The sound of a hammer striking iron was the only thing splitting the morning air. Clang, clang, clang. Regular. Unwavering. Yet somehow resigned. Horn Village, nestled in the western foothills of the Karnadoom Mountains, clung to the mountainside at an altitude of six hundred meters—a small settlement of roughly two hundred twenty people. The bleating of goats and the blue scent of medicinal herbs mingled with the wind. The stone-paved village road glistened wet with morning dew. It lay about two and a half days' ride northeast of Saint Clairvol, the former capital during the height of the Glione Kingdom's prosperity. One might call it a frontier, but the villagers accustomed to mountain life never complained. There was quiet here. A quiet where unnecessary things never came. Beside the plaza at the village center, right next to an ancient oak tree, stood a small stone workshop. There was no sign. But everyone knew. This was the "Ash-Iron Furnace"—Aldric Ironheart's smithy. Inside the furnace, iron glowed red-hot, pulsing like a heartbeat. Aldric Ironheart stood before the anvil, his leather apron blackened with soot. At sixty-eight years old, his short hair, streaked with white, clung to his temples with sweat. His eyes, a deep grayish-purple, fixed on a single point of the iron he was striking. He stood roughly one hundred seventy-eight centimeters tall; even in his age, his frame remained solidly built, visible even beneath his simple cloth garments. A deep scar ran vertically down his left cheek. Burn marks spread across both hands. The joints of his fingers were darkened by the smithy's smoke. That was all Aldric was now. At least, that was how the villagers saw him. "Aldric, could you repair my plow?" A man in his forties—a farmer—poked his head through the doorway, hat in hand, standing with some hesitation. "Leave it," Aldric said. Aldric answered without taking his eyes from the iron. The farmer bowed and said, "Thank you very much," then leaned the plow against the wall by the door and left. That was all. No unnecessary conversation. Aldric didn't follow. For twenty years, it had always been this way. The villagers' treatment of Aldric held a strange balance. There was respect. But also distance. Familiarity, but no intrusion. It was a distance Aldric himself had created. If asked his name, he answered. If asked to work, he accepted. But beyond that, he had melted into this village as an old man who spoke nothing more. Before picking up the hammer again, Aldric glanced at the cloth wrapped around his left arm. A dull gray cloth wound tightly from elbow to wrist. It had loosened slightly. He pulled at the end with his fingers, folded it, and secured it again. Then he returned to work. It was an unremarkable gesture. So natural that no one paid it any mind. Clang, clang, clang. A single sword hung on the wall of the smithy. Thickly wrapped in cloth and secured with leather cord, it hadn't been moved in years. No dust had accumulated—perhaps the cloth was changed from time to time. But there were no marks of being touched. It simply existed on the wall. Aldric passed by it many times. When carrying iron, when feeding wood to the furnace, when fetching water buckets. Each time, his gaze would shift slightly in that direction. His hand never reached for it. Not once. Around midday, a neighborhood child came to peek inside. A boy of seven or eight, his curious eyes darting around the smithy. He widened his eyes at the hot furnace, reached out to touch the iron scraps piled before the anvil—and then noticed the cloth-wrapped bundle on the wall. "What's that?" the child asked. A voice came. Low. Brief. The child's small shoulders flinched. "Don't touch it," Aldric said. That was all. Nothing more. But the hand gripping the hammer had stopped for just a moment. The child sensed something, asked no further questions, and ran away. Silence returned to the smithy. Aldric exhaled a long breath and returned to his work. —— At night, he extinguished the furnace fire. The red-hot iron cooled. In the darkened workshop, the last of the embers glowed dimly orange. Aldric removed his leather apron and hung it on the wall beside the furnace. Then he opened the door leading to his adjoining home. There was a small window. Facing the mountain night sky, barely the size of two fists. The moon was out. Aldric placed one hand on the window frame and looked up at the moon. He remained like that for a long time. His lips moved slightly. No sound came out. His fingers folded slowly, one by one. Folded and unfolded, then folded again. Counting. As if counting something. One, two, three, four— The moonlight streaming through the window and the orange glow seeping from the back of the room mingled, painting the old man's profile in two halves. A warm color and a cold one. Living light and still light. His fingers stopped at the seventh fold. A long silence. Aldric slowly lowered his hand and turned away from the window. That was all. Nothing more. He did not speak to the moon, did not lament, did not pray—nothing. He only counted, fell silent, and departed. For thirty years, he had been counting what he lost in the Void Annihilation War—the great conflict between the Glione Kingdom and Castian. He was permitted only the night for that. —— The next morning, the village was in an uproar. Voices came from the plaza. Before lighting the furnace, Aldric opened the smithy door. Several villagers stood gathered in the center of the plaza. In the middle of them—there was nothing. Or rather, there had been something. Until yesterday. The ancient oak tree. The great tree at the heart of the village's memory. The thick