Circle of Inevitability: A Changed Fate

March 15th, 1358

Relaxing under the shade of an oak tree situated on at the edge of the forest, Lumian was busying himself by being the least devout Eternal Blazing Sun worshipper in Cordu by dodging the Sunday mass attendance. Even Aurore, with her introverted nature coupled with her tendency to always be a bit of a shut-in, with attend mass every week.

This devotion wasn't caused by her faith, but rather because she wanted to keep up the outer appearance of an upstanding young woman for the villagers, despite having an introverted personality and the propensity to nestle herself in the house for weeks without coming out.

She also told Lumian that displaying aberrant behaviours in a village like Cordu, with a population of less than 500, would make you stood out like a sore thumb. As such, most villagers could easily point to the most abnormal person in the community if any outsider ever asked for suspicious people living in the Cordu. As such, conforming with the masses was a great way to avoid detection.

As for Lumian, the Sansons did not even know about his existence, and the village folk have grown so accustomed to his presence that many have even forgotten that Lumian was not a Cordu native.

Sitting under the shade, Lumian cradled a book in his hands, reading it intently. Occasionally, he would take out a pencil and scribble some tiny notes on the pages.

Having finally 'graduated' from his mysticism education, Aurore had refocused on Lumian's secular education. Not wanting him to seem like an uncultured buffoon when he is enrolled into university, Aurore has been trying to teach him critical thinking when dissecting literature. She had given him free reign over picking any book to study and write a critical essay about. So, being the snarky, witty prankster that he was, Lumian had selected Aurore's very first published work – Eternal Love.

That was why he was sitting here under with a spare copy of Aurore's debut novel. Despite always knowing she was an author, Lumian had never endeavoured to peruse any of Aurore's publications. This was mainly because most of her oeuvre comprised of romance novels or poems, something that he held no interest in. Nor did he ever had much interest in reading books and novels unless coerced to, for that matter.

The main reason he had picked Eternal Love in the first place was to poke fun at her earliest work's amateurish writing and plot as an act of petty revenge for swarming him with homework for the last several months.

In Eternal Love, the noble family of the 18-year-old Loenese female lead Kingsley – a first name normally given to boys – was near bankruptcy due to the Kingsley's father's mismanagement of family businesses. As such, Kingsley's father had married off Kingsley to the second son of an outrageously wealthy Intisian family by the name of Ciel.

Ciel's arrogant and boisterous personality constantly clashed with Kingsley's snarky and introverted demeanour. But eventually, through various obstacles and difficulties, the mismatched pair fell in love. However, their relationship ended in tragedy when Kingsley contracted a terminal disease a mere three years into their marriage. After Kingsley's death, Ciel could never fall in love with anyone else again and never remarried, declaring his love for Kingsley more eternal than the sun itself.

Despite the female protagonist's bland personality, contrived plot and abrupt ending, Eternal Love became a best-selling novel, propelling Aurore into Intis' literary spotlight.

'Hmm, some of Kingsley's tendencies reminds me of Aurore. She even has Aurore's introversion and bossiness. Kingsley even has blond hair and blue eyes. Wait, don't tell me Aurore committed a cardinal sin of literature when writing her first work? Is this…' Lumian's breath started to quicken, his mind drifting to when Aurore taught him of everything that an author should avoid when designing a character. 'This is a damn self-insert! How shameless! And she has the gall to criticise Roselle!'

Aurore had already revealed to Lumian that Emperor Roselle was almost certainly a transmigrator, who had then proceeded to plagiarise the inventions of almost everything from Aurore's hometown – Earth – all while claiming these inventions spawned from his own brilliance.

Much to her chagrin, Lumian simply praised Roselle even more for managing to adapt to a medieval society so quickly and taking advantage of everything at his disposal to redefine an era. In truth, only one of two reasons behind Lumian doing that was due to pure admiration, the other reason was simply to piss Aurore off, as Aurore loved to lambast Roselle.

Just as Lumian spinning ideas on how he could tease Aurore endlessly with this discovery, he spotted a boy running towards him. The boy had an unremarkable appearance, with brown hair and brown eyes, standing at an unimpressive 1.7 metres. He was Reimund Greg, the son of a shepherd, and considered to be Lumian's closest friend.

Lumian waited for Reimund to arrive, panting his hands on his knees. Lumian slowly closed his book.

"Lumian, I'm back from mass. What's that interesting thing that you want to tell me about?" Reimund asked once he was no longer winded.

