Footsteps echoed on wet stone.
One set, light and frantic, struggled to maintain rhythm. The other, heavy, jarred dust from the ceiling with every impact.
Orario remained oblivious. Unaware of the bustling streets above, or the laughter spilling from taverns beneath the open sky.
Down here, something hunted.
Its mouth gaped, drooling thick ropes of saliva that sizzled upon contact with the floor. Jagged teeth snapped at empty air, desperate for the taste of flesh and blood, yearning for the girl sprinting ahead.
Her messy, shoulder-length black hair whipped across her face as she ducked beneath a dim, greenish lantern. For a fleeting moment, the sickly light illuminated a faint scattering of freckles across her nose. Then shadow consumed them once more. Her vibrant green eyes, far from wide with terror, held something more profound.
Exhilaration.
The monster lunged, a massive, clawed arm, designed to pulverize bone.
She twisted at the last possible instant, her boots hydroplaning on the slick floor. The claw detonated against the wall, blasting her with stone chips and ice-cold water that soaked through her shirt.
She did not falter. She leaped.
Her compact, athletic frame became airborne, toned legs coiling and releasing like a spring. She cleared the strike cleanly, landing meters ahead without a stumble, without a lost breath.
Then she deliberately slowed.
She allowed the gap to shrink until she felt the rancid, wet heat of its breath on the nape of her neck.
Her grin widened, pulling taut the small, faint scar above her left eyebrow. That scar was old. This grin was new.
Without breaking stride, she dipped two fingers into her pocket. The magic item was already warm, not with the cold touch of metal, but with the living recognition of its creator.
A faint glow began, a flicker against her palm.
She continued running, her boots splashing through the runoff channels carved beneath Orario long before her birth.
The glow intensified, pulse by pulse, step by step.
A deep, bruise-purple, rot-purple hue—the kind of light that made the condensation on the walls appear as sweat on a corpse.
She did not look back. There was no need. She could hear it, smell it, feel the shift in the air when such a massive entity desired her demise.
Without a backward glance, she flung the magic item over her shoulder.
It arced cleanly, swallowed by the monster's gaping maw with a wet, reflexive gulp.
For three more strides, nothing changed. Claws still scraped stone. Breath still ragged. Still hungry.
Then the sound struck.
A choking, retching snarl that echoed down the tunnel's throat, returning distorted. The monster's run broke mid-stride. Clawed hands flew to its throat, talons scrabbling at flesh as if to tear the thing back out.
The girl slid to a halt, water spraying from her boots. She turned slowly, deliberately, her face blank for one measured second.
Then the grin returned, sharper now.
"Go on, sucker," she taunted, her voice bright as broken glass. "Don't you wanna chase me again?"
Its eyes bulged, veins prominent in the yellow. One clawed hand left its throat, reaching for her in a final, trembling act of defiance. Or begging.
It was granted no choice.
The arm fell. The body followed. A heavy, wet collapse that sent black water lapping against her ankles.
The melting began at its throat.
Flesh sloughed into sludge. Muscle ran like wax. Bone softened and lost its shape, the entire massive form dissolving into the shallow current until all that remained was a single, faintly glowing magic stone.
She walked forward, her soles squelching through what was once a predator. She crouched, plucked the stone from the filth, and with a twist of her wrist, flipped it high. She caught it without looking.
She studied the empty space where a monster had been, then the stone in her palm.
"That should make lord Null happy."
She said it to the empty tunnel. Or perhaps, to herself.
The stone's warmth bled into her skin. It felt almost like approval.
Almost.
The stairs seemed endless.
Her thighs burned by the time the gray light appeared—that pale, diseased glow signaling the surface was near, yet offered no salvation. Still, she took them two at a time, boots scraping stone, for stopping felt more perilous than running.
The manhole cover shrieked on its hinges.
She hauled herself into an alley reeking of old fish, cheap wine, and ancient piss, a scent as old as the gods' descent. She dropped the cover back with a soft clang that the city swallowed whole.
Beyond the alley's mouth, Orario unfolded. Loud. Bright. Alive in a way that felt almost insulting. People moved in rivers, their voices braiding into a meaningless, yet all-encompassing, din. No one looked down. No one ever did.
She lingered in the shadow one breath longer than necessary.
Her fingers found the magic stone in her pocket. Still warm. Still humming against her thigh like a second pulse.
She no longer fit the shape of who she had been when she descended. Not her stance. Not the silence that now followed her. Not the way her own shadow felt heavier.
It should have felt like victory. Like a door closing.
Instead, it felt as though she had left something down there. Or that something had followed her up.
Her grip on the stone tightened until its edges bit her palm.
