“Big sis, good morning!”
Somewhere nearby, a voice chirps like a sparrow—thin and lively.
I open my eyes and look around.
Everything looks familiar, and yet… somehow distant.
I open my mouth to search for the source of the voice.
“Lucy?”
Maybe I’m still half-asleep—my voice comes out awkward,
like I’m fumbling with a forgotten instrument made of vocal cords and lips.
‘She’s going to laugh at this for sure—’
“Hahaha! What’s this? You’re the sleepyhead today? That’s a first.”
Just as I expected, Lucy bursts into laughter, wasting no time teasing me.
I sit up and perch at the edge of the bed, scanning the room again.
The bed I’m sitting on—just a plain, straw-stuffed thing you’d find in any house.
But the grand leopard skin thrown over it? That one’s an eye-catcher.
We took it from some swindler we dealt with a while ago.
Tried to pull something on me. Poor fool picked the wrong target.
—As I sit there, lost in thought like a fool, Lucy’s voice calls me back.
“Big sis! Are you planning to stay in dreamland all day? We still have herbs to sort!”
Hah. Since when did Lucy become the housekeeper around here?
Sure, I still do most of the chores, but Lucy always lent her tiny hands without complaint.
We both had to grow up far too early.
…We lost our parents when we were young. Almost ended up being sold off somewhere.
But we were lucky—we were taken in by the Rhowari.
They were wanderers, never settling, roaming across the continent.
From what I remember, their history and scale felt… substantial.
Still, to them, we were outsiders.
Eventually, they left us in a village in the southern part of the Empire.
And then—
Wait. Where is Lucy?
Suddenly, fear grips me as I rise to my feet.
“Lucy!”
She’s nowhere to be seen.
Only her voice reaches me.
“Lucy!!”
Even in the midst of this peaceful scene, I shout, restless and uneasy.
As if I have to see her—right now—before she slips away.
“Cerci!”
Her voice echoes from beyond, close yet… somehow out of reach.
“Aaahh!”
A scream pierced the silence, and I jolted awake.
Darkness surrounded me, thick and disorienting, as if dreams and reality were tangled into one.
But I stayed calm—steadily, I reloaded the pistol in my hand and sharpened my ears for any further sound.
After a few seconds of stillness, I heard it—faint, stifled sobbing.
I let out a quiet breath and set the gun down, then lit the lantern.
“Did you… have a dream too?”
Her tear-soaked eyes turned toward me.
“It’s all right now.”
As I reached out to comfort her, I saw her body tense in fear.
So I drew my hand back, folded my arms around my knees, and sat in silence.
“It’s okay, Lumi. Whatever you saw in that dream…”
Her trembling gaze quietly locked with mine.
“As long as I’m here, it can’t hurt you.”
I said it, more to reassure myself.
Morning broke.
When I woke up, Jane was already up, diligently stretching her body.
Jack, as usual, was sat leaning in the exact same position as the night before.
Our makeshift tent was nothing more than a small, shabby shelter barely protecting us from wind and rain.
So, just by adding Lumi to the group, we had to get pretty creative to use the limited space efficiently.
Because of that, Jack had to spend the night in an awkward position.
But he said nothing, simply doing what was given to him.
“Jack, good job.”
I gave him a brief greeting—he had probably been on watch until just before sunrise.
Jack gave a slight nod in response.
It had been a few months since I started moving with Jack.
Jane had joined around the same time as Lumi, but she had been with us longer.
So Jane and I were fairly familiar with Jack’s personality.
After all, cult members aren’t exactly known for being personable.
But Lumi was still unfamiliar with these circumstances.
She didn’t have the luxury to notice the recent changes in Jack’s sleeping posture or the discomfort it caused.
She wasn’t a cultist, after all, but a young girl living among them.
“Lumi, did you sleep well?”
Her eyes widened as they met mine.
She nodded reflexively, with a face heavy with fatigue.
Then she averted her trembling gaze awkwardly.
I let out a quiet sigh.
‘Can’t expect her to open up just yet…’
Jack and Jane were now preparing a simple breakfast.
We still had some hardtack and biscuits left, but out of consideration for Lumi, we made a simple stew.
Since I was the senior, Jack was simply following my orders,
and quietly giving Lumi only what was necessary.
He handed the stew to Lumi without a word, then ladled another bowl for Jane.
Jane, in turn, passed a bowl to me.
“Thanks.”
Jane gave a faint smile and accepted the stew from Jack again.
Since Lumi is a girl,
Jane didn’t hold any particular grudge against her.
