"You ready for your mana training?"
He blinked a couple of times. "Yeah, but… why are there five of you?"
"We have to push your body to its limits so it forces out the mana."
The scarred man's lips twitched, like that fool was trying to hold back his excitement.
'Translation, we're basically going to kick your ass for fun.'
Squinting his eyes, he asked, "You sure?"
They all nodded like idiots. Too confidently.
He turned toward the couple, just to see what they thought about this "special training." As he expected, they couldn't say a single word. In fact, they couldn't even look him in the eye.
Looking at them closely, he noticed they were nothing like before. Her once beautiful, silky black hair hung in tangled strands, clumped by dust and sweat. The man looked even worse—lips cracked, hair gray at the roots, face hollow like he was already fading.
And now that he thought about it, he didn't even know their names. Not because he didn't care, no, that wasn't it, but because names made things harder. Remembering one only tied you to them, and when paths split, it just hurt more to let go.
"If that was the case, then why was my blood boiling under my skin?"
'Easy there,' the voice muttered in his head. 'Don't do anything stupid yet. We still need them to lead us out of this wasteland.'
"I know. Let me handle this while you do what we planned."
'I like this teamwork. You take all the ass-kicking while I store mana.'
His hands clenched at his sides as he forced a smile. "I don't know how I could ever repay you all for helping me."
"Don't worry, kid. Helping people's what we do," said the one with the crooked nose.
He shook his head. "No, no. My parents always said… repay any debt a hundred times over."
They looked at each other and laughed. "You can pay us whenever you can."
A grin tugged at his lips. "Thanks… you're all too generous."
Before he could finish, those impatient bastards rushed him, swinging their fists.
He blocked a few, let some hit. The first ones actually stung, but his passive kicked in fast. The more they hit, the tougher his body got. Soon, the blows didn't even tickle.
So he started taking hits on purpose, letting their blows land while dealing his own in return, trying to make them mad so they'd hit harder. Using the momentum from one strike, he kicked the bald hunter's face straight into the dirt, slammed the bushy-browed one down, and kneed the stupid-faced one right in the jaw.
'Maybe that'll fix it.'
But their hits were still too light, so light his passive didn't even bother activating. That annoyed him more than anything. He'd hoped to use them to push himself further, but they were useless.
'They're too damn weak.'
Before he knew it, one by one, they collapsed, all but the scarred idiot. He kept going, pouring mana into his strikes like it made him stronger.
His magnificent excuse? "It'll help awaken my core."
'Yeah. Right.'
After the glorious beatdown, the lady ran toward him and tried to heal him, but they stopped her, telling her to save her mana.
But while walking toward the treeline, she healed him behind their backs, and he sped up the process by healing himself, making sure she didn't waste too much of her mana.
"Thanks," he muttered.
She gave him that familiar soft smile, but this time, it looked forced.
Once they reached the treeline, to his surprise, they took the opposite route from where he'd slain the ogre. A breath of relief washed over him.
But something was off. The deeper they went, the darker it got. The light vanished behind thick leaves, and the air turned cold and damp.
A moment later everything went quiet, as if the forest had swallowed all sound. Only the crunch of leaves under their boots echoed.
Tiny mushrooms started to glow, forming something close to a path. They shimmered with a faint silver light, and around them, small bugs drifted lazily through the air, their bodies pulsing with a soft red glow.
Then came a melody.
It slipped through the air, soft and smooth, almost too beautiful to belong here.
Normally, he'd stay the hell away from weird music, but according to the hunters, that's how one reached the lake: you followed the voice of the lake dwellers.
'Harmless,' the hunters had said. 'Because they can't leave the lake.'
He frowned. 'Yeah, sure… then why do they all look ready to bolt?'
The lead hunter's eyes kept darting around, searching for something he clearly didn't want to find.
'For someone who says it's safe, he sure looks uneasy.'
But the thing that bothered him wasn't what monster dwelled in the forest, but, 'Why are there so many trees here if this place used to be a city?'
It didn't make sense. The ground was cracked and dry, yet the trees looked healthy. Alive. Some even had fruit hanging from them.
Even stranger, the mist was thick, yet the soil beneath his boots felt bone dry.
He frowned, then reached up and yanked one of the fruits. The second he bit into it, his eyes widened right as the pale man slapped it from his hand.
He blinked. "Hey! I was eating that."
The man's face drained of color. "Don't—don't eat that, Shiro. Those trees… they're people who drowned. Their bodies turn into trees, and their cores keep them alive."
'Oh. That's… slightly disturbing.'
He tilted his head. "Well, guess that answers our question."
The scarred man barked, "Stop yapping and collect as many as you can!"
"So they can eat it and I can't?" he whined.
The scarred man pinched the bridge of his nose. "We're not going to eat it, idiot. We need it as an offering, so pick the best-looking ones."
Shiro puffed his cheeks and crossed his arms. "Tch. Fine. But if some tree spirit gets mad, I'm blaming you."
So they did. They picked the ones that glowed the brightest, vibrant colors, shimmering skins, like each fruit remembered the beauty of the person it came from.
Looks didn't matter though; every single one of them pulsed with mana, some faint, some burning bright.
The brighter ones were all at the top. He climbed up and grabbed as many as he could fit. They didn't look as pretty, but he could feel the energy humming inside.
When no one was looking, he ate one. The sweet juice ran down his throat, thick and warm. He could feel mana flooding his body like lightning crawling through his veins.
A grin crept across his face, sharp and devilish. "Do it."
The melody grew louder, heavier, slipping into his head until his eyelids felt like lead. He felt drowsy, almost like he wanted to just… sleep.
When he turned to look at the couple, they were swaying too, caught in the same haze. The hunters, though, they just kept walking, completely fine, like the song didn't touch them at all.
They broke through the mist, and there it was, the lake.
Fog rolled across the water, thick and cold. The surface glowed faintly, rippling under invisible hands.
In the center, perched on a jagged rock, sat a group of women with fish tails. Their skin sagged, their hair half gone—but their voices…
Their voices were beautiful.
But they were the ugliest things he'd ever seen.