Ega was sitting in the back of a carriage with a dozen or so crates with his eyes closed. He was focused on trying to separate all the souls that he had mixed into his own with his battle against Vulf and his gang. Despite having spent the entirety of yesterday evening trying to separate it in a tavern, he was far from done.
The sheer amount of souls made it difficult to pull them apart from his own, but thankfully, they weren’t mixed in too finely. As much as he wanted to finish the process today, his focus was beginning to wane.
He began to notice the cold breeze brush past his face, the slight shaking of the carriage, and his hair brushing against his skin as it followed the breeze. Unable to focus on the process of separating the souls any longer, Ega opened his eyes.
Ella was sitting across from him, no longer wrapping herself in an oversized coat. Instead, she was wearing properly fitted clothes perfect for the upcoming winter months. Aside from her new clothes, Ega began to take notice of her strange expression.
She wore a solemn expression, darting her gaze around looking for something to do.
“Are you bored?” Ega asked.
“N-no…” Ella stopped moving her head around too much, as if she was just caught doing something wrong.
“No need to hide it, it does get quite boring sitting around doing nothing.”
Ega couldn’t really blame her for feeling bored when there wasn’t much to do. He tried to think of something, something that would be both productive and distract her for long enough until they arrived at Ashier.
‘Something useful and which also takes a long time to do…’ Ega fell into deep thought, but the only thing that he could think of was training. The training of a knight, the training under his master, and the training that he gave himself, he wondered what Ella could do under the current circumstances.
That was when it hit him. Turning his gaze out to the forest, Ega began to focus on the leaves surrounding them. “Ella, look out to the forest with me.”
She did as he said, poking her head out and having a taste of another passing breeze. She tried to follow Ega’s gaze, unsure of what he was about to do as his eyes began to dart around.
As the leaves drew closer to them, he finally moved. Reaching out, he quickly snatched something in one simple motion. He opened his head to reveal what it was to Ella. Five leaves, a mix of orange and yellow, were sitting in the palm of his hand.
“You want to know how to get as strong as me?” There was a prideful smile as he spoke.
Ella furiously nodded her head with sparkling eyes, stoking the flames of Ega’s ego.
“Look at the forest, and watch it very carefully. Pay attention to not just the trees, but the branches and individual leaves. Watch as they sway with the wind, and once you see them move…” Ega reached out, grabbing more leaves as a gust of wind brought them to him.
It was exactly five leaves again with the same amount of yellows and oranges. “Grab the leaves that fall, same amount, same colors every single time.”
A sense of awe was written on Ella’s face and she began to turn her attention to the forest. To be able to possess such sharp vision and move with such precision, she wanted to be able to do the same. Just before Ega let her attempt grabbing the leaves, he gave some more words of advice.
“Don’t tunnel too much on the details. See the whole forest while seeing the little details. Train yourself to see more, not to see something differently.”
Ella didn’t respond, too focused on trying to do the same thing that Ega had done. He didn’t mind it, knowing that his words probably reached her one way or another. The way that Ella looked at things when she began to focus was almost scary. It was like her eyes were an endless void, sucking everything in from her surroundings and gaining any little bit of knowledge she could.
‘Is that a part of her blessing?’ Ega wondered. But he didn’t have much time to dwell on the thought as Rayland began to strike up a conversation.
“You’re good at keeping kids occupied with strange games aren’t you? I wish I could have done the same thing to my son on long journeys like these.”
“It’s not a strange…” Ega wanted to interject and say that it was a real training method for the eyes, but he let it pass. “It’s just something I picked up on my journeys. Maybe I should run an orphanage or something with this talent.”
“Ha, it’ll take more than that to raise children properly. I learned just how much it takes when I was raising my son.”
“Is that so? Where is—” Ega suddenly stopped himself, not wanting to accidentally step on a sensitive topic. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to have a dead loved one, especially in this cruel world.
