Chapter 4

Stranger Amidst the Friends

“I flick my finger and the Light warms me; I do not deny its presence, but its meaning.”

Mind of the Heretic, Vol. II

Just a few moments ago, Olivia O’vorell was having a peaceful afternoon, sipping Khaza-s’ tea and enjoying the mild, midday winds as they crusaded against her freshly washed hair basking in the pleasant sun. The view from her personal balcony afforded her a magnificent backdrop to anything she wished to do, a full, peripheral view of the southern side of the city, all the way down toward the distant gates.

To her, it was a day just like any other – she had nary an obligation to fulfill despite being a Princess, and save for the obligatory morning meal shared in by all of the family members, the rest of her days were passed any way she wanted them – and today, she wanted to spend it reading a good, historic novel while sunbathing. Those plans, however, were cut short by the abrupt arrival of her personal Dacent, a teacher that had followed from the crib, Vorvil.

He was a stumpy-looking man well in his sixties, decorated in a body full of white hairs rarely maintained, and a pair of yellowing, droopy eyes. He was perpetually garbed in tired-looking, gray robes, and woolen scarves during the long winters, and despite his rather unruly appearance, Olivia nary trusted another soul as much as she trusted him.

She was woken from her peaceful daydreaming by the sudden blast of the doors to her chambers being opened, and the following gasps as Vorvil came streaming to her side, huffing and puffing while trying to catch his breath. He appeared even worse for wear than usual, yet a faint flicker of excitement hung in his aging eyes.

Olivia maintained silence as she knew the man well – he wouldn’t storm in so unabashedly without a reason, so she merely waited for him to catch his breath so he could speak. Which, for a man well in his sixties who hardly took care of his body, took a while. Ten minutes, a while.

“—Y-your Highness…” Vorvil spoke in his usual, coarse voice, though a pitch higher this time around, clearly excited.

“Speak, Vorvil.” Olivia replied casually, though a small amount of the man’s energy transferred over to, turning into expectation. “What has got you up and about?”

"—an Outlander, Your Highness!" Vorvil's words shook Olivia deeply as she shot up to her feet. Her golden hair continued dripping droplets, her shimmering, amber-colored eyes widening into saucers – Outlander! There were very few times that word was uttered in the Kingdom, and yet each time it was, it would bring about unprecedented winds of change.

“Where?!” she asked quickly, patience quickly leaving her.

“The moment I had realized it,” Vorvil, seemingly not wanting to waste time either, quickly led her out of her chambers and down the winding, stone-cast corridor lit up by the glowing embers in the walls. “I had the Silent-boys carry him to my chambers.”

“Explain everything.” She said.

“About two hours ago,” Vorvil continued. “A disturbance happened outside the gates, on the plains – a man came running out of the woods, screaming in pain, bloodied from head to toe.”

“…”

“Guards quickly took him in and carried him over to the Herbal Bay,” the two took a sharp turn left as the corridor branched off into four directions, entering a set of spiraling stairs leading three floors deep. “I just happened to be there to pick up a few herbs for our session tomorrow when they carried him in. The man was clearly in a delusional state; his eyes were open, and he was muttering something – but, I quickly realized it was not any of the languages I knew.”

“—wait. Is he dying?” Olivia asked quickly, somewhat fearful to find out the answer.

"No," Vorvil quickly shook his head as they reached the end of the stairs, which gave way to another corridor, though this one much darker and damper than the one above. "It is strange; his fresh wounds appear shallow, though decently dangerous to the point where I had to let Physician Roggul accompany us, but not life-threatening. However, his body is riddled in deep scars – some bone-deep according to the Physician. I'm not sure what to make of his state, to be honest, Your Highness."

“Anything else?” Olivia asked, her excitement growing the closer they got to the Dacent’s chambers.

"We found nothing of note on his body," Vorvil explained. "His garb doesn't have any distinguishing features, though the underlying materials used seemed to be of high quality. In addition, the Physician was unable to identify how he got his current wounds or the majority of the scars on his body."

“What do you mean?” Olivia asked, frowning.

"The cuts appear too clean and precise, but too small to have been done in with a blade; some scars are also entirely radial, as though punctured by a needle as thick as a finger. So far, the most approximate answer that Master Roggul gave me is that it was done by some unknown branch of Light, but all the usual signs of it are missing – there is no residual Light remaining, the scars seemed entirely healed and lack the black pus around the edges, and there is no further radial scarring along the blood vessels around the wounds."

“…” Olivia remained silent as the two came to a stop in front of the ordinary-looking wooden doors. She tried her best to calm her ever-quickly beating heart, taking deep breaths in succession. After all, if the man truly was an Outlander, it might change her life completely.

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Outlanders, the true ones at least, appeared three times only in the Kingdom’s short history of six hundred years – the first time one appeared, he helped her Grand Ancestor, First King Allay, to unify the neighboring tribes into actual, military power and rebel against the local tyrant Kingdoms, establishing Lumina Kingdom and giving them the Light.

The second Outlander appeared just a hundred years after that, gifting late King Allay's son an Artefact -- the Wheel of Light – the power that reshaped the entire history of the Kingdom.

And the third time an Outlander appeared was well over a hundred and fifty years ago; unfortunately, the woman was on her dying breath, and they were unable to help her recover in the end.

And, now, if true, it might be the fourth time an Outlander appeared – and from the sound of it, unlike the last time, he wasn't dying. If so, and if Olivia managed to keep it a secret from the world, she might finally have the tools that she was never given before. But, first, she had to confirm it, one way or another.

