Remire Village was, in Byleth's eyes, a rather unremarkable place.
It was quiet. Peaceful. Modest. Just another nameless dot on the map they passed through during the mercenary company's latest journey through the Kingdom.
There was nothing about the village that should have drawn her attention. No strategic value, no political significance. No bandits to fight, no nobles to escort. Just another stop between jobs.
And yet—there was something.
Or rather…someone.
Byleth had encountered many strange things in her life. But this man—this stranger who had arrived in Remire a few days before her group—was unique in a way she couldn't quite put into words.
At a glance, one might mistake him for someone from Duscur. His tanned skin set him apart from the pale-faced villagers who greeted her with cautious smiles.
But that impression didn't last long.
The man's hair shimmered gold in the sunlight—unnaturally so. It glittered faintly, as if kissed by magic. Some of the other mercenaries had even started a betting pool, speculating whether his unusual features were the result of a Crest, or perhaps the legacy of a noble bloodline.
Byleth, of course, paid such rumors no mind. Her father had always told her to let him handle any dealings with nobles.
Still, even she found it difficult not to stare.
Not just because of the golden hair.
The man was missing an arm.
When someone had dared to ask him about it, he had only given a short reply:
"I was born like this."
That answer had sparked even more gossip. Some claimed he had been a noble child, cast aside because of his deformity. Others suggested he had been cursed, or worse—experimented on.
As for Byleth… she wasn't sure what to make of him.
She had only spoken to him once. A brief exchange, nothing more. But that moment had stayed with her.
The man—Goetia, as he introduced himself—was strange. Not dangerous. Just... different.
He rarely spoke. Kept to himself. The villagers said he hardly left his small room at the inn, only going out to fetch water or stare at the sky.
Byleth understood that kind of solitude.
She, too, had always found human interaction to be difficult. Emotions were like a second language—one she'd never truly learned. But this man, with his unreadable eyes and quiet demeanor, seemed to speak that language even less fluently than she did.
Perhaps that's what made her remember their meeting so clearly.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
It was the first time Byleth had entered the village since their group had arrived.
They were only staying for a week, so she hadn't seen much of a reason to explore. Most of her time had been spent at the camp on the outskirts—training, sharpening her weapons, or simply sitting in silence. It wasn't that she disliked villages like this. She just didn't find anything worth the effort in them.
They were all the same, really.
So when her father insisted—no, ordered—her to leave the camp and stretch her legs, she didn't argue. Not outwardly, at least. He'd noticed she'd been cooped up for days, only leaving to hunt in the surrounding woods. She didn't need to hunt, strictly speaking, but the practice helped keep her senses sharp.
And it gave her something to do.
Now, walking through the village's quiet streets, she found it exactly as she expected.
Ordinary.
The kind of place where the days passed slowly. Where the biggest event was probably a lost chicken or the harvest festival.
She was just about to turn back when a familiar sensation prickled at the back of her neck.
She was being watched.
Her body reacted instantly. Her shoulders stiffened. Her hand hovered near her weapon—not reaching for it, just... ready.
Her eyes turned, slow and cautious.
And met someone else's.
Bright red eyes.
The man standing across from her was impossible to miss, even if he'd tried to blend in. His skin was dark, a deep bronze that contrasted sharply against the dull brown robes he wore. His golden hair shimmered like sunlight caught in motion—bright and unnatural, almost unreal. It clashed with everything else about him.
So the gossip had been true after all.
She had overheard a few of the others talking about him—"some one-armed man with hair like stars."
She'd dismissed it as exaggeration.
But now, standing face-to-face with him, Byleth realized they hadn't exaggerated enough.
They stared at each other in silence.
Her lavender eyes locked with his crimson ones, both laced with curiosity. Though her expression stayed blank, her mind was already analyzing him.
He looked plain on the surface, but there was something about the way he carried himself. Calm. Still. Watchful.
Then, slowly, he began to walk toward her.
She didn't move, but her muscles tensed on instinct.
There was no killing intent in him—nothing threatening—but something about his presence was... heavy.
Not oppressive. Just large, like standing beneath a vast sky you couldn't quite comprehend.
Is this how I make others feel? she wondered.
When he stopped just a few steps away, his gaze didn't waver.
"You're new here," he said. His voice was calm. Flat. Almost thoughtful.
She didn't answer right away. Just gave a short shake of her head.
"Oh?" he raised an eyebrow, then nodded slowly, as if confirming something to himself. "You're with the sellswords camped outside the village."
This time, she nodded.
The tanned man stared at her for a moment longer before shifting his gaze to the village around them.
His crimson eyes swept lazily over the townsfolk going about their day. Farmers chatted near the well. Children ran past with wooden swords. A merchant argued over the price of carrots.
There was no emotion in his expression. No warmth. No judgment.
Just observation.
