Dawn came without color.
No sunrise broke over Vanhart's sky—only a slow, creeping pallor, as if the world itself was waking reluctantly. The snow that had fallen through the night lay in a thin, untouched veil over the courtyard, softening hard stone and hiding old footprints as if the estate had never known war, nor oaths, nor death.
Two horses waited near the gate.
Both were dark-coated, steam rising from their nostrils in slow, fogging exhales. Their tack was simple—sturdy leather, no extravagant crest, no house sigil. They were the kind used by travelers who did not wish to be remembered.
Kel tightened the strap on his saddle one last time.
He wore a long, obsidian-black coat over layered winter clothes—a high-collared tunic, dark trousers tucked into polished boots. His gloves were thin but reinforced over the knuckles, the kind that could grip a sword hilt or a quill with equal ease.
Snow had dusted his hair where he hadn't bothered to brush it aside.
His expression was—as always—calm. He neither smiled nor frowned, gaze lowered as he checked each strap, each buckle, each pouch tied along the saddle as though tiny failures in preparation were intolerable.
Beside him, Reina adjusted the fastening of her cloak.
Her attire was the same worn the day of her awakening—the midnight-blue tunic, fitted at the waist, layered beneath a heavy traveling cloak lined with grey fur. A simple leather belt circled her hips, holding a sheathed sword Kel had given her weeks earlier. Her braid rested between her shoulders, ends brushing the mantle.
She did not fidget.
Did not pace.
Only checked the horse's bit once more and then rested her hand gently on the beast's neck, fingers running through the short winter fur.
The courtyard was quiet.
Too quiet for a departure.
It wasn't because no one cared they were leaving.
It was because Kel had asked—for silence.
No banners.
No send-off procession.
No trailing whispers of "the duke's son."
Only those who needed to know, knew.
The ones standing now at a measured distance near the inner steps.
Count Edward Vanhart.
His wife, veil pulled low against the cold.
Sera.
And a boy of around ten, standing half-hidden behind his mother's cloak—Sera's younger brother, small hand clutching fabric tightly with quiet, uncertain eyes.
Their breath misted in the cold.
None of them spoke at first.
The snow falling between them felt like thin veils, hanging, soft and white, separating those who stayed from those who would go.
Kel finished his inspection. Straightened.
His eyes lifted to meet the count's.
For a heartbeat, neither bowed.
Edward broke the silence first.
"You leave without escort," he said. Not accusation. Observation.
Kel's lips lifted by the faintest fraction.
"Escorts," he replied, "draw lines on maps I'm not ready to reveal."
The count's gaze deepened.
"Still," he murmured, "my friend… you walk into the Empire's teeth."
Kel said nothing to that.
It was not untrue.
Vanhart's lady stepped forward half a step.
Her eyes were softer than her husband's—lined by worry, sorrow, and old anger long since cooled and buried under the return of her daughter.
"Will you come back?" she asked.
The question hung in air like a fragile icicle.
Kel answered without pause.
"Yes."
Not "if I live."
Not "if things go as planned."
Just—yes.
Sera huffed lightly, folding her arms over her chest.
She wore proper noble clothes now—soft, expensive fabrics dyed deep forest green, accented by subtle silver thread. Yet something of the barbarian chief remained in her stance, her chin tilted with the casual defiance of someone who'd commanded warriors twice her size.
"You say it like you're coming back from a walk," she muttered.
Kel turned his head slightly, regarding her.
"You say that," Sera continued, eyes narrowing, "but the Northwest isn't some field of harlroot you can coax into growth with potions and patience. There are monsters there. Human ones. Worse than the kind I fought in snow."
Reina's shoulders stiffened slightly.
She did not interrupt.
Kel's voice, when it came, was soft.
"Good," he said.
Sera blinked.
"Good?"
"Fields without beasts are rarely worth claiming," he replied, as though reciting something obvious.
Sera clicked her tongue.
"Your mind is rotted."
But she said it with a faint, unwilling smile.
Her gaze drifted toward Reina.
Their eyes met.
"I'll watch things here," Sera said. Not loud. Not formal. "If news comes from the North, I'll send it to you. However far you run."
Reina's lips moved.
Not quite a smile.
"…I am not running."
"I know," Sera said. "That's what worries me."
Reina exhaled softly through her nose.
Then stepped forward, placing her right fist gently against her chest in a half-formed salute.
"Don't die before I see you again."
Sera snorted.
"I could say the same."
Their hands brushed for a fraction of a second—a fleeting contact, gone as quickly as it formed.
The boy at the back peeked around his mother's cloak again, staring at Kel with wide, conflicted eyes.
Kel's gaze slid past Sera.
Rested on him.
"Take care of your father," Kel said quietly.
The boy stiffened, as if he'd been addressed by someone far above his world.
Reina watched Kel's expression.
It did not change.
Yet something in the air felt… softer.
Sera's little brother swallowed, then bowed awkwardly.
"Y–yes… sir."
Kel turned back to the count.
Edward stepped forward.
Snow clung to the folds of his cloak, turning the dark fabric into something older, more ancient.
"We discussed the reports last night," the count said. "The reforms will continue. The harlroot contracts—"
"Use your own judgment," Kel cut in gently. "Not mine."
Edward's lips quirked slightly, as though amused by the reversal.
"You speak like an old duke," he murmured. "Never resting, always delegating."
Kel's eyes darkened faintly.
