Chapter 78: Chapter 77 - Three Years Later

Three years passed.

And in that time, the city of Lupos changed quite a bit from what it had once been.

It grew several times larger, with constant construction raising new battlements and thickening its walls. The kingdom poured a great deal of money toward the Count, and he, in turn, made the city sturdier, stronger, and ready for the invasion everyone believed was inevitable.

The kingdom’s army arrived before the orcs could press their advantage beyond Kolma’s ruin. Banners filled the walls, soldiers crowded the streets, and peace and order slowly returned to Lupos. The city became a fortress almost overnight. Its gates were guarded day and night, and its towers were filled with archers and paladins.

But the great attack from the orcs never came.

Only small skirmishes broke out from time to time, usually when scouting parties wandered too close to what had once been Kolma.

Kolma, or what remained of it, had become the orcs’ foothold.

Their den.

After a while, the kingdom sent an eradication force to reclaim it. But unlike the skirmishes, which ended half in victory and half in loss, that army was decimated. Of the five thousand soldiers sent, only four hundred returned—battered, bloodied, and barely alive.

Their reports were staggering.

The orcs were building a portal gate there.

Teclos heard the reports.

He heard that heroes had died in battle there, that skilled commanders had risen, and that a new army was being gathered by the Count.

None of it mattered to him.

Because Teclos had never truly left that fateful day.

It was as if time had stopped for him there.

His body had been carried through the gates of Lupos in Toby’s arms, half-dead and marked with black veins that took months to fade. His body had survived the healers, the fever, the pain, and the long nights where every breath felt like inhaling a mouthful of rusted nails.

At fifteen, he had been a promising novice hunter with a bright future ahead of him, well connected, and with a warm home to return to.

Now, at eighteen, he was only a broken shell of his former self. Though he still kept the badge of a hunter, his training had become nonexistent.

For three whole years, he had not trained a single day.

Not once.

No sword drills. No bow practice. No mana exercises. No shadow techniques. No attempts to strengthen his body. No effort to become worthy of the badge he no longer wore, because every glimpse of it reminded him of his father.

The badge sat somewhere in a drawer, wrapped in cloth and hidden beneath old shirts.

He had not looked at it in years.

Some mornings, he thought about throwing it away.

Most mornings, even that felt like too much effort.

Life in Lupos had not been kind to the refugees of Kolma, nor to those from the other villages that had been raided. Generosity wore thin quickly when thousands arrived with nothing but wounds, grief, and empty hands.

Most of the refugees had not even been welcomed into the city.

Only those with rank, coin, family, or useful skills found a place behind the walls. The rest gathered outside them—first in military tents, then, after a while, in patched huts. When no more materials were provided, those huts turned into crooked rows of wood, cloth, and sheet metal.

The slums grew like a scar in front of Lupos.

Teclos and Saldia lived there too.

Their home was a narrow, one-room hut attached to the small herb shop his mother had opened with borrowed coin and stubborn desperation.

The shop sat on a muddy lane between a butcher whose meat was always a little too old and a cobbler who drank far more than he worked. In winter, the thin walls did little to keep out the cold. In summer, the air inside turned damp and suffocating, the smell of moldy wood thick enough to cling to their clothes while the heat seemed to cook them alive.

Saldia sold herbs, poultices, cheap teas, and whatever remedies she could prepare from the ingredients she managed to gather or buy.

The profit was terrible.

Most days, they earned enough to buy bread, broth, and perhaps a little oil for the lamps. Some days, they earned less than that. Saldia gave away medicine too often, especially to children, and Teclos no longer bothered arguing with her about it.

The last time he had spoken up, he had finally earned her fury.

She had looked at him with eyes so tired and hollow that he had taken a step back. Then her fury spilled out all at once. She cursed at him, saying this could not go on, that he needed to start working and help out, and that if he could not spare even a little medicine for sick children, then he had left his humanity behind in that village.