'This fellow, as the son of a shepherd who often helps the farmers with carrying sacks of feed and fertilisers, how is his stamina so bad? That was barely a 200-metre run.' Lumian mocked inwardly.

Lumian put on his signature smile when he was about to con somebody. "Reimund, do you want to work as a shepherd for your entire adult life in the future?" Lumian asked, knowing that despite not being particularly intelligent, Reimund has always had quite lofty aspirations. When they were twelve, Reimund had confessed that he wanted to leave Cordu one day to explore the Southern Continent, with its concealed treasures and enigmatic tribes. That was a simpler time, when they were both ignorant, and Reimund did not know how set in stone his future life would be.

"Of course not." Reimund shook his head. "If I could, I'd rather be an adventurer, someone brave like Gherman Sparrow. But you already know that. I'm not privileged like you, who gets to learn indoors instead of working under the scorching sun." His tone belied a tinge of jealousy.

"What if I tell you right now that I can help you change that? What if I can make you strong enough to go explore the seas, like the Great Adventurer himself?" Lumian replied, dangling the bait.

Reimund's face lit up in surprise and expectation, but then narrowed in suspicion. "I might not be smart, Lumian, but even I can see that you're trying to prank me. Guess what? I'm not falling for it."

Standing up, Lumian pointed at the oak tree that he was shading under, speaking to Reimund. "If I was to hit this tree with my hand at my full strength, what do you thinking would happen?

Reimund looked at Lumian as though he was mentally challenged. "Obviously, you'd hurt your hand. Maybe even break a finger."

Lumian looked around to make sure no one was nearby, stepped up to the oak tree and held his hand flat at chest level, parallel to the ground. As though he was chopping with an axe, he swung his hand at the tree with unfathomable speed. The moment before his hand impacted against the hard oak tree, a pop signifying the breaking of the sound barrier echoed through the tree line.

CRACK!

Splinters shot out from where Lumian hit the tree. When he drew back his hand, a deep cleft approximately forty centimetres had been cut into the tree, as if a seasoned lumberjack had delivered several axe-blows to the trunk of the tree. As this was an old oak tree with a trunk of over three metres in diameter, the blow wasn't enough to fall it.

Stepping back in amazement, Reimund look the tree, walking over to touch it to make sure it wasn't a trick. Then, he looked over at Lumian's hand, which was completely uninjured.

"Do you believe me now?" Lumian smiled smugly.

"H-H-How did you do this? W-W-What type of training did you do to get strength like this?" Flustered by this display of power, Reimund started stuttering.

"This was the result of no training; I simply drank something that gave me permanent supernatural abilities. It also gave me more than just super strength. Enhanced senses, stamina, durability and healing, to name a few." Lumian's tone took on a more dramatic edge, like a wandering magician listing out his spells to entice a potential apprentice. "I can grant you these abilities, for a prize." Lumian's smug smile had turned predatory, like an eagle gazing at a rodent.

"Please, I'd do anything." Reimund begged.

'Hook, line and sinker.' Lumian thought.

"It might be dangerous." Lumian warned perfunctorily. "You might not live to old age if you follow this path."

"My father once said that a real man would rather die young and happy than live long and be miserable. I'd be miserable if all I do my entire life and herd sheep around and be bored out of my mind. Please, Lumian. I beg you." Reimund even got on his knees.

"Fine, I'll help you gain superpowers." Reimund's face lit up. "BUT! You must do as I say without question! It is for your safety. Do you understand?" Reimund eagerly nodded.

"Alright." Lumian said. "If you can assist me with a few tasks, I will help you obtain what you desire. You can leave now. Meet me in front of my house tomorrow for your first task. Tell Aurore that you simply want to hang out." Reimund simply nodded and left for his house as if he was a private given orders by his commander.

Once Lumian could no longer hear Reimund with his superhuman senses, Lumian turned around and altered the mark he left on the oak tree to make it look as though a lumberjack had tried to fall the tree with a blunt axe but eventually gave up.

This was step one of his preparations in case he and Aurore were discovered by Roche's family. Aurore had already told him that there were many people in her organisations that were much stronger than she was, and were ready to come to her aid should she find herself in danger.

However, this assistance would take some time to arrive, due to the distance between members. According to his sister, Aurore and her organisation of transmigrators could communicate and arrange face-to-face meetings by praying to a certain existence, which would then place them in a deep sleep, and their consciousness would be transported somewhere. He had seen Aurore go to a meeting himself, and once she had finished her prayer, her body had lost consciousness, plopping itself onto the bed. However, Lumian wasn't privy to the honorific name that she prayed to, simply because he wasn't a member himself.

