Volume 2. [RE: The Folk of Calm Currents]
Arc 4. "The Bear-y Best Bear."
Corvis Eralith
Hunting in the Elshire Forest had become my sanctuary.
At nine years old, with my body finally beginning the growth spurt I had been impatiently awaiting, every excursion into these ancient woods was an opportunity—a chance to push myself further, to test limits I couldn't explore under the watchful eyes of the Royal Palace or within the hidden depths of the Hallowed Hollow.
And doing it in winter, when snow blanketed everything in deceptive stillness and cold seeped into bones despite the warmest clothes, made it all the more valuable as training.
I leaped from snow-covered branch to snow-covered branch, my movements a careful balance between the agility of a hunting panther and the impossible lightness of a bird in flight.
My body, wrapped in classic elven hunter's garb tailored for my growing frame, resisted the cold not just through quality fabric but through the constant, subtle hum of mana that helped my systems adapt.
Four years of practice had made this second nature—the augmentation that kept me warm, the enhancement that let me leap distances that should have been impossible, the constant awareness of my own internal resources.
Since my "official" awakening—the day my family believed I had become a mage, shortly before my and Tessia's eighth birthday—I had been venturing deeper and more frequently into the Elshire Forest alone. The freedom was intoxicating. The solitude, necessary.
Today, I hunted near Vaelmora, the small elven hamlet where Great-aunt Rinia maintained her isolated chalet.
I had finally grown comfortable enough in my own skin—in my own identity—to call her Great-aunt without the mental reservation that had plagued me for years. The seer who knew my secret had become, slowly and unexpectedly, truly part of my family.
If Mom or especially Dad knew what Great-aunt encouraged me to do during these visits, I would never hear the end of it. Hunting alone at nine? Training without supervision? Pushing myself to the edge of exhaustion and beyond? They would wrap me in silk and lock me in my room until I turned fifty.
But this was necessary. Once a year since my seventh birthday, following our family's annual visit to Grear-aunt's chalet, I remained behind for an extra week. A week of freedom. A week of training I couldn't do anywhere else. A week of becoming something more than the careful, masked prince I presented to the world.
A sound from below snapped me back to the present.
I froze mid-stride, my weight balanced on a branch that creaked softly under the snow. My eyes scanned the undergrowth, ears straining against the forest's winter quiet.
There—movement between the lower bushes. Subtle and cautious.
I reached for my makeshift bow, a weapon I had crafted myself from supple wood and treated sinew. Normal bows were still too large for my hands, and commissioning a new one every time I outgrew the previous was both wasteful and conspicuous. This crude instrument served its purpose, even if it lacked the elegance of true elven craftsmanship.
The string tensed beneath my fingers.
Below, a mana beast emerged from the bushes, its head lifting to survey its surroundings. A Carnetil—a deer-like creature with a distinctive reddish coat that stood out against the white snow.
It shook its head vigorously, dislodging the accumulation of snow that had gathered on its antlers during its foraging.
I crouched lower, holding my breath, and extended my awareness toward the more difficult task: suppressing my mana signature.
This was why I hunted here. This was why I pushed myself in these woods rather than in controlled environments. In the five years since the Red Gorge, since Cherry's death, since my failed attempt to claim a Beast Will, I had been chasing something new.
A technique I remembered from the novel—Mirage Walk, the signature ability of the Pantheons of the Thyestes Clan, some of the strongest Asuras.
Arthur had learned it in Epheotus, in the impossible landscape of Everbosk—how the Verticil called the Asuran homeland, what in other religions would have been called heaven, or the gods's land—where all seasons existed simultaneously in harmony.
I had only the Elshire Forest. I had only winter, with its bare branches and watchful silences. I had only my own stubborn refusal to accept that some heights were beyond reach.
Mana beasts, even weak ones like this Carnetil, could perceive mana signatures far better than the average elven mage. If I could mask myself from them, I could mask myself from most.
