A few hours after Nula and the others finished their hunt, they returned to the hill where the rest were stationed. Jeeps were parked around the abandoned ruins and broken homes, mercenaries smoking and gambling as they cast condescending looks at the trio.
In the middle of the camp stood the "Edifice" — a dark stone structure, seven feet tall and inscribed with runes. It was made of the same material as the shard necklace. The Edifice emanated an invisible shield that protected them from the miasma's effects.
"Never in my life would I imagine people looking down on a huntsman," Peeros said meekly.
"Well, I bet you're probably used to it," Nula muttered under his breath, just as Vina pinched his back and shot him an annoyed look.
"Ow!" Nula yelped.
They made their way to Liba, carrying the heads of the Decadents they had slain during the hunt. As expected, he was alone — even the mercenaries were uncomfortable around him.
Liba smiled in an uncanny manner; just looking at him sent shivers down their spines, like something only pretending to be human.
He handed out three glass tubes filled with a red liquid, almost like blood, the surface of the liquid inscribed with runic letters.
This substance was known as the "Tonics" — used to postpone the transformation into Decadents. To postpone their transformation.
"Good job," he said, as they quickly snatched the glass tubes and left, not wanting to linger in his unsettling presence.
Vina shivered. "God, he's weird. Is he still staring?" she asked Peeros.
"I don't want to look — let's just walk faster!" Peeros said, as they mingled with the other laborers to avoid Liba's gaze.
Nula, however, lingered in the background and made his way toward a mercenary standing behind one of the vehicles.
The man wore a gray shirt under a blue jacket, with jeans and a black hat. His skin was oily and almost reddish, his teeth blackened from years of smoking.
The laborers called him "Bacon" — for how he looked.
"Give me a smoke," Nula said to Bacon.
"Ah, fuck off!" the mercenary snapped, flipping Nula off.
"Here," Nula said, showing him a golden bracelet. "I found it during the hunt."
The mercenary's expression shifted from indifference to a sinister smile.
"Just two," he said, handing Nula a cigarette.
Nula smoked as he watched the other laborers, who had come from different parts of the world.
There were those from the eastern part of the country, like Shise, who wore a dark blue hoodie and a skirt — most likely taken from a previous laborer who had died. She had long black hair held by a silver clip, narrow eyes, and an earring attached to the helix of one ear.
Then there was Igba, a tall, muscular Black man, topless and wearing only orange shorts and the bandages wrapped around his body. He had freckles across his cheeks, a curly afro, and plug earrings.
As always, Nula began to analyze the situation, searching for any possible way to escape.
He thought hard about how their operations worked and whether there were any holes he could exploit.
"For weeks I've been thinking... but Liba and his lackeys were thorough with their operation. Their base of operations is in the middle of nowhere, miles away from an Edifice. We were blindfolded during the whole trip, so there's no way to find landmarks.
And of course, the Tonics... Whether we like it or not, the Tonic is the only thing keeping us alive — and the only thing stopping us from trashing this place," Nula thought as he puffed his last smoke.
He watched Vina with the other laborers, playing around with his prosthetic arm. They were caught up in an obscure children's game, flipping bottles and using his arm to hit the loser.
"That's one way to pass the time," Nula whispered.
He watched them in the background, smoking another cigarette.
Unlike Vina, who was easily liked by the others, Nula was an outcast.
Here, in a small, tight-knit group like this, he was forced to face the repercussions of his past actions.
A few moments passed, and the final group finally returned — their faces full of anguish, and missing one of the three laborers.
Specifically, the kid — the youngest of them all.
Even without words, their expressions said it all, yet no one dared to acknowledge it.
Felicia — a man in his mid-thirties, with his hair combed up, white strands showing, freckles across his face, and a pencil-thin mustache — stood there wearing a brown, bloodied shirt from battle.
Stuttering, he took a deep breath to deliver the bad news.
"Rizza... S-she... she's dead! She died fighting against a Decadent!"
The news shocked the laborers — and, to some extent, even the mercenaries.
Liba, however, remained calm.
With an indifferent, almost mundane tone, he said, "Well, that sucks. Did you at least get the quota, though?"
Deborah, a woman in her mid-30s with orange hair and wearing a green turtleneck sweater, bathed in the blood of Decadents, was left dumbfounded by Liba's response.
"Huh? Wh-? Yes? We left the parts there?" she said, momentarily replacing her despair with confusion.
"That's good… Well, I mean, it's sad, but..." Liba said, trying to sound genuine. He smirked, struggling to hold back his laughter before finally giving in.
"I'm sorry... I was trying to comfort you, but I can't lie to myself," Liba said as he laughed hysterically.
