If Konigen had ever done one good thing, it was raising those spirit fish.
They were genuinely delicious, the kind of flavor that left you wanting more.
In the end, Luke and Syndra showed enough mercy not to wipe out every last spirit fish in the lake. Once Syndra's injuries had been treated, the two officially set out on their journey.
"Where are we going?"
As they walked, Syndra couldn't help asking.
Luke smiled. "The world is huge. We can go anywhere we want."
Now that the source of malice within this dream had been eliminated, the dream probably wouldn't last much longer.
So they might as well wander wherever their feet took them.
Syndra didn't ask anything else. Her thinking was simple.
Wherever Luke went, she would go too.
Before they knew it, the two had reached the town.
It was still bustling with ordinary life, seemingly untouched by everything that had happened. People continued coming and going along the streets as usual.
The two stood some distance from a certain courtyard. Inside, a family of three was enjoying themselves together, their smiles genuine and heartfelt.
"Don't you want to say anything to them?" Luke asked the girl beside him. "You could curse them out, or at least say goodbye."
"No."
Syndra shook her head.
"I thought I would hate them, but I don't. There were countless times when I felt hurt and wanted to ask them why they brought me into this world if they were only going to treat me this way."
"But when I think about it carefully, I can't blame them for everything. At the very least, they raised me. And when I was at my most helpless, they didn't abandon me."
Her dark magic had been discovered when she was very young.
From that point onward, the strange looks of the villagers had constantly fallen upon their family.
In sacred Ionia, darkness was regarded as an ill omen, a power despised by everyone.
Even so, her family had not abandoned her.
Perhaps their feelings toward her had only begun changing over the following years.
Wherever they went, it wasn't only Syndra who had been unwelcome.
She had simply endured the greatest share of that hostility.
"My leaving is probably a relief for them too," Syndra said calmly.
"Then let's go."
Luke turned away and slowly said, "That money should be enough for them to live comfortably for the rest of their lives."
Syndra nodded and followed him.
She never looked back.
But within her heart, she still offered one final farewell.
Goodbye.
After this farewell, they would never meet again.
As the two left the town, the family inside the courtyard seemed to sense something.
All three stopped what they were doing and raised their heads toward the same distant direction.
At that moment, the entire world seemed to fall silent.
As though they had finally understood something, all three smiled.
Their expressions carried a sense of relief.
Then their bodies dissolved into countless specks of light and scattered away on the wind.
Next came every brick and roof tile, every tree and flower.
All of them became motes of light.
Then the streets disappeared, followed by the pedestrians, the wagons rattling along the road, and the vendors calling out from the roadside.
It was like a dream bidding its final farewell in complete silence.
Eventually, everything would fade away.
Luke and Syndra knew nothing of this.
Neither of them ever looked back.
They simply continued forward.
Their feet rarely stopped moving. Before nightfall each day, they simply walked wherever the road took them.
With each other for company, neither felt lonely.
It was like a long journey through Ionia, experiencing its beautiful landscapes and the people who lived among them.
Whenever they rested, Luke taught Syndra how to cook and identify medicinal herbs. He taught her new skills and told her stories about Runeterra.
Of course, they also had plenty of fiercely competitive games of five-in-a-row.
Syndra learned everything extremely quickly.
Gradually, smiles began appearing on her face more often.
Sometimes she even displayed the liveliness of a girl her age, playing small pranks on Luke while he slept.
She had moments when she sulked over little things, and others when her clumsiness left Luke unsure whether to laugh or cry.
Most of the time, she remained composed and calm.
Only around Luke did she behave like a child.
And just like that, time quietly slipped through their fingers.
Three months passed in the blink of an eye.
Yet the dream still had not ended.
The two traveled on foot through many parts of Ionia and saw countless different landscapes along the way.
Now, they had stopped before a village.
"This place…"
Syndra stared at the village before her, momentarily lost in thought as countless memories came flooding back.
But those memories could no longer make her heart ache as they once had.
Luke didn't need to guess for long.
"Is this the village where you used to live?"
"Yeah."
Syndra nodded.
Although she had been gone for four years, she still remembered every tree and blade of grass here.
"It hasn't really changed from what I remember. This is definitely the place."
Luke thought for a moment. "Want to go inside and take a look?"
Syndra considered it too, then finally nodded.
And so, the two walked into the village.
Syndra looked around the place where she had spent her childhood.
She could still recognize many of the villagers, and most of them looked almost exactly as she remembered.
