Who are you?

Birds sang as the first rays of dawn spread across the land. Everything felt calm and peaceful. A new day was beginning.

"Another day," I said.

I opened the door to the place where I slept and stepped outside. It was right next to the warehouse. I had been there for seventeen months, working as an agricultural laborer.

"Good morning, Kesil. Beautiful day, isn’t it?" Megan said.

"Morning to you," I said.

Megan, like me, worked there. She also seemed to be the same age. She was beautiful, slim, and blonde. Sleepily, I walked past her.

"What day can I go train with you?" she asked.

I glanced sideways. "Let’s leave it for next week. This week will be busy."

"Okay."

Megan had seen me training at the waterfall weeks before. Since then, she would constantly ask me to teach her something, since she had the potential to master the same Ability I had trained.

I moved on to have my breakfast in silence. There was always a lot of work to do, but I never wanted to interact or make friends.

I didn’t stay in the breakroom long. I went straight to harvesting the food and vegetables. I focused entirely on my work until I grew tired a few hours later, heading over to rest in the shade of a nearby tree.

"Here..." I saw a hand reach out, holding a glass of water. It was the owner of the place, Mr. Bricius.

"Oh, thanks!"

I drank the water while he spoke. "You did a good job today. A job equivalent to five workers."

Mr. Bricius was an elderly gentleman, kind and fair.

"Here's last week's pay," he said, handing me a small bag of coins.

"Thank you."

"Are you sure you'll only stay another week?"

"Yes."

"Look, if the problem is the salary..."

"No, that's not it."

"So what is it?"

"I need to go. I've stayed here too long."

"Oh, really? Are you leaving this region?"

"Yes."

"Why? Didn't you like this place?"

I had never been asked about it before. Did I like this place?

"If I like this place... It's great. I'd like to live here until I die if I could." The words just poured out of my mouth, surprising even me.

"If that is the case," he said, "why don't you do just that?"

My expression grew serious and deep, filled with melancholy. "Because I can't. I have to go solve some problems. Problems that I cannot just forget."

"I see..." He looked to the side. "The world is complicated. Well, I'm heading back. If you change your mind, just talk to me."

"Okay..."

I went back to work, had lunch, and continued working. At the end of the afternoon, I went to the waterfall near the farm to meditate. As I walked, I couldn't stop thinking about what I had said.

"Live here until I die if I could..." Why did I say something like that? I have no friendships, no friends. I'm not from this place. These people are not my people. In a normal scenario, I would be conquering and oppressing places like this.

Could it be that the time I spent here changed me that much? Or am I just accepting my fate and what my life has become after everything...

I looked ahead. I was already standing in front of the waterfall's basin. The sunset glowed on one side, while the starry sky began to bleed into the other.

"I don’t think anyone is here today."

I knelt down at the water's edge to wash my face. Before dipping my head into the water, I caught a glimpse of my reflection: pale eyes and curly, snow-white hair.

Then, as soon as I submerged my face, something happened...

Suddenly, I was deep underwater, drowning, struggling for air. Through the blurry surface, I could see the distorted faces of three people watching me. They were speaking to me:

"Die, you bastard! Die at once!"

"Do you really think you could escape what you’ve done by coming here?"

"You have treated everything and everyone as dispensable because of your ambitions. Now die a nobody whom your people won't even look for. Rot along with your plans and drown in your ambitions..."

I saw a hand piercing my chest with a sword. Blood, more blood, mixing into the water. The vision blurred—their faces, their wicked smiles—until they finally walked away and my vision went completely dark.

My body was getting cold...

So that's it? My life was short, difficult, and full of struggles... In fact, fighting was pretty much all I ever did. And for what?

If I could, I wouldn’t want to live any of this. I’d like to have a different life... A happier life.

I pulled my face out of the water, terrified. Those were fragments of memories.

I sat on the ground at the foot of the waterfall, fatigued and frightened. What just happened? Why did these memories come back so strongly to haunt me now?

Then, I looked back at the water and felt a strange energy hovering over it.

In the water's reflection on the other side of the waterfall, I saw six disfigured faces. Above them, standing on the ground ahead, was a monstrous entity. It wore a purple mantle, and from its body, six stems branched out like vines, each ending in one of those horrific faces.

"Oh, it seems like you’ve seen something really heavy about yourself..." the third face said, smiling. "Tell me what it was, huh? I’m curious."

"Stop talking nonsense. We’re not here for that," another voice said, though I couldn’t identify which face it came from.

"Who are you?" I demanded, standing up and gripping the sheath of my short sword.

"Which of us do you mean?" the third face mocked.

"Don’t play games with me. I only feel one presence—only one energy emanating from you."

"Oh, so you noticed right away? That’s rare, especially in a rural region like this."

"I told you he was a capable user with some Ability in this area," the second face said, its voice grave and serious.

"Do you want an award?" the fifth face whined in a high-pitched tone. "Tracking this kind of person is literally our job now."

"Let’s get this over with. If he’s a problem, we’ll just kill him," the first face commanded.

This is bad. I don’t know what this thing is, but it’s extremely dangerous. If I stay like this, I’ll...