“Oh he’s doing just fine.” Rayland could feel the tension in that sudden pause. “He’s a part of the Order of Knights now.”
“Really? And you’re still out here moving around as a merchant?”
“You know how it is for people like us, just can’t stay still in one place, especially when you know the Outers can come at us at any time. With our guardian gone, and although nothing significant has happened in years since then, don’t you feel something will happen eventually?”
“I do…” Ega knew almost better than anyone.
“And you just feel like you need to do something, no? I can’t do much. I’m no knight, no soul bearer, no one significant, but I can do something. Bring food where people are starving, weapons where they are fighting, clothes to those shivering, it doesn't matter much to me whether they can pay me properly or not.”
“Don’t have a taste for coins?”
“At this age? No, I can’t taste the sweetness in them anymore but it does get in the way sometimes. Like how I wish I could pay you a little more for—”
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“Don’t, I already said my piece.”
Rayland rubbed the back of his neck slightly embarrassed. “I know, but it’s the least I could do, no? I can’t do much in the grand scheme of things, I can’t wield a sword and a soul like you can, so isn’t it only right to treat those who do much more with proper respect?”
Ega looked at Rayland after hearing those heavy words. His posture was weak and brittle, almost like it could crumble at any moment. It wasn’t Rayland’s age that was getting to him, but something much deeper in his soul.
Turning to the sky, Ega tried to find the right words in the vast ocean of blue and large waves of clouds. The sky was boundless, so vast that not even he could capture its entire form with his sharpened eyes.
As he witnessed and acknowledged this fact, he finally spoke. “Rayland.”
“Hm?” He turned back, unsure as to why he was saying his name in such a serious tone.
“Take this from someone like me, but you deserve some respect for yourself. It doesn’t matter if you can’t leave a nice mark with a sword or soul, what matters is that you’ve done what you can with the means that you possess. If both you and I have tried our best, then the marks we’ve made on this world aren’t so different.”
Rayland’s lips cracked into a smile as a hint of embarrassment stuck to his face. “Ha. I can’t believe I’m getting lectured at this age.”
Despite that embarrassment, Ega could sense the old man’s posture grow just a little taller. Those words of his weren't just lip service. It had taken him years to come to such an understanding, that every single individual, every single soul no matter how seemingly insignificant mattered even in this vast, uncaring world.
Leaving Rayland to his own thoughts, Ega turned his attention back to Ella, noticing her attempt to catch the falling leaves.
Despite her valiant effort, she could only catch one. Letting that leaf back into the wind, she focused again. Ega used to have the same fire in his eyes. The thought of getting stronger, of strengthening one’s mind and body to be able to face the world ahead, it was an exhilarating feeling.
But ever since Ega had hit a wall some years ago, the joy of training had been extinguished. What was the point of hitting your head against a wall over and over when nothing seemed to come from it?
Even after embarking on this journey to hunt for Mithril Blood, he hadn’t even taken a single step forward. It worried him, seeing how his opponents were becoming stronger and stronger.
‘Just how much longer until I face someone I simply can’t defeat?’ He wondered. Would it be his next opponent? His opponent a month; a year from today?
It had been a while since Ega had seriously considered overcoming this wall again. But before he could delve too deeply into his own thoughts, the sudden halt of the carriage threw him out of his head.
“Is something wrong?” He looked past Rayland’s shoulders to see the road ahead.
“Well… that.” There was an obvious worry in Rayland’s voice as he pointed at a broken carriage flipped on its side.
“Didn’t know I’d have to take action so soon.” Hopping out of the carriage, Ega drew his sword as he steadily approached the wreckage.
He scanned the surrounding forest, looking out for any dangers that may still be lurking. As he got closer, he began to take notice of the arrows sticking out of the flipped carriage as well as grooves and marks of blades littering its wooden body.
Those same marks were on the dead body lying in a pool of dried blood just beyond the carriage. Ega’s expression turned grim as he recognized the body despite its mangled state. It belonged to the tavern keeper who had told him about Vulf and Ella, and here he lied, eyes still open.
