The heavy metallic click of the door closing behind Mirac sealed him off from the tense silence of the meeting room.
The masked boy remained motionless for a brief moment in the second-floor corridor, taking a deep breath to shake off the lingering tension of that exhausting confrontation.
Then, with a measured gesture, he adjusted his long black coat and set off along the corridor.
To reach the Association's underground levels, where Carmen was waiting for him, he had to make his way through the vast, imposing structure of the Headquarters.
Leaving the corridors and the monumental staircase behind, he descended the broad, solemn steps at a steady pace, the general hubbub of the Headquarters fading the lower he went.
After passing the ground floor—where merchants and adventurers bustled through the vast main hall—he took a narrower, more austere side staircase carved directly into the gray stone of the Gothic fortress.
The atmosphere changed rapidly: the air grew cooler, heavy with the unmistakable scents of dark beer, aged wood, and hot food.
Mirac thus entered the lively tavern on the underground level, a refuge run by the Association where adventurers gathered before or after missions to replenish their strength and shake off their fatigue.
As expected, the room teemed with groups of every kind, passing merchants, and figures who, seated at the tables or leaning against the walls, cast wary, searching glances in every direction beneath the warm glow of the magical torches.
Past that veil of suspicion, the boy's gaze immediately found Carmen.
The woman was a short distance ahead, seated comfortably on the edge of the order counter.
The mission files lay neatly arranged in front of her, and she held a tankard between her fingers, taking an occasional sip.
Her gaze, however, was fixed elsewhere, her expression distant, as though she were lost in thought.
Mirac advanced with measured steps through the crowd, weaving naturally between the packed tables.
When he was one step from the counter, Carmen broke off her train of thought and turned slightly to look at him attentively.
She studied him for a moment, immediately noticing a strange calm in his movements as he sat down beside her.
"Well?" the red-haired woman asked, in her usual calm and direct voice, referring to the meeting that had just concluded upstairs.
Mirac shook his head slightly, sketching a vague gesture with one hand.
"Nothing much," he replied, dismissing the matter with a deliberately indifferent tone.
Carmen stared at him for a few seconds, trying to read him through the mask.
"I see…" she murmured, choosing not to insist.
She simply accepted the answer with her usual pragmatism, offering nothing more than an almost imperceptible nod.
Before they could add anything else, a familiar voice broke the silence behind them:
"I didn't expect to see you at today's meeting…"
Mirac and Carmen turned sharply.
One step behind them stood the imposing figure of Alvern Forh.
The man towered over them, his thick dark beard slightly unkempt and his face set in a firm but far from hostile expression.
Mirac, recalling the gold nameplate he had seen earlier in the meeting room, widened his eyes slightly beneath the mask.
"We weren't expecting you to be a Guild Vice-Captain, either…" Mirac said, in a tone mixed with surprise and curiosity.
Alvern chuckled good-naturedly, running a rough hand over his beard.
"Well, certain positions aren't something you go around announcing unless there's a real need," the man replied in a relaxed, natural tone.
Then, growing a little more serious, he took a step forward, fixing his gaze on them. "But as you've probably already guessed, I didn't come down here to talk about that, nor about the earlier meeting. Actually, I've been looking for you for a very specific reason…"
Carmen narrowed her eyes slightly, keeping her arms crossed. "Which would be?"
Alvern shrugged, smiling faintly.
"Simple," he began, getting straight to the point. "During the clash two days ago in the Carameo Mine, I witnessed your extraordinary combat abilities firsthand. Once we were back in the city and I'd submitted the report, I discussed it at length with my Guild Captain, Taurus Gonzales. In the end, we reached a firm decision: we would like to officially recruit you into the ranks of our Guild, Supreme Hammer!"
Mirac and Carmen exchanged a quick glance.
That single instant of silent understanding was enough to align their thoughts.
As they had already discussed the day before, they could not afford to bind themselves to any Guild because, once they had procured the necessary equipment and completed the Raid, they would resume their journey toward the Red Desert.
Of course, Alvern knew nothing about that secret plan.
"We're honored, and we greatly appreciate the confidence you've placed in us, Vice-Captain Alvern," Mirac replied in a polite but unmistakable tone. "Unfortunately, however, we must decline the offer."
Alvern widened his eyes, clearly taken aback by such a blunt refusal. "Are you quite sure? Our Guild is willing to pay you handsomely and provide you with any equipment you might need."
