return to the camp is a funeral march. Each step brings me closer to a confrontation I am not sure I can win. The success of my mission is an empty victory, a secret only I know. To Tybalt Burix and the rest of the world, I am the failure who miraculously survived.
When I reach the outposts, the sun is setting, painting the sick sky in shades of violet. The guards on the palisade stare at me with wide eyes. They were not expecting anyone back.
My entrance into the camp is met with stunned silence. The soldiers stop what they are doing to stare. I am covered in black mud, my clothes are torn, but I am alive. I walk straight to the command tent.
I find him where I left him: in front of the tent, speaking with officers. Roxis and Elian are with him. They have just finished their watch. When they see me, their faces freeze, a mixture of relief and dread.
Tybalt turns. His condescending smile fades, replaced by an expression of pure disbelief. He cannot believe it.
"You," he spits. "You're alive."
"As you can see," I reply, my voice hoarse with fatigue.
"The mission?" he asks, a sneer forming on his lips. "Did you at least have the courage to approach the nest, or did you spend the day trembling behind a rock?"
"The mission is a success," I declare, my voice carrying in the silent camp. "The leader of the Howlers is dead. The swarm is disorganized."
A harsh, brutal laugh escapes Tybalt's throat. The other officers join in, a mocking, contemptuous laughter.
"A success?" he scoffs. "And where is the proof, rat? The monster's head? Its weapon? Do you have even a single witness to this imaginary feat?"
"The proof will be the quiet on this front in the coming days," I retort. "Without their leader, the Howlers will revert to a chaotic state and cease their coordinated attacks."
"Assumptions! A coward's excuses!" Tybalt yells. "You failed, and now you're making up stories to save your miserable skin! You are not only incompetent but also a liar!"
I look at him, and I see the game playing out exactly as he planned. Without proof, I am defenseless.
I turn to Roxis and Elian, seeking their support. "You believe me, don't you?"
Elian opens his mouth to speak, but Tybalt beats him to it.
"Sir Elian and Lady Heart are Holy Knights. They believe in honor and proof, not in a scoundrel's fairy tales. Isn't that right, Knights?"
There is a barely veiled threat in his tone. An order.
I look at my friends. And that is when my world collapses.
Elian looks down. He cannot meet my gaze. An icy chill runs down my spine.
Then, I look at Roxis. My light. My hope. Her face is a mask of coldness I have never seen on her. Her gaze, once filled with warmth and compassion, is now as hard and distant as a statue's.
"Extraordinary feats require extraordinary proof, Reinhardt," she says, her voice as sharp as broken glass. "Without it, they are just words. Lord Burix is right. You have accomplished nothing."
Every word is a dagger in my heart. The hypocrisy. The betrayal. So that was it. It was all a facade. Her kindness, her concern, our conversation by the lake... an act. A perfectly played act to keep me docile, to lead me to the slaughter.
"You..." I gasp, the breath knocked out of me by the pain. "You knew. From the beginning."
Her expression does not change. "We serve the kingdom. Sometimes, that requires regrettable sacrifices."
The veil is torn. The King, Tybalt, Roxis, Elian... they were all in on it. The mission, their support, everything. An elaborate charade to eliminate me, to get rid of the anomaly I represented. Elian... my childhood friend. He hated me from the start. His kindness at the orphanage, his friendship... lies. Lies to manipulate me.
A rage like I have never felt before explodes within me. Gluttony screams in my mind, no longer with hunger, but with fury. The red aura of Berserker Charge begins to envelop me without me having activated it.
"Traitors!" I scream, my voice breaking with pain and rage.
"You see?" Tybalt says with a triumphant smile. "He is losing his mind. He is becoming violent. He is a threat." He signals to the soldiers surrounding us. "Arrest him. For insubordination and for failing a royal mission."
The soldiers advance, their spears pointed at me. Roxis and Elian draw their swords, not to defend me, but to join the circle closing in.
I look at Roxis's face, searching for one last trace of the woman I thought I knew. I see only an arrogant noblewoman, a stranger with a cold gaze.
I could fight. I am Level 7. I could kill several of them before they brought me down. But what's the point? I am alone against an army. Against the entire kingdom.
The rage dies down, replaced by an immense emptiness, a despair so deep it is almost peaceful.
I drop my dagger. It clatters to the ground. It is the sound of my own surrender.
"Good," Tybalt says. "That's wiser."
The soldiers descend on me. They strike me with the butts of their spears. I do not resist. I take the blows. Each impact is a punctuation mark on my own stupidity, my naivety.
They beat me until I am on my knees, blood pouring from my mouth. I look up one last time at Roxis and Elian. They watch the scene without a flicker of emotion.
"Take him away," Tybalt orders. "But don't kill him just yet. I want him to suffer first. Let him understand the cost of defying House Burix."
I am dragged through the camp, under the satisfied gazes of the soldiers. I am taken behind the latrines, to a deep pit used for dumping the corpses of monsters and waste.
They torture me. I can't say how long it lasts. It is a fog of pain. They break my bones. One by one. My legs. My arms. Each crack is accompanied by the laughter of my tormentors. I do not scream. I deny them that satisfaction. I stare into the void, my mind retreating into the nothingness of my skill.
When they have had enough, I am nothing but a broken, bleeding mass of flesh. I am conscious, but barely.
"Throw him in," says the voice of Tybalt, who has watched the entire spectacle.
Two soldiers lift me and swing me over the edge of the pit.
I fall.
The impact with the bottom, on a pile of bones and carrion, should kill me. But I am still alive.
I hear their laughter fade into the distance.
I am alone, at the bottom of a corpse pit, broken, betrayed, abandoned. The cold of the earth and of death begins to seep into me.
This is where I will die.
But as my consciousness fades, one last thought, one last spark of defiance refuses to be extinguished.
Gluttony.
The hunger.
I am surrounded by death. By carrion. By essence.
I am not going to die.
I am going to feast.