The tree had been there long before the man, and if the world was kind, it would still be there long after him.
It rose from the hill like a memory carved in the earth, an oak so huge that its lowest branches towered over watchtowers, its crown lost in leaves and light. Sunlight filtered through the canopy in slow, warm shafts, casting patterns of gold on the grass. The wind moved through the sea of green below, rolling over endless fields until it gently brushed against the roots and the old man sitting there.
He leaned against the trunk, one leg stretched out, the other bent, fingers resting lightly on a knee worn with age. The coat draped over his shoulders had once been black; now it was sun-faded and threadbare at the elbows, patched by hands that cared only for function, not beauty. The years had aged his features, adding new lines around his mouth and eyes, but his posture revealed something beneath the wear—too straight for someone his age, too still.
Beside him, half-buried in the grass, lay a sword.
Even at rest, it seemed out of place in such a peaceful setting. The blade was not polished steel but a slender piece of metal that glowed faintly blue, like moonlight trapped in ice. Its guard formed a ring instead of a cross, a single loop of pale metal that seemed to absorb the light around it and release it as something colder.
A breeze passed. The sword hummed softly, a low note so quiet most would have missed it. The old man's hand twitched, brushing its worn leather hilt with the familiarity of someone absentmindedly touching an old scar.
Beyond the hill, the world opened up.
The fields fell into a vast green plain, alive and stretching for miles in every direction. Rivers caught the sun and turned it into silver, with distant villages scattered like freckles across the land, and the faint glimmer of waystones and mana-lights in the air far off. Above it all, the sky was a clear blue, unmarked by ash or falling stars.
And there, impossibly far away—so far away it would have been lost beyond the curve of the horizon in another world—a distant line of white and gold appeared at the edge of sight. Towers shimmered faintly. A shape like a crown. The empire basked in the calm of a time that had forgotten what it meant to burn.
They called it the Golden Age of Peace. Farmers tended their fields without fear of the sky. Children grew up hearing stories about monsters, not scars from encounters with them. The rivers flowed clear.
The old man observed it all quietly. He had seen the world better and worse than this and still hadn't decided which it deserved.
He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the rough bark against his back. The sun warmed his face. His breathing was slow and steady, a kind that comes after a lifetime of running finally comes to rest.
It wasn't completely done, of course. Things like him never fully stopped. They just learned how to stay still.
A shout rang out across the fields, high and joyful.
"Teacher! He's there! He's really there!"
Another voice laughed, followed by another. Small figures crested the low hill below him, bright spots of color against the green. The old man opened his eyes again and turned his head slightly. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth before he decided to show it.
Children. Many of them.
They came in a tangle of limbs and sounds—twenty-nine of them, no more, no less—ages five to seven, each moving as if they were wound too tightly and then let loose. Boots slapped against the ground, soft sandals kicked up dust, and a few kids wore no shoes at all. Some had simple academy tunics, others plain village clothes, all flushed with the excitement that made their voices trip over one another.
Two adults struggled behind them, both dressed in gray-blue academy instructor outfits. One was a tall woman with a braid half-undone from the run, breath coming in thin gulps. The other was a round man whose face had turned an alarming shade of red, one hand on his chest as if he had been betrayed by the existence of hills.
"Slow down—slow down!" the woman called out, but the kids were already scattering around the tree, forming a loose circle at a respectful distance. Respectful mostly because they had been told to be. Curiosity drew them closer; manners kept them just short of his boots.
Up close, the old man didn't appear to be much.
His hair, once likely bright, had faded to a pale color, not quite white, softened by age but still thick. His beard was trimmed short, streaked with silver. His eyes remained untouched by time: a deep blue that looked almost molten, softened at the edges yet still sharp in the center.
Some of the bolder kids stared, waiting for him to move first. Others gazed at the sword instead.
It lay half-hidden in the grass, but not enough. The light surrounding it felt wrong for an ordinary weapon. It made the air above it seem slightly blurred, like heat on stone, despite the cool breeze.
A small boy in front swallowed loudly.