Saldia had changed as well.

She was twitchy all the time, always on edge. More than once, men around her had tried to have their way with her. Of course, those who tried found themselves impaled down there with an ice needle.

The graceful woman she had once been was almost gone. Now, dark circles sat beneath her eyes, making her look constantly exhausted. Her three dresses were all torn and barely mended, stitched together just enough to hold.

And she had become very irritable.

They never spoke of Talmir anymore. He remained only as a memory between them. But Teclos felt as though she blamed him for his father’s death—more than even he blamed himself.

That quiet tension lived in the room with them.

Some nights, Teclos woke to the sound of her crying quietly into a folded blanket.

Other nights, she woke to the sound of him screaming from a terrible nightmare.

They never spoke about those mornings either.

After a while, Teclos spent his days helping in the shop, trying to ease Saldia’s workload while keeping his own mind occupied. He carried crates, swept floors, crushed herbs, fetched water, chopped roots, cleaned jars, and delivered small bundles to sick people who could no longer walk to them.

He learned which customers paid late, which ones never paid at all, and which children were the sickest.

Some days, he wandered through the slums like a ghost, with no particular destination in mind.

Sometimes, he heard soldiers laughing at him from the walls.

Sometimes, he heard the church bells ringing from inside the city.

Father Pella lived behind those walls now.

He had been taken into the main church of Lupos. People in the slums called him blessed, while those inside the city called him a miracle worker—a man chosen by life itself.

Teclos had tried to see him once.

Regrettably.

The main church inside the city was tall and white, with green glass windows that caught the sunlight and made it look holy. Guards stood at the steps. Clergy moved through its doors in clean white robes. Well-dressed citizens with polished shoes could enter freely.

But refugees and beggars could not.

The poor had been given a prayer shed outside the walls instead.

After all, their coin was still coin, and faith could still be exploited, Teclos thought bitterly.

That was what the church called it.

A shed.

Four wooden walls, a leaking roof, a crooked altar, and two junior clergy who spoke to the people there as if kindness cost them coin. They accepted prayers, distributed thin soup when donations allowed, and reminded everyone that Father Pella was busy with duties far too important for personal visits.

Teclos had first tried to enter the city church.

He had been denied access and thrown back toward the slums before he even made it past the steps.

Then, in the "shed," the junior priest assholes had treated him no better. They were rude, dismissive, and refused to arrange a meeting with Pella, even after Teclos told them they knew each other.

So he never went back.

Whatever gratitude he had for Pella became buried beneath distance and resentment.

He also encountered Ralph one day.

Ralph had become a mercenary under a famous company from the city, training under proper mentors, taking assignments, earning coin, and growing stronger. For a while after Kolma, he had visited them. He brought food more than once. He tried to speak to Teclos, tried to drag him outside, tried to make him hold a practice blade.

Teclos refused every time.

At first, Ralph was patient.

Then frustrated.

Then angry.

Their final conversation happened almost a year after the attack, in an alley behind Saldia’s shop while rain poured heavily around them.

"You can’t keep doing this," Ralph had said.

"I’m trying," Teclos had answered.

"No. You’re hiding away, and you aren’t even helping your mom in the shop." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Teclos had tried to walk past him, but Ralph had grabbed his arm.

In that moment, Teclos’s anger boiled over. With a low growl, he said, "Let go."

"Gillard died, and you just stopped after that?" Ralph snapped as well. "He wanted to be a hunter. We all did. And now you’re just—what? Hiding in that pitiful shed you call a home while letting Saldia carry everything alone? Is that how they would’ve wanted you to live?"

Those words hit hard.

But then Ralph said the one thing neither of them could take back.

"Maybe if you’d done something differently back then, Gillard would still be alive."

After that, Teclos only remembered seeing red.

One moment, Ralph was standing in front of him.

The next, Teclos had driven him into the mud, and the fight broke out.

"I tried everything in my power to save him!" Teclos shouted. "Everything!"