"I speak," he said, "like someone who knows where this story goes if no one moves early."
The count's gaze flicked over him from head to toe.
Then he bowed.
A noble's bow.
Not deep.
Not shallow.
But one delivered to an equal—or to someone fate would soon place above him.
"Understood," Edward said.
His wife mirrored the gesture in softer form.
Sera did not bow.
She simply looked.
Quietly.
Searching.
Reina, watching, knew what she saw:
A boy whose curse had been lifted.
Whose body now held inhuman strength.
Whose eyes had ceased belonging to this age.
A traveler.
Not just in time.
In fate.
Kel placed a gloved hand on his horse's neck.
The beast snorted quietly, shifting its weight.
He turned his head toward Reina.
"We're leaving," he said.
She nodded once.
"Understood, Young Master."
She mounted in one smooth, practiced motion, cloak flowing around the saddle like dark water. Kel mounted as well, settling into the familiarity of the saddle as though born there.
As if the road—no matter where it led—was more home than any estate.
He pulled his reins gently.
The horse took one step toward the gate.
Then another.
Snow crunched under iron.
Reina's horse moved with his, matching pace without needing instruction.
The guards pushed the gates open—heavy wooden beams groaning, old hinges protesting softly as the massive doors swung inward, revealing the pale road leading away from Vanhart's walls. The world beyond looked washed out—trees like dark silhouettes against snow, mist hanging low over the distant rise of hills.
Kel did not look back.
Reina did.
Just once.
She saw the count and his wife standing on the steps.
Sera beside them.
A boy gripping his mother's cloak.
And behind them—
The estate they had helped pull back from the edge of collapse.
Fields quietly healing under frozen soil.
Two graves beneath snow on distant Malloren land.
Threads of fate knotted more tightly than any could see.
Then she turned forward again.
The horses crossed the threshold.
Vanhart territory began to fall behind them with every step.
The road north-east toward the main city wound like a pale artery through the winter landscape. Trees lined much of the path, branches bare, clustered with frost. Occasionally, thin streams cut through the snow—black scars of water over white, flowing with stubborn, muffled sound.
Reina rode in silence for the first hour.
Kel's presence ahead of her was like that of a shadow given form—unhurried, steady, unshakable. His back stayed straight, coat fluttering gently in the wind, dark hair catching occasional snowflakes that melted on contact with the faint warmth of his aura.
Finally, Reina's voice cut through the quiet.
"You didn't say farewell properly."
Kel did not slow.
"To whom?" he asked.
"Any of them," she replied. "Count. Sera. The lady. The boy."
"Why should I?" Kel's tone was calm. Not cold. Simply matter-of-fact. "Goodbyes are just points where people pretend certainty exists."
Reina's brows drew together slightly.
"…Pretend?"
Kel's gloved fingers shifted lightly on the reins.
"They say 'we'll meet again.' Or 'this is the end.'" His gaze remained fixed ahead. "Both are lies until time confirms either."
Reina's lips pressed together.
"Then what is the truth?" she asked quietly.
Kel was silent for a while.
Snow whispered against cloak and leather.
When he answered, his voice sank lower.
"The truth is we walk forward," he said. "If paths cross again, they cross. If they don't, they don't. Whether we shout or whisper or stay silent at the parting changes nothing."
His words should have sounded detached.
Cruel, even.
But Reina heard something else beneath them.
Not indifference.
Resignation.
She studied his back.
Then slowly exhaled.
"Even so," she murmured, "they stood to see you off."
Kel's shoulders rose slightly with his breath.
"That's their choice."
"…And ours?"
He turned his head just enough that she could glimpse the edge of his eye—dark, unreadable.
"Ours is to keep walking," he said. "If we stop just to feel, we won't reach where we need to be."
Reina said nothing after that.
But the silence between them felt… different.
Not empty.
Full.
Full of unspoken things.
Of trust.
Of fear.
Of shared stubbornness.
They rode until the walls of Vanhart became distant memory, swallowed by the curve of the land.
Ahead, the faint outline of a larger road began to appear—stone laid more deliberately, snow cleared more frequently by city workers, trade tracks carved into the slush by heavy wheels.
Beyond that road—
A faint, distant silhouette.
Towers.
Walls.
Smoke rising in thin threads.
The main city of the Northeast.
The place where, hidden within carefully warded chambers and old foundations, a teleportation gate waited—circles of ancient stone that linked cardinal corners of the Empire like veins through a giant, sleeping body.
Reina's hand slipped to rest lightly near her sword's hilt.
Kel's gaze sharpened.
Not at the city's defense.
At the invisible lines of systems and scripts he remembered from another existence.
In the game, this city is where the Academy arc's northern branches first show their face.
In this life…
His fingers flexed.
It will be where I start cutting at roots earlier than they expect.
"Reina."
"Yes?"
"We'll enter under the name Heral and his knight," he said. "Do not use my house. Do not speak of Vanhart. Do not mention the South."
She nodded.
"Understood."
The wind stiffened as they approached the main road, carrying with it the scent of city life—smoke, distant beast-drawn wagons, steel, and faint incense from unseen shrines.
Their horses' hooves found the cleared stone.
Behind them, Vanhart faded into winter haze.
Ahead—
A gate waited.
Not of wood this time.
But of stone and law.
Two shadows on horseback rode toward it, leaving no crest behind, carrying no banner.
Just a boy pretending to be a wandering poet.
And a girl who had given her star to his path.