Arc 1 : The Matter of Perspective
"Verily, I have created man in the fairest of forms among all that I have brought into being. To them, I entrust the dominion over Elysium. Truly, they are the most exalted of all My creation."
I do not comprehend His decree.
I do not know how long I have existed. I have witnessed dragons shatter mountains, demons whose ages surpass the oldest memories, vampires nearly untouched by death, and gods whose names are carved into the heavens. Of all I have ever seen, none are more fragile than mankind.
Yet, it is to them that Elysium is entrusted.
I do not understand, but I do not oppose it either. I merely watch as power slowly shifts its course. For only humans are capable of inheriting wisdom from defeat, until each generation stands further than the place where the previous one fell.
So, when humans began to believe that no race is superior to them—using divine will as a justification to purge all others from Elysium—I must know if they will be destroyed by God for their pride.
Just as I witnessed when the demons were cast out of heaven.
***
The staff canteen was quieting down at half past nine in the morning. Cross, a young gardener of twenty-two, sat spooning plain porridge into his mouth. A Volksempfänger VE301 radio crackled from the top of the food display, its signal unsteady. The announcer's voice cut in and out, but enough of it carried through for him and the few remaining staff to follow the substance of it.
A serial killer. Eleven lives claimed. The case had unsettled the public, and for good reason. Each victim was found with a triangular mark carved into their forehead. The other staff still finishing their breakfasts had already drawn their own conclusions, murmuring that the culprit was surely a witches' cult, that this was organized terrorism aimed at the Empire.
Cross sat undisturbed. He looked down at his reflection floating on the surface of his black coffee before lifting the cup. An expressionless face and a pair of eyes like a dead man's. The canteen was nearly empty now, so he drank the rest of his coffee, collected his tray, and walked it to the scullery. His frame, standing some eighteen centimeters above the food display, was noticeably lean against the other staff. Short black hair, eyes of the same deep black. People found him faintly exotic, as that particular genetic combination was rare in the Ortix Empire.
Just as he was setting his tray on the rack, a cook slipped something into his trouser pocket. Cross gave no reaction, drew no attention to it, and made his way to the toilet. He retrieved the small piece of paper and read it. A single notation: "∆12." He flushed it.
"Twelve hours, at minimum," he thought, and left.
Four years had passed since he began working at Stern, a semi-military academy built to shape young generations into scholars, soldiers, and hunters. Students drilled in hand-to-hand combat, knife throwing, and archery across the grounds. Some trained in formal march formation, indistinguishable from a standing military unit.
From the field to his left, the guards snapped their salute. "Heil Kaiser!" Their right hands swept from left shoulder to right, closing into a fist at the end of the motion. A broad-shouldered man in his mid-thirties acknowledged them with a raised right hand, palm facing left.
Cross slowed. He watched the man enter the main building, and in that brief window caught something. A thin thread of black mist, barely visible, slipping into the shadow beneath a pair of ivory-white leather shoes so immaculate that even dust appeared to avoid them. His gaze followed the mist back to its point of origin and found a presence waiting behind the trimmed hedges.
He had been about to continue toward the storehouse when, in that same moment, he returned the salute exactly as the guards had done. Precise. Contained. Silent.
"Guten Morgen!" the figure greeted him with the same gesture he had given the guards a moment before. (Good Morning)
What stood before him was unsettling in a specific way. The figure was identical in every detail to the man who had just walked into the main building. A scent reached him then, dense amber and oud threaded with black pepper, the unmistakable mark of an aristocrat. A life governed by principles as unyielding as the pale blade at his hip, its hilt set with a blue sapphire, as rigid as the light-gray gabardine coat worn like a second discipline.
Cross stepped aside once the salute was returned and moved on. As he did, his attention settled uneasily on the people around him. The absence of any reaction from them was what gnawed at him most. No one had registered what had just occurred. He could neither go around asking nor draw it to anyone's attention. Speech was not available to him, and a gardener occupied no meaningful position among the academy's inhabitants.
Thin mist escaped his breath and drifted over his hands as he tried to warm them. Golden linden leaves gave way to the late autumn wind, scattering across the footpath he walked each morning.
