Wood groaned under the strain.
A deep, complaining creak filled the damaged cabin, the timber still stiff and protesting the unnatural frost spreading in slow pale veins along the shattered frame, the sap within sealed hard by the cold.
Morning light spilled through the gaps he'd failed to patch the night before, slicing the small room into uneven stripes of gold and shadow that shifted every time a breeze slipped through. The air carried the sharp bite of frost mixed with the lingering smell of old ash from the hearth.
Arion stood in the middle of it all, staring at the mess.
Seriously, why does it take either my body getting wrecked or my property getting smashed apart just to have a conversation with a girl?
He paused, the thought lingering.
And here I thought my world was crazy…
He let out a slow breath, hooked his foot around the crude chair's leg, and dragged it closer. When he dropped into it, the thing creaked under his weight, and his gaze fell to the journal lying where it had landed earlier.
He reached down, picked it up, and brushed the dust from its worn cover with slow, deliberate strokes of his thumb. He held it longer than he needed to, feeling the age of the rough leather.
The weight wasn't in the pages.
It was in what it represented.
Yesterday's conversation with Auriel echoed in his head, her words refusing to fade no matter how hard he tried to shove them aside.
"You should still find his family."
"He was likely a Freeblade. The Guild will know his kin."
"For the Fathers' and… Mothers' sake."
Arion bent forward, elbows resting on his knees, and pressed the journal gently against his forehead. He sat there for a long moment, the choice pressing down on him like a physical burden.
"Dammit."
Decision made, he secured his Grimoire and gripped Recall firmly in one hand before heading out.
…
Bright light hit him full in the face as he pushed through the last line of trees.
He stopped on the crest of the hill, staring out at the forest that stretched ahead. Darker. Older. Thicker than anything he was used to, the treetops forming an unbroken sea of deep green.
Just… don't even say anything.
He clung to the thought like it might somehow stop the day from getting worse.
Just a peaceful walk through the woods. No monsters. No ruins. No cosmic nonsense.
He fought hard to hold onto that safe mental space, desperately pushing back any stray idea that might suddenly turn real and want to kill him.
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
A heavy canopy loomed overhead, blocking out most of the light. Only thin shafts managed to pierce through the dense layers of leaves, leaving the forest floor in perpetual dimness where shadows pooled like ink between the roots.
The quiet here felt wrong. Too few birds calling overhead. Almost no insects buzzing in the undergrowth. The silence put his nerves on edge, making every small sound feel like a warning.
Of course he wasn't taking any chances. He'd activated his Resonant Scanner the moment he entered the tree line, sending out careful pulses at regular intervals that rippled through the air like invisible sonar.
The feedback hummed steadily at the edge of his mind, painting faint outlines of the world around him.
Only the crunch of his boots on dead leaves and the steady tapping of Recall against the ground broke the silence. Until a small shuffle made him freeze mid-step, muscles tensing instantly.
Small. Close.
The blurred echo pulsed in his mind.
Small. Fast. Too close. Rodent? Lizard? Something with teeth, probably.
Whatever it was, it was waiting.
Arion stood perfectly still, breath held, Recall gripped loose and ready.
Then something burst from the foliage at his three o'clock position.
It was small but lightning fast, either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid, a blur of fur and teeth launching straight at his leg.
Arion reacted instantly. His foot kicked the bottom fitting of Recall in one smooth motion, sending her whipping upward in a clean arc.
The reinforced end cracked hard against the creature mid-leap with a solid thud sending it tumbling through the air in a spinning heap.
It rolled across the dirt, hissed angrily with bared fangs, and turned to flee back into the undergrowth—
THUMP.
Recall slammed tip-first into the earth beside him.
Frost exploded outward in jagged lines, racing across the ground like living veins and swallowing the creature before it could escape.
Ice encased it completely in a heartbeat, trapping even its final cry inside the frozen shell where it hung suspended, mouth still open.
"Can't have you calling your friends now, can I?" Arion muttered, giving the frozen shape a light tap with his boot as he walked past.
He grinned, confidence surging through him.
"Look out, world," he said under his breath. "There's a new guy in town."
…
He was roughly halfway through the trek when the terrain began to dip into a wide, sunken groove. The air grew thicker here, older somehow, carrying the heavy scent of moss and damp earth mixed with something sweeter that he couldn't quite place.
This has to be close to the forest's centre—too lush, too quiet, too old to be anything else.
Strange plants crowded the slopes, their petals so darkly saturated they seemed to swallow what little light reached them. Smaller trees stood between them, branches bowed under fruit that glowed with a faint pulse from within, as if lit by trapped embers rather than sun. Tiny insects drifted lazily through the air, leaving faint sparkling trails that bled out behind them.
The sweetness in the air was just a little too thick, like something trying too hard to smell harmless.
Apart from their quiet movement, the place felt completely still.
"Five-star vacation spot," Arion muttered, wiping sweat from his brow. "Why couldn't the guy have built his outpost right here instead?"
He continued through the beautiful natural garden, boots sinking slightly into the soft moss, spotting a massive mound covered in thick moss around the next bend of trees.
A perfect landmark for the halfway point. Good.
