Over the course of several weeks, many things began to change. For starters, the war that had been brewing between the various lords allying against Lucias had wavered completely. Everyone now knew of Lady Meredith’s responsibility for causing the conditions of this domain to become so inhospitable so it was, as expected, hard for her to have much if any support because of that. Even her most loyal allies such as Cassus found himself opposed to her and in favor of their side in some capacity.

Even though she had some valid reasons for wanting to prevent the death of her daughter, she had taken it too far. Lady Meredith was to face some judgment, but that was going to be entirely decided by her former allies.

Since they liberated the fourth domain, other positive changes have begun to occur such as the state of magic itself. After a week of this domain’s restoration, magic began to work as expected. Kiran along with others could use magic without having to use an arcane root. This change was immediate in its effect on the conditions. Sorcerers and sorceresses from the Liall Sorcerer’s University began using their magic to restore the land itself.

It turned out that a domain almost entirely comprised of dead trees and dirt could quickly become full of life. Soon he imagined there wouldn’t be a place left in this domain that wasn’t restored. It would take a while though. As talented as all of these sorcerers were, they could only do so much, especially given that magic hadn’t been fully restored. From what he could tell, it would take a while for even someone like Kiran to make full use of it like he could in the fifth domain. The main issue was that the overall mana that the body naturally absorbed over time was still lower than you’d normally expect. It appeared to increase overall day by day however so it was expected to return to normal eventually.

The ultimate good news was that with the restoration efforts that had been conducted, people had already begun to plant crops. Thankfully many of the people who fled Liall and reached the fourth domain had brought lots of farming supplies, otherwise, this would’ve been a slow and arduous process. But it appeared hunger would be less and less of an issue going on unless another disaster appeared out of nowhere.

Given the positive developments, Kiran felt fairly optimistic. Had everything worked out? Of course not. Few things ever do. But Kiran was content with how things had ended up overall.

Now just to keep things from falling apart. That should be easy, right?

Someone, or something annoying rather, began to dig their nails into his shoulder. “Watch it there will ya?”

“Oh, so now you’re willing to pay attention to me? I’ve been trying to get your attention for the last few minutes!”

He yanked Lar off of his shoulder and dropped her onto the ground. She looked up at him and appeared ready to claw his face. “Listen, sometimes I’ve got to run through all of my thoughts. I’ve got a heck of a lot of them running around in this noggin’ of mine so relax a little.”

They were both standing in the middle of a newly made dirt road that ran through a town undergoing construction. Lots of people were working together to get it all built. He thought some of them must’ve been working for easily over half a day at a time. They were making great progress by every estimation. Soon enough, it’d be a fully functional town that would need a proper name attributed to it.

As for the location of the town itself, it was being built relatively close to where the survivors had gathered after fleeing from the fifth domain. It was located in between the territories once overseen by Lady Meredith and Lucias.

The massacre that took place nearby had caused many to question the decision to build a town in this area, but many felt that there was no better location given the geography and water routes.

Kiran ended up helping to bury a lot of the dead and cleaning up the land that had been marred from the battle that had taken place during his absence. He had strolled through the war-torn environment before with Evelyn and Aphelia. They had done it during the perpetual darkness though, and it had sparred him of the true horror. When he stumbled back with many others to bury the dead and clean up the mess, he found it even more horrible to witness with daylight to reveal it in its entirety.

He recalled many who had decided to help ended up throwing up and crawling away only to end up not helping whatsoever. Kiran managed to tolerate the rotten air well enough, but he’d be a liar to suggest he didn’t consider running off and letting others handle this. Handling corpses that had plenty of time to rot was, well, not a pleasant experience to say the least.

There were some things people were simply not meant to do. This was one of those things but someone had to do it. The worst part wasn’t even having to bury humans. It was having to bury the monsters in a separate location.

For one thing, some of the abominable creatures had sharp carapaces and appendages that could slice a person’s hand open just by trying to grab onto it. One poor fellow had sliced up his hand real bad trying to haul one such creature to a large open grave. Thankfully he didn’t lose his hand, but it looked mangled enough that he doubted he’d get the full use of it for the rest of his life even with the help of a sorcerer’s healing abilities.

