Pagopoi 15, Imperial Year 1643
The Crossroads Inn, Southern Mercia
The inn was called the Wanderer's Rest, a stout building of stone and timber at the junction of two old roads. Smoke rose from its chimney, and the windows glowed with warm light. Travelers came and went – merchants, farmers, pilgrims – and the innkeeper's wife served stew and ale to anyone with coin.
Elara Greenhill pushed open the door and stepped inside, snow melting from her cloak. Behind her came Roderick, Rosalind, Miku, Hikari, and Kaito. Natsuki and Rin had gone north to scout a rumor about a dwarf blacksmith who might be one of their missing classmates; they would meet again in a month.
The common room was crowded. Elara found a table in the corner and signaled the others to sit.
"Warm," Miku said, rubbing her hands. "I had forgotten what warm felt like."
"Fifty days of winter will do that," Rosalind said. She signaled the innkeeper's wife for ale and bread.
Elara scanned the room. Merchants haggled over prices. A farmer complained about taxes. Near the hearth, a cluster of pilgrims sat together, their robes travel‑stained, their faces still pale. They spoke in low voices, but did not look at anyone else.
Pilgrims, Elara thought. They look frightened. Something happened to them.
She dismissed them and turned to her friends.
"We need a new plan," she said. "We have been searching for months, and we have found only a handful. The others are scattered, and the assassin's killings have made travel dangerous."
"What do you suggest?" Roderick asked.
"We need more informants. More safe houses. And we need to find the teacher. He is the only one who might have a better sense of where everyone is."
"The teacher could be anywhere," Hikari said softly. "He was reincarnated as a noble's son, like Valeria. He might not even know we exist."
"He knows," Elara said. "He was in the darkness with us. He felt the other lights."
The innkeeper's wife arrived with ale and bread. The group fell silent, waiting for her to leave.
Then they heard it.
A voice from the bar – a man's voice, frustrated, sharp. He was speaking to the innkeeper, but the words were not Mercian. Not Elvish. Not the trade tongue.
"Mata ka? Naze mitsukaranai? Jibun no gakusei sae mitsukerarenai nante…"
Elara's blood went cold.
Japanese.
She looked at the others. Roderick's eyes had widened. Rosalind had gone pale. Miku's hand flew to her mouth.
The man at the bar was tall, broad‑shouldered, with brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He wore a knight's traveling clothes – a wool cloak, leather boots, a sword at his hip. He looked frustrated, tired, and utterly out of place.
But the words he spoke were the language of their first life.
"That's him," Elara whispered. "That's Yamamoto‑sensei."
The man did not see them coming.
Elara rose first, crossing the room with a calm she did not feel. Roderick followed, his bulk clearing a path. Rosalind and Miku flanked them.
The man – Reinhard von Falkenrath, though he did not know that name yet – was still complaining to the innkeeper, who looked thoroughly confused.
"I said, do you have any rooms? I have been on the road for weeks, and I cannot find—"
Elara touched his arm. "Excuse me."
He turned. His eyes were gray, tired, and for a moment, he looked at her with the polite annoyance of a traveler interrupted.
Then he saw the others. An orc. A halfling. A red‑haired woman. A half‑elf. A gnome. All of them staring at him with expressions he could not read.
"Can I help you?" he asked, in Mercian.
Elara leaned close and whispered, in Japanese, "Yamamoto‑sensei. We have been looking for you."
The man's face went white.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"Who are you?" he whispered, also in Japanese.
"Yuki Tanaka. Class president. We all died in the bombing. We were reincarnated. Just like you."
Reinhard stared at her. His hands trembled. Then, without another word, he stood, grabbed his pack, and followed them out of the inn.
The stable was cold and dark, lit only by a single lantern. The horses shifted in their stalls, curious but calm. Reinhard stood in the center of the group, looking at each of them in turn.
"Yuki," he said. "Haruki. Sakura. Miku. Hikari." He paused at Kaito. "Kaito? You are a gnome."
"And you are a human noble," Kaito said. "We all changed."
