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The rain had not stopped for seven days.
It fell in quiet sheets now, whispering down upon scorched earth and broken stone.
No thunder, wind, nor lightning accompanied it.
Just the sound of the falling rain, as if the world itself had begun to cry and forgot how to stop.
Cale Henituse stood alone.
His crimson hair, darker now with time and filth and damp, clung to the sides of his face.
His clothes, once pristine as a noble’s and later war-hardened as a commander’s, hung in tatters, mud-caked and scorched at the edges, and clung to a body that was far too thin.
The rain traced the curve of his cheekbones and slid down his chin, but none of it disguised the tears.
He didn’t bother wiping them away.
Before him stretched a field of rough-hewn stone graves, torn banners, and wooden crosses hastily carved along with mementos tucked into the dirt.
Scarves, shards of mana stones, fur, fragments of armor, and a single red ribbon.
Some bore names while others were nameless.
However, he knew each one of them.
He knelt by the first one, a small freshly marked grave barely larger than a child’s.
The rain pattered gently on the surface of the dirt and nestled on top of the grave was a small crude piggy bank with a familiar design.
It was shaped like a little rabbit, with ears too long and one already chipped. The coins inside didn’t even jingle when he shook it.
Hong
Cale reached out with trembling hands. He touched the bank carefully, like it would crumble beneath his fingers.
“...Hong,” he said, his voice cracking. “You never even got to fill it halfway.”
The rabbit-faced bank had been a reward, a silly promise.
“Every good mission gets you ten coppers,” he had said, back when peace still felt real.
Hong had taken it so seriously as he began to carry it around proudly and even showed it off to Ron like it was a treasure vault.
Cale’s knuckles turned white where he gripped the edge of the piggy bank.
“I should’ve… I should’ve let you buy more candies.”
He sat there in silence for a while, whilst the rain drummed on his back.
And beside Hong’s grave was another slightly larger grave.
A curled shape carved into the marker, with a tail spiraling around a stylized sun.
It was like a child’s drawing.
And resting beneath it, untouched despite the wind and time, was a golden coin.
Raon
Cale felt his breath caught in his throat.
The little black dragon’s grave bore no body, for there had been nothing left to bury.
The coin was old. One of the first coins Raon had ever saved, back when he still misunderstood the value of money but hoarded it anyway.
“I never gave you a gold allowance,” Cale whispered as he knelt before it. “I should’ve… I should’ve let you have it. What was I even saving it for?”
The coin shimmered with a dull glint against the grey sky. Cale’s fingers hovered above it but didn’t touch.
He couldn’t.
His lips quivered, and something inside him cracked, splintering open.
“You were only… You were only seven, Raon.”
The pain surged like a wave, and he folded in on himself, forehead pressing to the grave as the sobs began.
They were soundless at first, tight gasps, and shoulders shaking.
Then it grew louder. A hoarse raw cry wrenched from his throat, something that was suppressed for too long.
“They were supposed to grow up,” he rasped into the dirt. “You were supposed to live.”
But reality is too cruel.
For there was another next to Raon’s grave. It was smaller and tucked in the shadow of a willow tree.
Cale had laid strands of woven string across the marker.
Red, blue, gold, and gray.
And single bell tied to the corner of the stone.
Ohn
Cale touched the marker gently.
“My daughter,” he murmured quietly.
He sat down before it, legs folding like they once had their shared bedroom, when he used to read them bedtime stories.
Ohn had always pretended to be aloof, even as a child, her tail curled tight and her eyes serious. But she’d nudge closer, little by little, until she could rest her head against his side without him noticing.
Except he always noticed.
“You were the first one to call me Dad,” he whispered as his throat burned.
“You never even hesitated.”
It was then that the bell on the grave chimed lightly as the wind passed.
Cale blinked slowly as he gently traced the mark.
“You kept them alive when I couldn’t. You protected them,” his voice shook as he continued, “I should’ve protected you.”
And of course, no one answered, for only silence remained.
The walk from the children’s graves to the others felt like he was being stabbed again.
Cale dragged his feet through mud and ash, the edge of his cloak trailing behind him like a shroud.
In his left hand, he carried a small wooden box. The paint was faded, and the lock rusted, but it was still intact.
Inside were the things they had left behind.
Their small piggy banks, drawings, Raon’s favorite storybook, Ohn’s comb, and the coin pouch Hong once tried to sew shut to “stop the money from escaping.”
Cale didn’t open it, he couldn’t.
The next graves were marked not by children’s trinkets, but by weapons. Broken hilts, shattered wands, and dried blood on cracked steel.
Cale stopped before the blade embedded in the ground.
The black sword, chipped at the edges, and scarred with lines that no polishing could erase.
Choi Han’s sword.
Cale dropped to one knee and exhaled, the sound hitching in his chest.
“Choi Han…”
There was no answer, of course not.
Cale stared as the sword remained motionless.
“You told me… that you would always be one step behind me. That you’d stop me if I ever tried to die.” He laughed, and it was a terrible sound.
“But you weren’t behind me this time. You ran ahead.”
He brushed his fingers over the hilt.
Ah, it was cold.
“I didn’t get to say goodbye.”