"It's not a matter of money," Mirac replied calmly. "We simply prefer not to bind ourselves to any Guild and to operate on our own."
Alvern scrutinized them in silence for a few seconds, trying to gauge whether there was any room for negotiation.
However, sensing that any further attempt would be futile, the man finally spread his arms in a gesture of resignation, a rueful smile crossing his face.
"It's a real shame," Alvern muttered, quickly extracting from his jacket a small, stiff card embossed with the emblem of an imposing hammer and letting it slide onto the counter between them. "Since you don't seem inclined to bend easily, at least take this. It's a business card. If you ever change your mind or if you need the support of the Supreme Hammer, you know who to turn to."
Mirac took the card, observing it for a moment before slipping it into the pocket of his coat.
"We'll make good use of it."
Alvern nodded, then turned on his heel. "Excellent. See you then at the Raid…"
And with a heavy step, the bearded man moved away among the tables of the tavern, heading toward the exit.
As his figure disappeared into the crowd, Carmen set her tankard on the counter and turned toward her companion, letting out a small sigh.
"And that makes nine…" the woman murmured.
Mirac tilted his head almost imperceptibly behind the mask.
"Nine what?" he asked with a thread of curiosity.
"Nine representatives who've tried to recruit us into their Guilds today," Carmen replied, keeping her voice low. "While you were upstairs discussing with President Jun, down here it was a real siege."
"Really?!" the masked boy exclaimed.
Carmen nodded, crossing her arms. "Our clash with President Jun during the Physical Test for the Admission Exam and that unpleasant business in the Carameo Mine had already made everyone prick up their ears. And the fact that the President summoned us in person to today's meeting lit the fuse: the Guilds came rushing in droves, hoping to get their hands on us before it was too late."
"Wow…" Mirac commented under his breath. "Apparently we've attracted more attention than necessary."
"Right," Carmen concluded, picking up the meeting files again with a grave nod. "Prepare yourself, because from now on there will be eyes on us wherever we go, even when we think we're alone…"
Those words silenced the echo of the conversation, leaving behind a dense silence heavy with tension.
'…eyes on us wherever we go…?'
Mirac let the warning settle in his mind, while his tactical instinct was already beginning to sift through his memories of the past few days in Raerno.
After all, it wasn't out of the question that some discreet surveillance had been set on them right after they joined the Association.
His memory therefore slid backward, running through the anonymous faces in the streets, the merchants, the crowds… until the thread of logic stumbled on a cold, jarring detail, buried beneath the trauma and chaos of the fighting at Carameo.
'Wait a minute!'
A sudden chill ran down his spine.
'That day on Level -1… there was that hooded guy who was watching me!'
All at once, that seemingly innocent episode took on an oppressive weight.
Rewinding the tape of that day at the library, he managed to bring into ruthlessly sharp focus those eyes scrutinizing him from afar, the dossier clutched to the chest, and the way the stranger had vanished behind a shelf the moment their gazes met.
'N-No way! Was that guy really tailing me?'
That new perspective pulled the ground out from under his feet, turning a banal coincidence into the shadow of a predator.
He hesitated for a few seconds, undecided whether to voice that doubt or not, but in the end he spat it out:
"A-Ananya… There's something you should know."
Carmen turned to him in silence.
"In my account of my day at the library, I forgot about it, or rather, I didn't give it any importance. But all of a sudden, that memory has taken on a completely different weight. So I think it wise to share with you this small detail that came back to me," the masked boy explained. "When I was on Level -1, I noticed someone watching me from a distance. A hooded figure with an open dossier in their hands. The moment I looked at them, they disappeared behind a shelf. At the time I figured it was just some curious type, one of those people who stick their noses into other people's business, and I didn't think about it again."
He paused briefly, choosing his words carefully.
"But considering that floor is accessible only to members of the seventh rank and above, whoever it was must have belonged to the Association. So perhaps that person was a high-ranking member who, for some strange reason, was keeping an eye on me! And what puzzles me most is that I never crossed paths with that silhouette again, either before or after that brief stop on Level -1. Maybe I'm just being a bit paranoid, and maybe, as you mentioned a moment ago, it was just an emissary from some Guild: someone whose curiosity was piqued by our display against President Jun… But what if it wasn't? What do you think?"
Carmen did not answer right away.
She stared at him for a few seconds in silence, one hand still resting on the files, her gaze drifting just past his shoulder, as though she were mentally retracing every detail she had just heard.
