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Chapter 108: Long Time No See
On the hillside, the breeze remained gentle and steady.
Distant cheers from the city celebration drifted upward while Serie sat alone on the grass, clutching the cold Holy Sword against her chest. Tonight, it felt heavier than it had in decades.
Her shoulders trembled, barely visible to anyone watching, but she felt each shake like an earthquake. Thirty years of searching, hoping, refusing to accept what everyone else had concluded long ago. The emotions she'd buried so carefully were breaking free, threatening to spill over like water through a cracked dam.
Serie closed her eyes, letting the night air cool her flushed cheeks. The memory felt as sharp now as it had then.
Finally, she opened her eyes and raised her hand, dispelling the scrying magic with a gesture that felt like closing a book she'd never wanted to finish reading.
She picked up her staff and stood, her gaze turning west toward the Godfall Land, toward the place where Kurtz had last disappeared. The direction that had haunted her dreams for three decades.
Serie had made her decision. If this final search yielded nothing, she would erect a tombstone for him. It would be both her answer and her compromise with reality. She would return to visit that stone marker from time to time, until the passage of centuries dulled this particular ache in her chest.
Just as she had thought when she first met him, that humans were fleeting things, here one moment and gone the next, she would remember that in the Age of Mythology, there had been a human who caused her thirty years of pain. Nothing more, nothing less.
Her figure vanished from the hillside covered in Star-Gazer Grass, leaving behind only the gentle swaying of flowers in the breeze.
On the other side of the kingdom, the day-long celebration had finally ended. The bustling city settled into the weary contentment that followed grand festivities, its streets emptying as citizens returned to their homes.
The moonlight was unusually bright tonight. Norn could see the cobblestone path clearly even without candlelight to guide his way. He dragged heavy steps back toward the castle, each footfall echoing his exhaustion.
The royal robe felt like chains around his shoulders, the crown a weight that seemed to grow heavier with each step. These symbols of his authority, once sources of pride, now felt like costumes he couldn't wait to remove.
His body was aching with the deep weariness that came only after forcing oneself to appear strong for an entire day.
The corridors of the castle were mercifully quiet. Most of the servants had retired for the evening, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
He pushed open the door to his chambers, stepping into the familiar darkness. The room was simple, almost bare, a conscious choice that had raised eyebrows among his advisors. More than one had suggested he recruit additional maids, asking how it looked for a king to maintain such modest quarters with so little staff.
Norn had refused every suggestion. If it weren't for basic royal protocol, he wouldn't want any servants at all. The fewer people around him, the easier it was to think, to remember who he'd been before the crown.
He rubbed his temples, preparing to close the door and finally shed the weight of kingship for a few precious hours. But just as his fingers touched the door handle, his movements froze.
In the depths of the room, where moonlight couldn't reach, a figure stood silently by the tall window.
The intruder wore a large black cloak that seemed to drink in the shadows around it. The hood was pulled low, completely hiding any facial features. Only the general shape suggested it was human, though even that felt somehow wrong.
The figure stood motionless, patient as stone, as if it had been waiting for him all along.
A chill shot through Norn's chest like an arrow of ice.
A demon?
There were demons whose appearance could mimic humans perfectly. He'd fought enough of them during his adventuring days to know how deceptive they could be. The thought came to him instinctively, born from hard-won experience.
The aura radiating from the figure felt fundamentally wrong. The magical power within it was chaotic, unstable, carrying traces of that particular darkness he'd learned to associate with demonic influence. Every instinct screamed that this was an assassin, sent by forces that still opposed his rule.
Norn's body tensed like a coiled spring. His right hand moved without conscious thought, fingers wrapping around the familiar grip of his sword. Thirty years of kingship hadn't dulled the warrior's reflexes that had kept him alive through countless battles. Fatigue evaporated, replaced by the crystal-clear focus of mortal danger.
He controlled his breathing, keeping it steady and quiet while his sharp gaze tracked every slight movement from the shadowed intruder. He was ready to draw and strike if the figure showed even the slightest aggressive intent.
"Who are you?" Norn's voice carried the authority of both king and veteran warrior. "State your business or face the consequences."