The theory of Mirage Walk was clear in my mind, or so I hoped—I had dissected it from every angle, compared it to everything I knew about mana suppression, about camouflage, about the fundamental nature of how living creatures perceived magical energy.
Practice, however, remained elusive. Arthur had trained in the presence of Asuras, in environments saturated with power that responded to his every need. I had snow, and trees, and the constant, gnawing fear that I was reaching for something my lesser body could never grasp.
The Carnetil, satisfied that no immediate threat lurked nearby, stepped fully into the clearing.
In the years my royal education had expanded to include subjects I had previously ignored. I had learned, among many other things, that elvenkind possessed an ancient language predating the Beast Era—a tongue spoken when elves, humans, and dwarves were still nomads, before kingdoms rose.
That language had almost completely vanished, its only remnants preserved in the names of mana beasts, in place names, in cultural traditions that had lost their original meaning but kept their original words.
Carnetil. Red-coat. The name fit.
The creature moved into perfect alignment with my position—no branches, no leaves, no obstacles between my arrow and its vital organs. A clean shot. A merciful shot.
Ars Terramorph answered my call. Earth magic, refined over years of practice, shaped a sleek arrow from the stone at my belt. But stone alone could not fly true.
That required Ars Ariamorph—wind magic, shaped and directed, guided by principles I had developed with Elder Camus's help.
Mana coalesced around my fingers. The stone arrow shifted slightly, acquiring the perfect balance I had learned to demand. I nocked it, drew and aimed.
One single shot was all I needed.
I released.
The arrow flew true—my aim guided by enhanced vision, my accuracy guaranteed by wind magic that corrected for every variable the forest could impose.
The Carnetil never saw it coming. One moment it stood, graceful and alert. The next, it crumpled, its body falling onto the snow with a soft thump that seemed too quiet for the finality it represented.
For a heartbeat—just one—I saw something else.
A Sand Dweller, falling in a Darvish tunnel five years ago, killed by Olfred Warend's casual efficiency.
Cherry's massive form, collapsing after Olfred's halberd separated head from body.
My own death, brief and absolute, the beak closing around my neck, the snap that shouldn't have led to waking but somehow did.
I shook my head violently, banishing the images. They came less frequently now, but they still came. The price of living with death, I supposed. The cost of carrying memories that shouldn't exist.
I leaped from my branch, using Ars Ariamorph to soften my landing just as Elder Camus had shown me.
The technique had become second nature now—a cushion of wind that turned a potentially dangerous drop into a gentle descent.
The snow crunched beneath my feet as I landed.
I had discovered, over these years of solitary practice, that giving names to my techniques helped immensely in casting them. Ars Aquamorph for water. Ars Terramorph for earth. Ars Ariamorph for wind. The names themselves seemed to carry weight, to focus intent, to mean something.
This was Insight—the same principle that caused mages to name their attacks, to imbue them with conceptual power.
It was also, I suspected, the reason Alacryan runes and Djinnic spellforms came with names attached. The Insight was engraved in the magic itself, making those techniques less versatile but devastatingly powerful in their specific applications.
I approached the Carnetil's body, already calculating how to dress it properly, how to preserve the meat for transport. But something caught my eye before I could begin.
The trees around me bore scars. Deep gouges in their bark, claw marks carved by something powerful enough to leave permanent wounds in ancient wood.
I crouched beside the Carnetil, one hand resting on its still-warm flank, my eyes tracing the marks. These weren't fresh—they had healed over, the bark attempting to reclaim the wounds—but they weren't old either.
"This has never been a place for predators," I murmured to myself. "At least not remarkable ones..."
Was this what the Carnetil had been hiding from?
Had it sensed something in these woods that my human—elven—senses had missed? The claw marks spoke of a mana beast substantial enough to leave its signature on the landscape, powerful enough to mark its territory in a way that would warn away lesser creatures.
I lifted the Carnetil onto my shoulders. The scene must have looked absurd—a nine-year-old boy carrying a full-grown deer on his too-small frame—but mana made it possible.
