The silver line of dawn light cut across his floorboard, the foundation of the peaceful life he has led until now.
He was already awake before the rooster first cried in the morning. A habit that has been built over a long campaign, where sleep meant distraction. Yet here, in this quiet house, it was a defence mechanism against a more insidious enemy; overtime.
At the Guild Hall of Aethelburg, overtime was not merely unpaid labour; it was an eerie vortex that was draining your soul and will to live as if it were nothing. Smell of oily lamp, sweat, and broken resolve. A special kind of hell itself.
His job was simple: to make the warehouse perfectly sorted and logged before the earliest adventures came to greet them with a mountain of work. He moved through the cavernous ceiling with an efficient and silent grace of someone who is already used to it. His hand checked the labels as his eyes wandered, noting the inventory levels. The place was a marvel of organised silence, smelling of dried herbs, cured leather, and the faint, metallic tang of classified monster parts.
Out on the main guild floor, past the open doorway of his warehouse, the other front was opening. The sharp, clear voice of Natasha, the senior receptionist, cut through the morning murmur of clerks and scribes.
"I'm afraid it's not possible," she said, her tone was calm yet like an impregnable fortress, leaving no room for argument between her words.
A flustered adventure, on the other side of the polished oak counter that separates the public area from the guild's offices. "By the regulation, the guilds provided, a party needs to present a valid damage weaver before acquiring a permit for a Troll hunt," she paused. "You only have one."
"But my friends vouched for me!" The man protested.
She was smiling, a professional smile of an experienced receptionist, a natural yet chilling at the same time. "The guild does not accept vows of friendship," she said.
"The weaver forms are on the rack behind you. Next?"
From his desk, a dozen meters away, where he was reviewing the logistics manifest, Kael witnessed it all: How Natasha directed the rookie adventures with silver patience. When she was dealing with senior adventures with ease, as he worked.
I still can't believe it was the same person.
The thought was instant as he watched her figure from afar.
The memories surfaced, unbidden. It was years ago when the rookie adventurers came, wounded as they walked past the Guild's door frame.
His instinct kicked in, the enemy he needed to avoid. The inevitable doom for his daily life, the overtime.
He sneaked out, alone, wearing his armour and cape with the hood covering his head. On his side, there's a long sword dangling, exposed to the world as if declaring its presence.
It was in an enclosed area, a ruin, a dungeon, when the shriek of something reverberated in the air. The sound of the clattering of Kael's armour can't even be heard as the loud voice reverberated with intensity. By the time he reached the room, the monster was already slumped on the floor. Scorched and impaled to the ground.
On top of it, a single entity standing still, yet the ragged breath is enough to tell what has already happened. A person who became the shadow hero, the urban legend that has been wandering around the town.
Kael knows he was not alone, but this is his first time meeting with the person.
The figure on top of the carcass slowly lowered its hood. A dark cascade of hair fell free as the dim magical light of the cave glinted off the features he knew all too well, Natasha.
Her expression was one of raw, weary triumph of a warrior who back from won the war. Utterly different from the mask of a professional receptionist he knows. She was breathing heavily, lowering her guard to what she thought of total solitude.
The name left Kael's lips before he could stop, a low, stunned exhale that barely a whisper, yet it echoes to the suddenly silent room.
"Natasha?"
Her head snapped toward the sound, her eyes wide. Every trace of exhaustion vanished, replaced by pure, undiluted panic. The awkward silence that followed was heavy and sharp, hanging in the air.
For a single, horrifying moment, they just stared at each other.
It was an instant, her hand lifted the wand. There's no hesitation, only a desperate, frantic need to silence the witness.
She didn't shout the incantation. She was hissed.
A barrage of raw magic power erupted—not meant to kill, but to disorient, to overwhelm, to erase the moment.
Kael's own reflexes, older than his life, took over. He didn't gripping his sword, he was deflecting it with the vambrace on his forearm, the impact ringing through the metal. He gave ground, a defensive retreat; his mind racing faster than his feet.
She fights like a cornered animal, he realised, noticing the way she fights—fast yet precise, no wasted movement yet fueled by pure panic.
He was blurred in the darkness, the experience and the armour deflected all the projectiles. He doesn't want to fight her.
A whip—like light was coming, too fast to block, coming straight towards his helmet, wrapped it like a serpent's tail. He grunted, stumbling as the force yanked him to the side. Hollow clank echoed as the spell ripped his helmet off and sent it flying across the stone floor.
The chaotic barrage ceased abruptly.
Kael stood revealed, his pale brown hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. His face—The face of quiet Quartermaster exposed. He was breathing heavily, not from exhaustion, but from the shock of exposure.
Natasha stood frozen, her wand still raised, her chest heaving. The frantic terror in her eyes melted into something else: utter, world-shattering disbelief.
"...Kael?"
Her voice was a whisper, all the fight gone out of it, replaced by a dawning horror that mirrored his own. The wand in her hand trembled slightly. With the silent cave as a witness to the two ghosts, the urban legends revealed each other.
That day is still vividly lingering in his memories like it was just yesterday's events.
The voice cut through the haze of memory, sharp and familiar to him.
"Hey.
Kael blinked, the mundane smell of ink and wood snapped him back. He was at his desk, his hand suspended over a requisition form he'd been about to stamp.
Natasha stood in front of him, one eyebrow raised. Her gaze flicked from his face to his motionless hand, then back again.
"What are you daydreaming about?" She asked, her tone flat, devoid of real curiosity as she handed him a sack into his space.
"Here, work for you," she said.
Kael reached for the rough fabric of the sack. The smell of sweat, blood, and dirt lingered before his nose.
As his finger traced along the fabric, the Guild's door burst open.
A party of adventurers rushed in, panic could be seen decorating their faces as they ran inside the guild.
"East gate!" One of them shouted, his voice cracked with urgency. "There's a monster! Big one! Basilisk!"
The air in the guild hall changed instantly. The low hum of bureaucracy was severed. Every clerk, every scribe, every adventurer in the lobby froze and turned.
Kael's hand closed around the sack, his grip tightening unconsciously. His eyes met Natasha's.
In her gaze, he saw the same cold dread that was crystallising in his own gut. No words were needed. Both of them already knew, the quiet was about to come to an end.
The overtime was about to begin.