Reinhard laughed – a short, broken sound. "I have been searching for you for years. I traveled across Mercia, through Valdria, even into the Free Cities. I asked questions, followed rumors, chased ghosts." He sat down on a bale of straw. "I thought I was going mad."
"You are not mad," Elara said. "We are real. We are here."
"How many?"
"We have found nine, including myself. Plus Valeria – Sora Inoue – who supports us from her lands. Twenty still missing."
Reinhard rubbed his face. "Twenty. And me. Twenty‑one."
"We will find them," Roderick said. "Together."
Reinhard looked at him – at the tusks, the green skin, the red eyes. "You are not the boy I remember, Haruki."
"No. I am not." Roderick's voice was flat. "But I remember you. You stayed after class to help me with history. You never gave up on me."
Reinhard's eyes glistened. "I tried not to give up on any of you."
"You didn't," Elara said. "You are here. That is enough."
They returned to the inn, but not to the common room. Reinhard had rented a private chamber upstairs, and they crowded into it, sitting on the bed and the floor and the single chair.
"Tell me everything," Reinhard said. "How did you find each other? What have you learned about this world?"
Elara told him. The slow return of memories. The search. The ones they had found – Roderick, Rosalind, Miku, Hikari, Kaito, Natsuki, Rin, Finnian, Valeria. The ones they had not. The assassin, with his thunder weapon, killing corrupt nobles and a serial killer.
Reinhard listened without interrupting. When she finished, he was quiet for a long moment.
"The assassin," he said finally. "You think he is a reincarnator."
"It is possible. His weapon – a rifle – is not from this world. Neither is his method."
"Or he could be a native who stumbled upon knowledge," Rosalind said. "There are mages. There are alchemists."
"No native built that rifle," Kaito insisted. "I have been trying for years. The metallurgy alone is beyond anything in this world."
Reinhard held up a hand. "We do not know enough to judge. For now, we focus on finding the others. The assassin is not our concern."
Later that evening
The Common Room
They came down for supper, taking a table near the wall. The room had grown fuller – merchants settling in for the night, a traveling juggler entertaining a group of children, and at the far end, a cluster of pilgrims eating bread and stew in silence.
Elara noticed that other patrons kept glancing at the pilgrims. Whispers passed from table to table.
"…they were in the eastern forest…"
"…a demon, they say, with a beak for a face…"
"…killed the wolf that was hunting them…"
A merchant at the next table leaned toward his companion. "I heard it from a pilgrim who was there. Seven of them, on the road to the holy shrine. A killer had been stalking them – the same one who murdered all those travelers last year. Then, out of the forest, a figure appeared. Dressed all in black, with a mask like a raven's head. He had a weapon that spat thunder. He shot the killer five times – each shot a step closer – and then drove the man's own sword through his heart."
"That is just a story," the companion said.
"The pilgrims swear it. They have been telling everyone. The Raven, they call him. He saved their lives and vanished."
Elara exchanged a glance with Reinhard. The teacher's face was unreadable.
"Five shots," Kaito whispered. "A weapon that spits thunder. That is the same method."
"Not a rifle," Roderick said. "Something smaller. A pistol."
"He saved people," Hikari said softly. "The assassin saved innocent people."
"That does not make him one of us," Reinhard said. "But it makes him more than a simple killer."
The merchant continued. "They say the Raven spoke in an old tongue – like something from the sagas. 'I am not mercy. I am justice.' Then he was gone."
The common room fell silent for a moment. Then the juggler resumed his act, and the conversations picked up again.
Elara stared at her stew, her appetite gone.
The Raven, she thought. A man in a beaked mask, with thunder weapons, killing monsters and saving pilgrims.
Who are you?
That night, they slept in the inn, and Elara dreamed of a man in a beaked mask, walking through the snow, his boots leaving no prints.
She woke before dawn, and found Reinhard sitting by the window, staring at the stars.
"Sensei," she said.
He turned. "You do not need to call me that. We are not in a classroom anymore."
"You will always be my teacher."
He smiled – a tired, gentle smile. "And you will always be my class president." He paused. "I am glad I found you, Yuki. I was starting to lose hope."
"We found you," she said. "And we will find the others. Together."
He nodded. "Together."
End of Chapter Twelve