After we left the town the whole journey went quiet. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Nobody spoke. Not to me. Not to each other. Even that motherfucker Tudar was sitting in silence for the first time since I’d met his annoying existence.

He did try once. Leaned over and started telling me how cool I looked back there. But my silence and the wall of indifference I put between us told him everything he needed to know.

He didn’t try again.

The root cause of disturbance in every carriage ride was now sitting there like a humbled dog with its tail tucked between its legs.

As for the rest, the silence had different flavors depending on who you looked at.

Marie was already incapable of opening her mouth before all of this. There was absolutely zero chance she would find words now. Especially after seeing the mood I was in. She sat beside me stiff as a plank, barely breathing.

Teresa looked stunned. Like something she witnessed had cracked a wall she didn’t know existed inside her. But every single time her eyes landed on me, that same hateful expression crawled back onto her face. Charlotte’s loyal dog wasn’t about to change allegiance just because I gave a nice speech to a starving woman.

Aria was still somewhere inside her own head. Maybe processing my words from before. Maybe fighting whatever those words had stirred in her. Her eyes were open but they weren’t seeing the inside of this carriage.

And then there was Angelica.

She was the one that bothered me the most.

Her royal composure, that perfect mask these noble types wore like a second skin, was gone. She looked sad. Not the polite, calculated kind of sadness royals displayed for public sympathy. This was real. Raw enough that even someone as emotionally dense as me could see it.

And I knew why.

My words did this. The threat I threw at her back in the crowd. The cold way I put my anger on her when all she was doing was caring for me. The way I said don’t add your head to my list like she was an obstacle instead of someone trying to keep me from destroying myself.

Guilt sat heavy in my stomach.

But before I could dwell on it any longer, the carriage shuddered to a stop.

"We have arrived at the destination." The driver’s voice snapped everyone out of their respective trances. Bags were grabbed. and One by one we filed out.

Ahead of us stood an adventurer guild. Plain building. Functional. Nothing glamorous about it.

And around it stretched a village that felt wrong. It was afternoon. The sun was still up. But I could barely spot a single soul walking the streets. Windows were shut and doors were closed. The kind of quiet that didn’t come from peace. It came from fear.

"Make sure our identity as students never comes out." Angelica’s voice came from behind.

"We are volunteering as members of the Mage Tower answering a guild request. That is the lie we are going with."

Her eyes found me for a fraction of a second before she looked away and continued.

"From my observations, we are at the edges of the empire. Precisely in the Kingdom of the South."

She paused.

"I hope you understand what that means. Not only are the monsters here more corrupted, but so are the people. One wrong move, one slip of our real identities, and anyone holding grudges against our families won’t care to verify who we actually are."

Another pause.

"So think before taking any step."

She didn’t look at me. But every word was aimed directly at my chest as she was still concerned about me.

’She is far better than Freya.’

We walked inside the adventurer guild hall. It was mostly empty. Just dust and furniture and the lingering scent of desperation that clung to places where hope came to die.

A receptionist sat behind the front desk. She straightened up when she saw us approach.

"How may I help you?"

Angelica presented a letter. The receptionist took it and began reading. Her face brightened with every line. By the time she reached the end, genuine relief was glowing behind her eyes.

"So you’ve come to take on our request?"

Angelica nodded.

The receptionist studied us then. Her gaze moving across each member, scanning the disguised features our artifacts provided. The pendants we wore had altered our hair and eye colors. Nothing dramatic. Just enough to fool anyone who hadn’t seen our real faces.

Then something shifted in her expression.

The brightness faded. The relief crumbled. She set the letter down and when she spoke again her voice carried something different.

Pain.

"I would recommend you back off from this request." She looked at each of us carefully. "And there is no shame in that. You are all still young. There is so much the world can offer you. So many things you haven’t seen."

She swallowed.

"Trust me. What you have signed up for isn’t something you could see. Something you could go through."

’So that’s how it is.’

That fleeting spark of happiness she had was gone in an instant. Because she looked at our young faces and decided we were walking corpses.

She added softly. "I will file a report stating the mission was above your capability. No one will question it."

BANG.

Teresa’s fist slammed the desk hard enough to rattle the inkwell.

