Vol. 4 Extra: "Romulos Year One."
Kingdom of Elenoir, Elshire Forest, 588 years before the birth of Arthur Leywin.
Romulos Indrath
The air whistled past my elongated ears, a thrilling counterpoint to the frantic thumping of my own heart. "There it is! Go, Cyradil!" a young, determined voice cried out.
A heartbeat later, an arrow, crudely fletched and trembling with unrefined mana, sliced through the space where my tail had been a moment before, burying itself in the soft earth with a dull thud.
"I-I missed it, Mom!" the voice lamented, tinged with the sharp disappointment of youth.
A silent, smug satisfaction warmed my furry little chest. Of course he missed. He was chasing no ordinary mana beast. He was chasing me.
In my chosen miniature form—a plush, snow-white hare adorned with delicate, branching horns like a miniature stag—I was the perfect picture of elusive prey, a creature straight out of a lesser's storybook.
I was a paradox: a being of immense power compressed into a vessel of utter vulnerability, all thanks to the pinnacle of my studies.
For years, I had watched. From the shadowed perches of Indrath Castle's training grounds, I had observed General Aldir's stoic forms and Trainer Kordri's explosive drills.
I hadn't stopped to just learn the Mirage Walk technique. I had deconstructed it, atom by atom, seeking its purest essence. What I performed now was not their technique, not truly.
It was the basic foundation of the later stages of the technique the Sequence Zero of Mirage Walk: a complete harmonization of internal and external mana, a state of being so seamless it required no Force Mana Arts, the tell-tale signature of the Pantheon race. It was the ground on which the Thyestes Clan built its Mirage Walk.
To any observer, especially these elven hunters, I was nothing more than a curious, horned and chubby hare, my immense power cloaked in absolute mundaneity. I probably looked very delicious to them.
But you're probably wondering, my dear sister—my silent confidante in this lonely existence—why here? Why this untamed, lesser-infested wilderness of Dicathen, so far from the gilded spires and profound mana currents of Epheotus?
Could I not have perfected this in one of our celestial training grounds, surrounded by kin who would, in theory, be honored to assist the Heir of Epheotus?
Ah, but I was catching two Mountain Wings with a single stone! An expression I'm rather proud of, by the way.
You know, they're these iridescent birds that nest on the highest peaks of Mount Geolus, where Indrath Castle is built; Lord Eccleiah once told me they were our mother's favorite. I so wish I could remember her taste in things myself. Forgive me, I'm digressing. It's just… I have so much to say, and no one to say it to.
The first 'Mountain Wing' was testing my Mirage Walk in a true field environment, against unpredictable variables. The second, and far more fascinating, was the chance to study lessers in their natural habitat, unfiltered by Grandfather's doctrines or Windsom's sanitized reports.
The elven boy, Cyradil, surged forward, his small body augmented by a flickering red core. A red core. It was almost pitiable. Most Asuras, even the farmers from the Nameless Clans, emerge from the egg or however they are born with a core of deeper hue.
This child, perhaps twelve years in age, was working with a spark where we are born with a sun. I gave him a sidelong glance as I bounded over a gnarled root. His pointed ears twitched with effort. A common elven feature, though some of our kind affect the look for aesthetic reasons—Guardian Charon, for instance. It was a quaint similarity.
He tried again, his brow furrowed in concentration. A spell this time—a needle of piercing wind that whirled to life before him. It was a testament to their limitations. Did you know elves cannot wield fire mana? A fascinating evolutionary divergence.
Their symbiosis with the forest, over millennia, naturally selected against it. A theory of my own, actually. I call it 'Natural Mana Selection.' Grandfather says it's an unnecessary complication, that their weakness is simply inherent. But I see a logic to it, a cruel, natural poetry.
His wind needle shot wide, rustling leaves harmlessly yards from me. If only Grandfather would let me, I thought, a familiar frustration bubbling up. I could teach them. I could make them so much more than this. But no. Interaction is forbidden.
The only one permitted to sully his hands with lesser affairs is Windsom, my… babysitter. The title is an insult. I am a thousand years old! Granted, that is young for our kind, perhaps barely out of infancy, but I assure you, I am mature for my age. You'll see when I find you.
My musings were abruptly severed as a new scent assaulted my sensitive nose—acrid, chemical, and utterly wrong. Burnt wood, yes, but beneath it, the cloying smell of alchemical accelerants. I skidded to a halt, my paws digging into the soft loam.
