Thick black smoke billowed high toward the clouds, carrying the nauseating stench of burning flesh. The foul smell and traces of dried blood still clung to the ground, silent witnesses to the horror that had just swept through a small village on the outskirts of the Margravate of Serpentspire.
A knight in full armor approached a middle-aged man standing ramrod straight as he watched the flames roar. The man held his armored helmet under one arm, radiating the stern aura of a veteran soldier. He was the Legion Commander, Ashafar Redurion.
"Reporting, Commander!"
The knight saluted in the formal greeting of a knight.
"The area within a twenty-kilometer radius has been thoroughly cleared. There are no remaining signs of Orcs or Bogarts."
Listening to his subordinate's report, the Legion Commander nodded slowly, his eyes still fixed on the pile of villagers' corpses being consumed by purifying flames.
"What about the cremation?"
"Purification of the bodies is proceeding according to protocol, Commander."
In this world, death by brutal massacre was more than a tragedy—it was a security threat. Villagers who died consumed by despair, hatred, and deep fear retained surges of negative Mana. If their corpses were left untouched instead of being burned, within twenty-four hours those bodies would rise again as Undead—rampaging corpse soldiers stripped of reason.
Bringing new danger to the local population and the surrounding areas.
"Make sure not a single body part is left behind."
The Commander gave the order coldly.
"We don't need a zombie outbreak in the middle of this situation getting even messier."
After witnessing the purification of the villagers' corpses and confirming the security report on the monster lair's eradication, silence settled over the main command tent.
A map of Serpentspire and a series of soldiers' reports lay spread across a long wooden table.
The three finest knight leaders who had commanded the rescue team now stood around it. But their discussion had shifted to a single person: Efren, the thirteen-year-old boy who was the only survivor of the tragedy.
The argument between two senior knights grew heated.
"Rescuing that half-dead village boy in the first place was foolish, Serenity!"
The harsh-faced knight with a scar across his cheek snapped the words out. His eyes stared sharply at the only female knight in the room.
"This world is harsh. We're frontline fighters, Serpentspire knights who put our lives on the line every second. Bringing along an orphan without talent or a notable background will only make him a deadweight on the battlefield!"
Serenity—the female knight polishing her silver armor with a gentle yet resolute expression—shook her head firmly.
"He's just a child, Vael!"
Serenity shot back, her voice trembling as she held back her emotions.
"Watching his family get slaughtered and leaving him to rot in a pile of corpses would be a crime! If we knights ignore the life of a helpless child like that, then why do we even raise our swords?!"
"Your pity is making you weak, Serenity!"
Vael coldly cut off Serenity's emphatic reply.
"A frontline fighter doesn't have time to raise a child. You have no experience, and you can't offer him a peaceful future. Adopting this child will only hinder your sword in battle!"
To a knight, the instinct to protect was often considered a fatal weakness. Adopting a child meant bringing an emotional anchor into the slaughter of the knights' battlefields.
"Enough."
Another voice cut into their argument. The Legion Commander ended the dispute with a single tap of his finger on the table.
"You're forgetting the most realistic option. We can hand the child over to a religious institution."
The Commander stroked his chin, weighing the choices available in the current situation.
"The Dawn Church could take him in, but our political relationship with the Margravate of Serpentspire is growing strained. The ruler of Serpentspire leans more toward the Evernight Temple. But if we hand him over to the Evernight Temple... that temple has the weakest reputation among the religions in the Grand Elysian Empire and is looked down upon. The child would only become a low-ranking servant there."
The Commander laid out a complicated political dilemma concerning the situation within the Grand Elysian Empire.
The Legion Commander finally let out a long sigh after considering the possibilities for the boy's fate.
"We won't make a decision now. Let the child recover first. Once he's been confronted with the bitter reality of what happened to his village, let him choose his own path in life."
Serenity stepped forward, meeting her commander's gaze with complete conviction.
"When the time comes, I'll persuade Efren myself. I'm prepared to become his guardian and adopt him, regardless of whatever risks stand in the way."
While the debate continued in the command tent, an equally serious situation was unfolding inside a temporary tent serving as the Legion's special medical headquarters. This room was separate from the general treatment area where Efren lay, and was filled with shelves of potion bottles, rolls of bandages, and neatly arranged surgical instruments.
