Chapel

As the season of cold was approaching, the weather became too chaotic for a group of wanderers to travel on foot inside a dense forest. They neither had the equipment nor any proper clothes to face the winter, thus they all hurried to run out of this forest as fast as possible, not wasting their time on whatever could be skipped. 

Exiting the jungle took less time compared to the time it took for them to arrive at the village. Be it because they knew the way out, had a proper guide, or were not wasting their time, they managed to reach the boundaries sooner than predicted.

"But Sir Ian, this town isn't in our path, why did you want us to change our course this way?"

As Claus said, the town Ian emphasized to visit was out of their route. They had to change their course in order to arrive at this place, delaying their arrival at their destination. 

"This is a nice town, has a great inn, and has a small market. We can rest and refill our resources before leaving for our destination."

"Hmm... That's logical. But how do you know their inn is nice-"

"Over there," Ian didn't allow Eleen to question him. "The inn is at the end of that road. You guys go there until I come back."

"Why, aren't you coming with us?"

Already turned around and walking away, Ian waved a hand at the group, "I'll come back after visiting that chapel over there. It's been so long since I last prayed."

'Probably a few decades.'

He smiled and clasped his hands. Where he pointed at lay a tiny wooden chapel. 

"Praying to god in a place built by ruining so many natural life forms..."

The eyes of many turned to Claus. He forced his mouth shut but didn't stop cursing at the humans in his mind. Nobody cared about whatever he thought. 

"I'll come with you-"

"Nope! Stay with them, Raven. I'll be quick back."

Steps hastening, Ian strolled down the road, arriving shortly at the chapel. The sun was about to set, the golden rays scattered across the skies, and the number of passersby decreased gradually. 

Tak. Ian pushed the old door open. 

In front of him stood an old man, thin and tattered, looking to be in his last days of life. One of his arms was covered in a disgusting infection, blackened, decomposed. 

Ian let out a helpless sigh. 

How many times has it been?

The old man who, out of his need to support her widow, pregnant daughter, resorted to selling monster corpses found outside the town near the boundaries of the jungle. The monster he chose, however, was always infected with corruption.

Without allowing the old man to say a word, Ian stepped forward, grabbed the old man's hands, and closed his eyes. A burst of gold flashed inside the chapel, dying the corrupted's vision white. 

By the time the old man came to his senses, the wound on his arm was gone, energy returned to his fibers, and serenity washed away all his grief. There was nothing left but pure light. 

"....Ah? A- A saint!?"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

The night soon fell.

After camping out in the wild for such a long while, the cozy embrace of beds and the warmth of a hot bath was the most pleasant thing they could desire. A light supper feasted their late-night get-together before everyone went to their respective rooms. The exhaustion dawned on them in a few seconds, dragging them into a deep, sound sleep. 

Tatap. 

The blanket was pulled aside. Ian carefully tiptoed down the bed and out of the room. Drawing his cloak over him, Ian silently exited the inn, taking with him only a tiny wolf pup and an old notebook. 

'This better not take long, or else I'll have to go through a full round of scoldings.'

If it was discovered that he sneaked out of the inn alone at night, Raven wouldn't let him alone even at night. Even the thought of dealing with that child made him tired. 

While walking down the road, he kept releasing a faint trail of Aether, only enough to barely enhance his senses. That was enough. 

'As expected. I'm being followed.'

He'd thought about this most recent matter a lot in the past few days. Not stopping at simply contemplating the matter, he performed simple investigations. After rounds and rounds of doing weird experiments, he concluded a few facts about the person following them. 

'One person alone, probably a mage. The target of interests switches between me and Alaric. Their main goal isn't to murder us.'

He'd sent the group members separately to different locations and observed the person's behavior, and what he noticed was that they weren't interested in either Raven, Eleen, or Claus. Doris was observed for a while as well, but their main focus was on him and Alaric. 

'There is the possibility that the person could be acting to fool me, but I doubt it to be the case.'

After all, he'd visited this forest many times and never did such a thing happen. This could only mean that one peculiar singularity was what attracted that person's attention, and that person could only be Alaric, or maybe Doris. Ian's presence never led to this person's appearance. Raven was a part of The Resistance in his previous rounds and was sent to this place many times, he probably had Eleen with him as well, and Ian was never aware of anything out of usual happening. And Claus was an elf. 

'And they are likely the person who left this notebook for us to find.'

It wasn't hard to link the connection between them. In addition to that, the trace of mana left on the notebook and the one lingering around that person were fairly similar. 

'Well then.'

Stepping out of the town and into the woods, Ian slowed down a bit, glancing at the tips of the trees and the fallen autumn leaves. 

"Don't you want to have a chat?"

He spoke to no one specific at all. 

Rustle. The tree branches swayed in the wind. 

"Stalking people isn't a nice thing to do, you know. Whether it's a talk or a fight you want, you better bring it on now, or my patience might run off."

Though he tolerated them being tagged and enjoyed the whole process of trying to figure out the person's aim and identity, that didn't mean he was kind enough to let someone consistently spy on his every move. 

And to get rid of that hindrance, he wasn't short in ways and methods.

Done conveying his message, Ian also stopped walking. His eyes glazed past the woods and locked on one tree, not looking away from the tip of one of the tree branches. After a few seconds, the branch suddenly lifted up and down, and a shadow shot up from behind its leaves. 

In the next instance, a slender figure briskly landed in front of him, the tips of his shoes so gently brushing the ground that not even a branch bent, the ends of his white hair leaving behind a frail trail. 

Ian's eyes narrowed unnoticeably. 

The man in front of him had a head of white, so devoid of any color that it formed a deep contrast with the dark background. And it wasn't just his hair. Long colorless lashes, pale skin, his eyes... hard to understand. One moment they appeared light gray, the moment he shifted his head, they flashed red for a second. The mixture of all created a rather attractive face, something in between handsome and pretty.

And it was a first for Ian, seeing this man. 

"Who are you?"

Despite his initial shock, Ian kept his expression unchanged. His gaze never left the person's face. 

"Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?"

Once he spoke, a deep voice traversed the land, one seemingly just escaped from the dreamland. The man sorted the hems of his long sleeves, shooting a sideway glance at Ian and the notebook in his arms. 

"That wasn't particularly meant to be yours."

"Things don't always go as you expect them to."

"I suppose."

As he said that, the man's gaze trailed off to a spot behind Ian. Also sensing something, Ian turned around. Far in the distance, the tiny figure of someone could be seen approaching. The person was slowly walking forward, arms crossed, rounded pupils darting from one spot to another, flinching occasionally. 

'...That fool...'

Alaric must've sensed the approach of the source of mana and followed its trail. Indeed, the amount of mana this man gave off while barely standing there was leagues above any high-ranked mage. There was no way the nobleman wouldn't have sensed it. 

"So, who are you?"

Ian asked once again, this time when Alaric was closer to them. Once he spotted Ian in the woods, the nobleman broke into a sprint, jogging to his side with a face filled with relief. 

"A mage," the man responded briefly. "Name is Zal."