A farmer's morning started early.

  Especially a farmer trying to work in the wastends of Vernaut, south of Lageton. Well, they were former wastends, really. Those lovely priests from Aizen went and fixed things up after all. But people still called them wastends so nobody forgot what they once were.

  Once could even say that they needed to remember what they would have had if nobody reached out to them with a helping hand.

  Before any roosters managed to crow, Yael's eyes opened to see a ceiling he was steadily growing familiar with. From the faint smell of bread wafting into his bedroom, he knew that he had a fresh pte of breakfast waiting for him. Refreshed from a night of deep sleep, Yael was eager to take on yet another day of peaceful work. He had no trouble getting out of bed and changing out of his sleeping clothes.

  However, before he let his feet take him to his promised food, Yael dutifully went to the corner of the room where a small altar y. With a smile and csped hands, he closed his eyes and knelt down in front of it. On the humble wooden altar was a crudely carved idol depicting a woman in priestly vestments.

  'I am once again very thankful for this day and all the days that have yet to come.'

  Yael opened his eyes and grunted as he stood upright. He still wasn't used to all this praying business. But apparently, the church wasn't very particur about how one worships. As long as there was sincerity, then that was all that mattered. And he'd admit that his prayer was a bit short, but he put all his feelings in every word.

  How could he not be sincere in his thanks? Those wonderful Sormon Priests had already given him so much. And without asking for anything in return, to boot.

  But when all the gratitude was out of the way, Yael bowed so low that his forehead almost smmed into the altar's edge.

  ‘Please. If you can, please watch over my wife and son in the afterlife.’

  Yael stayed like that for a few more moments before he stood up. He would shed a tear if he had any left, but he instead hardened his jaw. Though he may have lost a son and a life partner to imperial warbands, he still had two children to take care of.

  They didn’t need him weak. So he had to be strong. If not for himself, then he had to do it for them.

  After one st look at the altar, Yael lightly punched the palm of his hand and stepped out of the bedroom to directly enter the dining room, which also served as their kitchen.

  “Dad. Good morning.”

  His daughter, Yanika, smiled as she tucked a stray strand of light brown hair behind her ear. She’d just finished setting down a basket of bread. And from the steam coiling upward from the bunch, he could tell they were freshly baked. “Come see. The neighbor’s kid came over to say hi and trade, so I traded some of our jam for their bread.”

  “Did you now…” Yael took a seat, wiping his hands on his p before taking one of the square pte-shaped breads that was softer than any other bread he’d ever had. Apparently, it was how Aizenians usually had their bread—baked in loaves but sliced into thin pieces for ease of consumption.

  But that wasn’t the important part.

  “Yanika…” Yael hesitantly peered at his daughter with a frown. “How many jars did you exchange for this?”

  His daughter, only seventeen but already starting to blossom into a charming young dy, sassily rolled her eyes. “I’ve done this before, Dad. I gave them an entire jar, but they’ll have to give us a loaf for three mornings. Not including this one.”

  “So four in total… Mhm. Seems reasonable.”

  Making jam out of these new and unfamiliar apples was a lot more difficult than baking a single loaf of bread. No matter how soft and delicious that bread was. It wasn’t as if Yael was underestimating how hard it was to bake or anything, but it was fairly common knowledge that making a whole jar of jam involved more work and time than making bread.

  The proof was simply how many jars Yael produced compared to how many loaves his neighbor chugged out in a day.

  Four loaves for a single jar seemed a bit unreasonable, however. And Yael feared that his daughter may have offended their neighbor in the pursuit of a better deal.

  It seemed Yanika could tell what he was thinking because she sighed and shook her head. “Dad, they’re the ones who offered the exchange. And I just agreed because it’s a little more than I expected. I didn’t push them into it."

  “Alright, alright…" Yael raised both arms to pcate her. "I’m sorry for doubting you.”

  ‘She’s all grown up now.’

  It pained him to remember the price of that growth. She had been harder to handle before that day—the day that everything was ruined.

  Yanika wasn’t disobedient, but just about every time she opened her mouth, it was to compin about the countryside. Or to boldly announce that she was going to the big city and make it big or something along those lines.

