Everything he had written now was a collection of the events he had lived through in the past few days.
Writing down moments from his life had become a habit that stayed with him since his army days, and he remembered why.
He remembered the day he saw a young recruit he did not know writing in a small notebook only half an hour before the battle began.
He had been curious about what the young man would write in such a miserable situation, so he asked, and heard the answer with a smile on the young man's face, as if fear did not touch him at all.
"We may die here at any moment, and nothing will remain of us except a cold body dripping with blood. No one will know what we lived through or what we went through. By writing this, I only hope to leave something behind."
Unlike his smile, the trembling in his voice revealed everything he tried to hide.
Maybe writing was like a lullaby to calm himself down.
That day was still carved into his memory.
Only minutes after the battle began, that young man died when an arrow fell from the sky and pierced his throat, and that notebook was all that remained on his lifeless body.
Jires had not been able to carry the young man's body away, because the enemy around him kept attacking him without stop, so he took the notebook from the young man's coat pocket and kept fighting.
Two years later, when they were discharged, he took the notebook to the young man's family.
His address had been written on the first page.
The life written inside was extremely ordinary.
He was a brother and a son in a family of fairly well-off farmers, dragged into war and forced to fight in it, unlike Jires, who had joined by his own will.
At that moment, Jires felt envy that someone had been waiting for the young man, and sorrow too, because what reached his family was only a small, worn notebook stained with their son's blood.
In any case, Jires was not skilled at writing.
He had few words and many spelling mistakes, but even so, he found it pleasant.
His desk was filled with many similar notebooks, and all of them were diaries of events that had happened to him throughout all those long years.
From the day the young man died, to the day he left the army, to the time he found a small iron mine that became the reason for his wealth, to his marriage to Lilith, and then to the present day.
□□□
Two days had passed since Jires returned home, and while he had sent a group of mercenaries and guards to search for any trace of George, he sat down to settle some of the work he had missed.
His unexplained disappearance had filled everyone in the house with fear, especially his wife.
He was supposed to have arrived many days ago, so why had he still not returned?
He had sent a message by carrier pigeon some time ago, telling them that he was close to arriving, so why all this delay then?
A day or two would have been understandable, but it had already been four full days!!
And so, when everyone had fallen into panic and fear, none of that work was handled, and now everything had been left on Jires's shoulders when he returned.
Thinking about that made him want to be lazy and do nothing, but he had no choice.
"Haaah..."
After finishing everything, he was now sitting in his office in front of the desk, thinking about that werewolf, about Gregor the dwarf, and about the Pact of Creation, which he still knew nothing about.
"Gregor the dwarf..."
Despite all the kindness Gregor had shown him, Jires had not felt at ease with him.
He had felt that many things were wrong about that dwarf, but he had not been able to show his discomfort.
Gregor had looked as if he was trying very hard to please Jires and leave an overly good impression of himself.
And Gregor had also said that he had not seen any creature or human in a very long time, so how had he repaired the pocket watch, which needed parts that could only be found in major cities?
On top of that, he had set the time exactly right.
When Jires got home, he checked it and found that it matched every clock in the house.
That could not be a coincidence.
Some time ago, the Council of Elders of the kingdom had suggested moving the time forward in winter and moving it back in summer.
In winter, that was because the day was short, and when night came, people would still be outside working or returning from work, and they would be exposed to theft or murder without anyone knowing the criminal's identity.
In summer, they used the long daylight for extra work.
Most likely, this system had been made for the major cities, but for the small villages, it did not matter that much, because simply put, most of them did not even own a clock to know the time.
And that was what was called winter time and summer time.
But what Jires meant was this: if Gregor had not been connected to the outside human world for a very long time, then how did he know about the time change that had happened only two months ago?
That was what made Jires suspicious.
There were also other things he was not sure about yet, but all that had already been enough to make him distrust the dwarf.
"I need to be careful with him."
As he muttered that, he heard the door open, and slowly a young woman who looked to be in her twenties came in, then closed it again.
She remained standing beside him, then knocked lightly and said with a playful smile,
"May I come in?"
"You already came in."
"Oh, so that means you are allowing me, hehe..."
With wide steps, she moved toward the chairs in front of the desk and sat in one of them, while placing her foot on the table facing the chairs.
There was a plate full of fruit on the table, and without the slightest bit of manners, she took an apple and bit into it loudly.
Jires watched her do all that with a gentle smile.
This was Lilith.
She was a natural person in everything.
"You know that a noble lady should not eat that way. Cut it with a knife first."
When Lilith heard that, she looked at Jires with her mouth stuffed with apple and said,
"Pwease stob dat..."
Before she could finish another word, he cut her off.
"Swallow what is in your mouth first. I did not understand a single thing you said."
She quickly chewed as he told her to and swallowed what was in her mouth.
"I said, please stop that, Jires. All these noble matters are tiring! We are not even nobles yet."
"We are not nobles yet! And besides, do you not attend the baron's wife's usual gatherings? You need to learn at least a little from them."
"Aaaah, please stop this."
In a tired and annoyed voice, she continued,
"They talk all the time about their husbands' work, or about silly expensive clothes, or about rare and costly jewelry, and also gossip... yes, lots and lots of gossip!
And I wish you could see their ideas about food!! A small plate with tiny slices of fruit, another one with a pitiful vegetable salad, and another with a piece of meat the size of my little fingernail!
Are they not rich? Why are they so stingy?"
While she kept hitting her small stomach again and again, she went on,
"This stomach will never be full from that!! Damn nobility, this stomach wants more."
