"Graham… thanks for getting me through these last three days."
The smell of iron struck my nose, as if seeping out from behind the bars and the solid concrete beyond them.
I stepped down from the carriage and took five silver coins from the pouch at my waist. Inside it were goblin hides, along with the clattering sound of Giant Rat fangs and claws. My steps slowed to a halt before the iron gate.
Two gate guards stood motionless, their armor reflecting the daylight, covering their bodies from head to toe. The spears in their hands were crossed, an unmistakable sign that no one was allowed to enter.
The pouch of silver coins passed into Graham's hand. He snorted, his voice rough, like the breath of an old horse.
"No need to thank me. You've paid. I don't plan on being chased for debt again like before."
Graham pointed at my face, which stiffened at once, before he accepted the payment and bit into one of the coins.
"Hey, that was a long time ago and don't bite it. It's real."
Graham slipped the coins into his own pouch, the corner of his lips lifting as he reached for the reins.
"I'm used to biting coins. I worry you might've been tricked with fakes before. Besides, that's not 'the past.' That was two years ago. I won't forget the day you owed me."
"Tch. You really are the son of that stingy old man."
He leaned his back against the wooden side of the carriage. His shoulders sagged low, shoulder blades pressing against the thin fabric on his back. He'd been driving far too long, I could see the fatigue clearly.
"Haha, relax, friend. We've been companions for five years. I'll be leaving the city again, another merchant hired me."
When he exhaled, it sounded harsh, like breath that had traveled too far, too often. His hair was still blond, not yet streaked with white. His jaw was firm, but his posture told a different story.
"Can I rest for just a moment, God? I'm tired."
The coachman was only twenty, my age. Yet he carried himself like a man worn down by labor at the twilight of his life.
Graham snapped the reins. The horse neighed, its hooves striking rhythmically against the wheels as the carriage slowly pulled away.
"See you, Raul. I won't be long," he shouted, waving as his figure shrank into the distance.
To me, Graham was no longer just the one who carried me on every journey. He had become family, bound not by blood, but by the road. As a coachman, he wandered far and wide, bringing news from places I would never reach myself. I turned and walked slowly toward the gate.
"Welcome back to Hochburg, Raul."
The two guards stood stiffly before me. Without another word, the crossed spears parted, metal sliding with a soft scrape.
"If you've returned, that means you killed those Demons. I'm curious… just how deep does your hatred for them run?"
I remained silent.
I passed between them without looking back, gleaming armor flashing at the edge of my vision. My breathing felt heavy, as though embers had been stuffed into my chest.
My steps stopped at the threshold of the gate.
My fingers trembled before curling into a fist. Old shadows slipped behind my eyelids, screams, blood, nights that never truly ended. I closed my eyes for a moment, swallowing the hiss that nearly escaped my throat.
My feet moved again, slow and heavy.
In the darkness of sleep, I choose to remain submerged. There, wounds need no explanation. Regret does not yet have a name. To wake is to face it—light and reality, always demanding their price.
Behind me, armored footsteps faltered.
Metal scraped, hesitant.
The gate was now behind me, and the shadows ahead were easier to face than the light that forced me to remember everything.
I stepped fully beyond the gate's shadow.
Before me, the city stretched dense and towering, stone walls stacked tight, narrow alleys packed with people of every kind.
Silence shattered at once.
Shop bells rang, merchants shouted, and the press of footsteps flowed from every direction.
Yet my feet carried me deeper.
The scent of warm bread mixed with sweat. Armor scraped. Swords chimed lightly at the hips of adventurers. Spears stood at every corner. Iron smoke drifted from the blacksmith as I passed an old building marked Gordon's Smithy, without stopping.
"Hey… look at his shoulder plate."
"How long since that was replaced?"
"Idiot, don't stare too long."
"There's blood on his waist, whose blood is that?"
"Forget it. Move. I don't want trouble."
Five years had passed, yet the guild plate on my shoulder had not rusted. It bore the scars of battle, aging alongside the other wounds I displayed as proof of my journey.
Many eyes widened.
Someone tugged a companion aside, whispering while glancing at the dried blood stains along my side.
People passed without a single greeting.
Their conversations floated like voices behind thick walls, close, yet never touching me.
Raucous laughter burst into the dusk air. Cards scattered across a table, a hat flew and struck wood, startling birds from the rooftops.
Ignoring the cynical stares, I kept walking, leaving the market behind, following a road that slowly widened.
The noise didn't disappear, it merely softened.
"I'm joining the royal army!"
"Me too! Me too!"
"Then who's the Hero?"
"We don't need a Hero."
"Yeah… we don't."
Thin sticks swung like swords, shouts splitting the air.