  Her current behavior was as if she’d become a different person. But then again, watching her mother and elder brother get shot in the head from behind would change many people. And if her luck had been a little bit worse, she would have been shot in the leg before being captured by Argonians to become a pitiful pything.

  ‘And I wasn’t there for her…’

  Yael hadn’t been around at that time, because he was out hunting. Thinking about how he could have lost his entire family while he was out tracking elk in the mountains was chilling. It had kept him up at night, back when he was still desperately running from pce to pce with his st two children.

  Now, he slept as peacefully as a baby. But back then, he felt as if he would drop dead at any moment. The only things that made him go on were Yanika and Yoron—his youngest child, a boy who had just recently made it through eight winters.

  Bad memories flooded back into his head, but Yael shook them off. Those times were over now. He shouldn’t forget them, but he shouldn’t let them haunt him either.

  To break free from his dark thoughts, Yael forced a smile on his face as he made conversation with his daughter. “How’s the uh… y’know. The work at the dairy.”

  The dairy was where all the animals that could be milked were kept. All of them were donated by the kingdom to help Vernaut recover, but instead of splitting them up across the households that actually knew how to take care of that kind of thing, the community leaders of Vernaut decided to gather all the animals in a repurposed industrial factory and just take care of them as a community.

  Every household—barring special circumstances—would have to contribute to managing the pce. In exchange, they got a bit of the produce there.

  Seemed fair. Actually, it was extremely fair.

  And so, about a week ago, Yanika took it upon herself to join as a dairy maid. Even though Yael’s household was exempted from duty because he was a single father with two children below the age of eighteen.

  ‘I’ve been so busy with my own work that I barely remembered how hard she must be having it—.’

  “I’m doing great, Dad.” Yanika smiled widely. “No need to worry. It’s safer there than here because there are battlemages and even a handful of knights there. If I’m lucky, I might even catch the attention of one.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that if I were you…” Yael muttered.

  He had a lot of chances to talk with foreigners because he frequently socialized with a few of the knights he just happened to catch sometimes—who normally spoke thickly accented Arkhanian despite their surprising mastery of understanding the nguage. The Sormon priests were the same, too. It was easy to forget sometimes, but these priests were Aizenian, not Argonian.

  Was he kissing ass in the guise of socializing? Perhaps. But he believed that most people in his situation would do the same—should do the same, to be honest.

  In any case, it was clear to his eyes that people from Aizen were raised on some mighty special food. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be so tall. Nor would their skin seem so darned radiant. Every single one he’d seen practically exuded health from every pore of their body.

  Because of that, everybody else just looked like unhealthily pale beansprouts in comparison. No doubt his daughter didn’t have much charm in any of their eyes, even though he thought she was splendid in her own way. But then again, maybe he was biased.

  With all that said, all the Aizenians he’d crossed were knights and priests.

  The tter’s health wasn’t even in question. They made people healthy, the same way a priest had fixed up everything that had been wrong with his youngest boy since the day he was born. So it went without saying that the clerics themselves would be paragons of well-being too.

  Now, the former job was known to be held by strong folk. And he meant the really, really strong folk. Not just your average everyday carnival brawlers, no. Way better than those numbskulls.

  Maybe the average Aizenian was a little closer to ordinary folk like Yael and his kids. Unfortunately, he’d never seen any. They didn’t normally get Aizenians where they came from, being born and raised in Northern Arkhan.

  ‘Maybe I’ll be lucky and catch a glimpse of one of them officials.’

  There weren’t a lot, but some ministers were brought over from Aizen. Surely, his inner queries would be put to rest if he were lucky enough to glimpse one of them.

  Probably not, though. He heard they stayed in Lageton most of the time. They wouldn’t go all the way here to Vernaut. What would they even do in here, anyhow? It’d be a waste of their time.

  As he idled away in his thoughts, Yael finished his portion of breakfast. Normally, he would have only eaten the bare minimum and left most of it to his children. But he had to work for most of the day today, and he needed the energy.

  Besides, they had enough food that even if he ate his fill, his children would still be able to eat theirs.