To amend for the fact that reinforcement would take time to arrive, Lumian wanted to secretly cultivate Beyonders in Cordu that were subordinate to him. In this way, if they were found by the Sansons, they would have Beyonder allies in the immediate vicinity to call up for assistance.

He decided to keep this plan a secret from Aurore. Not because he didn't trust her, but because Lumian knew she would object him just thrusting an innocent villager into the world of mysticism. While Lumian couldn't care less about most villagers in Cordu, his sister does. As such, he had decided to execute this plan in discretion under the principle of it being easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.

Moreover, he wasn't about to just send a random person to their death just to add some firepower against the Sansons. Lumian was going to prepare this person so that they would survive the Sequence 9 potion, then grant them some basic mysticism knowledge. As a Beyonder, a person's ability to earn money would skyrocket compared to an agricultural worker. This means that once the danger of the Sansons had come to pass or if they never come, Lumian's subordinate would be able to live a comfortable life, whilst being indebted to Lumian. As such, this was a plan that would help him greatly elevate the security of the village, as well as his own standings and influence.

For the first person for him to help become a Beyonder, he had selected a few criteria to vet for his pick.

Firstly, they must express a desire to become something greater. In the village, there were many people discontent with simply being farmers or shepherds, so this requirement was easily fulfilled.

Secondly, they must be relatively young and healthy, preferably under 30 years old. This was because Aurore had told him that young people have the higher chance of surviving a potion, which increases if their constitution was healthy.

Thirdly, this person must also express a desire to eventually relocate from Cordu. This was in the event of them being discovered but still having time to flee. Lumian didn't want his investment to go to waste, so he wanted to lure his subordinate away with him by promising him future promotions to higher Sequences.

Finally, they must have a weak will or meek personality. This was to ensure that they would follow Lumian's orders and would not dare betray him.

With all these criteria combined, Lumian had decided that the perfect candidate was none other than Reimund Greg. Not only did this lad have a dream to become a travelling adventurer, but he was also Lumian's age and had always deferred to Lumian for as long as the two of them have known each other.

As for which potion formula he was going to offer, it was obviously going to be the Hunter potion. Whilst Aurore had also trusted him with information about all the four potion formulas relating to the Mystery Pryer pathway that she had knowledge of, the Mystery Pryer pathway was not a good pick in Lumian's opinion.

Firstly, Lumian was only going to bring his subordinate to Sequence 9 and no more. This was because Lumian was only Sequence 9 himself and couldn't afford to have a subordinate who could usurp him. Additionally, at Sequence 9 Mystery Pryer, a Beyonder of this Sequence would be nearly useless in combat, having physically abilities no different from an ordinary person. Only at Sequence 8 Melee Scholar would an improvement in physical ability could be seen, but a Melee Scholar was still slightly physically inferior to a Hunter. Sequence 8 would be too costly of an investment to create a Beyonder still inferior to a Hunter in combat.

On the other hand, a Hunter was only at Sequence 9 yet demonstrated insane physical prowess along with tracking powers. According to Aurore, only a Warrior or Assassin could have a chance of beating a Hunter in physical combat on land. Therefore, the choice to give his subordinate the Hunter potion was a no-brainer.

Making sure the disguise was adequate, Lumian ran back to his house. Running for well over a kilometre at nearly his maximum speed before he was a Beyonder, Lumian noticed that his breathing was still normal, and he had yet to sweat.

'With speed and stamina like this, I could provoke all of the padre's gang and they couldn't catch me even if all of them gave chase.'

Arriving at the back of his house, Lumian leapt 4 metres in a single bound, landing deftly on his open windowsill. Climbing inside his room, Lumian went to sit on his chair at his desk and took out his copy of Eternal Love and continued reading.

A mere minute later, Lumian heard light footsteps arriving at the front door, jingling keys and then the creaking of the hinge of the front door. The footsteps moved up to the second floor, arriving just outside Lumian's room. The handle rotated, and Aurore peaked into the room to make sure Lumian was still studying in his room instead of just lazing around like a bum. She had just returned from mass and had grown worried that Lumian had sneaked out again, thus she went to check on him.

