Shell-shocked by her words, the four of them stared at the young woman with pale faces. The cheerful bonfire, the appetizing smell of roasting meat, and the quiet security of the tower all seemed to mock them. The dream of freedom, the hope that had sustained them through two months of hell, had just been shattered with a few simple sentences.
Even though Kane had suspected it, a nagging hunch that had festered in the back of his mind for days, accepting it as a cold, hard fact was an entirely different story. His calm demeanor was a mask for the turmoil within. 'Still, what should I do? How can we get over this?' he thought, his mind racing through every possibility, every desperate option. The despair he faced was immense, a crushing weight that threatened to break him. It was a familiar feeling, one that had haunted him for a lifetime, but it had never been so absolute.
Somewhere beside him, Cassie suddenly spoke, her voice a tiny, fragile whisper that barely cut through the silence. "What do you mean, there is no Gateway?"
Effie shrugged, a casual gesture that was so out of place in this moment of collective agony. "It's very simple, really. I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but deep down inside, you must have known already. Didn't you? The Forgotten Shore… it's not really a place where humans are supposed to survive. That's why you have never heard of anything like it in the school or the Academy."
Kane's face tightened with a cold, simmering anger about this hopeless situation. He knew she was right. The Dream Realm was vast and strange, with most of its regions barely explored by humans. However, there was at least a small amount of information available about them. Some were even fully under human control, with large Citadels like Bastion providing shelter to hundreds of thousands of Awakened. The lack of any information about this place, the utter silence surrounding it, had always been a glaring, terrifying anomaly.
'Of course, there isn't simple things with my luck,' he thought bitterly, a familiar taste of resentment filling his mouth. The world was a predator that always waited for an opportunity to devour you. Why would he ever expect anything else?
Meanwhile, Effie continued in a gentle tone, as if she were talking about the weather. "Fifteen years ago or so, a group of powerful and desperate Sleepers managed to reach this city and claim the castle for themselves. Not because it had a Gateway, but because it was the only place that could keep them safe. At least for a while. Ever since then, a few lucky or resourceful people would find their way to the castle each solstice, only to get stuck here with the rest of us."
Nephis was sitting quietly, with only her clenched fists betraying the storm of emotions raging in her heart. Cassie was taking the news harder than both of them, though. After all, it was her vision that had led them into this trap, a promised land that turned out to be a dead end. Sunny's face was contorted with rage, and he could hear some curses muttered under his breath, a low, furious sound. Cassie's face was deathly pale, with an expression of pain and shock contorting its delicate lines. Closing her eyes, she whispered: "But that's… that is not fair!"
Effie looked at her with a fleeting hint of pity. Then, she chuckled, smiled darkly, and said: "When was anything ever fair?"
'Of course, life is unfair,' Kane thought, the words a silent mantra he had lived by for years.
While he was stewing in his countless thoughts, Effie's smile suddenly lost its grim undertone and turned into a happy grin once again. Leaning forward a little, she said: "But it's not all bad! At least you have met me. You guys are incredibly lucky, really. If you hadn't run into a local, you would have been dead already."
Nephis stared at her, her voice a flat monotone. "Yeah? Why is… that?" Her awkward manner of speech, a side effect of her isolation, was back again in all its glory. Kane looked at her for a second and thought, 'Well, there goes our human scavenger.' The facade of normalcy they had built was crumbling.
Effie sighed, her cheerfulness fading slightly. "The Dark City is simultaneously the safest place to be on the Forgotten Shore, and also the deadliest. It is safe because no sea monster can cross the wall, let alone reach the castle. But at the same time, it is far more dangerous than the Labyrinth because almost every Nightmare Creature here is of the Fallen rank."
Kane blinked and started to sweat. He knew how strong a Fallen Beast was, as he had fought one himself. Even though it was old and frail, he had taken a gamble and nearly died. That was just for a Fallen Beast, the lowest class in Fallen creatures. Remembering the countless shapes moving through the ruins, he couldn't help but tremble.
Was each… each of those shapes a Fallen monster? How would anyone survive even a day in this cursed city? They would have to be insane to even try! Slowly, the magnitude of the perilous trap they had found themselves in began to seep into his mind, a cold, icy dread that settled in the pit of his stomach.