"What do you think of this place?" he asked without looking at her. "I assume your profession brings you to many... centers of civilization."
Byleth remained silent.
It was a town. She had seen plenty. Small, quiet, unremarkable. Nothing worth noting.
She opened her mouth to give a vague answer, but—
"It's uninspired," he said, beating her to it. "Rather mundane... a simplicity to it that renders it unassuming. Ordinarily unworthy of further study."
His tone was calm. Cold, even. Almost academic.
Byleth blinked.
It wasn't that she disagreed. If anything, he had said exactly what she'd been thinking.
But how had he known?
"You're wondering how I knew your answer," he said, as if reading her thoughts again. "It's in your eyes. There was no spark of discovery when you arrived. Only a quiet disappointment that everything was as expected."
Her brows furrowed, just slightly.
People rarely read her that well.
Her face didn't show much. It never had. Even her father had mentioned it—called it unnerving, sometimes.
It was part of the reason she'd earned her moniker among mercenaries: The Ashen Demon.
But this man saw right through her.
It was... unsettling.
And oddly fascinating.
"What is your name, child?" he asked suddenly, tilting his head slightly. His voice had changed—gentle, almost indulgent. Like an adult humoring a child.
Byleth narrowed her eyes.
He didn't look much older than she was.
"What's yours?" she asked back, flatly.
He chuckled—quiet and low, more breath than laughter.
"A trade, then?" he mused. "I reveal my name in exchange for yours. Very well... I am Goetia. A simple traveler."
Goetia.
The name sounded foreign. She'd never heard it before.
Then again, she hadn't met many people from outside Fódlan. Her travels as a mercenary had mostly kept her within its borders.
"I'm Byleth," she replied simply.
They fell into silence once more. He returned to observing the village.
She, meanwhile, observed him.
He was strange. Not in a dangerous way, but in the way a puzzle was strange—hard to figure out, yet oddly compelling.
Then, without turning his head, he spoke again.
"My appearance is unusual to you."
It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
He gave her a sidelong glance. "A blunt affirmation. Efficient, though others might take offense."
"You're not," she said plainly.
"No," Goetia nodded in quiet agreement. "You could say you are fortunate in that regard… though I suspect you have little experience with human interaction."
Byleth frowned slightly.
That wasn't true. She spoke with her father. She exchanged words with others in the mercenary band. She—
Her thoughts paused.
Ah. Maybe he had a point.
It wasn't that she couldn't talk to people. She just didn't do it often. And when she did, the conversations were short. Functional. She had always found it easier to swing a sword than hold a conversation.
"I imagine your curiosity is natural," Goetia continued, voice even. "Many in this village are curious. I hear the whispers often."
"They're afraid of you?" she asked, tilting her head slightly.
He didn't look threatening. A man with one arm wasn't exactly intimidating. Unless he was a mage… Given his unusual appearance, that wouldn't be too surprising.
Goetia followed her gaze to his missing limb, then raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps not in a physical sense. But I am... unknown to them. And there are few things humans fear more than the unknown."
His gaze drifted back toward the villagers, his expression unreadable.
"That fear remains the same, no matter where you go."
"You've traveled a lot, then?" she asked.
"I have," he replied with a nod. "Though I only recently arrived in Fódlan. These days, I travel more for curiosity's sake than purpose."
She nodded. That sounded reasonable enough. Curiosity seemed like a good reason to see the world.
"What do you think of Fódlan?" she asked, partly out of politeness, partly out of interest.
Goetia frowned.
"It's…" he paused, searching for the right word. "…very much like this village. Uninspired."
Byleth couldn't really argue. She hadn't seen enough of the world herself to say otherwise. Her life had mostly been battlefields and temporary camps, not cities and culture.
The silence returned again, soft and comfortable.
Then, after a few moments, Goetia spoke.
"I believe I've taken enough of your time, Byleth."
His tone was polite, almost mechanical. His eyes dulled once more to that same empty, unreadable gaze from before. With a small nod, he turned and walked away.
She watched him go, almost impressed.
Despite his striking appearance—golden hair, red eyes, tanned skin, one arm—he melted into the crowd with surprising ease. As if he'd never been there at all.
Byleth stood still, thinking about their conversation.
Just one thought echoed clearly in her mind:
Goetia is a strange man.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Goetia turned another page in the worn book resting on his lap.
This small village had very little in the way of a library—If this could even be called a library, it was a generous use of the word.
It's more like a modest collection of texts used by the handful of literate villagers in this remote little town.
He let out a soft hum, eyes scanning the words absently as his thoughts drifted back to the young woman he'd encountered the night before.
He had sensed her arrival the moment she stepped into the village. The bounded field he'd quietly placed around the area had reacted immediately, those bounded fields are just a simple precaution he made while he stayed here. He had no intention of meddling with this world's humans. But that didn't mean he'd ignore anything that piqued his curiosity.