  It was a liberating feeling, not having to worry about that kind of thing anymore.

  “Dad,” Yanika spoke up suddenly, her gaze cautiously checking the door that had remained closed up until now. “You should bring Yoron with you to help with work.”

  Yael wiped off the bits of bread and jam on his lips with the back of his hand. His brows creased as he gave it some thought. “You know your brother’s got a delicate condition…”

  “Not anymore. I haven’t heard him cough in his sleep since that pretty cleric waved her hand and magicked it off.”

  “Dear, it’s not magic, it's the light of god… And I suppose you’re right…” He scratched the back of his head. “But he’s only eight.”

  “He’s already eight, Dad.”

  “Yes, but he’s a bit too young for this new work. He tried to help out the other day and almost made trouble for the neighboring settlers.”

  Yanika crossed her arms and nodded. “Yes, because he was unsupervised. If you watch over him, he won’t make any big mistakes. And how’s he supposed to learn if you never take him anywhere yourself?”

  Yael didn’t have an answer to that. And he was also forced to admit that his daughter was sounding a bit like her te mother. She must have heard all those times the married couple had argue—ehem, debated deep into the night and picked some things up for herself.

  His daughter was a sharp girl, that much was clear. Again, it was just a shame that tragedy was responsible for that sharpness.

  Seeing him hesitate, Yanika offered an alternative. “At least teach him how to take care of the chickens on his own. He’s keen on helping out, Dad. He wants to pull his weight. Give him a chance to do so.”

  “Alright…” Yael finally surrendered. “I s’pose that’ll be fine. I’ll have him help out with the apple trees in the front yard, too.”

  “Perfect. I’m gd you agree. Because the Fertanio family’s women are all going to work at the dairy soon. So nobody can watch over Yoron while we work. Unless you want me to stop working there.”

  That, probably, was the real reason his daughter brought up Yoron’s issue.

  “No." Yael shook his head. "You should keep working there.”

  Even if he and his daughter stopped working altogether, their family could still survive just by subsisting on the apples that grew in their front yard. There were only two trees per house, but every day a priest made their rounds and somehow made all the trees grow all the apples back. If he harvested all the fruit today, he could harvest the same number tomorrow.

  Their meals would ck variety, but they would at least survive.

  And besides, these strange apples were quite good. They were a fruit unique to Aizen and apparently kept the physicians and priests away if you ate one every day. Yael couldn’t figure out for the life of him why people would want to keep priests and physicians away. Wasn’t it better to be near them?

  But it was just an Aizenian saying. And that basically, apples were very healthy. These ones were even healthier because they were infused with Sormon’s divine energy.

  It wasn’t just about food, though.

  It was about proving that Arkhanian grit hadn’t died yet. That they may not be the same people they were when they were struck down, but they would get up all the same.

  “Alright then, Dad.” Yanika nodded and stood up, retrieving a thick white winter coat from a nearby rack and putting it on. “I’ll get going. My stop’s a lot farther than yours after all.”

  “Be safe.”

  “I will, I will…”

  His precious little girl waved him off with her back turned and left through the door, a bit of the cold air blowing into the house and causing him to shiver a little. If he hadn’t been awake before this, he was now.

  He put all the ptes away and walked over to his only remaining son’s room, only to discover that it was slightly ajar. And his little boy was peeking out from within, already dressed up to go outside.

  ‘So he was listening to the whole thing…’

  “C’mon, boy.” Yael knocked on the door anyway. “Get your stuff.”

  Yoron pulled the door open and jumped out with a smile. “I’m ready, Dad. Let’s go.”

  “Now, now. No need to rush. Especially since I’m not ready yet.”

  With a chuckle, Yael dipped back into his room—the one he would have shared with his wife if he hadn't lost her. He donned his thick coat and snow boots, simple but well-made products handed out by the Hierarch for free.

  Then he reached under the bed to pull out a long case, where his trusty hunting rifle y waiting for him.

  It was the same one he’d brought with him throughout the entire flight from the north. And the same one he’d refused to part with even after reaching this haven called Samsara.

