The silence after Lira's words was heavy. The three glowing status windows vanished as they dismissed them, but the fact of their existence—and my lack—hung in the air like a verdict.
Kael: (Sighs, running a hand through his hair) Okay. No status. That's… a problem. But a problem for the Guild to solve. Our problem right now is getting you to Greyhaven in one piece. You can't even check your own Vitality to see how hurt you are. One lucky scratch from a mud-rat could bleed you out and you wouldn't know.
The blunt assessment was terrifying because it was logical.
Kael: Brant. The spare blade.
Brant grunted, pulling a plain, slightly worn short sword from his pack. It was about the length of my arm. He offered it, hilt-first.
Brant: It's a tool, not a toy. You respect it, or it'll get you killed. Weight's in the front. Meant for stabbing.
I took it. The leather grip was worn smooth. The weight felt alien, substantial.
Kael: We don't have time for a masterclass. You get one lesson: the thrust. Everything else is a waste. Watch.
For the next ten minutes, Kael drilled me. Stance. Grip. The mechanics of driving the point forward from your legs, not your arms. How to recover. He was a patient but unsmiling teacher. I mirrored his movements, my body feeling clumsy. But my mind was sharp, absorbing every correction, every piece of advice. I was a quick learner—I had always been good with my hands, good at watching and replicating. Here, it wasn't a hobby; it was survival.
Kael: Good enough to not be completely useless. You stay in the middle. You see anything move, you point that thing at it and yell. Understood?
Leon: Understood.
We extinguished the fire and moved out, Kael leading, Brant at the rear, Lira and I in the middle. The forest path was narrow, the glowing canopy above deepening into a true twilight. My knuckles were white on the sword's grip. Every rustle in the ferns, every snap of a twig, made my heart jump. I watched them—how Kael's eyes never stopped scanning, how Lira's head tilted slightly as if listening to frequencies I couldn't hear, how Brant's heavy footsteps somehow stayed quiet. I was an observer in a world of actors, trying to learn the script from the sidelines.
The attack came without a war cry.
One second, the path was clear. The next, six small, green shapes erupted from the undergrowth with guttural shrieks. Goblins. They were faster than the one at the fire, wiry and coordinated.
Chaos erupted.
Kael: Ambush! Formation!
He didn't flinch. His sword flashed out, not in a wild swing, but a precise, forward lunge that caught the lead goblin in the throat. It fell, gurgling.
Lira: Wind Cutter!
Another blade of air hissed, taking the legs out from under two goblins who were trying to flank us. They screeched, tumbling.
Brant: Ha! My turn!
He didn't use a skill. He used his axe like a butcher uses a cleaver, all brutal, efficient power. A goblin's crude club shattered against his swing, and the follow-through removed its head.
I was frozen in the center, turning in a slow circle, my sword held in the guard position Kael had taught me. I wasn't trying to fight. I was watching. I saw the way the goblins moved—all erratic jumps and feints, but with a pattern of aggression. I saw Kael's footwork, always balanced. I saw Lira's finger movements, small and precise, as she prepared another spell. I saw Brant's controlled rage.
Then I saw the one they missed.
A seventh goblin, smaller and faster, had circled wide through the thick brush. While the others were distracted by the warriors, it burst from a fern directly at me, a rusted shard of metal in its clawed hand.
Time didn't slow. It clarified.
Stance. Grip. Thrust.
The panicked urge to swing wildly was a scream in my nerves. I crushed it. I planted my back foot, dropped my weight, and as the creature left the ground in a final, shrieking leap, I drove the sword forward in one straight line.
The impact jarred my arms. A sickening, wet resistance gave way.
The goblin slammed into me, but there was no force behind it. It hung, impaled on the blade, its beady eyes wide with shock. It twitched once, then went still.
I stood there, holding a dead monster on the end of my sword, my breath coming in ragged gasps. Around me, the fighting stopped. The remaining goblins were dead.
For a moment, there was only the sound of the forest and my pounding heart. Then, the goblin on my blade began to dissolve into grey ash, sliding off the steel. It left behind a single, pea-sized green crystal fragment, which dropped with a soft clink onto the dirt path at my feet.
Around me, the others had finished. I saw the brief glow as the fragments from their kills dissolved into light and were absorbed.
Everyone looked at the fragment at my feet.
It just sat there. Glowing.
It didn't dissolve. It didn't turn to light. It didn't move.
Brant: Well? Don't just stare at it.
I knelt and picked it up. It was warm, solid, pulsing softly in my hand. I held it, waiting for it to vanish into me the way I'd seen happen for them.
Nothing happened.
Lira: (Frowning) It should have… converted. On a solo kill, it always converts for the killer.
Kael: Try focusing. Sometimes if you're distracted, it hesitates.
I closed my eyes, trying to want it, to pull it in. I opened them. The green shard was still just a crystal in my palm.
Brant: Here, maybe it's faulty. Let me try.
He took it from my hand. He held it, his brow furrowed in concentration. The fragment glowed, but it didn't dissolve. It didn't change at all. He tried passing it to Lira, then to Kael. Each of them held it, focused, but the result was the same. The fragment remained stubbornly solid, a physical object, for all of them.
Brant: What in the endless dark? It's… inert. It's like it's not a real fragment. But it looks like one. It feels like one.
Lira: (Her voice was low, uneasy) It's real. The power is in it. I can sense the essence. But it's… locked. It won't convert for any of us.
Kael's eyes met mine. The confusion in his gaze was being replaced by a slow, chilling understanding.
Kael: The fragments from the cave wolf. You said they just… stayed.
Leon: (The realization dawned on me, cold and clear) Yes. They stayed. Just like this one. They didn't vanish. I picked them up. They're just… things.
I pulled one of the blue shards from my pocket and offered it. Kael took it. He held it, his expression grim. It, too, remained a solid crystal.
Brant: So it's not just you. Anything you kill… the reward is broken. Frozen. Useless.
The word 'useless' hung in the air. But I was looking at the glowing shard in Kael's hand. It wasn't useless. It was full of power. That power was just trapped inside, like water frozen in ice. And I was the cold that had frozen it.
The most fundamental law of this place was that killing a monster turned it into power for the killer. My very presence broke that law. I didn't just fail to receive the reward; I corrupted the reward itself, making it unclaimable by anyone.
The looks they gave me were no longer of pity or wary curiosity. It was the look you give a natural disaster—something incomprehensible and utterly disruptive.
I took the green fragment back from Kael and put it in my pocket with the blue ones. A collection of frozen rewards.
Kael: (His voice was taut) We move. Now. Not another word until we're inside the walls.
The rest of the journey passed in a silence so thick it felt like walking through mud. The trust was gone, replaced by a tense, guarded uncertainty. I was no longer a stray they were helping. I was a walking anomaly that broke the rules of their reality.
When the timber wall of Greyhaven finally rose through the trees, its gate a beacon of torchlight in the deep gloom, I felt no safety, only a deeper kind of exposure.
Kael: (At the gate, his voice barely a whisper meant only for me) You stay silent. You follow. We are going straight to the Guild to see Albert. This is beyond us.
I nodded, my hand closing around the cold crystal in my pocket. The solid, unyielding proof that I did not belong here.
The gate opened. We stepped into the noise and light of the Safe Zone, carrying our heavy silence with us.