Ren silently glanced at the name floating above the man before him...Varn...and, sensing the irritation in the man's gaze, he narrowed his eyes slightly.
Varn's strained smile didn't last even a single breath before it died out. The air fell back into silence, one so thick it scraped the throat dry and made every breath feel heavy.
He lowered his hand, fingers unconsciously tightening around the hilt of his dagger. Sweat gathered in his palm, sliding across the cold metal. Despite trying to act relaxed, his body betrayed him, shoulders tense, spine rigid as if pinned in place.
"…Even so," he continued, voice attempting calm but trembling faintly, "not many people stay lucid enough to look up at someone's name in a moment this tense… Aren't you worried about your friend?"
Ren remained silent. His pale blue eyes didn't seem to blink, cold like windless water. His unnerving calmness only made Varn more uncomfortable.
A soft click sounded as he stepped back half a pace, heel brushing against the stone floor. He swallowed hard, throat tightening.
"Seriously… running into someone like you on the very first floor…" He let out a laugh, but it came out thin, short of breath, almost strangled midway. "What a surprise."
Ren said nothing. He only tilted his head slightly, his gaze flicking past Varn's shoulder toward the very spot Varn kept sneaking glances at.
That look slid across Varn's skin like a blade. His body stiffened, breath hitching. Only then did he realize, Ren had seen through everything. Every tiny motion, every stolen glance, every uneven breath Varn thought he had hidden.
And he felt… if Ren wanted to, his disguise, his plan, even he himself could be stripped bare in the next sentence.
Ren spoke, exactly as Varn feared. His voice was coarse, dry in his throat:
"No need to erase the teleport traces… I already know what you… what all of you… are trying to do."
A bitter taste rose in Ren's throat. He inhaled deeply, forcing his heartbeat back into rhythm.
"Where are you keeping the other players…"
Ren's pale blue eyes darkened.
"…and what do you plan to do with these things?"
The words fell like stones, heavy, suffocating. The space around them seemed to shrink, choking off the air, leaving Varn standing there with nowhere left to run.
Varn swallowed again. A dry, scraping sound rolled through his throat, like stone grinding against metal. His hand clenched the dagger on instinct, but his fingers shook so hard he barely felt them.
Ren didn't step forward. He didn't need to. Just by standing there, back slightly hunched, hand resting lightly on his sword, he exerted a pressure that made the air feel like it was splintering.
Varn tried to speak, but his chest only tightened more.
"You…" he rasped. "You don't understand. This… isn't something we wanted…"
Ren tilted his head a fraction, eyes utterly unmoving.
"So," he murmured, "there is something."
Varn's mouth twitched. Any excuse he had died before it could form.
"We…" He drew in a sharp breath, but it hitched halfway. "We were just… following orders. Someone… hired us."
Ren blinked once. Varn couldn't find anger or surprise in those eyes, only another layer of thickening cold.
The back of his neck tingled, as if a blade had just been pressed against it.
"They paid a lot. Cor. Items. Even…" His gaze drifted to the groaning player on the ground, "…even promised to share the exp once everything was cleaned up."
Ren didn't respond. He simply looked at him, like that alone was enough.
Varn swallowed again, throat burning.
"They wanted us to round up players… the weak ones, or those traveling alone. Then escort them to the designated place."
Ren's fingers tightened slightly. A tiny movement, but enough to make Varn straighten instinctively.
"And… after that?" Ren asked, voice low, hoarse, yet sharp as a blade slicing straight into the chest.
Varn gasped for breath, eyes blinking rapidly. He wanted to lie. To divert.
But looking at Ren, he understood… lying meant being erased in an instant.
"…I don't know." He forced out each word, lips so dry they split at the edges. "We just deliver them. To an abandoned cave at the northern edge of the forest."
He lowered his head, heart pounding wildly.
"And what they… do to the ones we bring there…"
A shudder ran through him.
"…we're not allowed to ask."
Ren's gaze shifted, as if piecing together fragments of information, but none of them fit. Something was missing… a faint scent of deceit.
He didn't get the chance to finish the thought.
Varn lunged.
No warning. His body twisted forward in a distorted, unnatural motion, like a bird with broken wings trying to force itself into the air.
A gust of wind shrieked.
A shrill, grinding hum, like a meat grinder spinning right next to the ear. Varn's wide blade tore through the air, sweeping across Ren's head in a brutal arc.
Ren reacted on instinct.
He jerked back, creating only the barest sliver of distance.
The blade grazed across his forehead.