The size of the monsters made it difficult to move some of them as well. Kiran honestly wanted to forget about his experiences trying to move some of those bodies. The more he thought about this situation, the more he came to regret offering a hand in helping.

Overall, it took them several days to bury all the dead and clean up the mess left behind to the best of their ability. Even now there was still work to be done to clean it all up, but at least the rot had been taken care of and they wouldn’t have the wind carry the smell over into the town.

“So, uh,” he said to Lar still appearing ready to attack him, “what is it that you wanted to talk to me about?”

She looked away at him maintaining an irritated pose whilst in her cat form. “Never mind.”

Geeze, has Lar always been this moody?

Directly to the west of the town was a large forest full of big strong trees. Lots of people with carts and equipment came to and fro carrying wood to use to build the town. At this rate, the forest would be gone but with a bit of magical assistance, it could be rapidly regrown.

“Hey Lar.”

“What?”

“What do you think they’ll end up calling this place?”

She looked around for a moment. “You mean to tell me they haven’t come up with one yet?”

“I don’t think they have. I asked a few people yesterday but they didn’t seem to think anyone had come up with one.” Every town needed a name like a person needed a name. Although, he hadn’t had a name for quite some time when he came back to life, so if he could go without one for a little while, a town could as well.

“Heya Lar!” Juna came running up behind them. She placed her hands on her knees trying to catch her breath.

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“What is it Juna?”

“Well, um, I kind of need you for a moment.”

Lar began to squint her eyes as if suspicious of Juna’s wants and needs from her.

“It’s really important.”

“Alright, I guess.” She looked up at him briefly. “Don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone.”

“Do you take me for someone looking for trouble?” He held up a finger. “You needn’t answer that question. Run along now.”

Lar ended up following Juna away to whatever it was she was up to. He had the sneaking suspicion she was up to no good. He almost felt a need to sneakily follow the two of them to see what they were up to. If they were to catch me, what’s the worst that they could do? Surely not much.

He placed a hand to his chin pondering whether he ought to go ahead and follow or stay put. As he thought about it for a few seconds more, he chose to not be involved in such matters when clearly he wasn’t meant to be involved.

With Lar out of sight now, he was entirely alone out on the dirt road right outside the town being built up bit by bit. A few buildings had already been constructed, although they were by no means large or overly fancy. They maintained a simple wooden construction that did little to dazzle or amaze the eyes. Eventually, they could make more elaborate and grand structures but for now, it made sense to keep things simple.

Until more structures were made, many found themselves sleeping in tents right outside. Some had also begun to build their own personal dwellings on the outskirts. Kiran had already decided he was going to find a nice place to build a home. He wasn’t planning on staying there for all that long, but he still wanted to settle somewhere briefly until continuing on with his grand journey.

Regardless of how long he stayed, he needed to decide on an ideal location. It needs to be somewhere close to town but not too close nor not too far. There were lots of options and plenty of land to pick from thankfully.

In the meantime, Kiran remained alone out on the street with no real goal for the day. He was giving himself a break from doing much at all. Even after accomplishing all that they had done recently, he found himself working hard to help out in every way imaginable. But he deserved a little bit of rest. And he definitely wasn’t taking it easy because others felt concerned he had been pushing himself too hard. He was definitely doing it entirely of his own accord with no urging from others whatsoever.

As he contemplated where or what he ought to do next, he had the nagging suspicion that someone or something was staring at him. He had felt this feeling for a minute but figured it would pass by eventually. Yet it remained.

Should I just walk on or do I dare look back? If he turned around and no one was there, would he look silly? What a stupid question to ask. There’s hardly anyone around!

Kiran turned to figure out who or what was staring at him. To his surprise, the person was close by. So close, that he only needed to take a few steps to bump right into them.

It was a man with a burly beard with eyes that appeared disturbed, to say the least. At first, Kiran didn’t recognize him, but it eventually dawned on Kiran over who exactly this man was.

It’s him, isn’t it? He felt a strange emotion wash over him immediately upon realization. It’s Della’s father Adam.

