I arrived in Hage three days before the grimoire ceremony was supposed to take place.
The village was a little bigger than the one I'd buried. That was my first thought as I crested the hill and looked down at the cluster of stone buildings huddled around a modest church. Smaller, poorer, even forgettable. The sort of place that the Clover Kingdom's nobles wouldn't bother to find on a map. It was perfect. A forgotten village bred forgotten people, and forgotten people were grateful for any kindness. Grateful people asked fewer questions.
I adjusted the heavy carcass slung across my shoulders—a Razorback Boar, three hundred pounds at least, its mana stone already extracted and stored in the pouch at my belt. The meat would be a gift. Gifts built trust. Trust lowered guards. And lowered guards made manipulation effortless.
The mask settled over my face as naturally as breathing. Warm smile, softened grey eyes, relaxed posture. I'd practiced this expression in the reflection of still ponds during my year in the jungle, refining every micro-expression until it was indistinguishable from genuine warmth. The Talent had no part in it. This was a skill I'd developed through sheer repetition, the way an actor memorizes lines. Inside, behind the locks and the clunks and the cold steel of emotional nullification, there was nothing. A void. A hollow machine running a subroutine labeled "human."
I walked into Hage with the boar on my back and a smile on my lips.
The first person to notice me was an old woman sweeping her porch. Her broom clattered to the ground. Her eyes, rheumy with age, traveled up—up, up, up—and widened until I could see the whites all around. She crossed herself with a trembling hand.
"Good heavens," she whispered. "What are you?"
"A traveler," I said, and my voice was gentle, warm, the voice of a young man who'd never hurt anyone. "I heard there's a grimoire ceremony here soon. Is there somewhere I can stay?"
The old woman didn't answer immediately. She was still staring at the sheer mass of me—six foot two of muscle wrapped in beast hides, a boar the size of a small carriage balanced on my shoulders like it weighed nothing, black hair falling past my shoulders and framing a face that was somehow only fifteen years old. I was used to this reaction. I'd cultivated it.
"You're... you're a boy?" she managed.
"Fifteen," I said, and let the smile widen just a fraction. "I know I look older. I had a growth spurt."
That was an understatement. A growth spurt implied a natural process. What the Talent had done to my body was anything but natural. I was a monument to adaptation, every muscle fiber and bone density optimized for combat and survival. Fifteen years old, and I looked like a warrior in his prime. It was absurd. It was also useful. People underestimated children but feared men. I was both and neither, a liminal thing that didn't fit into any category, and that made people uncomfortable. Discomfort was leverage.
More villagers emerged. A farmer with a pitchfork. A young woman carrying a basket of laundry. A group of children who stopped their game of tag to gawk at the giant in their midst. They formed a loose semicircle around me, their faces a mixture of awe and apprehension.
I kept the smile in place. Inside, I was cataloguing them. Farmer, mid-forties, mana level negligible. Laundry woman, early twenties, Stage 8 at best. Children, undeveloped mana pathways, irrelevant. None of them were useful. But they were all potential assets if I played this correctly.
"Is there a church?" I asked. "I have meat to share, and I'd like to speak with whoever's in charge."
The farmer pointed a trembling finger toward the stone building at the village center. "Father Orsi and Sister Mary run the church. They... they take in travelers sometimes."
"Thank you." I inclined my head, a small gesture of respect, and began walking toward the church.
The crowd parted for me. Of course they did.
---
The church doors were open. I ducked through them—the frame was built for normal-sized humans, and I had to angle my shoulders to fit—and stepped into the cool, dim interior. Pews lined the central aisle. A simple altar stood at the front, draped in white cloth. The air smelled of old wood, candle wax, and something cooking in a back room. It reminded me, in a distant, clinical way, of the church where I'd spent my first four years in this world. The comparison triggered nothing. No nostalgia. No grief. The locks held firm.
A man in priest's robes was kneeling at the altar, his back to me. He was short and round, with a bald spot gleaming on the crown of his head. Father Orsi, if I remembered correctly from my past-life knowledge. A good man. Kind. Easily flustered. Completely useless in a fight, but his heart was in the right place. He would be easy to win over.
"Excuse me," I said.
