"I fear not the unsheathed blade before my eyes, but I dread the hidden malice masked behind the mist." — Kaien Rask
They had been trudging along that treacherous, ambiguous foot trail for several hours now. Their sole navigator through this abyss was a mere child. Throughout the entire trek, Kaien could not stop harboring deep, bitter resentments within himself. Questions like, 'Why the hell are we placing our lives in the hands of this brat?' continuously aggressively bombarded his mind.
He shot a glance toward Yujin. The youth's physical condition had deteriorated drastically. His complexion was deathly pale, and his arms were wrapped tightly around his own torso in a desperate bid to preserve residual body heat.
Kaien quickened his pace to grasp the shoulder of Yuna, the child guiding them. "Hey, brat. Are you absolutely certain this is the correct path to your village?"
Yuna's pupils dilated slightly when Kaien suddenly gripped her shoulder out of nowhere. Despite her visible terror and the biting cold, she nodded with absolute confidence, thoroughly convinced that the path she was tracing was the correct one.
Yujin reached out, placing his hand over Kaien’s tightly gripped fingers on the girl's shoulder. Kaien could instantly feel that Yujin's skin was horrifyingly frigid.
"Kaien... leave the kid alone. There's no harm in trusting her," Yujin uttered, his entire frame violently shivering.
Kaien narrowed his eyes, his frustration boiling over. "But how long are we going to keep dragging our feet like this?!" he protested sharply. "We’ve been walking for an eternity, yet we haven't encountered a single sign of human settlement! Do you actively want us to freeze to death out here?!"
He violently brushed Yujin’s hand away. Yujin simply let his arm fall, offering no resistance. In truth, anxiety had begun to gnaw at the youth's psyche as well. Aside from their failure to locate the village, hypothermia was rapidly shutting his body down. To make matters worse, he was now experiencing severe visual disturbances.
The world before Yujin's eyes began to heavily destabilize. The vibrant green of the foliage and the stark white of the fog bled into a singular, monotonous shade of dull grey. He could no longer definitively ascertain whether his feet were actually treading upon solid earth or merely dancing upon his own delusional hallucinations.
"But she's the only lead we have, Kaien..." Yujin's peripheral vision began to completely blur.
Kaien let out an irritated growl, roughly shoving Yujin backward. "You're entirely too soft on people you just met, Yujin!"
"You don't know a damn thing, Kaien!" Yujin's voice was hoarse, nearly swallowed whole by the howling wind. His compromised vision caused Kaien's towering figure to morph into a menacing, pitch-black shadow. "There is something lurking out there... something that ripped our driver apart as if he were nothing but scrap paper. You saw it too, didn't you?!"
Kaien scoffed, his knuckles whitening over the hilt of his sword. "The only thing I know for a fact is that we are being led by a brat who doesn't even know the name of her own damn village, Yujin! You're bloody hallucinating from that head injury!"
The atmosphere abruptly plunged into a dead, suffocating silence. Footsteps crunched rhythmically against the dirt with every stride, but not a single word was exchanged between them.
Finally—after what felt like an eternity of marching—Kaien spotted a faint flicker of light cutting through the gloom. Though it was heavily obscured by the dense fog, he was absolutely certain that it was artificial light.
Yuna noticed it simultaneously. But just as she was about to sprint toward the source of illumination, Yujin’s cold grip clamped around her wrist, forcefully restraining her. He instinctively assumed she was attempting to flee; his blurred, hazy vision made it incredibly difficult to decipher the pinpoint of light ahead.
Feeling the icy, trembling texture of Yujin’s hand, Yuna went completely still, submissively obeying his silent command to remain with the group.
Sure enough, as they drew closer to the light, the mist gradually parted, exposing the skeletal silhouette of a stone structure. A small outpost fort stood silently ahead—appearing as though it had materialized out of thin air from the depths of the fog. At this moment, Yuna turned to the two adventurers, pleading with them to place their absolute faith in her, asserting that she recognized this landmark perfectly.
The moment they reached the village's threshold gates, Yuna enthusiastically dashed through them, completely abandoning the two adventurers.
But the very second their boots crossed into the interior, Yujin's knees buckled, and he collapsed heavily onto the hard ground. His face was entirely devoid of color, and his extremities were ice-cold to the touch.
Kaien flinched in surprise, though deep down, he had anticipated this outcome ever since he touched Yujin's hand earlier. He knew it was only a matter of time before the youth's body completely short-circuited.
Scooping Yujin’s unconscious frame up into a fireman's carry, Kaien marched into the settlement. To his immense unease, the entire perimeter was completely unmanned—not a single guard was stationed at the gates or patrolling the immediate vicinity.
Worse still, Yuna had vanished entirely from his line of sight. The child had dissolved into the thick mist, which was now illuminated by the eerie, low glow of the village lanterns.
Left with no other viable alternative, Kaien navigated the labyrinthine "Village of Mist." Frankly, the settlement was entirely too desolate to be considered functional. Even given the late hour, a total absence of human activity like this defied all logical parameters.
After meticulously combing the area for what felt like hours, he finally stumbled upon a lodging establishment. A crude, weathered sign hung above the entryway, garishly reading: "Aethelgard's Best Resort!"
"Tacky," Kaien muttered under his breath.
He kicked the door open and stepped inside. Contrary to its pretentious nomenclature, the interior of the inn was ancient and derelict. The wooden beams were decaying, covered in patches of damp, green moss.
He approached the reception desk to secure a single room with double bedding. Every single stride he took was accompanied by the loud, agonizing groan of the rotting floorboards beneath his boots.
Reaching the desk, he immediately rang the service bell to summon an attendant. Bizarrely, even after ringing the bell three successive times, not a single soul emerged to greet him. It was only on the fourth ring that an elderly man slowly materialized.