Morma, one of the laborers with short brown hair and wearing a purple jacket, tried to repress her anger by clenching her fist, knowing that if she spoke a single word, she'd be killed.
"Too bad I wasn't there to see it. It's not every day you see a kid die," he said, smiling manically. But for some reason, speaking those words seemed more natural and less eerie. Perhaps it's his true nature showing.
Liba then handed both of them the tonic, and with a smile, he said, "Good job." He then clapped his hands, grabbing everyone's attention.
"Alright, alright, looks like everyone got the quota, which means tonight there will be beer! Now then, pack up your stuff. E.T.D. will be in 30 minutes."
Morma immediately rushed over to the two.
"Hey! Hey! Are you alright?!" she asked, as Deborah collapsed, beginning to break down.
Some of the laborers brought her water, while Felicia slowly walked away.
Peeros tried to get his attention, but Felicia ignored him — he didn't even look back.
Arma — a man in his mid-fifties, with slicked-back hair, a stubble, and a burn scar covering the top right side of his face — gently but firmly placed a hand on Peeros' shoulder, silently signaling him to give Felicia space.
Felicia wore a mortified expression. Under his breath, he kept mumbling, "No. No. No."
He crushed the Tonic in his hand and rubbed the blood-like liquid onto his face. The runes inscribed in the fluid slowly sank into his skin, leaving only the red stain behind.
"It wasn't your fault, Deb. The ones who should be blamed are the ones who started this mess…"
"And I'll make sure they pay."
After they were finished packing the mercenaries bound the laborers with flesh clamps and blindfolded them. Each was frisked and methodically loaded into a random jeep. Their weapons were confiscated and secured in a separate vehicle, stored in an undisclosed location as the laborers were taken home.
The scent of fresh grass after a light drizzle drifted into Peeros' nostrils as the jeep rolled through a vast grassland stretching miles away. The orange sky hit the patch of grass as the
sun set after a long day, a sight to behold.
But they couldn't see it.
Still, the scent alone was enough to stir a deep, nostalgic melancholy in Peeros.
"I miss home," Peeros said as he started to reminisce about the past.
"Same here, haven't been home for a year now. I miss my old man. I hope he's doing fine,"
said Bolka, a short blonde man wearing a white tank top. His hair was tied at the back while his bangs covered his left eye.
But before Peeros was able to respond, they heard a hard thump coming from the driver's seat, signaling them to stop talking. There, they were left to reminisce on their own.
A few hours passed by when they finally reached their camp. It was a makeshift base in a small ruined village with structures similar to the design of the ruined metropolis where they conducted their hunt a few hours ago. There was some infrastructure here and there but mostly patches of grass and trees. The only buildings that had been reconstructed were those used by the mercenaries and laborers. Like the small office, patched up with wooden planks, where Liba resides; the old library where the group's doctor works; and old houses patched up with cloth and wood, while the rest were left untouched.
Shu, a laborer with spiky hair and narrow eyes, his face scarred—one scar on his nose and one on his lips—quickly got off the vehicle, begging the guard to remove the clamps.
"Pleeaassseee! I really need to pee!" he begged the guard, one of them almost smirking by Shu's act.
Then came out two others: a big, brawny man with an undercut and a regular mustache named Cleo, and a tanned-skinned woman with an "X" shaped scar on her cheek and brown hair named Eva.
After getting their clamps off, they went to comfort Deborah.
"Deborah, how are you??" asked Cleo. However, Deborah was unresponsive. Cleo looked at Eva as they assisted her back to her room. Meanwhile, Felicia walked by, not uttering a single word as he made his way to the small chapel. There, he opened a cabinet full of candles and took a match. He walked outside to find a field of mass graves. A few of the corpses were comrades who had died in battle, but most of them were friends and family members who came with the "Pre-Decadents," as they are officially termed, in hopes of finding a cure for their afflicted loved ones, only to be forced into the awakening ritual instead.
Felicia took out a bracelet and buried it next to a grave, as it was the only thing he was able to salvage during the gruesome exchange. It was not just any grave, however. It was the grave of Rizza's mother, the one who was afflicted with the miasma, A pre-decadent. Liba, however, did not spare the child and forced her into the awakening process, regardless of how young she was. And, like a twisted joke, the kid survived and the mother did not.
Felica then began lighting a candle for the dead kid, Flashes of her death entered his mind. Her screeching screams echoed in his ears as he begins to puke. That was the straw that broke the camels back, something snapped inside of him, His heart pounded, and a single thought surged through him.
"I will kill them all and I'll fucking kill Liba!"