Then she forced her hand open.
And stepped out.
The flea market district was a compressed mass of bodies at this hour. Merchants shouted over carts. Tourists, their purses heavy with coin and eyes wide with wonder. Locals cut through the crowd like knives, claiming every inch of space.
She allowed herself to dissolve into the flow.
Not aimless. She sought this place when the quiet grew too loud. In a crowd, one could become invisible without effort. One could walk for an hour and remain unseen by a single soul.
Most days, that was mercy.
"Free sample! Jagamarakun snack! Fresh from the stall!"
The merchant's voice cut cleanly through the noise. Out of habit, she glanced over. He was gesturing to a pair of tourists: one in a helmet with unblinking red gem-eyes, an Amazoness beside him whose hand never strayed far from her hip.
Her ears twitched before she could stop them.
A tiny, involuntary motion. Animalistic. Wrong.
For beside the stall stood an Amazoness from the Loki Familia, and her body recognized danger faster than thought.
First-class adventurers had a way of amplifying survival instincts.
Her eyes slid away before her brain fully processed the face.
She caught herself a second too late. Forced her head still. Forced her expression blank.
And her body instinctively performed Orario's oldest trick: acting as if someone terrifying did not exist.
No one saw. No one saw. No one saw.
She chanted it under her breath, walking faster, feigning an intended turn in that direction. Pretending the heat crawling up her neck was from the crowd, not panic.
And walked straight into someone.
The impact was not hard. She had hit stone from higher than his shoulders and kept moving. But it stopped her.
She spun before he could speak, embarrassment already sharpening into anger.
"What the hell—watch where you're going, you weirdo."
He was already looking at her. Not angry. Not even surprised. Just… cataloging. As if her words had to pass through three layers of translation to reach him.
"What the hell, kid? You crashed into me."
Her face cycled through three emotions in under a second.
Confusion.
Recognition.
Then that slow, sinking oh no you didn't.
"Kid?"
"Yeah." He squinted, his head tilting a fraction, as if adjusting for light. "You look like…"
His eyes scanned. Down.
Then up.
Then down again, quick. Clinical. As if taking a measurement, uncaring if she noticed.
"Okay… maybe a little too old to be a kid. But yeah." A shrug. Small. Effortless. "You're a kid."
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out. Which never happened. Words were supposed to be her weapon. Fast. Easy. Automatic. But the way he said it—without heat, without mockery, like stating the weather—dislodged every retort.
Her jaw clicked shut. Reset.
"I'm not a kid."
"You're—"
"I'm not."
She planted her hands on her hips. It was meant to make her appear larger. Authoritative. It only made her feel like she was playing dress-up in her own skin.
"You don't get to just—walk up to someone and decide they're a kid. That's not—you can't—"
The words tangled. She hated when they tangled. It made her feel exactly what he had called her.
"I'm basically an adult."
His eyebrows lifted.
Not in disbelief. In curiosity. The kind one might give a stray dog attempting to growl.
"Okay."
That single word struck harder than an insult.
Okay?
She narrowed her eyes, waiting. For the smirk. The argument. The part where she won and walked away with her pride intact.
He just stood there.
Patient. Unbothered. As if he had all day, and none of it concerned her.
She shifted her weight. The stone in her pocket felt heavier.
"Okay?"
"Yeah." Another shrug. "If you say so."
Somehow that was worse. Worse than fighting. Worse than laughter. He had simply… accepted it. Dismissed it. Filed it away under not my problem.
She stared at him a beat too long, trying to dissect the interaction. Was he nice? Sarcastic? Had he already forgotten this encounter?
Her brain scrambled for an exit and found the most absurd one.
"You're tall for no reason."
It was meant as an insult. It came out too fast, too bright, too honest. The second it left her mouth, she wished to shove it back down her throat.
She didn't.
She turned instead—sharp, fast—and stalked toward the food stall without looking back. Without checking if he was watching.
The merchant with the free samples was still shouting. Without looking, she reached out, grabbed something off the nearest surface without asking or paying, and shoved it into her mouth just to occupy her hands. Just to stop them from shaking.
Sweet. Greasy. Scalding.
She chewed anyway, half-turned from the crowd, staring at nothing until she was sure her face had cooled down.
Behind her, a voice cut sharply through the market noise.
"Hey! Hey, girl, that's not—!"
She didn't hear it. Or she heard it the way people heard distant rain. Present. Irrelevant.
Her mind was already elsewhere.
That was nothing. That was a nobody. You'll never see him again.
She crushed the wrapper in her fist and threw it away.
She kept walking.
The merchant's protest faded back into the same crowd noise she was already using to disappear.
***