Ren's POV
I grew up in the country. Green rice fields. Crickets. A narrow road that went quiet after sunset.
My parents worked in the city. I stayed with Grandpa. They wanted me to study, wear a tie, smile at bosses. I tried. Books slid off my head like rain off a roof.
Grandpa ran a small dojo. Old wood floor. A rack of bamboo poles. Two swords that were more memory than metal.
He taught me to feel a cut, not force it. "Don't fight the mat," he said. "Listen. Let the steel finish the thought."
We sliced rolled bamboo every day. Clean sound. I liked oiling the blade after. Bowing to the rack and meaning it.
When my parents visited, they argued. "Why let the old man ruin his career?" Mom asked. Dad said I'd grow up. "It's a hobby. It won't pay bills." I nodded and kept training. My dream was simple: keep the doors open. Teach kids who cared.
I did not make many friends. The other boys went to arcades. I swept floors, hit the makiwara, and walked home with sore legs and a full heart.
After high school I stalled college. Helped Grandpa for two years. We fixed the roof. Changed the tatami. Taught kids how to stand without wobbling. Good days.
Then Grandpa died in his sleep.
The house felt empty in a way that made sound hurt. Grandma was already gone. Now it was me and two quiet swords.
My parents called. "Come to the city. Enough of this." I had no shield left. They were worried, in their way. I would lose the dojo. I said I'd think about it. They said they were coming this weekend.
I went to bed angry at the world.
Next thing, I woke up in a cursed forest.
******************
Now, I walked point. River to our right. Normal water. Birch shade. We kept it simple: move, breathe, check the ground. If I felt trouble, Aren blinked us past it. We stopped often to rest. Let essence come back.
Leo and Aren followed.
Leo talked. He can't help it. When he opens his mouth, it's either to complain or to explain a thing no one asked about. He's useful. But he talk too much.
Aren is strange. He mutters to himself like he's giving a talking to air. He ties bats and a rat to a rope and calls it research. Though the guy is very resourceful.
We moved along the bank. Fog thinned. I kept breath slow. Step, set, breathe. Let the ground talk.
"Wind's wrong," I said.
Aren nodded. "You sense a monster?"
"Not monster," I said. "Different flavor."
Leo sighed. "Please do not say 'flavor.'"
I crouched. Fingers to soil. Vibration rose like a soft drum. Many feet. Not running. Dragging. I smelled old smoke. Iron. Tallow.
"Village patrol," I said. "Eight. One cart. Came through last night."
"And?" Leo asked.
"One didn't come back on the same path," I said, pointing into the trees. "Went that way. Alone."
Aren blinked. "You can tell that from a few tracks?"
"Yes. Grandpa taught me to hunt. My rune sharpened it."
"Handy passives," he said.
We left the river and cut through scrub. Prayer ribbons hung from branches. Paper talismans fluttered. Wards. Good ones.
"You talk to the guard," Aren said quietly. "You look like a fighter. They'll listen."
I nodded.
We climbed a rise. Below, Namsai sat by the bend. Fences. A small temple with a sun mark. Smoke from cook fires. On the far side, a line of talismans marked where the real forest began.
The place held its breath.
At the gate, three guards in sun-crest coats checked nets of faint-glowing stones.
"Essence stones," Leo whispered, teacher voice.
We stepped down. The guards turned. I kept hands open and sword low.
"Travelers?" the front guard asked. Young face. Tired eyes.
"Trial-takers," I said. "We're here to resolve the situation at Namsai."
The guard stared like he missed a line. Aren stepped up, voice steady. "We heard about the trouble. We can help."
The guard's mouth twitched. "Adventurers, then. Great." He caught himself. "Sorry. It's been bad. People are missing. Wards still hold, but the dead stand near the line and watch. Men vanish anyway."
"How many?" I asked.
"Six in two weeks," he said. "Two were hunters. One was my cousin." His jaw jumped. "We sent a rider to the central temple. No word."
A bell chimed far off. Stopped like a hand covered it. Aren's shoulders tightened. Mine already were.
"Witch?" Leo asked him.
"Maybe," Aren said. "Status says she's hunting me."
The guard's eyes widened. "You met the soul-snare witch and lived?"
Aren gave a small smile that said he didn't want to talk.
"We'll see the elder," I said. "Is there an inn?"