One child fell, playing dead, while another raised a branch high.
Yet amid the lively game, not a single name was spoken, as if the hero had been erased from their play.
"Move aside! A noble's carriage is passing!"
"Look… whose family is that?"
"Shh! Don't say their name. Our king is still young. You don't want to be beheaded by a teenage king, do you?"
"With this many carriages, it must be a palace meeting."
"They say the King is furious. Watch your tongue."
Something had happened within the palace of King Rod van Driguez XI.
Luxurious carriages without noble crests rolled past.
I lowered my head instinctively, the habit of someone never summoned to the palace.
The buildings around me began to change.
Merchant fabrics gave way to neatly stacked gray stone.
At certain corners, guards stood straighter, their eyes no longer counting coins, but watching everyone who passed.
"Hey, that vagrant's still in the back alley, right?"
"The one with messy hair? Yeah."
"You think he's just a vagrant?"
"No. He hears too much. Who knows, he might be one of the King's informants."
"That's why he's still alive."
The narrow alley smelled of rainwater trapped with nowhere to go.
Moss crept along the stone walls, accompanied by drips from broken gutters, patient as needles.
Behind shattered crates and damp burlap sacks, a pair of eyes peeked through tangled hair.
The man sat slumped against the wall, knees hugged to his chest, a tattered blanket draped over his shoulders like a discarded cloak.
As I passed the mouth of the alley, the scurrying of rats did not stir him.
Only his finger lifted slightly, two light taps against a wooden crate. An old signal we never agreed upon, yet one I always understood. His lips curved into a smile, missing several teeth.
I didn't look back.
He didn't call out.
Only the stench of cheap alcohol and low-grade tobacco lingered behind, along with a gaze far too sharp for someone believed to have nothing.
As I moved away, his cough followed, like an old door creaking shut, brief and restrained, swallowing a story never meant to be spoken.
"Why is Alex's statue covered?"
"Quiet! Don't say his name out loud. They'll tear it down."
"But he's a Hero—"
"Was."
"So the rumors are true?"
"I didn't hear anything. And neither did you."
I glared as I passed the row of statues of the Heroes.
They stood in a line, stone bathed in dusk light.
But one was different.
Dark cloth covered the figure from head to knee, fluttering like a burial shroud reluctant to reveal a face.
A rope around its neck was pulled tight, as if the city truly wished to erase it from sight.
Half the prayer candles at its base had gone out, their wicks broken and black.
The last time I stood here, the stone face had gazed skyward, chin lifted.
Now it was forced to bow beneath the cloth.
At the statue's base, someone leaned in the shadows, hood drawn low, swallowing most of their face.
They did not move. Only their fingers slipped slightly from the robe, clenching and loosening, as if weighing something they refused to share.
From beneath the hood, their eyes flicked toward me, just for a moment.
Long enough to dry the air in my throat.
I didn't stop walking, but my shoulders tensed on instinct.
If they were a thief, they would have fled long before I drew near.
Yet they remained calm, certain no one would touch them.
And in this place, only a fool would not have heard my name.
That was me—Raul Iskar. The Demon Hunter, wrapped in a reputation soaked in blood and whispers.
At the end of the road, a symbol hung on a stone wall—the gathering place for those who sold their lives through contracts.
There was no need to read its name.
I knew where my steps were headed.
I stopped before the stone building.
Its walls were thick, dull, covered in scars never repaired, marks of swords, axes, and desperate hands that had struck them.
It didn't rise like a noble tower, it pressed down instead, as if the city had deliberately let it become a weight on its chest.
Above the guild door, an old clock disc ticked slowly, its hand piercing the number five, as though holding dusk in place so it wouldn't collapse too quickly.
The air before the guild smelled of old iron and dried sweat, the breath of a city that had forgotten how to rest.
Four people stood in a line, their armor not gleaming silver, but dull steel thickened by repeated reforging at elbows and chest.
Wounds never truly healed, only polished, forced to look serviceable again.
Their eyes followed my movement, sharp, but stopping one step short of challenge.
No one stepped aside.
They merely measured distance, the thin line between vigilance and fear.
Pressure always echoed here with the same truth: lives were weighed, and blood was treated as currency.
Screams had once hung beneath this ceiling. Perhaps they still did, now drifting as whispers.
My palm pressed against the thick wooden door. The grain was cracked, rough beneath my fingers, like aged skin storing too many stories.
When I pushed, the hinges groaned softly, an ancient sound greeting me like a wound that never dried.
The guild hall opened before me.
Footsteps collided with heavy laughter. Chairs scraped roughly. Glasses slammed onto tables. The smell of alcohol and iron fused into a heat that clung to the skin.
