Rage—sorcery potent enough to foment Armageddon—had become the intrinsic essence of this world. It was said to have originated from beyond the barriers, harnessed by various races of mysterious nature.
For a thousand years, such sorcery was practiced and exercised by humans within the barriers to combat vicious raiders. These humans—seeking to enlighten themselves about the principles of this world—became known as knights.
Rage manifests in various forms, such as presence, pressure, and abilities. These abilities are divided into three categories: Versatile, Conditional, and Dimensional.
* * *
With a surgical thrust, Austrad's blade pierced the air—fluid, seamless, like wind carving through a quiet plain. His gaze stayed sharp, gelid, unflinching—sharper than the very edge he wielded. Grip firm. Breath measured. Expression unreadable.
Before steel met flesh, a constricting halo flashed into existence—enclosing the village and ensnaring them alongside the Partian.
What?!
Shock etched itself into Austrad's visage—and with second-natured ease, he drove his blade in Kisatsu's abdomen, the motion controlled and effortless. Kisatsu's gaze stayed locked on him, his face wrung by pain, teeth clenched in unyielding wrath.
Astafa's gaze flickered toward the encircling ring—startled, as though the battle was only destined to spiral further.
What now? Is this another one of his abilities? he thought, alarm flooding his countenance.
"Austrad, someone's coming," Mwvyck voiced—clipped and level.
A loud crash resounded through the open as everyone turned toward it. Another knight had appeared, perched atop a battered rooftop across from them.
"You the quest takers too?" he queried. "What? You guys tasked with killing the dragon? Then you might as well hand it over. That thing's a Partian specimen—meant for experimentation."
He glanced toward Austrad and Kisatsu, who still hung skewered in the air.
"Why are you two fighting? Trying to kill each other over the Partian?" the knight remarked, his voice strident and acerbic. "You do realize you'll be declared exsolutus if you keep this up as knights, right?"
"Experimentation, huh? Well, you've got me curious," Austrad retorted brusquely. Before silence could bloom, he swung his fist into Kisatsu's jaw without even turning, knocking him out cold. The blade remained lodged in Kisatsu's abdomen as he crashed to the ground with a dull thud.
"So you're connected to the phial back there too? What exactly transpired here?" Austrad asked, his voice laced with impatience. "And do you possess a license for it? Just need to verify something."
The knight didn't answer right away. He narrowed his eyes briefly, gaze calculating and incisive. Then, in a disarmingly offhand manner, he tossed his license to Austrad.
"This information is not yours to know," he said, voice low and sonorous. "Revealing it could compromise your safety."
Did this guy just casually toss me his license? Austrad thought, eyes scanning the card. Elzhask Callighurr, from the Forty-Fourth Section?
Elzhask raised his hand toward the Partian, palm open. In an instant, an arcane box materialized, enclosing the Partian and sealing it with a blink. A moment later, the box vanished—taking the Partian with it.
Then, he shifted his gaze to them—steady, deliberate.
"Quest terminated. Mind telling me who you are?" he queried, voice blunt and inquisitive.
"Mwvyck Arafgnar."
"A-Astafa Kindleton."
"Kindleton?" Elzhask repeated, as if the name rang a bell. "So, you know him?"
"Who?" Astafa asked quietly.
"Forget it. You'll find out soon enough," Elzhask said, turning his gaze to Austrad. "And you are?"
"Austrad Zaphnyr. That name ring a bell?" Austrad replied, his tone tart.
"No, not quite. But I'll let you off with a warning—for now," Elzhask muttered, glancing over at two corpses—Gnovic and Frouc's. Astafa's garments—scored with sharp, deliberate lines—didn't escape his notice. They were far too precise to be the work of a wild beast.
"I'm willing to overlook the deaths of two questmates—and your attempt on two others," Elzhask spoke, finality threading through his voice. He walked past Austrad, each step marked by practiced composure.
Austrad stared after him stilly, his expression calm and inscrutable. Silence thickened as he remained steady and unmoving, his gaze set on something distant—waiting for the moment to call him.
And when he turned, his eyes anchored themselves immediately into it. In that moment, he realized he was the only one who could see it—from that angle and standpoint. It was subtle, yet ruinous in its own right. Across from him, a large furrow had formed—faint traces of Rage barely perceptible.
That was... when he did that?
When Kisatsu had whipped his hand through the air, it had been aimed in this exact direction. Even Austrad had missed that detail—perhaps too fixated on killing him to notice. With his brows creased, he drifted toward the wagon they were returning to.
Astafa had already awakened Kisatsu, having extricated the blade from his stomach. With Kisatsu's arm slung over his shoulder, Astafa began carrying him back to the wagon.
"W... Wait," Kisatsu murmured, voice frail, his gaze sweeping over toward Gnovic and Frouc's cadavers. "Their quest permits... we have to... bring them... back."
"No... stay here, I'll go get them for you," Astafa protested gently, lowering him to the ground with meticulous care.
* * *
Thirty Minutes Later — Gnovic and Frouc Buried
A searing jolt of pain flared through Kisatsu's body, his face scrunching in agony. His hand hovered over his impaled, flesh-torn abdomen—though the pain screamed for regeneration, none came.
He's not regenerating... Did he run out of Rage? Astafa stared blankly, his face knotted in disquietude. That impalement's deep—makes sense he can't recover from that.
"Can you regenerate?" he asked, voice tinged with quiet dread.
"I... forgot how," Kisatsu replied, confusion carved onto his countenance.
Strange... he pondered. I still have Rage left, but I can't tap into it. Does it only kick in when adrenaline spikes?
The wagon teetered with an erratic sway, its wheels rattling along the rugged track. The sound rippled into the dead stillness, the air thick and heavy.