  Yael took a deep breath and exhaled before picking it up and inspecting it. Seeing no defects, he smiled. He’d just done some maintenance work st night, so it would have been strange to find something already. But there was a certain satisfaction to knowing that his weapon was in tip-top shape. The familiar weight in his hands was also quite comforting.

  Aside from that, Yael equipped a pair of pistols that he exchanged for after coming here to Samsara. He’d had to give up some jewels he’d fortunately found on his way here, but a bunch of pretty rocks weren’t going to protect him and his family, so he didn’t regret it one bit.

  Finally, he slipped a wand into a special loop on his belt.

  All he knew were a few cantrips. And not for ck of trying. It was just that anything more difficult than basic cantrips were… well, too difficult for him. He supposed there was a reason why he’d been a hunter in a small vilge instead of a bigshot battlemage.

  If push came to shove, he’d pull his guns out rather than his wand. But having it was better than not, so he brought it with him every time he had to be around other people. He could even use it to scare aggressors off before it came to a fight.

  Thanks to his great-great-great-great-grandfather or something, his family had such a useful tool for diffusing situations. It had actually come in handy when he and his children were fleeing southward from the north. They’d come across plenty of other survivor groups fighting for scraps or anything that could be useful. Ones that would have had no qualms murdering a father and his two children if it meant having enough food to go on for another day.

  It was because of this wand that he’d made it to Samsara, taking fewer lives than he probably should have along the way.

  He came out of his room ready for war, but only his rifle was visible because the other three weapons were concealed under his coat. His gaze nded on his son, who was excitedly bouncing on the balls of his feet while waiting.

  A moment of hesitation passed through Yael’s mind before he knelt down before his son and took out one of his pistols. He stopped just short, but he eventually presented it to his precious boy anyway. “Yoron. You’ll hold on to this for me, alright?”

  Yoron of eight winters looked at the weapon in his father’s hand, and after a few moments, the boy nodded.

  “You know what this does, right? You’ve seen me use it before.”

  Again, Yoron nodded.

  Yael bit his lip before finally slipping the gun into the inner pocket of his son’s coat. “Remember, you only use it when you absolutely have to, alright?”

  “Okay.”

  “And you have to point the exploding end to the bad guys.”

  “I will. I know what bad guys look like.”

  Yael couldn’t help but smile at that. “Yes, you do. But sometimes, bad guys look like good guys.”

  Yoron frowned. “The priests and priestesses look like good guys... Are they bad guys too? I don’t want them to be…”

  “Uh, no. No, I don’t think so. We’ll be all kinds of fuc—I mean, we’ll be in a lot of trouble if they were. I don’t think they are.”

  The boy beamed. It had been clear to Yael these past few weeks that his precious boy admired the Sormon clergy quite a bit. Obviously, being cured of his… what was it called again? Tuberculosis…? There was another one, but Yael had forgotten what it was called. Just that it had something to do with bones. Anyway, being cured of the conditions he’d had since early childhood made a deep impression on him.

  Perhaps some day, Yoron would become the first Arkhanian priest?

  ‘Hey, that doesn’t sound bad at all.’

  Yael ruffled his boy’s brown hair, the same color their entire family just happened to share. If the opportunity presented itself, he’d ask a priest about what it took to join their order. Even if he had to sve away for a decade or two, Yael would make sure that his son could do it if he wanted to.

  'Hm. I think I'll head on over to the local chapel and give 'em some of the apples.'

  Seemed a bit dumb to do that, given how the apples were grown with their divine powers in the first pce. They could just as easily grow their own. But it wouldn’t be Yael’s first time heading over to donate what he could to the church.

  They always seemed so happy with whatever he could give them. It made him want to do it again. Especially since they were all such kind folk. Yael didn’t have any other way to express just how thankful he was for everything he’d received.

  Honestly, he didn’t know why the republic had banned religions for as long as he could remember. They didn’t seem so bad, now that he was experiencing it for himself.

  It was great. Everybody needed to jump in on this.

  “Alright. Let’s go, boy.” Yael led the way, opening the door to the outside world.