The villagers also noticed the two newcomers.
Numerous gazes turned toward them.
Whenever those gazes settled upon Syndra, people paused.
She looked strangely familiar, yet she didn't quite match the girl in their memories.
Syndra had long since grown into a graceful young woman.
Her sacred-looking silver hair cascaded down her back, and her once-scrawny figure had filled out.
Her yellowish skin and emaciated body in the past had been caused by the magic-suppressing medicine. The concoction had harmed her physically as well, compounded by basic malnutrition.
After traveling with Luke, all of that had long since improved.
Her skin had become smooth and pale as snow, while her figure had grown healthy and graceful. Her bright eyes and exquisite features were striking enough to make hearts skip a beat, giving her the air of a cool, beautiful young woman.
Before long, the villagers confirmed their suspicions.
Quiet whispers began spreading.
No matter how much Syndra's appearance had changed, the gloomy, dark aura surrounding her had remained unmistakable.
And after four years away, that presence had become even stronger.
Some villagers immediately regarded her as an unwelcome visitor, directing hostile looks toward her.
Soon, several militiamen wearing wooden helmets approached. They raised their weapons with guarded expressions.
"Stop! What business do the two of you have in our village?"
Luke looked at them and gave a friendly smile.
"We just happened to be passing through. This village used to be her home, and she was feeling nostalgic, so she wanted to come back and take a look."
"Heh."
The militiamen naturally recognized Syndra now.
One of them sneered.
"She actually has the nerve to come back? Well, our village doesn't welcome her!"
Faced with such coldness and outright disgust, Syndra said nothing.
She did feel guilty.
At that moment, an elderly woman approached with a cane and spoke in an aged voice.
"You few, stand down. Don't trouble our guests."
"But, Village Elder…"
One militiaman hesitated.
Another could no longer restrain himself and shouted, "Are we really supposed to stand here and welcome back the person responsible for what happened to our village? If it weren't for her, our connection to the spirit of Ionia would never have been severed, and the village wouldn't have become what it is today!"
Looking carefully, it was indeed possible to see that many homes stood empty.
There were probably only a few dozen households remaining in the entire village now, despite the village being large enough to accommodate well over a hundred.
"Always blaming someone else, never stopping to consider your own part in what happened."
Luke finally spoke, his voice calm.
The smile on his face contained little warmth.
"So this really is exactly the bullying little village I imagined."
The militiamen immediately flew into a rage.
One stepped forward and shouted, "Say that again if you've got the guts!"
"Enough!"
The elderly village elder suddenly thundered.
Divine light flashed in her eyes as she barked, "Do my words mean nothing anymore? All of you, stand down!"
The militiamen froze.
Eventually, they had no choice but to retreat, though they continued glaring at Luke and Syndra with hostility.
The village elder shook her head.
What she was doing was, in a sense, saving the village.
Never mind the mysterious man beside Syndra.
Syndra alone probably possessed enough power by now to take revenge upon the entire village if she wished.
The elder looked at the two of them.
"If you miss the village, then feel free to look around. But many people have left over the years, and we rarely interact with outsiders anymore. We are not accustomed to entertaining guests. Once you have finished looking around, please leave."
Her meaning was already quite tactful.
She didn't welcome them either, but at least her words were easier to accept than those of the militiamen.
She led the hotheaded guards away and made no attempt to stop the two from going anywhere.
Luke watched as the villagers kept their distance.
"Looks like we really aren't welcome here. We should probably leave sooner rather than later."
Syndra nodded.
"I know. But there's one place I want to visit before we go."
"Okay."
Luke nodded slightly, then added, "You were blaming yourself again just now, weren't you? You remember how this village treated you when you were little."
"I really do feel guilty."
Syndra's eyes flickered, and her voice unconsciously grew quieter.
"But not toward them."
"Toward it."
What had silenced her wasn't the anger of the militiamen.
It was another knot in her heart, one she had been unable to untangle for all these years.
Before long, the two reached the deepest part of the village.
No one lived here anymore, and a small grove surrounded the area.
Syndra led Luke to an ancient tree.
Its trunk had been twisted out of shape, and its bark had withered into a charred black.
She crouched down and reached out to gently touch the deformed trunk. Tears shimmered in her eyes, filled with profound guilt and sorrow.
"This ghost-willow used to be the sacred tree of the village."
"It was also the only thing I could rely on."
She wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and quietly began telling Luke about the past.