Effie smiled, her eyes glinting with a morbid amusement. "But you guys managed to stumble into me before descending from the wall. Otherwise, the Fallen Ones would have been feasting on your souls already. Lucky, very lucky! There are very few people in the castle who go out hunting in the ruins, let alone venture so far away from it. Meeting an experienced hunter like me was probably your only chance to avoid finding out about the true face of the Dark City a second too late."
She shook her head, a dark laugh escaping her lips. "That's, like… one to one thousand? Ten thousand? A million? At any rate, the odds were really not in your favor. Fortune is definitely in love with at least one of you, guys. So… cheer up! Do you want some meat? I had a truly amazing hunt today. It was so amazing that I don't even mind sharing."
Nephis didn't even look at the roasting meat. Instead, she leaned forward, her words filled with an almost painful intensity. "If there is no Gateway here, why didn't you try to leave?"
Effie blinked a couple of times and looked at her with sincere confusion. "...Leave? And go where?" The meat was about to become burnt, so she leaned to the fire and removed the skewers, then replaced them with a couple of new ones. Then, with a sigh, she turned to Changing Star and said: "You've been to the Labyrinth, so you know what it's like. There's nothing else but that damn coral and cursed sea for months of travel in every direction. You can't go on foot, you can't swim. You can't even fly, because there are swarms of dreadful flying abominations hiding in the clouds. But try to leave? Yeah, many have tried. They're all dead now. Actually, that's how the initial master of the castle had perished."
Kane clenched his fists, the truth of her words a physical blow. Nephis continued, her voice hard as stone. "So, what? You guys just hide in the castle and wait for death?"
The beautiful young woman laughed. "Of course not, doofus!" Then she pierced him with an unexpectedly grim look of her hazel eyes and said: "Most of us can't even get into the castle. The king demands his tax, you know? So we just wait for death outside."
Kane spoke without hesitation, the word a simple statement of fact. "Tax? By whom?"
Effie shrugged. "The castle belongs to a man named Gunlaug. If you want to enter and live in the safety of the castle walls, protected and provided for by his hunters, you need to pay a tribute. One shard each week."
Kane thought, 'Of course, everywhere there is damn politics.' Even in this desolate hell, humanity found a way to create a system of power and oppression.
Sunny spoke up, his mouth curled up in a sneer. "What happens if you can't pay the tribute?"
The huntress glanced at him with a look of confusion. "What do you think? You are not allowed to step anywhere near the gates. There's a small settlement for us unfortunate wretches beneath the castle walls, where we make do with what little we have and tremble in the night, hoping that nothing comes out of the darkness to devour us. That's pretty much it."
Sunny hesitated. "But how are people even supposed to get soul shards in this cursed place?"
Effie gestured to the corpses of the monsters she had slain. "By hunting. One can find Awakened creatures here and there in the city. The trick is to find and kill them without stumbling into something far more deadly. Gunlaug's people form parties and go out to hunt, with experienced pathfinders leading the way. They bring back food, Memories, materials, and shards. Nothing stops people from attempting the same."
She fell silent for a few moments, and then said in a darker tone: "Of course, without good Memories, vast amounts of accumulated soul essence, and intricate knowledge of the city, those people usually don't live long. Most of them either die or turn to other ways of earning shards. There's very few independent hunters with more than a couple of successful hunts to their names. Ones that are still alive, I mean."
Sunny glanced at the dead monsters, each of them large enough to give him pause. "What about you? How many did you survive?"
Effie smiled. "More than a couple." With a chuckle, she raised her hand and began folding fingers, a thoughtful expression on her face: "Let's see… one, two… uh, five…" Running out of fingers on one hand, she scratched her head and said with a bit of uncertainly: "I'm not really sure, but it should be around a hundred or two. Yeah."
Kane's eyes widened. Two… two hundred? If what Effie had said was true, then she was a force to be reckoned with. Slaying even one Awakened creature was worthy of respect. Slaying hundreds of them, however, was nothing short of remarkable, perhaps even heroic… and a little fearsome. Especially since she had hunted them alone in the middle of a cursed ruin full of Fallen abominations, unaided, with no one to rely on except for herself. The easygoing huntress was not as simple as she appeared.
He frowned. "If this is true, then you should have had no problem paying the tribute to stay in the castle. This doesn't make sense. Why haven't you?"