Father Orsi scrambled to his feet, spinning around with a yelp. His eyes went through the same journey the old woman's had—up, up, up—and his mouth fell open.
"Good Lord," he said.
"I brought food," I said, Referring to the boar that was outside. "I hope you don't mind. I heard this village takes in travelers, and I didn't want to arrive empty-handed."
Father Orsi stared at the boar. Then at me. Then at the boar again. His mouth opened and closed several times without producing sound.
"I'm Hasegawa Ouga," I continued, filling the silence. "I'm fifteen years old. I've been living in the jungle for about a year, training. I'm here for the grimoire ceremony."
"You're... fifteen?" Father Orsi's voice cracked on the word.
"I get that a lot."
A clatter from the doorway drew my attention. A woman in a nun's habit had dropped a stack of bowls. She was young, maybe early thirties, with a kind face and brown hair tucked beneath her wimple. Sister Mary. Beside her, two boys had frozen mid-step. One was short—very short—with ash-blond hair and green eyes that were already blazing with some intense emotion I couldn't be bothered to identify. The other was tall for his age, dark-haired, amber-eyed, with a face that betrayed nothing.
Asta and Yuno.
The protagonists. The heart of this world's story. One would become the Wizard King. The other would become something even greater. And both of them were staring at me like I'd stepped out of a legend.
"Whoa..." Asta breathed. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! How are you so TALL?"
I let out a chuckle—light, self-deprecating, perfectly pitched to put people at ease. "Genetics and a lot of exercise. You're Asta, right? I heard about you from one of the villagers. The loud one who never gives up."
Asta's eyes went impossibly wider. "You heard about me? Me? Someone talked about me?" He spun toward Yuno with a triumphant grin. "See, Yuno? I'm famous!"
"You're loud," Yuno said flatly. His amber eyes hadn't left my face. I recognized that gaze. It was the look of someone who was watching, analyzing, sensing something that didn't quite add up. Perhaps his instincts could perceive things that normal mages couldn't, Telling him that there was something wrong with the smiling giant in the doorway. No there is no way that's possible.
I met Yuno's eyes and let my smile soften. "You must be Yuno. The quiet one. Don't worry, I'm not here to cause trouble. Just a fellow orphan looking for a grimoire."
"Fellow orphan?" Sister Mary had recovered her composure and was already moving toward me with the instinctive concern of a caretaker. "Oh, you poor thing. What happened to your family?"
The question was a gift. I let my expression flicker—just for a moment, just enough to be noticeable. A shadow of pain crossing my features. A tightening around the eyes. A slight downturn of the lips. Then I smoothed it away with practiced ease.
"My village was attacked," I said quietly. "A year ago. Bandits. Everyone died. I was the only survivor. I've been living in the jungle ever since, training. Preparing for the exam. I don't have anyone left."
Sister Mary's eyes filled with tears. Father Orsi placed a hand on my arm—and murmured something about God's will. Asta's face had gone uncharacteristically serious. Even Yuno's suspicious gaze softened, just a fraction.
The orphan card. It worked every time.
---
I stayed in the jungle. Not because there wasn't room in the church—Father Orsi offered me a cot in the orphanage wing, and Sister Mary insisted I take it—but because the jungle was simpler. No masks required. No voices to modulate. No eyes to smile for. I could sit in the darkness of my cave and let the hollow emptiness inside me expand without anyone noticing.
But I came to the village every day.
Each morning, I emerged from the treeline with another gift. A Razorback Boar on the second day. A Silver-Tailed Deer on the third. A pair of plump game birds on the fourth. The villagers, who had initially gawked at me from a distance, began to greet me by name. The children, who had been terrified of my size, started clustering around me whenever I appeared, demanding piggyback rides and stories about the jungle. I gave them both. The piggyback rides were easy—I could carry all twelve of the church's orphans at once if I wanted to, and I did once, just to watch their faces light up. The stories were fabricated. Tales of daring hunts and narrow escapes, of monsters I'd slain and treasures I'd found. They ate it up.