"That's it," he whispered, as if afraid to disturb something in the air. "That has to be it."
"Shh," hissed the girl next to him, her wide eyes darting between the blade and the old man's face. "Don't be rude."
The older instructor finally reached the top of the rise, trying and failing to hide his breathlessness. He straightened his tunic, wiped his brow with the back of his hand, and quickly bowed to the old man.
"My apologies," he said, still a bit out of breath. "For the intrusion. And the short notice."
The woman arrived a moment later, bent double, hands braced on her knees. "And for… for their speed," she added between breaths. "They don't listen when they're excited."
The old man listened to them, then let his gaze drift back to the group of small faces looking up at him. None wore fear. They showed awe, curiosity, and a touch of nerves. But no real fear.
That was good. It meant they belonged to this age, not his.
"It's fine," he said, his voice low and gravelly with age but clear. "I wasn't busy."
The teachers let out a collective breath, as if they had been holding it while waiting for his reaction. The man nodded quickly.
"We're... grateful," he said. "The Council only confirmed this morning that you were still—" He paused. "—that you were willing."
One of the bolder kids—dark curls and a missing front tooth—blurted out, "Teacher said you were there."
The girl next to him elbowed him in the ribs. "Idiot, you can't just say that."
The old man's mouth twitched. He didn't ask what "there" meant. For children born into peace, any story from before calm was just "there." A time that didn't belong to them. A place safely locked behind pages.
The younger teacher collected herself and stepped forward, hands clasped together.
"If you're still willing," she said gently, "we hoped you could tell them. Not the shortened version from the academy texts. The real one. About how it was before the Golden Age. About the wars. The Calamities. The… the man."
Her gaze flicked almost unconsciously to the sword at his side.
One of the kids bounced on her feet, hands already half-raised as if the story might start quicker if she moved.
"The Bluish Devil!" she exclaimed. "Tell us about him! About Arthur!"
The name hit the hill like a stone dropped in still water.
Some of the kids gasped at her lack of restraint, then leaned in quickly because she had said it out loud and nothing bad happened. A few of them looked at the old man, wide-eyed, as if waiting for him to be offended, laugh, or turn into a monster.
He did none of those things.
He simply looked at the little girl, and for a moment, something flickered in his eyes—something tired and distant and very gentle. The faint smile he had faded, not out of displeasure, but like light fading when a cloud passes over the sun.
"Arthur the Bluish Devil of Freedom," another boy said, almost reverently, as if reciting a title rather than a name. "The man who—"
"Stories first," the old man interrupted softly. He was not harsh, but he was firm. "The titles can wait."
Silence settled over them. Wind rustled the leaves. Far down the hill, a lark sang, ignored by everyone present.
The older instructor cleared his throat gently. "We told them you might decline," he admitted. "You've done enough. More than enough. But they begged. And well…" He glanced at the semi-circle of kids, who were holding really still, every muscle tense with effort. "They learn about the Age of Calamities and the Demon Wars from books. It's different hearing it from—"
He paused again. Some words still felt uncomfortable to say in front of the man under the tree.
"From someone who remembers," the younger teacher finished for him, his voice softer.
The old man shifted, feeling the bark digging into his back. His joints made quiet protests, a dull ache under his skin. He let one hand drop to the hilt of the sword, curling his fingers around the leather.
The weapon felt cool against his palm, familiar like nightmares are familiar—you know their path even while you dread where they lead.
Twenty-nine children. Two teachers. Beyond them, a world that had finally forgotten how to scream.
Was that enough?
He let that question pass through him and chose to answer the one that mattered.
"I have nothing but time left," he said. "If they want a story, they'll have one."
A ripple of excitement ran through the children, barely contained. Some whispered "Yes!" under their breath. The instructors both bowed again, relief and gratitude showing on their faces.
"Sit," the old man added.
They obeyed instantly.
Tiny bodies dropped to the grass, some cross-legged, some on their knees, one or two flopping onto their stomachs until a stern look from a teacher corrected them. They arranged themselves in a loose crescent around him, out of reach of the blade. No one told them to avoid that space. They simply did.
