Four Hearts for the Wise - Chapter 2

The chill wind brushing against her cheek made Kalia open her eyes. Still groggy, she blinked a few times before suddenly springing up. Her abrupt movement caused the items she had been holding to roll off and scatter on the ground.

“Oh no, not this!”

Kalia quickly bent down to gather the fallen items. They were things she had purchased for an errand, and losing even one would spell trouble. Counting the items as she picked them up, she sighed in relief once she confirmed everything was accounted for.

But then, a question lingered in her mind: How did I even fall asleep here?

Her body felt cold, a clear sign she had been resting on the chilled ground for far too long. Looking up, she noticed the sky had grown dark, the moon slowly emerging into view. Hastily checking the condition of the scattered items, Kalia began hurrying back to the village. The day had already passed; it was far too late now.

She was so exhausted that she had fallen asleep in the spot she sat down to rest. She shook her body and lightly patted herself to loosen her stiff limbs.

Lately, Kalia had been taking on far too much work. In fact, she was doing things she didn’t even need to do. This was mostly due to her inability to refuse requests. Her kind and accommodating nature made her an easy target for others to rely on.

Among the students she lived with, she had earned the reputation of being the “most convenient person to exploit.”

This errand was no exception. It wasn’t originally Kalia’s responsibility at all.

Walking briskly toward the village, Kalia recalled the tearful plea of her friend from earlier that morning.

—”Kalia, could you please run this errand for me instead?”

—”What? Again? Are you still not over your cold?”

—”No, the cold’s gone, but… Look at this.”

Her friend had casually extended a foot toward her. Wrapped in bandages, the ankle was slightly swollen. Even at a glance, Kalia could tell it was only a minor injury.

—”Did you hurt yourself?”

—”Yeah, I sprained it yesterday while climbing the mountain to gather herbs. With my foot like this, I can’t possibly walk all the way to that distant village, can I?”

Kalia was the type who would listen to people’s circumstances and do her best to accommodate, nodding along even if the story seemed exaggerated. As long as it wasn’t a lie, she’d accept it without much resistance.

But this time, even Kalia had her doubts.

—”It doesn’t look that serious… You were just running around a moment ago…”

—”Ah, it really hurts! It does! The injury could get worse! I can walk a little, but there’s no way I can go all the way to the village. I’ll cover for you next time, I promise!”

Normally, Kalia would have immediately agreed. However, this time, she had something she didn’t want to give up. For once, she hesitated before speaking.

—”But… I have a class this evening…”

—”Kalia. Kalia, come on. Please? I’ll make it up to you twice next time, okay? Twice!”

—”Uh… Uh, okay…?”

“Haha! Thanks so much!”

The words Kalia blurted out were vague, uncertain at best. But as soon as her friend heard them, she laughed and quickly dashed away, remarkably fast for someone with an injured foot.

Watching her friend’s retreating figure, Kalia scratched the back of her head in frustration. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. Even though the task had been suddenly dumped on her, Kalia thought she could finish it quickly and still make it back in time for her class. After all, she wasn’t heartless enough to keep refusing someone who was tearfully pleading for help.

Just as Kalia turned to prepare for her errand, she heard the sound of laughter coming from the direction her friend had run. Slinging the errand bag over her shoulder, Kalia glanced in that direction. Her friend was laughing, clearly amused by something. There was someone else with her, gesturing toward Kalia while saying something, though Kalia assumed she must have been imagining it. She quickly averted her gaze, brushing off the moment as unimportant.

As she walked, Kalia couldn’t help but think, Why does it feel like there are so many people around me getting sick or hurt lately?

The truth, however, was that all their excuses—the colds, the minor injuries, the fatigue—were just that: excuses. They were carefully crafted reasons designed to elicit sympathy and offload tasks they didn’t want to do. And in the magic tower where orphans lived, there was no better target for such manipulation than Kalia.

To put it bluntly, she was a pushover.

As long as no outright lies were involved, Kalia would accept almost any request with a nod.

She called the other orphans her “friends,” seeing them as people in the same situation as herself. But did they truly see her as a friend? Of course they did. After all, where else could they find such a convenient and accommodating companion?

This “friend,” this perfect pushover, was named Kalia.

It was an ordinary name, possibly the most common name on the continent—perhaps even in the entire world. There wasn’t anything particularly special about how she came to have this name. She simply had no one who cared enough to give her a name with meaning.

Kalia had no parents. She was raised by a plain, unremarkable wizard who took in several orphans and used them as helpers for menial tasks. He wasn’t especially famous but wasn’t entirely unknown either—a wizard neither notable nor completely insignificant. Just an ordinary wizard, the kind you could find anywhere.

The wizard’s financial situation wasn’t great, but thanks to him, Kalia had food to eat and a roof over her head. For an orphan with no known origins, she had been fairly lucky. The same was true for the other orphans who had grown up alongside her in the modest magic tower located in a rural village.

The chores they did as children gradually turned into more demanding tasks as they grew older. While they were never paid properly, none of the orphans openly voiced their dissatisfaction. By the time they were old enough to have complaints, they usually left the tower.

Once they became adults, the orphans moved on to live independently. Most stayed a few extra years before leaving, and there was a specific reason for that.

As unpleasant as the wizard’s personality was, he had some semblance of a conscience—or perhaps he simply became attached to the children over time. When the orphans reached adulthood, he would teach them basic magic.