And just like that, the memories surged forward.
Choi Han, who staggering with fatal wounds but still kept smile on his face, whispered to Cale.
“Cale-nim, please live.”
And then he ran.
For his last stand, his last sword swing, and his final act of loyalty.
It was the moment the boy who had always smiled innocently fell with his blade buried in the heart of the enemy.
Cale leaned forward until his forehead rested on the rain-slick metal.
“You promised,” he said hoarsely. “You promised.”
He didn’t even notice the tears anymore, the rain had long hidden them.
And it took a very long time before Cale finally stood up.
The sky remained a dull gray as he left Choi Han’s grave behind. The kind of gray that hung low, pressing down on the world like a lid, smothering all color and warmth.
And now, he stood before three graves at the top of a hill.
Rosalyn’s grave was elegant. Someone had etched runes into the stone, Cale couldn't remember who, but the letters shimmered faintly with residual mana, like fire refusing to go out.
A cracked staff lay beside it.
It had broken when she had.
He crouched beside the grave, his hand hovering over the runes.
“You always knew how this would end,” he murmured. “Didn’t you?”
Rosalyn had never feared death. She’d always looked past it, always toward something brighter.
And yet, when her flame went out, it had left a cold so complete that even the strongest sun couldn't warm it.
“I never said thank you,” he whispered. “You gave everything, for us, for them, and for the world.”
The staff, once imbued with her power, now lay inert. The mana stone imbedded was unresponsive.
“...You should have been the new tower master.”
Lightning flickered somewhere beyond the clouds, but the sky held its tears.
Cale then moved to the next grave that shimmered gold.
Not real gold, no, Eruhaben would’ve scolded him if he’d wasted that much metal, but enchanted to mimic the gleam of the dragon's scales.
A gift from Rosalyn before her death, a final act of respect for her mentor.
Beside the grave lay the ancient dragon's scale with a crack through the center, once attached to a wing that would never soar again.
“Old man…” Cale said, the words catching in his throat.
There were no dragon bones to bury, Eruhaben’s body had dissolved into light after his final act, scattering into the wind like golden dust.
But this marker was all that remained of the great dragon who once clung so tightly to life, and to the people who gave it meaning.
“You weren’t supposed to die first,” Cale said slowly. “You promised me, just one more year, just one more. And I kept asking.”
He dropped to his knees.
“You kept giving them to me.”
The rain dripped from the edge of his hair, falling onto the scale, where it slid down like tears.
Eruhaben had not died of old age.
In the end, he had poured everything, every last breath of the ancient dragon's power, into sealing a catastrophe so that the others might live.
So that Cale might live.
Cale had screamed for him not to do it.
He still heard that scream in his sleep.
A shiver passed through him, stronger than the chill from the rain.
And now, the last grave beside them.
The marker stood tall, carved of black stone with no other decoration than a single crest, the crest of the Roan royal family.
Alberu.
No crown lay on the grave, no scepter, and no flag.
Only the silver bracelet Cale once gave him, and he wore it to the end.
Cale stared at the grave silently.
He didn’t kneel.
He stood, letting the rain wash over him, watching as it ran down the smooth face of the marker like uncried tears.
And then finally, Cale opened his mouth.
“You idiot,” his voice was low.
“You absolute… reckless… self-sacrificing bastard,” he rasped out before breathing in sharply.
“You said that this time, you were the shield. That it is finally time to do your duty, to protect your people. And I told you to stop. I told you we could win without… without losing you,” Cale's throat constricted.
“But you didn’t listen, of course you didn’t. Because you were always like that.”
The bracelet swung in the breeze as Cale stepped closer, his hand hovering above the stone.
“I was going to give you hell for it after the war. We were supposed to grow old. I was going to leave politics behind and you’d complain about it until I visited every other week. I was going to…”
Cale cut himself off. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came.
And then finally, Cale whispered in a voice barely audible.
“You were my hyung.”
He stayed by that grave longer than the others.
Farther down the hill, where the grass grew uneven and wild, lay two graves side by side.
They were not marked with family crests or enchanted stones, and only had a dagger and a broadsword.
Cale approached slowly, his boots sinking slightly into the mud. The rain had softened the soil, and it squelched beneath his every step.
He welcomed the discomfort.
It grounded him, reminded him that he was still walking, that he was still alive.
The dagger was stuck point-first into the earth, blade stained with rust, and the hilt wrapped with faded cloth. Beside it lay the broadsword, its broad edge dulled from battle, but unmistakably Beacrox’s as it was meticulously maintained, even to the end.
Cale knelt before Ron’s grave first.
The old man had always stood behind him, always.
Like a shadow that held a sword, like a servant who was more of a guardian, and like a father figure who never admitted affection aloud but showed it in the quietest of ways.
Like serving tea at just the right moment, patching wounds with a steady hand, and standing behind him when he couldn’t stand on his own.
Cale placed a hand on the damp earth.
“You followed me through everything,” he murmured. “And still, I made you walk into your final battle.”
Ron had smiled when he died.
He had smiled like he always did, eyes narrowed, mouth curled, and amusement laced with resignation.
