Water dripped from my clothes as I stepped out onto the field of corpses. The smell of blood hung in the air like a thin, suffocating mist. Bodies lay scattered without shape, their empty eyes staring up at a sky that had no answers to give.
I stood among them, the monster's severed head dangling from my hand like a rotten trophy. The night wind brushed against my face, cold as a dead man's touch.
I looked up. No stars. Only the heavy shroud of darkness overhead, as though the sky itself was mourning. Slowly, I lowered my gaze and reached into the innermost layer of my clothes. My fingers brushed something cold and solid.
I pulled it out—a pocket-watch. Simple in shape, round, made of silver that had lost some of its shine. It wasn't an extravagant piece, but it remained one of the few luxuries I owned.
A pocket-watch like this… only nobles usually had one. Its price hovered around five hundred silver, a sum that would take an ordinary soldier years of labor just to afford.
I let out a small, tired breath.
As a Battalion Commander, my monthly pay was six hundred silver. High, by most standards. Regular soldiers only earned eighteen to twenty-five silver a month. With daily meals costing ten copper… yes, if you did the math, a soldier's wage was never enough to survive on.
Thankfully, the kingdom covered their food and living necessities. If not, most of them would starve long before they ever raised a sword.
In this world, money came in three tiers: Copper, Silver, and Gold. One Silver was worth ten Copper. One Gold was worth ten Silver.
Gold was rare, so rare that most people would go their entire lives without ever touching a single piece.
In the military, we were almost always paid in silver. And compared to common folk, I was technically wealthy. If I saved my entire salary for a year, I could gather six thousand silver. Enough to buy a small home on the outskirts of a major city. Or a decent house in a small town. A simple place to live peacefully.
That used to be my dream, one I shared with my sister, before she died.
I stared at the pocket-watch longer than I should.
Its hands ticked slowly across twenty-four etched points, powered by a tiny mana crystal inside. Between the eighth and sixteenth marks was a white arc with a sun emblem. The rest, from sixteen back to eight, was a darker shade bearing the symbol of the moon. Eight hours of daylight. Sixteen hours of night. That was our world—imbalanced, tilted into darkness.
And every year, daylight shrank a little more. Slowly. Subtly. As though the world was dimming its own lantern. Some mad theory even claimed that one day, the night would never end. The sun would simply stop rising.
I used to think that was nonsense.
Now… I wasn't so sure.
I remembered the old tales I heard as a child, stories of an era said to be brighter. A time when sunlight lingered longer than darkness, when shadows didn't dominate the world like they do now.
According to those legends, that was when many races lived side by side: elves dwelling in eternal forests, tiny fae who could make flowers bloom with their laughter, dragons ruling the skies, centaurs thundering across the plains, sirens singing along the coasts to lure sailors, drow, imps…
All of that… seemed like just stories told to put children to sleep.
Most of them were extinct, or perhaps never existed at all. The only ones remaining were dragons, and even they were few because they were constantly hunted for their blood and scales.
I've seen a dragon. I've even killed one. A dragon so large its shadow covered an entire hill.
But yeah… that's all in the past.
I inhaled deeply, then lowered my gaze to the pocket-watch again. The small hand pointed to the eighteenth mark. Hour eighteen. Here, that meant two hours into the night.
For a moment, I simply stood there among the bodies, staring at faces that would breathe no more—my men, my enemies… equal now in death.
Normally after a battle like this, a Spirit Medium would arrive to perform purification. They would chant rites, calm the spirits, ensure the souls didn't stray or rise again in vengeful frenzy.
But this time… I was the only one left.
And worse, I knew their souls weren't here. All of them had been sacrificed by that Necromancer to the radiant being—the one who called itself the Seraph of Salvation. What happened to them after that? Were they destroyed? Cleansed? Burned as fuel for something beyond comprehension?
I didn't know. And honestly… there was nothing I could do for them now.
All I could do was hope they found peace somewhere far kinder than this cursed world. I whispered softly within my heart,
"May all of you… find rest. Somewhere better than this wretched place."
Then the Seraph's words echoed again, claiming the afterlife was real. That my sister was there. That I could meet her again… if I offered a million human souls in exchange.
I closed my eyes briefly. I was tempted. Deeply tempted. A part of me nearly nodded when that offer was made.
But I couldn't accept it.
Not because I'm noble. But because I don't believe it. Why should I trust a creature like that? Especially after seeing what salvation meant for the Necromancer.
There was no guarantee I wouldn't suffer the same fate. No guarantee it would return my sister. No guarantee the afterlife it promised wasn't just bait to lure me in.
I wouldn't place Nelly's soul—or my hope of seeing her again—into the hands of something so fractured and deceitful.
I wouldn't become its puppet.
And yet, after speaking with it… I felt something shift inside me. As though a long-dormant part of me had stirred awake. If the afterlife truly exists… if my sister really is somewhere out there… then I will find it myself. With my own hands. Not as another being's instrument.
I will apologize to her face-to-face.
And to do that… I need no one's help.
Of course, I have no intention of dying just to reach the afterlife.
I tightened my grip on the monster's head and made my way toward my horse. My eyes stayed fixed forward, cutting through the endless night. I climbed into the saddle and pulled the reins.
The night was long.
There were things I needed to do. Many things, actually.
My horse surged forward, leaving behind the field of corpses and bitter memories. The night wind hit my face, drying the mud and blood clinging to my skin.
And so, beneath a sky whose darkness grew stronger year by year, began the tale of a man with a simple, almost impossible goal: To apologize to his sister.