The adults were no harder. I helped the farmer repair his fence. I lifted a fallen tree off the baker's cart. I split firewood for the old woman who'd first seen me arrive, enough to last her the entire winter, and did it in under an hour with my bare hands. Every action was calculated. Every favor was a deposit in the bank of public opinion. By the end of the first week, the villagers of Hage treated me like I'd lived there my whole life.
Asta, predictably, was the easiest to win over.
"HOW DO I GET AS TALL AS YOU?" he shouted at me on the second day, practically vibrating with intensity. "I need to know! It's for my dream! I'm going to be the Wizard King, and the Wizard King can't be short!"
I looked down at him—way down, he reached my waist—and let my expression become thoughtful. "Well, you're still young. Fourteen, right? You've got time to grow."
"But I need to grow NOW!"
"Training helps. Lots of physical exercise. And eating well." I gestured at the boar meat I'd brought. "That's why I keep bringing food. Protein builds muscle and bone."
Asta's eyes became determined slits. "Then I'll eat twice as much! No, three times as much! And I'll do a thousand push-ups a day! Two thousand!"
"Don't overdo it," I said, letting a note of genuine caution creep into my voice. The mask was still in place, but this part wasn't entirely fake. Asta's relentless drive was objectively admirable, even to a hollow shell like me. "You'll hurt yourself."
"I don't care! I'll just get stronger from the pain! That's my ninja way—wait, no, that's something else. MY WIZARD WAY!"
I chuckled. It sounded real. It wasn't.
Yuno, on the other hand, was a problem.
He never said much. He never asked me for training advice or gathered around when I told stories. He just watched. From the edge of the churchyard, from the shadow of the bell tower, from the corner of his amber eyes, he watched me with that quiet, unnerving intensity.
It was irritating. But I couldn't eliminate him. He was too important to the timeline, too central to my plans. So I did the next best thing. I disarmed him with humor.
"You know, Yuno," I said one afternoon, after I'd delivered a fresh kill to the church and found him sitting alone under the apple tree. "For someone who's going to be the Wizard King, you're not very approachable. You could learn from Asta. He's got the charisma thing down."
Yuno didn't look at me. "Asta's loud."
"He's friendly. There's a difference." I sat down beside him—not too close, maintaining a comfortable distance. "People like people who smile. You never smile. It makes people think you're plotting something."
"I'm not plotting anything."
"Then smile. Just once. I dare you."
He turned his head then, those amber eyes fixing me with an unreadable expression. "You smile all the time," he said. "It doesn't reach your eyes."
There it was. The first crack in my armor. Yuno had sensed what the others hadn't—the emptiness behind the warmth, the calculation behind the kindness. I felt a flicker of something that might have been annoyance, if I'd still had the capacity for it. Instead, I filed the observation away as a tactical concern and adjusted my approach.
"You caught me," I said, and let the smile fade just slightly. Just enough to seem vulnerable. "I guess I'm not very good at being happy. After what happened to my village... well. It's hard. Smiling helps me pretend things are okay. Even when they're not."
The orphan card. Deployed again. And it worked again. Yuno's gaze wavered. He looked away, back toward the horizon, and said nothing.
I'd bought myself more time. But I made a mental note: Yuno was sharper than I'd anticipated. I would need to be careful around him.
---
The days blurred together. Wake. Hunt. Carry the kill to the village. Smile. Laugh. Help with chores. Tell stories. Endure Asta's endless questions about height and muscles and fighting techniques. Endure Yuno's silent scrutiny. Endure the children's sticky hands and the adults' well-meaning pity and Sister Mary's tearful attempts to "make me feel like part of the family." Pretend to be moved by their kindness. Pretend to enjoy their company. Pretend to be human.
Inside, I was counting the hours until the grimoire ceremony.
It was supposed to happen on my third day in Hage. The ceremony tower master, a minor official from the capital, was scheduled to arrive and conduct the acceptance ritual for all eligible fifteen-year-olds in the region. I'd timed my arrival perfectly. But on the morning of the third day, a messenger hawk arrived with news: the tower master's caravan had been delayed by a storm in the mountain pass. The ceremony would be postponed. Indefinitely.
Indefinitely.
