Morning light crept into the quiet home in Gehenna. The scent of bread and steel filled the small kitchen where Garron, freshly shaven and nursing a warm drink, leaned back against the wall watching the new occupant stir from slumber.
Kalem stepped out from the guest room, wearing a simple black shirt and ash-gray trousers. He looked... oddly human now. Still pale, still lined with faint scars from his time in the Abyss, but more grounded without the black armor and flaming presence of myth.
"Did you sleep well?" Garron asked, setting his cup down.
"Yeah," Kalem nodded, stretching out his shoulders. "Thanks for the clothes."
"Mention not," Garron said. "Though, maybe next time, you could ask before passing out in your armor like a haunted statue."
Kalem chuckled faintly. "Didn't really notice until I woke up sore."
Briar, already up and fitting tools onto her leather apron, chimed in from the workshop doorway. "It's still fascinating. You alone brought down the entire Abyss... and yet," she grinned, "you didn't know the most well-known thing about it."
Kalem rubbed his neck, expression sheepish. "Yeah... that was a lapse in my reading habits."
"No," Garron interjected, scratching his beard. "That one's on me. When you asked about it before your descent, I laughed and figured you were joking. If I'd just explained, you'd probably have started preparing earlier."
Kalem looked between them and gave a small smile. "Either way, it's over now. I think I should get going soon."
"You just got back," Briar frowned, crossing her arms.
"True," he admitted, "but walking around openly like this... might attract trouble."
Briar tilted her head. "And that's new how?"
He offered a thin, wry smile.
In the following weeks, Kalem's warning proved prophetic.
Word spread like wildfire. The Abyss is dead. Its destroyer walks in Gehenna. That was enough to summon not just gawkers—but scavengers and scribes, hungry for secrets, leverage, or worse.
Noble envoys from distant courts arrived in flowing robes, offering titles and territories. Kalem sent them away.
Merchant princes, with gilded contracts and promises of "exclusive manufacturing rights", approached under diplomatic immunity. Kalem skimmed one page, blinked slowly, and handed it back with a quiet, "No."
A pair of battle-guild representatives—draped in muscle, steel, and too much confidence—claimed he'd make a perfect "legendary instructor." Kalem pointed them to the nearest training ground. They didn't understand that was a dismissal until they were already walking.
Then came the Alchemic Syndicates, hidden behind veils of civility. They offered to "archive" any relics he may have "retrieved" from the Abyss for preservation and academic honor. Kalem replied only, "There's nothing to preserve. It's gone."
One scholar in particular, an elder scribe from the Republic of Aurentia, pressed harder. With ivory quill and a sneer of superiority, he demanded to see "whatever artifact or insight allowed you to terminate the Abyss."
Kalem looked him dead in the eyes and said flatly, "I had enough. So, it ended."
When the scholar sputtered something about protocols and cooperative magical investigation, Kalem had already walked away.
At night, the safehouse grew tense. Tifny had taken to staying quiet when strangers knocked. Briar sharpened her tools more than usual, and Garron kept a hand near his sword, even while making stew.
Eventually, Kalem sat down with them one last time.
"Do you really have to go?" Tifny asked, eyes wide as she clutched a blanket to her chest.
Kalem looked at her, gaze softening. "If I stay, I'll only bring more trouble here. People will keep coming. I'd rather they chase a ghost."
"Where will you go?" Briar asked.
He shrugged. "I'll tell people I'm heading toward the Ash Desert. It'll give me space."
"And draw them off," Garron noted.
Kalem nodded. "Exactly."
Briar sighed, stepping out of the kitchen and returning a moment later with a wrapped bundle. "Here. Food, clothing, and some tools you can actually carry without ripping your spine."
Kalem blinked. "Thanks."
Garron crossed his arms. "And make sure to get married someday."
Kalem looked up. "Excuse me?"
"No man is meant to live alone," Garron said seriously. "You've walked through madness and come out the other side. That's not something you should carry by yourself forever."
Kalem gave him a long look... then a dry chuckle. "Sure. I'll add that to the list. Somewhere after 'avoid assassins' and 'don't start new cataclysms.'"
Tifny pouted. "You better visit."
"I will," Kalem promised, standing and pulling on a cloak.
Just before dawn, Kalem departed once again.
Wrapped in worn leather and dust-colored fabric, he walked without noise, without fanfare. The streets of Gehenna still whispered his name, but by the time morning bells rang, he was already a shadow beyond the eastern ridge.
And far above, perched in the rafters of a broken bell tower, a cloaked figure watched him go.
With gloved fingers, the watcher drew out a bone-carved token and whispered to it. A raven, nested nearby, fluttered down obediently.
A single scroll was tied to its leg—bearing a message written in obsidian ink:
"Kalem is in motion. He heads toward the Ash."
—W.
The raven vanished into the pre-dawn sky, streaking westward.
Toward the halls of the Western Alchemical Council, where politics brewed like poison and ambition had teeth sharper than monsters.