Due to her past, Jane harbored strong hostility toward most men except for Jack, our comrade.
But she truly followed me and was fairly kind to Lumi as well.
“Slurp.”
Watching Lumi eat her stew with such focus, I could tell her tension had eased—if only slightly.
It was nothing more than a watery stew, barely seasoned with salt and mixed with scraps of jerky and biscuit crumbs.
But these days, that counted as a decent meal.
Of course, by the standards of the world before it all went mad, it was pathetic.
Unless someone had been starving for three days, offering them this would’ve earned you a rather unpleasant glare.
While I was lost in thoughts about the nature of our breakfast, Lumi had already emptied her bowl.
Jack noticed and, after briefly glancing at my bowl, filled hers again.
Lumi hesitated for a moment, then resumed eating, busying herself with the spoon.
It was as if she was trying to drown out her thoughts with the act of eating.
I looked at her again.
Her face was covered with grime and dust, giving her a pitiful appearance.
Roughened skin, brittle hair…
For some reason, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
And slowly, another girl’s image began to overlap with hers—
“Eat plenty… my sister.”
The thought surfaced suddenly, and I shut my eyes tight, startled.
That beloved name came to mind on its own.
Lucy…
As I felt a warmth welling up in my eyes— like the heat from the bowl of stew in my hands,
The past—
Came flooding back to me.
I ladled the steaming, freshly made stew into a bowl.
Inside were neatly cut pieces of meat and vegetables, with a sprinkle of dried herbs.
“Lucy, dinner’s ready!”
I heard my past self calling out to my little sister.
Soon, the table was set—not with a lavish dish or grand feast,
but with a warm, modest meal that was enough simply because we shared it.
“Thank you for the food!”
Lucy’s voice, once familiar, now felt achingly dear.
“Eat plenty, Lucy.”
I opened my mouth and spoke the one line etched in memory,
but the voice that echoed back sounded strange—
so different from who I had been back then.
Clatter. Was that the sound of a spoon scraping an empty bowl?
And then, from afar, a sound came—
Clack clack, clack clack.
Before I knew it, darkness had fallen, and we had left the house.
No, we were somewhere far away from home.
Clack clack, clack clack.
The torchlight on the night path revealed only our figures swallowed by darkness,
and the ground just a step ahead.
“Sis… is everything gonna be okay?”
Lucy’s worried voice.
Clack clack, clack clack, snort.
The horses seemed indifferent to the anxiety between Lumi and me, leisurely aiding our escape.
A scene of massacre, a cowardly choice? But we survived.
“Lucy, I will protect you.”
An empty promise made with sincerity—
no other words came to mind in this recurring past.
The carriage kept moving, and the surrounding darkness silently followed us.
Whooosh.
A soft wail spiraled through the rocks, echoing up from the valley below.
The wind slipped in between my barely opened eyelids.
The morning air wasn’t too cold—yet.
But with autumn drawing closer, the weather had grown fickle, especially at dawn and dusk.
I shoveled the now-cold stew into my mouth and stood up.
After all, I still had a life to carry—and someone to protect.
We had been following a small river branching off from the eastern wetlands.
Once we crossed another mountain and passed through another valley,
a small dock would come into view, where the river merged.
It had been quite some time since I last returned to the cult’s outpost.
The chaos following the Ethereal invasion had allowed the cult to flourish.
But with most of their prey now dead, conflict between the Aethereals and the cult was inevitable.
To those abominable beings, all humans were merely vessels—disposable and to be possessed.
So this clash had always been just a matter of time.
“Cough, cough.”
I turned toward the sound and saw Lumi, trembling from the cold.
“Just hold on a little longer. We’ll get to rest soon once we board the boat.”
Our eyes met. She hesitated, then gave the smallest nod.
Almost immediately, she averted her gaze, staring down as if to suppress something down deep inside her.
Poor girl.
After receiving the blood baptism, one could awaken power beyond human limits.
A body touched by the void wouldn’t tire easily and healed swiftly from wounds.
‘But emotions dried up… and the blood on your hands never seemed to wash away…’
I looked down at my own hands, then back to Lumi.
She was just an ordinary girl.
Amid all the countless lives lost to the world’s madness, Lumi’s survival felt nothing short of a miracle.
But the price had been steep.
Every day she endured new trials—suffering through pain and hardship no child should bear.
Yet I couldn’t subject her to the baptism of blood.
She was still pure—untainted by the madness of this world.
Protecting that innocence… guarding her soul from corruption and despair—
Perhaps that’s all I have left to live for.
