People of the Five Ways

On the night when the tide of monsters engulfed the border town, five strangers were forced into the same shabby church. Leon, a nineteen-year-old trainee knight, is kind to stubborn and believes that protection is his duty. Alice, a twenty-two-year-old half-elf, has been running away for twenty-two years, and this is the first time she has not run away. Kahn, a thirty-five-year-old dwarf veteran, has ten marks carved on the ax handle, which are ten lives that will never come back. Celine, a seventeen-year-old runaway nun, wants to define right and wrong for herself for the first time after being abandoned by the church. Finn, a 507-year-old elf mage, has been observing the human world for 500 years, and for the first time, he doesn't want to just watch. They survived. They rebuilt the town, took in the orphans, taught the children to practice swordsmanship, and shared a bowl of hot porridge by the campfire. The days are getting warmer. They thought they could go on like this forever. Until the rift in the gray realm lights up again. It wasn't until Leon held the little body and knelt in a pool of blood that he understood for the first time—— Sometimes others have to pay the price of kindness for you. When five people's lights lit up at the same time, they discovered that the so-called "echo" was never just power. But the weight of the partner. And some weights, once put on your back, can never be put down again. This is not a story about a brave man defeating the devil. This is a story about choice, loss, and wanting to protect something no matter what.