Standing beside Burn, Man frowned, deepening the crease between her eyebrows like a well-worn map of worry. Looking at the young sve’s pitiful state, she couldn’t help but aowledge that, surprisingly, Burn was right.

  “Mana poisoning, right?”

  Man nodded, her tone dripping with gravity. “Mm, but this one is mild... sort of like a light drizzle when you were hoping for a monsoon, across a long period of time. How could this be possible?”

  “Mild?” Burn echoed.

  “And bizarre. There’s a trace of corrupted mana in his system. But it’s not the usual amount, and the symptoms are unlike any other I’ve ever seen,” Man eborated, her voice even sharper than the crease in her brow.

  The young man could still walk—though it resembled a particurly uncoordinated dand he had a surprising amount of strength. Amazingly, he could still mao speak, albeit sporadically. But the strawist? His memory was a plete jigsaw puzzle missing half the pieces.

  He kept pleading with them to save someone—or was it some people?—from some unspecified peril, yet when push came to shove, he couldn’t quite recall what, exactly, that peril was. The irony of begging for salvation while being utterly lost himself was not lost on Man.

  Oh, well, nothing says “I’m on top of my game” quite like being held captive and suffering from a bout of memory loss while simultaneously pying the role of a ed hero. The man didn’t know who he was saving or from what, yet kept pushing.

  “Will he get better if you purify the corruption? he say what he o say?” Burn asked.

  Man wasn’t even sure if this man would still return to sanity even if she cured him now, not to mention his memory. So she shook her head.

  Now, it was Burn’s turn to frown.

  Esg his owner, walking oreets with no ability to even reize why, yet keeping going, and going, and going. With this kind of drive, coupled with his inability to remember anything, it would just make sense if people would brush him away like someoally deranged.

  He was literally someone falling through the cracks of the harsh world, invisible—

  Because really, who stops to help the dazed wanderer without a clear name or a purpose?

  The world treated him with the same gratitude one might reserve for a fly buzzing around a piic. He could be the town’s secret hero—if only someone could remember his existence long enough to notice.

  Here’s a guy who’s clearly got his life's mission nailed down, albeit without a clue what that mission is. It’s not just tragic; it’s the ironic ballet of inpeten a universe that seems to revel in tossing chaos at unsuspeg actors.

  A, he keeps going. The burning question remains: is it ce, madness, or blissful ignorahe answer? Probably a heady mix of all three, painfully beautiful in its relentless futility.

  “We should still try, though,” Man said, her voice a mix of hope and skepticism. “This corruption has seeped so deep into him that I’m ed my purifiay resemble merely sprinkling holy water on a cursed artifact. So, naturally, the world tree seems like the ideal spot for hopeless cases like him.”

  “The’s depart,” Burn replied, gng down at the man sprawled on the bed in one of the grand chambers of Wilderwood’s Capital Mansion. Burn turned, preparing for departure with the addition of one poor creature.

  He looked at Finn, who quickly joined him for a walk. Burn took a deep breath, ung into a tirade of instrus, mainly about Yvain and the current state of the kingdom—because who wouldn’t want a thrilling briefing about impending doom? Let’s not fet the dahat lurked just beyond the er.

  “Iigate where this sve came from. It looks like he retly escaped—or was tossed aside like yesterday’s undry because of his insanity,” Burn tihe meticulousness of this shadowy force suggested they had a pent for tidying up loose ends before they became troublesome.

  How siderate of them.

  “To assume they wouldn’t have a team ready to eliminate him is simply imism and wishful thinking—”

  “Ah—!”

  “Mama?!”

  Burn pivoted sharply, his earlier irritation now fotten, a blur of motiohe likes of Finn, a Force Master, couldirely keep up with.

  Man y on the floor he bed, having nearly toppled over in her fervent efforts to purify the young sve. Yvain was close by, visibly shaken, rushing to her side.

  “I just turned away for a damn sed—” Burn growled, anger painting his face as he approached, only to freeze at the sight of her armed expression.

  “I saw something, Caliburn,” Man replied, her gaze locked on him. “My specution st loop has been firmed.”

  He steadied her, helping her rise once again. “What did you see?”

  Maated, her eyes darting to the man on the bed. The very man they had tally entered oreets of Inkia, a sve pleading for salvation—and from his memory, she prodded—

  “The birth of a new Demon Lord.”

  ***

  A pair of eyes flickered open on a weathered ben a child’s pyground, the bright colors of swings and slides juxtaposed against the encroag shadow of something much darker.

  Laughter and squeals filled the air with the i joy of childhood, creating a symphony of pure oblivion that danced around him like the fleeting echoes of a fotten lulby. He smiled softly, but not out of admiration for the cheerful chaos; no, that would be far too simple.

  “You found me, inal Saint,” he murmured, his voice a blend of reverend mockery, as if addressing a deity who’d mispced their sense of humor.

  Here he sat, cloaked in the innoce of the pyground, a fortress of bliss.

  Around him, parents watched, utterly unaware of the ic joke unfolding right uheir hey might have thought he was just another weary adult admiring the sery. Little did they know he was more like a prophet, waiting for the pune amidst the joy.

  “A ge of pn, it seems.” Looking down at his palm on his p, he softly ched his fist. “Be my guest.”