Chapter 57: Home
Two months later, in the Kingdom of Peace...
A hooded, young man gazed at the residential district with immense nostalgia in his eyes.
A year ago—from what he had heard—a great fire had taken place here, consuming the wooden buildings and the lives of many, many people. It also destroyed the local orphanage.
"Such a shame. Our great saint—the Eternally Beautiful Queen—treated this whole district as the apple of her eye."
These were the words of an old woman standing nearby. The man looked at her without betraying a trace of emotion.
"And the orphanage? What happened to the children and the caretaker?"
The woman, somewhat embarrassed, scratched her head. She looked as if she genuinely knew what he was talking about but had trouble recalling the details.
After a moment, however, she remembered the whole story.
"Wasn't the caretaker the Eternally Beautiful Queen?"
Saying this, she began to describe the tenderness with which the previous monarch treated her subjects.
The stranger remained silent, listening to the stories being told. He did not comment on them when the old woman finished speaking.
At a certain point, he simply left her a coin for the tour and went on his way.
Wherever he asked in the city, almost no one could give him an answer about the orphanage.
They no longer remembered the name of the sister who ran the establishment, nor even the names of the children killed by the catastrophic fire.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Nearby was a square with a cathedral, which had been the first to be attacked by cultists a year ago.
In its very center, near the newly opened entrance to the underground tomb where a devil was once kept, a monument now stood.
"TO THE HEROINE OF THIS CITY, WHO GAVE HER LIFE TO KILL FIEND BEFORE THE AWFUL CULTISTS COULD FREE HIM."
Read the gravure on a silver plate attached. It also contained a brief summary of what happened on that fateful day.
"The terrible bandits resorted to dark arts to surround the queen's marble castle with hellfire. The guard suffered terrible losses, but the most terrible was the loss of the symbol of this peaceful city."
The monument stood here in honor of the Eternally Beautiful Queen, whose dynastic line—though in this case distant and brought in from another continent after many months—still ruled the kingdom.
Overall, the city seemed to function properly; crime was still low, people abided by the law, and they paid homage to Justice.
What more could one want?
This was exactly what the twenty-year-old man was pondering as he laid flowers on the unnamed victims' grave in the cemetery and shook his head.
'This place is no longer my home...'
If anyone had been watching him at that moment, they would surely have mistaken him for some strange phantom. For just then, he dissolved into the air, vanishing as if he had never been there.
Two weeks later, at the home of the nobleman Nicodem "The Orphan" Rudnicki...
The host, drunk as a skunk, laughed loudly at the news he received from his guest.
"Am I hearing this right? You want to go back to hell?!"
The young man before him nodded, sighing slightly. The truth was that now, that place seemed more fitting for his heart.
The fat nobleman across from him became overjoyed and immediately clapped his hands. He directed his gaze at the withered servants working nearby:
"Ha! Did you hear that, you lazybones?! My ward is returning to his old stomping grounds! Inform the dimension immediately!"
What could the poor lackeys do? As the lord nobleman commanded, so it was done, and the news was sent out.
Soon, the powerful cultivators of the dimension could hear the four devilish mountains and Mount of Mists itself descending into immense chaos:
"What?! The Grim Judge is coming back?!"
"That awful scoundrel who torments decent citizens?!"
"Hide the nobles' daughters!"
The young man counted himself among these powerful cultivators, so he heard the commotion. What else could he do but smile sincerely?
"There's no place like home."
END OF BOOK 1