"Your reasoning holds," she said at last, in a low, measured voice. "But there are at least two other possibilities to consider. The first, and the most mundane, is that it really was just a reader who happened to meet your gaze. After all, a boy wandering around a library with his face covered certainly doesn't go unnoticed, even among people used to seeing all sorts of things. So it's only natural that someone might glance at you in passing."
Mirac, beneath the mask, pressed his lips together.
He couldn't argue with her: it was such an obvious detail that, from wearing it every single day, he had ended up forgetting about it.
Still, his analytical mind could not afford the luxury of settling for the most reassuring explanation.
"And the second?" the boy pressed.
The woman fell silent. Her eyes, behind the rectangular lenses, suddenly hardened, almost impenetrable.
For a long moment she seemed to weigh the impact of that last hypothesis, coldly calculating whether it was wise to cast such a heavy shadow over their thoughts.
But in the end, the need to remain vigilant won out.
"The second possibility… is that someone has taken an interest in us for reasons that have nothing to do with the Association, using it solely as cover to stalk us from up close."
A sinister shiver brushed the back of Mirac's neck.
His survival instinct bit at his stomach.
"What?! That's not possible…" the masked boy muttered. "We haven't made a single misstep that could blow our cover. Who could possibly have set their sights on us, then?!"
Carmen immediately caught that sudden stiffening.
Behind the rectangular lenses, her gaze held steady, an anchor of rationality cast into the stormy sea of the boy's thoughts.
"I have no idea," she replied with lucid coldness. "And that's exactly why we mustn't jump to hasty conclusions. It remains only a hypothesis, even if it's the worst of the three."
She paused briefly, letting her calm tone defuse Mirac's paranoia.
"As things stand, we have no way of determining which of these options is true," she concluded, with reassuring firmness. "For that reason, for now, we won't change our habits: avoiding public places or acting like fugitives would hand a possible spy the very confirmation they're looking for. So from this moment on, we'll have to be even more careful with every step, every glance, and every word, especially when we move around the city."
The iron rationality of that speech settled like ice over the boy's raw nerves.
Mirac closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, forcing his heartbeat to realign itself with the calm rhythm of logic.
'She's right… We mustn't panic.' Suppressing his unease, Mirac nodded firmly. "Alright."
Without adding anything else, the two rose from the counter and headed toward the exit, leaving the tavern's warmth and din behind as they made their way home.
* * *
The evening walk through the streets of Raerno passed in their usual, comfortable silence.
However, when they turned into the last side street, they saw the warm light filtering through the windows of the house—a detail that left no room for doubt: Blake had already been discharged from the hospital and had returned home.
At that realization, Carmen abruptly slowed and came to a halt.
The masked boy stopped in turn, turning toward her with a questioning look.
"I know I don't need to remind you, but there's no harm in saying it again," the woman began in a low voice. "Once we're inside, not a word about Derek. Or at least, nothing about the possibility that he might be held hostage by the Rogthars, or already transformed into one of them, serving whoever is behind all this… After the emotional breakdown he had at the hospital this morning, revealing such a horror to him would surely be the final blow."
Mirac raised an eyebrow beneath the mask.
He wasn't surprised by the warning itself—after all, he was well aware of the situation, and they had already agreed with President Jun to maintain the utmost secrecy—but by the fact that she had felt the need to reiterate it herself.
"I didn't expect you to worry so much about him…" Mirac commented, with a note of genuine surprise in his voice.
Carmen looked away, almost as though to deflect the insinuation.
"I'm only concerned about how he might react to the news…" she replied at once, hiding behind her usual cold expression.
Mirac glanced at her sideways, observing the woman's rigid posture.
'She just can't admit she's growing attached to him, can she?' he thought to himself, barely holding back a small amused smile.
With that thought in mind, the boy decided not to tease her any further.
He merely nodded in silence, and together they covered the remaining distance, mentally bracing themselves for a silent house still echoing with the despair and fragility into which Blake had sunk only a few hours earlier.
However, when they crossed the threshold of the house, the atmosphere inside upended every expectation.
As they stepped inside, an inviting aroma greeted them at once, making their mouths water.
After leaving their shoes by the door and making their way into the living room, they were astonished to find dinner already laid out on the table.
Blake, who had returned early after his chat with Garret, had decided to get into the kitchen and prepare something special for them that evening: a steaming, fragrant stew of seasonal vegetables and tender chunks of meat, accompanied by a loaf of freshly baked rye bread and a board of local aged cheeses.
