Gerrard's steps slowed by half a beat. He drew in a breath, like someone carrying news he did not want to deliver.
"At the gate earlier," he said quietly. "There was a hooded man."
I turned slightly.
"His black hair slipped out a little from under the cloth. I couldn't tell if it was long or short. It was like he was deliberately hiding it," he said.
The wind passed through the gaps between the trees.
"He didn't ask for directions to the city," he continued. "Only one thing. Where the Demon Hunter was."
The world around me shrank without a sound.
I pressed my mana.
Layered all my senses.
From behind me, the air rippled faintly, like a subtle vibration tracing my spine, veiled mana moving without wanting to be seen.
The trees that had been spaced apart seemed to draw closer, their trunks closing off the sky, leaving only thin gaps of trembling light on the ground. My breath came heavier through my nose, caught halfway in my chest. The forest's sounds receded, even the insects seemed to choose silence.
Behind the memory of his words, the shadow of that hood lifted again, like something impatient to be seen yet refusing to be recognized. I never understood his gaze, but its chill still clung to the back of my neck.
The skin on my back tightened, as if some foreign stare were measuring distance.
My fingers closed around the sword hilt without needing an order. The rough leather scraped my palm, and my knuckles creaked softly as I gripped harder. My shoulders leaned forward a little; my body chose a stance before my mind could catch up.
That shadow did not move, or perhaps it moved too perfectly to leave a sound.
If he stepped out from between those trunks now, I would not ask questions. My blade would be faster than words.
The air in my throat tasted like iron.
The wind passed once, parting the leaves, then silence fell again like a blanket too heavy. At the edge of my vision, the forest's darkness looked like a mouth holding back a laugh that had not yet sounded.
I did not know what he wanted.
But my steps had already found an answer before I thought of it, my body turning slightly, weight shifting to my back foot, ready to meet whatever emerged from the dark.
If he came as my enemy, then his flesh would be the first to know my sword.
Gerrard stopped half a step behind me when I lifted my hand slightly.
"Front guard," I whispered without turning.
The steel on his shoulders tensed at once. His palm was already on his sword hilt before my voice finished falling to the ground.
The forest seemed to swallow our breaths. The high leaves overhead stopped rustling, and only one sound remained, the thud of my own blood in my ears.
"W-What is it, Master Demon Hunter?" His voice was low, controlled, not daring to break louder than that.
I did not answer right away.
My neck felt cold, as if there were a knife tip not touching my skin but knowing its distance with perfect precision. The mana that had crept like thin mist around my wrist… vanished. Not faded. Gone. Like fingers pulled from water without leaving a ripple.
A small twig fell from nowhere. Gerrard shifted his weight slightly, his sole pressing into the wet earth. We both leaned forward, not running, only waiting for something that did not want to be seen yet was certainly there.
I let my breath out slowly.
There was nothing.
Only trees standing too still.
"Enough," I said at last, my voice flat again. "Move on."
I stepped forward again.
Gerrard glanced briefly toward the dark thicket at our side, as if hoping to find a shadow staring back.
There was none.
Only bushes swaying, too gentle for a large animal, too deliberate to be called coincidence.
"O-Okay," he said, but the end of his word still hung there, not quite trusting the forest's calm.
We kept walking.
My steps found their rhythm again, but the muscles in my back did not truly relax. Now and then, the wind brushed my nape like a foreign hand holding back a laugh.
If someone was hiding behind those trees, then he was walking with us.
Faceless.
Soundless.
Skilled enough to leave the forest without a trace, even from my senses.
The iron on my scabbard tapped softly when I took my next step.
There were no more words after that.
Only the road stretching longer, and a long silence that felt like someone choosing the best moment to appear.
In the distance, the mouth of the goblin cave finally came into view.
Dark.
Open.
Waiting.
We did not quicken our pace.
We did not slow it either.
Our steps kept eating up the distance.
Each meter we passed seemed to thin the world of the city behind us and thicken the forest we now stood in.
We were far enough, hours had passed, strangely no other monster threats approached around here.
Only thin mana that I felt, then lost.
The dirt path changed slowly, at first wide and even, then narrowing, flanked by thorny bushes that brushed the calves if one was careless.
The air changed too.
The smell of dust and dry grass gave way to the scent of wet leaves and slowly rotting old wood.
Overhead, the tree canopy began to close in.
Sunlight was cut into thin blades that fell to the ground, moving slowly with the sway of leaves.
All outside sounds vanished completely.
Only distant chirps remained, the rustle of foliage, and our footsteps that sounded too loud in our own ears.
I slowed my steps without realizing it.
The ground here was softer.
There were drag marks, as if small things had pulled something across it. Near a jutting root, dried mud stains in dark brown, and at their edge, a darker blot, almost black.
Old blood.
Gerrard saw it too.
"T-This is my friend's blood."
His hand rose slightly, touching his sword hilt. His breathing changed, not from fatigue, but because his body knew before his mind had time to think anything.
"We're close," I muttered.
The forest was not just silent, it felt like it was listening. Now and then, the sound of a twig snapping echoed deep in the thicket, too heavy for a bird, too light for a forest bear.
A faint sour stench drifted in, the smell of a damp nest, a mix of filth, iron, and mushrooms.
We pushed aside bushes higher than our knees. The light dimmed again. Ahead, large rocks jutted from the ground like blunt teeth.
Between those stones the darkness began, a massive hole in the forest's belly, its lips rimmed with moss, and droplets of water falling one by one from the rock ledge above it.
The sound was there.
Not a scream.
Not laughter.
Just small layered grunts, whispering, as if dozens of little throats were speaking without words.
Gerrard swallowed. I felt my sword hilt was no longer cold, warmed by my palm.
The wind flowing out of the cave was different from the forest wind. It was heavier, more humid, and carried a taste of iron on the tongue.
Our steps stopped several paces from its mouth.
There was no more flat path after this.
Only darkness waiting for its answer.