Blank Slate

There is one thing you should know about Keiser.

He hates wasting time.

Perhaps it was because he had lived his entire life in a state of constant battle—growing up in the crucible of border wars, where every second demanded readiness, every breath could be a final one. The only time he ever knew peace—however fleeting—was when he had his faction. When Gideon stood behind him, not as a prince, but as a friend.

But that, too, was a lie.

What he had mistaken for a hand of support had all along been a blade pointed at his back.

"Your Highness! What do you mean you're returning?!"

Keiser walked past the boy without pause.

He didn't care that he looked like he'd just crawled through the depths of hell, covered in grime, damp with filth. He didn't care that this wasn't his body—or that the boy—whose name he still didn't know—was following after him, calling him 'Your Highness', 'My Lord', with stubborn reverence.

Muzio, this body, had run away from being a noble.

But Keiser was running back toward it.

"Where are we?" he asked, eyes scanning the space as he moved toward the open barn doors.

All he could see beyond them were endless fields, weathered stables, and more barns scattered across farmland. Nothing familiar. No towers, no citadels. No signs of court or capital.

"What? Has your head sickness gotten so bad you've lost your memory?"

The boy's voice wavered, noticeably anxious. He tossed the bucket aside in panic and quickly leaned his pitchfork against the rotting barn wall. Before Keiser could react, the boy was crowding into his space, reaching up to press a hand against his forehead.

From this proximity, Keiser got a better look at him—a freckled face scattered like dust across a sunburned nose. Green eyes with hints of rust, and hair that curled in shades of copper and chestnut.

Familiar.

But the hand pawing at Keiser's face was not welcome.

He slapped it away.

The boy winced, clutching his stinging fingers with a wounded pout.

"My lord, since when did you become so abusive?"

Keiser ignored him.

There were far more pressing matters at hand. Something had gone terribly wrong—and if he was truly in another's body, in an unknown land, then time, now more than ever, was something he couldn't afford to waste.

"You… you're Olga's younger brother, aren't you?"

The boy flinched, eyes widening in shock.

"Hey! Who gave you permission to call my sister by her name so casually?" he snapped, then immediately slapped a hand over his mouth. "I—I'm sorry, my lord. It's just… how did you know my sister's name?"

Because I fought beside her on the border, Keiser wanted to say. Because she saved my life more times than I could count.

But that wasn't something Muzio—the body he now inhabited—would ever be able to say without sounding mad. Muzio had never set foot on a battlefield.

"You're Lenko," he said instead.

The boy's brow furrowed in confusion.

"Yes, my lord. Why do you sound unsure?"

Because Keiser was unsure. Olga had spoken often of her many siblings—eleven, if he remembered correctly. But the one she always mentioned was Lenko, the younger brother who, according to her, had died alongside his lord. A boy whose death she refused to let fade into obscurity.

"His name will not be a whisper," she once vowed.

She had chosen her princess—the sixth princess of Valemont—believing her ideals would ensure a proper remembrance for those who gave their lives for the kingdom. She had allowed the princess to mark her with sigils, placing her faith in that promise. She had trusted that her cause would be honored.

But in the end, it was Keiser's kingmaker—not the princess—who ascended the throne.

"I'm just… confirming something," Keiser murmured, brushing past Lenko and continuing toward the light that filtered through the open barn doors.

Lenko let out an exasperated sigh behind him.

"Come on, Your Highness. You can't seriously be thinking about returning to court—not after all these years hiding and running away."

Keiser said nothing.

He kept walking, even though he wasn't sure where he was headed. He followed instinct—the pull of the sun's direction—though part of him doubted Muzio had been hiding at all. Living in a barn in the middle of open farmland, with a talkative valet still at his side, didn't exactly scream 'in hiding.'

No… this wasn't exile.

It was simply comfortably forgotten nobility.

A bastard, yes. But still a noble.

And now, Keiser needed to decide what to do with this borrowed second life.

"Lenko."

Keiser halted mid-step, eyes narrowing as he caught sight of a small wooden house, tucked just beyond a thin grove of trees at the far edge of the barnyard.

"Where are we?" he asked, voice low but edged with urgency.

Lenko just stared for a moment, confused. But when he met Keiser's gaze, he straightened from his slouched posture and answered, "We're in Sheol, my lord."

He even bowed his head slightly as he spoke, the expression on his face grim.

Keiser froze.

Sheol.

The common grave of mankind.

A name synonymous with the forgotten battlefield where the kingdom's border collapsed into something unholy. A place plagued by monsters, where the war never truly ended—only shifted into uneasy stalemates and quiet cover-ups.

This was where they had once been stationed. Where soldiers fought and died, not for glory, but just to keep the rot at bay.

Knights still patrolled the outer rim of Sheol, intercepting the occasional abomination that slipped through. But no one ventured into the forest anymore. Those who tried never returned.

And yet—here—a barn stood.

And beyond it, a wooden house. Settled, stable. As though Sheol had somehow been tamed.

Keiser didn't walk—he ran.