He watched them settle. Loose braids and crooked collars. A scuffed boot with a mended strap. Ink stains on one boy's fingers. A girl clutched a small carved wooden beast like it was a talisman.
Children of peace. Children of a world that had never seen cities fall or skies burn.
He exhaled slowly.
When he spoke again, his voice had changed.
The softness didn't completely vanish, but it thinned, becoming sharper around the edges. The warmth drained from his tone, leaving something steady, something cold. Not cruel—never that—but tempered, like metal that had seen the forge and hammer far too often to remember being raw ore.
"Listen closely," he said.
The wind stilled, or seemed to. Birds quieted in the branches overhead, or maybe that was just how the children remembered it later when they retold this moment a thousand times.
"Before mana," the old man said, eyes lifting past them, past the distant gleam of the empire, toward a place they couldn't see, "there were gods."
The word hung there, heavy. It didn't mean much to them. Gods were shapes in stained glass and names in hymns, not things that bled.
"Before humans," he continued, "there were stars so bright they burned the idea of darkness from the sky. Before empires, there were battles between beings who could crush worlds like you crush an insect under your heel."
Several of the children swallowed, eyes wide. One boy leaned forward, as if afraid to miss a syllable.
"Those stories aren't yours," he went on. "Not really. They belong to things long gone. Their ruins are under your rivers. Their bones are in your mountains. Their echoes live in your mana, whether you know it or not."
He slowly shifted his gaze down until it met the small faces in front of him.
"You asked for a different story," he said. "For the world before your Golden Age. For the man people called the Bluish Devil of Freedom."
The title felt strange on his tongue, but he let it stay there, allowing the children to see that he wasn't angry about the name. That alone seemed to relax several shoulders.
"You want to hear about war," he said, "about heroes and monsters, and a sword that refused to break. About a boy who wanted to be strong and the man he became."
He paused.
In that small silence, the sword at his side trembled slightly, issuing a soft, nearly inaudible ring, as if something within the metal recognized the shape of the story about to be told.
"When people speak lightly," he said quietly, "they say he was tireless. That he stood where others fell. That he saved them over and over until they pitied him for the weight he carried."
His eyes narrowed slightly, not in anger, but in memory.
"They rarely talk about the bones that broke," he murmured. "Or the nights when the world went quiet and all he could hear was his own breathing, wondering if it was worth it. They don't mention how many times he should've died. Or how close he came to wishing he had."
The teachers exchanged a quick glance. This wasn't the myth-softened version in the academy books. This was rougher. Sharper. Real.
The old man let one hand leave the sword and rest on the grass at his side, pressing his fingers into the earth, feeling the solid, living weight of the world that came after all of it.
"You want his story?" he asked, looking from child to child. "You want to know what happened before the fields were this green and the sky this quiet?"
Each nod felt enormous to them. A few whispered "yes," their voices catching a little.
He watched them a moment longer, as if weighing something only he could see.
Then he finally inclined his head.
"Very well," he said. "Then forget, for a while, this tree. This hill. That shining line of towers too far to touch. Forget your Golden Age and your empty skies."
His voice dropped again, quieter, as if sharing something meant only for them.
"Let's go back," he said. "To a small room in a crowded city. To an orphanage that smelled of old wood and cheap bread. To a morning when a boy woke up with no idea that gods and monsters were already watching him."
The air around them seemed to tighten, as if the world was holding its breath.
The old man's eyes lost focus slightly, turning inward. When he spoke again, the coldness didn't leave, but something younger flickered beneath it—an echo of sun through snow, of laughter in a place that had not yet burned.
"This," he said, "is the tale of the boy who wanted to be the strongest. The boy who swore to be a blade for those who could not speak. The man the world would come to call a devil painted in blue flame."
His hand brushed the hilt again. The sword's light pulsed once, responding.
"And it starts," he finished softly, "on a morning like any other."
The children leaned forward as one, captivated.
And as his voice took them away from the oak tree and the peaceful hill, the world of green fields and distant towers blurred, thinned—and the story dove into the past.