“Wh-what is this?”
Deep inside a cave below the gorge. A campfire was crackling and burning. Anya, who had stripped off his upper body and was lying prone on a blanket, stared at a medicine bottle Sabelli handed over.
Sabelli said while thickly applying finely ground medicinal herbs onto Anya’s back covered in colorful bruises.
“A recovery potion. With your current body, it seems you’ll die a terrible death before even meeting the Dragcals.”
At those words, Anya laughed softly. This afternoon, as a reward for defeating Sabelli, Anya would now finally go to meet the Dragcals. His teacher had kept his promise. Although he didn’t know specifically how they would meet, Anya trusted Sabelli. He was an excellent guide.
“Ah. Be-before I forget….”
Anya suddenly rose from his spot and rummaged through his backpack. Since he had used a lot of magic power today, it seemed he would fall asleep at any moment. Since he might forget the medicine Riario had prepared, it was better to take it now in advance.
In the small wooden case he took out from his backpack, green medicine bottles were neatly arranged. The case had seven compartments per layer, three layers, and two layers of the case were already neatly emptied. Anya took out one of the green medicine bottles, of which not many remained.
“What is that?”
Sabelli stopped Anya, who had just removed the small cork blocking the bottle’s opening and was about to put the medicine bottle to his mouth. Come to think of it, this was the first time taking the medicine Riario had prepared in front of Sabelli. Sabelli always fell asleep earlier than Anya, spouting useless jokes about how old men fall asleep early and wake up at dawn.
“It’s me-medicine that Sir Ri-Riario prepared for me.”
Without realizing it, Anya showed a proud expression. But the old man’s face was dark. He extended his hand and said.
“Let me see it.”
Anya obediently held out the medicine bottle. Sabelli sniffed at the bottle’s opening, then poured about one drop onto his palm and tasted it.
“……”
His expression somehow became increasingly serious, making Anya tense as well.
“Me-medicine that’s good for the bo-body is supposed to be bi-bitter.”
“…That’s right.”
Sabelli replied with a reluctant expression.
“Gi-give it to me. If I skip it, I won’t have the fa-face to see Lord Evernight.”
Anya snatched the medicine bottle from Sabelli and immediately poured it into his mouth. It was a terrible taste no matter when he took it.
“Did Evernight order this?”
“What?”
When Anya asked back, Sabelli stroked his crumbly brown hair once, then pressed that medicine bottle similar to the green one into Anya’s hand.
“With my humble existence, I shouldn’t interfere with fate, but…. This will help with energy recovery more than that medicine.”
Anya held the medicine bottle before his eyes and moved it up and down. What Sabelli handed over was thicker and grayish. Whether it was what Riario gave or what Sabelli gave, both were equally unpleasant.
“Don’t drink it right away, drink this tomorrow when you wake up before leaving.”
“Th-thank you.”
Anya was surprised that there were so many people thinking about his health like this. When he burst into laughter at the unnecessarily excited feeling, his body, thoroughly permeated with muscle pain, signaled its suffering.
“Don’t laugh.”
Sabelli smiled warmly and spread the fallen medicinal herbs again onto the boy’s blue bruises and scraped, festering wounds. The boy’s body, which had been only white and slender when he came to Tildyen, had already grown sturdy. Of course, whether it was his flat chest, his clean back, or his invisible legs, everything was covered in wounds, but Anya didn’t care at all.
“…It’s fi-finally tomorrow.”
Anya looked at the moon and countless stars floating in the pitch-black night sky beyond the cave entrance.
‘Will I really be able to call the Dragcals? Will that unknown soul answer my call?’
And… will I be able to return to Tildyen Rock?
“Now everything will be under the jurisdiction of the god of fate.”
That’s right. Now everything was the boy’s destiny.
‘The god of fate will grant my will.’
Anya stretched his hand upward while lying down. He had the illusion that the thread bracelet hanging on his wrist seemed to shine like a jewel in the campfire.
Anya woke up early at dawn. He couldn’t sleep due to tension. Tildyen’s days were short. Outside the cave it was still dim. Anya quietly dressed so as not to wake Sabelli and packed his small quill pen and Haebing.
At the cave entrance, a lone rock was placed. Anya hopped up to sit on it and gazed at the hazy sky above the white curtain.
