I Became the Villain Alpha's Omega (BL)-Chapter 109: A Slightly Concerning Discovery
Cherion stood perfectly still, his boots sinking a fraction deeper into the churned, half-frozen slush. He just... stared. It was one of those moments where your brain takes a screenshot because the reality in front of you is so fundamentally glitchy that you need to save it for later analysis. Ezek? Asking to tag along? The same Ezek who usually looked at Cherion like he was a particularly inconvenient smudge on an otherwise pristine windshield?
"Who are you and what have you done with the actual Ezek?" Cherion finally asked, his voice dry enough to catch fire. He tilted his head, squinting through the shifting haze of woodsmoke. "Did you take a particularly hard knock to the crate during the skirmish? Because honestly, if you’re about to faint or start reciting poetry, I really need a heads-up. My mana is basically almost at zero and I am not in the mood for surprises."
Ezek didn’t even blink. He didn’t rise to the bait, didn’t scoff, didn’t even give that little twitch of the jaw that usually signaled he was about to say something profoundly irritating. Instead, he just gave a casual, almost lazy shrug, the metal of his pauldrons creaking in the quiet. He adjusted the heavy weight of the broadsword at his hip, a sharp, metallic snick that sounded far too loud in the stillness.
"The perimeter’s basically full of holes right now, Southron," Ezek said, like this was the most obvious thing in the world. "And you’re wandering around in the dark like a lost lamb in a wolf den. If the Velkyn decide to send a second wave of scouts to finish the job, someone needs to be within arm’s reach who actually knows which end of a blade goes into the monster. It’s simple logistics. Nothing more."
Cherion narrowed his eyes, searching for the lie, but Ezek was a brick wall of Northern stoicism. It wasn’t a concern, Ezek didn’t do concern, at least not in any way Cherion recognized, but the quiet between them didn’t sit right. Still, Cherion’s fingers drifted instinctively to the sapphire necklace hidden beneath his grimy tunic. The stone felt warm against his skin, a quiet reminder that he wasn’t exactly the "lost lamb" he’d been a few days ago. He had teeth now. Magical, crimson-arcing teeth.
But, well, having a literal human shield with years of combat experience wasn’t the worst insurance policy in the world.
"Fine," Cherion muttered, waving a hand toward the shadowed line of supply wagons. "But if you slow me down or start complaining about the smell, I’m leaving you behind to fend for yourself. I’ve got work to do, and I’m not playing tour guide."
Ezek let out a short, sharp snort, the closest thing to a laugh Cherion was likely to get, and fell into step beside him. He moved like he weighed nothing, which was frankly suspicious given the metal.
The camp was a fever dream of activity. They moved through the wreckage, and Cherion found himself slipping into ’Helping Mode’ despite his exhaustion. He stopped to help a pair of shaking junior knights right a collapsed tent, his hands steadying the greasy canvas while Ezek effortlessly heaved the main pole back into place. He worked with a stressed-out knight to move the crates out of the path to the water. It was mundane, soul-crushing labor, the kind that keeps the brain from dwelling too hard on the fact that everyone almost died an hour ago.
But as they worked, Cherion’s attention kept snagging on things that didn’t fit.
He paused by a grain cart, his brow furrowing as he traced a set of deep, parallel gouges in the wood. They weren’t the messy, erratic marks of a creature in a frenzy.
"Look at this," Cherion whispered, more to himself than to the man looming behind him.
He knelt, pointing to a scorched patch of earth where a Hearth Stones had clearly been dropped and shattered. The grass around the impact site wasn’t just burnt, it was blackened in a weird, starburst pattern, as if the heat had been directed outward with intentional force.
Around them, he could hear the low, rumbling conversations of the knights. "Just looking for a bit of warmth, I reckon," one man said, hugging a fur cloak to his chest. "The bugs hate the frost as much as we do."
Cherion wanted to believe that. It was a nice, cozy theory. Animals want heat. Simple. Predatory. But as he rose slowly, glancing around the perimeter of the storage tents, his stomach did a slow, nauseating flip. His intuition, that prickly, annoying sense that usually warned him when a customer was about to cause problems was going wild, was screaming. Yeah, this wasn’t a normal situation. It wasn’t a pack of hungry predators looking for a warm place to sleep.
As far as he remembered, the book never mentioned anything about it. And Hearth Stones weren’t exactly a new invention. So what made the Velkyn act differently this time? ...No. What was different about these Hearth Stones?
They eventually ended up back at the heart of the supply depot, the same storage tents where the bulk of the Hearth Stone were kept. The sight that met them was... haunting. The canvas was shredded. Not just torn, but sliced into jagged, repeated patterns that looked almost obsessive. It reminded Cherion of a caged animal pacing until its paws bled.
And then there were the crates.
Cherion moved toward a pile of heavy boxes, his heart hammering against his ribs. Several of them had been ripped open. The wood was splintered outward, deep claw marks gouged into the grain with enough force to suggest the Velkyn had been trying to dig their way inside.
He knelt beside the nearest one, his fingers trembling slightly as he ran them over the grooves. It wasn’t random. The scratches were focused entirely on the lids and the iron latches.
"They were drawn to them," Cherion breathed, the air suddenly feeling very thin in his lungs.
And that... that broke the neat little theory everyone had been clinging to.
These stones weren’t even active yet.
He closed his eyes for a second, and the memory flashed back with terrifying clarity, the Velkyn he’d encountered earlier, the way it had hovered near these exact crates, its jaws twitching, its milky eyes fixed on the wood with a sort of frantic, starving greed. It hadn’t even looked at him until he’d stepped into its path.
The monsters hadn’t attacked blindly. They had been focused. They wanted the Hearth Stone.
But why? They were just rocks. Heavy, magically-infused rocks meant to keep a few soldiers from freezing to death in the cold. They weren’t weapons. They weren’t food.
Cherion stood up, his gaze hardening as he looked at the singed edges of the shredded canvas.
He stepped closer to the most damaged crate, his hand hovering just inches above the clawed, scorched surface of the wood. There was a weak pulse coming from the stones, not quite right, not quite normal.
He let his fingertips finally brush the rough, heat-scarred timber. His voice was quiet enough that the wind nearly took it.
"Why were they so interested in this...?"
