Riding across the bumpy cobblestone road in the city of Denim Dale, a carriage carrying three middle-aged men moved at a rather leisurely pace as it reached a remote corner of the city.

“Lord Kazimir, may I ask where exactly we are going, ?” One of them asked.

“Is it for yet another cada—” the man began only to be silenced by the first one with an elbow to the side. “Hey, what? Isn’t it what we’re usually going out for? To discover corpses.”

“Even have a little more tact,” Yuri scolded.

Within the carriage, the three occupants were respectively Yuri, the Knight; Ramzi, the Scholar; and last but not least, Lord Kazimir, the duo's hierarchical superior, who sat atop the seat across from them, gazing absentmindedly at the city through the carriage window.

Waking up from his reverie, the one they called Lord Kazimir looked their way, “I’m sorry, you were saying?”

"We were wondering where... no, we were wondering if we were heading to yet another case," Yuri questioned on behalf of both himself and Ramzi.

In that moment, Lord Kazimir strangely brightened up and said, "If that's what you're worried about, don't. There won't be any corpse where I am heading to."

"Is that so..."

Upon hearing those reassuring words, the duo let out a sigh of relief, exchanging smiles. Although they had witnessed many corpses, including badly mutilated ones, it was a sight they could easily do without.

"Or at least there shouldn't be. I think."

Those mere words were enough to make the duo tense up and straighten their backs.

“In any case, just relax you two, if there is a corpse I’ll be the only one dealing with it,” he reassured.

“Huh? What do you mean by that, Boss?”

“I’m the only one going where heading to, you two—” he explained, stopping mid-sentence as the carriage came to a halt. “Oh, we arrived.”

As Lord Kazimir disembarked from the carriage, he couldn't help but sense the unnerving ambiance that enveloped the surroundings. Despite the area being situated in a relatively respectable part of the city, there was an unmistakable feeling of desolation, as if they had been transported to the heart of nowhere.

The place seemed threateningly shady, largely because of its unexpected remoteness compared to the nearby corner. It was a location that, to an adept practitioner, would serve as the perfect setting for an ambush. Standing alone in that corner was a rugged-looking shop, its lights shining brightly even amidst the darkness of the night.

Yuri and Ramzi exchanged a quick glance, their curiosity piqued by the peculiar scene before them. "What exactly are you planning to do here, boss?" Yuri inquired with a hint of concern. Lord Kazimir sighed softly, a touch of melancholy in his voice.

"It's nothing of great interest. This is a... personal matter. You two can proceed and head to the local citadel. I'll wait for the carriage to return and pick me up."

Exchanging a nod, the duo obliged, and the carriage departed, leaving Lord Kazimir behind. As the carriage left, he immediately proceeded to the shop that should have been closed at that hour of the night. However, he was able to swiftly enter as the door wasn't locked. A bell chimed, announcing his presence.

"Welcome to the humble shop, dear customer," a voice greeted from behind the counter.

"Who are you calling 'customer'?"

"I don't know you, perhaps, Dainvald."

"Hmph, it's been a while since I was last called that."

***

Joining Dainvald at the table, seating on the chair that the Rustler would vicariously pull out, only to sit at the opposite one during each of his visits, the Shopkeeper ventured, "For you to be here, I take it he really left, didn't he?"

Dainvald nodded. “Yes, our contact at Oceanview just confirmed to us that two weeks ago, they sailed across the sea.”

"I see, so he wasn't kidding when he said he was planning on leaving," the shopkeeper smiled, taking a large puff from his bong.

Dainvald watched as the shopkeeper inhaled and exhaled the smoke.

Noticing how Dainvald looked at him, “want to try?” the shopkeeper offered.

“No, thanks.”

“This is very relaxing, you know. Tense as you are, a single puff of this would do you wonders. What do you think this old man’s secret to longevity is?”

“I’m not tense.”

"Just look at yourself, have one or two puffs, and you'll look as old as I do," he said, exhaling thick smoke. "All I'm trying to say is that you can at least allow yourself this. He's gone now, wasn't it him going out of control what worried you the most? With him gone it’s settled now. I believe you deserve at least a puff of this."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Once again, Dainvald was on the verge of refusing the shopkeeper's offer. However, seeing the pipe being handed over to him, he looked at it, hesitating before eventually giving in.

"After all, why not," he sighed, accepting the pipe and inhaling, then exhaling a huge puff.

A silence filled with inhales, the gurgling of the bong, and exhalations settled in. "It must be a relief, isn't it?" the shopkeeper ventured out after a short while.

“To have him gone?” asked, to which the Shopkeeper nodded. "What do you think the answer is? Of course, I am. Who wouldn't be? Now I won't ever have to clean up after each of his rampages. I've had enough of that, so yeah it’s a relief. Him gone from this continent is a good riddance for us Arbian.”

"You really hate him to the core, don't you?"

"What else do you expect me to feel toward him? Don't tell me you were expecting to feel sad over his departure," Dainvald began to respond.

"I don't know, perhaps I was expecting you to be at least a “little” caring towards him, considering you spent your early years as a mage raising him," the shopkeeper interrupted.

"Even so," Dainvald trailed off, "you weren't there. You don't know what it was like."