  A frigidly cold wind made him freeze in his tracks, barely a foot out of the doorway. But a moment ter, he smiled.

  This darned weather may have been demonic. But it was a demon he’d known since he was a child, and he’d learned how to live with it.

  In a strange sort of way, he could even call it a friend. That one annoying friend that you couldn't get rid of because you’d been together for longer than you could remember. And also because you married their sister.

  ‘Damn. Brother-in-w…’

  Bitter memories licked his mind just as the cold caressed his skin. Yael shook his head and walked out, his boot crunching the snow with every step. Looking behind him, he could see his son following along with a steady pace, seemingly unaffected by the cold, too.

  “You’re gonna teach me about the chickens, Dad?” Yoron shouted from beyond the howling winds.

  “Yes, but we have to do something before that,” he replied, shielding his eyes as he walked past two apple trees in their house’s front yard. “Should be about time now. It’s just barely after dawn.”

  No matter how much tolerance he’d built to atrocious weather like this one, Yael still couldn’t see through white fog or snowy winds. So unfortunately, he couldn’t appreciate the scenery this morning.

  But soon, he could see a faint light traveling very fast. Any second now, it would pass by their house as it ran down the road in front of him. Soon, the sound of rapid footfalls rhythmically crunching snow underneath them could be heard.

  “Woah!” Yoron suddenly shouted out, his eyes wide.

  Yael couldn’t help but smile at his son’s reaction, but his gaze quickly snapped back to the armored priest holding a radiantly shining ntern that had just passed by, mounted on some rge wolf-like creature with bck and white fur. If he remembered correctly, those hounds were called huskies and were the preferred mount of knights, though they had obviously been provided to the clergy as well.

  In any case, the priest had passed by very fast, but Yael could still feel some residual warmth running through him. If he looked at the apple trees in his yard, which should have been completely bereft of fruit, then he could already see small apples visibly growing by the second. It was... supernatural. But beautiful, in a way that held Yael's attention perpetually.

  A minute ter, both trees had dozens of full-grown apples hanging from their branches, ripe, red, and ready for picking.

  ‘I’ve seen it plenty of times, but it never fails to amaze me.’

  Yael supposed this was why food was rumored to be dirt cheap in the kingdom. With the help of the church, you’d never run out.

  Still feeling the warmth of divine grace in his body, Yael csped his hands again. He prayed to give thanks in the morning and also to wish for the peaceful rest of his wife and eldest child, but he normally prayed for something else when the priest passed by like this.

  This time, he prayed for others. The same way the clergy spread love around, he would do so too in the form of his prayers.

  There wasn’t a lot, though.

  Yael prayed for all the knights and the priests, who helped him and his other countrymen out even though they didn’t have to. Even though they had no retions whatsoever and barely even understood each other sometimes, courtesy of the Aizenians’ strong accents.

  Second, Yael prayed for that kind merchant dy with the fiery hair and the rge tits. She had apparently helped so many of Arkhanians out, even before Yael and his family came here to Samsara. The world needed more people like her if it wanted to become a better pce. She was apparently pregnant, if word on the grapevine was to be believed. So Yael wished that the child in her stomach and all the children that would follow after that would be born healthy, strong, and handsome—or beautiful, if it was a girl. Obviously, he also prayed that the dy herself would remain healthy before, during, and after the delivery.

  Then he prayed for the Hierarch.

  He had seen with his very own eyes how fiercely a boy so close to his eldest son’s age fought, when horrors attacked from the sky and the sea. How the foreign prince had fought abominations so unfathomably rge that Yael didn’t know enough words to describe just how big they were.

  And it had all been for them. For Yael and his people.

  At this point, Yael didn’t care if there was some hidden agenda he would never get to discover. The Hierarch had provided him and his family with salvation. And what’s more, a future beyond just struggling for survival.

  Yael prayed for the Hierarch to stay in good health, wherever he was.

  When he was done with his prayers, Yael looked toward his son to see that the boy had also fallen into prayer. As any self-respecting father would have done, he waited patiently for his son to finish before pointing at the trees.

