Chapter 8: A Quiet Life

  A month had passed, and the manhunt for that terrifying fugitive still raged on. Patrols of royal guards could be seen everywhere on the streets, conducting searches at all hours. Wanted posters had been plastered on every corner, and people chattered endlessly about the fugitive depicted on them. Some claimed he was a spy sent by an enemy kingdom; others said he was a new breed of orc; still more whispered he was a cultist from the Necromancer Guild.

  Ethan stood with Old Sandro and a few vegetable vendors around the butcher’s shop, listening as the butcher spoke with great enthusiasm—spittle flying—as he described how the cultist had drawn symbols in the air, shouted a single command, and instantly, everyone in the prison had been decapitated, their blood flowing like a river. The vegetable vendors murmured among themselves, agreeing to go to the church together to beg for holy water to protect themselves.

  “ You must sprinkle the holy water on something close to your body,” Old Sandro told the vendors. “Your undergarments work best.”

  A patrol of royal guards brushed past Ethan, and a few of them glanced at him curiously.

  But only a glance. Even Ethan himself barely dared to look at his reflection in the mirror. His face now resembled a grotesque wax mask that had melted halfway in the fire before re-hardening—pockmarked and covered in greasy, shiny tumors, his features twisted and contorted into a jumble, even his eyes skewed. A half-orc or a goblin would have been ten times more handsome than he was.

  Of course, it was just a mask. An exceptionally well-made one, with visible pores and faint veins on the tumors; even to the touch, it felt as elastic as real skin. Old Sandro was skilled at his craft, and wearing it caused Ethan no discomfort—though he hesitated to ask what exactly the mask was made of.

  Hunching over, slinging a mat over his back, limping as he walked, and wearing a tattered robe that covered his entire body: it was the perfect outfit for his “appearance.” After wandering the streets with Sandro for two days, the people in the nearby neighborhoods grew accustomed to him, knowing him as Old Sandro’s hunchbacked assistant.

  Ethan was somewhat surprised to learn that Old Sandro was actually affiliated with the Magic Academy—and that the large house filled with corpses belonged to the Academy too. Even back in his rural hometown of Kalendor, among the miners and blacksmiths who drowned their sorrows in cheap wine and visited prostitutes, the mention of the Magic Academy would earn a look of respect. It was the Church’s most important institution; in many people’s eyes, it was almost equivalent to the Church’s core—a place where magic was studied and priests and mages were trained. To commoners, talk of the royal family or state affairs felt like vague, distant concepts, far less tangible or interesting than street gossip. But when they were injured, or had done something wrong, or felt guilt or unease, it was the priests from the Magic Academy who came to help. Thus, in the minds of ordinary people, it was a sacred and noble place.

  Yet just as even the purest-seeming woman was still human—and all humans needed to use the privy—the Magic Academy, in its study of healing magic, had to study the human body. And that meant having a dedicated place to store corpses.

  Naturally, out of respect for the Church’s sanctity, such research was only conducted when absolutely necessary, and as quietly as possible. Places like this could not be located within the Magic Academy itself. The large house was built in a remote corner on the western edge of the city, and the only living beings inside were Ethan and Old Sandro.

  Old Sandro’s job was essentially to preserve and categorize various organs and body parts; most days, he had little to do, and sometimes even wandered the market. But more often than not, he enjoyed tinkering with corpses—for example, stitching different body parts from several people into a single human shape, casting bizarre spells on the bodies, slicing an organ into dozens of pieces and soaking each piece in a different potion. It was a hobby that consumed a lot of corpses, which was why Sandro had a good relationship with the city’s jailers and guards. Whenever there was an unclaimed corpse or one that no one cared about, the guards would sell it to him for a few copper coins. Ethan’s job, meanwhile, was to carry the corpses, assist with dissecting them, chop up organs, go to the market to buy daily necessities, and prepare their meals.

  Hardly anyone ever approached the large house. Apart from three stray cats that lingered nearby, there was only one visitor, who came every two or three days. He was an old man too, dressed in a black robe, his cheeks so gaunt it looked like he had never had a full meal in his life. Dark circles hung under his eyes, as if he never got enough sleep. He always came to see Sandro at night. Whenever that happened, Sandro would tell Ethan to go into the small inner room and read by himself. The two old men would light candles in the large room filled with corpses and organs, chatting until midnight.

