It's been five minutes since I parted ways with Klint, and I'm on my way to see Maria.
I met her on a battlefield. It wasn't exactly a meeting—more like I was spreading slaughter while she lay on the ground. A huge piece of rock had fallen onto her legs.
It was a difficult moment. The enemy was strong. Back then my hair was even longer, a mess—yet slicked flat with blood and sweat, getting into my eyes or my mouth. I noticed Maria looking at me.
In my encounters, I put my own enjoyment and everyone else's safety first. When I saw her watching, I thought to myself:
"This is enough."
As the enemy prepared for his next attack, before he could even call out the name of his spell, it was already over. I told my brothers there was nothing left to do and ordered a retreat. Amid a field where every body was being carried away by blood, I sat down on a stone.
The real reason I stayed was that I wanted to take Maria from there, but as I sat for a while, I simply stared around me.
Then she called out to me. She called me Faust. Faust.
How could she call me Faust? Back then, no one even addressed me by that name. Neither they nor I called me Faust.
But for some reason, I took it personally. I snapped out of the world I had drifted into. I woke up.
Not more alive, not clearer-headed, not anything like that. Just… different. Completely different.
I lifted the rock off Maria's legs. They were crushed. I didn't speak. She didn't either. I took her to an abandoned house on one of the battlefields. I laid her on the bed. I dressed her. Since she couldn't walk, I left a day's worth of food and water beside her.
She would need to go to the toilet too, but I already knew I would return in time. So no one among my brothers would notice, I didn't touch the trees near Corehold.
On a different continent, I cut down ten or twenty trees and built a house—not too close to Corehold, not too far. It was finished after seven hours.
I returned to Maria. She hadn't eaten any food or drunk any water. I didn't find it strange. I took her and brought her to the house I'd built.
There was nothing inside—just a bed and a chair.
Up until that moment, we hadn't said a word. The only thing she had done was call me "Faust." Everything unfolded in a strangely odd way.
You know how sometimes it feels like you just have to do certain things, as if something is guiding you? I don't know if you understand, but it was like that.
There's already a barrier my brothers and I created around Corehold. It ensures its secrecy and safety. I considered doing the same around this house, but this time my brothers might have noticed.
I didn't want that. I didn't want them to see. I created another barrier on my own.
After laying Maria on the bed, I was about to go out to find food again, but she stopped me.
She said she didn't need to eat. Since her legs couldn't support her, she straightened herself with her hands and leaned her back against the wall.
"I don't need sleep. I don't need food. I just want to talk to you."
Those were Maria's words. I didn't think about anything. From that moment on, after every adventure, battle, fight, duel, trouble, and burden, I found myself at her door.
Always. I would just pull the chair up to the side of her bed and talk for hours.
When did it all start? When did it happen? I don't know. Not because I can't remember—rather, as if it never happened at all. As if there was nothing to remember in the first place.
I'm not even sure of my own age. I only know it's somewhere between nineteen and twenty-one.
Right now, I'm standing at Maria's door.Today. Is a good day.