Geraniums lined either side of the path, their red and blue blooms holding their position like a still audience. In the language of flowers, geraniums spoke of fragile trust, a loyalty prone to fracture. To Cross, the meaning narrowed into something more specific: someone had once been entrusted here, and someone had broken that trust.
At the path's end, the foxgloves had passed their freshness. Their petals hung like small bells weighted down by something unspoken. Old traditions tied foxglove to unseen hands. Wolves dressed as sheep.
"Someone was here," he noted, observing that several foxgloves had been picked.
The flower beds reached their end and the storehouse stood before him. His footsteps came to a stop when he found the wooden door unlocked and sitting slightly open. A smear of soil on the door handle was enough to confirm that someone had been there.
He pushed the pine wood door open without touching the handle. Inside, everything appeared normal and orderly as usual. But a faint trail of footprints, the kind not belonging to any of the staff, had been left behind. He followed the direction of the tracks and found his pruning scissors missing. Not just one pair, but both spares as well.
In the same moment, his sense of smell caught something. Clean and cold, like a scent that carried no warmth. A foreign aroma that had no business being in a place like this.
"Someone has interfered with my work?"
He began connecting the pieces. The case on the radio, the academy director who had appeared twice, the foxglove stems that had been picked, the missing pruning scissors, and the unfamiliar scent inside the storehouse. Even so, he already knew with reasonable certainty what direction things were heading. From a single isolated detail, he had a strong suspicion that what had taken place here mattered a great deal to whoever was responsible.
The smear of soil left on the door handle.
***
The faint sweetness of Darjeeling rose from an expensive porcelain cup, less like a drink and more like an aromatherapy censer. The thin curl of steam was just enough to settle something in the man seated at his desk. He took occasional sips while sorting through documents resting beside a nameplate engraved with the words "Akademiechef, Enzel." (Academy Chief, Enzel)
"How does one eradicate the witches when the source itself is never touched?" he thought, turning his chair to face the empty picture frame mounted on the wall behind him.
Moments later, a gentle knock came at the door. He gave permission to enter, and a bespectacled woman stepped inside.
"Heil Kaiser!" she announced, performing the distinctive salute of the Wehrstreit, the military of the Ortix Empire.
Enzel returned the gesture as he turned his chair back and asked, "What is the Emperor's response?"
"His Majesty has decided to initiate a propaganda campaign concerning the hunt for witches and other racial entities," she said, extending a dossier stamped with a red four-leaf clover.
"And?"
"You have been appointed as overseer of intelligence operations."
Enzel read through the documents at a measured pace. While she remained standing and waiting for a response, something else caught her attention. A faint trace of black vapor rising from the Academy Chief's back and shoulders.
"Frau Astrea!" (Miss Astrea)
"M-Mein Herr?" she answered, a slight catch slipping into her breath. (My Lord)
"You are aware of our current situation, are you not?"
Enzel's gaze cut straight through the lenses covering a pair of grass-green eyes. Strands of loosely waving coffee-brown hair swayed briefly as Hilumy Astrea flinched. Particularly when Enzel directed her attention toward the curling steam rising from his teacup.
"Send word to the Emperor to wait," Enzel ordered, neatly arranging the dossier before returning it to her.
"Verstanden, Herr Astoria!" (Understood, Lord Astoria)
"And one more thing."
Enzel's flat expression pressed down on Hilumy like something with weight. The fading daylight pulled back from the oak desk in front of her, sharpening the cold in the room and letting it settle into the skin. She swallowed quietly as a chill crept up the nape of her neck beneath her white shirt and walnut-brown vest.
"Do not let the smoke burn anything."
Hilumy gave a slow nod, then performed the Wehrstreit's signature salute before taking his leave from the office.
Enzel knew something was lurking within his academy. His suspicion only deepened as he observed his secretary, who seemed to be absent-mindedly watching him. The behavior was too brief to be nervous, yet too deliberate to be coincidence.
He then rose from his chair and approached the window. The students in the courtyard were still occupied in training their skills. Each one in pursuit of a future they believed still belonged to them, unaware of the anomaly that had already taken root. The nobleman surveyed each scattered group with measured eyes, knowing that from this day forward, those children would no longer be chasing dreams and aspirations. They had already become assets, numerical data, and resources to be deployed under Ortix's new vision and mission.
