Vanish Like Smoke

In the black-and-white interwoven Shadow Realm, Gawain, Amber, Betty, and an unnamed Wild Mage sat around a crude wooden table in a humble cabin. Before them was the lunch Betty had just made—simple slices of bread, fried sausages, and some vegetable soup.

Everything was devoid of color, like an old black-and-white photograph.

Gawain had no intention of touching the food before him. Though it was indeed possible to cook in the Shadow Realm, he truly did not dare guess what might happen if a living human like himself—probably—ate something from this place.

Amber and Betty beside him likewise did not touch their knives and forks.

The Wild Mage across the table did not urge them. He merely ate the food before him in silence, appearing very calm.

An eerie unspoken understanding hung over the cabin.

Gawain was the first to break the silence. "How long have you been here?"

"A long time," the Wild Mage said politely as he set down his knife and fork. "I settled here in the second year after leaving the Arcane Society."

"You used to be a member of the Arcane Society?" Gawain asked, somewhat surprised. "I thought you had always been a Wild Mage."

"I was originally a second-level member of the Arcane Society," the Wild Mage said quietly. "By the Society's standards, I was a poor spellcaster—I was good at calculation and deduction, but lacked the ability to turn them into Spell Models. In other words, my spellcasting would forever remain at the beginner level. Mages like that were not welcome in the Arcane Society."

"So they drove you out?" Amber found it hard to believe. She knew that a genuine mage was valuable, even one with poor spellcasting. Poor was only in the eyes of those arcane masters; to Ordinary People, even a mage who could only cast a small fireball was an extraordinary figure. Even if such low-level spellcasters were not valued within the Arcane Society, they should not have been thrown out.

"I left of my own accord," the Wild Mage said, shaking his head before turning to Betty. "For my daughter. To cure her, I had no choice but to leave."

Betty stared blankly at the Wild Mage, then nodded in a muddled daze.

Gawain did not press the matter. Instead, he stared into the Wild Mage's eyes, his right hand resting on the hilt of the sword at his waist as he said slowly, "You should know why we came. We do not have much time to waste."

The Wild Mage's stiff, sluggish expression finally changed slightly. His body trembled, and he lowered his head. "...Guest, I do not quite understand what you mean."

Betty looked at Gawain nervously. "Master?"

Gawain frowned. After a moment, he removed his hand from the hilt of the Pioneer's Sword and softened his tone. "Then we'll wait a little longer."

The Wild Mage lowered his head and continued eating his meal quietly and silently. The only extra movement he made during the meal was occasionally lifting his head to glance at Betty beside him.

Food would eventually be finished, and Gawain could not wait forever.

The Wild Mage swallowed the last bite of sausage, then carefully wiped the vegetable soup clean from his bowl with a slice of bread. After finishing, he looked in Betty's direction—but his eyes were not focused on Betty at all. They were fixed on somewhere farther away. His body swayed as if he were trying to stand, but he failed after several attempts.

In the end, Betty was the one who helped him up.

"Dad, I'm leaving," the little girl said, supporting the Wild Mage by the arm and only letting go after making sure he was standing steadily. She shuffled over to Gawain's side. "Miss Rebecca and Mistress Heti are still waiting for me—and Master has come too."

The Wild Mage's lips moved. At last, he nodded gently. His expression had already calmed, and he carefully gave his instructions: "Don't eat things strangers give you." "Go to bed on time." "Remember to listen to your teacher." "Don't fight with other children."

The light of reason was gradually fading from this poor man's eyes. Gawain knew that everything he was saying now was delirious rambling.

Though he had scarcely been lucid throughout the whole time.

The Wild Mage's figure gradually faded, but amid that increasingly dim phantom, something like a flame suddenly ignited. Gawain had been waiting for this moment. He swiftly drew the Pioneer's Sword, and a faint glow surged over its blade.

Amber quickly pulled Betty into her arms and covered the little girl's eyes just in time.

Gawain thrust his sword into the flame in the Wild Mage's chest. The flame shuddered violently. The Wild Mage, who had already begun transforming into an evil spirit, abruptly stopped changing. His illusory figure rapidly solidified into flesh, then blazing fire devoured him and burned his entire body into a grotesque, terrifying corpse of charred remains.

It burned for a full half minute before the corpse finally crumbled completely into ash.

Cracking sounds came from all directions. Having lost its master, the little cabin rapidly began to fall apart. Dense cracks covered the walls and roof in the blink of an eye, and the pale light of the outside world spilled into the room through the gaps in the planks.

Gawain grabbed Amber and Betty and rushed out of the house. At the instant they escaped, the cabin completely collapsed.

The fallen cabin burst into flames before their eyes. The blaze lasted only a short while, as though what had burned was not a wooden house but a house made of paper.

As the cabin gradually turned to ash and scattered in the wind, Amber suddenly grabbed Gawain's arm and pointed at the cabin's foundation with a startled cry. "Hey, hey! Look at that!"

Gawain focused his gaze and saw glowing lines brightening beneath the ashes of the cabin. Light shone through the drifting soot, gradually forming a complex and enormous structure—it was clearly a large magic circle.