  “Right,” he said. “Before we get to the chickens, we have to harvest all this fruit.”

  If the priest passed by again and the trees hadn’t been picked clean yet, then they would be wasting the opportunity. Because the clergy’s divine light didn’t add the same amount of fruit to every tree every time they passed by.

  No, they just made the trees rapidly grow as many apples as they could. Which meant Yael and his family could only get the best out of it by picking the trees clean before the next blessing.

  Yoron looked up at the trees and grimaced. “I can’t reach those…”

  “I can’t either.” Yael chuckled, walking over to the tree and digging around in the snow at its base. A moment ter, he pulled out a long stick with a somewhat cw-shaped end. “That’s what this stick is for.”

  “Oh… Can I use it, Dad?”

  “Sure you can. Just be careful not to let the apples fall on your face. They hurt a lot.” he warned, handing over the long stick and retrieving three overturned wicker baskets from beneath the snow. “Don’t worry. I’ll catch ‘em as they fall.”

  This bit of work was something he could do by himself without anyone’s help. His son was actually slowing things down. But that was just for now.

  One day, his son would get good enough to do this on his own, freeing Yael to deal with other things. And the very fact that he could be so hopeful was because he was lucky enough to be brought here.

  ‘Oh?’

  As Yael had his son take a break so he could bring the filled baskets inside, he caught a patrol knight passing by their home with a steady, unwavering pace.

  He immediately signaled his son to head inside as he caught up with the knight and tried his very best to seem ingratiating. Getting along well with the local w enforcement was never going to be a bad thing.

  In the past, he shivered at the very mention of these men and their of steel wills or their thick armor. But actually getting to talk to them in person revealed they were just like everyone else—except ridiculously strong and very dedicated to their job. Behind it all, they were just good people who didn’t want to hurt anybody if they could get away with it.

  Yael almost felt bad about scaring his kids with stories of knights in the past, when they’d gotten tired of hearing tales about Argonian cruelty. Fortunately and unfortunately, nobody was going to stop being afraid of Argonian stories for a while. A lot of people in Samsara right now still felt the scars from those scum.

  “Oh, it’s you, Yael,” the armored knight said, their voice echoing from within their helm.

  The knight seemed to recognize Yael, but Yael couldn’t recognize the knight. He had a few guesses, but their domineering pte armor made it hard to tell whether the knight was a man or a woman, of which there were surprisingly a lot of. Voices were distorted too, so he couldn’t tell from just that.

  Still, it didn’t matter. Whichever knight this was, Yael would try to present himself as a harmless individual.

  Which he was, contrary to the fact that he had two firearms and a wand on him.

  It didn’t take a whole lot of sense to realize that knights discouraged ordinary citizens such as Yael from carrying weapons. Probably not because those weapons could hurt knights, since he’d seen a fool who thought that bullets actually worked on these warriors and be proven otherwise.

  Likely, it was because they thought that the people would hurt each other.

  Which made a lot of sense. Yael mostly brought his weapons because he was afraid of other Arkhanians, rather than Argonians or Aizenians. It was a sad thing, when he really thought about it. But he and his family had almost died to fellow countrymen more times than to other foreign nations. Of course, Argonia still had the highest rate of success, and Yael despised them for it.

  But still. Just because they used to belong to the same nation didn’t mean he should trust them. And that was why he brought guns and a wand along.

  Yael didn’t pn to change that any time soon either. He would feel too… naked. Too defenseless, even, if he didn’t have a weapon at the ready. Though he didn’t like the current situation, what else could he do about it? He'd seen what his own countrymen could do—what they tried to do. So he wasn't about to embrace the spirit of camaraderie with his fellow surivivors any time soon.

  The patrol knight hadn’t stopped or slowed down while Yael was chatting them up, so before Yael could wander too far away from his house, he said farewell to the knight. Turning around to return to his task together with his son, Yael hugged his shoulders and shivered.

  “Curse this damned weather, it’s too damned cold!”

  ‘And I love it!’

  A smile graced Yael’s lips as the snow crunched under his steps.

  AnnouncementChapter Word Count: 5443Last Edited: May 14, 2025Lire