"Cyradil! Get back!" The elven woman's voice was a sharp blade of fear, cutting through the forest's calm. She rushed forward, grabbing her son, her eyes wide not with the thrill of the hunt, but with raw terror.
"W-what is happening?" the boy murmured, his previous confidence evaporating.
Then I heard it: the crude clank of iron armor, the grating sound of primitive tools. Peering through the undergrowth, I saw them. A platoon of ten human soldiers, their bodies devoid of mana's light, methodically dousing the ancient trees with a viscous liquid from wineskins.
And among them, one who did glow. A mage. Male, platinum blonde, with pale skin and a tall, arrogant build. His eyes, a piercing, cold green, scanned the area until they locked onto the two elves behind me. His gaze was analytical, devoid of the warmth of life, assessing them as a problem, not people.
The woman, clutching her son, turned and fled, her panic a palpable wave. One of the manaless soldiers made to give chase, a brutish grin on his face, but the blonde mage lifted a hand.
"We have orders to not engage with elven civilians. Continue to spread the Liquid Fire," he commanded, his voice devoid of emotion.
"Yes, Lord Wykes."
I felt my whiskers twitch in a grimace. Liquid Fire. The name itself was an affront. It was artificery's crude mockery of true magic, a pathetic attempt to imitate what even a hatchling phoenix of the Avignis Clan could achieve with a careless sneeze.
They used this pathetic simulacrum not for creation or defense, but for this… this spiteful erasure. They sought to burn a forest to claim land, to make it barren and unusable for their enemies. It was so… small. So utterly devoid of vision. They didn't have a bigger picture like Grandfather had.
For all their exotic cultures and fleeting lives that I found so intriguing, moments like this cemented their status as lessers. They insulted the very concept of mana with their every action. I understood the exclusivity of aether—that was our birthright, ours alone. But mana? The very air thrums with it! They had no excuse for such clumsy, destructive impotence.
As the first tongues of unnatural flame began to lick at the base of the ancient trees, casting a hellish orange glow on the soldiers' faces, I settled back on my haunches. A part of me, the detached scholar, was morbidly fascinated. This was the Elven Kingdom of Elenoir clashing with the Human Kingdom of Sapin over the Ashber Woods—a northwestern section of the Elshire Forest separated from the rest by the Grand Mountains.
I knew the maps, the political tensions Windsom so dismissively reported. This was history happening in real-time, a brutal, irrational dance of territorialism. We Asuras had moved beyond such petty squabbles when Grandfather unified the Great Eight. Our war, the only war that truly mattered, was a necessary one. A righteous one. Against them. The Vritra. To take you and Mother back.
Lavinia, I thought, the name a sudden, sweet comfort in the midst of the growing chaos. I think I'll call you Lavinia. I wonder what name Mother gave you…
"Lord Romulos."
The voice was like a bucket of ice water. I jumped, my hare form spinning in the air to land facing the speaker. There he was. Windsom. He stood tall and immaculate, his presence folded into the space around him through masterful spatium arts, rendering him a ghost to the lesser eyes now frantically battling the spreading fire.
"H-hi, Windsom," I stammered, making no move to return to my humanoid form. Perhaps if I stayed small and harmless, he would go away.
He did not. He sighed, a sound laden with the weight of millennia and profound inconvenience. "Time for playing is over, milord," he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Lady Indrath requires you to return to Epheotus."
"I-I am not playing!" I insisted, my voice a high-pitched squeak in this form. The protest sounded pathetic even to my own ears. "I am studying! Their conflict dynamics, the application of alchemical—"
Windsom shook his head, a gesture of ultimate dismissal, and leaned down. His large, elegant hand closed around my middle, scooping me up from the forest floor. My world shrank to the confines of his grasp. I beat my rabbit teeth together in silent, furious annoyance.
Infantilized. Always infantilized.
The indignity of it burned hotter than the humans' pitiful fire. I wasn't allowed to roam my own home freely. My questions to Grandfather and Grandmother were met with deflection or silence. I was prohibited from speaking with the other Great Lords outside of Indrath Castle, from engaging with the servants, from living. I was a specimen in a gilded jar, observed and curated, but never truly understood.
As Windsom's spatium arts enveloped us, preparing to wrench us from this messy, vibrant, real world and back to my silent, golden cage, I took one last look at the burning forest, at the terrified elves, at the arrogant human mage.
Sister… Mother… I thought, the words a desperate prayer against the encroaching loneliness. I really hope you will be found and saved soon. I cannot do this alone anymore. I just can't.