spend the next few days in a haze of physical recovery and mental torment. Ritcher, the old hunter, leaves me be. He leaves at dawn to hunt and returns at dusk with game. He shares his meals with me without asking questions, giving me the space I need to piece together my shattered mind.
My regeneration is a miraculous and terrifying thing. Every morning, I wake with fewer aches, the scars fading, the muscles strengthening. My Rudimentary Immortality skill consumes an invisible energy, a background hunger that I manage to appease by eating the simple but rich food Ritcher provides. It is a precarious balance. I know that if I stop eating, my body will begin to consume itself.
But the physical healing only highlights the depth of my internal wounds. I see the scene over and over. Roxis's cold gaze. Elian's guilty silence. It is a loop of betrayal that plays constantly in my head.
One evening, as we sit by the fire, Ritcher looks at me with his clear eyes.
"You're going to dig a hole in your head if you keep brooding, kid," he says, his voice a gentle rumble. "Talk. It doesn't heal the wounds, but it stops the poison from setting in."
And for the first time, I talk. I tell him everything. Not the part about Gluttony or devouring essences. But the story of the sewer rat who dared to dream. I tell him about Roxis, the light she represented. About Elian, the childhood friend who was my only support. I describe their kindness, their help, and then, the brutal turn, the inexplicable betrayal on the Frontier.
"It makes no sense," I conclude, my voice cracking. "Why? Why pretend for so long? Why save me only to throw me to the wolves?"
Ritcher is silent for a long moment, tossing another log on the fire. The flames dance, casting shifting shadows on his wrinkled face.
"You think of power like a sword, kid," he says finally, unknowingly echoing Elric's words. "Something you hold, that you use to strike. But real power, especially in the courts of kings, is a more subtle thing. It's a cage."
I look at him, not understanding.
"Your King," he continues, "he saw a tool in you. A powerful but dangerous tool. He gave you a mission to test you, and to get rid of you if you failed. But he also put your friends under your command. Why? To give you a leash."
"A leash?"
"Think about it. Those two knights, the noble girl and your childhood friend... they are members of the elite. They have a family, a reputation, an oath. They are prisoners of their own status. They are not free to make their own choices like you are. Their entire lives are dictated by duty, by expectations, by the fear of losing everything."
He looks me straight in the eye. "What if their betrayal wasn't a choice? What if it was an order?"
The idea is so simple, so obvious, it comes as a shock. I hadn't thought of it. I was too blinded by my own pain.
"The King ordered Burix to kill you, but he couldn't do it openly. So he created this whole setup," Ritcher theorizes. "He ordered your friends to play a role, to win your trust, and then to abandon you at the crucial moment. They had no choice. To refuse an order from the King, especially on a war front, is treason. It means death for them and shame for their families."
A cage. They are in a cage. Just like me.
"So, their kindness..."
"Might have been real," Ritcher finishes. "Maybe the pain you saw in their eyes wasn't contempt, but a reflection of their own powerlessness. Maybe they betrayed you while hating themselves for having to do it. Or maybe I'm just an old man telling stories. The truth, only they know."
His words do not heal the wound. But they transform it. The blind rage I felt turns into a cold, deep sadness. If Ritcher is right, then Roxis and Elian are not my enemies. They are victims, just like me. Pawns on the chessboard of a King who plays with our lives to maintain his power.
My real enemy is not Tybalt Burix. He is just a rabid dog. My real enemy is the man on the throne. The one pulling the strings.
This realization is a turning point. My goal is no longer to survive. It is no longer to become stronger for my own safety.
It is to become so powerful that I can break all the cages. Mine. And maybe, just maybe, theirs too.
I spend another week with Ritcher. He teaches me to hunt in his lands, to read the signs of nature, to survive on what the forest provides. He is a kind of silent mentor. He doesn't teach me combat skills, but life lessons.
One morning, I know it is time to leave. I am healed. My mind is clear. My resolve is forged in the steel of vengeance and the strange hope of redemption.
"I have to go," I tell him.
He nods, unsurprised. "Where will you go? Returning to Kryndal is a death sentence."
"For now, yes." I look across the lake, toward the mountains of the Untamed Lands. "You said it was another nation."
"It's not a nation," he corrects me. "It's a refuge for all who have no place elsewhere. Exiles, mercenaries, monster tribes, renegade mages. A place with no king and no law, where only strength matters. It's a dangerous place."
"It sounds perfect," I say with a dark smile.
It is the ideal place for me. A training ground the size of a country. A place where I can devour, grow, and accumulate the power I need, far from the eyes of King Alistair.
Ritcher does not try to hold me back. He gives me an old backpack filled with supplies, a new hunting knife, and a rough map of the region on the other side of the lake.
"Be careful, kid. In the Untamed Lands, the monsters are not always the ones with claws and fangs."
I thank him, sincerely. He saved my life, in more ways than one.
He lends me his small boat to cross the lake. As I row to the other shore, I see him, a lone figure on the bank, watching me go.
I do not look back. Before me, new mountains rise, a new frontier. I leave behind the kingdom of Kryndal, the ghost of my friendship with Elian, the painful memory of the love I had for Roxis.
I am Reinhardt Valdios. Declared dead. Betrayed. Reborn from my own ashes.
I am no longer a rat, nor a wolf.
I am a hunger.
And I am going to devour a new world.