I Just Wanted a Peaceful Life… So Why Do Heroes Worship Me?

The peace didn't return.

Not really.

It pretended for a while — let the breeze carry warmth again, let the sunlight fall through the canopy like nothing had changed — but the sanctuary remembered.

And it was still angry.

Not with fury. Not with flame.

But with a deep, pulsing disquiet. Like a loyal dog pacing its fence, knowing something dangerous had been let too close.

Rei felt it in the way the earth pressed back beneath his feet. In the way the air hovered before touching him. The sanctuary wasn't asking.

It was listening.

Waiting.

Reacting.

He tried to ignore it. Kept his routine the same: morning walks, tending the tea herbs, listening to Ferren's dramatic retellings of how he "almost caught a sky-fox with a spoon." But the roots shifted beneath him now — not to trip, but to speak. The leaves curled inward when he passed, as if cradling secrets.

By midday, he stood still in the garden, hand resting on the trunk of the plum tree.

"You can stop," he murmured.

The tree rustled.

No wind.

Just response.

Behind him, Lynna crossed her arms. "Who are you talking to?"

"The tree."

She stared at him. "You always been crazy, or is this a recent development?"

Rei glanced back. "She listens."

"…The tree is a she?"

"Obviously."

There was a pause. Then Lynna sighed. "Of course. My bad."

She stepped closer, brows furrowed. "It hasn't stopped, has it? That thing you did to the intruder—"

"I didn't do anything."

"Oh, come on—"

"The sanctuary did." He looked up at the branches. "I didn't command it. I wouldn't have. But it heard him say that name. And it remembered what it was built to protect."

Lynna fell quiet.

Then, softer: "You built it."

"Yes."

"With that much… intent?"

"With that much regret."

They stood there, neither moving.

Then she muttered, "She's got a temper, your forest-girl."

"She's protective."

"Of you."

"…Yes."

—

Ellyn ran diagnostics that afternoon.

Not of Rei — of the land.

She sat cross-legged in the eastern field with divining runes spread in a careful ring. Crystals hummed. The grass bent slightly away from her, like it didn't trust the invasion.

She wrote in silence for an hour.

Then Auron arrived and peered over her shoulder.

"Those energy flows aren't stable," he said.

"No."

"They're not dangerous."

"No."

"They're alive."

Ellyn didn't look up. "It's adapting. The land's not just reacting — it's evolving around him."

Auron blinked. "You mean the sanctuary is… learning?"

She set her quill down. "It's more than a sanctuary. It's an extension of his will. His emotion. His trauma. It's not sentient the way we understand it — but it remembers."

Auron looked toward the house. "And if something threatens him again?"

Ellyn didn't answer.

She didn't need to.

The moss had already grown over one of her stones.

The grass beneath her flickered with light — a warning.

The sanctuary had heard the question.

And didn't like it.

—

Ferren didn't understand what was happening.

But he felt it.

He stopped halfway through carving a wooden totem when the shadows across the field shifted unnaturally. Birds flew differently now — circling instead of cutting through. Even his soup pot rattled on its own once.

So he did what any self-respecting scholar would do.

He blamed ghosts.

—

Rei slept less.

Not from nightmares.

But from the way the soil beneath his house throbbed softly at night. Like a heartbeat in the bones of the earth. Like a whisper asking, What now? What next?

He didn't answer.

He just walked.

Each step gentle, his fingers brushing against bark, against stone, against the garden fence.

Peace, he thought.

I still want peace.

The sanctuary didn't question that.

But it had started wondering who might try to take it away.

—

The next visitor didn't step past the outer ring.

She stood at the base of the old stone archway that marked the original threshold — the one Rei never spoke of.

Lynna spotted her first.

Black robes. Silver-threaded cuffs. A curved blade at her hip and a staff carved with memory runes.

But it was her eyes that gave her away.

Recognition.

Old, cold pain.

Ellyn arrived beside Rei at the ridge. "She's a Diviner. High Order. She's been tracing echoes across the old paths. I think she's looking for you."

"She's looking for what I used to be," Rei said.

"Same thing, isn't it?"

"No."

Rei stepped forward.

The wind thickened.

But he pushed through it like it wasn't even there.

—

The woman didn't move when he arrived. She bowed slightly — formal. Respectful.

"Silent One."

"Don't call me that."

She looked up. "Then what should I call you?"

He hesitated. "Rei."

She smiled faintly. "You used to hate that name."

"I hate all of them now."

There was a pause.

Then she spoke again. "I only came to see if it was true. That the man who ended the war had disappeared into trees."

"I didn't end the war," he said. "I walked away from it."

She looked around.

The forest had quieted — listening.

Even the branches seemed to hold still.

"You built this with intent," she said. "It listens to you."

"No," Rei said. "It listens for me."

Another pause.

"You're not coming back, are you?"

"No."

"Even if the world starts asking questions again?"

"Especially then."

She looked at him for a long time.

Then reached into her sleeve.

Pulled out a ribbon — deep red, embroidered with a symbol Rei hadn't seen in years.

The first order he ever commanded.

"I'm not here to pull you back," she said. "I'm here because I wanted to see if someone could really leave."

Rei looked at the ribbon.

Then let it fall from her hand onto the ground.

The sanctuary swallowed it.

The earth opened — just slightly — and the ribbon vanished beneath the soil.

The woman blinked.

Then smiled. "Still dramatic, I see."

"No," Rei said. "The sanctuary just doesn't like relics."

—

She left by sunset.

Didn't look back.

Didn't say goodbye.

The forest shifted once more to seal the path behind her.

And Lynna stepped up beside Rei, watching her disappear through the mist.

"Old flame?" she asked, too casually.

Rei shook his head. "Old reminder."

"Of what?"

"Of how easily I could lose this."

She nodded. "Then maybe you should start trusting us a little more. We're here too."

He looked at her.

Really looked.

And this time, the smile that touched his lips wasn't sad.

It was hopeful.

—

That night, the sanctuary finally rested.

The winds softened.

The moss lay flat.

The trees swayed naturally again.

And for the first time in days, Rei dreamed not of silence…

…but of laughter.