Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Outcome Had Changed

First, I needed to act just like before.

There was something I had to get from him.

"Mago?"

"Ah... nothing, my Prince. You said you had something to give me."

Until then, I had to speak with the same old obedience. I rose and bowed.

"Did you enjoy your studies abroad, my Prince?"

"Not really. Felt like a waste to just study in a place like that."

That was what he'd said when he left.

"The northwest?"

"Yeah. It snows there every single day. Mago, have you ever seen snow?"

I shook my head.

"Sure, it's incredible when it's falling, but the snow on the ground is even more beautiful. Imagine the whole world turned white."

I couldn't really picture it, but it must have been breathtaking.

"And the feeling of stepping onto untouched snow for the first time—there's nothing like it!"

"That must have been... wonderful for you."

"The snow's one thing, but Mago..."

The Prince kept boasting.

For someone like me, who'd never even left the manor, hearing about such beauty only made me feel worse.

"Nothing is more dazzling than the aurora. You'd want to pull out your eyes that captured the sight and keep them in a glass bottle."

He described beauty in terrible words. He spread his arms wide.

"A night embroidered with the Milky Way. Curtains of every color unfurling across the sky."

I thought of the white curtain that had flown away—the one that rose like it had wings and finally escaped over the stone wall.

"No, no. 'Unfurling' might be a clumsy word. Can it even be described at all?"

"I wouldn't know."

"Yeah. You wouldn't. You've been a slave all this time."

He rummaged through his pocket and pulled out a wooden tablet.

"So I really want you to see it too."

A pair of overlapping wings was carved in relief on it.

"This is the Symbol of a Freeman."

The first time I saw it, I'd been startled. Now, I felt almost indifferent. I knew it was a fate already written.

"It's yours, Mago."

A fate that would lead only to misfortune.

"I didn't just mess around during my studies abroad, you know. I learned a few things along the way, and it changed my thinking."

The Prince cleared his throat and continued.

"I've started to hate treating people like objects. As far as I can see, the Empire is the only place that still has slavery. Can't stay a frog at the bottom of a well forever, right?"

And so, the Prince handed me freedom.

"Do they teach things like that in the northern countries? New ideas that change your whole worldview?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"It snows every day there. And there are auroras."

"And starting today, you can go too."

He pressed the symbol into my hand, then bent my fingers closed around it.

Hold it tight.

As if to steel my will.

"Getting curious about the north?"

I nodded.

"It's always been my dream."

"Good. But you'll need money to travel. How about working here at the estate? Properly, I mean."

"Properly..."

"I'll pay you the same as the other servants. Save up and then go on your journey. You're a free man now, so you can do whatever you want—but I'd prefer you stay for a while."

That wooden tablet and that one sentence from the Prince turned my entire fate upside down.

Back then, I felt half joy and half humiliation.

Just a scrap of wood.

Just a few words.

It disgusted me that something so petty could control my entire future.

But now, the humiliation was gone.

This time, I would be the one to change his fate.

"It probably wasn't the best of memories for you, but you stayed on all these years. That's practically family, right? You can start treating me like a friend if you want—"

"Kinzo. Your family."

"Huh? You're dropping formalities already... well, I don't mind."

"Where are they now?"

"Oh... uh, my mother and siblings?"

Kinzo was flustered but trying to adapt.

"They're waiting at the cemetery. I have to carry the coffins there with my cousins."

"We have to go now."

"Yeah, I'm going."

"Right now."

"I can't go right now. Everyone needs to get ready first. What's gotten into you?"

If we don't go right now, there'll be more coffins needed.

"Forget it."

"Mago...?"

I ignored him and sprinted toward the stable, where the commotion had happened earlier.

A servant blocked my way.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"I need a horse."

"What are you talking about? You're not allowed outside the gate. Trying to become a runaway slave?"

I pulled out the Symbol of a Freeman that Kinzo had given me and held it up.

"Move."

"Wha—!"

Before he could finish, I shoved past him and walked inside. I untied the rope that had been looped around a stable post.

"You don't even know how to handle a horse!"

I yanked the reins and stroked the brown mare's neck as if to show him. The animal, which had been skittish, calmed down instantly.

I'd handled far more vicious warhorses than this—a mere pony was nothing.

Gripping the reins, I led her out. The servant's dumbfounded face flickered past.

Kinzo stared at me as if I'd lost my mind.

"Let's go."

"What? Do you have any idea how insane you look right now?"

"No. And even if I did, I wouldn't care."

"Look, Mago, I get that you're excited—"

The Prince smiled faintly.

That smile triggered a memory—his eye, pierced by a fire arrow, flashed through my mind. The screams I'd heard before echoed in my ears like phantom sounds.

Any moment now, the arrows would fly.

I tensed every muscle, ready to react.

"But still, you need to calm down a little—"

Right then, a fire arrow streaked toward Kinzo's eye.

I thrust out my left arm and snatched it out of the air.

The arrow stopped cold in my grip—not even an inch closer to the target. The flaming tip hung uselessly in my hand.

Right now, for the first time, the outcome I knew had changed.

"There's..."

Kinzo's jaw dropped.

A moment later, the sky filled with the sound of splitting wind.

I followed the noise with my eyes. A swarm of arrows soared over the stone wall.

"Kinzo!"