The old man emerged sluggardly from behind a tattered curtain. His footsteps were unnaturally quiet, virtually soundless.
"What is your business?" the old man rasped, his voice incredibly weak and scratchy.
Kaien casually slid four silver coins across the counter. "I need a room with two beds immediately. Just hand over the key. My partner is currently unconscious."
Though his motor skills were agonizingly slow, the old man eventually handed over the key to Room 307. Without wasting another second, Kaien hauled Yujin up the stairs.
Unlocking the door, the sharp odor of decaying wood and stagnant moss immediately assailed Kaien’s nostrils. Despite the profound discomfort of the room, he quickly laid Yujin's freezing body onto the mattress, pulling the heavy blankets up to his chin. As a precautionary measure, he conjured a localized, miniature flame on a metallic plate he retrieved from his pack.
Allowing the flame to levitate gently in mid-air without making direct contact with the metal, Kaien stared intently at the dancing fire. The illumination cast elongated, distorted shadows against the moss-covered walls. This ambient thermal energy should theoretically be sufficient to stabilize Yujin's hypothermia for the time being.
But just as Kaien was about to let his guard down and rest his aching muscles, his ears twitched. The distinct, rhythmic creaking of floorboards echoed from the corridor outside.
The heavy footsteps approached steadily... before coming to a dead stop directly in front of his door.
Meanwhile, several hours prior to Kaien and Yujin experiencing their initial tragedy in the western frontier, the Lumeris Guild headquarters was in a state of absolute, chaotic disarray.
A palpable panic had gripped the ocean of adventurers filling the hall. Viola and several of her colleagues looked thoroughly overwhelmed trying to manage the unruly crowd. After a long period of peace, the Guild was suddenly forced to confront this nightmare all over again.
Not far from the main counter, Aurelia was actively assisting Viola in processing the frantic adventurers. Ever since she had apprenticed herself under Viola, she was strictly required to comply with every single directive issued by her mentor—which currently included working as an interim, unpaid receptionist, despite being a licensed adventurer herself.
Unfortunately, being a teenager, Aurelia possessed an exceptionally thin veil of patience. This became glaringly obvious as she dealt with a relentless influx of rowdy adventurers, the vast majority of whom were men.
"Ugh, why the hell are there so many adventurers flooding the gates today?" she grumbled in deep irritation.
"You're simply unaccustomed to high-volume crises. Just fulfill your end of our contract," Viola replied coldly, her tone unyielding.
Aurelia let out a heavy sigh, utterly detesting their current predicament. She could actively sense that beneath the frantic eyes of these refugees, there was a far deeper, more sinister underlying cause for their flight.
Once the crowd momentarily thinned out, Aurelia collapsed into an empty chair near the reception desk, letting out a heavy, frustrated breath to vent her exhaustion.
"Seriously, why is the Guild crawling with people all of a sudden? It's never like this," Aurelia said, crossing her arms defensively.
"To put it simply, a cataclysm has officially breached Aethelgard," Viola stated plainly, leaning against the reception counter while meticulously filing her nails.
"Aethelgard?" Aurelia’s eyebrows shot up instantly.
"Yes. Aren't you originally a native of that sector?"
Hearing that specific geographic designation felt like a high-voltage electrical surge suddenly snapping straight up her spine. Her pupils dilated in absolute shock.
"Wait... if that's true, what's happening to the civilian population over there?! Has something occurred?!" Her entire body locked up, freezing solid. "What? You mean you haven't received the intelligence reports yet? A catastrophic food crisis has crippled Aethelgard due to a dense, unnatural fog accompanied by an abnormally high volume of precipitation. Furthermore, my sources indicate a severe, unprecedented flash flood is projected to decimate the area in the immediate future."
"Wait—what?!" Aurelia gasped, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Where the hell did you obtain that information?!"
Viola let out a quiet sigh, her elegant fingers pausing their movement over her nails. She locked her cold, piercing gaze dead onto Aurelia. "From Visha, obviously. You are well aware of what her information-gathering capabilities entail, aren't you?"
Aurelia abruptly bolted upright, her hands clenching into tight, rigid fists at her sides. She was still struggling to cognitively process the horrific data she had just received. But the more she cross-referenced it in her mind, the more terrifyingly logical it became—especially since she had personally verified the identification cards of the incoming adventurers, the vast majority of whom belonged to local branches stationed within Aethelgard.
"I’m going there. Right now." She immediately spun around, marching toward the main exit.
VUUUM.
Suddenly, an invisible, transparent wall of compressed magical energy materialized out of thin air, completely obstructing her path. She snapped her head back, discovering Viola calmly holding her hand up, looking as though she was effortlessly manipulating Aurelia’s very destiny.
Viola glared at Aurelia with a frigid, uncompromising expression, visibly displeased by the impulsive decision. "Do not even entertain the delusion that you can depart for that cursed territory. You are nowhere near prepared."
Slowing lowering her hand, Viola added, "Furthermore, you have yet to render the specific compensation you promised me."
Aurelia stared at Viola in absolute, horrified disbelief. Her mind was frantically racing with thoughts regarding the dire fate of the citizens in Aethelgard, yet at this critical juncture, she was being forcefully denied authorization by her own mentor.
Her breathing turned shallow and heavy, but she was entirely powerless to bypass the magical constraint. The invisible barrier hadn't just halted her physical steps; it had completely pulverized her pride.
You know damn well they need me... how can you ruthlessly cage me here? she bitterly hissed internally. Her fists clamped together with such explosive, unbridled force that her fingernails sliced deep into her own flesh, allowing droplets of fresh, warm blood to cascade down onto the freezing floorboards of the Guild hall.