Alright, back to the point—reel the scattered thread back onto the spool.

If humanity ever figured out a way to fight the Dark Deity and any Evil Entity on our own, it’d be a sunrise splitting the night. From that moment on, history would flip like a storm-tossed page.

But that’s a big if; so far there’s no progress, not even a compass needle that points north.

To Lucimia, the self-reliance crowd sounded noble in torchlight, yet reality cut like cold iron. Aside from using witch-powder on sickness, they had no tools beyond empty hands.

And that witch-powder… something about it felt off, like a sweetness that hides a thorn.

She felt both camps were strange, two flocks of birds circling a silent lake.

Especially that thin man—before he stepped forward he already wore pressure like wet clothes. At the end he screamed “You’re the accomplice,” a cry like torn cloth, and it changed how Lucimia looked at the burly one.

Of course, maybe the scrawny man had snapped, words spinning like dead leaves.

The heavy-armored soldier kept kicking the man on the ground; the man was reed-thin, at first curled up to shield his head, and soon lay still like a felled sapling.

When the body stopped moving, the armored soldier lowered his boot and turned back to the line, shoulders like a wall.

Just as he pivoted, Lucimia saw it—like a hawk dropping from a roof’s eave.

A figure leapt from the house on the soldier’s left, a body of average build with a streak of gold crowning his head.

He moved fast; whoosh, a blade of wind across the soldier’s neck, then he landed and slid several yards like a skater on black ice.

The soldier’s head fell like a cut gourd, the body crumpled like a sack, and blood fountained bright, painting the air and freezing the crowd.

“Ahhh!” Someone’s scream cracked the sky like a snapped string.

Panic boiled at once, the square turned into a pot of porridge as people scattered like startled birds.

Lucimia slipped past the stream of bodies surging her way, her gaze settling on the square like a pin driven into wood.

She saw the one who landed: a boy with gold hair, an ordinary face, a long sword bleeding a thread of red like sunset on steel.

The afterimage still hung in the air like a ghost of motion, a ripple yet to fade.

Lucimia judged at once: this boy was the one she wanted, the Time Ability User.

Most likely time acceleration—he’d hurried his own steps, a river suddenly in flood.

Excitement lit her chest like sparks on tinder; she’d grab him, devour his ability, then slip away like mist at dawn.

While his focus locked on the soldiers closing in, she circled behind him, quiet as a cat over frost.

“Hm? You?” A heavy-armored soldier who seemed to lead stepped up, his shadow long as a spear. “You quit being a decent robber and started as a killer?”

“Hmph.” The boy’s snort was sharp as flint. “Aren’t you the killers?”

He meant the thin man lying like discarded straw.

The soldier-chief tilted his head to glance, then said slowly, voice like a lid settling on a pot, “He’s a believer of the Dark Deity. Killing him—what’s the problem? Or are you in the pro-deity camp?”

“Dark Deity believer? Ha.” The boy laughed like he’d heard a joke from the heavens; then he went hard, a blade sheathed. “What if he’s just a duped wretch? Shouldn’t you drag him back and interrogate him? Why murder in the street under open sky?”

The chief went quiet, watching the boy for a few beats, his eyes like stones in a river. Then he rumbled, “So it’s you. Found you.”

He brought the greatsword to hand, steel humming like a hive.

The boy’s brow pinched; impulse cooled like quenched metal. He read the odds and chose to run on time’s current.

Sneak attacks were fine, but face-to-face against a tank of iron, he had no way to break the shell.

He triggered his ability and sprang backward—then his foot hit Frost, winter biting up from the ground.

When? He slammed the Frost with his pommel, blows like hammers on glass, but no cracks spidered.

Frost spread in a rush like nightfall, devouring his calves and locking him in place like roots in permafrost.

Even the armored chief looked startled at that, then charged with his greatsword, a bull under stormclouds.

The boy panicked, smashing the Frost, even flooding it with his power, but it drank everything like sand.

What was this—magic? A trap laid like nets on a river?

As the thought flickered, a figure appeared before him like a lantern lighting. He looked up and saw a stunning girl, beauty sharp as moonlight on water.

She had long black hair smoothed like silk, a face calm as a still pond; she lifted one leg and tapped the Frost with her toe, light as a dragonfly.

At once the Frost unraveled like hoarfrost under dawn, and joy burst in his chest like a thaw.

She’s saving me, he thought, gratitude flaring like a flag; remember this, run now, repay later when the winds change.

He fired his ability to bolt—and in the next heartbeat his eyes went wide, a candle snuffed by a gust.

His ability was gone, an empty well where water should sing.

“What happened?!” he shouted, fear scraping his throat like gravel.

He glanced back; the armored chief was closing like a tide, and there was no time to think. He ran on bare legs like a rabbit in a snare.

Without his gift he couldn’t outrun a trained soldier; in seconds he was tackled, the weight on his back a boulder, and pinned to the dirt.

“Let me go! Let me go!” He thrashed and bucked, and the soldier hammered his head once, a blow like a mallet, curling him up and tearing a cry from him.

“Hmph, run—why aren’t you running now? We finally caught you,” the soldier growled, words like iron filings. “You were just a robber—maybe a few years inside. Now… we’ll see the judgment. Pray it’s not the gallows.”

The boy’s face blanched, color draining like old paper; he lay on the ground, tilted his head, and his gaze met Lucimia’s, a line drawn across open air.

Suddenly a thought snapped together: why did his ability die? Right after Frost froze his legs, that girl tapped twice with her toe, like a bell.

Was it her?! By what means? And I thought she came to save me—turns out the Frost was hers too!

“F— you, it’s your fault! All your fault!” he raved, spitting words like thorns at Lucimia. “It’s your fault! You killed everyone!”

Lucimia frowned, watching the soldiers drag him away step by step, their boots drumming like rain.

His outburst felt normal to her; faced with the noose, minds crack like ice. But the last line snagged her like a hook.

“You killed everyone”—the words echoed like crows on bare branches.

What did that mean? Lucimia didn’t understand; she’d only devoured the boy’s ability, a swallow of power, so how did that kill everyone?

A soldier came up to her then, his armor clanking like windchimes in a gale.

“Miss, don’t take his words to heart—just a madman’s last frenzy,” he said, voice like a steady drum. “Also, thank you for your help. We finally caught that slippery robber… no, now he’s a murderer.”

He paused, then added, tone smoothing like oiled wood, “You’re a mage, right? Fine magic. As thanks, we’ll pay what’s due—the bounty on him is quite high.”

“…Is that so?” Lucimia sounded distant, thought still circling that line like a moth to a flame.

“Yes. If convenient, come with us to the barracks; we’ll bring you gold,” he said, offering a small bow like a reed in wind. “Or give us your address, and we’ll deliver it ourselves.”