"This was probably the Wild Mage's greatest achievement in his life," Gawain said with a slight nod. "And this magic circle was probably what went wrong, leading him to this state."

As he spoke, Betty's figure gradually transformed into drifting motes of light. The motes circled twice in place, then swiftly flew in the direction from which Gawain and Amber had come.

Amber lowered her head to look at her hands. The hands that had turned grayish-white were regaining their color, and as color returned to her and Gawain, the Shadow Realm's rejection of them became increasingly obvious.

Vague shapes condensed from the thin mist around them. They had no physical forms at all, but they clearly harbored ill intent. The native inhabitants of the Shadow Realm had finally caught the scent of outsiders. Some of the creatures from the shallowest layers emerged and gradually gathered like hyenas smelling blood.

"We have to get out of here!" Amber said to Gawain. "This place is starting to dislike us!"

Gawain gave the ruins of the cabin one final long look, trying to memorize those glowing lines and symbols, then grabbed Amber's arm. "Go!"

After a brief dizziness, the sight of the real world appeared before him once more.

The Vengeful Spirit Mist had dispersed, and the dense forest had returned to normal. Rebecca and Heti, exhausted and drained, were leaning against a tree while supporting each other. Knight Byron propped himself up with his longsword and barely stood guard beside the two Mistresses, while the two surviving soldiers had already collapsed on the ground.

Betty was probably in the best condition of them all—she stood beside Rebecca holding a frying pan in a daze, as though that vacant expression had been fixed onto her face.

The moment Heti saw Gawain, she forced herself upright. "Ancestor—it is wonderful that you are safe and unharmed!"

Then she noticed Amber following behind Gawain, and her expression immediately became strange. "This thief did not run away after all?"

"Hey! What's with that double standard?" Amber instantly sprang up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. "Your ancestor and I just risked our lives in the Shadow Realm to save you, all right? You big-breasted, brainless old woman—"

Heti had never expected this young thief to dare curse at her face-to-face. Her expression immediately darkened. "Silence! This is utterly insolent! Do you know what it means to insult a noble like this—"

Gawain hurriedly stepped between them to smooth things over. "Don't argue, don't argue. Amber wasn't lying. The two of us really did resolve the crisis together just now—though her calling you big-breasted afterward was indeed her fault..."

The scene fell silent for a moment. Rebecca cautiously raised her hand. "Ancestor, that was the only complimentary word Amber said, and you rejected it..."

Heti looked utterly dead inside.

Gawain: "..."

Fortunately, Heti was a sensible person and did not dwell on such trivial matters for long. Once Gawain explained what had happened, all misunderstandings vanished like smoke.

What Gawain and Amber had seen and experienced in the Shadow Realm left everyone astonished. Even Knight Byron, who knew nothing about magic, could not help coming over to listen for quite a while.

After all, it was an experience beyond the imagination of ordinary people.

"You can actually enter the Shadow Realm?" As expected, Heti was first concerned with Amber's unusual ability. She looked Amber up and down suspiciously several times, as if she could find the answer on the Half-elf girl's face. "Only a handful of Shadow Element High Rank Mages or the 'Chosen' of the Shadow Element gods possess this ability. How did you do it?"

Amber turned her face away. "What if I'm the Goddess of the Night's Chosen?"

Heti glared at her. "Stop joking. Could a Chosen be knocked to the ground by Byron with an ordinary steel sword?"

"Enough, don't keep asking," Gawain finally said, stopping Heti from getting to the bottom of it. "I already promised her I would not pursue this. When she wants to tell us, she naturally will."

With heaven and earth so vast, the ancestor was still the greatest of all. Since Gawain had spoken, Heti could only let the matter drop.

"Let us bury the dead first," Gawain said. With the mist gone, warmth returned to everyone. Seeing that they had all recovered a little strength, he rose and walked to the soldier who had died from a shattered soul. "He fought bravely too. He should be buried like a warrior."

The two surviving soldiers looked at Gawain in surprise.

Gawain was somewhat puzzled. "What? Did I say something wrong?"

"He was born to serfs," Knight Byron said as he approached from the side. "Viscountess Rebecca issued a decree of mercy, allowing serfs like him the chance to join the territory's army and earn their freedom through service. But he had only served for half a year, so he was still a serf. Someone of that status cannot be buried as a warrior."

Gawain frowned and looked at Rebecca. "Is that so?"

Rebecca immediately became nervous as if she had done something wrong. "Y-yes... I'm sorry! But I thought the serf system really wasn't... wasn't very reasonable, so I let them earn their freedom through service. I know that goes against the rules, but..."

Gawain's brow relaxed slightly. "No, I'm not blaming you."

Then he bent down, fumbled in his clothes, and took out a coin. He placed it in the dead soldier's breast pocket, against his heart.

That coin had been personally placed there by Charles I when Gawain Cecil was buried Seven Hundred Years Ago.

The instant Amber saw the coin, she realized what it was. Then she covered her eyes. "Dear gods... at least half an estate..."

But Gawain himself was completely unaware of its value. He merely followed the customs he remembered, then dusted off his hands and stood. "Someone has redeemed the debt owed by his soul. Bury him."

Byron hesitated slightly. "But the rules..."

Gawain glanced at him. "I am the rules."