At the light stage of the orange core now, the boundaries between augmenter and conjurer were continuing to blur. I could enhance my strength while simultaneously shaping elemental forces, could push my body beyond its natural limits while bending the world around me to my will.
My progress in core cultivation, however, had slowed to a crawl. Since Cherry's core, I had found no source of mana as deep, or as rich and as generous.
The natural absorption of ambient mana was agonizingly slow, and my growing body demanded energy for itself, diverting resources away from core advancement.
Every year made cultivation harder, not easier.
It was frustrating. It was pathetic, compared to what Arthur had achieved. But Arthur had had a lifetime of true experience. I had what I could steal, what I could learn, what I could scrape together from the edges of a world that didn't know it was doomed.
And I had memoryless knowledge of a Earth I wasn't sure it existed anymore.
I used Ars Aquamorph to clean the Carnetil's body, stripping away snow and debris, preserving the meat as best I could. Great-aunt would scold me—scold was too strong a word, but she would certainly comment—if I brought back meat of less than optimal quality.
The claw marks on the trees drew my gaze again. I would ask in Vaelmora, I decided. Inquire about predator activity in the past year. The villagers would know if something dangerous had moved into these woods. And if they didn't...
If they didn't, I would have to investigate myself.
I adjusted the Carnetil on my shoulders and began the walk back to Great-aunt's chalet. Snow continued to fall, soft and persistent, blanketing the forest in white. The silence was profound, broken only by my footsteps and the occasional whisper of wind through branches.
Five years since the Red Gorge. Five years since I had died and somehow returned. Five years since Cherry's Beast Will had touched my soul and been torn away by forces I still didn't understand. Five years since my sister and best friend became mages.
I was nine now. Almost ten. The war, in the canon timeline, was less than seven years away. Seven years to prepare. Seven years to grow. Seven years to become something capable of facing what was coming.
—
I shook my body like a wet dog, snow scattering in all directions as I crossed the threshold into Great-aunt's chalet.
The warmth hit me immediately—a blessed, bone-deep heat that made me realize just how cold I had become during my hours in the forest. The hearth dominated the large room, its flames the only source of light, casting dancing shadows across walls lined with dried herbs and preserved goods.
Great-aunt appeared at my side, her movements silent despite her age. She took the Carnetil's carcass from my shoulders with a strength that belied her frail appearance, then reached for the heavy pelts covering me.
"These clothes weigh more than you do, Corvis." She draped the wet furs over the sofa, where they immediately began dripping onto the wooden floor.
"They don't cause problems," I protested, though my body's shivering betrayed me.
"I can see that." She eyed the Carnetil appraisingly. "I'll store this. You warm yourself by the hearth."
"I can do it myself!" I reached for the carcass, but Great-aunt's hand intercepted mine with a soft slap—the same gesture she used on Grandpa, though considerably gentler.
"Rest." The word was an order, and it sounded so much like my parents, like Alea when I pushed myself too far in training, that I found myself obeying without further argument.
When she returned, I had already removed my boots and was cleaning them of snow. The fire crackled pleasantly, and for a moment, I allowed myself to simply be warm and safe, momentarily free of the weight I carried.
"I found strange claw marks on the trees while hunting." I kept my voice casual, but my eyes watched her carefully. "Do you know anything about them?"
Great-aunt settled into the armchair opposite mine, her ancient eyes studying me with that disconcerting intensity she sometimes wielded. She thought for a moment, then:
"I heard some worried whispers in Vaelmora. Nothing concrete. I didn't pay them much mind."
"And have you... seen anything?" The question hung between us, weighted with meaning.
"No, child." She shook her head slowly. "No visions."
I had learned, over the years since my first tentative conversations with her, that the differences between my world and the novel ran deeper than I had initially understood.
Mordain Asclepius, it seemed, had never taught her aether.