His boots thudded against the ground as he bolted toward the woodhouse, ignoring Lenko's startled voice behind him.

"My lord? Wait—what are you—?"

He didn't answer. He couldn't.

His lungs burned. Sweat slicked his back. The wind howled as he crossed the invisible line between farmland and the forest's edge. And there—just beyond the barn and its stables—stood that house.

Keiser staggered to a halt at the border where the land shifted. The trees loomed taller here, shadows clutching at the ground like waiting hands. Something wrong pressed against the air, thick and heavy like storm clouds about to break.

He doubled over, panting.

Cold sweat ran down his neck. His ribs ached—sharp, biting pain flaring at his side. The sensation was familiar, achingly so. An old wound, a memory etched into muscle. He had fought through worse. Bled through worse. But this body… this body wasn't his.

It wasn't built to endure the weight of what he had carried.

He cursed under his breath.

Footsteps stumbled behind him.

"M-My lord, why are you suddenly running like that? Did you see something?" Lenko's voice was breathless but steady, his expression scrunched in concern as he caught up and leaned against his knees.

Keiser didn't respond. His eyes were fixed ahead, scanning the treeline.

There was nothing there.

"Were you just running to grab something to change into before heading to the capital?"

Lenko tilted his head with an approving nod. "Though I'm not really sure about your decision… but like I said Muzio, I'll always be by your side."

It hit Keiser like a slap.

He recoiled instinctively, stepping back as if the boy before him had suddenly transformed into someone else entirely.

Murky grey eyes. Familiar words.

"Don't say that," Keiser snapped, eyes narrowing with a sharp glare.

Lenko immediately bowed his head, startled. "I—I'm sorry, Your Highness. I must've gotten too comfortable."

He peeked up sheepishly. "It seems you're serious about returning... I suppose I shouldn't call you by just your name anymore."

Keiser let out a low groan, pinching the bridge of his nose. Gods, the boy was pouting now—sulking, even.

Right. Gideon never pouted.

He wasn't Gideon.

With that bitter thought lodged in his chest, Keiser turned away and approached the small wooden house at the edge of the clearing.

He moved cautiously, scanning the exterior. It was modest, quaint—almost too peaceful.

But the forest behind it loomed like a silent predator. The trees cast deep shadows even in the daylight, and the air felt thick, unnatural.

This was nothing like the sacred lands he once knew.

Remembering that place twisted something in his chest.

The dragon—the young one he'd thought he had saved—hadn't been freed.

He had delivered it straight into the viper's trap.

Keiser's fingers brushed the frame of the house's door. His brows furrowed.

"This… house. Is it mine?" he asked, quietly.

The words felt foreign in his mouth. He still struggled to think of himself as Muzio. He didn't even know how he'd ended up in this body.

Grateful, yes. But the sensation was off—like watching the world from behind a curtain of smoke.

This body wasn't his. His skin didn't sit right. His limbs moved wrong.

It was like he was caught in an endless, grinding moment of out-of-body confusion, a soul misplaced in a vessel that refused to feel like home.

Lenko nodded. "Yes, my lord. Should I fetch a physician from the village?"

Keiser shook his head—a simple gesture, but firm enough to speak for him.

He didn't need a physician. No, what he needed was answers.

This house… this place—it shouldn't exist. Not here.

A home, a barn, stables—in Sheol?

It defied reason.

Keiser's gaze swept the perimeter until he found what he was looking for. He moved past Lenko and toward the trees surrounding the clearing, eyes scanning the bark.

And there, he saw it.

Not once. But again and again.

Carvings.

Runes.

Sigils.

Keiser stepped closer, brushing his fingers over one of the runes etched into the wood. The markings were faint but deliberate—cleverly hidden amidst the bark's natural grooves.

Some were familiar to him. Others were not.

Most bore intricate designs that twisted in strange ways, speaking in old tongues, in meanings more felt than understood.

"Seen-not-remembered."

"Hide-from-those-who-seek."

"Only-those-allowed."

Keiser exhaled slowly, the pieces falling into place.

That's how Muzio hid.

Hidden in plain sight, protected by magic so subtle even the monsters of Sheol passed by without noticing. This wasn't simple spellwork.

This was mastery.

Muzio might not have been skilled with a sword or known for physical prowess, but he possessed something even more formidable—a rare, intuitive talent for magic.

In the Kingdom, magic was celebrated. Reputed.

Who wouldn't revere the ability to weave reality with mere runes and belief?

They called it mana—the ability to create from intention, from will. With enough belief, the impossible could be drawn into being.

Keiser had never possessed it.

They said he lacked the imagination. The belief.

Aisha once mocked him for it. "You're too boring to bend the world," she'd said.

And so, like many others, Keiser relied on enchanted relics—items infused with cores of beings born with mana.

His sword, his most trusted weapon, had been one such gift.

Given to him by Gideon.

The bitter taste of memory rose in his throat, but he swallowed it. There would be time to grieve, to curse, to unravel where and when things had started to fall apart.

Not now.

Now, he had a second chance.