Growing up surrounded by strange looks and disgust in the village, Syndra had never had anyone she could talk to whenever she felt wronged.
So she would run here and seek out the ghost-willow.
She often spent hours whispering her secrets to the tree.
Talking to it brought her comfort.
Sometimes, she even thought she could hear the ghost-willow answering her, its voice like that of an incredibly gentle older woman.
This secret place had been the only sanctuary supporting Syndra's fragile heart as a child.
Until one warm afternoon.
Her older brother, Evard, brought several other children and secretly followed her there.
Then they snickered at her innocent tears.
Faced with endless insults and ridicule, Syndra felt humiliated and angry, but she still intended to endure it silently, just as she always had.
The only difference was that her sanctuary was no longer a secret.
Then one of the children threw a large clump of mud at her head.
There was a stone hidden inside it.
It struck her hard enough to split open her scalp.
Blood ran into her eyes.
And in that moment, Syndra could no longer suppress her emotions.
The dark power inside her fully awakened and erupted with overwhelming force.
But the cost was that she began violently draining all the spirit magic around her.
The ghost-willow possessed the richest concentration of magic nearby, making it the first thing affected.
Syndra uncontrollably drained away the ghost-willow's life essence.
Through the chaos, she vaguely heard the tree crying out in pain.
Every time Syndra remembered that moment, it felt as though an iron nail had been driven straight through her heart.
The pain was unbearable.
But she knew it could never compare to what the ghost-willow had suffered.
"I don't know what happened after I lost control."
Syndra's spirits sank.
"But I do know one thing. The ghost-willow gave up all of its essence to stop me from hurting anyone else."
"And it protected me."
The incident had also left Evard deeply traumatized, becoming one of the main reasons her family began to fear her.
With the ghost-willow gone, the villagers began worrying that their connection to the spirit of Ionia had been severed.
Syndra's family became the target of everyone's resentment.
Eventually, they had no choice but to leave the village.
In Ionia, many things possessed spirits of their own.
Luke believed that without question.
He had seen it with his own eyes.
Looking at the withered ghost-willow, he sighed softly.
"Even so, none of this was your fault."
Children were often said to be born innocent.
But that didn't necessarily mean they were born good.
A great deal of cruelty came from children wielding their innocence like a weapon without even understanding the depth of the harm they caused.
It was cruelty in its purest form.
And also its most direct.
Syndra had never done anything wrong.
Yet even while simply walking down the road, children her own age would throw stones at her.
If Luke had grown up in an environment like this, he probably would have destroyed at least one world later in life just to blow off some steam.
Compared to that, Syndra had shown remarkable restraint.
"All right. Let's go."
Syndra gave the ghost-willow one final look and sighed softly.
Then she stood and prepared to leave with Luke.
The two departed the village without anyone noticing.
They continued wandering without any particular destination.
Before nightfall, they stopped somewhere suitable and built a campfire for the night.
While Luke prepared dinner, Syndra sat silently beside the fire, staring absentmindedly into the dancing flames.
She still seemed unable to shake the sadness she felt over the ghost-willow.
But the human heart could always be healed by beautiful things.
And to Syndra, one of the beautiful things in her life was Luke's cooking.
It could make her forget her troubles, at least for a while.
As she ate dinner, she chatted with Luke as usual.
Before either of them realized it, stars had filled the night sky.
Among them stretched a brilliant river of stars.
Suddenly, Syndra asked, "If someday we have no choice but to part ways, will you forget me?"
It was a strange question.
Luke answered without even needing to think.
"Of course not."
Hearing that, the corners of Syndra's lips curled upward.
She smiled happily.
"I won't forget you either."
After dinner, the two sat close together, gazing up at the night sky.
Syndra sighed in wonder.
"The world feels so huge. After all this time, we still haven't even finished exploring Ionia."
Luke smiled.
"The world really is huge. There are plenty more roads to travel and landscapes to see in the future."
"There are so many places…"
Syndra sounded a little melancholy, almost reluctant.
"I wonder how long it would take to see them all."
For some reason, she sighed.
Then she quietly murmured, "But it feels like we don't have much time left."
Luke didn't hear her clearly.
"What don't we have much of?"
Syndra didn't answer.
Instead, she turned her head.
Her bright eyes reflected both the night sky and Luke as she gazed at him.
Then a brilliant, radiant smile appeared on the girl's face.
Finally, she threw herself forward and hugged Luke tightly, carefully savoring the warmth of his body.
"I wish this dream could go on forever."
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