The figure shifted, barely visible, just the slightest adjustment of posture. Then, cutting through the tense silence, came a voice that made Norn's world tilt on its axis.
It was familiar yet heartbreakingly hoarse, worn down by something Norn couldn't identify, a voice he'd given up hope of ever hearing again.
"Don't bow your head; your crown will fall."
The sword hilt slipped in Norn's suddenly trembling grip. His carefully maintained warrior's stance crumbled as recognition hit him like a physical blow.
That voice.
The taut vigilance that had kept him ready for battle dissolved like morning mist, replaced by a surge of emotions so intense he could barely process them. His heart hammered against his ribs so violently, he was sure the figure could hear it.
He stared at the cloaked form with new eyes, searching for any detail that might confirm what his ears were telling him.
"Kurtz?" The name came out as barely more than a whisper, fragile as spun glass. "Is that... is that really you?"
His voice cracked on the words, thirty years of carefully buried grief threatening to spill over. He took a hesitant step forward, his weathered face twisting with a mixture of hope and terror, hope that it might be true, terror that it might not be.
The figure raised one pale hand with movements that seemed to cost great effort. Slowly, deliberately, it reached up and pulled back the concealing hood.
Moonlight illuminated a face that stopped Norn's breath entirely.
It was exactly as he remembered, the same black hair, the same familiar features, unchanged by the three decades that had aged Norn into an old man. Time might have frozen around that face, preserving it in perfect detail.
Yet something was different. The black eyes that met his gaze held depths of weariness that seemed impossibly ancient, a weight of experience that didn't match the youthful features.
But it was him. Against all odds, against all reason, it was truly him.
"Kurtz!"
The name tore from Norn's throat with cry. Joy overwhelmed every rational thought.
He forgot that he was a king. He forgot the dignity he was supposed to maintain. He forgot everything except the impossible miracle standing before him. His arms spread wide as he rushed forward, desperate to embrace this friend he'd mourned for three decades, to prove to himself that this wasn't just another cruel dream.
But before he could complete the embrace, Kurtz raised his hand, to stop him.
"Wait, Norn." Kurtz's voice carried the same gentleness Norn remembered, but underneath it was a fragile. "This body is very fragile."
Norn froze mid-stride, his arms still outstretched. For the first time, he truly looked at what stood before him.
The hand that had stopped him was bone-white, so pale it seemed translucent in the moonlight. The arm that held it steady was visibly trembling with the effort of such a simple gesture, as if even that slight movement required tremendous strength.
"Your body..." Norn's voice died in his throat.
The joy he'd felt moments before had vanished. If his oldest friend had returned to him only to die in front of him, if this reunion was nothing more than a final goodbye, then this would be a real joke of life on him.
He studied Kurtz, seeing details he'd missed initially. The unchanged face was like a mask put over something. His skin was almost as pale like a porcelain, and his breathing was so shallow Norn had to strain to detect it. He looked like he might collapse if the wind shifted too strongly.
Kurtz slowly lowered his hand, offering a smile that held more sadness than joy.
"There's nothing I can do about it. I've only controlled the Authority of Life for such a short time, I haven't had the chance to create a proper body for myself." He spoke. His gaze drifted over Norn's royal robes, taking in the crown and Norn postrue. "It seems you've done better than I ever imagined, Your Majesty."
"Don't call me that!"
Norn's interrupted.
His voice caught in his throat. He stepped closer but didn't dare reach out again, afraid that even a gentle touch might hurt him.
"Where have you been all these years? Serie has been searching for you, we all thought you were..." He couldn't finish the sentence.
They had prepared themselves for the worst outcome, even as they refused to accept it. Only stubborn hope had driven them to keep looking when logic said it was pointless.
Kurtz was quiet for a long moment.
Then he spoke, "The power of the Fertility Goddess carries a corrosive effect. That's why, even though the Life Goddess killed her in the Godfall Land, her body was still being consumed by Ygnia's influence."
The deity who had died in the Godfall Land was the Fertility Goddess, Yggsnia. This much everyone had learned after the expedition into that place.
[End of Chapter]