trunk where generations of villagers had gathered, where children had climbed, where they had sheltered from rain, where they had tied decorations for harvest festivals—that tree had crumbled like sand. Not rotted. Not withered. It had aged a hundred years in a single night. The trunk had become powder. Most of the branches had already fallen to the ground. Only the roots barely retained their form, but it was clear they would crumble at a touch. One villager cautiously reached out, and the moment his fingers made contact, the wood dust fell away in a cascade. "What in the world is this?" an old voice muttered. No one knew whose voice it was. Aldric stood at the back of the crowd, looking at the collapsed oak. His back was to them. No one could see his expression. Only his left hand. It trembled slightly. No one noticed that tremor. —— In the afternoon, visitors came to the smithy. Five elderly people stood before the door as if by arrangement. The village elders. Dagmar Eshe led them. Eighty-two years old. His back was bent, but his eyes were straight. Aldric saw them enter and set down his hammer. He set it down and did not turn around. "Aldric," Dagmar said. Dagmar's voice was calm. But there was strength beneath it. "Did you see the oak tree this morning?" Dagmar asked. No answer. "That is the beginning. We have no means to stop that phenomenon," Dagmar said. Dagmar took a step forward. "Only you can," Dagmar said. Silence filled the smithy. The other four elders respected Aldric as a blacksmith. As an old craftsman who had repaired farm tools for the village for twenty years. But Dagmar was different. Only this old woman knew the true meaning of Aldric's real name. Among the righteous knights of the Glione Kingdom, it was a title given only to the one with the greatest martial achievement—the fourteenth holder of "the Kingdom's Strongest." All five bowed their heads. A long silence. The remaining fire in the furnace crackled. Then one of the five—a round-faced old man with a somewhat carefree air—shifted his body awkwardly. "...Speaking of which, I hear it will rain starting tomorrow," the old man said. There was a pause. Dagmar slowly turned her head. "Egglar," Dagmar said. "Oh, I'm sorry," Egglar said. The old man named Egglar turned bright red and looked down. A subtle tension flowed among the elders. The blue vein on Dagmar's forehead was probably not just his imagination. A heavy moment was broken, just for an instant, by an odd gap. Aldric remained with his back turned, unmoving. The elders waited for a while, but there was no response. Finally, Dagmar bowed briefly, and the five left through the door. —— After the elders departed, the smithy fell silent. Aldric remained alone, standing before the furnace. He stayed like that for a long time. Then he reached for his left arm. Slowly, he began to unwrap the cloth. He pulled at the end, gradually unwinding the gray band wound tightly around his arm. The cloth fell away, revealing the skin from elbow to wrist. There was a pattern. Gray. Fine lines like tangled vines seemed to seep from beneath the skin, crawling across it. Starting from the inside of the elbow and extending toward the wrist. A complex, interwoven design resembling a sorcerer's incantation, yet unlike anything in any textbook. Even the instructors at Neveria Academy—the continent's only officially recognized center of magical education, located northwest of Saint Clairvol—would likely have never seen it. Aldric stared at his own arm for a long time. It was darker than yesterday. It had spread slightly more than yesterday. His fingertips almost touched his arm. They stopped there. They did not touch. He said nothing. His inner voice was not written here. The old man simply looked at his arm, confirmed what he saw—and then covered it again. Carefully, tightly, he rewound the cloth as it had been. That was all. —— Before dawn, Aldric was awake. In the pale light, he packed his traveling bag. Dried provisions. A water flask. An old cloak. In his tool bag, an iron staff for smithing—a length of iron rod shaped for easy gripping, something that could serve as a weapon. Minimal luggage. Only what was necessary. When the packing was done, he stood before the sword on the wall. The cloth-wrapped blade hung there. Aldric took it down with both hands. He tested its weight. Though he hadn't touched it in twenty years, his hands remembered. This weight. This balance. His bones remembered. For a moment, he paused. He took a breath. Then—he did not sling the sword across his back. He opened his traveling bag and pushed the wrapped blade into the bottom, burying it beneath the other provisions. Carefully, deliberately, he let it sink. Gevelthus—the legendary sword once wielded by the knight known as "the Kingdom's Strongest"—would rest at the bottom of a traveling bag. Ungripped. Undrawn. He closed the smithy door quietly. He did not lock it. He made no promise to return. When he stepped onto the village road, morning mist had descended to ground level. The mountain morning was cold. His breath flowed white. The stone-paved path dissolved into the mist, and after fifty paces, the way behind was invisible. Aldric began to walk. No one came to see him off. The plaza was quiet, with only the distant bleating of goats. ——One gaze alone followed him. In the small window of the elders' meeting house at the village's edge, a thin silhouette stood. Dagmar Eshe watched the old knight's back from there. She did not call out. She did not follow. She only watched. Aldric did not turn around. Without that gaze reaching him, the old man's figure faded quietly into the mountain mist of dawn.