I stood there, my hands shaking so violently I had to shove them into the pockets of my jacket. I was hyperventilating. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." I whispered, the words catching in my throat. "I didn't... I just wanted you to stop... I didn't mean to..."
I looked at my companions. They weren't cheering.
Barnaby was staring at the pile of ash that used to be a High Mages—a men who could level a fortress—now reduced to dust by a metal tube. Herbert's sword was lowered, his face pale with a mixture of terror and worship. To them, I hadn't just fought; I had invoked a power that bypassed the gods themselves. I had unmade existence with a hiss of white smoke.
"Art..." Elsa whispered, her voice trembling. She looked at the empty space where the "Hounds" had been. "Those were the Black-Sun... the Queen's personal shadows. One of them could slaughter a dozen veteran mercenaries. And you... you turned them into nothingness."
The weight of it finally broke me. I wasn't a hero. I was a 70-year-old soul in a 20-year-old body who just wanted to sell snacks and survive. The violence, the screams, the smell of burnt skin—it hit me all at once. I slumped to my knees, put my face in my hands, and started an absolute, "ugly-cry" sob.
"I'm a monster," I wailed, the tears blurring my vision. "I just turned people into ice cubes!"
Suddenly, a pair of arms wrapped around me. They were warm, firm, and smelled of silver-mist and comfort. Elsa didn't care about my "Divine Burden" or my "Master" status. She saw a boy breaking under the weight of his own power, and she hugged me with a strength that nearly cracked my ribs.
For the first time in two lifetimes, I didn't pull away. I didn't feel the "itch" of my phobia. I just buried my face in her silver-haired shoulder and let out all the fear of the last few days.
[NOTIFICATION: GENUINE EMOTIONAL BONDING DETECTED!]
[PURE UNPRETENTIOUS COMFORT: +1000 VP!]
[TOTAL BALANCE: 1,053 VP]
The blue light of the notification flashed right in front of my leaking eyes. One thousand? My brain, even in its state of total emotional collapse, did the math. A thousand points meant I could buy a literal tank. Okay not really, maybe more snacksz
The shock of the number hit my system like a physical blow. I pulled back from Elsa so fast I almost gave her whiplash, my eyes bugging out at the floating numbers.
"A thousand...?" I wheezed.
My heart did a triple-thump, my vision swirled with silver hair and blue light, and for the third time this week, my nervous system decided it had seen enough.
THUD. I hit the dirt, out cold, with a tear-streaked face and a bank account that could buy the moon or maybe a got from ebay.
The clearing was silent now, save for the soft hiss of the settling ash and the distant, mourning cry of a night bird. The forest, which only moments ago had been a theater of elemental chaos, felt heavy—as if the land itself was holding its breath in the presence of a power it could not comprehend.
Herbert stood motionless, his broadsword hanging limp in a hand that had once been paralyzed by a curse. His breath came in ragged plumes of white mist. He was a veteran of a hundred skirmishes; he had seen the way high magic tore through flesh and bone. But this? This was not magic. There had been no mana-weave, no prayer to the stars. Arthur had simply reached into the void and pulled out a winter so absolute it had unmade three of the most powerful men in the Athens Kingdom.
"Did you see his eyes?" Barnaby whispered, his voice cracking. The messenger's newly healed sight was fixed on the pile of grey dust that had once been a High Mage. "He wasn't gloating. He wasn't proud. He was... terrified."
That was what haunted Herbert the most. As Arthur had screamed those apologies, his voice cracking with the raw, jagged grief of a child who had accidentally broken a toy, Herbert realized the terrifying truth: their master was a god who did not wish to be one. He possessed the power to shatter reality, yet his soul was as fragile as spun glass.
When Elsa had moved to comfort him, Herbert had tensed, expecting the 'Divine Burden'—the mysterious malady that caused Arthur to collapse at a woman's touch—to strike him down instantly. But for a few heart-wrenching seconds, the boy had clung to her. He had cried out something about a "thousand points," a phrase in a celestial tongue they couldn't understand, before his spirit finally buckled under the weight of the night.
"Pick him up," Elsa commanded. Her voice was steady, but her silver hair was still sparking with residual energy, and her eyes were wet. "Gently, Barnaby. As if you are carrying the heart of the world itself."
As Barnaby lifted Arthur's limp form, Herbert approached the two fallen relics. The 'Viper-X' lay in the grass, its black surface still humming with a faint, lethal vibration. Nearby, the 'Ice Vessel'—the metal cylinder that had breathed the breath of the void—sat frosted and silent.
Herbert reached out, his hands trembling with a primal, instinctive fear. When his fingers touched the cold metal of the taser, he felt a jolt of static that made the hair on his arms stand up. It felt alien. It felt wrong. It was a piece of a world where logic replaced gods. He and Barnaby handled the items with more reverence than a priest handling the bones of a saint, placing them on a velvet cloth before carrying them into the carriage.
Inside the darkened coach, Elsa laid Arthur across the seat, tucking his God-Skin jacket around him. She sat by his head, her fingers hovering just inches from his brow, afraid that any more contact would push his exhausted mind further into the abyss.
Herbert and Barnaby stood outside the carriage door for a long moment, the flickering torchlight reflecting in their eyes. There was no more laughter about exaggerated adventures. The air was thick with a new, somber resolve.
"The Queen will not stop," Herbert said, his voice a low, gravelly vow. "She sent her Hounds, and he turned them to ash. Next, she will send an army."
"Let her," Barnaby replied, his sharp eyes scanning the dark tree line. "She fights for a throne. We fight for the boy who cries when he wins. I know which side the gods are on."
They moved with practiced, silent efficiency. They scavenged the obsidian swords of the fallen Black-Sun assassins—blades that had survived the frost—not as trophies, but as tools for the war they knew was coming. Then, without a word, Herbert climbed onto the coachman's box and Barnaby took his place behind the supply wagon.
As the carriage lurched forward, moving deeper into the shadows of the Southern Road, the three of them sat in a heavy, shared silence. They were no longer just a mercenary, a messenger, and an exiled elf. They were the guardians of a miracle they didn't understand, protecting a master who was too kind for the world he was destined to change.
The wheels groaned against the dirt, and the dark sky watched them pass, the only sound being the soft, steady breathing of the boy who had just become the most dangerous man in the realm.