Since her arrival in Nekrom, Tristessa had only had bad experiences every time night fell and she was outside the apparent protection of the Mercer-Archeos house. From trying to sleep in a room where she had seen Lucahn's eyeless corpse, to suffering nightmares in which she always woke up screaming and sweating from head to toe, and, above all, dying in an absolutely painful way.
Now, with each passing hour, with each advance of the sun toward the horizon, the black-haired girl, who had only stopped her walk twice to hydrate, was gradually enveloped in a veil of irrational edginess.
Paradoxically, there was nothing to foretell any danger nearby. The plains crossed by the Abandoned Meridion Highway were nothing more than kilometers of green pastureland, with a freshwater river flowing from the far west, where it emerged from a chain of plateaus that rose to a considerable height above sea level. Said river flowed under an old bridge made of large rectangular stones, firm and stable despite the centuries that had passed since its conception; the only trace of civilization around. Afterwards, all was peace and tranquility, interrupted tolerably by the sound of running water and the wind sweeping the green ground.
However, Tristessa couldn't rest easy.
"...this bad feeling..." she thought, forced by a greater force to stop right in the middle of the bridge and lean her back against the wall. She brought her right hand to the source of that discomfort: the unnatural cold of her Baptism in Ruins, beating in time with her heart and spreading pure apprehension throughout her body. "What's happening...?"
She had never experienced anything like this before. Never before her fourth Death, and what that entailed filled her with great fear. She realized how quickly dusk was approaching; she had to move, before the darkness of night arrived.
She left the bridge behind, running as if pursued by something invisible and hostile. Her intermediate objective was in sight; that at least was a reason to feel relieved, but even that didn't calm the girl's anxious heart.
The Derelict Outpost, as indicated by the map Jin had given her, had been a sort of military post and toll booth, where the Meridion Highway split into the four cardinal directions. It was a structure of high stone walls that bordered a perimeter, intended to turn this strategic terrain into a small fortress, protecting a watchtower in the center. This had been the case in the past, but now most of those walls had fallen; those that remained standing were covered with moss, and only half of the central tower remained, its walls blackened by the fire it had spread by the end of the Age of Kings.
The remains of the iron gate were scattered around the entrance, most of the pieces of wood and bent metal almost devoured by vegetation.
"There are people inside!" Tristessa thought as she saw a continuous puff of smoke rising and lights coming from inside, increasingly evident as night fell. And with the rising darkness and her increasing ill-omened dread, she had to make an intelligent decision. "If they were bandits waiting to ambush, they wouldn't be exposing themselves like that, but to be safe, I'll approach carefully… At the first bad sign, I'll return and sleep under the bridge."
Jin had told her that it was at night that she had to be most careful, especially when she was alone. She couldn't make any mistakes.
She moved away from the road and closed the gap with the outpost, moving through the shadowy grass, clearly intending to approach the collapsed walls and spy from there. There was no movement except that of the wind-swept vegetation, not even insects trying to escape her steps, which were trying to be as silent as possible. The path was clear for her, but her lack of experience meant that with each step she took, her stomach twisted and her legs shook like jelly. It was fresh, newborn fear.
"Come on... calm down..." Finally, she found the protection of that cold, rough wall, which at the top bore the burnt pieces of a giant, unrecognizable flag. Carefully, she approached the collapsed right side, without leaving the wall. "One look and…"
"Hold it right there. Don't try anything funny, if you value your life."
A masculine, manly, and extremely threatening voice. Tristessa forgot how to breathe; how to think; how to move, which had undoubtedly saved her life because the person behind her wouldn't have hesitated for a second to kill her. She had no doubt about the intention, only the methodology. Stabbing her with a dagger? Cutting her to pieces with a sword? Crushing her bones with a war-hammer? Or simply grabbing the back of her head and slamming her against the wall until a bloody mass of flesh, brains, and pieces of skull slipped through the gaps between those bricks?
It was impressive how easily Tristessa failed at everything she set out to do. Stealth? Moving forward incognito, protected by the shadows? Better to leave it to an assassin, not a girl who'd already died four times.
"...!" Tristessa gasped as she felt the man's strong grip on her left shoulder.
"Walk."
Luckily, her legs responded to the man's sudden shove, his hand clamping her shoulder, forcing her through the rubble and into the outpost.
The first thing Tristessa saw, bringing her to the brink of fainting, were demons. Large, burly, bipedal creatures, slightly smaller than elephants from Earth. They were two in total, one with wine-red fur and the other mud-colored. Sharp claws on hands and feet, as well as countless teeth protruding from their half-open mouths. They were scattered on the smooth stone floor, sleeping almost against the walls, forming a corridor directly in front of the opening Tristessa had just entered.