Behind the round table in the center of the room, three leaders of the Legion's healing groups sat in a circle. Two were Senior Doctors wearing medical practitioner's robes, while the third was a military High Priest holding a wooden staff carved with sacred symbols.
Within the Legion's military healing hierarchy, doctors and priests had clearly divided roles.
The Doctors focused on natural physical treatment—combining surgical science, knowledge of human anatomy, and medicinal formulas prepared by Herbalists. They were experts at stitching torn muscle tissue, neutralizing poison with plant extracts, and intensively treating burns.
The Priests, meanwhile, relied on Divine Magic—the sacred power of faith-based magic and healing skills. Their holy magic could close open wounds in a matter of seconds and purify evil energy from a patient's body. However, holy magic consumed a tremendous amount of Mana and could not repair destroyed tissue without the support of natural physical recovery through herbal medical methods.
That was why the two divisions had to complement each other.
Medical records and sheets of parchment recording Efren's energy fluctuations lay spread across the table before them.
"This is truly an anomaly..."
The First Doctor Leader spoke as he examined another image of the boy's anatomy—Efren.
"As a medical practitioner accustomed to treating physical organ damage, I would wager that the stab wound in the boy's chest should have destroyed his lungs and pierced his main blood vessels. The wound was large and visible on both sides, chest and back. It should have caused instant death."
The Second Doctor Leader nodded in agreement with the First Doctor Leader, stroking his bearded chin.
"Even using the most potent combination of herbal remedies made by advanced Herbalists, the regeneration of his muscle tissue and blood vessels is occurring at an unreasonable rate for an ordinary human. The wound closed far too quickly. We could even say it had healed completely within just two days."
Across the table, the High Priest leading the holy healing division rubbed the crystal at the tip of his staff, which glowed faintly.
"His physical regeneration isn't the only strange thing, Doctors Ricard and Heilan. Examine the Mana fluctuation records I just captured through a holy scanning spell."
The two doctors leaned forward, studying the lines of energy rippling across the paper.
"This... Mana awakening?!"
Doctor Ricard exclaimed, eyes wide with disbelief at what he saw after following the Priest's suggestion.
"This village boy has already experienced Mana awakening?!"
"That's right," the High Priest replied heavily.
"And that's where the abnormality lies. In this world, commoners from remote villages without access to elixirs or magical manipulation experience Mana awakening at the earliest around fifteen or sixteen. Only noble children can awaken Mana in their early teens, supported by their families' abundant resources."
After revealing his theory, the Priest looked back and forth between the two doctors.
"This child is only thirteen years old, comes from a poor village, survived a monster raid massacre, and, most astonishingly, was not brought down by a stab wound that should have been fatal. Finally, there's the premature Mana awakening that has emerged within his body. All of this happened at once. Whether it is a miracle from the Great Light of the Dawn Ruler of Nature, or whether some great secret lies hidden behind his physical form, I cannot say."
At the same time, a darker stage of politics and intrigue was being uncovered in the main command tent.
Standing with his back to the room, the Legion Commander listened to every detail of the intelligence report that had just returned from the monster lair. His rigid posture remained motionless, allowing the silence in the command tent to grow more oppressive with every fact revealed about the cave massacre.
Several pieces of evidence secured from the scene lay across the Commander's table: rolls of paper protected by dark magic seals and coins engraved with forbidden symbols.
"The monster lair is impossibly close to the village's location," an intelligence soldier reported, his tone serious.
"Far too close. It's hard to believe the villagers failed to notice a Bogart and Orc settlement that large all this time."
"Which means... they turned a blind eye?"
Vael muttered as he listened to the intelligence soldier's report and opinion.
"Worse than that," the intelligence soldier replied to Vael's mutter.
"Based on the documents we found in the village chief's house, there's strong evidence that the local chief conspired with the monsters. The village was deliberately 'baited' at a specific time."
"Savage bastard."
Hearing their conversation, Serenity spontaneously cursed the village chief.
Meanwhile, the Legion Commander's eyes narrowed as his fingers touched the forbidden emblem engraved on the magic seal atop the table. It was a symbol sought by the entire fleet of the Grand Elysian Empire.
"That organization..."
The Commander's whisper turned cold as ice.
"The imperial fugitives responsible for countless atrocities throughout the empire... they were behind this massacre."