I lunged, slamming him flat to the ground.

An instant later, dozens of fire arrows rained down on the estate—

on its people—

on the mourners—

piercing them, burning them all.

Screams and wails erupted.

A man on horseback shouted from beyond the main gate. He wore a navy uniform—Imperial Army.

"A monster incursion! Evacuate immediately!"

Monsters.

"Hurry! The north is already falling!"

The north.

"Move! Move now!"

I was about to tell him to save himself—

But an arrow struck him, and he dropped dead.

I grabbed Kinzo and heaved him onto the saddle. I swung up behind him and we bolted for the back gate.

"Mago! Mago, my mother and siblings..."

"Don't you think I know that?"

I spurred the horse as fast as it could go.

Last time, the rest of his family had died horribly too. But if we left now, maybe things would be different.

I gritted my teeth and lashed the reins.

Soon enough, we reached the cemetery.

"Mother..."

We had arrived, but the cemetery lived up to its name.

No one alive was there.

The arrow's outcome had changed—Kinzo's eye was saved—but some things remained fixed.

The moment his family had set out for the graveyard, it was already too late.

"Kids..."

Kinzo muttered, digging through the pile of corpses. With every movement, his own clothes soaked deeper in blood.

"Kinzo, we have to go now. We came in the opposite direction of an evacuation route. If we don't leave now, we'll die too."

"No. No, that's not true."

"Kinzo."

"How can I survive alone..."

"We have to go."

I grabbed his arm and pulled.

He tried to shake me off, but I only tightened my grip.

"Mago!"

I forced him onto the saddle, practically throwing him up.

"I can't go! I'd rather die here too—!"

I ignored him and lashed the reins.

"You'd rather die? Don't be ridiculous. The eye I saved today—it's going to save tens of thousands of lives."

Kinzo's gaze was still locked on the cemetery. His fingertips reached backward, but we only moved forward.

There was no other choice.

Time passed.

I turned my head and looked behind us.

The places we'd passed were blazing like kindling.

I could see goblins and orcs. That green army numbered in the hundreds.

And behind them, thousands, tens of thousands more followed.

Farther off, two wolves approached.

A red wolf and a black wolf.

They were the size of a mountain—no exaggeration.

A moving Demon King's Castle.

From inside the wolves' bodies, black specks burst forth.

From this distance, they looked like dots, but they were clearly winged monsters.

The two wolves exhaled steam from their backs and flames from their mouths as they walked.

Seeing that sight for the second time, it felt even more vivid.

And the despair I'd felt before was even greater.

"I spent my whole life as a slave, and I finally got my freedom."

I gripped the reins tighter.

So hard I felt like I might crush them.

"Today, I was supposed to return to my homeland and see my family again..."

Kinzo's voice came from behind me, barely a whisper.

I could feel the trembling in his hands clutching my clothes.

In his hands, rage.

In my right hand, wings.

The Symbol of a Freeman that Kinzo had given me.

"I was going to go on a journey... for the first time, my dreams felt real."

The northern aurora had seemed close enough to touch.

"My wild past was becoming just a memory. I was going to show my family that I could live a steady life."

A happy family had seemed right around the corner.

"I was supposed to see white snow. The Milky Way and the aurora."

"I was going to take my mother and my siblings north. I told them there was a beauty there that changed me."

This was the second time I'd faced this scene, but I felt the exact same way as the first.

If anything, it cut deeper.

"All of it... because of me."

"All of it..."

Our regrets tangled together at that point.

We spewed curses. We spat fury.

"I'm going to kill them."

---

Half a day passed.

The horse, exhausted from running until it could run no more, slowed to a walk.

We merged into a stream of refugees heading south, toward the capital.

"Look. Over there."

One of the refugees pointed to the right.

Soldiers on black horses came into view. Their uniforms were black too, matching their mounts.

In the Imperial Army, black was a color that meant something special. Something extraordinary.

The Imperial Army's Special Mission Unit—for short—

"It's the Special Forces!"

"Th-the Black Knights!"

Their appearance had earned them that nickname.

"Damn tax thieves! Why'd you only show up now—"

"The Special Forces are here!"

"Perfect timing. My house is already ash."

The people's gazes toward the Special Forces split into two.

Hope, or despair.

"Mago, that must be them. The Special Forces. Too late, but still."

"They're early, actually."

"Early?"

"Normally, the elite units only move after the enemy's momentum is broken. To drive in the final wedge. But if the Special Forces are visible now, it means the other troops haven't even deployed yet. Without the Special Forces, there's no chance of winning."

"Huh? How do you know all that?"

"I picked it up here and there."

"Hmm... Mago."

Kinzo looked back and forth between me and the distant column of black riders.

"You're strong and fast, right? I bet you're a good fighter. Have you ever been in a real fight?"

Too many to count.

"Yeah."

"Could you beat monsters too?"

"Right now? I could."

He thought it over for about three seconds. Then, in a low voice, he said what he'd already decided. A conclusion forged in vengeance.

"Then let's join the Imperial Army together. Become soldiers."

In this life, I could have gone a different way. Become a mercenary. Moved alone.

But I couldn't ignore the people I'd failed before.

Now that I had a chance to pull them back from the brink of death, I wouldn't let regret swallow me again.

"Okay."

It was the only choice that made sense.