The sun rose and fell, light and darkness taking their turns.

These past few days a man with a crutch, went on a spending spree, an extremely terrifying spending spree. Enough food to last for years, enough gunpowder to blow an entire district off the map, miscellaneous supplies like ink and paper, and countless items were hidden in his home. Of course, the man knew the limits of what was too much, the biggest spending spree wasn’t on these common goods but were of magical nature.

Magical scrolls costing 1000 noux per piece, with only small offensive capabilities, these scrolls were only for theoretical understanding and party tricks. A few poisons were also bought but they were milder and more varied in use. The man bought quite a few scrolls to serve as his trump cards for what’s about to come. To prevent his cards from being known, he bought these items from the black market using a certain thief as the proxy.

There was also a rumor that a mysterious being left a letter for sir Nuane, a very famously corrupt noble with fickle morals. After reading this letter sir Nuane went extremely crazy and gathered so many people even treating them to an extremely grand feast but oddly enough, only residents within a certain part of the wall were invited.

The light got brighter while the dark got darker. Everyone in Green City rejoiced as continuous positive changes and promises were made, letting them live safer and better. Meanwhile, a man with hanging on a crutch was looking through the entire situation through a bird’s eye view.

Leaning along the rooftop of a watch tower, he oversaw the entire city. His red eyes pierced through the darkness showing what truly lay underneath. Beside him, a red-haired girl was skeptically questioning the youth.

“Everything’s going so well, how could anything be wrong? I know you’re on edge because of what happened. It wasn’t your fault, even miss Howards calmed down and apologized to you. So just let it go.”

The red eyed man sighing changed the topic, “You fell for Luke, right? What would you do if you had a feeling that something was going to happen to him?”

The red-haired girl blushed but continued the conversation, “W-What’s that have to do with anything?”

“Everything. Luke, sir Heinster, your brother Chris, miss Howards, and everyone else is in danger. There’s something that’s about to happen in a few days and I need you to be ready.”

After finishing his sentence, as if clockwork, a piercing howl echoed from deep within the forest.

The red-haired girl glanced at where the howl came from, “That’s it? You’re afraid of those mutant mutts? Sir Heinster did say you were timid, but this is too much! The normal guards can handle those easily, even then they also have many elite gifted guards ready to fight at a moment’s notice. Even sir Raxer invited a few more guards to be stationed here. You’re safe.”

“Not the kind of hounds you’re thinking of.”

The man narrowed his red eyes at how naïve this girl was. One would expect that someone who lived in the slums would realize how truly dark the human heart was.

She continued, “What are we even doing here? You made me bring you up here just for that dramatic reveal? That everyone is in danger? You made me your servant running everywhere, planting worthless pieces of paper and buying so many useless stuff just so you could say this?”

“No, it’s for something else, look down there.” The red eyed man pointed towards a certain part of the city wall just below them.

“Why?”

“To show my conviction, this time I won’t hesitate to do what I think is right.”

“Your words are scaring me…”

“It should be soon.”

The girl seemed to realize something, for the past few days she has been frequently running about this area, planting posters and notices. When the man forced her to bring him here, she only saw a few other people carrying barrels, its contents unknown.

“Don’t tell me…” All the clues finally melded together creating this terrifying event that was about to happen.

“You’re gonna-“

A loud earth-shattering explosion occurred. The part of the thousand-kilometer wall had a large gaping hole in it, years of history and protection, undone by one madman.

The girl’s ears were ringing, and the shockwave from the blast echoed throughout the entire city, jolting those asleep awake. Those who were burning the midnight oil heard the explosion and felt the shockwave forcing them to tremble in its wake.

She opened her eyes, clouds of dust covered his vision yet for some terrifying reason, she could still see the youth’s red eyes through the dust, staring back at her.

She waved her hand creating a small gust of wind that blew the entire dust cloud away.

After clearing the distraction away, she couldn’t help but shout at the red eyed man.

“Reinhold! What did you do?! Why did you blow up the wall?!” Aya couldn’t help but spout unending questions towards him.

Reinhold was slightly bothered by the shockwave, but they were safe enough distance to see the explosion in its entirety.