He had died standing, blood spilling down his front, keeping Cale’s back safe from a sneak attack that would have ended it all.
“I told you not to push yourself,” Cale said bitterly. “You were too old, you should have retired. You should’ve gone back to the Eastern continent. Lived out your years quietly in the inn, or with your grandchildren, or something, anything,” Cale's hands clenched as his voice grew higher.
“But you wouldn’t leave. You wouldn’t leave me.”
A tear struck the dirt.
“And now I’ve left you here.”
Cale took a deep breathe, before turning slightly toward the grave beside it.
Beacrox’s was simpler.
A flat rectangular stone pressed deep into the ground. The broadsword beside it was clean, scrubbed spotless before the final battle.
That had been his ritual.
He always cleaned his tools and weapons before the going to the storm.
Cale stared at the weapon.
“He never cried,” he said to the air. “Even when Ron died. Even when he knew he wouldn’t survive the next assault. He just looked at me and said…”
His voice faltered, caught in his throat.
“‘Don’t let the kitchen rot, young master.’”
Cale laughed, it was a short and broken sound.
Beacrox had died without fear.
He’d fought through wave after wave, cutting down enemies with brutal precision, protecting the medics until his body collapsed from wounds too deep to heal.
Cale hadn’t been there. He’d arrived too late, only the bloody broadsword placed gently across his chest remained.
He bowed his head low between the two graves.
“You were both… my family. You never asked for anything in return. And I—”
Cale bit his lip to stop himself.
Because there was no answer that would make it better. No words that would make up for survival. He had nothing to give them now except his grief.
So he stayed there, bowed between the dagger and the broadsword, until the rain tried to wash the tears from his hands and the guilt from his voice.
It was then that the rain poured heavier.
It was a downpour, soaking through cloth and skin, and drummed on stone like a dirge.
But Cale didn’t move. He remained seated on the crumbling ledge with his back hunched, staring at his own shaking hands.
He failed, again.
He failed to protect those important to him.
He failed to keep his promises.
Just like what he did with Soo Hyuk and Jung Soo.
He remembered it perfectly.
The way the air had twisted, the way the sky that turned crimson-black, and the way that screech tore open the sky and shredded every piece of courage left in their unit.
The Unranked Monster was taller than the buildings it crushed, its body shifting between shapes, its face a blur of hunger and eyes.
Kim Rok Soo had frozen.
Paralyzed by exhaustion, blood loss, and the creeping realization that they were going to die.
However.
It was at that moment that Lee Soo Hyuk, the pillar of the team, the unshakable captain, rushed forward without hesitation, dragging the monster’s attention with a wild, reckless yell.
Kim Rok Soo had stared in shock at him, but before he could yell at him to get back—
Choi Jung Soo ran after him with a furious scream.
“Don’t you dare leave me behind, hyung!”
They had fought back like hell.
And they had died together.
While trying to protect the frantic Kim Rok Soo.
The monster had split them in half with a single strike.
Cale didn’t even remember who screamed first. He only remembered standing in the bloodied wreckage, alone, screaming until his voice cracked, until his knees gave out.
Kim Rok Soo had lived.
Because they made him.
He lived, and now he stood in another world, buried in another war, and grieving all over again.
The difference was he had watched them die.
Here, he had lost everyone to battlefields he never reached in time.
And still, he lived.
Cale pressed his forehead to the crook of his elbow. His breath hitched as the tears returned. Ugly gasping sobs that shook his entire frame.
“I didn’t want to live,” he choked. “I never wanted to be the one who survived.”
But no one answered.
He stayed like that for a long time.
Eventually, he rose. His legs were numb, fingers cold, and his throat raw.
But he walked again, this time back to the children’s graves.
The piggy banks were still there.
Raon’s golden coin had not moved, Ohn’s bell chimed faintly, and Hong’s rabbit bank sat crooked, as if waiting for him to fix its position.
And this time, he collapsed as he grasped the piggy banks to his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he said, over and over again. “I’m sorry I made you fight. I’m sorry I brought you into this. I’m sorry I outlived you. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”
The words poured from him continuesly without stop.
“You trusted and believed in me. I was supposed to make a world where you could be happy, where you could live freely. I was going to send you to school, Raon. Ohn, you were going to have your own intelligence agency. Hong, you were going to buy your own bakery and eat all your own stock.”
He then smiled brokenly.
“You were going to live.”
But again, there was no answer, only the rain accompanied him in his grief.
He reached into the wooden box beside him and pulled out a ribbon. The single red ribbon was slightly frayed, with small letters embroidered on the inside.
To Dad, From Ohn.
He tied it around the handle of the rabbit piggy bank. The ribbon fluttered slightly, before sticking in the wet surface.
“Even if the world rebuilds,” he whispered, “it won’t have you in it.”
Cale then closed his eyes.
“Even if I keep living… I won’t be me anymore.”
And he meant it.
Because Cale Henituse, the man they knew, the one who shouted and planned and dreamed about their slacker lives, had died with them.
What remained was a shell that walked, breathed, and remembered.
Because that was what he could only do.
He'll live.
Because someone had to remember their names.
Because someone had to keep watch over the graves.
Because he was the one who survived.
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