The rain fell heavily that night, pounding the rooftops of Ezzera Village like a thousand frightened fingers trying to knock their way in. Reno sat inside the logistics barn with Mother Yarra, their hands busy recounting the stock of wheat that had suddenly dwindled.
"The numbers Captain Korr recorded two weeks ago... don't make sense," Yarra murmured, eyes on Reno's notes."Because that wheat was never meant to be stored," Reno replied flatly. "It was meant to be resold."
He slid another sheet forward.
"There's a pattern. Every harvest, a portion 'goes missing', and part of it reappears in the neighboring region's market—under the same trade house label."Yarra raised an eyebrow. "Trade house?"
Reno pointed to a line in an old record he had found in the western granary.
"V.A. Noctera."
That name kept appearing in transportation notes—sometimes as the sender, sometimes the recipient. But oddly, there were never any direct contact records with the village.
Yarra clenched her teeth.
"Berond's been supplying produce to an external trade house... without the villagers knowing."
Reno looked out the window, toward the fields now shrouded in night mist.
"And that's just the surface."
Two nights later, while the rain still lashed down faithfully on Ezzera, Reno slipped into a small, nearly forgotten building: the village archive house. He carried a small oil lantern. His footsteps were silent over the damp wooden floor. Dust and cobwebs greeted him like old creatures starving for attention.
In a rusty-hinged wooden cabinet, Reno found small chests filled with scrolls and coarse paper, many of them already brittle.
He began reading, fingers swiftly sorting through documents. Until—
"Trade Contract No. 017 – Village of Ezzera – Ratified by the Southern Regional Administration of Novera."At the bottom: a red wax seal bearing a limping crane, and beneath it:
V.A. Noctera
But that wasn't what made Reno pause.
On the next page, under Southern Regional Overseer, another name was written:
Aurelien.
A name unknown to the villagers. But the document format, the official seal, and the legal structure... it was too neat. Too high-level.
Not a normal trade house.
"Could Noctera be just an extension? A mask for another power?"
Reno didn't jump to conclusions. But he wrote in his notebook:
"V.A. Noctera is not an ordinary trade house. Possibly part of a power network... Aurelien?"V.A. Noctera... V. Aurelien Noctera?
More surprisingly, he found copied distribution records from other villages bearing the same seal. Not just Ezzera—Noctera flowed quietly through many remote southern villages.
"This network... isn't a village issue. It's systemic."
The next day, Reno walked through the wet fields with Tomas. He spread word about a type of wild mushroom that could substitute spices, found growing on the eastern forest edge.
"If this really works, we could divert Berond's attention to land issues. Meanwhile, Mira and I handle distribution," said Tomas."Good," Reno said. "We need a small crisis to test... who panics, and who thinks."
In the following days, Reno orchestrated three small "crisis trials":
The main granary partially caught fire—caused by a small, timed oil spark in the early hours.
Water supply from the river was halted for a full day, under the pretense of channel cleaning.
Villagers received two conflicting instructions from Korr and Tomas regarding crop collection.
From these three events, Reno observed. He wasn't looking for solutions—he was looking for people.
And just as he suspected:
Tomas formed an emergency distribution team without waiting for anyone's approval.
Mira personally calmed the children and frightened women.
Mother Yarra—long before the crisis—had already moved some wheat to a safe location.
The three of them never spoke openly... but they moved in the same direction.
And to Reno, that was enough.
But behind these small crises, there was an additional target: Captain Korr.
Each incident was designed to make Korr look incompetent in the eyes of the villagers—and more importantly, in the eyes of Berond.
When the crop instructions clashed, Reno anonymously distributed a small leaflet with a fake quote:
"Korr said: anyone not following his orders will be considered a rebel. But his orders change constantly."
That night, Reno burned a small metal insignia and left it at Korr's doorstep—the old military insignia of Novera, used to mark dishonorable discharges.
No explanation. No words. Just a symbol.
Korr raged—but couldn't prove who did it. And the fear of an internal spy began gnawing at his sanity.
A few nights later, Reno slipped a note into the guardhouse drinking room:
"Berond only needs one excuse to replace you. You just gave him three."
In the dead of night, in the back room of the main house, Berond stared sharply at Korr. Rain pierced the leaky roof.
"This is the third time you've unsettled the people," Berond murmured.Korr replied tensely, "Someone's sabotaging me. Faking flyers, stealing insignia, even writing things—"Berond cut in coldly. "If you can't control 'someone', then the problem isn't him... it's you."
No direct threat. But for Korr, the tone was enough.
Days after, Korr began acting strangely. He paced around the guard post, spoke to himself. He double-checked doors, even interrogated the same guard twice.
On one guardhouse wall, a small message appeared in black ink:
"Can Berond's Dog No Longer Sleep?"
No one knew who wrote it, but Korr ordered it removed within an hour.
The next morning, an anonymous flyer appeared on the village board:
"On certain nights, the scream doesn't come from the victim's mouth—but from the butcher's soul."
Korr tore it down with trembling hands.
He began waking up at night, claiming he heard voices outside calling his name. He roused two guards only to find the sound came from a wind-blown branch.
Berond grew irritated. But Korr didn't care. His eyes sagged, his face pale. Every little symbol—a limping crane, a carving on an old board—made him sweat cold.
Reno never appeared before Korr. He simply left shards of fear in every unseen corner—like mold behind damp walls. Quietly growing, slowly eroding the foundation.
That night, Reno sat alone behind a stack of wheat sacks. Outside, the rain had yet to stop. But there was a small warmth in his chest that didn't come from fire.
Ezzera was still ruled by Berond's dirty hands and a cruel guard named Korr.But a new foundation had been planted.
Those pillars weren't perfect—not fully trusting, not fully aware. But they were strong. Strong in a way that couldn't be seen from the outside.
Mira — the heart that knows the people's pain.
Tomas — the hands that can lead.
Yarra — the mind that understands the flow of resources.
And Reno?
The shadow behind them.
He took out a small piece of wooden board from his bag—taken secretly from the archive house. On it, a faint carving of a red wax seal: the limping crane.
He stared at it for a long time. Then gave a slight smile.
This wasn't just wood. This was a political artifact.
Proof that Ezzera wasn't always like this. That before Korr and Berond ruled through fear, there was once a larger, more organized, cleaner connection.
And now, Reno might have found a crack.
Not to ask for help.
But to infiltrate.
"To uproot the rot, sometimes you must pretend to plant a new tree."