The campfire crackled softly as the silence grew heavier. The tension in the air was like a thick fog no one dared to cut through.
Everyone stood in a loose circle, still processing the scale of what had happened. The icy wind blew gently now, as if the storm that had raged hours ago had never existed—but the scars left behind were too deep to forget.
"Do we really need to report it? Won't be troublesome and we might be punished badly,"Vic spoke out.
"So... what do we do now?" Albert finally asked, his voice breaking the silence. His tone was stiff, uncertain, almost childlike compared to the mature, hardened battlefield he was used to.
No one responded at first.
Then Gare quietly stepped forward. He took out a folded parchment from inside his coat and handed it to Robert. "This came with the last message from Lord Kael. It was written to hand over this to you in case something like this happened."
