Occult Awakening: From Commoner to Archmage

There was an unusual silence that engulfed the commercial district of Carinthia. Carriages had stopped moving and people stopped peddling their wares to stare at the scene in front of them.

Blood reeked, but there was none to be found. Priests scoured the scene, humming Hymns under their breaths to scour the area. There was a glow of divine light illuminating surfaces persistently.

A simple but effective barricade of two guards was placed in front of the practically decimated building.

Luca and an older figure stood directly in front of the barricade of knights, whilst there were others at a distance. Some cried, silently grieving their lost ones who were apprenticing under Mina, but most wore blank stares.

Even Luca wore something of a blank stare on his face, but there was fury in his eyes. He had seen the priests taking Mina's decapitated body out just mere minutes ago.

He had just got to the scene. There was barely enough time for him to process anything, let alone start grieving.

"Hey, Humphrey… do you know how this happened?" Luca said after a long bout of silence.

The old man next to him had been there longer. A red tint clouded his usually clear eyes. Wrinkles decorated his already stressed face. It seemed like he had aged decades in just minutes.

Humphrey had known Mina for longer than he knew Luca. They were close friends growing up, and it was even Mina that introduced Luca to him. He sucked in a huge breath, rubbing his eyes to hide the sadness he felt.

"A priest told me that Mina was attending to a client—a Baron Tolkien, or something—and they said that the plague corrupted him in the middle, and he went on a rampage and killed them all."

Luca's ears perked up at the familiar name, but there was little amusement he could take in it at this moment.

Humphrey's explanation seemed like all speculation, as there was no witness, but that was where the Hymns of the Sun Father's followers came in handy. It allowed them to retrieve bits and pieces of information from a crime scene.

He had seen the effectiveness firsthand when Haider used it.

There was another bout of silence. For once, the noise in Luca's head had also quieted a little.

"She died quickly and put up a fight, if that's any solace. Stabbed a pair of scissors right into its chest." A voice cut through the silence once more.

Luca looked up in surprise as it was a familiar one. A towering armoured figure stepped forward, holding a wooden box. It didn't take a genius to realize that her head was inside the box.

Haider had his helmet off, revealing his near-white blonde hair and sharp red eyes. He still looked the same as Luca remembered, but he felt completely different.

Since he was a mage, he could clearly pick up the immense aura that the man emanated. It was a suffocating atmosphere that threatened to smother all his senses.

One thing was clear. He was far stronger than any Bronze Knight could hope to be.

The man handed Luca the wooden box.

"We dug into her and the other victims, and she was the only one with no immediate family. No parents, children or a husband. The only next of kin were the two of you, and seeing as you're already here, well."

Luca opened the box to view the expression Mina wore when she died. Her face was contorted, but not in complete agony. There was a mixture of rage, and some hope?

It wasn't clear. He shut the wooden lid once more.

"A quick death does nothing to soothe my wound. She was in pain, and this could have been prevented if the city council and city officials had done something to deal with the plague," he said.

Luca's bright blue eyes bore into Haider's red ones.

There was a small pause.

"I remember you, kid."

"Am I supposed to care?" he scoffed. Perhaps this was the only time he would be able to get away with talking to a high-ranking church official like this.

"No, but there's very little that could have been done to change the situation. The baron wasn't infected with the plague until the very last second before he was corrupted."

At this point Luca couldn't help but go silent, because he had no way to refute this statement. What happened sounded like his encounter with the corrupted knight that watched the Sky Tyrant.

It had caught even him off guard, and he couldn't use any spells to fight lest it triggered the very sensitive creature.

If Luca was under such dire straits, he couldn't imagine how it must have felt for Mina and the other apprentices.

Another figure came up to Haider whilst he was lost in thought.

Luca glanced up with a surprised expression.

Finley stood next to Haider with a smug smile on his face. He was every bit as arrogant as Luca remembered.

The occurrence was so strange that he couldn't help but think of the vision he saw. Him against Haider and Finley surrounded by multiple blurred figures.

'Have they figured me out? Is this a trap?'

Dozens of questions and thoughts sped through his head like an unfeigned horse. Eventually, though, he came to the conclusion that this wasn't the scene he saw.

"I still can't believe that creature's blood stained my clothes. Bit sad that those broads died so quick, they were rather good looking, especially the one that survived the longest." Finley snarled.

"Don't talk to me like we're friends."

"Tch, you gotta lighten up."

Haider simply said nothing and walked away. He gave Luca one last sympathetic look, while Finley cast a cursory glance at he and Humphrey then followed the man.

Meanwhile, the exorcist's statement still rung through Luca's head constantly.

If he had no hatred for Finley before, he did now. He drew in a huge breath and cleared his head. The goal was clear and simple now.

He handed the box with Mina's head over to Humphrey.

"Can you handle the funeral rites? I'll pay my part, and attend when the time comes."

"Alright, I will." Humphrey nodded, then asked with a small pause, "What do you plan to do?"

Luca turned and walked onto the street to his house. The district had already gotten over the novelty of the event and gone on with their days. It was hardly a small reminder of the insignificance of individual lives in the grand scheme of things.

When Old Humphrey asked the question, the answer came to him smoothly.

"I'm going to do what needs to be done."