"Elzhask," Austrad muttered, his voice subdued and even. "Are you affiliated with the Camesarian Guild?"
"No. I belong to the Seirai Guild. The quest appeared on our board, so I accepted it solo—it was only G-rank." Elzhask paused, his gaze sharpening. "Tell me, Austrad. Mwvyck. Why did you attack your own questmates?"
Austrad hesitated to respond, letting the moment stretch without a word. The silence grew heavier with each second, his expression assessing and clinical—yet his gaze remained unshaken and unwavering.
Then, he let a breath settle his frame before revealing his method of ascending.
"I see," Elzhask reflected, his voice quiet and cool. "But tell me—why is ranking up so important that you'd go as far as killing your own questmates?"
Austrad took another moment before replying, gathering his breath with measured intent. Then:
"Our goal is to become the highest-ranking knights in existence," he answered—plain, direct.
Since he won't talk about the phial, I'll keep our real objective to myself, he pondered, expression flat and collected.
"He's right," Mwvyck interjected, his voice thick. "Call it childish if you want, but that's what we're after. And we'll do whatever it takes to reach it."
"I see. I suppose there's nothing wrong with having aspirations," Elzhask remarked. "But if you keep this up and get caught, you'll both be declared exsolutus."
A pause. The air grew dense with tension.
"You do understand what that entails, right?"
"I do," Austrad replied, his visage etched with a startling nonchalance.
"What's an exsolutus?" Kisatsu asked, his voice gruff with exhaustion.
"It's one of the five decreed statuses—the lowest of them," Astafa replied.
"Five decreed statuses? What are they?"
"The five decreed statuses determine how severely someone is hunted. From highest to lowest: proscriptus, persecutum, nullicivis, abjuratus, and exsolutus. Being declared exsolutus strips you of all legal rights—meaning anyone can kill you without being charged, and they won't even get a warning. It's as if your death never happened," Astafa explained, casting a sharp glance at Austrad—edged, accusing. A subtle crease flickered over his countenance.
"On the other hand, being marked proscriptus means there's no escape. No trials, no negotiations—just complete erasure from existence," he added.
"I see..." Kisatsu mumbled—more to himself than to Astafa. He tilted his gaze to Austrad at last, eyes still and glassy—not even disbelief found room in his expression.
"And he's only getting a warning? Why?" he asked whoever would even bother to listen. "He killed two people—how is that still not enough to mark him as exsolutus?"
Elzhask's gaze remained trained on Austrad—level, unflinching, anchored.
"I warned you," he whispered, as if only he could hear.
"I don't get it. The people you killed weren't criminals—they never would've become anything like you," Kisatsu whinged. "Maybe others let you slide, but in my eyes... you're already proscriptus."
Never would've become anything like me, huh? Austrad contemplated, a faint smile ghosting over his lips—unnoticeable, as if only his thoughts could see it.
"You've got a mouth on you for such a little runt," Mwvyck scoffed, turning to Austrad. "Should've torn that jaw clean off, right, Austrad?"
When he turned, Austrad's gaze stayed fixed on the ground—flat, unreadable. The kind of expression he wore when he caught a thread of meaning in someone's words.
"Yeah. Bold words for someone still clinging to hope." He spoke at last, voice dry and detached. "How old are you two—fifteen?"
He faced them in full, gaze calm and trenchant.
"Tell me—have you ever taken a life? Someone you hated, or just... someone you felt like taking out?"
He let that sit, eyes keen. Biting. Unflinching.
Kisatsu didn't answer. His expression remained unmoved—too shocked for even a single crease to etch into it. Tension deepened with unsaid thoughts, the air grave and stifling.
"I almost did... once, a long time ago. Out of anger," Astafa muttered, voice barely above a whisper, gaze wavering to the floorboards.
"And? What became of them?" Austrad asked. "Did they change? Turn into someone else after that?"
"They did..."
"Then you did kill someone."
"What? No, I—" Astafa protested, softly. It was as if he'd forgotten who he was talking to in that moment. Perhaps the guilt had taken over—even if only for a moment.
"You might not have ended their life, but if who they were died that day... then what's the difference?" Austrad questioned, his voice low and steady.
"You're really going to shift the blame onto him? You—someone who's actually killed two people and didn't even flinch?" Kisatsu interposed, his voice husky—rough with disbelief. "Come on, it's obvious this isn't your first time taking lives—innocent ones, too!"
A breath. The expression Austrad bore remained unreadable. Dull. Dead.
"You said they'd never become anything like me, didn't you?" he asked, voice clinical. "And what makes you so sure of that? Did you know them their whole lives—every thought, every choice they'd ever make?"
A pause.
"You trust them so blindly, you act like their future was already written. But it never is. It never was."
"They might've been cowards, but they'd never sink so low as to kill their own just to get ahead," Kisatsu shot back, before his words could even settle. "I've seen it—the fear in their eyes. The kind of fear only someone with remorse... with sanity feels."
A beat.
"But your eyes? They're different. Cold. Ruthless. Worse than any Partian I've ever seen," he said, voice sharpening. "I wonder... if I'd come close to killing you, would it have changed you? Made you someone else entirely?"
Every word of his was woven with venom, antipathy, and an indescribable edge. A rancor that consumed every ounce of terror—yet it didn't manifest in his expression, not yet. A vindictiveness unlike anything he'd known before—not when his homeland had been invaded, not even when his brother was taken away.
The seething ire coursing through him... was only because the man before him was still humanly possible.
Compared to that thing.
"Hmph," Austrad grunted. "Even I'd like to know the answer to that."
He squared himself away from them—not because his gaze wavered, but because silence carried the verdict, not their voices.
"You're not the only one who's felt fear—far worse than what you felt back there."