Her glimpses of the future came sporadically, uncontrollably—not through active divination but through episodes that struck without warning. She could feel discrepancies in time, could sense when something was wrong, but she could not command her gift the way the novel had suggested.
That was how she had known about me. That was how she had looked at a two-year-old and seen a reincarnated soul.
But it also meant Mordain Asclepius had never left his Hearth. And probably he had never sent Dawn to parley with Agrona. The High Sovereign had never captured her and never discovered how to rip souls from other worlds and plant them here.
Which meant King Grey and Nico Sever had never been reincarnated, explaining Arthur's absence.
Which meant I would never have to face the Legacy.
The realization settled into me like a stone dropping into still water, ripples spreading outward, touching every corner of my carefully constructed plans.
If Arthur didn't exist because the circumstances of his reincarnation had never occurred... then perhaps the war itself would be different. Perhaps Dicathen's defeat wasn't inevitable.
Perhaps things weren't as hopeless as I had always believed.
"I see." The words came out softer than I intended.
"You're lost in thought again, Corvis." Great-aunt's eyes narrowed, seeing more than I wanted her to see.
I nodded, not bothering to deny it. "I'm going to Vaelmora. To investigate what kind of mana beast is lurking nearby."
"You want to fight it?"
"Yes."
She laughed—a short, sharp sound of genuine amusement. "You're too much like your grandfather!"
The comparison startled me. "Am I?"
"Has he ever told you how he obtained his Beast Will?"
I shook my head. Grandpa had shared countless stories over the years, tales of battles and adventures and the glory days of his youth. But the origin of his Shadow Panther's Beast Will? Never.
"In his youth, Virion hunted alone in the woods." Great-aunt's voice took on the cadence of a storyteller, someone who had told this tale many times but still found joy in the telling. "He tracked aggressive mana beasts, the ones too dangerous for normal hunters, the ones that threatened villages. He did it as a prince, long before he wore the crown."
"Just like me." The words escaped before I could stop them.
"Just like you." She smiled. "And that was how he gained his Beast Will. That was also how he met your grandmother."
I blinked. "Really?"
"Me and Lania were harvesting berries in the forest. We heard a commotion, followed the sound, and found a young elf—passed out, bleeding, one hand buried in a Shadow Panther's abdomen and his weapon through its neck." She chuckled at the memory. "Your grandfather, Prince Virion Eralith, in all his glory, collapsed and dying, surrounded by the corpse of a creature that should have killed him."
"Grandpa?" The image was almost impossible to reconcile with the man I knew—the living legend, the greatest warrior of his age.
"Your grandmother's prince charming fell right into her arms." Great-aunt's smile turned wistful. "She never let him forget it."
"That sounds too much like a fable to be true."
She shrugged, still smiling. "Sometimes reality is exactly like that."
I thought of my own life—reincarnated into a world I had read about, surrounded by people who should have been characters, living a story that had already been written. She was right. Reality was like that. Stranger than fiction, because fiction had to make sense.
I stood, my body finally warm enough to face the cold again.
"Where are you going?" Great-aunt asked.
"To Vaelmora." I reached for my drying pelts. "If this is truly something Grandpa would have done, then I'm more than happy to follow his example."
She watched me with those ancient, knowing eyes. "You've truly grown, Corvis."
I paused, turning to look at her. "I've always been like this. I went to an S-Class dungeon at five. Danger has never stopped me."
Great-aunt was the only person I have ever told of that particular trip to the Red Gorge—if I told anyone else the repercussions of being with Olfred in a Sapin controlled dungeon wouldn't be escapable anymore.
"That's not what I meant." She leaned forward, her expression shifting to something softer, more vulnerable. "The first time I saw you, you were a scared child. Terrified of everything. Terrified of being seen, of being known, of being real. You've grown from that. That's what I meant."
I didn't answer. I couldn't. Her words had landed somewhere deep, somewhere I kept locked away, and I didn't know what to do with the ache they left behind.
I simply pressed my lips together, pulled on my pelts, and walked out into the snow.