Enzel let his gaze settle on the sword resting against his desk. Those ocean-blue eyes fixed upon it with quiet certainty. An object that carried the full weight of his standing as a High Noble of the Realm. A tangible instrument of formal mandate, reserved for matters that ordinary procedure was never designed to resolve.
He approached the desk with unhurried precision, lifted the telephone receiver, and issued a composed request for the schedule and roster of the academy's guards. His mind, however, was already several steps ahead. Reading the board, identifying the hand that had arranged the pieces, and acknowledging the invitation for what it truly was.
"A declaration from outside," he murmured, setting the receiver down with deliberate calm, his gaze drifting back to the empty picture frame. "Or a retreat from within."
***
"2 PM," Cross noted inwardly, his gaze settling on the clock tower standing upright at the academy's main garden.
He had just finished mulching and harvesting the dried marigold seeds. As he was about to place them into a paper envelope, a student in a blue uniform collided into him from the side, scattering the seeds he had collected across the ground.
"Sorry!" the student muttered, clutching his stomach and covering his mouth before hurrying away.
Cross observed the student briefly. Slightly pale, as though unwell. A sweat-dampened face and repeated swallowing, all caught in that fleeting moment.
In his mind, the thief of garden scissors had already made their move. It was only a matter of time before everything became clear. Whether they were targeting him or the state itself, he would need to confirm that first.
"My target has been taken," he noted inwardly, watching the student's back as he hastened toward the male dormitory.
He gathered the scattered marigold seeds and slipped them into the envelope. He then reached into his trouser pocket for a small red notebook, wrote a brief message, tore the page out, and tucked it inside the same envelope.
Cross also noticed that the guards had been rotated. More precisely, their patrol routes and positions had been swapped. Where two men typically stood watch at the main building's entrance, there were now four. Furthermore, the guard posts visible at the garden's corners had been replaced by several individuals in dull olive-grey uniforms, each bearing a pin marked RW at the collar and a white armband embroidered with an eight-pointed compass rose on the left sleeve.
I need to change roles, the young gardener thought as he made his way back to the garden storehouse. Though the shift was not drastically apparent beyond the reshuffled guards, Cross could feel the surrounding atmosphere had changed as well. Several positions that typically held a patrolling sentry were now left conspicuously vacant. The more he studied the pattern, the more those gaps revealed themselves as corridors. Designed to funnel something, or someone, toward specific locations. Including his storehouse.
The blazing yet cold afternoon slowly dimmed as storm clouds filled the sky. The first drops fell as the clock struck six in the evening. Gentle at first, then steadily heavier until sufficient to drive people under shelter, much like the young gardener now leaning against the rear wall of the canteen. The chill crept through Cross's frame, sheltered only by a thin black undershirt and long black canvas trousers, as he waited for his contact to emerge for taking out the trash.
"Target is dead. Now we wait for the next chapter," whispered a cook stepping out while hoisting a large sack.
The young gardener handed over a folded paper once the cook had set the sack down. A note reading "I've been interfered" when opened.
"I'll contact our boss. My role here is done. For now, simply follow the situation," the cook instructed, then crumpled the note and returned briskly to the kitchen.
Cross then shouldered the sack that had been left behind. His steps quickened toward the shed, evading the rain now pouring in earnest. Hurried as he was, he remained deliberate with each footfall. Careful not to slip on the mud softening between the stones of the garden path.
"Halt!"
The command rang out like thunder splitting the sky. Its force alone was enough to stop him cold.
"Do not move!"
The second call struck like a nail driven by a hammer, felt from the crown of his head down to the soles of his feet. The young man, now thoroughly drenched, lowered the sack from his shoulder and complied with the voice that held his body in its command. Several sets of footsteps approached before both his hands were tied and then forcibly escorted toward a guard post without resistance.
Beyond the two RW-marked sentries, Cross also caught a glance toward the garden storehouse, now crowded. Crowded with individuals bearing the same uniforms and armbands as the two men now escorting him.
Before his body was shoved repeatedly to quicken his pace, the young man's eyes landed on a corpse draped in white cloth lying at the entrance of the storehouse. The white cloth that already stained brown by the mud.