"What's wrong? Is this the first time you've seen a Vilecross? Keep walking," the man ordered behind her.
"I-I can't," she sobbed, on the verge of tears as she felt the hot breath of those monsters so close. "P-please…"
"I.said.Walk."
This time, the serrated-edge blade of a parrying dagger —a swordbreaker— peeped through her peripheral vision, on the right side, threatening her neck. One more push, and Tristessa walked.
The breath of the demons was unholy. She had never before smelled such a horrible, nauseating, sickly smell… But worse were those demonic faces, so disproportionately shaped to emphasize those massive mouths made to devour everything in their path, while the slits they had for noses and the closed eyes were barely visible. Also notable were the roots of two missing horns at the temple, polished to a smooth, protruding surface just a few centimeters long.
"Don't wake up, don't wake up, don't wake up," she thought, over and over again, until she had completely passed by and gotten the air her lungs needed. "Oh, my…"
Already in the main courtyard of the ancient military site, it was impossible not to notice the train of two wagons parked right in front of the ruined tower. Both were so full of artifacts and trinkets that the leather wrappings protecting them couldn't even cover them all; a fortune accumulated amidst destroyed walls and hundreds of shattered, coal-black bricks and tiles.
Many of these objects, such as statuettes inlaid with gems, books with gold-plated spines and leaves, and metal chests filled with padlocks and chains, shone beautifully thanks to the light from the bonfire that had been lit several meters away.
A bonfire surrounded by a group of people. Four men and a woman, dressed in steel combat armor and a distinctive black poncho with three vertical red lines. They were all sitting on rubble purposefully placed around the fire, having dinner.
"Who is that, boss?" asked the woman, whose head was protected by a metal kettle hat.
"This girl was lurking outside the walls. I saw her coming down the highway, alone. I don't know if she's reckless or stupid, but she doesn't seem to be a scavenger like the ones who usually follow us. Maybe she's a lone traveler… But very few people come from the south, traveling on foot, don't you think?"
As he answered, her captor withdrew the menacing knife, and the backpack flew and landed next to the woman, who left her almost empty plate on the ground and began searching inside. Tristessa dared to look over her shoulder, at the man: he had dark skin, with short hair overwhelmed by gray, and a goatee that couldn't hide a long scar that ran diagonally across his mouth. An older man, whose yellow eyes, full of experience killing people, pointed directly at the girl, and she looked straight ahead again, frightened.
"A spy? From Merzul, perhaps?"
"Or is she a witch of the Coven?"
The other soldiers proposed different theories, one worse than the other. The good thing was that at first glance they didn't seem hostile.
"I-I…Ah…"
Tristessa mouthed, wanting to say something to explain herself, but afraid of putting her foot in it and provoking merciless violence from these people.
"What do you say, Madame Luchie? Do we have your permission to interrogate her, or should we just cut her throat?"
The question made Tristessa despair, but it also provoked laughter from a woman on the other side of the campfire.
There were six hornless demons very similar to those named Vilecross by Tristessa's captor, but much smaller, about the size of horses, and undoubtedly possessing the same functionality as those animals from Earth, given the saddles piled up on the side. Only one of those demons wasn't sleeping, and that was because there was an elderly woman feeding it a large piece of raw meat, which the animal devoured with ease thanks to its sharp teeth.
"I'm interested to know what a young lady is doing at this hour in these parts, alone and coming from the far reaches of the Dominion." The old woman rubbed her hands together to clean off the traces of fresh blood left by all the raw meat the satisfied lesser demon had already swallowed. "What do you say, Reiden?"
"My opinion is irrelevant. You pay us to do your bidding, Madame. Say it and we will do it."
Her captor, the man named Reiden and leader of that band of soldiers, tightened his grip on Tristessa as his employer joined the warmth of the campfire and sat down in the only chair in the entire outpost, furnished in leather and with armrests.
She was a woman of some status, given her attire, based on a violet silk tunic with black patterns similar to thaumaturgical glyphs and adorned with a fine red cloth scarf. Her skeletal fingers were filled with rings with glittering jewels, and on her wrists were gold bracelets almost twice the diameter of her arm.
And a face full of wrinkles, but saturated with confidence by a smile that didn't show its teeth, with large, owl-like eyes that gave Tristessa her full attention.
"I warn you, miss, I am an old hag who gets bored very easily... A merchant who gets bored is a merchant who wastes their time, and time is more valuable than every abyss soul-jewel on Nekrom," the old woman told her, intertwining her fingers and resting her chin on her knuckles. "I am Karla Luchie, and these gentlemen and lady guarding me are mercenaries from the Fireclaw Company... How about you start by offering me your name?"