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  Two months earlier, he had watched helplessly from a hill in the western wilderness as his entire unit was wiped out. Then he had fled from orc pursuers, raced for his life through the Lizard Marsh, and barely escaped having his head twisted off… After that, he had come to the capital, only to inexplicably become the most feared fugitive in the entire city… And now he was in a house full of corpses, helping a strange old man tinker with dead bodies. When he thought back on his experiences over this period, even he found them unbelievable.

  Logically, he could have slipped away quietly when Old Sandro wasn’t looking. With this mask and his current “fame” in the city, he could have moved around unimpeded. But he had never done that.

  There were many reasons he didn’t run. For one thing, learning magic had been a distant dream of his since childhood. Sandro’s room was filled with books about magic. For another, he was waiting here for the Bracada caravan to bring Sophia back. That seemed to be his only chance to turn things around in his current predicament. The duke’s order to “execute on the spot” had left him with no opportunity to clear his name—let alone the fact that he still had no idea what had caused all this. His only hope was to wait for her return, in the faint hope that she could clear up the misunderstanding.

  Ethan had always believed the duke was hunting him because of some misunderstanding between himself and Sophia. Given his current situation, that was the only guess he could make.

  But none of these were the most important reasons. The real reason he hadn’t run was that Ethan didn’t find anything wrong with his current, strange life.

  Perhaps it was because he had witnessed so much bloodshed and cruelty that night two months ago—now, even surrounded by corpses and organs, he felt no revulsion.

  Perhaps it was because he had come so close to death so many times in the Lizard Marsh that now, even seeing search parties everywhere on the streets, he felt no fear. Sometimes, when he watched groups of young soldiers wearing themselves out searching for him, he even felt a strange sense of affection for them. He wanted to walk over, pull them aside, invite them to sit at a street stall and eat something, and earnestly advise them to stop wasting their energy.

  Perhaps it was because Old Sandro was so used to dealing with corpses that he treated living people like corpses—no wariness, no suspicion. Getting along with him was surprisingly easy. Sandro never asked about Ethan’s past, or even his name. After all, there were only two living people in the house; when one spoke, the other knew they were being addressed. On the contrary, Sandro had even given names to the three stray cats that often came to the house looking for food. The two of them were like old friends who had long ago lost all curiosity about each other.

  Most importantly, his daily magic studies and meditation consumed all his energy. Every day, he could feel himself making progress: from the simplest blood-stopping spells to real healing magic; from lighting a candle with two fingers to roasting a fish with his bare hands.

  He had also found a dusty book hidden behind Sandro’s bookshelf. Its pages were made of some kind of leather—ancient, yet not the least bit damaged. It was a strange book. From its table of contents, it contained an astonishing number of spells, as well as various magic-related skills and anecdotes. But except for the table of contents and the first chapter— which was about meditation techniques—all the other pages were written in a language Ethan didn’t recognize. He didn’t ask Sandro about it; instead, he just practiced the meditation method described in the only chapter he could understand, every day.

  Each day was filled with studying, practicing, and meditating. He had been immersed in this life of constant self-improvement since he was five years old—it was the quietest, most peaceful way of life for him. Everything felt so natural, no tension, no forced effort. Thus, Ethan spent a month in this “quiet life”—surrounded by corpses and hunted by guards—without even realizing it.

  Quiet life always relaxes the mind. After a while, one’s senses seem to melt into every detail of that life, no longer craving change or excitement. But Ethan knew this couldn’t last. After all, some things couldn’t end like this. He couldn’t be a fugitive for the rest of his life, hiding in the shadows forever. Even though he was safe for now, the thing he couldn’t stand most was being trapped—being confined by something.

  And he couldn’t let so many people die in vain on that hill in the western wilderness. A strange intuition told Ethan that the report he had given at the duke’s mansion had never truly reached the people it was supposed to reach.

  “Hey, let’s go. What are you staring at?” Old Sandro stuffed a package of groceries he had bought into Ethan’s hands. Ethan took it, hung his head, and limped after him.

  That night, after meditating, Ethan was drawn by a faint light filtering through the window. He stepped out of the large house and saw the second brightest full moon of his life.

  The last time he had seen a moon like this was exactly two months earlier, on that hill in the western wilderness. It was the same soft yet dazzling moon—so bright that not a single star dared to compete with it in the sky. This moonlight pulled Ethan’s memories back to that time, making him relive that night of slaughter all over again.