Effie shrugged with ambivalence. The topic didn't seem to interest her. "Let's just say that I don't like the… ambiance there."
Kane was listening intently, but suddenly, Nephis spoke again, her voice strangely tense: "You said that there were… other ways of earning soul shards. What are they?"
The huntress turned to her and was silent for a while, a hint of some dark emotion in her eyes. However, it was quickly erased by her usual laidback smile: "Well, there's a few ways. If you have a useful Utility Ability, you can become a craftsman or an artifex in the castle. There's not a lot of such Sleepers, so they are well-regarded and cared for. If not, uh… there are other opportunities, too. Boys can become Gunlaug's soldiers, while girls… can enter his harem. Pretty ones like the two of you, especially. No one will force you, of course."
Kane's face twisted with disgust, and he saw a similar expression of loathing on Nephis's face.
Nephis scowled and spoke, her voice cold and cutting. "So… you can either become his soldier, his servant, his plaything, or die. But that is… your own choice. No one is forcing anyone to do anything. Of course."
Effie grinned. "Smart girl. You get it."
Changing Star looked down, her indifferent face turning hard and cold. Her fists were clenched so hard that they seemed bloodless. "So why hasn't anyone… killed him yet?"
The huntress laughed. Kane looked at her, 'Seriously, just like that. The person who rules in this hell must be hell himself.' "Kill Gunlaug? Oh, many have tried. Great people, terrible people, and everyone in-between. You can see their skulls above the castle gate, actually." She shook her head. "I like your train of thought, princess, but you should forget it. Just consider him to be immortal. He practically is. Believe me when I say that no Sleeper can defeat Gunlaug, ever. It's simply impossible."
Effie sighed. "Plus, no matter how much I hate the bastard, he is the only thing that holds this place together. Despicable as he is, without him, we would have all been dead already."
Kane watched Nephis, waiting to see her reaction. What he saw did not make him happy at all. On her beautiful ivory face, there was nothing but cold indifference and a terrifying resolve. It was the same expression he had seen on it before the battle with the Carapace Centurion first, and the Carapace Demon later. Without even needing Cassie's prophetic Ability, he could easily imagine what was going on in her head. 'This is… going to be a pain in the ass.'
As though sensing the same thing, Effie grimaced. "No, seriously. Trying to go against Gunlaug will only get you killed... if you're lucky. Don't even think about that. Thinking too much is not good for your health here in the Dark City, anyway." Then, she smiled and gestured to the fire. "Just have some of this delicious meat instead. Life is good when your stomach is full, right? Let me tell you, this is most likely your last chance to eat anything for free. Food is a real rarity in these parts. Can you believe it?"
Sunny was the first to pick up a piece and started to eat hungrily. Kane sighed, then leaned forward and picked up a sizzling piece of meat. With that, Kane handed the piece of meat to Cassie, took another one, and began devouring it greedily. Nephis lingered for a bit, but then followed his example.
Effie giggled. "That's the spirit! See, doofus gets it." It seemed as though Changing Star had listened to her advice. At least on the surface, she had accepted that defeating the current master of the castle was impossible. But Kane knew that, deep down inside, she remained unconvinced. After all, this idiot had a tendency to do what she wanted.
While eating, Effie pointed at Kane and asked a question, "Hey, I have a question for you?"
Kane spoke with curiosity, "Sure."
Effie continued, "When I told you about this place, others were despairing, but yours was different? Why is that?"
Kane spoke, "On my journey here, I had a hunch that there might not be a Gateway. I was just hoping to be wrong."
As soon as he spoke, the others stopped eating and looked at him at a certain shock. Sunny spoke, "How?"
Kane sighed and spoke, "If people escaped from this hellhole, wouldn't they share how peculiar this place is, like how the sea goes back in sunlight?"
Sunny nodded in his head, but Cassie spoke, "But... shouldn't you have told us about your hunch?"
Kane looked at Cassie and spoke, "Well, it was a hunch, and I would still have come to this city, because there are humans here, which increases our survival drastically." Cassie became silent, thinking about his answer.
Effie spoke with a glee, "You seem to be an interesting person, Mounty-Maniac."
Nephis spoke, "I agree with Kane."
Kane thought, 'Seriously, am I dreaming in the dream realm?'