For many of them, this was the incentive to endure just a little longer. Learning even the most rudimentary magic gave them a chance to enroll in an academy later on, which they all dreamed of doing.

In truth, the wizard didn’t teach magic advanced enough to guarantee a direct admission into the academy. However, even knowing a single spell beforehand was advantageous for enrollment, and having some basic magical knowledge when striking out on one’s own was undeniably useful—even if one didn’t attend the academy.

Moreover, there was an age limit for learning magic. Adults couldn’t use magic immediately for a year or two, even after becoming eligible. Though the learning process was mostly theoretical at first, none of the orphans wanted to miss their chance.

Because of this, on the days when the wizard’s “lessons” took place, the orphans would arrange their schedules meticulously. They either cleared their workload for the day, finished their tasks early, or planned ahead to ensure nothing clashed with the lessons. If someone happened to be assigned the chore rotation on a lesson day, they were deeply resentful.

But the orphans had a solution for this problem.

They found a pushover.

Kalia was already an adult and fully eligible to learn magic. Yet, she had never once attended a single lesson. Despite shouldering the bulk of the tower’s chores, she didn’t receive even the meager benefits that the others did simply by living there.

If Kalia had firmly refused all the requests thrown her way, she wouldn’t have ended up at such a disadvantage. However, she couldn’t bring herself to reject those who pleaded with her in tearful, weak voices. The accumulation of her initial acts of kindness snowballed until she found herself stuck in her current position.

What was even more ridiculous was that Kalia didn’t find any of this unfair. She didn’t even realize how this made her the perfect target for exploitation.

“Did I sleep too much? Why did the day pass so quickly?”

Even now, she was blissfully ignorant, worrying over trivial matters while completely forgetting what had happened that morning.

“Oh no, don’t tell me the lesson’s already over!”

The day was slipping away rapidly. The sky was darker than usual, the kind of heavy gloom that seemed to hang low over the world. Something about the dimness felt unsettling today, a strange weight pressing down on her.

And then she noticed something drifting through the air.

“Is it snowing again?”

Kalia reached a hand toward the sky to confirm what it was. It was midwinter, so snow wouldn’t have been unusual. However, what filled the sky was not snow.

It was ash.

Kalia brushed the ash between her fingers, and the spot she touched darkened.

A cold sweat ran down her back.

Shaking off her unnecessary thoughts, she quickened her pace. The drifting ash made the sky seem darker than usual, and while she’d fallen asleep in an isolated spot, it felt strange that she hadn’t encountered a single person on her way back.

Something was off.

It was too quiet.

The silence was eerie. There were no birds chirping or the occasional cries of wild animals.

As she walked, the smell of burning grew stronger—not the sharp scent of something ablaze, but the stale stench of ashes left behind from something already burned.

Before she could even begin to process what was happening, Kalia spotted the village signpost. Or rather, what remained of it. The wooden board was charred black, barely retaining its original shape.

Her steps grew faster. In her hurry, she stumbled, and several fruits from her bag rolled onto the ground. But Kalia didn’t stop to pick them up.

Then she froze.

“Why… is everything destroyed?”

At her feet, an old wooden sign lay partially burned and broken. This area was usually lively, and when she arrived late in the evening after finishing an errand, the warmth and noise of the nearby tavern often greeted her like a welcoming beacon.

But now, there was nothing familiar about the scene around her.

Everything in the village had been reduced to ashes, charred beyond recognition. The only signs that there had once been buildings here were the blackened rubble, scorched wooden beams, and bits of smoldering debris scattered about.

Kalia’s heart pounded in her chest. There was no one here.

The sky, growing darker by the minute, only made the flickering embers stand out more vividly against the ruins.

Her mind couldn’t process what she was seeing. All she could do was stare at the glowing sparks rising into the air.

“What on earth happened here? The tower—our magic tower—what about it?”

Nearly stumbling, Kalia broke into a run. She relied entirely on memory to navigate the near-complete ruin of her surroundings, trying desperately to locate the tower. If only a few buildings had burned, she might have had an easier time finding her way, but with everything in ashes, it was impossible to tell where she was.

The destruction extended far beyond the center of the village, with ash scattering even into the most isolated corners. It was clear the village had been utterly devastated.

Gripping her bag tightly, Kalia frantically searched for any sign of life. Suddenly, she caught the faint sound of voices and hurried toward them.

They must’ve evacuated somewhere safely. Maybe I’m just late to hear the news.

The closer she got, the more her face brightened with relief.

But she had to stop abruptly when she finally saw them.

It was a group of people—but not in the form she had hoped.

“A survivor!”

Soldiers.

Their polished silver armor gleamed faintly in the dim light, the insignia on their breastplates unmistakable.

It was the crest of Ramiyakea, the Holy Kingdom.

Kalia’s breath caught in her throat. A ruined village, soldiers from the Holy Kingdom, and their cold, purposeful movements. There was only one possible meaning behind all of this.

“Seize her!”

The bag slipped from Kalia’s trembling hands, the sound of its contents hitting the ground echoing faintly in her ears. Before she could think, she turned and ran.

“No, this can’t be happening! Not our village—there must be some mistake!”

But there was no way a civilian like her could outrun trained soldiers. Her escape attempt was short-lived, and she was quickly captured.

The knights surrounded her, shouting as though to make their announcement heard far and wide.

“The last one!”

“We’ve found the final dark mage!”

Kalia’s body froze, her skin turning deathly pale as terror gripped her.