I stood in the churchyard, the messenger's note crumpled in my fist, and felt the void inside me pulse with something that might have been frustration if the locks hadn't been in place. Indefinitely meant days. Possibly weeks. Weeks of smiling. Weeks of playing the grateful orphan. Weeks of Asta's shouting and Yuno's suspicious glares and the children's endless demands for attention.
The mask held. I smoothed the note, handed it back to Father Orsi, and smiled.
"That's unfortunate," I said. "But it gives me more time to get to know everyone. That's not so bad."
Father Orsi beamed. Sister Mary clasped her hands together and declared that God worked in mysterious ways. Asta shouted something about using the extra time to train and immediately dropped to the ground to do push-ups. Yuno just looked at me, his expression unreadable.
I walked back to the jungle that evening and sat in my cave, staring at the waterfall, letting the mask fall away. The void was still there. The locks were still there. But beneath the layers of nullification, in some deep, buried part of me that the Talent hadn't quite managed to seal, I could feel the irritation festering. A low, dull, persistent annoyance that colored every interaction, every smile, every fake laugh.
I hated it. Not the irritation—I could handle irritation. I hated the act. The endless, exhausting performance of humanity. Every smile was a lie. Every kind word was a manipulation. I was a predator wearing a lamb's skin, and the lamb's skin chafed.
But it was necessary. The Black Bulls would accept Asta because Asta was Asta—loud, determined, utterly genuine. I had no such advantage. I was a void wearing a human face, and if I didn't play the part perfectly, Yami would see through me. Yuno already did, on some level. I needed every ally I could get, every scrap of goodwill I could manufacture. If that meant enduring weeks of fake smiles and feigned warmth, then I would endure it.
---
Two weeks passed.
The storm in the mountain pass cleared, but the tower master's caravan was delayed again—this time by a broken axle. Then a bridge was washed out. Then the tower master himself came down with a fever and had to recuperate in a village two days' ride from Hage. The excuses piled up like kindling, and my irritation grew with each one.
I kept visiting the village. I kept bringing gifts. The villagers had started treating me like a local hero. Children ran to greet me when I appeared at the treeline. Adults invited me to meals and asked my opinion on village matters. Sister Mary had taken to calling me "the gentle giant" and telling me that I reminded her of her late brother. Father Orsi had offered to write me a letter of recommendation for the Magic Knights—an offer I accepted with a grateful smile and filed away for future use.
Even Yuno's suspicion had begun to fade. He still watched me, but the intensity had dimmed. He was calmer around me now, as if he decided I wasn't a threat. Or perhaps he had simply gotten used to me. I didn't care which, as long as it made my job easier.
Asta, meanwhile, had decided we were best friends. He followed me around like a particularly energetic puppy, demanding training tips and challenging me to fights and asking, at least once a day, how he could get taller. I answered his questions with patient, measured advice. I showed him how to improve his push-up form. I taught him a breathing technique that would help with endurance. I sparred with him—gently, very gently—and let him land a few hits just to keep his morale up.
"You're really strong, Ouga!" he'd shout, picking himself up after I'd effortlessly tossed him across the clearing for the dozenth time. "But I'm going to get even stronger! Stronger than you! Stronger than everyone! Because I'm going to be the WIZARD KING!"
"I believe you," I said. And the strangest part was, I did. Asta was a protagonist. He would achieve his dream. My presence here didn't change that. It just changed the route he'd take to get there—and whether I'd be standing beside him or over him when he arrived.
---
The ceremony was finally rescheduled for the first week of April, nearly a full month after my arrival.
I heard the news from Father Orsi, who announced it during evening prayers with a relieved smile. The tower master was healthy again. The roads were clear. The church erupted in excited chatter. Asta started screaming about finally getting his grimoire and becoming the Wizard King. The other fifteen-year-olds—a handful of village kids I'd barely paid attention to—looked nervous and hopeful in equal measure.
I stood at the back of the chapel, my face arranged in an expression of quiet anticipation, and let the relief wash through me. Not emotional relief—the locks prevented that—but a cold, clinical satisfaction that the waiting was nearly over. Tomorrow, the tower master would arrive. Tomorrow, the ceremony would begin. Tomorrow, I would receive my grimoire and take the first real step toward everything I'd been planning for the past year.
Tonight, I would sleep in the jungle one last time.