Jires stood helpless before this complaining that sounded like a child's.
Lilith came from a small merchant family.
Exactly six years ago, Jires had dealings with her father.
Back then, maybe her father had meant for her to appear before him, because an unmarried young man with a promising future like him would quickly be caught by girls, and his plan was to catch him before it was too late.
And well, his plan had worked.
Jires had been drawn to Lilith, and after a year, they got married.
For a long time, he had looked around him and felt how gray the world was, and just like that, he had lived in it with a cold heart.
But everything changed when she entered his life.
All that dullness disappeared, and everything became bright.
She was very gentle and natural, cheerful and lively.
Compared to Jires, there was a sharp contrast between them.
But he loved that, and he loved her.
Sitting there, watching her complain about everything, he could do nothing except form a foolish smile on his face.
"Oh, I am tired of all this. What about going out to ride horses?"
"Horses? Do you not have a gathering with the baron's wife in an hour? You should go."
Just as Jires finished his words, Lilith slapped her hand on the table and said in a slightly raised voice,
"You know what!! You are divorced. I do not want to see you again."
Facing this sudden turn in events, he copied her playful smile and said,
"Oh really! That is not what you showed me two days ago. Do you remember when you came to hug me? Hehe..."
At those words, she blushed, and in Jires's eyes, she became even cuter.
"You bastard!!"
Then she turned and hurried outside quickly, leaving the door open behind her.
A soft laugh escaped from Jires's mouth.
Moments like this happened often between them, but every time, things always returned to normal after a few hours.
"Umm... sir?! May I come in?"
Hearing the voice of his assistant, Denir, from behind the door, he flinched and stood up quickly.
"Come in."
When he appeared before him a moment later, Jires saw the look on his face, and it did not promise anything good.
"Did you find him?"
"Unfortunately..."
He took something from his pocket and showed it to him.
It was a shining silver necklace.
Jires took it and read a name he knew engraved on it: "George Liner."
"This... this is all we found, sir. We found it stained near a small amount of blood. We think it was George's blood, and the animals of the forest fed on him and ate him."
"It is alright. You may go now. Pay the mercenaries their wages."
With a heavy heart, Jires was left alone in the office.
As mentioned before, for the sake of searching for George, he had sent some of his employees and mercenaries as protection for them, because he had feared the werewolf might return.
But it seemed that the search had brought only more disappointment.
Of course, Jires had not told them the true story about the werewolf.
He had only pointed to a huge animal, maybe a bear.
The rest of the story was that after he escaped, he found himself unconscious in some hut, and after he recovered, he returned.
Sitting there, staring at the necklace with George's name engraved on it, all he could do was sigh.
Maybe George had not been close to him, but in the end, he had been his employee, and Jires had been responsible for him.
Jires took a blank sheet of paper and began writing a letter to George's family, sadly informing them of his death, but only moments after finishing it, he tore it apart.
He thought it would be better for him to go there in person and offer his condolences, because that was his duty, and... in a way, it had been partly his fault.
If he had not been reckless and decided to leave in the evening, none of this would have happened.
He took a deep breath and tried to suppress the guilt stabbing his heart, because everything had already happened and could not be fixed now.
Instead of spending his time in regret and sorrow, he had to move forward.
Life would not go backward, and it would not stop for his sake.
As he prepared himself to head to George's family, he stood outside with Lilith, waiting for the spare carriage to be prepared.
Lilith was supposed to take it to the gathering held by the baron's wife, and because she did not want to go, she skipped it by claiming she was sick.
"She must still be angry with me."
Throwing a glance at her face, he noticed her annoyed expression.
Even though they had spent several minutes outside, silence alone had hung over the air between them.
And even so, she was still the same as always.
Every time he left for somewhere, she was there.
Behind that angry and irritated face, she hid her worry and care.
"Lady Lilith!! A letter has arrived from your family's house."
In a slightly loud voice, the head maid called out and hurried from the house.
Lilith's expression changed.
Surprise appeared on her face, along with confusion, and as she took the letter, opened it, and finally read it, only a few moments later her expression turned into deep worry.
She looked at Jires and said,
"Jires, can I take the carriage? My father has become ill, and I want to go check on him."
"No... not at all, there is no problem. I will go with you too."
"There is no need. You have a lot of work here, and I do not want to tire you."
She spoke quickly.
She looked extremely tense.
Had something happened?
Was her father seriously ill?
Jires wanted to ask, but he did not want to make her even more nervous.
He looked at his assistant Denir and asked urgently,
"Have you not prepared the carriage yet? Bring it quickly."
"Just a minute... sir."
Jires held Lilith's hands and tried to comfort her.
"It is alright. Everything will be fine."
She looked distracted, as if she did not feel his hands or hear his words.
All she did was nod slowly.
A moment later, the carriage arrived, and Lilith got in.
He asked some guards to accompany her.
Even though her family's house was not far, only two hours away, this was not the time to be careless like what had happened with the werewolf.
He had realized that the world was more dangerous than he had once believed.
As she moved farther and farther away, Jires watched her.
"I hope everything is alright."
He took a deep breath and calmed himself.
"And now, I suppose I should postpone visiting George's family then?"
□□□
After a tiring day, Jires was deep asleep.
It was a quiet and silent night, but for some reason, he opened his eyes.
He felt uncomfortable, and he could no longer sleep.
He lit the lamp beside him, and the room became bright, but at that exact moment, he flinched in alarm.
"Why are you here?"