The Anomaly's Path-Chapter 57: The Warmth of Strangers

I woke to the sound of whispered arguments and the distinct feeling that someone was poking my face.

"See? He’s still sleeping. I told you he wouldn’t wake up."

"You said that an hour ago, Lily. And the hour before that. And the hour before that."

"Well, maybe he’s dead."

"He’s not dead, Tobin. His chest is moving. See?"

Something small and sharp poked my cheek again. I cracked one eye open to find the girl they’d been calling Lily inches from my face, her messy braids dangling like curious caterpillars, a stick clutched in her tiny fist like it was the most dangerous weapon in the world.

I grabbed the stick before she could poke me again. "I’m alive," I rasped. "Unfortunately for you."

The girl shrieked. "HE’S AWAKE! THE HANDSOME DEMON IS AWAKE!"

The other children scrambled back like I’d suddenly burst into flames. A boy with pointed ears tripped over his own feet and landed in a heap against the wall. A quiet girl with strange golden eyes just tilted her head and observed me with the same unblinking intensity.

"...You have to come eat," Lily announced, as if this was the most important thing in the world. "With everyone. Big sis says you’ve been hiding in your room long enough."

"Hiding?" I stared at her. "I woke up yesterday. I’ve been recovering from near death."

She shrugged. "Same thing."

She grabbed my hand anyway, her tiny fingers surprisingly strong. The other children watched with a mix of excitement and terror, like they weren’t sure if I was going to follow peacefully or turn into a monster and eat them.

I looked down at my bandaged chest, then at the children who had apparently decided that my life was worth risking for a bowl of porridge.

"...Fine," I sighed, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. The room tilted for a moment, but I grabbed the frame and held on until it settled. "But if I collapse, you’re carrying me back."

The children exchanged nervous glances.

"We’re too small," Lily said, already backing toward the door.

"Then you’re explaining to your big sis why her patient died on the way to breakfast."

Her face went pale. "You wouldn’t."

"I absolutely would."

She grabbed my hand again, this time with more urgency. "Then hurry up before you die!"

The main room of the orphanage was larger than I expected, filled with long wooden tables and benches that had clearly seen decades of use. The smell of fresh bread and something sweet hit me the moment I walked in, and my stomach immediately reminded me that I hadn’t eaten anything solid since before the monster attacked.

Mia spotted me before I’d made it three steps inside.

"What do you think you’re doing?"

Her voice cut through the noise of the room like a blade. The children who had been escorting me immediately scattered, leaving me alone to face her.

"...Walking," I said carefully.

"I can see that." She crossed her arms, her amber eyes narrowing. "You’re supposed to be in bed resting and recovering, not wandering around like you don’t have holes in your chest that are still trying to close."

I tilted my head, confused. "Didn’t you call me to eat with everyone?"

Her eye twitched. "When did I say that?"

I looked past her and spotted the three children who had woken me huddled behind a doorframe, peeking out like criminals caught at the scene of a crime.

"Oh no," Lily whispered, her voice carrying just enough for me to hear. "She saw us."

"Shit," the half-elf boy—Tobin, if I’d caught Lily’s earlier whisper right—added.

"RUN!"

They scattered in three different directions, their footsteps echoing down the hall like a herd of tiny elephants. Mia stood there for a moment, her face caught somewhere between fury and exhaustion.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the scene unfolding in front of me.

She took a deep breath, the kind that came from years of dealing with children who thought they were smarter than her. A slow, dangerous grin spread across her face—the kind that made me suddenly very glad I wasn’t one of those children.

"I’m going to kill them," she said, her voice almost sweet. "Slowly."

This girl was terrifying. A chill ran down my spine.

"I’m sure they meant well," I offered, though even I didn’t sound convinced.

She turned to look at me, one eyebrow raised. "They meant to get you out of bed so they wouldn’t have to bring you breakfast themselves." She crossed her arms. "Laziness, not kindness."

"Same thing, really."

She stared at me for a moment, like she was trying to figure out if I was being serious or just trying to annoy her. Then she shook her head and muttered something under her breath that I was pretty sure wasn’t a compliment.

She opened her mouth to fire back another lecture, but before she could get a word, a voice had cut through the chaos from somewhere behind her—warm, calm, carrying the kind of authority that didn’t need to shout.

"Mia. Let him be. The boy needs to eat, not be lectured."

I looked past her to the source of the voice.