From the kitchen came a light clatter of dishes: Blake was busy tossing potatoes in a large bowl to prepare a salad, so absorbed in his carefree thoughts that he had not noticed the two had already come in.
Both Mirac and Carmen remained speechless for a moment.
Seeing him like that, with his face finally relaxed, they immediately noticed the change in their friend: the dark despair and crushing weight that had overwhelmed him when he woke that morning in the hospital seemed to have eased considerably—perhaps even vanished almost entirely.
Blake now stood straighter, and his face bore a far more serene, refreshed expression.
"Oh, you're back!" the boy exclaimed with a sincere smile, leaning out from the kitchen.
"Well, look at you! You've certainly been busy," Mirac commented, leaving his coat on the back of a chair.
Seeing Blake in excellent spirits again brought an almost imperceptible smile of relief to his face beneath the mask.
After the usual pleasantries, all three took their places around the wooden table, enjoying the meal in an atmosphere of renewed calm that eased the weight of the day.
During dinner, while they savored the stew Blake had prepared, Mirac and Carmen explained to the tall, thin boy what they had discussed that afternoon during the meeting at the Association Headquarters, its outcome, and how Operation RR would proceed.
Blake listened to every word attentively, nodding from time to time between bites.
"I see…" he said at last, setting down his spoon. "So there are still three days left until the Raid?"
"Exactly," Carmen confirmed firmly.
Then, without raising her gaze from her plate, she added in an almost distracted tone:
"Anyway, tomorrow I intend to get myself a better weapon, maybe from the same workshop where Isaac bought his. So I'd appreciate it if you came with me, Blake."
"Of course! You can count on me," the tall, thin boy replied eagerly.
Mirac carefully studied the woman, seeing through her request to her true intentions.
'I bet she only wants to take him along to get a discount for herself too…' the masked boy thought, shaking his head with mild disapproval. "And me?"
Carmen turned toward him. "A day off, I'd say. Take the chance to rest."
Mirac remained silent for a moment, turning the spoon between his fingers.
'Rest? No… I think I have a better plan!' the masked boy thought. "Actually, I was thinking of taking a walk around the city tomorrow, just to get some fresh air."
Carmen stared at him for a few moments, weighing those words with a watchful, searching gaze, as though trying to determine whether there was something else behind that sudden desire to explore.
Then, with an almost imperceptible shrug, she looked away and nodded.
"As you like. Just be careful not to get lost," she murmured with her usual calm.
The conversation gradually faded into a relaxed calm, the last bites and the soft clink of cutlery accompanying the rest of the evening.
A little later, with the lights switched off and exhaustion finally taking over, each of them retired to their own room to get some much-needed rest.
The silence of the night enveloped the dwelling, lulling them all to sleep and quieting the last thoughts of that long day.
* * *
{ MEANWHILE… }
The sun had finally abandoned Raerno, leaving a trail of molten copper across the rooftops that slowly faded into the twilight.
From the top floor of the Association Headquarters, President Jun observed the city in silence.
The vast window of his office took up almost the entire far wall, and he stood before it, his gnarled hands clasped behind his back, like a captain scanning the sea from the bridge of his own ship.
Below him, the Avenue of Benevolence traced a dark line between the canopies of the plane trees, while the first lanterns lit up one after another, as orderly as fireflies. From the chimneys rose thin threads of smoke, and the late-afternoon chatter had dwindled to a distant murmur, ever softer.
The meeting had dragged on for hours, and the voices of the Captains still echoed in Jun's ears: overlapping, restless, skeptical at first and then horrified.
But then a sound behind him abruptly silenced those voices in his head.
Three measured knocks at the door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Come in," Jun said, without turning.
The door opened with a barely perceptible creak, and measured footsteps crossed the carpet until they stopped at a respectful distance.
"President."
The voice was flat, free of embellishment. Jun did not need to turn to recognize it: Hejik Miklaw, his Vice-President, always entered as if he feared disturbing even the air.
The man closed the door behind him and held the usual dark leather folder under his arm. The oil lamps glinted off the small silver pin on his lapel, accentuating the immaculate neatness of his uniform.
"I'm pleased to inform you that the mobilization orders have been dispatched," Hejik reported. "The Guild Captains present at the meeting have each sent orders recalling their units scattered throughout the kingdom. Within a few days, most of the detachments should return to Raerno, in time for the Raid."
"Well done, Hejik," Jun murmured.
