"Master," Yuki said through the mental link.

"What is it?"

"Something is approaching our position quickly."

The group stopped in the middle of the road at the unmistakable sound of footsteps.

They were heavy and irregular, as if something very large were running but without coordination, stumbling over its own steps every few meters.

"Yuki," Mark said through the mental link. "Can you see what’s coming toward us?"

"Give me a moment, Master"

The next instant, Yuki vanished from beside Zilu without any sound or visible movement.

Zilu, who had her right next to her just a second ago, startled so hard her ears shot straight up and her whole body jumped.

"W-what?!" Zilu said, looking at where Yuki had been a second ago. "Where did she go?!"

Then Zilu raised her eyes and saw her.

Yuki was standing on one of the thick branches of the giant trees lining the road, about thirty meters up, looking in the direction the sound was coming from.

"H-how did she get up there?!" Zilu exclaimed with wide eyes.

Nobody answered because they were already used to it.

Zilu, realizing she was the only one impressed by what she had just seen, quickly closed her mouth and ran straight to Mark to hide behind him.

Mark felt Zilu grab the back of his robe with both hands and press herself against his back.

"Master, it appears to be a troll," Yuki’s voice sounded inside his head. "About four meters tall, carrying no visible weapons, and injured."

"How badly injured?"

"It’s missing its left arm," Yuki said. "Cut off at the shoulder. It’s also moving erratically, not running in a straight line, stumbling and tripping over its own feet."

"Understood."

Mark stayed quiet for a moment, listening as the sound of the footsteps grew much louder.

And then they saw it.

From between the trees ahead on the road appeared an enormous figure.

The troll was exactly as Yuki had described, grayish, thick skin covered in old scars, a head disproportionately small for its body, and wide brown eyes that were wide open.

Its right arm swung frantically as it ran, as if trying to maintain balance, and where its left arm should have been there was nothing.

Just a cauterized stump at the shoulder that still appeared to be smoldering.

Seeing it, Mark was left completely bewildered, not by its appearance, but by the sound it was making.

The troll was crying.

Fat tears streamed down its cheeks as it ran, and from its mouth came broken, clumsy words that were barely understandable.

"Run..." the troll babbled in a deep, coarse voice that broke with every syllable. "Home destroyed... everyone dead..."

Its legs wobbled and it nearly fell, but it managed to recover its balance at the last moment and kept running.

"Soft-skin terrifying..." the troll continued between sobs. "Burns... everything burns..."

Mark stood watching it.

The troll hadn’t seen them yet, as it was running directly toward them.

Its eyes were unfocused, looking at the ground, completely lost in its own panic.

And before Mark could say anything, Alice had already moved.

She took three steps forward and bent her legs.

She jumped.

Her body launched off the ground with a force that cracked the earth beneath her feet, rising vertically until she was exactly at the level of the troll’s face.

The troll looked up, noticing the shadow coming down on it.

But it had no time to do anything.

Alice’s fist connected directly with its face, and the impact was so powerful that the troll’s head simply exploded, fragmenting into pieces that flew in every direction along with a shower of dark blood that splattered the nearby trees.

And then its body stood upright for a second before crashing to the ground.

POM.

Alice landed beside it in a clean motion, then straightened up and looked at her right fist, which was now covered in dark blood.

She shook it a couple of times to get the remains off.

"Good work, Alice," Mark said, walking toward her.

"Th-there’s no need to thank me, my lord," she said, looking slightly away while wiping her hand on her clothes a bit clumsily. "It wasn’t anything complicated."

Mark nodded and lowered his gaze to the troll’s body.

It was enormous.

Lying on the ground it took up almost the full width of the road, and the roots of the nearby trees disappeared under its body.

Zilu, who had let go of Mark’s robe at some point, approached the corpse with slow steps.

She crouched beside the body and examined it carefully, her ears moving slightly as she inspected something Mark couldn’t see from where he was.

"Is something wrong?" Mark asked.

Zilu didn’t answer right away, she was staring at the stump where the troll’s left arm should have been.

"This is very strange..." she said finally without looking away.

"What is?"

Zilu pointed at the cauterized stump.

"War trolls can regenerate their limbs," Zilu explained. "That’s one of the reasons they’re so dangerous, you can cut off an arm or a leg, but if you don’t kill them completely the limb grows back within hours."

Mark looked at the stump.

"But this one didn’t regenerate," Zilu continued, frowning. "The arm was cut off and the wound was cauterized in a way that prevented regeneration."

"Can cauterizing a wound stop a troll from regenerating?" Mark asked.

"Normally no," Zilu replied, shaking her head. "Normal fire isn’t enough to stop a war troll’s regeneration, their body simply regenerates the burned tissue along with the rest."

"Maybe this one just couldn’t regenerate," Rose chimed in as she walked over to them, shrugging. "As far as I know, not all trolls have the same regenerative capabilities."

"You’re right about that," Zilu admitted.

"Then that’s probably the case," Rose said.

"But... even if that were so, the wound is very strange," Zilu insisted, looking at the stump again. "Come closer and look."

Mark crouched beside Zilu and looked at the stump up close.

The cauterized flesh of the stump wasn’t simply burned. It was still burning, not with visible flames, but with a heat that emanated from the wound constantly, making the edges of the charred flesh tremble slightly.

"See?" Zilu said, pointing at it. "It’s still burning. Whatever did this to it, the fire didn’t go out, it’s still active inside the wound."

"..."

’What the hell happened to you?’ Mark thought, raising his eyes in the direction the troll had come from.