And someone wandering into his territory with a Magic Core definitely qualified.
Fódlan's magical system was still somewhat foreign to him, though it hadn't taken long to grasp the fundamentals.
If he was being honest, though, it left much to be desired.
The spells used in this world were certainly more visibly potent than those of the modern magi from his own universe. But their structure—how they were built and understood—was disappointingly simple. There was little in the way of deeper research or advanced theory. Most spells remained in their base forms, rarely evolving into anything more.
Their schools of magic seemed limited to the four basic elements—Fire, Thunder, Wind, and Ice. Some minor differences existed when compared to his own world's elemental systems, but their limitations were familiar.
Like the magi of his own time, they seemed shackled by tradition and lack of innovation.
And then there were two additional fields that had caught his attention.
First, Dark Magic.
From what he could tell, this was just a more theatrical term for curses—dangerous, corrupting spells designed to weaken the body or mind. A Miasma spell he had seen demonstrated that quite clearly.
Then, there was Faith Magic.
At first, he thought it was a joke. Magic that depended on someone's religious fervor? Absurd.
But the more he learned, the more he understood. Fódlan's magical education wasn't built around personal craft or family traditions. Instead, it was institutional. Uniform. Students simply chose a field—say, Reason or Faith—and studied all the spells within it, no matter their personal affinities.
There was no encouragement to experiment or innovate. No interest in discovering new applications or deeper truths. Their only focus seemed to be making magic more efficient… for killing.
One thing he had taken note of during his time here was the presence of so-called "Crests."
At first glance, they bore little resemblance to the ones he was familiar with—save for one key similarity: they were inherited through blood.
Beyond that, they lacked the mystique or complexity he had come to expect.
Ordinary, even.
Mundane.
That is, until he discovered that some of them allowed their bearers to wield what the locals referred to as "Heroes' Relics."
Interesting... He had yet to see one in person, but from the descriptions alone, he suspected they were either potent Mystic Codes—or perhaps this world's crude equivalent of Noble Phantasms.
He would need direct contact to be certain.
His earlier brush with the Levin Sword had already confirmed that Mystic Codes—though primitive—existed here. Yet even that revelation had left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Every artifact he encountered seemed designed for one purpose only: the killing of other humans... and in disturbingly brutal ways.
It was things like this that had once pushed him to try and rewrite history altogether.
But the family crests... They nagged at him.
There had to be more beneath the surface.
Unfortunately, much of the knowledge surrounding them was jealously guarded by the noble houses, hidden away like a dirty secret.
Without access to a sample or a cooperative host, he was left with little choice but to speculate.
Still, that girl—Byleth, was it?
She was... different.
An anomaly.
From what he had observed, she possessed something akin to a Magic Core. Or at least, the closest equivalent he'd seen in this world. Yet it appeared to be dormant. Inactive. Almost as though she wasn't even aware of it.
That, in itself, was odd. She didn't strike him as the type who would be granted such a thing.
The King of Britain had only obtained hers through Merlin's direct intervention. And she used it. Constantly.
So then—why Byleth? Was she given hers for a similar purpose?
What puzzled him more was the nature of the core itself. It wasn't just powerful. It radiated divinity.
If he were anyone else—if he hadn't studied divine constructs extensively—he might've mistaken her for a full-blooded Goddess.
No... perhaps something even stranger.
A failed vessel? A pseudo-servant whose human host had resisted the will of their divine possessor?
The possibilities intrigued him. Not because she posed any threat to him—but because she didn't belong here.
She was unique.
Not to him.
But to this world.
He let out a quiet hum, flipping another page of the book he had been reading—"The Official History of Fódlan, Volume XII."
A fitting title, though the content inside was... dubious at best.
Omission of key events, over-glorified battles, suspiciously convenient timelines.
The whole thing reeked of state-sanctioned propaganda.
Still, for a fabricated tale, it provided at least a rudimentary understanding of this land's history.
And that, for now, would suffice.
And yet, despite knowing he'd have to continue his journey—venturing further across this strange land to observe more of its people—he realized something with uncomfortable clarity:
He had already reached his conclusion.
The humans of this world… were the same.
Almost indistinguishably so.
And that revelation infuriated him.
—or perhaps infuriated wasn't quite the right word.
It troubled him. Deeply.
This world, much like his own, was structured around a rigid caste system.
The nobility, those fortunate enough to inherit crests, reigned at the top. The commoners, the "low-born," existed beneath them—dismissed, scorned, and belittled. It wasn't uncommon to hear nobles speak of the masses as though they were animals. Marginally intelligent beasts in need of a firm guiding hand.
The arrogance. The stupidity.
And then there was the Church of Serios—an institution that, in his view, only served to reinforce this twisted hierarchy.
They preached love for the Goddess as the highest virtue. But in practice? That love was demanded, not nurtured.
