Vergil sighed in relief the moment he stepped inside his house, letting the heavy wooden door click shut behind him.
The small structure contained only a single room with a modest kitchen tucked into the far corner.
Without bothering to carry the deer all the way into the washing area, he dropped the carcass onto the floor and lowered himself heavily onto the only wooden stool in the room.
He bowed his head, letting the silence swallow him.
Only now did the full weight of what he had done come crashing down.
Saving the girl had been the right choice, but he had undeniably dragged himself into the crosshairs of danger.
And for the first time across two lifetimes, he had taken human lives.
At the moment he released those arrows, he had felt almost nothing.
But now, the memories replayed on a vicious loop behind his eyes.
The boy collapsed.
The rush of crimson blood.
The sudden, desperate panic of the survivors.
Yet, the moral weight of the killings quickly gave way to the cold calculations of survival.
Could the deaths be traced back to him?
Vergil doubted the dead boys’ families would launch a loud, public investigation right away.
If the girl reported the assault to her family or the town guards, the truth of their sons’ crimes would spread alongside it.
Then again, a cynical thought crossed his mind.
The women in this region rarely possessed authority over their own lives, largely bound to the whims of the men in their households.
The entire region operated on a system mirroring the pre-industrial societies of his previous life—where honour, bloodlines, and reputation dictated survival.
Even if the girl told her family everything, they might choose to suppress the incident entirely to preserve her perceived “purity” and future marriage prospects.
To many local families, daughters were viewed less as individuals and more as political assets tied to status and alliances.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Vergil rose and walked over to the kitchen.
He grabbed a small clay bottle of animal fat oil, carefully replenished his lamp’s reservoir, and struck two spark stones together until a bright spark caught the wick.
A warm, yellow flame flickered to life, pushing back the deep shadows clinging to the corners of the room.
He returned the stones to their shelf and sat back down.
He decided to stop overanalysing.
In the coming days, the consequences of his actions would reveal themselves naturally.
“If they discover it was me, I’ll just have to flee,” he muttered quietly to himself.
“The Kingdom of Lume is vast enough for a ghost to disappear.”
Once his racing pulse finally calmed, Vergil hoisted the deer once more and carried it out back into the dim twilight to skin and butcher it.
Later that night, after a simple meal of fresh venison, Vergil sat cross-legged on his straw mattress and began his meditation.
His consciousness drifted downward, descending deep into the endless, silent expanse of his Soul Space.
It was the void where his essence resided.
Yet, despite entering it countless times, Vergil still could not directly perceive his own soul.
I’m probably just too weak, he thought, staring into the abyss.
With his Origami Skill and his long-term goal of developing a Clone technique, his path clearly aligned with that of a Mage.
Maybe when I break through and become a true Mage, I’ll finally see it.
His attention shifted toward the two glowing objects suspended in the absolute blackness.
One belonged to his innate Visualising Skill; the other was his newly formed Origami Skill Seed.
Both pulsed faintly in the dark like distant, solitary stars.
I still have no idea how to actively train the Visualisation Seed, Vergil mused.
But ever since Origami solidified into a Seed, I gained the ability to grant temporary movement to folded paper constructs.
Manipulating them in the physical world seems to be the key to slowly refining the skill.
Before the Seed had formed, his training had been purely mental.
He would conceptualise and perfect a paper structure entirely within his Visualization space before ever touching real materials.
The method had accelerated his progress exponentially, but he had hit a wall.
From here on out, I have to train Origami directly in the physical world.
The moment that realisation settled, his concentration wavered, and his consciousness snapped back into reality.
Vergil fell backwards onto his bed, staring blankly at the exposed wooden rafters.
A wave of profound reluctance washed over him.
The idea of practising his craft in the real world filled him with a very specific dread: he was, at his core, incredibly lazy.
In his previous life, he had been a miserable corporate slave, utterly buried beneath endless hours, high pressure, and thankless labour.
Having been reincarnated into this new world, his ultimate dream was simply to live a peaceful, unbothered, and entirely lazy existence for as long as possible.
Unfortunately, this world did not allow the weak to “lie flat” comfortably.
Without overwhelming strength, a peaceful life was a luxury none could afford.
If he wanted to maximise his chances of survival, Vergil had to force himself to work, no matter how much his lazy nature protested.
But the biggest hurdle right now was paper.
Within the borders of this remote village, paper was practically nonexistent.
There wasn’t a single merchant who carried it.
Most villagers lived and died without ever writing a single word, leaving literacy entirely to the Village Chief and a few elite guards.
Even if he could scrounge some up locally, buying it in bulk would immediately arouse suspicion.