A woman stood at the head of the long table, wiping her hands on a cloth. She had brown hair streaked with grey, kind eyes that crinkled at the corners, and a face that looked like it had seen a lot of years but refused to show most of them.

She wasn’t young, but she wasn’t what I’d pictured when Mia mentioned an "elder."

The woman smiled at me. "I’m Marta. The children call me Elder Marta, though I keep telling them it makes me sound ancient." She gestured to an empty spot at the table. "Sit. You look like you need it."

I lowered myself onto the bench carefully, wincing as my ribs protested. Mia was still watching me like a hawk, but something in her posture had relaxed.

I looked at the woman across from me, then at Mia. "Didn’t you say she was an elder?"

"She is."

"She doesn’t look like one."

Mia snorted. "Don’t let her face fool you. She’s been here longer than anyone. Probably knows more than anyone. She just got lucky with the aging thing."

"Lucky," Marta repeated, amused. "Is that what we’re calling it?"

"How old are you, then?" I asked.

Mia opened her mouth to answer.

The woman—Elder Marta—laughed, a warm sound that filled the room. "Mia, dear, you’re not supposed to reveal a lady’s age." She reached out and flicked Mira’s forehead with practiced ease. "That’s rude."

"I hope you only heard good things."

The words came out before I could stop them, and for a second I regretted it — but Marta just laughed.

"Oh, I’ve heard plenty. Handsome demon lord, apparently. Very handsome. Very terrifying. Loves to sleep in and refuses to eat his porridge."

I felt my face heat up. "I—that’s not—who told you that?"

She didn’t answer. Just smiled and glanced at Mia, who suddenly found the ceiling very interesting.

The children scattered around the table were watching us now — some grinning, some whispering, all of them clearly enjoying my suffering.

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. "I see how it is. This is a conspiracy."

"A conspiracy?" Mia finally looked at me, one eyebrow raised. "You called yourself a handsome demon lord. We’re just repeating what we heard."

"I never said that!"

"You did. The kids told me." 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it. Because I had, in fact, said that. Or something close to it. The line between "confident" and "narcissistic" was apparently very thin when you were half-dead and being yelled at by a teenage girl.

Marta laughed again, warm and easy, and the tension I didn’t even know I’d been holding started to ease.

I looked around the table — at the children who had stopped whispering and were now openly staring, at Mia pretending she wasn’t smiling, at Marta watching it all with those knowing eyes — and for some reason, I felt my shoulders relax.

This place was strange.

But it was starting to feel less strange.

_

The table was filled with children. More than I’d seen before—maybe a dozen, maybe more. They ranged from tiny things who could barely see over the table to older kids who looked like they might be twelve or thirteen, maybe fourteen at most.

...And they were not all human.

A half-elf boy sat near the far end of the table, his pointed ears poking through messy brown hair. A beastkin girl with a fox-like tail tucked under her bench was arguing with a boy whose arms were covered in scales—dragon-kin, maybe, or something close.

A half-elf girl with amber skin sat quietly, watching everything. A dwarf-blooded boy with a thick red beard that had no business being on a child’s face was trying to steal bread from a human girl who looked ready to bite his hand off.

Marta moved between them as she talked, her hand resting on heads, her voice soft. "They come from everywhere, The war doesn’t care about borders or bloodlines. It takes from everyone. We take in whoever finds us."

War?!

The word echoed in my head, but before I could dwell on it, Marta had already moved on.

She stopped beside Lily. "This is Lily. She is quite a mischievous girl."

Lily stuck out her tongue at me, a mischievous grin spreading across her face. "I’m the one who poked you awake."

I raised an eyebrow.

The boy with pointed ears raised his hand. "I’m Tobin. I’m the one who didn’t trip."

"You absolutely tripped," Lily said.

"I recovered gracefully."

"You fell into a wall."

"I was checking if it was stable."

Marta moved on, pointing out faces as she went. "This is Sera. She doesn’t talk much."

The girl with the golden eyes looked at me, then away.

"The loud one arguing with Tobin is Rena. The scaled one is Kael. The quiet one next to him is Theron."

I nodded, trying to keep the names straight. There were too many to remember all at once, but I’d get there.

Marta settled back into her seat. "We don’t have much. But we have enough. Enough food, enough shelter, enough kindness to keep going." She looked at me. "You’re welcome to stay as long as you need."

