Renny woke on solid ground. Dazed, he pushed himself up, steadying the dizziness that lingered in his head. Around him stretched a forest, thick with bushes and tall trees, the sky above glowing a muted orange. None of it unsettled him. Under normal circumstances, he might have been tense, even anxious, alone in such a place. But now, after his training, after mastering the dagger, he felt a steady confidence.
He drew the blade from inside his suit jacket, gripping it firmly as he pressed deeper into the woods. The forest soon took on the look of an abandoned park: cages half-hidden among bushes, clear patches of ground marking where creatures were once kept. Yet the cages stood open, and empty. That detail gnawed at him. If the animals were gone, had they escaped… or been released?
The silence was thick, unnatural. As he moved deeper, the signs grew worse. Bodies littered the ground, some fresh, still bleeding from torn flesh, others long dead and half-rotted. Bones jutted out from the earth, broken skulls and splintered ribs scattered like discarded tools. The air reeked of iron and rot. Slowly, the pieces began to fall into place, the cages, their doors hanging open and empty. Perhaps they had never been meant for beasts at all. Perhaps it was people who were kept here, released only to be hunted down and slaughtered.
He let his demon eyes awaken, dark markings flaring faintly around his gaze. At once, faint traces of loss causes lit up in the air, dim blue threads marking a path. Following it north, he caught sight of orange fur snagged on branches. He plucked a tuft free, frowning.
"Looks like a dog's coat… but orange?" he muttered. Strange.
The trail carried him into a shallow alcove, where he finally found the source: a trembling rothound, its fur a vivid orange. Its size was no larger than a rottweiler he'd once seen on Earth, but the shape, the jagged muzzle, the gleaming teeth, it was the same breed of beast he'd first encountered when meeting Tela at the pier. Only smaller.
Renny scanned the treeline carefully. If the rothound was here, injured, trembling, then something had put it in this state, and whatever it was might still be close. The claw marks gouged into its body told a clear story: it had fled, been hunted, and collapsed here in desperation. Could it have been one of the creatures once caged in this place? That would make sense. It was far too small, far too fragile, to have been the hunter.
He narrowed his eyes, calling on his demon sight as he searched for unusual cause energy, but the forest held nothing. That alone unsettled him.
Turning back to the creature, he froze. It looked pitiful, fragile in a way that tugged at him. Not the snarling monster he'd once faced, but something broken down to its weakest self. Its orange fur was patchy and clotted with blood, deep gashes torn across its leg and neck, scratches marring its face. It was nothing but skin and bone, trembling and starved.
Renny knelt beside it quickly, his voice low, steady, almost like a promise. "It's alright… I've got you now." The words surprised him, soft and unguarded, but they felt right.
For a moment he just stayed there, watching the rise and fall of its labored breath. Only then did the thought strike him, unsettling as it was: what was a creature like this doing in the King's memory? What role could such a creature play here?
Kneeling, Renny tore his red tie from his collar and wound it tight around the beast's bleeding leg. Then, without effort, he lifted it into his arms. His strength had grown so much that the weight was nothing, the frail body pressing lightly against his chest.
There had to be water in this memory. He searched until the faint trickle of water met his ears. A stream cut through a clearing, its surface glinting under the orange sky. "Hmm… water indeed," he murmured. This must have been a real place once, somewhere in Hell. That's what the memory was built on, he thought.
He set the rothound down gently, laying his black jacket across the ground for it to rest on. Untying the leg wound, he carried the trembling creature into the stream, washing blood and dirt from its body. The cold water bit at its wounds, but it endured. When he finished, he rewrapped the injury with his tie and placed the beast softly back on the sand and leaves.
For a long while, Renny sat by the stream, watching the rothound breathe, shallow but steady.
It began to stir, faint signs of recovery flickering through its weak body. Still too frail to rise, it trembled in place. Renny understood; it was probably hungry as well. The thought made him chuckle bitterly, funny how he was now tending to a Rothound. He shook his head with a faint smile.
Then the creature began to shiver, its body quaking. Cold? Renny wondered, worry creeping in. Before he could act, faint footsteps reached his ears from a distance. His instincts flared. He instantly activated his demon eyes, scanning the area. No traces of Loss or Destruction causes appeared within his Demon Eye's range, yet he could still sense something rushing toward them.