The morning was still, but heavy.
Elias knelt behind the hut, stacking cut logs against the wall. A faded cloth was wrapped around his head and shoulders, obscuring most of his face from view. Amelia had insisted he cover up – "too many eyes," she'd said – and he didn't argue.
A single guard trudged along the main road several meters away. His helmet sat crooked on his head, and a rolled-up wanted poster hung loosely from his belt.
Elias froze.
The guard glanced lazily towards the hut, but his gaze slid right past Elias.
Not a flicker of recognition. Not even curiosity.
He yawned and continued down the road without a second look.
Elias exhaled slowly. Amelia was right. Without the cloth concealing his face, that passing moment might've ended everything.
The sun filtered through the canopy. The air carried a faint, almost sour odor. It wasn't strong, it was barely noticeable unless one stopped to breathe deeply.
But Elias noticed.
When he reached for the next log, he froze. The bark was mottled with black veins that pulsed faintly beneath the surface, as though something had crept into the wood itself. He turned it over. The underside was soft, damp and smelled faintly of decay.
He frowned, setting it aside.
The leaves scattered nearby weren't much better. Small, dark patches stained their edges. A few had shriveled entirely. Even the soil looked darker and wetter.
However, a flicker of recognition stirred in the back of his mind. He'd seen this before. On the ground outside the abandoned castle in Cocytus.
A cold tightness coiled in his chest. It was the same rot that clung to Cocytus like a curse… only now, it had followed him here.
"System," he muttered. "What is this?"
A faint blue light shimmer flickered before his eyes.
Quest unlocked: The Rot
| Objective: Discover the source of the contamination.
| Failure: Expansion of the infected zone.
Elias' breath caught.
"The rot," he whispered to himself. He glanced around. The faint smell still lingered in the breeze.
The soil. The leaves. The logs.
And then his mind flicked back to something else.
The bread.
Inside the hut, the air was warmer. Amelia was stirring the leftover stew, humming faintly as Liam slept nearby. Elias sat at the table with a piece of bread in his hand. He stared at it quietly, the blue words still hovering faintly in the corner of his vision.
The same subtle bitterness lingered at the back of his tongue, the same strange taste he had dismissed before.
The rot wasn't just outside. It was here.
"Elias?"
He blinked. Amelia was looking at him with a questioning smile on her face. "You've been staring at that bread like it just insulted you. What's wrong?"
He hesitated. "…Nothing"
She tilted her head slightly. "You're a terrible liar."
He sighed, rubbing his temple. "Maybe I am."
For a while, he said nothing. The system's words faintly in the corner of his vision. Failure would result in expansion. It wasn't just his life at risk anymore.
He though of Amelia, of Liam's frail breathing in the next room. The thought of the same corruption creeping towards them, it was enough.
He looked up. "How's your leg?"
Amelia blinked. "My leg?"
"And Liam?" he added.
She frowned. "Why do you ask like that?"
Elias met her eyes. "Because I can see it. Your ankle's still swollen, and Liam's getting worse. Whatever this is, it's spreading."
Amelia's brow furrowed. "What's spreading?"
He told her. About the rot in the woods. The leaves. The faint smell in the air. About the bitter taste that kept persisting in their food.
When he finished, Amelia stared at him like he'd gone mad.
"You think the soil is cursed?" she said, forcing a shaky laugh. "Elias, you've been through a lot, but this… this just sounds like—"
"It's not jut soil," he interrupted quietly. "It's everything. It's getting worse."
She crossed her arms, defensive now. "And what do you plan to do about it?"
He hesitated, then answered. "Find out where it started. And what's the truth behind it…"
For a moment, there was silence. Then –
The table shook as Amelia slammed her hand.
"Are you out of your fucking mind?"
Elias didn't flinch. "I don't have a choice."
"You do!" she snapped. "You can stay here. You can—"
"—watch it spread?" His voice was calm. "Watch it take him? Take you?"
Her face fell.
He softened slightly. "You've seen it, haven't you? The plants near the window. The water. It's not just sickness."
