Every place had its own kind of night.
In Ivelius, the elven royal capital, night was an elegant poem played on harps and leaf flutes.
In Molten Steel City, the “Steel Bulwark,” the darkness was filled instead with iron, blood, and beacon smoke.
Misty Forest was different.
Its nights were quiet.
There were insects chirping and beasts calling, of course, but even those sounds felt strangely muted.
Soft.
Distant.
Even when a noise came from nearby, it seemed to reach the ear through a thin veil, never quite clear.
As if sound itself dissolved into the mist hanging in the air.
Maji sat alone beside the campfire.
He slowly wiped down his longbow.
His old companion.
The weapon had been with him for nearly twenty years.
Countless memories had faded with time, turning gray just like the rest of his life.
But he still remembered one morning twenty years ago.
The morning he turned eighteen.
His father had always been a quiet man, as silent and steady as the mountains.
That morning, he cut down the white oak in their courtyard, the tree that had grown alongside Maji since childhood.
From the finest section of its wood, his father made this bow.
To be honest, there was nothing exceptional about it.
The limbs were flexible but lacked hardness.
The grip was rough.
Even the string grooves had been polished carelessly.
By any objective measure, it could not compare to the fine bows displayed on shop shelves.
But none of that mattered.
Whenever Maji held it, he remembered those countless childhood afternoons spent napping beneath the white oak.
The cool breeze.
The soft rustle of leaves above his head.
The bow sat in his hands as naturally as though it had grown there.
If that luxurious carriage had never rolled slowly into his village all those years ago…
Perhaps even now, he would still be wandering those endless mountains with his old companion at his side.
Orange-red firelight washed over Maji’s weathered face.
Shadows hid whatever expression he wore.
His tightly bandaged right leg still throbbed.
His arms were sore and numb from pushing his combat techniques beyond their limits.
He lifted his head and looked into the black night sky.
Then he took a slow breath.
His gaze shifted toward the pine tree standing at the edge of the campsite.
The mace taken from the goblin cave lay among the fallen leaves.
Beside it, the two-handed axe that had belonged to another dead teammate rested against the trunk.
Come to think of it, Gagu had been a violent-tempered half-orc.
But after getting to know him, he had actually been…
“Forget it.”
Maji shook his head.
Late nights had a way of making people sentimental.
There was no point dwelling on dead men.
It was time to do what he had come here to do.
His gaze moved to the other side of the camp.
Beyond the crackling flames, one figure lay motionless beneath a blanket.
Slow, steady breathing drifted through the night.
Maji’s eyes held no hesitation.
He had made his decision long ago.
“Don’t blame me, kid.”
He did not stand.
Still sitting cross-legged beside the fire, he quietly raised his wooden longbow.
The string drew back.
The fletching of the nocked arrow trembled faintly in the night air.
At this distance, there was no possibility of missing.
All Maji had to do was release his fingers.
One arrow.
One young life.
[This is what being an adventurer is like. You have to understand.]
He murmured the words silently to himself.
And then Xia Nan’s eyelid moved.
Just slightly.
His eyes opened.
Clear.
Bright.
Not the hazy eyes of someone waking from sleep.
[He noticed?]
Surprise flashed through Maji’s mind.
His fingers had already released the string.
“Whoosh!”
For an instant, the world seemed to slow.
The slender arrow tore through the mist beneath the moonlight, stirring faint ripples through the air.
It passed over the campfire.
The sudden current dragged the flames upward, twisting them like the reaching tentacles of a demon from the Hells before the fire folded back in on itself.
Air.
Blanket.
Grass.
Earth.
The arrow punched through the blanket and buried itself in the ground.
There was no sound of steel piercing flesh.
[Did I miss?]
No.
That was exactly where Xia Nan’s head should have been.
The novice adventurer had been ready.
The moment he confirmed Maji’s attack, Xia Nan moved.
His sleeping posture had only looked relaxed.
In reality, lying on his side had put him in the perfect position to explode into motion.
The blanket flew upward.
For one heartbeat, it blocked Maji’s view.
By the time it fell, Xia Nan was gone.
Something rushed through the darkness.
“Boom!”
The campfire exploded apart under a violent kick.
Flaming logs tumbled through the air.
Sparks filled Maji’s vision.
Then two arcs of silver flashed through the firelight.
[Spinning Slash]
The blades tore through the scattered firewood on their way past.
Sparks burst outward.
Steel entered flesh.
And came out the other side.
The severed longbow dropped to the ground.
“Hrk… Hrk…”
Xia Nan stood in the grass.
Maji was directly in front of him, both hands clamped over his throat.
His windpipe had been cut open.
No words came out.
Only blood, spilling endlessly through his fingers.
The night was too dark for Xia Nan to make out Maji’s expression.
He could only see those eyes widening.
Then slowly losing focus.
Maji’s body convulsed once.
And fell backward.
Xia Nan crouched beside him and confirmed that he was truly dead.
Only then did he let out the breath he had been holding.
He wiped the two daggers that had once belonged to the gnome Elki and returned them to his waist.
This had not been luck.
The moment Xia Nan noticed the change in Maji’s expression inside the cave two days earlier, he had quietly raised his guard.
This might have been his first quest, but everything about the ragtag party had fit his mental image of low-level adventurers a little too well.
Their behavior had left a deep impression on him.
There was no harm in being careful around people.
Even people who had just survived a life-and-death battle beside you.
Still, Xia Nan had never intended to strike first.
Until tonight, Maji had shown no actual hostility.
He had even sincerely invited Xia Nan to join the party.
So Xia Nan had waited.
And fortunately, that caution had saved his life.
Compared with all the tension and mental strain leading up to it, the actual fight had been almost absurdly simple.
Maji was badly wounded.
He had one shot.
Just one.
And even that shot had to wait until they reached the edge of Misty Forest, close enough that Maji could still make it back to town safely with his injuries after killing Xia Nan.
Xia Nan, meanwhile, still had most of his combat strength.
For him, ending the fight only took one attack.
By the time the sky began to lighten, Xia Nan was already packing.
He ignored Maji’s corpse.
Using the battlefield-cleaning habits he had picked up from the others over the past few days, he quickly sorted through the campsite and gathered anything useful.
Maji had not carried much valuable equipment.
His only real weapon, the wooden longbow, had been cut apart during the fight and was unlikely to sell for much.
So Xia Nan took only the quiver.
Then he extinguished the fire and left.
A cool breeze drifted through the forest.
Branches rustled softly overhead.
Maji sat against the tree with his eyes closed.
The broken white-oak bow rested in his arms.
For a moment, he looked almost as though he had returned to a sunlit afternoon many years ago, beneath the shifting shade of those familiar leaves.