"We should’ve stuck together," Ralph spat back, voice bitter beneath the rain. "If we’d broken his line of sight for even a few seconds... your shadows, my wind... maybe that bastard orc would’ve chased the wrong trail instead of you two."

By the time the fight ended, neither of them had anything left to say.

They had not spoken since.

Teclos did not know whether Ralph still blamed him or not.

Now, two years after that—

The day everything shifted began like most days in the slums.

They had a stand errected early in the morning, in the middle of the slums.

Cold wind slid between the buildings, carrying the smell of smoke, wet shit on the "streets" of the slums, and unwashed, foul-smelling people. Customers came in small waves—an old woman with swollen joints, a boy with a fever, a laborer who needed something for a wound he insisted was not infected, even though it clearly was.

Teclos worked without speaking much.

He ground the herbs until his wrists ached. Packed dried leaves into paper bundles. Refilled jars. Counted coins twice because there were never enough of them.

By evening, he was exhausted and ready to head home.

Saldia was still cleaning behind the counter, wiping down jars that had already been wiped once. She did that often when she did not want unpleasant thoughts to surface in her mind.

"You can go," she said quietly.

Teclos looked up.

"I can help you finish up."

"I know." She did not turn around. "Go anyway."

He hesitated, then set the cloth aside.

The street outside was dim, the last orange light of the day fading behind the walls of Lupos. Lanterns had begun to flicker to life along the top of the walls, though few made it into the slums.

Teclos walked without direction again.

He turned down a narrow street and stepped directly into someone’s path.

The collision was immediate and unforgiving.

Teclos hit someone as solid as a wall.

Pain flashed through his shoulder, and before he could catch himself, he fell backward into the mud. Cold sludge soaked through his trousers, and his palms slapped the ground hard enough to sting.

For a second, he just sat there, dazed.

Then a shadow fell over him, and as he looked up, he saw a man standing above him.

He was enormous.

Almost an orc-sized person with broad shoulders that filled a heavy travel cloak. A mane of red hair fell around a hard, weathered face, and a short beard framed a mouth already twisting with irritation. He had visible scars across his face and neck. His eyes were sharp, amber-brown, and utterly displeased.

A lion of a man.

By the looks of it, a mercenary. He wore heavy plated boots, reinforced leather, a sword at his hip, and the casual posture of someone who loved to brawl in pubs.

He looked Teclos over.

Mud-stained clothes.

Thin frame.

Tired eyes.

Typical slum scum.

The man’s expression darkened.

"Watch where you’re walking, you cockroach."

Teclos pushed one hand into the mud and tried to stand.

"Sorry," he muttered.

The mercenary’s boot came down in front of him, blocking him.

Teclos stopped.

"Sorry?" he repeated, voice low and rough. "That all you have to say, brat?"

Teclos lifted his eyes again.

The mercenary studied him for another moment, and whatever he saw there seemed to irritate him even more.

"That look," the man said, almost to himself. "I hate that dead look."

Teclos said nothing.

The man’s lip curled.

"People like you crawl around these streets like cockroaches. Still breathing, still eating, still taking up space, but not doing a damn thing with it."

Teclos lowered his gaze.

That seemed to piss the man off even more.

"Get up," the mercenary said, "and tell me your name."

Teclos slowly climbed to his feet, mud sliding from his coat. He didn’t want to answer the man.

But something in the man’s eyes told him that silence could kill him.

"Teclos," he reluctantly said.

The mercenary stared at him, his eyes suddenly narrowing.

"Teclos..."

He repeated the name slowly, as if dragging it out of some old memory.

And after a second longer, recognition flashed across his face.

Teclos felt the smallest shift in the air between them.

The mercenary’s mouth twisted into a sinister grin.

"Well, well, well," he said. "The little prodigy of Kolma is in my debt now. You’re gonna have to pay me for a new coat, since you sullied this one with your filth."