There was. We cleared the gate. Quick questions, simple answers. "No, we're not here to rob you." "Yes, we'll pay." We needed coin, so we hunted along the fields—mud eels in ditches, one catfish ghoul by a broken weir. Leo pinched his nose. Aren called it "data." I called it "money." We sold the parts, bought rice and a room. Slept like rocks.
Night fell like a lid on the village.I woke before dawn, the way I always did at home.
I went to the window. Along the trees, the ward line glowed in a dull band of light. For a moment I saw a shape standing just outside the line. It vanished. Then it appeared again, as if the world blinked the wrong way.
I put on my boots and my sword, and I walked along the fence toward the corner post.
The corner guard saw me and nodded. Our breaths made white mist in the cold."You're up early," he said."I do not sleep heavy," I said. "Is anything strange?"He pointed his chin toward the square. "The priest is late for his morning round. He never misses."
"Which path does he walk?" I asked."From the temple to the south ward posts," he said.
"I will check."
The main street was narrow. Houses stood close together. Chickens slept under nets. A dog looked at me and chose not to bark. The temple door stood open. Inside, I saw incense sticks, a sun disk on the wall, and a ledger with neat writing. I did not see the priest.
At the back door I found dust on the step, and the dust told a simple story. Two people had walked out. One set of footprints was firm. The other dragged the left foot. The drag was newer, pressed on top of the first prints, so they left together.
I followed the two trails to the south, toward the ward fence at the edge of the forest. The path was easy to read: step, scuff, pause, repeat. It led straight to the posts.
There the marks stopped. There were no footprints beyond the ward line. There was no sign of a struggle and no blood. The dirt looked smooth, as if someone had wiped it with a hand.
I checked the ward posts. The paper was fresh. The ink was clean. The posts were solid.So why were there no prints on the other side?
I knelt and pushed my fingers into the soil under the lowest plank. The earth crumbled. I felt a pocket of empty air. I cleared the mud away and found a narrow tunnel, tight like a fox hole, twisted between the roots. It ran under the fence. Whoever took the priest did not "cross" the ward line. They dug below it and pulled him through.
I heard steps behind me. Aren and Leo had come. Aren looked like he had slept inside a fight. Leo looked like he had slept beside a book.
"You could have told us," Leo said."You were sleeping," I said. I tapped the post. "The wards are strong above the ground, but the base sits high. There is a gap in the soil. Something dug under, grabbed the priest, and dragged him out."
Aren crouched beside me and peered into the hole. "Neat," he said. "A grab-and-drag from below. The wards do not see that.""New rot rats?" Leo asked.Aren glanced at the rat on his rope. The rat tried to look innocent. "Maybe a cousin," he said. "Same method."
A bell chimed somewhere between near and far. The sound crawled along my teeth.Aren's jaw tightened. "She is close."
I set my stance: left foot back, knees soft, breath low in my belly. The air felt heavier, as if a storm was thinking about us.
"What is the plan?" Leo asked.
"Simple," I said. "We clear this burrow. We place low wards along the bottom of the fence so no one can dig through again. We speak to the elder. We set watches. No one walks alone."
Leo nodded. "I can put essence tags on each post. If someone casts a hex on them, I will feel it.""They will know you felt it," Aren said."It does not matter," I said. "If a tag trips, we move fast. If we cannot win, we fall back to the warded square."
A woman came up the path with a basket. She saw the hole and stopped."Did the priest return?" I asked.She shook her head. "He did not come back.""Where is your elder?""In the square," she said. "He is waiting."
We followed her. The square was a hard patch of dirt with a well in the middle. People stood in small groups. They looked at us and then looked away. An old man leaned on a staff. A sun charm hung at his neck. He bowed. We bowed back.
"We keep the wards," he said. "We work the fields. Before, the monsters stayed in the forest. Now the dead stand at the line and watch. People go missing. Your coming is good fortune."
"Fortune is just a word," Leo said.
The elder smiled, like he had heard worse. "You need rooms, food, and a map. We can pay with essence stones." He lifted a basket lid and showed pale blue stones.
"We will take payment later," Aren said. "Right now we need names, times, and places. Please tell us everything you know."
The elder nodded. A small wind moved through the birch leaves. It made a clean, scraping sound, like a blade wiped on cloth.
I knew that sound. It was wind over steel, a memory of a cut.
"The commander," I said softly.
Aren looked at me. "What commander?"
"The Sun King's wind commander," I said. "His wraith still walks here. If he is restless, Namsai is not only a place with missing people. It stands in the path of a memory that knows how to kill."