Amelia's jaw tightened. "And what if you die out there chasing something that isn't even real?"
"I've already died once. But I can't see it take you," he said, half-smiling.
Her hand trembled at her side. "Why?"
"Because," he said quietly, "if I don't, the next time you bake that bread, it won't just taste wrong, it'll take your life."
A tremor ran down Elias' spine the moment he said it.
Because the truth was… he didn't want to go.
Not at all.
The though of stepping beyond the fragile safety of Amelia's hut made his stomach twist. His mind replayed every moment he'd tried so hard to bury – the monster's teeth tearing into his flesh, the corruption burning him from the inside out, the torture chamber, the explosion of his own skull –
His breath hitched, the room tilting for a heartbeat.
He gripped the edge of the table until his knuckles whitened.
His body remembered even when he didn't want it to.
If I go out there… if something like that happens again…
The shiver that crawled up his arms wasn't from the cold.
For a moment he stared out the window.
But then, his gaze drifted to the small inner room.
To the frail rise and fall of Liam's chest. To Amelia's hand still trembling from the argument, to this tiny hut that had somehow become the one place where the world didn't feel like it was trying to kill him.
He swallowed hard. He wasn't going out there because he was brave. He wasn't going because he wanted to.
He was going because this little broken house – with its cracked windows, rotting bread, mismatched bowls, and gentle laughter – was the closest thing he's had to a home.
"I'm scared too," he admitted. "But if I stay inside this hut doing nothing… that fear becomes useless."
He looked at her, into her exhausted, worried eyes.
"I want to protect this place," he murmured. "You. Liam. Everything you've given me here."
That silenced her. The room was still except for Liam's shallow breathing.
And then –
| System injection detected.
| Update: Sigil interface expanded. Prototype mask now available.
| Feature: Veil of Obscurity.
| Description: Face is obscured from cognitive perception. Subject becomes unidentifiable.
A faint shimmer rippled across Elias' vision. The air around him warped slightly. He looked at Amelia. Her eyes darted across his face, uncertain, as if she couldn't quite place what she was seeing.
"Elias?" she whispered.
"It's me," he said, though his voice felt like it came from someone standing beside him rather than from his own throat. "Something… changed."
Amelia's lips parted. Her anger didn't vanish all at once. Her eyes kept trying to focus on him, to anchor him, but they kept slipping away from his features as if her mind refused to hold on.
Her breath shook. Not because she suddenly trusted him, but because the fear she'd clung to so tightly had shifted. The danger wasn't about him being recognized anymore. It was about him leaving.
Her gaze darted, unconsciously, toward the inner room where Liam slept. That tiny glance carried everything: her desperation to keep what little family she had left, her fear of losing yet another person who had helped them, her frantic hope that this fragile moment of safety wouldn't be ripped apart the moment Elias stepped outside.
"Elias…" she whispered, voice trembling, "if something happens to you out there— if you don't come back—"
She couldn't finish. She swallowed hard.
He took a slow step forward, just enough that she could still see him even through the veil of distortion. "I'll be back before sundown," he said softly.
She stared at him. "Promise?"
"I promise."
Her eyes glistened, but she forced a shaky smile.
"Then you'd better keep it."
Elias knelt beside Liam, resting a hand gently on the boy's shoulder.
"I'll bring back something better than medicine," he said quietly.
The boy stirred faintly, murmuring something in his sleep.
When Elias rose, Amelia was already standing by the doorway. They stepped outside together. The air was crisp, the faint scent of rot still clinging beneath the morning dew.
Amelia's fingers brushed against his arm for the briefest moment — a silent hesitation, a thousand unsaid words in that single touch. She stopped herself just before it lingered.
"Come back," she said softly.
"I will."
He turned away before the silence grew too long, stepping toward the forest path. The trees loomed tall and dark.
Amelia watched him go until he disappeared into the mist. Her lips parted, and then closed again before she could call his name. Behind her, the wind carried the faintest scent of decay.