DANMACHI: THE ECHO OF FALLEN HEROES

Dawn came slowly, tinging the rooftops of Orario with a faint gold. The city was still asleep, unaware that, in a forgotten corner, an ancient god was bidding farewell in silence... and a child was transforming into something else.

Leo woke up by the fire, but the heat was no longer the same.

The god was gone.

There was no letter. No sign. Only footprints leading north and fading into the cobblestones.

Leo did not cry. But he remained silent for a long time with his cloak over his shoulders, his dagger in his belt, and his light armor fitted to his body.

Leo stood up.

"Let's go," he whispered to himself.

He didn't know where yet. Or how. But he would do it.

He stopped in front of the entrance to the alley that had been his home for months. His gaze swept over the planks, the walls covered in dust and old maps, the corner where he trained, the table where he read, the corner where he slept...

Every corner had a story.

He took a step. Then another. And with each step, he felt the weight of something new on his back: not the cape, not the armor... the responsibility.

(From a distant rooftop, an aged silhouette watched him one last time... and smiled.)

___________________________________________________

Leo walked through the streets of Orario with his hood down, partially hiding his face.

He was no longer the same. He was not just a child. Nor was he an official adventurer. He was something in between. A nameless entity. Without family. Without an emblem. But with a purpose.

His footsteps echoed softly on the damp cobblestones, avoiding the gaze of merchants, adventurers, and the Gods watching from their balconies, as if they could smell the difference in him.

Sometimes he stopped in front of the boards where Families recruited. There were many new announcements: challenges, rewards, monster hunts, even requests for new magical talents. It all seemed distant to him. As if he were looking at it from another life.

He watched from a corner as members of the Loki Family joked among themselves. A girl with red hair and sharp eyes threw an apple into the air while laughing with another pale-faced swordsman. They laughed loudly.

A few meters away, he saw members of the Freya Family training in sync. Beautiful, lethal, perfect. Like living statues. And there... among them...

"Andrés." Leo's heart stopped for a moment.

One of his friends from his past life, who had also come with him to this world, was standing in front of him. His friend, who swore they would be family forever.

He wore the colors of the Freya Family. His expression had changed. He was more confident, stronger... but also more distant.

Leo didn't approach him.

He stood there, a spear on his back, his body wrapped in white armor with silver details, his eyes determined, almost empty. He didn't smile. He just trained. But... something made him turn around.

It was a moment. A fraction of a second.

Andrés looked toward the alley.

Leo took half a step back, hiding in the darkness. He didn't run away. He just watched.

Andrés tilted his head. His brow furrowed slightly... and then someone called him. He turned around and continued training as if nothing had happened, although inside, even if only for a moment, he had felt as if a gaze from the past had fallen upon him, so he quickly looked back at the alley, but Leo was no longer there. The silhouette he thought he had seen disappeared in seconds.

Leo returned to his old hideout, the one he once shared with his dearest friends, an old attic above an abandoned warehouse. There he kept the maps, scrolls, and books he had been secretly collecting over the years.

Leo didn't sleep much. He didn't talk to anyone. His whole life had been reduced to training... and searching. A silent search for truths that no one wanted to tell him, since he had no one to ask.

He secretly visited ancient libraries. Some were in destroyed areas of the old district. Others were on the lower levels of the Tower of Babel, where only madmen or wise men dared to read.

He reviewed texts about lost heroes, divine treatises, blood pacts sealed before the Gods descended to the world, and read about those heroes who were strong without the blessing of a God.

He learned to read the celestial language fluently. To recognize symbols. To distinguish between the written truth... and the omitted truth.

He read for hours, with a low-glow magic lamp. He read in silence, his ears attentive to every creak of the floor, every change in the breathing of the few people who passed by the place.

He was obsessed.

"Who was he... really?" he whispered in the darkness of the place, as he turned the pages of a book hidden under a blanket.

The god who saved him. Who trained him, cared for him, and gave him his blessing... who was he really?

He had read about many deities. None seemed to match... until he found a fragment hidden on a secondary page, buried among war chronicles.

An emblem.

A lost insignia. A sacred symbol in the shape of a fractured lightning bolt, surrounded by wings of lightning on either side.

Leo stood motionless. His heart was beating fast.

That symbol... it was the same one that burned on his back every time someone activated his falna. The same one he saw the day the god showed him his stats.

"Zeus..."

The name came out like a prayer.

___________________________________________________________

The next day, as he was leafing through one of the forbidden books near a public fountain, a soft voice spoke to him from the bench opposite.

"That book is not for children."

Leo slammed it shut and looked up cautiously.

It was a girl with dark brown hair braided back, with eyes the color of the sea after a storm. She wore a red uniform with gold insignia. And hanging from her neck was a silver plaque with the emblem of the Dian Cecht Family.

"I'm not," Leo replied, lowering his hood slightly.

The girl looked at him curiously.

"I've been here five times this week. And you're always reading the same things. Ancient pacts. Chronicles of heroes. Forbidden texts. Are you some kind of aspiring poet, or... just trying to be interesting to attract a girl?"

Leo hesitated to speak, so he remained silent.

She raised an eyebrow. Then she sat down next to him without asking for permission.

"My family keeps many ancient books. Some are encrypted. Others are banned by the Guild. If you help me with a task... I could let you see them," said the girl with a mischievous smile on her face.

Leo looked at her suspiciously, but also hopefully. It was the first time anyone had treated him as an equal. Not like a beggar. Not like a child.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Shh," she said, smiling. "I don't like being tracked." She said it in an ironic and funny way. "You fit the description of someone strange and probably dangerous, hmmm," she said, making an exaggerated grimace. "Okay, I'll trust you. Call me Eire. And what's your name?"

Leo was aware that revealing his name to someone was a risk because of what he now knew about his god.

"My name is Dion," Leo replied confidently.

"Hmm, interesting name, I like it," the girl concluded.

Leo nodded. He didn't really know yet if he could trust her... she seemed a bit strange and nosy, but to tell the truth, the few books he had managed to get hold of told nothing more than the story everyone already knew about Zeus' family, his rise, his power, his fall, and his exile, all summarized in somewhat fantastical stories that still hid many things.

Moreover, for the first time since he had been left alone again, he felt that someone else was willing to help him find answers.