Chapter Text
Prologue - The Dream, The Memory, The Encounter
We finally stood in front of the main mastermind who was pulling the strings behind Fodlan's curtains, and was now on his knees, with the time ripe to be defeated. Those who Slither in the Dark...it's now the moment to end this cultist faction. Thales breathed heavily before exclaiming a phrase that seemed to be a mantra for him.
"For all Agarthans...let there be light!"
He then slammed his hands into the floor, triggering a kind of magic. At the same time, something pierced through my head, as if something was cleaving right through my skull. I could only scream with the immense pain, letting go of my sword, and dropping to my knees. He then started to speak out an unknown rhyme, one which I could not understand a single bit.
"Not so fast, Thales!" yelled my friend, leaping forward.
With a swift motion, my friend split his sword into a whip, aiming straight toward Thales's heart. The sword's tip buried itself into the heart of the pale mage, going out through his back. Thales's face turned white with shock. He then slowly muttered one thing before he fell forward, life now vanishing from him. My friend then let go of the whip, letting it retract back to the sword. The pain immediately stopped.
My vision and eyes were swimming with the remaining pain. I could not interpret what was happening properly. All I knew was that my friend finally defeated Thales and obliterated the true evil of this world, and right now, I was seeing my friend's boots only as I was on the ground. But for some reason, the edges of my vision seemed to slowly turn scarlet. I slowly got up from the ground, looking into his beautifully lime eyes. He smiled, and I also smiled weakly. We knew this was now all over. We knew...
But then suddenly, his face seemed to freeze. His eyes widened. He looked down at his chest, and I followed suit. To my horror, my hand moved and pierced his chest with the sword I had. The sword that seemed to have been made out of scarlet energy was impaling his heart, different with the sword I always had, the sword he entrusted to me. I swore that I clearly remembered that I did not do such thing on my own accord. He looked back up and saw my terror-stricken face. He made a weak smile.
"It's not your fault..."
My grip on the sword weakened and was released. He slowly took a few steps back with the sword still impaling him.
"You must...survive...lead on..."
He then fell forward to the ground with a thud, his life gone in front of me.
I...I killed him...? How...how could I have done such a thing? And not on my own accord, but something controlled me. My arm moved on its own.
I wanted to scream, to cry. I opened my mouth to belt out a yell...
...only to hear a sinister laughter from my mouth.
But in my head, my mind started to scream out, regardless of this laughter.
No...no...no...!
"NO!"
I yelled, bouncing up from my cot.
I panted harsh and hard. I looked around, only to see the familiar room of the inn, not the dark and sinister chamber of shadows with that dark mage in front of me. The cot's blanket and covers were completely wet from all the sweat I let out with that dream. I stood up from the cot, slowly pacing around the room. As I walked, I shivered from that dream. That particular dream shook me heavily and I felt like I couldn't get back to sleep again. I walked over to the basin that held water and splashed my face with the cold water in the basin. I held it tight with my hands and sighed into the surface of the water. The ripple of the water formed by my breath disturbed the image of myself on the surface.
What was that dream? This kind of dream started to occur to me every night ever since I ran into the Ashen Demon. He was the one who obliterated my entire Berling Mercenaries. After the Ashen Demon eliminated my comrades, Captain Berling, and even my sworn brother Getz, I could no longer sleep well. Of course, it comes from the trauma that my entire friends were gone overnight by a single individual, but I never had this kind of shock even when several other of my closest friends in the Berling Mercenaries died or even when we were forced to team up with a mercenary band that were in a stale relationship with us. After all, losing someone close to you is a daily life of a mercenary, and even facing former allies as an enemy is also a possibility.
What was even more strange was that this friend appearing in my dream was none other than the Ashen Demon. Or at least, someone that looked like the Ashen Demon, except his eyes and hair was lime, not navy. It might be a possibility that I have accepted the Ashen Demon as my friend eventually and set aside our grudges behind, but I couldn't really accept the Ashen Demon as my friend. He was the one who obliterated my entire friends and, technically, the second family I had. I knew it in my mind that mercenaries holding a grudge is a bad thing, but my mind couldn't accept it. Thus I decided that it must have stemmed from the feeling I saw and knew this Ashen Demon before. I couldn't pick it for sure, but his manners and his attitude and his speaking was strangely familiar to one particular person I had known before.
I dried my face with the towel beside the basin, and sat in front of my desk. I felt like I would not be sleeping for the rest of the night, so I determined that maybe now would be a good chance to retrace my past footsteps and try to reclaim some memories about this person. I opened the journal I had with me ever since I left the mountainous remote village that I used to call home with my mom. This journal was given to me by a certain boy who was travelling with a mercenary band, and to be honest, this was the very reason why I decided to set out as a mercenary. I wished to meet him again. The name he had written at the front page had faded away with age, and the drawing of a fire he had drawn before even vanished into a thin memory. I now do not remember his name or the symbol, but as I remember how he looked like, I decided that maybe I could pull out a vague memory of my own with the aid of this journal.
I started to jog down the memory lane by opening the first page of the journal.
Imperial Year 1174, Day 13 of the Great Tree Moon...