The campfires flickered weakly against the growing dusk, their smoke curling in thin, lazy spirals toward a sky bruised with stormclouds. Soldiers milled about the perimeter, uneasy. Tension hung over the temporary camp like an invisible shroud, thicker even than the evening mist that had begun to seep in from the surrounding woods.
Around one of the larger fires, a small knot of men and women clustered close, their armor scuffed, their weapons resting loosely against their knees. Their voices, low and urgent, carried just far enough in the cooling air.
"I'm telling you," one grizzled veteran said, shaking his head, "there's no way he made it."
A younger soldier—barely past his first campaign—shifted uncomfortably. "But he's an Awakened too, isn't he?"
The veteran snorted, spitting into the dirt. "Doesn't matter. Two-star dungeons don't play fair. Half the time even parties of Awakened soldiers like us get torn apart. One kid, alone?" He shook his head again, slower this time. "No. Either he ran... or he's already dead."
Another chimed in, voice skeptical. "I heard he volunteered. On his own. No backup. Walked straight into a village swarming with undead."
"Exactly," the veteran said grimly. "Anyone dumb or arrogant enough to do that... doesn't come back."
A heavy silence followed, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the distant creak of leather and steel as sentries shifted at their posts.
The younger soldier spoke up again, almost whispering. "What if he does come back?"
The veteran leaned forward, eyes glinting in the firelight. "Then either he's a liar... or he's something worse than the monsters in that village."
They all fell silent at that. Because deep down, none of them really believed survival was possible—not without some kind of price.
The woods beyond the camp shivered with a gust of cold wind.
And then came the sound.
Footsteps.
Slow. Steady. Coming up the dirt path leading from the treeline.
The sentries straightened sharply, hands going to weapons, tension crackling in the air like a drawn bowstring.
A shape emerged from the mist.
At first it looked wrong, almost like another undead. A figure lurching, covered head to toe in blood, clothes torn, armor dented and blackened. But as it stepped closer, the details sharpened.
It was Reivo.
Alive.
He moved with a strange, deliberate calm, as if walking through water. His sword hung loosely from one hand, stained dark to the hilt. His green eyes, rimmed in red, burned under the disheveled mess of brown-black hair. Blood dripped from him in slow, sticky trails, painting the dirt at his feet.
For a long moment, no one said a word.
The younger soldier gaped openly.
The veteran rose slowly, one hand still resting near his sword.
"By the Will..." someone whispered behind them. "He actually did it."
Reivo didn't slow. He didn't acknowledge them. His gaze was distant, detached, as if he were looking through the camp rather than at it.
The path cleared before him like water before a blade.
He strode past the campfire, past the wide-eyed soldiers, leaving crimson footprints in his wake.
Someone finally found their voice.
"What happened in there?" a soldier called out hesitantly.
Reivo didn't even glance their way.
"Handled," he said, his voice hoarse and low, more growl than speech.
He kept walking.
Toward the largest tent near the center of the camp—the one bearing the crest of the Princess.
The murmurs behind him swelled into a storm of hushed voices as he passed.
"Handled...?"
"One man against an entire dungeon breach?"
"That's not possible..."
"Maybe it's true... he's something worse than the monsters…"
As Reivo reached the command tent, two guards stationed outside stiffened, clearly unsure whether to let him through in his current state. One opened his mouth to protest, but a cold look from Reivo silenced him. He shoved the tent flap aside and entered without waiting for permission.
Inside, the air was warmer, filled with the scent of parchment, leather, and a faint trace of perfume.
Princess Alisanne stood near a map table, her back straight, golden hair catching the lamplight. She wore simple traveling clothes beneath a light cloak, her usual grace touched by a note of fatigue. Beside her stood Meira, the Awakened woman with sharp eyes, and Lira, the healer, who stiffened the moment Reivo entered.
All three turned at once.
The Princess's mouth opened slightly in shock.
Reivo looked like a creature dragged straight from a battlefield nightmare—blood-soaked, battered, yet standing with a rigid, unbreakable will.
"The dungeon is closed," he said, voice rough as gravel.
A long silence stretched between them.
Alisanne approached, her steps steady but guarded. She stopped a measured distance away, hands folded behind her back, as if inspecting a weapon returned from battle rather than a living man.
Her gaze swept over him—his blood-smeared armor, the tattered cloak clinging to his shoulders, the dead calm in his eyes—and something inside her tightened.
"You survived," she said, not quite a question.
Reivo looked at her. His green eyes caught the torchlight, cold and unreadable.
"I did," he answered flatly.
Meira stood to the side, arms crossed, studying him with wary focus. The air around him felt... wrong. Off-balance. As if the night itself bent around him now.
Behind them, Lira hesitated, clutching bandages, her face pale.
Alisanne exhaled slowly, her expression unreadable.
"You completed the task," she said at last. "That's all that matters."
Her tone was clipped, final. She didn't step closer.
She didn't offer thanks.
She only turned on her heel and gestured sharply to the healers.
"See to his wounds," she ordered. "Make sure he's fit to travel."
Without another word, she left, her cape sweeping after her like a drawn blade.
Reivo rose to his feet slowly, every muscle screaming, and allowed the healers to lead him away.
But even as he walked, he could feel the weight of her stare lingering on his back.
Because she knew:
The one she had sent into that village...
...was not the one who had returned.