Vorvil carefully opened the doors to his chambers, knowing full well what lied in his Princess’ heart. He, too, wished the man to be an Outlander – and for him to assist the young lady standing next to him in accomplishing her so-far buried dreams.

His four walls were much simpler than the Princess’; on one end was an ordinary, wood-framed bed, tucked into a corner in front of a ceiling-high bookshelf. The other end of the room was comprised of three tables where he accomplished his studies, each placed next to one another, with a single squat tucked behind the curtain of sheep’s wool.

Olivia’s eyes quickly traced over to the corner where the bed was. The first one she saw was the Physician, Roggul, a man even more ancient than her Dacent, and one of the oldest members of the Court – nearly a hundred years old, actually. Despite that, he somehow managed to look younger than Vorvil, having maintained a proper image of a Physician – well-kept beard and hair, white-cast robes of thin cloth, and a countenance of someone with wisdom unmatched. The signs of age, namely wrinkles across his face and the somewhat bent back, only served to further emphasize the sagacious nature of his.

"Your Highness." Roggul quickly got onto his feet and bowed courteously as Olivia entered. Though she was not as close to him as she was with Vorvil, she had a great deal of respect for the man and occasionally went to him to ask questions about their bodies. She still clearly remembers the man's uncomfortable expression when she ran to him after spotting blood on her sheets during her Kijana Age, the period during which all women become fertile.

“Mater Roggul.” Olivia bowed slightly as well as a sign of respect, quickly shifting over her gaze to the lying man. Her heart’s expectations arose quickly, as the man didn’t appear to be that old – she estimated somewhere in his forties. He had starkly black hair and thick beard, his face eerily void of wrinkles, though hardly smooth at a glance. His skin was slightly tanned, though by the appearance he hardly seemed all that different from the Luminaes. “What is his status?” she asked when she saw that the man’s eyes were closed.

"I've given him a mixture of Oryl Flower and gutter's milk," Roggul explained in a calm tone, sitting down on the stool beside the bed. "So to calm him down. I have also cleaned his wounds and dressed them up; outside of whatever psychological factors seemed to have affected him, his body is… extraordinarily healthy."

“… what do you mean?” Olivia quickly asked, noticing the Physician’s strange tone.

"Well, you see, Your Highness," the Physician said, pulling the blanket off the man's chest, revealing robust muscles that caused Olivia's cheeks to surge in a faint tinge of red, though neither of the two old men seemed to have noticed it. "Not only is his muscle mass extraordinary, but his body also seems almost constructed specifically to be like this. In addition, anyone with the number of scars that this man has – I've counted seventy-four thus far – many of which are rather deep and should have left him disabled, should have long since made him bedridden, if not dead. Yet, no matter how much I probe, I can't seem to find any lasting damage – his heart seems to be entirely healthy, actually much healthier than his age would suggest – which I estimate at forty-four – his bones, despite having been broken numerous times, are extremely sturdy and flexible, and I've yet to find any part of him that was impacted by Light."

“… meaning?” Olivia asked, her frown deepening.

"Meaning that either he has been blessed by the Goddess of Luck herself and has never suffered from an injury caused by Light…" Roggul said, turning his eyes toward Olivia as they narrowed. "Or… whichever parts of the world he's come from… don't have Light, to begin with."

**

Noah was currently lying still in bed, pretending to be sleeping. In the past two hours, many things that he couldn’t quite explain transpired; the initial stage of his plan went well – too well, actually. The guards immediately took him into the city and carried him to what he quickly identified as a hospital of sorts. The old man currently sitting next to him, which he is fairly certain is called Rogul as he kept hearing the word, dressed and cleaned his wounds nearly as well as he would have done it himself, meaning that the chances of infection are quite low now.

What surprised him, however, was that he was quickly shuffled out of the makeshift hospital and into this drab and gray room – and it happened when the other old man in the room heard him speak. He became almost fanatical and rushed off to somewhere. Noah suspected it was to report his existence to the newcomer in the room – a woman. Judging by her voice, he estimated she was quite young, somewhere in her twenties, though he hardly dared open his eyes to confirm.

She appeared to be of rather high status, as the notable shifts in tone by the old men, and the way they spoke to her, suggested she was much higher than them in terms of hierarchy. This, however, was not good news for him – rather, this was explicitly what he wanted to avoid. Having someone with a great deal of power interested in him meant he wouldn't have any freedom of movement, and would most likely spend his days being studied. As to why… he could not say.

One positive, however, was that he didn’t spot any hostile countenances in their behavior; they didn’t seem to harbor a desire to kill him, so it meant they didn’t figure out he was the murderer of the forest. Their interest in him, however, was somewhat strange; while, yes, a bloodied man screaming and running out of the woods is quite a sight, their level of interest didn’t match the scenario. There was something far great associated with him, something he had no means of deciphering.

The language they spoke was not all that strange – rather, it was even somewhat familiar. Naturally, not in the ‘I understand what they’re saying’ way, but in terms of structure. From what he observed, they seemed to share the same physiology to humans on Earth because they produced the very same sounds – consonants and vowels. The word order also seemed to be exactly like English – SVO, that is subject followed by a verb and an object, though he wasn’t one hundred percent certain on it.

For now, however, all he could do was silently observe; if the language was simply a variation with same, underlying principles as those on Earth, he was confident in being able to learn the absolute basics from simply listening. But, he would already have to start planning on his next course of action as his previous plans were no longer possible. He'd have to account for the limited movement as a variable, as well as the potential of him being experimented on.

Another lucky part, however, was that the magic he saw those kids do didn’t seem to either be all that advanced, or all that spread for the simple reason that they were yet to figure out he was faking sleep. Perhaps, he thought, silently. It’s still doable, after all…