The chandelier swayed gently, its light fractured by cigarette smoke and drifting dust like prayer ash that never reached the sky.
Several heads turned.
Conversations broke off mid-sentence.
Some quickly looked away. Others stared too long, as if gazing into a deep chasm they dared not approach.
My mere presence was enough to spark whispers.
"The demon maniac."
"The madman who fights without pay."
"Loner."
The words weren't thrown loudly, but they hung sharp in the air.
I walked among them without looking back, my gaze fixed on the long wooden desk at the far end of the hall.
The woman there was bent over stacks of documents heavier than the spear on the wall behind her.
Her fingers danced between pages—ink and wax seals—shaping a world where blood became numbers.
The desk bore blade marks, ink stains, candle burns snuffed too hastily.
Yet everything was arranged neatly, almost like a nun's devotion at an altar.
Her sapphire hair caught the chandelier's trembling light. Whenever a strand fell to her cheek, she brushed it aside lightly without looking up.
A calm that had no right to exist in a hall like this.
I placed the leather pouch before her.
The thud was dull, yet heavy.
Inside were Giant Rat claws and fangs, and goblin hides that still smelled of iron.
"This," I said flatly. "Just count it. No report. Not a board mission."
Her fingers stopped for a fraction of a second.
Then she looked up.
Her eyes widened briefly before the familiar smile appeared, always a little softer when she saw me, though her gaze quickly scanned my face and shoulder, checking what wasn't written.
"Oh… Raul." Her voice softened as she set down her pen. "You're finished already?"
Her scent drifted faintly, almost out of place in this hall.
A reminder that not everything in this world was forged of steel.
"Yeah." I leaned my elbow on the desk. "Don't ask. I need coin. Exchange it. I'm tired and want to rest in my room."
"You're so cold," she chuckled softly as she reached for the scale. "I missed you, you know."
I snorted quietly. "Just do your job, Mira." My voice lowered, fatigue no longer hidden. "When I come back, the coin I asked for better be ready."
Her smile didn't fade.
Mira worked without glancing around, as if the hall's chaos never touched her.
Each document found its place, neat, clean, without complaint.
Now and then, a strand of sapphire hair slipped loose, brushed aside with a small motion before returning to the scale and black ink.
Adventurers called her name, asking for vacant guild rooms, missions, compensation lists.
She answered them all calmly, never raising her voice more than necessary.
No excessive sweetness. No extra attention. Only precision that kept the line moving.
I watched only as much as needed.
I knew when to come to her desk and when to leave after the coins changed hands.
Our names met only on contracts and the chime of coins on wood.
And for me, that was enough.
I never felt the need to ask where she came from, or where she went when this building closed.
Not a single paper on her desk was ever out of place.
Even the crude complaints of adventurers bounced away before reaching her face.
The Guild Master trusted her because Mira was meticulous.
I turned away.
The hall's whispers returned, but for a moment, everything felt distant.
This desk, this woman, the sound of the scale, it was enough to slow the world.
My steps carried me past long tables and benches cluttered with crumpled maps, half-empty mugs, and the low haze of alcohol.
The worn wooden floor creaked beneath each step, groaning in time with my aching joints.
Fatigue crept from my heels to the back of my neck.
The staircase in the corner waited, its steps dark and slick from hundreds of adventurers' boots.
I climbed slowly.
The wooden railing was cold and rough in my palm, leaving tiny splinters I barely felt.
With each step, the hall's shadows blurred, laughter and curses fading into distant murmurs.
The upper corridor welcomed me with silence. Only oil lamps flickered, casting long shadows on stone walls.
Dust and old wood filled the air.
A worn carpet swallowed my footsteps.
My room number waited at the end, an address I knew too well, yet never truly called home.
I turned the key.
The door creaked softly.
The narrow room offered a simple bed, rumpled sheets, and a small table with a cracked glass atop it.
A half-open window let dusk air seep in, warm, sharp, yet calming.
"Adventures, monsters, demons, all of that makes sense. But the capital and the guild? No. This is more exhausting than any fight. Even Graham's antics never tired me like this."
I collapsed without fully removing my boots. The thin mattress received my back like an old hand that asked for no stories. My eyelids finally surrendered.
No dreams.
No faces.
Only a black current gently pulling me under, refusing even to return the image of my mother, who once saved me from the Demons.
At some point, a thin curtain of light slipped through the window's gap.
Dawn brushed my cheek before my awareness could resist.
A bird chirped briefly in the distance, then fell silent, as if realizing this city hated morning.
I opened my eyes.
Dust drifted lazily through the air, dancing in the first light, tiny particles that remained faithful, even while the world stayed hard.