An Adventurer

“How many days did you say we had left?”

Nino kept walking.

“When?”

“When we left Veyra.”

“I don’t remember.”

Tenshi let out an exaggerated sigh behind him.

“Because I do. And I’m pretty sure we’ve been walking longer than you said. DAYS!”

“Then why did you ask?”

Three laughed a few steps behind him, and Tenshi shot an annoyed look in her direction. Alicia walked between them, holding Three’s hand while using the other to push aside the occasional branch brushing against her face.

“He’s been complaining since yesterday,” Three said.

“I’m asking.”

“For the tenth time.”

“Third.”

Tenshi fell silent for a moment.

“Are you guys counting?”

Alicia started laughing.

The mountains of Solvar had disappeared behind them more than a day ago. The snow and rocky slopes had given way to vegetation-covered hills, where tall trees grew close together and concealed much of the sky. The road leading toward Lumeris had also grown wider. Wheel tracks crossed the dry earth, and small stone pillars appeared from time to time along the roadside, indicating that they were finally nearing the lands of the Third Nation.

Nino had avoided the main roads for much of the journey. The closer they came to Lumeris, however, the harder it became to remain hidden. They passed carts traveling in the opposite direction, merchants who preferred not to talk, and even a small group of travelers carrying everything they could strap onto two horses. News of the war had already reached this far. Some people said Mezi had taken half of Solvar. Others claimed the Hero of Solvar was dead. One man swore he had heard about an entire mountain walking across a battlefield.

“So?” Tenshi insisted. “How much farther?”

Three pointed toward one of the stones beside the road.

“If you learn how to read Lumeris’s markers, you can figure it out yourself.”

Tenshi moved closer to the pillar as they passed it. Symbols had been carved into its surface, worn down by time.

“I don’t know how to read that.”

“Then we still have a long way to go.”

“You don’t know either, do you?”

Three smiled.

“Maybe.”

Tenshi opened his mouth to answer, but Nino stopped. Three noticed immediately.

“What is it?”

He didn’t answer. There was something beyond the trees.

To the left of the road, the ground descended along a gentle slope before disappearing beneath denser vegetation. Between the trunks, a grayish surface emerged among the leaves, far too large to belong to any structure in the region.

Nino stepped off the road.

“Nino?” Alicia called.

“Stay close.”

Three guided Alicia while Tenshi followed them. The farther they moved between the trees, the harder it became to understand what stood before them. The surface Nino had spotted from the road stretched for dozens of meters, covered in moss, roots, and small plants that had grown inside deep cracks.

Then the trees opened up.

Tenshi stopped.

“Ah.”

A Colossus lay fallen before them.

Part of its torso had sunk into the earth, while one arm disappeared beneath the vegetation. Trees grew around its fingers, and roots threaded through some of the fissures covering its body. Its head was tilted to one side and partially buried, large enough that the hollow where one of its eyes should have been resembled the entrance to a cave.

There was no Pulse. No sound. No movement. Even so, Nino felt the muscles in his body tense.

The last time he had been this close to a Colossus, a mountain had risen.

“What is it?” Alicia asked.

Tenshi took a moment to answer.

“A Colossus.”

Her hand tightened around Three’s.

“Like the other one?”

“Smaller,” Nino replied.

Smaller did not mean small. Even lying down, its body towered above some of the surrounding trees.

Three moved a few steps forward, studying the marks scattered across its surface.

“There’s another one.”

Nino followed her gaze.

Farther ahead, almost completely hidden by the forest, another gigantic shape stretched across the terrain. The second Colossus lay on its back, part of its body covered by earth and vegetation. A tree had grown between its shoulder and neck.

Tenshi looked from one to the other.

“Are they dead?”

Three remained silent for a few seconds.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

She approached the first one and ran her fingers along one of the cracks in its surface.

“Or maybe they’re just sleeping.”

Tenshi immediately took a step back. Three looked at him.

“Worried now?”

“You just said they might wake up.”

“I said they might be sleeping.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“Not exactly.”

Nino left the two of them arguing and walked toward the Colossus. He placed a hand against its surface and channeled a minimal amount of Pulse through his fingers.

Violet energy spread only a few inches before disappearing. Nothing could be detected within the creature’s body. Even so, something bothered him.

