The elf gave a slight nod, turned on her heel, and they left the tunnel without another word.
Once outside, a rush of fresh air hit them like a slap to the face—sharp and invigorating after the clammy suffocation of the interior. The night wind brushed against their skin, gentle but not enough to wash away the stench.
The village lay in an eerie silence, heavy with the thick reek of blood and scorched flesh. Death hung in the air—dense, almost touchable. The ground was blackened with soot, ashes, and sticky puddles.
Maggie frowned as she felt something odd beneath her boot. She looked down and grunted.
She had stepped into a wide pool of blood. Still warm.
Right next to it, the body of a hobgoblin lay twisted on the ground, its head cleanly severed and resting a bit farther away, mouth frozen in a stunned expression. A clean, precise decapitation.
"That's not us," she muttered.
The elf crouched beside the corpse, inspecting the wound, the splatter, the angle of the cut. She wiped some of the blood with a finger and sniffed it absentmindedly.
"Dylan."
Maggie nodded, a slight smirk tugging at her lips.
"It's always impressive, every damn time."
A sharp cry rang out in the distance, followed by a dull thud—like a body being slammed against a wall.
The elf lifted her head.
"He's going feral."
Without a word, the two women resumed walking, their silhouettes slipping through the village's shadows.
The massacre was underway. And they didn't even have time to intervene.
They were ignored—or rather, they hadn't even been noticed.
The entire village's attention was on Dylan.
The one who caused the chaos.
The one who would end it.
As they moved deeper into the village, the two women began collecting anima gems from every corpse they found.
Even Élisa had already sorted through the ones she'd need for her own absorption later. The rest would serve to reinforce the spiritual essence already circulating in their bodies.
Before core formation, their bodies still couldn't fully generate or draw from the ambient essence in the air. Not consistently, anyway.
Élisa also knew that absorbing ambient essence was painfully slow compared to directly tapping into the raw, concentrated energy of an anima gem. That's why, for many, these gems were considered precious—almost sacred—resources.
Whatever the case, she shook off her thoughts and kept collecting, wiping each gem clean before placing it carefully into their reinforced cases.
But as the last echoes of battle faded, they started looking for Dylan—and found nothing.
No movement. No sound. Just the stench of blood and burnt wood hanging heavy in the air.
The chaos had transformed into an oppressive silence.
A village that had once screamed, now whispered death.
---
They finally found him—drenched in blood, and clearly not all of it his own.
Dylan sat on a fallen, dried-up tree trunk, one leg propped up, the other resting limply. His uniform was completely ruined, soaked through and caked in grime. His machete was buried in the dirt beside him, the blade still dripping with thick, sticky blood.
He stared into the void, unmoving. His breathing was steady, slow, like someone who'd just come down from a high. No tension. Just exhaustion and silence.
With a sluggish swipe of his filthy arm, he wiped the sweat and blood from his brow, smearing it even more across his face.
"Hey, Lise," he muttered, voice raspy with fatigue but laced with sarcasm. "Aren't you a woman? We've been bathing in blood for three days, and not once did you suggest we wash. Isn't that a thing where you come from?"
Elisa raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "And you think you're in any condition to talk about hygiene, butcher boy?"
Dylan managed a weak, crooked grin and spat to the side. "Fair."
Maggie, already checking a nearby body for anima gems, snorted. "Talk less. Bleed less. That's the only hygiene that matters out here."
Elisa knelt beside him, inspecting his arm for any major wounds—not out of concern, just habit.
"You alright?"
He gave a slow nod. "Just tired."
---
Dylan's POV
From where he sat, Dylan barely registered the movement around him. The cold wind bit at his skin, but it was the sticky, drying blood that made him most uncomfortable. His hands were trembling slightly—he told himself it was from fatigue.
"How does it feel?" Elisa asked, her voice soft but teasing, a smirk playing at the corners of her lips.
He didn't even look at her.
"I feel like a monster," he said flatly, his grey eyes glowing faintly under the moonlight, vacant and heavy.
Elisa chuckled, light and unfazed. "That's what everyone says… right before they meet a real one."
She casually took a seat next to him on the log, her presence warm but also annoyingly nonchalant.
Dylan tensed. Not out of fear—he trusted her—but because every inch of him was soaked, grimy, and foul. He subtly shifted away, not wanting to stain her with the gore.
She noticed immediately, her ears twitching slightly in mock offense.
"Oh, avoiding me now? Come on, boy. Everyone stinks out here. There's no shame in it."
He grimaced. "It's not about shame."
"Then what?" she asked, tilting her head.
"I just… don't want to get you dirty."
Elisa gave him a look, half disbelief, half amusement.
"You think a bit of blood's gonna scare me off? Sweetheart, I've slept in demonic beasts guts thicker than soup. You're practically clean."
He blinked, then snorted despite himself.
"Gross."
"Honest."
She nudged his shoulder with hers. "Besides, if you're a monster, you're one of the tame ones. Trust me—I've kissed worse."
He turned to her slowly, one eyebrow raised. "...I don't know whether to feel insulted or concerned."
"Just feel flattered."
---
"Anyway, we're done with this village," Dylan said, voice low as he finally got up from the log, brushing dust and dried blood off his pants. "I say we burn the bodies. At dawn, we move out."
He paused, casting a glance sideways at Elisa, who remained seated beside him, legs crossed, arms resting casually on her knees.
"But before that…"
"I know…" she interrupted, already anticipating his words. "I should reach the perception stage."
He gave a small nod. "Yeah, that's part of it. But I meant… once we leave here—what's next? What kind of creatures are waiting for us out there?"
Elisa's smirk faded slightly, replaced by a somber shadow in her expression. She tilted her head toward the dark forest beyond the village's borders, as if trying to read the answer in the whispering branches.
"That's a good question. No… a very good one," she murmured. "And unfortunately, the answer is—I don't know."
Maggie, who'd stayed quiet all this time while sorting the anima gems into small pouches, raised her head. Her voice was sharp, almost accusatory.
"I thought you said you could guide us out of the forest?"
"I can," Elisa replied firmly, looking straight at her. "I said I know the way out. But I never said I knew what lives on the path now."
She shrugged faintly, brushing a leaf off her thigh. "It's been over thirty years since I last left the inner region. And the forest… it's changed. It's always changing. Relying on what I remember? Not the smartest move. So yeah, I won't lie—I don't know what's waiting out there."
Maggie's brow furrowed deeper. "So that means…?"
But Dylan cut in before she could finish.
"Yeah," he said flatly, sliding his machete back into its sheath. "It means we're going in blind."