"Wait. Do you think we’re incompetent?" Her voice was sharp enough to cut glass. "I don’t think that’s your job. So do your fucking job and just tell us the quest."

The receptionist didn’t flinch. Didn’t cower. She just looked at Teresa with the tired eyes of someone who had watched too many confident people walk out that door and never come back.

"Fine. I will tell you. But please consider the threat I am about to describe. And if you are smart, you will..."

She swallowed the rest of her sentence after meeting Teresa’s fierce glare.

She pulled a scroll from beneath the desk. Unrolled it. And read its contents exactly as written.

"Investigate and eliminate the hostile entity terrorizing Greymoor Village. Threat level: five star. Reward: two hundred gold coins plus resources."

She set the scroll down.

"That is what your quest says. But let me warn you, it is not as simple as it reads. The threat level alone should have made you aware. It is of the highest difficulty. And in truth it goes far beyond that."

Teresa had reached her limit. "Just shut up with your concerns, we don’t need any of..."

A hand landed on her shoulder. Angelica.

"Behave."

One word. And Teresa folded like she’d been trained to respond to it. Which she probably had, knowing the weight of the title Angelica carried.

Angelica turned to the receptionist. Her voice was different now. Not cold. Not commanding. Something between authority and genuine understanding.

"We will accept the quest."

The receptionist’s jaw dropped. "Please reconsi..."

"We may appear young. Maybe even weak." Angelica’s tone didn’t waver. "But each one of us holds the highest ranks in the tower. And regarding the request, we cannot go back. So take your time and tell us everything about what’s making you go through these stages."

The receptionist sat there for a long moment. Studying Angelica’s face. Searching for the same foolish bravado she had probably seen in every doomed party that came before us.

She didn’t find it.

So she finally spoke.

"Our village is currently being terrorized by a high-ranking demon." Her voice dropped. "High S-rank. Or maybe calamity level."

The air inside the guild shifted. Faces around me went pale for a brief moment before composure returned.

"And the ones who went to fight him..." She pressed her lips together. "None of them came back alive. No matter which guild we sought help from. No matter how strong the adventurers were. They all returned the same way."

Her hands were trembling on the desk.

"A hole in their chest. Done brutally by the same demon. Every single time."

She looked at the window. At the empty streets outside.

"The demon has been active for the last month. But some of the older residents say he is the same entity that resided in the haunted palace for ages. And only now has he decided to walk the streets in the evening and continue his slaughter."

Her eyes dropped.

"Most of the villagers have already left. The ones who remain are those who can’t afford to move. They choose to live in horror every single day because they have nowhere else to go."

Angelica nodded. "We will take on the quest. We can’t stand by while people suffer."

She turned to the group. "How about the rest of you?"

Teresa cracked her knuckles. Marie gave a small but firm nod. Tudar flashed a grin that was somehow both annoying and genuine at the same time.

Then there was Aria.

She had no reaction. In fact I was fairly certain she hadn’t heard a single word the receptionist said. Her attention was fixed on the guild notice board across the room. Scanning it like it held something far more interesting than a calamity-level demon terrorizing a village.

-x-X-x-

Evening arrived. The sun went down and took the last scraps of warmth with it.

I was patrolling the edge of the village alongside Aria. The others had been split in different directions to cover more ground.

A bonfire crackled between us. I sat on a log staring at the flames while my mind ran calculations. How much time was left. What might happen next. Whether any of this was moving me closer to finding the fourth hero or further from it.

Then Aria’s voice cut through the silence.

"Some questions have been eating me up." She was still cold. Still guarded. But beneath that her face carried a pain she wasn’t quite managing to hide. "So can you help me with them?"

Before I could respond, another voice arrived from behind.

"Children. Get inside. The sun is almost gone. It’s dangerous out here."

I turned to find an old woman standing a few steps away. Hunched. Wrapped in a shawl that had seen better decades.

"And that’s why we’re here," I said. "But your stupid creature won’t show up."

She smiled at that. "So you are another batch of adventurers who came to hunt him."

Then she turned to walk away. "He is not a creature. He is just like us. A human."

A pause.

"Or at least... he used to be."