It wasn’t a presence he could sense. Perhaps it was exactly the opposite. After everything that had happened in Solvar, it was difficult to accept that creatures like these simply remained scattered across the world, motionless, while someone like the King searched for the Primordial Stones.

He wondered when everyone, himself included, had started treating the existence of creatures like these as something ordinary.

Then he pulled his hand away.

“Let’s go.”

“That’s it?” Tenshi asked.

“What else do you want to do?”

The boy looked at the Colossus.

“Nothing.”

“Then let’s go.”

Alicia climbed back onto Nino’s shoulders, and the four of them returned to the road.

Nino was the last to leave the forest. Before following the others, he looked back once more at the two giants among the trees.

Lumeris appeared on the horizon a few hours later. Tenshi was the first to notice.

“Is that it?”

Nino raised his eyes.

The city stretched across a vast region of sandy hills, surrounded by pale walls that followed the rising terrain at different levels. Tall towers stood at regular intervals, connected by walkways where tiny figures moved in the distance. Beyond them, hundreds of rooftops covered the slopes until they reached a much larger structure at the center, where several stone buildings rose around a main tower.

There were no mountains protecting Lumeris as there were in Solvar. The city had been built to be seen.

“Is it big?” Alicia asked.

Tenshi was still staring.

“Very.”

“Bigger than Mezi?”

He thought about it.

“I don’t know. It’s different.”

Alicia wrinkled her nose.

“That doesn’t explain anything.”

“There are several walls. One is higher than the next because the city climbs up the hills. And there are towers... a lot of them. The palace is in the middle, I think. You can see it from here.”

“What color is it?”

Tenshi looked again.

“Kind of white.”

“Kind of?”

“The stones are light.”

“Then say that.”

“I’m trying!”

Three held back a laugh while Alicia continued asking questions. Nino listened to the two of them argue about the color of the rooftops as they followed the road.

The closer they came, the busier it became. Farmers guided loaded carts into the city, travelers waited before the gates, and soldiers inspected goods before allowing anyone inside. Flags hung from the towers, shifting in the wind above the walls.

Nino slowed his pace. Three moved closer.

“Thinking about something?”

“How long it’ll take before someone recognizes me.”

She looked toward the line at the gates.

“Five minutes?”

“Optimistic.”

It didn’t take two. The first guard simply raised a hand when they approached.

“Reason for entry?”

“We need to speak with the king,” Nino replied.

The man looked at him as though waiting for the rest of the explanation.

“About?”

“Mezi.”

The guard’s expression shifted slightly. Another soldier a few steps behind him raised his head.

“Where are you coming from?”

“Veyra.”

“Never heard of it.”

“That’s the idea.”

Three exhaled through her nose. The guard was already losing his patience.

“Name?”

Nino hesitated just long enough for Three to notice.

“Nino.”

No reaction. The second soldier, however, kept staring at him. His eyes dropped to the black sword strapped across Nino’s back, then returned to his face.

“Wait.”

Nino turned his head. The man approached slowly.

“That sword...”

His hand moved toward his own weapon.

“Take it off your back.”

“No.”

The other guards noticed the change. Within seconds, four of them were alert.

Tenshi moved closer to Alicia. The soldier stared at Nino again.

“Who are you?”

Nino held his gaze.

“I just told you.”

The man went pale.

“That’s not possible.”

Three crossed her arms.

“We’ve been hearing that a lot lately.”

The guard looked toward his companions.

“Get the captain.”

Less than thirty minutes later, Nino stood before a group of people who seemed equally convinced that he should not exist.

The room they had been taken to was inside one of the administrative buildings near the center of Lumeris. There were enough soldiers stationed at the doors to make it clear that no one there fully trusted their visitors.

Alicia and Tenshi sat near Three. Nino remained standing before a long table.

On the other side, three men and a woman listened.

“The Hero of Mezi is dead,” one of them said.

“I know.”

“Your own kingdom announced your death.”

“I know that too.”

“And you expect us to simply accept that you walked through our gates days later?”

Nino looked at him.

“I’m here. They clearly lied.”

