The mountain air grew colder as Lucas left Bouten behind. His journey now truly pointed north, toward Sanctuary, a place whose name had been completely unknown to him only days ago. Yet unlike before, this journey was no longer burdened by uncertainty. His brief return to the city where he had grown up had given him something he had been unable to find for years. It was not an answer, but a quiet acceptance that the past did not have to be forgotten in order for someone to keep moving forward.
Even so, his thoughts had not entirely left Bouten behind. The message he had discovered at Gabriel's grave continued to echo inside his mind.
"Some wounds should never heal."
The sentence was simple, yet it carried questions far greater than he could answer. Who had left the flower? How did that person know his family's story? And why did those words feel as though they had been written by someone who truly understood a burden Lucas had always believed he carried alone?
Those questions accompanied him throughout the following days until, late one afternoon, he arrived at a small village nestled at the foot of the mountains. It was an unremarkable place with no walls, no bustling marketplace, and only a handful of wooden homes built along the banks of a narrow river. Lucas stopped at a modest inn to replenish his supplies before continuing north.
The elderly innkeeper served him a bowl of hot soup without asking many questions. It was only after Lucas casually mentioned his destination that the old man's expression changed.
"You're heading north?" he asked.
Lucas nodded.
"I'm looking for Sanctuary."
The name seemed to catch the innkeeper off guard.
"That's strange..."
Lucas looked at him.
"Why?"
"A few months ago... someone else came here asking about the very same place."
Lucas immediately became attentive.
"Who was he?"
The old man shook his head.
"I never learned his name."
"What did he look like?"
The innkeeper thought for a moment.
"He was quiet."
"Black hair."
"Perhaps around forty years old."
Then he hesitated.
"And..."
"There was something incredibly sad about his eyes."
Lucas remained silent.
The description was almost identical to the one Ardan had given him.
"Where did he go?"
"North."
Lucas nodded slowly.
Perhaps it was nothing more than coincidence.
Yet his instincts told him otherwise.
Two days later, Lucas arrived at another village.
While purchasing supplies from a small general store, the shopkeeper suddenly looked at him with curiosity.
"Are you following that man as well?"
Lucas turned immediately.
"What man?"
"The traveler with the black hair."
A strange feeling settled inside him.
"You know him?"
"No."
"Then how do you remember him?"
The woman smiled faintly.
"Because he rebuilt our bridge."
Lucas frowned.
"Our bridge?"
She pointed toward the river outside the village.
"Two months ago, a flood washed away the only bridge connecting our village."
"We thought we would have to wait months before help arrived."
"Then he came."
"He barely spoke."
"But three days later..."
"...the bridge was standing again."
Lucas looked toward the wooden bridge stretching gracefully across the water.
Its construction was simple.
Yet remarkably well crafted.
"Was he a carpenter?"
The woman shook her head.
"I don't know."
"All I know is that once he finished..."
"...he simply continued his journey."
"He never asked for payment."
"He never even waited to be thanked."
"He just left."
Lucas quietly resumed his journey.
He no longer believed these encounters were mere coincidence.
The farther north he traveled, the more frequently he heard similar stories.
In a small mountain village, an elderly priest remembered a silent traveler who had helped bury the victims of a landslide when the entire village had been too overwhelmed by grief to act.
In another settlement, a healer spoke of a man who stayed only one night, helping care for plague victims before disappearing again with the sunrise.
No one knew his name.
No one knew where he had come from.
Yet everyone remembered him.
Not because of extraordinary strength.
But because he always left each place better than he had found it.
Lucas found himself wondering.
Why would someone like that be searching for Sanctuary?
And why had the same man visited Eldoria years before?
The more answers Lucas discovered, the more questions followed.
On the fifth evening of his journey, an elderly priest finally offered him something different.
"If you're truly looking for that traveler," the priest said, "go to the old house on the northern hillside."
Lucas raised an eyebrow.
"Why there?"
"Because that's where he stayed the longest."
"How long?"
"Three days."
Lucas fell silent.
Everywhere else, the mysterious traveler had stayed only a single night.
Three days was unusually long.
The following morning, Lucas climbed the narrow trail leading toward the hillside. After nearly an hour of walking, he found an old wooden cottage standing alone above the valley.
An elderly woman was quietly sweeping the front yard.
The moment Lucas described the traveler, she smiled.
"So..."
"Someone finally came looking for him."
Lucas felt a spark of hope.
"He stayed here?"
The old woman nodded.
"For three days."
"Did he tell you where he was going?"
"No."
"Did he leave anything behind?"
The old woman remained silent for a moment before disappearing inside the cottage.
Lucas waited patiently.
A few minutes later she returned carrying an old notebook whose cover had long since fallen apart.
"It doesn't belong to him," she explained.
Lucas frowned.
"No?"
"He copied several pages from his own journal into my grandson's notebook."
She carefully handed it to Lucas.
"He told me that someday..."
"...someone might need these words."
Lucas slowly opened the notebook.
The handwriting was neat.
There was no author's name.
No dates.
Only a single entry.
Day 182.
Today I finally understand that sin is not a disease.
Sin is a consequence.
As long as humanity continues trying to erase the consequences without understanding their cause...
it will only create another form of suffering.
Lucas read the passage again.
And again.
For reasons he could not explain, Samir immediately came to mind.
Samir spoke endlessly about erasing suffering.
Erasing hatred.
Erasing sin itself.
Yet this journal argued the exact opposite.
Lucas turned the page.
Day 201.
I have begun to believe that humanity survives not because it is free from pain...
but because it learns to give pain meaning.
Lucas froze.
Without warning, Gabriel's face appeared in his mind.
The pain of losing her had never truly disappeared.
Yet that same pain had shaped him into the person he had become.
He slowly turned another page.
The next entry was much shorter.
Day 247.
If someone ever finds these notes...
do not search for me.
Search for Sanctuary.
Because that...
is where I failed.
Lucas held his breath.
Failed?
Failed to do what?
Failed to stop someone?
Failed to discover something?
Or...
failed to stop Samir?
His fingers slowly turned to the final page.
It was almost blank.
Only a single sentence had been written across the center in darker ink than the previous entries, as though it had been added much later.
Lucas read it slowly.
If you are reading these notes...
He stopped.
His heartbeat quickened.
Then his eyes moved to the final line.
...then Samir has already begun.
Lucas stood frozen.
The notebook slowly lowered in his hands.
The valley before him suddenly felt impossibly quiet.
How could this man have known about Samir?
How could he have predicted that someone would one day find these pages?
And most unsettling of all...
The journal had clearly been written years before Samir ever began changing the world.
Lucas gently closed the notebook.
The closer he came to Sanctuary, the clearer it became that this journey was no longer about finding a place.
Someone had walked this path long before him.
Someone had witnessed something.
Understood something.
And ultimately...
Failed.
Lucas lifted his eyes toward the northern mountains.
Their towering peaks disappeared beneath thick layers of mist, making Sanctuary feel both impossibly distant and undeniably real.
For the first time since leaving Bouten, Lucas no longer felt as though he was searching for answers.
He was following someone's footsteps.
And whoever that mysterious traveler had been...
Lucas was certain of one thing.
If even that man had failed at Sanctuary...
Then the road awaiting him would be far more difficult than he had ever imagined.