I opened my mouth to respond, but the food arrived before I could. A bowl of porridge appeared in front of me, followed by bread, followed by a cup of something that smelled like herbs. Mia slid into the seat beside me, pretending she hadn’t just orchestrated the whole thing.

"Eat," she said. "Before it gets cold."

I ate.

The meal was chaos.

Lily slathered honey on everything she could reach—bread, porridge, and at one point her own hair before someone stopped her. Tobin and Kael started a bread-throwing war that ended with both of them being sent to opposite ends of the table.

Sera watched it all with those strange golden eyes, offering quiet comments that made the others laugh for reasons I couldn’t quite figure out.

...And somewhere in the middle of it all, I stopped being an outsider and started being part of the chaos.

When the meal finally ended, the children scattered to their chores, and Mia disappeared into the kitchen with a stack of plates that would have taken me an hour to carry. I found myself alone at the table with Marta.

She was watching me with those kind, knowing eyes.

"I have some questions," I said. "If you have the time."

She smiled. "I always have time for questions. But you look like you’re about to fall over." She stood and gestured toward the hallway. "Walk with me. You can ask while I make sure you actually get back to your room without collapsing."

I pushed myself up from the bench, slower than I wanted to admit, and fell into step beside her. She matched my pace without comment, her hands clasped behind her back.

We walked in silence for a moment, and when we reached my room, she opened the door and led me inside. I sat on the edge of the bed, my legs grateful for the rest. Marta stood by the door, watching me with those calm, knowing eyes.

"So," she said, folding her arms. "What do you want to ask about? Go ahead."

I took a breath. "Earlier, you said something about war. I don’t get it. What do you mean by ’war’?"

She looked at me like I’d just said something impossible. She frowned a little "...You’re joking, right?"

"..."

She studied my face for a long moment, searching for any sign that I was lying. When she didn’t find it, she let out a slow breath. "You really don’t know about the war."

It wasn’t a question.

"I don’t remember much," I said carefully. "It seems like I’ve forgotten most of my memories."

She tilted her head, studying me. "...How much do you remember, then?"

"Not much. Just my name. And my family name."

She was quiet for a moment, her expression unreadable. Then she nodded slowly, like she’d reached some kind of decision.

"...Then where should I start?" she asked.

I shrugged, helpless. "Everything. I don’t remember much."

She hesitated, her brow furrowing as if weighing how much to say. Then she pulled the chair from the corner and sat down across from me, her hands folded in her lap.

"We are at war," she said slowly, "with the demon followers. Every race—humans, elves, beastkin, dwarves—made an alliance to fight back against the Demon King’s followers."

"...!"

My eyes widened. "Wait. You mean the demon followers? How? Why?"

She nodded grimly. "Yes. We’ve been at war with them for as long as anyone can remember. The gods have abandoned us—they retreated after they defeated the Abyss King, but their followers are still active. Still fighting with us."

I listened, and it felt like the ground had shifted beneath my feet. My chest tightened. My hands clenched in my lap.

This... this is—

Fuck. Why was I here? Why did I have to wake up in this time, in this world, in the middle of a war that had no end?

Marta must have noticed something in my expression, because her voice softened. "It’s okay," she said, reaching out to take my hand. Her fingers were warm, steady. "I don’t know what you’ve been through, and I won’t ask if you’re not ready to talk. But for now, at least, you’re safe here. This village has survived this long. It’ll keep surviving."

I nodded, but I didn’t feel any better. My thoughts were racing.

I took a long breath, forcing myself to focus. I looked back at Marta.

"So," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. "Can you answer some more of my questions?"

She smiled—tired, but warm—and nodded.

"I can try."

I opened my mouth to ask the first of a thousand questions that were racing through my head—

...And then I stopped.

Because what was I supposed to ask first? Where to start? How to ask about a world I didn’t understand, a war I’d only read about in a game, a history that was supposed to be buried and forgotten?

Marta watched me struggle, her expression patient.

"Take your time," she said softly. "I’m not going anywhere."

I nodded slowly.

But the questions sat heavy on my tongue, and I didn’t know which one to let out first.

_

AN:

Hey readers! I know today’s Chapter is late — I was busy with some stuff irl. Anyway, I got some bad news (at least for me). I lost 11 saved Chapters.

Yeah, 11 fucking Chapters.

Sigh...

I’m trying to recover them, but don’t worry — the Chapters will still come out on time like usual. Today was just a busy day. I’ll release the next Chapter soon!

Thanks for sticking around.