The man, with carefully combed-back gray hair and a long dark formal coat, did not take the answer well. The woman beside him, a brown braid falling over one shoulder and dressed in a blue Lumerian uniform, leaned over the table.

“Suppose you are who you claim to be. Why would the Hero of Mezi come to Lumeris while his own kingdom is at war with Solvar?”

“I’m no longer the Hero of Mezi.”

The silence that followed did not last long.

“Then what are you?”

Nino thought for a moment.

“An adventurer.”

Three lowered her face, hiding a small smile. Alicia perked up at the answer. Nino continued before anyone could respond.

“Mezi didn’t invade Solvar for territory. The attack began before the war. The mine, the Colossus, and what happened in Arvendel were all part of it.”

“You’re talking about the Colossus that fell over Solvar’s gates?”

“Yes.”

Some of them exchanged glances.

“The King is searching for the Primordial Stones,” Nino said. “And if he attacked Solvar, there’s reason to believe one of them is there.”

The woman narrowed her eyes.

“Primordial Stones are stories.”

“No.”

“And how do you know that?”

Nino did not answer immediately. There were things he had no intention of telling four strangers sitting behind a table. Not yet.

“Because the King has already found one.”

This time, no one answered.

Nino told them only what was necessary. He spoke about the Heart of Noctrium, the awakening of the Colossus, and the beginning of the invasion. He did not mention everything the King had revealed in the cell, but he explained enough for the war to stop sounding like a simple territorial dispute.

When he finished, the man in the center placed both hands on the table.

“Even if all of this is true, you’re asking Lumeris to take a stand against Mezi based on the word of a man who is officially dead.”

“I’m warning you what will happen if you wait until he gets here.”

“And why would he come here?”

“He wants to dominate everything. And we need to save Lumeris and Orvain.”

Nino looked toward Alicia and Tenshi.

“But there’s another reason we’re here.”

Tenshi immediately became alert.

“We’re looking for a woman who was brought to Lumeris.”

“Name?”

“Raysa!” Tenshi answered before Nino could.

The man’s expression did not change.

“We have thousands of people entering and leaving the kingdom.”

“She didn’t come here willingly,” Nino said.

Silence returned. The woman leaned back in her chair.

“You’re talking about slaves.”

“Yes.”

“And what exactly do you expect us to do?”

“I want access to the records. If she’s here, I want to find her.”

“That’s not possible.”

Tenshi stood.

“What?”

Three placed a hand on his arm before he could move forward. Nino kept his eyes on the table.

“Why?”

“Because you have no authority in Lumeris.”

“I never said I did.”

“You’re asking for access to records belonging to the kingdom and interfering with legally registered property within our borders.”

Nino felt Alicia shift behind him.

“Property?” Tenshi asked.

No one answered the boy. Nino kept his voice calm.

“She’s their mother.”

“And I understand the situation. But we cannot open our records and remove someone from legal ownership simply because a foreigner appeared claiming to know her.”

“Then don’t remove one.”

The man frowned.

“What?”

Nino looked directly at him.

“Remove them all.”

Three’s expression froze.

“Are you suggesting that Lumeris free all of its slaves?”

“Yes.”

For several seconds, no one on the other side of the table seemed to know whether he was serious. Then one of the men laughed.

“You truly expect to walk into our kingdom, declare that a war that does not concern us is about to reach our borders, and before we can even verify anything you’ve said, demand that we change our laws? And all of this because you’re the strongest Hero?” he added sarcastically.

“No.” Nino placed one hand on the table. “I expect you to do it because it’s the right thing to do.”

The smile disappeared. The argument that followed lasted far too long. By the time it ended, Nino still had no access to the records. But he had gained something else.

An opportunity.

The man seated at the center of the table stood and walked toward one of the windows. From there, part of the city stretched below them. In the distance, a circular structure stood out among the buildings, surrounded by stone stands.

“You claim to be the man Mezi called its Hero. Your name is known across all four nations. Perhaps even beyond them.”

“I wasn’t the one who chose the title.”

“Even better.”

He turned around.

“Lumeris has a Hero of its own.”

Nino followed his gaze toward the circular structure. Even from that distance, the noise of hundreds of people could be heard coming from its direction.

The man smiled.

“If you truly are who you claim to be, a little proof wouldn’t hurt.”