His gaze, however, remained fixed on the glass wall.
Hejik waited a few seconds, letting the moment settle, convinced the President would add something.
But the silence stretched on, and his patience went unrewarded.
At that point, another man might have filled the pause with some perfunctory remark and taken his leave.
The Vice-President, however, did not leave.
He remained still in front of the door, the folder against his side, listening to the silence of the man he had served for over a decade.
"President," he said at last, tactfully. "If I may ask… is there something troubling you?"
Jun did not answer at once.
But his hesitation lasted only a few seconds.
"Tell me something, Hejik," he began at last, in a low voice, as if speaking more to the city than to him. "What do you make of this whole business? Of the Rogthars… of these creatures that have sprung up out of nowhere?"
The Vice-President considered the question with the seriousness of a man who understood that a hasty answer is worth less than silence.
"The whole affair strikes me as rather bizarre, to say the least," he admitted. "The results of the analyses leave no doubt about what they are. But they tell us nothing about who brought them back to life."
He paused briefly, adjusting the edge of the folder with one finger. When he resumed, his voice remained flat, yet every word fell with a different weight:
"To be perfectly honest, sir, one hypothesis occurred to me the very moment the masked boy mentioned a Chaotic capable of transforming living beings. I couldn't bring it up during the meeting because of the confidentiality restrictions surrounding dossiers on secret organizations, and so I kept it to myself. In particular, I am referring to the Demonic Womb."
Uttering that name was enough to crack the room's tranquility, infecting it with a sense of pure unease.
Jun did not move, but his fingers, clasped behind his back, tightened slightly. "The Demonic Womb…"
"Exactly," Hejik confirmed. "If we look at the history of that sect, the remains of the women they abducted have always been found in a horrific state: bodies altered, torn apart, deformed by aberrant mutations until reduced to mangled flesh."
Hejik's fingers tightened for an instant around the folder, and for the first time his composure showed a slight crack.
"The Demonic Womb is one of the very few sects known to manipulate living matter to such an extent. That's why they immediately came to mind. In fact, the boy's hypothesis about accelerated reproduction could explain their purpose perfectly: perhaps they have subordinated their ancient obsession to a far broader design, reducing the captive women to mere vessels of flesh destined for the mass production of demonic creatures. While the miners of Carameo, transformed into Rogthars, would be the first soldiers of an army ready to attack at any moment."
The Vice-President allowed the shadow of that hypothesis to stretch inexorably over them for a moment.
"And it is precisely this that unsettles me, sir!" Hejik resumed, exclaiming. "Until yesterday we were certain that the goal of the Demonic Womb was the resurrection of the Desecrator through a true biological receptacle. But if this Rogthar business is truly their work, then something has changed: a sect that for decades experimented in the shadows, abducting young women, is now arming itself to launch an imminent offensive. And to justify such a shift in strategy, there must necessarily be something absolutely indispensable at stake for the crowning of their mad ambition…"
Hejik paused, and when he resumed his voice was lower:
"And if that something is what I fear it is, then…"
The man left the sentence unfinished, and the implication hung in the air like a threat too ominous even to be spoken aloud.
There was no need to elaborate: both of them knew exactly what he meant.
Neither of them spoke for several seconds.
President Jun remained motionless, his gaze lost beyond the great window as he stared at the dark geometry of the city spread out beneath him like an immense silent chessboard.
"Your reasoning is more than sound, Hejik," the President began, in a low voice that left no room for doubt.
Then, with the solemnity of one who has already charted the new course in the midst of the storm, Jun turned slightly to face his subordinate.
"And I fear your supposition strikes at the heart of the matter," Jun admitted, his tone growing darker. "The existence and exact whereabouts of the Fragment of the Desecrator are classified information, filed away as a state secret and accessible only to a very small circle of people. I find it hard to believe that any of them has stained their honor with treason, but ignoring the worst-case scenario would be a fatal imprudence. If a leak at the highest levels has truly let data of such magnitude slip out, then the Fragment of the Desecrator may well have ended up in the sights of these fanatics, or of someone else bold enough to want to go against me."
With that, Jun took a step forward, and the light of the lamps carved his face, revealing for an instant all the years he carried on his shoulders.
A warm, unshakable determination gleamed in his eyes.
"But fear not!" The President's gnarled fingers slowly curled into a fist as his voice swelled with overwhelming authority. "Even if it is the last thing I do, I will not allow anyone to lay their hands on it!"