Chapter 14: Eyes Toward Shadows
The moon hung high over the sprawling Agares estate, casting silvery light through arched windows and dancing upon polished stone.
Deep within the manor's west wing, a single lantern flickered in the study. Volundr sat alone at the ornate desk, ink-stained fingers flipping through aged parchment. The pages were faded, their contents long forgotten by most—but not by him.
Tonight marked the beginning of something different. Not a training session. Not a tactical debate. Tonight, he would plant the seeds of a network not of warriors or politicians—but of shadows.
It had begun with whispers.
Volundr had heard them first during a formal banquet—offhand remarks about increased activity near the human world, missing children in border towns, sacred gear thefts too quiet to be coincidence.
Most nobles dismissed them as anomalies.
He did not.
And so, he had quietly recruited from the estate staff. Trusted but overlooked figures: gardeners, footmen, retired mercenaries employed as guards.
A handful of agents, willing and loyal, began to form the foundation of his covert network. They were tasked with gathering rumors—anything involving the Hero Faction, exorcists operating outside Church jurisdiction, and especially the Holy Sword Project.
Claudius had voiced concern. "Surveillance at your age? There are eyes in the shadows that might see you as a threat."
Volundr had only smiled. "Then it's better I see them first."
Two weeks later, a lead emerged.
A reclusive aristocrat from House Bale, stripped of most of his holdings but still clinging to old debts and secrets, owed the Agares family a favor.
Volundr leveraged it carefully. Instead of land or gold, he asked for knowledge.
That's how he found himself standing before the rusted iron doors of the North Library Wing, long since sealed.
Inside, shelves stretched into darkness. Tomes dating back to the pre-Great War era lined the walls, untouched by time thanks to preservation wards.
Here were scrolls of summoning experiments, tactical evaluations of angelic units, journals of deserters, logs of failed peace talks.
Volundr felt reverence and dread.
He spent the following days cataloging what he found. Maps with forgotten strongholds. Names of early sacred gear users. Accounts of hybrid creatures engineered to fight in holy wars.
The dossiers grew into a web—fragments of history pieced into a pattern of repeating chaos.
It was no longer just curiosity.
It was duty.
One evening, while organizing documents beneath the glow of magical light, Seekvaira entered.
She stood in the doorway silently for a moment, watching her brother hunched over a scroll, eyes hollow from sleepless nights.
"Volundr," she said softly. "Why does it feel like you're preparing for something only you can see?"
He looked up, startled.
"I thought you were in spellcraft class," he said, setting the parchment down.
"I was," she replied, stepping in. "But the instructors say I've improved too fast. They think you're the reason."
He blinked, unsure how to respond.
She continued. "You always push us—me, Sairaorg, even Lirien and Claudius. You act like time is running out. Is it?"
Volundr's gaze drifted to the stacked dossiers. He exhaled.
"I don't know when, but something is coming. And when it does, we can't be unprepared."
She crossed the room and sat beside him, placing her hand over his.
"You're not alone in this," she said. "Even if I can't see what you see, I trust you."
His throat tightened. He nodded.
"And I trust you to remind me I'm still human," he whispered.
That night, as he meditated near the estate's western shrine, the visions returned.
This time, clearer.
Gasper Vladi, small and frightened, trapped in an underground facility.
Kuroka and Koneko, separated by violence, one fleeing with blood on her hands, the other crying in chains.
Akeno, kneeling in the rain beside her dying mother, thunder cracking above.
The dream was laced with emotion—panic, sorrow, helplessness. And a single voice.
"Save them… or they are lost."
He awoke with a gasp, drenched in sweat. The stars above offered no comfort.
The next morning, Volundr summoned Lirien.
"I want a list of all recent Church orphan captures. Focus on Asia, Eastern Europe, and Japan."
She narrowed her eyes. "This about the Hero Faction?"
"And more," he replied. "Much more."
As she left to fulfill his request, he turned to the window and whispered:
"The veins of fate are tightening. I won't let them strangle hope."
From the shadows of his youth, Volundr Agares had begun his first war.
Not one fought with swords.
But with knowledge, preparation, and purpose.
And when the time came, those threads would weave into a force the world could no longer ignore.
End of Chapter 14