Paina Wattle didn’t like Viers.

She felt Viers was full of lies, his intentions were covered with fogs. He’s powerful but dangerous, a volatile combination. She also couldn’t accept Viers’ readiness to murder fellow humans if need be.

She was from a poor fatherless family. Her mother, her sole family in this world was no more. With what little money she had left, Paina enrolled in Luxore town’s adventurer’s Training Center. To receive education, to become an adventurer, and find the father who mysteriously left her and her mother.

She first met Viers and Farley there. The three of them had water affinity so they were grouped together for water-themed training.

Farley was friendly and her assertiveness towards the shy Paina broke the ice between them soon enough. They became best friends.

Paina remembered Viers was a nice and a very diligent person back then. He was always busy training by himself. His attitude seemed like he was pushing people away but Paina saw things differently. Viers was just awkward. When she talked to him, he wasn’t as scary or distanced as it seemed.

There were ups and downs during her one year term in the Training Center. She wasn’t the best, but to meet her father and to know the truth Paina took her studies very seriously.

There was another who practiced far more than her, Viers.

Even with all his training, Viers was weaker than the rest of his classmates. Paina and Farley were a touch stronger. Still, Viers’ managed to keep up with the others and overcome the stigma of lower affinity using practice and ingenuity.

Viers had more solo training sessions than with their group but when he did, he often taught Paina helpful tips and tricks.

Seasons went on, spring became winter in the course of months. The Training Center’s term was one year. Paina thought she would safely graduate and become an adventurer soon. Moving village by village, town to town, until Valkut city. The address her mother told her before she died.

“Find your father in Valkut city,” she said on her deathbed.

Then on winter’s solstice, calamity struck Luxore town. Her graduation never came.

Blood, darkness, and death.

When she came to, she was already inside Viers’ soulspace.

Viers told her the gist of things. Somehow, she survived as a soul because Viers considered her a friend. He offered to take her to Valkut city to see her father and resurrect her and the other girls when he can.

Paina’s mind was a mess. She hadn’t come to terms with her situation yet but Viers had to move. People would want to know what happened in Luxore and Viers was a lead so she and the rest of the girls got dragged forward by Viers.

On the way, she felt the most useless.

Viers somehow became so strong, or was he simply showing the strength he kept hidden? Paina did not know.

Farley became so devoted to him and always eager to help him.

Clarissa the lamia princess was so powerful and a fountain of ancient knowledge. Helping Viers in a way Farley and Paina couldn’t.

During their battle together with the ‘drones’ as Viers called them, she was the most useless of them all.

Paina knew among the three souls inside Viers, she was also the one who disagreed with him the most. She and Viers’ views on morality differed too much. Even Farley and Clarissa didn’t really mind when Viers killed someone. Farley was a cultist and Clarissa was a warrior princess, both had killed people.

Only Paina hadn’t.

Despite her dislike of Viers, she wished to have a body again and to see her father. Viers was the only one that could fulfill that. She hated herself for not being able to do anything.

Viers once told her about the importance of strength.

But she was weak.

Viers set on his journey to Valkut city solely for her sake but she contributed the least during the journey.

She was only an ordinary girl. She wasn’t like Farley, a former cultist with a wealth of experience about the world. Neither was she like Clarissa, a princess from the age of myth with a plethora of ancient knowledge.

What was the point of her existence? What was her role here?

The thought plagued her mind lately.

Was her dislike of Viers stemmed from her envy of his strength?

***

Farley Styra was extremely afraid of Viers.

She felt he might be the most dangerous man she had ever seen. Oh, she laid eyes on many people with stronger Levels than him but Viers had something else they don’t. She couldn’t fathom Viers’ depth.

She always felt for some inexplicable reason that what would have killed those Level 3s or Level 4s wouldn’t kill Viers.

Farley was from a family of devil worshipers and had met various dangerous people from the underworld. The fact that now she deemed Viers more dangerous than mass murderers, shadowy manipulators, and fanatical zealots told something about the recently turned 16-year-old boy.

Her fate with Viers began when her mother prophesied she would die soon and her daughters, Farley and Gwen, would die two years after that.