“I didn’t do anything, it was Nuane. It was all him. Let’s go, the job’s done.” Reinhold made it extremely clear.

Aya surveyed the entire scene, countless homes and buildings were demolished, only leaving rubble and destruction in the explosion’s wake.

“What about the people sleeping there? You killed so many!”

“I made sure no one was there. Didn’t you read the notices and posters I made you hang up?” Now it was Reinhold’s turn to be baffled.

“I-I can’t read.”

Reinhold didn’t notice this small aspect, mostly due to the fact that this was irrelevant to what he had in plan.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“It’s too late to teach you, better off surviving for now. Bring me back.”

Aya ignored him and went down to double check if there truly weren’t any deaths. As much as she wanted to believe Reinhold, she didn’t have it in her heart to completely ignore that tiny doubt of a possible casualty. She turned over giant pieces of rubble that was once the city wall with extreme ease, letting one wonder how much strength was inside that lithe body.

Reinhold was stuck up on the watchtower, normally he could’ve just gone down the ladder but with his barely functioning leg still healing he couldn’t afford to go down. He was forced to sit through a few minutes of Aya constantly throwing pieces of debris all over the place. She only stopped when the guards finally arrived and surveyed the commotion.

At the corner of Reinhold’s eye, Nuane’s men swarmed the entire area, making his sure that everything was going according to plan. The mutated mutts swarmed in but being held back by Nuane’s skilled men, they didn’t even suffer a single injury.

Aya and Reinhold blended into the darkness, the next time he appeared was directly inside his home.

“Thank goodness, there wasn’t anyone who died.”

Reinhold didn’t waste any time, he brought out one more piece of paper and then started writing.

Aya tapped his shoulder, “Uh, aren’t you going to sleep?”

“Too much to do, can’t sleep.”

Aya didn’t understand the words that Reinhold was writing on the piece of paper, but she saw an encircled word that had multiple arrows leading into multiple other encircled words and other those encircled words leading to more words. She didn’t understand but she could instinctively feel the complexity of his thought process.

She gave up and left his home, going back to Luke’s place where she and her brother Chris were staying for now.

After a while Reinhold closed the blinders on his window, locked the door and went upstairs. There was a small closet inside his room, and he went inside it, it was completely cramped but at the very least there was no one that could’ve possibly spied on him from here.

“Now to plan out how I’m going to use the signal. They barred anyone from coming out but there might be a chance soon, I just hope that it’s not too late.”

The following day, Reinhold opened his closet and lazily stretched his limbs. Extremely detailed words were imprinted on multiple pieces of paper. He reread everything he wrote, nodded, and then proceeded to open his stove and burn it. Other than one enclosed piece of mail, everything else was burned to ashes.

“It’s done, time to send Nuane the next list of instructions.”

As he went outside, he slowly walked over to Luke’s place, on the way he heard a few murmurs between the commoners. Reinhold assumed that they were afraid of the big gaping hole left by the explosives last night, an understandable thought.

He finally arrived at Luke’s place, and as expected Luke was drumming his fingers at the storefront, as he usually does.

“Hey, Rei! You heard that massive explosion last night? Crazy stuff! Well, not as crazy as-”

“Yeah, yeah… wait, crazy as what?”

“Oh, didn’t you hear? Sir Nuane was executed. Yeah, apparently, he was the one behind the explosion. I know, right? Pretty wild stuff…”

Reinhold’s thoughts started drifting away from the conversation, he could see Luke’s mouth moving but he couldn’t hear any words. He dazedly sat down on a chair nearby.

“Rei, you good? I guess hearing about something dying when you suffered through that does bring back terrible memories. Hold up, I’ll get you some water. Aya! Rei needs some water, please!”

Reinhold didn’t understand, Nuane was a noble, a corrupt one but still an important vital part of the city. There were no casualties, that was the most important part, no casualties. He saw Nuane’s men go there to protect the vicinity.

By noble law, they can pretty much get away with anything as long as there weren’t any casualties. Even destroying a part of the city wall was extremely minor. With how long the wall stood for, it was delusional to think it wouldn’t have been damaged, in fact there was even an instance where there was a literal giant that demolished the city walls to dust. All in all, the gaping hole wasn’t even an issue, many mystical methods could repair it within a month.