A thin line opened, cold, numbing, sending a shock straight into his skull. Red pixel fragments burst out like melting snowdust.
But Ren didn't lose a single HP.
He realized immediately, they were still inside the safe zone.
But Varn… he didn't care.
He didn't need to kill Ren. He only needed to make him hurt.
The man lunged again.
Varn twisted his body, neck, shoulders, torso folding together like joints snapping out of place. The dagger in his hand came down in a barrage of strikes, each swing heavy, frantic, like a butcher gone mad trying to carve his victim into pieces.
Ren tilted his body, retreated, turned his sword just enough, but every blow came so close he could almost feel the metal cutting along bone.
That smile… warped, stretching across Varn's face, widening like a crack splitting open.
"So… you still don't know… what my mission is…"
His voice dragged out, thick and muddy.
"…I almost thought…"
He didn't finish. But his eyes said the rest.
Ren tightened his grip on his sword. A chill ran down his spine.
Varn didn't give him time to ask.
The dagger in Varn's hand flared with a dark red glow the color of killing intent, of an activated skill.
The blade carved a horizontal arc through the air, spiraling down between them at an angle so unnatural the eye could barely track it.
Ren's sword snapped upward, sliding into the attack perfectly, slicing the strike apart with fluid precision.
Metal clashed, shrill and sharp. Sparks burst into tiny shards of light, crackling like cold fireworks in the night. Ren's arm buzzed with the impact, but he held his stance firm.
Varn chuckled softly.
He used the recoil of the block to spring backward, landing lightly, as if his feet barely touched the ground.
And then...
He slid.
Varn's body folded low, twisting, gliding sideways with movements boneless and limp, as if all his joints had been loosened.
In an instant, Ren caught only the blur of his shadow whipping around like a black serpent, circling behind him.
A cold breath wrapped around Ren's neck.
[Dash]. Ren shot forward, body stretching into a streak of pale blur.
Varn's attack carved through empty air, but there was no surprise in his eyes. He simply kept closing in, relentless.
His left arm whipped outward, flexible like a strip of raw flesh. It swung with wild, unpredictable momentum, striking into every blind spot Ren couldn't defend in time.
Each blow came from a different angle, like his body no longer obeyed the shape of a human.
"What's wrong?" Varn tilted his head, voice tinged with weary disappointment.
"Not going to fight back? We're in a safe zone… what are you afraid of?"
He stood there, squinting at the last rays of sunlight catching in Ren's black hair.
His eyes, deep, dark...probed Ren, as if searching for whatever the boy was thinking… or whatever he was waiting for.
Ren stepped back several more paces.
The distance stretched...thin, hollow, like a crack between them.
He didn't understand this man's intent.
It wasn't exactly combat.
Wasn't exactly intimidation.
It felt more like… an attempt to reach him.
A twisted kind of contact, wrapped in the shell of this meaningless fight.
His skill… that disguise skill.
There had to be a condition.
A touch.
A moment of skin contact, like when he pressed his hand onto someone's face.
That alone was enough for him to become Yuzu.
Enough for him to steal the boy's face in those brief minutes.
Varn had attacked Yuzu first.
Then mimicked him…
But more importantly...
It seemed he was aiming to mimic Ren next.
But why?
And that talk about "transporting" innocent players and NPCs?
A deep chill crawled down Ren's spine.
Maybe… that was just a cheap lie.
Thoughts flickered in his mind like headlights in a storm, brief, blinding, impossible to grasp.
"You're waiting…"
Ren glanced at Varn, then up at the darkening orange sky outside.
"You're waiting… for nightfall."
He frowned, searching for any shift of expression, but Varn, wearing Yuzu's stolen face was completely blank.
No twitch, no sign. Just that cold, empty mask that made Ren uneasy. A crawling, suffocating unease.
"You people…" Ren's voice slowed, heavy.
"…you're not teleporting something out... you're teleporting something into here, aren't you?"
The silence between them thickened, only Ren's heartbeat remained, rapid, threatening to burst.
"What a shame…" Varn sighed, tone laced with fake disappointment.
"I thought this would be a bit more fun… but you figured it out. Nothing exciting left."
His smile twitched, crooked, sickly.
"Exactly as you think… we already dropped a little New Year's gift in here. Tonight… is going to be lovely."
His eyes glimmered...inky black.
"You know, calling that thing in took a hell of a lot of work…" His voice dropped into a rasp. "You should thank those idiotic Fallen Elves… who knew they'd hand out a quest this insane."
The world around them held its breath. Only Varn's sigh remained, and the cold wind that felt like it was scraping down Ren's spine.