If this was before the King's Gambit—months before the betrayal—then Keiser intended to use every moment wisely.

But first…

He glanced down at his current state—muddy, blood-stained, still damp, still aching in a body that felt far too thin and unfamiliar.

A bath. Clean clothes. Something to eat.

Then, he would begin again.

***

"Hey."

Keiser called out, setting his cup down with a dull clink.

Dinner had been more filling than expected—Lenko had to double the usual portion just to satisfy him. Now, the boy was tending the rock stove, blowing softly at the embers, his freckled face flushed with warmth and exertion.

He looked… happy.

Lenko glanced up at the sound of Keiser's voice.

"Do you know Sir Keiser?"

The question slipped from him like a blade drawn too quickly. And Keiser regretted it the moment it passed his lips.

A shiver crawled down his spine.

Hearing his own name like that—spoken as if it belonged to someone else—it felt wrong.

But he wasn't Keiser now. Not here.

He was Muzio.

He had to play the part.

Lenko froze mid-blow, his expression stiffening.

"W-Why do you want to know, Your Highness?"

Keiser frowned.

That tone—tight, uncertain, guarded.

"I asked if you knew him," he repeated, leaning slightly over the table.

Lenko looked away.

"Who wouldn't?" he muttered. "That crazy dog of the Sixth Prince?"

Keiser blinked.

"What did you just call me?" he snapped instinctively.

Lenko flinched and waved his hands in panic.

"I—I didn't mean you, my lord! I meant Sir Keiser. The knight who fought in the border wars, right?"

Keiser's gaze narrowed, catching the awkward laughter, the nervous fidgeting.

Lenko didn't seem to recognize the weight of his words—or maybe he did, and was now scrambling to recover.

"Yeah. Him," Keiser said, sitting back with a slow nod.

So he still existed in this world. His name was still spoken, still carried weight—even if it came with misremembered rumors and sharp-tongued nicknames.

Good.

That meant he had a chance to find himself.

To warn himself.

Lenko sighed, glancing toward the fire.

"Well… he's a war hero, you know? People say he's the one who entered the Gambit instead of the Sixth Prince. Guess they figured he was more capable."

He paused. "There's even talk that he might've won."

Keiser exhaled slowly, trying to quiet the storm building in his chest.

He was alive. Somewhere. In this world.

That body, his body, was still walking a path that would end in betrayal and blood.

And he had time—time to change it.

Lenko fidgeted, twisting his fingers as he watched Keiser.

"Are you really sure… you want to go back?"

Keiser looked up.

Of course he would ask that again.

Lenko had lived peacefully here for years. He'd followed his young lord into hiding without question, probably thinking they'd never return to the capital again. And now, after all that… Muzio—Keiser—was saying they had to go back.

But Keiser was sure of one thing.

They wouldn't survive if they stayed.

Even if he didn't know how or when, he could feel it in the pit of his gut. Something was coming. The sigils might protect them for now, but wards didn't stop fate. And whatever magic kept this quiet place hidden wouldn't last forever.

"I do," Keiser said, rising to his feet.

"Starting now."

He turned, scanning the room for anything useful to take on their journey.

Lenko gawked, mouth hanging open.

"W-What? Now?!"

He scrambled after Keiser, nearly tripping over himself.

"H-How about the house? The barn? The stables? The garden!"

Keiser frowned.

He'd never been one for chores or domestic life. Even during rare moments of peace, he'd spend his time sharpening blades, cleaning armor, or running drills—not planting carrots or tending to livestock.

"Who'll take care of them?" Lenko asked, pale and wide-eyed.

Keiser hesitated.

He had a point. The wards around the property—those sigils carved into trees and posts—worked because of proximity. If they left, and the distance grew too wide, the mana anchoring them would fray. The illusion would fade. And when that happened… monsters might come. Or worse—humans.

"I'll go alone," Keiser offered gruffly.

But Lenko shook his head with such force that his hair blurred.

"No can do, Your Highness!"

Keiser sighed, rubbing his temple. Lenko looked conflicted—torn between loyalty and love for this quiet life he'd helped build.

"Fine," Keiser muttered. "Sell what you can. Use the coin to get us to the capital."

Lenko's shoulders slumped. His expression crumpled into something quietly mournful—but he nodded.

That sounded better than abandoning them to rot or fall prey to passing beasts.

Keiser glanced around.

That meant they'd have to stay at least one more day—for Lenko to pack, sell what he could, and probably say goodbye to every horse, cow, goat, and chicken by name. The boy had that kind of heart.

And maybe… maybe that sentimentality belonged to Muzio.

But Keiser couldn't tell.

He had no memories of this place.

No warmth, no peace, no ties.

Only a borrowed body and a past that didn't belong to him.

He should be thinking about how to explain himself.

How to convince his former self—his real self—that this wasn't madness. That he wasn't a spy. That he wasn't an enemy. Because if someone like Keiser—him—heard a red-eyed stranger claiming to be him, he'd strike first and ask questions later.

And if Keiser remembered anything about this body—about Muzio's eyes—it was that they looked just like the King's.