Crouching down, he shut the man’s eyelids. Judging from the state of the body and the bugs just having reached it, he had just died a day or two ago. Rising up from the ground, he scanned the forest one final time before returning to Ella and Rayland.
“A few bandits ambushed the carriage, killed the driver. The area seems clear though, seeing that the attack happened a day or two ago.”
“Really? We’re not even that far out of town.” Rayland looked back, trying to judge the distance that they had traveled. “That’s quite… strange.”
Ega couldn’t help but feel the same thing. Would bandits station themselves so close to a main road just outside of a town? There weren’t any other destroyed carriages, so were they hunting for that tavern keeper specifically? But who would…
‘Ah.’ He finally realized who it was. ‘Vulf is one petty bastard.’
He had bet everything on Ega, giving him Vulf’s location and revealing Ella to him, but even though Ega had won, the tavern keeper had lost. Turning to Ella, he was unsure of how to break it to her. Unable to think of anything, he just broke it to her.
“He’s dead, that big tavern keeper who was taking care of you.” He pointed back at the wrecked carriage.
Ella’s expression dropped at his words, making him feel just a tinge of bitterness.
“Was he a good person?”
“He tried his best to…”
Letting out a long sigh, Ega turned to Rayland. “Do you mind if I give him a proper soul ceremony? It’ll only be a few minutes.”
“Of course not, but I don’t really have any of the supplies for that at the moment.”
“Don’t worry, I always carry them around.” As Ega walked back toward the broken carriage, Ella quickly followed from behind. “Do you want to watch?”
Ella nodded her head, curious about what a soul ceremony was. Maybe someday, she’d have to do the same thing.
Ega turned to Rayland, wondering if he wanted to come along as well.
“Ah, that’s alright.” There was a weak smile on his face as he spoke. “I’ve seen enough ceremonies in my life. I’ll just wait here.”
Opening his soul sack, Ega pulled out a small bag and large, thin blanket. Before Ella could see the body, he quickly draped the blanket over the tavern keeper. Opening the jar, he pulled out a few bright red petals.
“These are nova burst petals,” he gave one to Ella for her to see and feel. “You scatter them on the body before you burn it. It burns better that way and provides a nice scent.”
Ega began to scatter a few of the petals on the blanket. Ella quickly followed, letting go of the one petal in her hand. It slowly drifted down, and once it landed, Ega began to light a fire using a flint and steel.
He struck sparks right over the petals, bringing life to a burst of flames. It quickly spread, igniting all the other petals until the body began to burn away. The floral scent of the petals began to permeate the air, scattering the remaining pieces of the tavern keeper’s soul.
Even in death, one’s soul can still cling onto the remaining flesh and bone even as it decays. To truly liberate it, separate it from the material world, one had to burn the remains and let the remaining soul fragments scatter into nothingness.
After watching it for a few minutes, Ega and Ella returned back to Rayland, both deep in thought. It seemed even Rayland was thinking about something with the hard expression he was wearing.
Once the two of them got onto the back of the carriage, it began to move again. With barely enough space, the three of them passed the wreckage, each taking one final look at the flames before focusing on other things.
A soul ceremony meant a lot of different things to different people, but everyone knew of its universal meaning; a final parting. Once the fire was set and the body began to burn, that was the end, their soul would no longer be part of this world.
The rest of the ride was done in silence. Ega had closed his eyes, focusing back on trying to separate the souls from his own. Ella had turned back to the swaying forest and falling leaves, trying to achieve what Ega had. Rayland was still stuck in his thoughts, unable to create conversation.
Each of them still held lingering thoughts on the burning ceremony, Rayland and Ega were dusting off old memories and Ella wondering when she would ever perform one. She hoped that she would never need to do such a thing, but maybe the time wasn’t as far off as she thought it would be.