"What was it like?" the shopkeeper asked, passing the bong back to Dainvald. "He hasn't always been this way, has he?"

"I don't know," Dainvald replied. "What do you mean you don't know?" the shopkeeper pressed.

"I mean that I can't tell anymore," Dainvald nervously took a puff before exhaling the smoke. "He was always a silent child. As a child, he was rather easy to raise, rarely ever cried. But as he grew older, roughly around the age of three, I think what happened with his father happened again. Not once, not twice, but so many times that I lost count," Dainvald paused, bitterly reminiscing those moments. "Now that I think about it, what were we thinking to not realize the truth that was laid bare before us: that child clearly had something against the living," he chuckled self-deprecatingly, leaning back in his chair. "Had we realized that and done what needed to be done, none of those needless deaths would have happened, and my sister would still be..." Dainvald trailed off, ashamed and unable utter what should’ve been his next words.

“I don’t even know what I could say to make you feel better so I won’t try, you and your sister really messed up.”

“You…” Dainvald fumed.

“It’s true though. You admitted it yourself. There is no gentle way to voice this. She messed up by birthing that little monstrosity, and you messed up by raising it,” the Shopkeeper outrightly pointed out.

Those words made Dainvald boil, anger surged within him, but he couldn't direct any of it towards the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper's words were nothing but bitter truth, and Dainvald found himself unable to refute them.

"With the mess you both created, the little monstrosity grew into a full-blown monstrosity that even the Citadel, the so-called protector of peace, was unable to do anything about, except watch him wreak havoc and send its dogs to clean up after him."

“Are you trying to punish me or something?”

“Not particularly. I was only pointing at how laughable this situation was,” the Shopkeeper chuckled. "Now that I think about it, I recall another laughable situation: my meeting with him. Our first encounter was a perfect illustration of why one should always see things with their own eyes before judging based on what they have heard from others."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dainvald asked, a displeased frown creasing his forehead. "Are you trying to say that he isn't as I described him to you?"

"It's precisely that," the shopkeeper confirmed. "What I saw entering through that door, causing the bell to chime for the very first time, wasn't the unstoppable force that had a whole continent trembling in terror just at the mention of its name: Ethereal Breeze. Of course, I'm not implying that it wasn't him. I'm merely saying that that day and in those four years I “worked” with him I’d glimpsed through his infamous persona. What do you think I saw?”

“I don’t know but you better not answer me: a well-hidden kindness.”

The shopkeeper chuckled at the remark, saying, "No, it's not that. It's much more superficial than that. I'm sure you've likely noticed, but while he was born with his father's philanderer's eyes, he inherited most everything else from his mother. That's what I first noticed when I met him. The more opportunities I had to meet and interact with him, the more I realized something else. What I and the whole continent was so afraid of was not some otherworldly monstrosity, it’s just a child—One that is clearly both angered about everything and clueless about what he is doing. So, he fixated on one thing, making it, for years, his sole obsession—to express his anger against a single entity, in this case, the Devi and the travelers. Now, let me ask you a question. Do you happen to know someone with the same habit when at loss and angered?”

“Aanya…” Dainvald found himself instinctively replying.

"Do you see the irony here? The child, who became the vessel of her years-long hatred for what he had done, in the most twisted of ways, ended up developing the same issue she had."

“Aanya was flawed but I won’t allow anyone to compare to him,” Dainvald warned. “—not even you.”

I was only highlightening something you might have failed to notice, something that I, as a father and a grandfather, have noticed,

“Grandfather, huh? It’s a bit late for that. Or did you tell him?”

"No, I didn't. I didn't feel the need to do so, and just as you said, it was too late for me to come forth as one. But even without doing so, while I stood behind that counter, handing over those people's names, fully aware of the consequences they would face, with each of his visits, I felt that maybe... maybe if he’d been given a little more time, just like you gave Aanya the opportunity to finally let go of what was burdening her and step forward as a mother, then perhaps he would have..."

“Changed?”

The Shopkeeper nodded. “This is just a conjecture this old man came up with, that being said.”

"Even so, my response to this conjecture of yours remains the same: I have painfully learned that 'people don't change,' and certainly not 'him'. Our greatest mistake, my sister and I, was to believe that he would eventually change. We should have not better. The cost of that lesson has been too high for me to afford to forget."

"So, you believe that the same thing that happened here will happen to the southern continent?" the shopkeeper asked after a short contemplative pause.

"That, I don't know for sure, and to be frank with you," he replied, standing up, putting the bong aside. "I think I'll be better off never finding the answer to that question."

“You’re leaving?”

"I see, then I won't hold you back any longer," the shopkeeper nodded, standing up. He reached out his hand, and Dainvald reached out to shake it. Dainvald asked, "Do you really plan on staying here pretending to be this shopkeeper forever?"

"I do. I have grown quite fond of this life. It's calm, peaceful, though at times lonely. But I like it. Although, I have this nagging feeling that I won't have many customers anytime soon. So, don't forget to visit this old man whenever you have the opportunity. Even once a year would be more than enough."

“I’ll try,” Dainvald replied before bidding his farewells, “take care, old man.”

“You too, Son.”