Today he had drawn seventeen diagonal lines on his palm. Anya clenched his fist tightly. That’s when it happened. A comet with a long tail passed over the sky turning purple.
Anya jumped up from his spot and looked at the comet. It was a comet with a tail burning so red it could be identified at a glance even from afar.
‘A world I don’t know….’
Anya stared up at the sky for a long while, mesmerized by the wondrous scenery he was seeing for the first time in his life.
How long had he been doing so? Suddenly the fine hairs on his forearm stood on end. He felt killing intent from behind. Quickly twisting his head to the side and avoiding, a sharp blade came into that spot. Anya immediately turned around, hooked the opponent’s knee, applied force and knocked them down.
“…!”
And he mounted the opponent’s body, struck the back of the hand holding the dagger with his fist to drop the sword, then kicked up his foot to catch it in his own hand. The opponent pinned beneath struck Anya’s face with a fist. Anya crossed both arms to block it.
The two people rolled messily on the snowfield. Finally Anya subdued the opponent, twisted their arm behind their back, and aimed the dagger at their neck.
“…I’m now fully… re-ready.”
Haha. Sabelli laughed pleasantly even while exhaling rough breaths. Anya withdrew the dagger, rose from his spot, and extended his hand to Sabelli. Sabelli grasped Anya’s hand.
“Trust in fate, boy.”
* * *
After erasing all traces in the cave, Anya followed Sabelli and set out on the road again. He thought they might cross the end of the gorge to go all the way to that distant white curtain, the Beriela Mountain Range, but Sabelli retraced the path they had come.
Anya climbed back up through the gorge cliff he had climbed every day. In the distance, he could see the ice surface shining as it was struck by sunlight.
“Well, here it is.”
Sabelli put down his luggage near the lake. Anya looked back at him with a flustered face. Sabelli shrugged his shoulders.
“According to ancient texts written in spirit language, the Dragcals sleeps in Tildyen’s ice lake.”
The mage who was once young and clever had a hobby of collecting all kinds of ancient texts, intoxicated by those unknown beings. Actually, to call it a hobby didn’t quite fit somewhere.
It was closer to an obsession that shook his entire life. He traveled all over the continent, frantically following the footsteps of spirits that had long since disappeared from this land. When he ran out of money, he occasionally treated noble lords suffering from incurable diseases. And he spent all the money he gathered again on buying ancient texts and relics, and on deciphering forgotten languages.
‘Sabelli. You’re a madman. Are you going to live like that your whole life?’
Everyone clicked their tongues saying it was a foolish thing, wondering why he didn’t enter as a healer for some wealthy noble and accumulate wealth, but Sabelli chose the path of traveling throughout the western continent. It eventually became his life itself, so that he could never return to what was before.
“The la-lake…?”
Anya asked again, thinking he had heard wrong. It was a completely unexpected place.
“Before… ma-master said the Dragcals was a guardian that handles fi-fire, so how could it be in a la-lake…. Fire goes out when it touches water.”
Sabelli trembled finely at his own obsession that had finally reached this point and sat leaning against a tree.
“The current generation of humans have all forgotten, but… every 666 years, the ‘Eternal Night’ comes to this world.”
“The Eternal Night…?”
“It’s a dark period when the world is covered in darkness and the activities of monsters flourish. The Claicer Imperial Family, under the pretext of the world’s peace and stability, burned and destroyed all records about the night from all the empire’s libraries. Saying they were seeds of conflict.”
It was as quiet as if the world had died, and Sabelli’s words somehow carried the weight of an immeasurable deep anger.
“It’s known that the elves all left for the east because of the Eternal Night of the previous generation. At that time, they were consumed by darkness and suffered a great defeat in the last plateau battle. After their power was sealed, they had no choice but to leave for the east. After the elves disappeared from this world, the guardians dwelling in nature also gradually hid themselves. Those sacred but capricious souls greatly dislike humans who destroy balance…. Among them, the Dragcals said this as it sent off its last dying contractee.”
The story Sabelli conveyed was as distant as an ancient legend.
“Do not seek me again until dawn comes. I will sleep forever with my flames extinguished in the cold, aching abyss where dawn begins.”
And the Northerners called their great city, Tildyen, this way.
‘Until dawn comes.’
Anya quietly murmured.
“The city of pride that fights against darkness.”
Therefore, Tildyen was paradoxically the place where dawn begins.