There wasn't much to it at first glance—just a broad hump of earth and moss, old enough to look natural, still enough to pass for harmless.
With his bearings reset, he turned to continue the rest of his journey—
KRUCK-GRRK.
The sound of heavy stone shifting came from directly behind him.
Arion froze mid-step, every muscle locking up.
Don't. Look. Just don't loo—
KRUKK.
He glanced back.
Terror clamped down on his chest like a vice, squeezing the air from his lungs.
The mound had shifted, now only a few steps away. A massive, ancient eye slowly opened beneath layers of rock and moss, locking onto him with cold, unblinking intelligence that felt far too aware.
Two heavy seconds passed in dead silence.
Then the forest exploded into violence.
Arion sprinted like his life depended on it—which it very much did. His feet pounded the uneven ground, dodging roots and potholes with pure desperation.
Behind him the earth thundered as something enormous charged through, trees cracking and snapping like dry twigs in its path, the ground shaking with every impact.
"Shit-shit-shit! What happened to my peaceful trek!?"
A shattered trunk flew through the air and smashed into the ground beside him, clipping his shoulder hard enough to spin him half-sideways before he caught himself and kept running.
He burst through a narrow clearing, spotted a gap between two fallen logs and vaulted it badly.
He hit the ground in a rolling tumble that knocked the wind from him, came up running and snatched Recall from the dirt without slowing, spinning her once in his grip.
"I'm just the new guy with a stick and some fancy spells! What the hell am I supposed to do against that thing?!"
The treeline behind him detonated. Wood and bark flew in every direction as a living nightmare of rock and earth burst into the open. Vines and thick moss clung to its massive body like natural armour, roots trailing behind it like whips. Its bulk blocked out what little light remained as it thundered straight toward him.
Arion twisted sharply mid-stride, his left hand sweeping low through the tall grass. Vitalis surged out through the dew, crushed blades, and surface moisture underfoot, catching Luminary and forcing the transfer wide.
A fan of ice raced across the ground where he had stood seconds earlier.
He kept sprinting, lungs burning.
A split second later, the beast's enormous weight slammed down onto the frozen surface. The ice cracked loudly under the impact, but the lack of friction turned the creature's own power against it. Its legs skidded wildly, the huge body slewing sideways with a furious roar that shook leaves from the trees.
Trees groaned and shattered as the monster fought for balance, momentum carrying it crashing through the undergrowth in a tangle of vines and stone.
Arion never looked back. He ran hard toward his destination as the forest continued to shake with the beast's distant, frustrated booms that echoed long after he had left it behind.
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
Arion stumbled out onto firmer ground, breathing hard, using Recall as a makeshift walking staff to keep his balance. Sweat trickled down his forehead and stung his eyes, the humid earth seeming to drink it up as he pushed through the thinning foliage with heavy steps.
The forest finally began to open up. The edge of civilisation waited somewhere ahead, or at least he hoped it did.
He drew in a deep, steadying breath. The closer he got, the old fears rose with him—connections, kin, judgement, betrayal, regret.
Everything his past self had learned to fear the hard way.
But he was already here. No point turning back now.
As he approached the last line of trees, before he could even catch a glimpse of the settlement, chaotic noise reached him—loud voices, rough laughter, the crackle of fires and the clink of tankards.
They sound like a rowdy bunch…
Flickers of firelight danced between the trunks.
Torches? Campfires?
The strangest part was how bright they appeared, almost like daylight, even though the sun was still up. As he moved closer, his eyes adjusted to the strange contrast. The deeper dimness of the ancient forest made everything outside seem unnaturally vivid and harsh.
That's… odd. I should be getting close to the clearing where that smoke signal was coming from.
He stepped out just at the edge of the treeline and stopped dead.
What the hell kind of town is this?
What greeted him was nothing like a town.
Fires burned along the perimeter in messy clusters, sending thick black smoke curling into the sky. Unorganised tents sprawled across the clearing in no particular pattern, alongside crudely built wooden huts that looked ready to collapse at any moment. Dozens of scrap-metal cages stood in rough rows, some empty, some crowded with slumped silhouettes.
A few of the silhouettes inside shifted when the laughter rose, then went still again. Men in mismatched armour and ragged clothing moved about, downing drinks straight from bottles, tearing into meat with their hands and laughing with mouths full.
The air reeked of smoke, spilled alcohol, unwashed bodies and something sharper—blood.
"You've got to be shitting me…"
The whole camp looked like a grimy set from one of those old post-collapse shows he used to watch back home.
"Seriously?" he muttered, voice flat with disappointment.
He let out an annoyed sigh, already accepting that his journey had led him to the least helpful conclusion possible.
Bandits.
And none of them look remotely interested in directions…
Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the entire camp vanished. Swallowed whole behind a thick wall of unnatural shadow that rolled in like living smoke, cutting off every sight in an instant.
He pushed a pulse through the dark on instinct. The Scanner went out and never came back with a shape.
"God dammit! Are you telling me I have to search this entire bloody area until I find the actual town?" he groaned, rubbing his face with both hands in pure frustration.
Because he had been distracted, the world around him had gone quiet.
He missed the soft rustle of leaves nearby.
But he did hear the voice that followed, low and dripping with hunger.
"Dinnerrr~"