Turning around on his chair, Lumian saw that Aurore was wearing a simple blue ankle-length pleated dress with ribbons around her waist and hips – one of her most simple outfits. Unlike most women in Intis, Aurore preferred not to draw attention to her appearance, and had taken a liking to wearing non-descript or plain clothes to avoid attention. The only occasions when she would wear her fancier outfits were when she ventured into cities, where a beautiful woman wearing plain clothes would rouse unwanted attention, rather than divert it.

"How are you liking the book?" Aurore asked, her face taking on a slight pout when she noticed that Lumian was already nearly at the end, where the final twist laid. Lumian had already been torrentially pouring criticism on Aurore's first work for the entire duration of his first reading, she couldn't even fathom if she could listen to her merciless brother's critique for her first attempt at writing a twist for her novel.

'Oh, thank the Eternal Blazing Sun, she didn't figure out that I snuck out and just returned.' Lumian internally sighed with relief. To prevent Aurore from asking why his clothes look ruffled and why the window was slightly ajar, Lumian immediately launched into a long-winded critique of her book.

"The writing is of course, amateurish, but that was to be expected, given that this was the author's debut work.' Lumian intentionally only used the word 'author' instead of directly saying Aurore to further provoke her by pretending that he wasn't talking about her but rather some third-rate literary hack.

"The prose is quite flowery and descriptive but lacks substance and significance. For example, in the ninth chapter when Kingsley attended a gala with Ciel, the author committed three whole paragraphs drooling over the chiselled visage of Duke Timorin, yet this character never contributed anything of importance to the plot and never again made a reappearance. Throughout the novel, the author repeatedly emphasised how handsome and masculine Ciel was, yet consistently failed the extol any of Kingsley's underlying virtues. This seems as though an intended feature to assist the intended audience – mainly young women who have never actually experienced any real romantic encounters or relationships – into putting themselves into the shoes of Kingsley." Lumian instantly adopted a faux scholarly tone and started to employ more advanced vocabulary.

This only served to piss Aurore off even more. Ignoring the fact that Aurore looked as though she was about to slap him, Lumian continued. "Of course, this coupled with the author demonstrating a mere surface level understanding of the dynamics involved in a real romantic relationship, seems to imply that the author shares the same trait with her target audience, that is being an inexperienced woman who never had a boy- "

Lumian was interrupted when Aurore came barrelling towards him and yanked his ears, albeit with no real malice but rather annoyance.

"You little scoundrel. How dare you talk about Kingsley's lack of qualities! Don't you see how generous she was when she gave money to that poor urchin? Or her sacrificial nature for those she loves when she broke her arm taking a blow for Ciel when he got into a fight with his rivals?" Aurore berated.

"Qualities exactly like yours?" Lumian quipped. Aurore froze. He smiled as if saying 'Gotcha'.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Aurore abruptly turned around to walk out of the room, whistling innocently.

"Where are you going?" Lumian asked, his tone still playful.

Aurore looked around for an excuse and at seeing the clock showing that it was 9:59am, had a moment of realisation on her face, as if she just remembered something.

"I'm going to see my therapist now. I have an appointment at 10:05, then another appointment at 10:30." Aurore said.

"Two appointments? How come?" Lumian asked quizzically.

With a serious tone, Aurore explained. "The therapist that I was initially seeing -I Know Someone - is part of the group that was targeting me. He wants to worsen my condition and exacerbate my split personality. I'm still going to him because I need to trick his group into thinking that their plan is succeeding. My second therapist is the one undoing all his work. She is a Vice President of my organisation and is one Sequence higher than I Know Someone. She has been giving me advice on how to act when meeting I Know Someone to pretend that my symptoms have been worsening. I'm going to see her first so she can place protective Hypnotism on me."

With that, Lumian bid Aurore good luck as she went inside and shut off all entrances to secure it.

Listening intensely, he eventually heard Aurore's body hitting the pillow. Knowing that Aurore was now in a meeting and couldn't interfere with him, Lumian opened a desk drawer in his room and took out a notebook.

This notebook was what hopefully contained the solution to the biggest barrier to his plan – supplies.

While Lumian had memorised the Hunter potion formula, he lacked the main ingredients to make the potion. He also lacked the funds to secure such ingredients.

So, the second step in his plan, after securing a follower, was to procure money.

While he could find a job within the village and work to earn money, this was the least efficient option. While Lumian was no lazy person when it comes to an honest day's work, this method was too slow. It would take him multiple years to save enough money to buy the ingredients needed.

