Simon's gaze flickered downward, then back up to Michel.
Michel hesitated before speaking. "...I saw you throw that dagger," he said slowly.
It wasn't a question. It was a statement.
"You hit the mark too well," he continued. "You've done that before."
Sylene said nothing.
Michel's voice dropped, uncertain. "I thought you were just a pet... but are you that kind of pet?"
Sylene's grip tightened slightly on the dagger.
"I mean," Michel went on, choosing his words carefully, "Did you... used to do dirty work for your master, like...killing?"
A cold silence settled between them.
Sylene sighed, tilting his head back against the carriage wall. A master… if Rosencraft counted as one, then yes.
"We were scrapped if we didn't complete the task," he said simply.
If we failed the experiment, we were discarded.
Something flickered across Michel's face. Pity. And then—something else. Fear.
The air between them shifted, walls rising.
Michel swallowed. "Then… you—you're not a normal hybrid, are you? A… vampire...avian hybrid bred for battle?"
Sylene smirked, his gaze drifting toward the window. Beyond the glass, snow fell in slow, lazy spirals, coating the world in white. The ghouls were thinning, retreating into the mist.
"Maybe," he murmured. "Or maybe my owner was just crazy."
Michel looked away.
Sylene's smile faded, his voice quieter.
"...And cruel."
---
Around midnight, they halted near a lake. Hours had passed since the ghouls had dwindled, and they had finally entered a campsite area. They weren't alone—two other traveling groups had set up camp as well—but at this hour, no one dared to step outside. Bryent made the call to rest until lunchtime tomorrow, ensuring everyone had a chance to recover. Other than Simon, no one had suffered serious injuries—just minor scratches at worst. He sniffed proudly.
"Good job, everyone! I'll open some booze tonight. First group, get some rest. Second group, take night watch."
Sylene wasn't particularly tired, so he volunteered for the first night watch along with Bryent, Michel, and a few others.
As he chewed on a piece of crispy bacon, the rich, sweet-savory flavor spread across his tongue, bringing a rare moment of comfort. No nausea this time—his stomach accepted the food without protest. Good. Delicious food belongs inside the belly. So stay there, alright? Nice, juicy bacon? He rubbed his stomach in satisfaction, lips curling into a small smile.
The faint stench lingering in the air ruined the peace. Rotten. It clung stubbornly to his nose, the same foul odor that trailed those freakish-looking creatures. He'd once thought of them as the "zombies" he'd read about in dusty lab books, but they weren't zombies—they were ghouls. A nuisance that existed outside the neat division of this world's three main races—vampires, hybrids, and humans.
Their grotesque faces haunted him: bald, slick skin like blackened slime, the stench of rotting corpses, organs spilling where flesh should be whole. Each one carried a hidden core, usually lodged in the forehead. The larger ones buried theirs deeper—in the belly, the heart, sometimes even the spine. Those were the dangerous ones. Stronger, quicker, disturbingly clever. He remembered too well the day he faced one ghoul from Rosencraft's enhanced experiments. The claws had shredded through his guard, the bite nearly fatal. He'd walked away alive, defeated it, but not whole. An arm had been the price—which the scientists fixed right away, as usual.
The lesser ghouls were manageable, pests to swat down when they appeared—ghoul had been his sparring partner in battle experiments anyway. But the big ones were annoying to deal with. Fortunately, they couldn't be mass-produced by the scientists; only a handful of big ones had ever been made, and their numbers naturally grew slowly in the wild. He wasn't sure whether they multiplied by feeding on corpses, rotting them into their own kind, or if they bred in the foul nests they built in swamps and fog-heavy forests. Either way, they never touched animals, only humans and hybrids—young ones especially.
That was why the humans had it worst. Settlements were often plagued by nests spreading too close, multiplying faster than they could be culled. Vampires, smug as always, dismissed them as vermin—ghoul nests were rare in their territories, easy enough to exterminate when they appeared. But to humans and hybrids, ghouls were a relentless, rotting nightmare. Still, they weren't a big enough problem for the military to handle; after all, humans and hybrids excelled in population numbers.
"Ey, boy! Come over here. Sit with us," Bryent called suddenly.
Sylene snapped awake and looked him over. He reluctantly came over to sit by the corner.
Michel and Bire were still lingering nearby, but Bire cast him another unreadable glance before retreating toward the carriage to sleep. That lingering stare made Sylene bristle slightly.
It was just a ghoul—why so wary over it?
The campfire flickered, casting warm light over the rough faces of the mercenaries. A portable stove provided steady heat, and Michel, along with the others on night duty, quietly shared their rations of bread and meat. Bryent cracked open a bottle of booze, taking a deep, satisfied sip before sighing loudly.
"Ahh, this is life! Nothing beats a drink after smashing smelly corpses!"
"We ran from them," someone pointed out flatly.
The party-pooper remark didn't dampen Bryent's mood. He merely laughed, shaking his head. "Well, we had to save ammo. You know how expensive that shit can be."
Pouring the booze into plastic cups, he held them up, waving them under his companions' noses. "Doesn't this smell better than those rotting piles? Hell, I bet it's better than some women right now! Hah!"
His gaze flickered to Sylene, who was still happily munching away. With a teasing smirk, he strolled over.
"Yo, kid. This stuff's off-limits for you. Sorry."
Sylene barely spared the drink a glance, but the strong, pungent aroma curled into his nose, making his stomach turn. His fingers unconsciously tightened around his food. Alcohol. The scent was too familiar. Not just from taverns or passing mercenaries, but from something much colder, much worse.
Antiseptic.