The two of them stood there staring at each other. He wondered whether he ought to say something, but he knew not what to say. He also expected him to say something, but he chose to remain silent as well. The two were locked into an awkward silence that could potentially last a lifetime.

It wasn’t every day that Kiran found himself in a situation where he’d end up speechless. He had always feared the day when he may end up running into Della’s father. He still felt immense guilt for putting her in danger which ultimately wound up getting her killed.

If Adam walked up to him and punched him in the face, he’d accept it completely. If Kiran were him, he’d punch him. Heck, he’d probably do a lot worse than that.

But for some reason, he didn’t get the impression that Adam wanted to use violence against him. There were different emotions inhabiting him.

Adam took a couple of steps forward and pulled a hand out of his pocket. He looked away briefly only to look directly into his eyes once more.

One of us has to say something eventually. Come on Kiran, say something! “I’m glad that you made it out here alive,” he finally said breaking the silence that wrapped around the two of them for what felt like an eternity. “Did the rest of your family make it as well?”

“Aye,” he said. “They’re doing fine.”

Kiran felt immense relief. He was unsure of all of their fates. He had wondered whether they had escaped from Liall or if they had ended up like many others who were either killed or left behind in Liall to end up slaughtered.

A part of him hadn’t gone out of the way to find an answer to their fates, because of the guilt. Frankly, he didn’t want to know. If he remained unsure, he could at least entertain the possibility of their survival. But if he had gone out of his way to discover it for himself and found out they were all dead, then he was sure he would beat himself even more than he had done so for Della’s death. But it appeared they were fine, which eased this side of him.

He still felt guilt for not going straight to them after her death. In fact, he had gone out of his way to do the exact opposite and avoid telling them in person and allowing them to discover it independently. Kiran also could make any excuse that he wanted to justify his decision. He had been injured. He had to take down the queen. He had to get revenge for her death. He could put them in more danger by showing up to their place as well. What he did was wrong though. He knew that, and he could not deny it.

Besides his calm demeanor, Adam’s appearance had changed dramatically. He kept himself groomed to perfection when he first met him. Now he was a bit tattered with a bushy beard, although not tattered so much so that he was like some Liall bum or like Kiran had been when he first entered The Drunken Pony in what felt like an entire lifetime ago.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” Kiran stated directly. “I knew I was a danger to Della and I still chose to be with her.”

“There’s nothing to feel guilty about. She loved you very much and wanted to be with you no matter the danger.”

Kiran felt surprised by his answer. This wasn’t the Adam he had become acquainted with. A lot had happened though. Deathly occurrences tended to change people.

Adam swallowed in a pained nervous sort of way. There was something bothering him but Kiran was unsure what exactly that might be.

His eyes became somewhat teary-eyed as he stifled the pained emotions rummaging through him. He ran a hand through his beard struggling to maintain eye contact. “I questioned whether I ought to do this or not. I’ve noticed you around for a week. At first, I didn’t know whether it was you I was seeing, but there was no denying it at a certain point.”

“To do what?”

“To tell you the truth.” Adam’s eyes appeared to look at the necklace around Kiran’s neck. “I don’t believe I could live with myself I didn’t tell you the truth about that day. Especially after learning about all of the things that you’ve done. I believe I was wrong about you from the start.”

“To be fair,” Kiran said, “I was in a pretty rough state when I came into your establishment.”

“That’s true, but there are things that are more important than mere appearances, but I digress. You need to know Kiran, that whatever guilt you have held over yourself in regards to my daughter’s fate, has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with me. Her blood is not on your hands, it’s on mine.”

Was this his way of thinking he had responsibility simply for being her father? If that was the case, Kiran didn’t feel he had to accept complete responsibility. He was the one who put her in danger so he didn’t agree with Adam.

The more Adam stood there, the less he appeared capable of maintaining his composure. Something was eating him alive and it went beyond whatever Kiran could ever expect.

“For a while there, I believed strongly that you were a danger to her,” he said. “In many ways, that was true and even I believe you know that.”

Kiran nodded his head.

“But I did things to try to keep her safe that instead compromised her safety. I began to report to the authorities about you.”