So naturally, Lumian turned to his experience as a vagrant and thought about stealing. He instantly ruled out stealing from much of the village folk. Afterall, all of them never did anything bad to him and were just barely making ends meet.

There were only 3 people wealthy enough in the village to have the money Lumian needed. First was Aurore. Obviously, Lumian wasn't going to steal from his own sister so that option was thrown out.

The second option was the administrator of Cordu Village - Beost. Just from looking at the administrator's castle, one could tell that he had loads of money, likely totalling over a hundred thousand verl d'or. However, security for the castle was quite tight, but many guards and servants constantly walking through its halls. Furthermore, Lumian did not know where the administrator stored his money, or even if it was stored inside the castle in the first place. Additionally, the money was likely stored in a metal vault of some kind, and Lumian wasn't confident he could damage a wall of metal, even with a Hunter's strength.

The administrator's wife, Madam Pualis, also often visited Aurore to invite her to tea parties, or to introduce her to a prospective fancier. This means that if Madam Pualis noticed anything off about Lumian's behaviour after he had successfully pulled of a heist, she might come to suspect him.

Therefore, the second option was also discarded.

The third option was the padre. While the padre formally did not own any properties, per the teachings of the Eternal Blazing Sun Church, Lumian wasn't stupid enough to trust that the padre followed it to a fault. For the past 3 years, Lumian had already spied the padre embezzling donation money from the villager's numerous times, as well as filching away golden ornaments that were used in religious ceremonies and mass in his own hidden storage chest hidden under a fake floor, claiming that it was stolen by a thief.

He would then somehow find a buyer for these ornaments, as Lumian would also see that by the next week, the golden ornaments would be missing, while the padre's chest had more gold coins and banknotes.

By Lumian's own estimate, the amount of money the padre had hidden away must easily exceed 12000 verl d'or, a fortune for a villager. This amount should be more than enough to buy the main ingredients for the Hunter potion, according to the price that Aurore had bought the main ingredients for Lumian's potion with.

The padre was also the person that Lumian hated the most in Cordu. Padre Guillaume Benet was a lech, having tried to sexually harass a multitude of women in Cordu before. The only reason he was not in jail or killed by an angry husband was because of the protection of the Church.

He had even openly coveted Aurore as a mistress. This was not to mention that the padre must have at least two or three other mistresses in Cordu. Lumian wouldn't have cared about such delusional ranting if the padre didn't have a charismatic way to swoon over married women in Cordu. Since Aurore had never had a boyfriend before, Lumian felt it was his duty as a younger brother to fend her from sex pests like the padre.

As such, choosing the padre as the target for Lumian's first burglary was an obvious choice.

The notebook that Lumian had taken out contained a detailed floor plan of the cathedral, including the main prayer room where mass was held. Two small private confession rooms laid adjacent to the main prayer room. A hall leading to the east, where the storage room and kitchen were situated. A second hall led to the west, where there were three bedrooms. 

The first room was a bedroom, reserved for any traveller that come to the Church for lodgings. The second room was where the deputy padre – Michel Garrigue – ought to have lived in but was prevented from doing by Guillaume Benet using an excuse, likely to prevent his illicit doings from being discovered. As such, Michel could only rent to lodge with the hunter, Sebate. The final room belonged to the padre, and the hidden chest where he stored his valuables laid in the corner, which can be accessed by lifting two of the wooden planks that made up the floor.

Lumian's notebook also contained the padre and deputy padre's weekly schedules. By analysing their schedules, Lumian had noticed a period from 8pm to 9:45pm on Tuesdays, which was two days from now. This was when Michel returned to Sabate's hut and when the padre would sneak out to sleep with one of his mistresses, Sybil Berry.

All this information, Lumian had carefully and secretly collated over the past two weeks, even attending Mass for the first time in years to draw the floor plan of the cathedral. Like a shadow, Lumian had stalked both the padre and deputy padre as they went about their day, noting down what time they changed activities. He also memorised their walking speed, gait, footstep noise and even heartbeat and breathing rhythm. Lumian also secretly watched as the padre accessed his secret chest and knew that the chest was opened by a black iron key that Guillaume Benet hid in his bedside drawers, behind a built-in false back.

With all his preparations for the heist completed and a time decided, all Lumian needed to do now was wait.

Legally, what Lumian was planning was reprehensible, any law enforcer would detain him without question. Morally, it was dubious, since he was stealing from a thief. Personally? Lumian was going to enjoy every moment of it.