If you didn't adore the Goddess and all she stood for, you were labeled a heretic—cast out, ridiculed, even punished.
Tolerance? Acceptance? Mere lip service. Anyone who held to another faith—or questioned the church's dogma—was treated with thinly veiled contempt.
So much for divine compassion.
Worse still, the Church glorified the crests as divine "Gifts of the Goddess." An ideology that conveniently upheld the status quo.
And yet… he couldn't entirely deny the claim.
He had encountered a noble recently—one who bore a crest. The trace elements of divinity within the man were unmistakable. Faint, but present.
So yes. Perhaps the crests were gifts from a divine source.
But that didn't justify the system built around them.
In fact, the Seiros faith was hardly any different from the countless religions he had encountered before.
Repetitive. Predictable. Uninspired.
He had expected more. Hoped for more.
If this world was meant to be a fresh slate—another humanity untouched by his past actions—then why did they echo the same mistakes? Why did their cruelty, their arrogance, their blind devotion to false ideals mirror the humans of his own world so perfectly?
He had wanted to understand.
To grasp what it was that Solomon saw in humanity. What made them so precious, so worthy of salvation.
So far, his hopes remained unfulfilled.
Even in this strange new world—one untouched by his past—the nature of humanity still shone through.
And it was just as maddening as ever.
That girl… Byleth.
She, at the very least, seemed to share a portion of his perspective. She had looked upon this town with the same hollow disappointment he now felt for the world. There was nothing remarkable about this place. Nothing worthy of awe or inspiration.
He had seen it before.
The same cruelty. The same injustice.
Only dressed in different colors.
Three thousand years he had spent watching humanity, and all this world had done was present the same twisted reflection. A fresh coat of paint, maybe. But the rot underneath was identical.
Still, the rage—the incandescent hatred that once consumed him—was gone.
In its place, only disappointment remained.
Disappointment in them... and in himself.
Humans, he had learned, never met his expectations. But perhaps the true failure was his inability to understand them in the first place.
Why did they continue?
Why did peasants, born into hardship and destined to be trampled underfoot, carry on with their lives as though it meant something? Why didn't they simply end it, or rise up and shatter the chains that bound them?
Why did they smile?
Why did they laugh, love, struggle—when the very world they lived in was built to break them?
It made no sense.
He still remembered that final confrontation—Fujimaru Ritsuka standing before him. A single human. One child. Fighting him not for power, not for vengeance—but simply because they wanted to live.
Why?
Why did they fight so hard just to continue a life filled with pain and fleeting joy?
Why struggle so desperately for something so impermanent?
As a commoner, no matter what you did, no matter how brilliant or noble your deeds, you would eventually be forgotten by history. Erased by time.
So then—why?
That was the question he now wandered this continent to answer.
What was he missing?
What hidden truth, what invisible force, drove humans to endure—to persist—in the face of overwhelming unfairness?
He didn't know.
But he intended to find out.
Until he discovered what made human life so... precious—he would continue searching.
"—!"
His eyes snapped up from the pages of the book, his attention immediately drawn to the disturbance.
His head turned sharply to the left.
The bounded field had been triggered.
Four individuals had entered its radius.
He narrowed his gaze.
Their presence was unmistakable.
Nobles.
Their crests burned like brand-marks—radiating signatures too loud, too arrogant to hide.
Oh...?
His expression shifted, curiosity blooming like a ripple across still water.
He rested a hand against his chin, humming quietly.
What is this...?
He had initially sensed four signatures. Four distinct crest-bearers.
But only three individuals had entered the field.
How... peculiar.
From what he had gathered, each human could inherit only a single crest. That was the rule, the accepted structure of their blood-based system. And yet, standing before him was a contradiction to that law—one human, carrying two crests.
Fascinating.
He narrowed his eyes, focusing further. More were crossing into his bounded field now—commoners, mercenaries, or perhaps opportunistic bandits. Their intentions were unmistakable: impure, malicious.
He felt the urge to sigh.
Once again, humanity's violent tendencies rose to the surface.
Ordinarily, he would leave such petty skirmishes to the local mercenary band. It was hardly worth his time.
But this—this was different.
An opportunity had presented itself.
A chance to observe the function of crests in live combat... and more importantly, to see what she would do.
The girl with the Divine Core.
The one that radiated a faint trace of divinity—so unnatural, so misplaced in this world.
Would she wield that power? Or continue to suppress it?
He stood slowly, his movements calm and deliberate. The old book he had been reading closed with a soft thump in his hands.
Pulling his robe around his shoulders, he stepped away from the makeshift library.
The commotion wasn't far now. Screams. The clatter of blades. The rising tension in the mana around them.
He moved toward it with the measured pace of a scholar heading to an experiment—not a battlefield.
He would not intervene.
But that didn't mean he wouldn't watch.