“This doesn’t make any sense… why would… no… there’s one other reason…”

Reinhold’s eyes focused.

“Raxer, I knew it. I didn’t see wrong, damn dog.”

The only thing that could topple over a noble was either royalty or another noble. The only thing Raxer has on Nuane is… nothing. After everything was said and done, Nuane’s influence, authority, and skill was greater than Raxer. As notorious as Nuane was, no one could doubt how many times he bailed Green City out of dangerous predicaments.

His greed knew no bounds, taking every single penny he could while wringing his citizens dry. Reinhold took this specific quality about him and dangled a carrot in front of him. Reinhold gave him a very luxurious idea, to open up the city wall so that his men could take control of the surrounding area. The already destroyed buildings could be removed so that he could create new factories and buildings that could increase his income. The people with nowhere left to go would have to rely on him, exploiting them for free labor.

Such a crazy plan, such brutality ignoring people’s wellbeing. To that Reinhold held the firm belief, at least they were alive.

“Let me guess, they found clues that some missing prostitutes last night were hiding in Nuane’s mansion.” Reinhold gave the most promising reason that they executed Nuane for.

“Yeah, apparently a few girls in sir Raxer’s brothel went missing last night. A complicit guard confessed that sir Nuane ordered him to take these girls to his place. Was about time that monster paid for his sins.”

“And then this ‘complicit guard’ committed suicide right after.”

“Y-Yeah, if you knew about the details you could’ve just said so.”

Reinhold drank the water Aya brought him and forced her to follow him, things were ramping up faster than he thought.

“Rei, she’s still my girlfriend, ok?”

Aya slightly blushed at Luke calling her that, “Reinhold just wants me to accompany him and buy some supplies, he can’t bring it all himself. I mean you could help but, heh.”

Luke was only a normal person, unblessed with the physical increase that the gifted have. As much as Luke wanted to admit, he was weaker than her, by a large margin.

Reinhold was too busy with his thoughts to even consider the lover’s quarrel Aya and Luke were having. Things were getting dangerous, dangerous to the point that the helplessness he felt when he had his back against that door.

Shaking his head, he went forward not even waiting for Aya to reconfirm with him. He went to the plaza where Nuane’s head was weirdly… calm.

There were no signs of agony, only serenity that came with death.

At this point, a massive change occurred, something Reinhold was preparing for but came at him at such an expected time. Countless armed inquisitors surrounded everyone in the plaza, no… not just the plaza it seemed as if they surrounded the entire city. Every single inquisitor had a symbol of a cross piercing a circle engraved on their armor, extremely visible.

A man with golden armor stood in front of everyone, a majestic stallion neighed as it galloped across the street, ignoring the cries of the citizens that it ran over. He opened a scroll in his hands and firmed read aloud.

“I, an inquisitor for the God of Trials, Hyuo’in, hereby declare that no longer will the heretics corrupt your soul, no longer will you bathe in unrighteous filth! Today is the day that we will spread our faith towards everyone, may every man, woman, and child be blessed with our teachings and learn the true way of life. Through our teachings may you learn that by overcoming trials you overcome your fear. The God of Trials, Hyuo’in will show you the path of salvation!”

Countless citizens were in disarray at the extremely odd situation at hand. Some were shouting, some tried to leave, while others were frozen where they stood, confusion filled their minds.

The golden armored inquisitor closed the scroll in his hand and firmly set it aside on his waist. He then brought out a golden sword in his hands, unknown mystical symbols were engraved on it. As the man uttered a prayer, the symbols glowed and from it expanded out to cover the entire city.

The light was extremely comfortable, as if you were being held by your mother, soothing to the soul.

“For the first trial given to you… SILENCE!”

A shockwave came out from the man’s last word, the spectators were only slightly pushed back, uninjured.

“H-Hey! Listen to us-“

The man who spoke felt an extremely loving warm hug that slowly enveloped his body. The hug was extremely comfortable, he felt like he could let go and be supported by it. Slowly, it hugged him tighter and tighter until all of a sudden, there was no longer any warm nor comfort only squeezing pain.

The man tried to gasp for air but… he was nothing but a mangled corpse on the floor.