eat things from strangers."
"Go to bed on time."
"Remember to listen to your teacher."
"Don't fight with the other children."
The light of reason was gradually fading from this poor man's eyes. Gwayne knew that everything he was saying now was nothing but delirium.
Though, to be fair, he'd barely been lucid the entire time.
The Hedge Mage's figure began to fade, but within that increasingly dim phantom, something flame-like suddenly ignited. Gwayne had been waiting for exactly this moment. He swiftly drew the Pioneer's Sword, a faint glow rippling along the blade.
Amber quickly pulled Betty into her arms and covered the girl's eyes.
Gwayne thrust the longsword into the flames in the Hedge Mage's chest. The fire shuddered violently. The Hedge Mage, who had been on the verge of transforming into a malevolent spirit, abruptly halted mid-transformation. His spectral form rapidly re-solidified into substance, and then roaring flames consumed him, burning the man into a grotesque, charred husk.
The corpse burned for a full thirty seconds before finally crumbling to ash and vanishing completely.
Cracking sounds came from every direction. The cottage, having lost its master, disintegrated rapidly. A dense web of fissures spread across the walls and ceiling in the blink of an eye, and the pale light of the outside world poured through the cracks in the wood.
Gwayne grabbed Amber and Betty and sprinted out of the cottage. The instant they cleared the threshold, the structure collapsed behind them.
The collapsed cottage burst into flames. The fire burned briefly, as though what had been consumed wasn't a wooden house but one made of paper.
As the cottage gradually turned to ash and scattered on the wind, Amber suddenly seized Gwayne's arm and pointed excitedly at the cottage's foundation. "Hey hey! Look at that!"
Gwayne focused his gaze and saw a network of flickering lines brightening beneath the ashes, their glow shining through the drifting cinders, gradually forming a complex and massive structure, unmistakably the shape of a large magic circle.
"This was probably that Hedge Mage's greatest achievement in life," Gwayne said with a slight nod. "And it was most likely a malfunction in this circle that led to his fate."
As he spoke, Betty's form began to dissolve into drifting motes of light. The glowing particles circled in place twice, then swiftly flew off in the direction from which Gwayne and Amber had come.
Amber looked down at her own hands. They had been ashen gray, but color was now returning, the flush of living blood. And as color seeped back into her and Gwayne, the Shadow Realm's rejection of them grew increasingly pronounced.
Indistinct shapes began condensing from the thin fog all around them. They were completely formless, but clearly hostile. The Shadow Realm's native inhabitants had finally caught the scent of outsiders. Creatures from the shallowest layer were emerging, gathering like hyenas drawn by the smell of blood.
"We need to go!" Amber told Gwayne. "This place is starting to not want us here!"
Gwayne took one last long look at the cottage's ruins, doing his best to commit the glowing lines and symbols to memory, then grabbed Amber's arm. "Go!"
After a brief spell of vertigo, the sights of the real world reappeared before his eyes.
The Wraith Mist had dissipated. The dense forest had returned to its original state. The exhausted Rebecca and Hestia were leaning against a tree, supporting each other. Ser Byron was using his longsword as a crutch, barely managing to stand guard beside the two ladies. The two surviving soldiers had collapsed on the ground.
Betty was probably in the best shape of anyone, she stood next to Rebecca, hugging her frying pan and staring blankly, as if that dazed expression had been permanently fixed to her face.
Hestia saw Gwayne and immediately struggled to her feet. "Great Ancestor, thank the gods you're unharmed!"
Then she spotted Amber trailing behind him, and her expression turned subtly complicated. "The thief didn't run away?"
"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?!" Amber bristled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. "Your ancestor and I just went into the Shadow Realm and risked our lives to save all of you! You ungrateful, big-chested, brainless old hag-"
Hestia had never imagined this thief would dare trade insults with her. Her expression soured instantly.
"Hold your tongue! Such insolence! Do you know what it means to offend a noble-"
Gwayne quickly wedged himself between them. "Don't fight, don't fight. Amber isn't lying, we really did go deal with the crisis together. Though the part where she called you... big-chested was definitely out of line..."
A brief silence fell. Rebecca timidly raised her hand. "Great Ancestor, that was the only compliment Amber said the entire time, and you just shot it down..."
Hestia wore an expression of someone who had lost all will to live.
Gwayne: "..."
Fortunately, Hestia was a reasonable woman and didn't dwell on these petty matters for long. Once Gwayne explained everything that had happened, all misunderstandings cleared away like dissipating smoke.
And the things Gwayne and Amber had seen and heard in the Shadow Realm left everyone astonished. Even Ser Byron, who knew nothing about magic, couldn't help leaning in to listen for a long while.
It was, after all, an experience beyond ordinary imagination.
"You can enter the Shadow Realm?" Hestia's first concern was naturally Amber's special ability. She studied the half-elf up and down several times with suspicion, as if trying to read the answer from her face. "Only a handful of high-tier Shadow Mages or the 'Chosen' of the shadow gods have that ability. How do you do it?"
Amber turned her face away. "What if I told you I'm the Chosen of the Night Goddess?"
Hestia glared at her. "Don't be ridiculous. A Chosen who got pinned to the ground by Byron with an ordinary steel sword?"
"All right, stop pressing her," Gwayne finally halted Hestia's interrogation. "I've already promised not to pursue these matters. When she's ready to talk, she'll talk."
The world was vast, but the ancestor was the biggest. With Gwayne speaking up like this, Hestia had no choice but to stand down.
"Let's bury the dead first," said Gwayne. The mist had cleared and warmth had returned to everyone. Once he saw that the group had recovered a little strength, he rose and walked to the soldier who had died from his shattered soul. "He fought bravely. He deserves to be buried as a warrior."
The two surviving soldiers looked at Gwayne with some surprise.
Gwayne was puzzled. "What? Did I say something wrong?"
"He was born of peasants," Ser Byron said, walking over. "It was only because the Viscountess issued a decree of mercy that a smallfolk's child like him had the chance to join the territorial army, earning his freedom through service. But he'd only served for half a year, so he still held smallfolk status. Someone of that status cannot be buried as a warrior."
Gwayne frowned and turned to Rebecca. "Is that true?"
Rebecca immediately tensed up as if she'd done something wrong. "Y-yes! But I felt that the smallfolk way of life really wasn't... wasn't very reasonable, so I let them earn their freedom through military service. I know it breaks the rules, but..."
Gwayne's brow relaxed slightly. "No, I'm not blaming you."
Then he bent down, reached into the front of his garments, and produced a coin. He placed it in the dead soldier's breast pocket, positioned over the heart.
That coin had been placed there seven hundred years ago by Charles Martell himself, when Gwayne Seawright was laid to rest.
The instant Amber saw the coin, she realized what it was. She immediately covered her eyes.
"Good lord... that's worth at least half a manor..."
But Gwayne himself was entirely oblivious to this. He had simply followed the customs recorded in his memories, then dusted off his hands and stood.
"Now someone has redeemed the debt upon his soul. Bury him."
Byron hesitated.
"But my Lord, the rules..."
Gwayne looked at him.
"I am the rules."