He stepped down from the Altar and made his way through the crowd.
They created a path for him.
Despite their anger, no one dared confront someone who had awakened a Mythic Talent.
They whispered, of course, few were brave enough to spit slurs, but none dared block his path.
As he neared the exit, Percival's eyes caught one of the organizers, a short man in purple robes, trotting toward him.
"Please hold, dear Hero," he called. "You must register with a guild before departure. It is mandatory for every new Awakener, you see. Guilds provide education, Gate World permits, parties and other types of aid—"
Percival interrupted him quietly. "Have you forgotten the king's orders already?"
The man blinked, tilting his small round head. "Mhm?"
"The king has forbidden anyone from aiding me," Percival explained. "Guilds are under the crown, are they not?"
The man's cheeks were as red as cherries. "W-Well… yes, but surely His Majesty didn't—"
"We must obey the king's command. Else the Guilds—and you—could be punished."
Percival's tone was flat, almost polite. He had lived in this world long enough that his manner of speech had changed.
The man stuttered, glanced nervously at a Guild Scout standing nearby, then sighed. "Very well. I'll take you to the house the king allocated for you."
Percival wanted to refuse, but knew the king was legally bound to provide him lodging.
The Summoning Contract's chains of law.
He wasn't naive enough to believe it would be a good one, but he recognized how invaluable shelter was in this unpredictable world.
They rode in an ancient carriage for hours. The horse was old and lazy, the wood older and creaky.
Past the glittering towers of the more popular counties and towns of Metrodorian, they slowly arrived at the edges of the capital where marble gave way to cobblestone, and cobblestone to dirt.
A lonely district wedged between two powerful provinces: Metrodorian and Northmarch.
Percival saw the sign hanging crookedly over a street read.
This was Withercrook.
He had never even visited this place before in the former timeline. It looked forsaken, forgotten by both paint and prayer.
By people as well.
The houses leaned on each other like drunks. Roofs sagged. A window creaked a mournful song, swinging in the silent, cold wind's grip.
The few houses that had doors had cracked ones, old and withered. Others sucked in the chill air with mouths wide open.
In the corners of alleys, Percival could see stray dogs gnawing on bones—hopefully the bones of animals.
Hopefully.
The organizer cracked the whip and the carriage came to a stop.
"This is it," he announced.
Percival looked at the place they had stopped.
It was a small brick house. Old, just like the rest of them, but with a little life left in it.
It had a door at least, one hanging on by a single hinge, and the windows were boarded shut. Like the rest of Withercrook, it smelled of rust and dust.
"It's… modest," the man added weakly. "But suitable for one person."
Percival said nothing. He got down from the carriage and stopped to take a better look at his new residence.
The cracked walls, the spiderwebs, the roof that surely had leakage, it was a yawning disparity to the mansion he had lived in in the former timeline.
But despite the difference in quality, this old, grim house was infinitely more valuable to Percival than that gilded mansion.
While the mansion might have given him comfort then, this house meant freedom.
"You'll receive a weekly barrow of food from a wagoner starting tomorrow. There is a market east of here, just about a twenty-minute walk, in case you require anything else.
"Avoid the streets at night… Bandits, you see. There are many of them here in Withercrook."
Bandits. They were the outcasts of society who failed to appear for their awakenings and were forcefully given the criminal Class.
Percival knew them well. He'd tussled with Syndicates in his past life.
"Is that all?" he looked at the man and asked.
The man gaped at him like he'd lost his mind. "You would rather live in this pile of filth than help us save millions of lives?" he asked, bitter and bashful.
Percival reacted with only a brow raise. "That is all I guess. You may go now."
The organizer looked ready to explode. But knowing he couldn't dare challenge an Awakener, talk more of one with a Mythic Talent, he merely half-bowed and hurried off.
The hoofbeats of the old horse echoed in the back of Percival's mind as he approached his new home and stepped through the door.
The hinges creaked like old bones. A rat darted across the floor and disappeared under a shelf.
That was a problem. Percival despised rats.
He promised himself to hunt the beast later as he took a slow look around.
The air was dry, but the walls were sturdier than they looked. There was a table, a chair, and a bed missing half its frame.
It wasn't plenty. But all of it was his.
If King Alfred thought this would make him crawl back, begging to reclaim the Hero's mantle, he was terribly mistaken.
Percival closed the door and leaned against it, exhaling quietly.
He would clean this house, and fix whatever was broken. He would make something out of it.
But he would do it later.
For now, he was too excited, too overwhelmed with disbelief and questions that he wanted answered.
The first of many was: how could a Swordsman also be a Necromancer?
He summoned his status. Both of them appeared at will.
Realizing he had to be more precise, he focused on the Swordsman Status Screen and dismissed it.
The Necromancer screen remained, the blue flaming skull glaring at him.
Percival sat on the wooden chair.
It was time to study his new power.
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