“Sweetheart, there’s no hope for me but there is for you. You’ll die at winter solstice two years from now. I see you and Gwen together, not breathing and lifeless… but, you’ll meet someone that can prevent that fate.”

“In my vision, it was a wolf, a gluttonous black wolf. Its paws were dyed red with blood but its body smelled like wine. Its fangs were sharp but always kept hidden. The wolf was cowardly and cautious, selfish and solitary. It likes to be seen as weak by other animals but it was all a façade. The black wolf was a vicious and remorseless predator. Its enemies only had one end, killed then eaten. Each time it fed, it grew stronger and stronger.”

“I foresee you’ll meet the wolf, in what form, when, and where, I do not know. If you tried to manipulate it, no matter how clever and meticulous your plan is, the wolf won’t help you; there’s even a great chance you’ll end up in its jaws instead. The wolf was wandering and it crossed path with you by chance. If you fail to seize the initiative to make contact with this dangerous being first, then it won’t pay attention to you as it continues to wander.”

“In my vision, there’s only one way you would survive… by giving your everything to that wolf."

Farley didn’t believe her at first but her mother really died. Officially it was because of sickness but Farley found out it was by the hands of her own father.

So Farley sought the wolf out. And after careful observation, her classmate Viers seemed to fit the bill. He was weak when they first met. A person seeking strength, she had seen many like him before. She approached him, offering strength. And Viers joined the cult, as a mercenary of sorts.

Viers only had a water affinity of 2, after using her family’s method, he possessed an affinity of 4.

She observed him more closely after that. More and more she was convinced Viers was the wolf in her mother’s vision. She came clean and told Viers’ everything, including her mother’s words. Farley asked his cooperation to kill her father before he killed her and her sister, offering her everything to Viers.

Viers accepted.

But there was one sentence from her mother’s prophecy that she didn’t tell Viers.

“In my vision, there’s only one way you would survive… by giving your everything to that wolf — and even then, the wolf won’t be your savior. It will be your salvation and doom both… I’m sorry my sweet, mother couldn’t do more for you. Choose carefully about what you’ll do when you find the wolf, my daughter. My only wish is for you and Gwen to find happiness.”

At winter’s solstice, her father sacrificed the lives of Luxore’s residents to Dumuzin, one of the seven devils. Many lives were lost during the calamity, including hers.

When she came too, she was in Viers’ soulspace. Gwen was with her as well.

Unlike Paina, she wasn’t too perturbed by the fact that they were 'dead'. In the White Flowers Meadow she was 'alive', that was all that mattered.

Unlike the rest of them, Gwen never woke up. Viers suspected her soul was injured. He promised to heal her and eventually resurrect the sisters along with Paina and Clarissa.

Farley thought she understood him after all the struggles they went through together in Luxore’s underworld but that illusion was shattered.

Viers held powers and secrets beyond her imagining. Somehow he became a dual affinity Pathseeker, affinity 4 of water and affinity 5 of soul. He also had an abnormally fast healing rate and those mysterious Fables he often made reference of.

She hoped for Gwen to be alive and live happily, her sole purpose was only that. For that to happen, Viers would need to grow strong and stay alive. So she would help him with all she had.

But Farley was full of worry.

Viers was very vocal and clear in his priorities. If there came a time when Viers had to choose between saving his own life or another’s life, he would choose his life without hesitation. He would only save another’s life when his own wasn’t endangered.

Logical.

Just as her mother prophesied, Viers was her salvation and doom. Now she and her sister’s fate were tied to this dangerous wolf.

Farley didn’t hate Viers, but she was afraid. Afraid of him and afraid of the future. Perhaps because of her mother’s words, she’d always seen Viers as a wolf. A dangerous beast that walked perilous lands where dangers lurked everywhere.

If she wasn’t a qualified person accompanying the beast in his journey then somewhere along the way, wouldn't she be forsaken? Or her help was inadequate and the beast died. Both were not the results she wanted to see.

So Farley was desperately making herself useful. To be helpful to him so she would be more beneficial to keep around rather than be left behind. While racking her brain on how to be a more capable subordinate.

Until the time she and Gwen would be resurrected and Viers released them from his service.

…If he released her at all.