He wasn’t about to advertise that he had formed a Skill Seed; attention brought expectations, and expectations brought danger.
To get what he needed, he would have to travel.
The official dirt road leading to Rock Hill Town was heavily travelled and deemed relatively safe, but Vergil still despised the thought of it.
The journey took nearly two hours on foot, and the wilderness was entirely unpredictable.
Rumours of bandits and starved beasts ambushing isolated travellers were all too common.
The village sends a heavily guarded trading caravan to Rock Hill Town every week, he reminded himself as his eyelids grew heavy.
I’ll just ask Captain Mark when the next one departs.
For now…
sleep.
The next morning, after a quick breakfast, Vergil stepped out into the crisp, biting morning air and walked toward the village Guard Training Ground.
Standing just outside the perimeter of the wooden fence, he watched Captain Mark drilling a group of local youths in basic Boxing stances.
Vergil waited quietly near the margins.
As he watched, his mind activated, continuously mapping and analysing every stance, shift of weight, and breathing pattern into his mental Visualization space.
By memorising the skeletal structure of the technique now, he could break it down and practice it in absolute privacy later.
When the gruelling session finally concluded, the exhausted youths began trickling out of the gates.
Seeing his chance, Vergil stepped inside, immediately catching the eye of one of the trainees.
“Vergil!” Paul called out loudly, jogging over.
The two of them steered clear of the exit to avoid blocking the path of the other departing boys.
Paul narrowed his eyes, wiping sweat from his brow.
“What are you doing here?”
Vergil rarely showed his face near the training grounds during the morning, mostly because Captain Mark took every opportunity to aggressively recruit him into the guard academy.
“I came to speak with Captain Mark,” Vergil replied evenly.
Paul tilted his head in confusion.
Then, a sudden spark of realisation flashed across his face, and a massive grin broke out.
He threw a heavy, sweaty arm around Vergil’s neck, pulling him into a rough headlock.
“Don’t tell me you finally grew a pair and decided to train with us?”
Vergil slipped out of the hold effortlessly, giving Paul a light, dismissive push backwards.
“No.
I’m not joining.”
Paul’s grin faltered into total bewilderment.
“Then why?”
“I want to find out when the next trading group leaves for Rock Hill Town.”
Paul nodded slowly, though before he could ask further, Vergil noticed Captain Mark emerging from the stone Guard Station at the back of the grounds.
Mark was moving at a brisk, urgent pace, his expression uncharacteristically severe.
“Paul, I’ll talk to you later,” Vergil said quickly.
Without waiting for a response, he jogged across the dirt and intercepted the officer.
“Captain Mark.”
Mark barely even blinked, his stride never breaking.
“Not now, Vergil.
Something urgent has come up.”
He sidestepped Vergil entirely, heading straight for the main village entrance with an intense focus.
Vergil stood frozen, staring after him in confusion.
Paul walked up beside him, his eyes glued to the Captain’s retreating figure.
“Did something bad happen?”
“Someone important from Rock Hill Town just arrived,” a heavy, deep voice rumbled from behind them.
Vergil’s entire body stiffened.
A cold, familiar knot of dread wound tight in his stomach, and his hands instinctively balled into fists.
He spun around quickly to face the newcomer.
“Ben?
Someone important?
Who?”
Paul echoed the panic.
“Yeah, Ben, who is it?”
Ben loomed over both of them, his oddly egg-shaped, bald head catching the morning light.
As one of the Village Chief’s personal enforcers, he usually knew everything that went on within the walls.
He looked down at the two teenagers with a knowing smirk.
“Do either of you actually know the proper name of Captain Mark’s boxing style?”
Vergil paused, digging through his memories, but Paul blurted it out instantly.
“The Rock Wolf Boxing Technique!”
Ben nodded, his smirk widening.
“Right.
A Senior representative of the Rock Wolf Gym just rode in from the town.
Word is, they’re here to scout and select raw talent from the surrounding border villages.”
Vergil slowly let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding, his shoulders relaxing.
A recruitment drive.
At the very least, it had absolutely nothing to do with the corpses he had left in the woods yesterday.
Paul’s eyes, however, ignited with pure excitement.
“Are you serious?!”
Without waiting for Ben to elaborate, Paul spun on his heel and sprinted like a madman toward the village gates.
Ben let out a deep, booming laugh, trailing after him at a leisurely stride.
Vergil hesitated for only a fraction of a second.
Then, driven by a mixture of curiosity and a lingering need to keep an eye on any powerful outsiders, he fell into step behind them, heading toward the main gate.