After lunch, they kept moving, feet drumming a dusty ribbon under a hard white sun.

Now and then they took breath on little islands of shade, then pushed on like ants along a line.

At last, as the far sun sank like an ember and the sky took on ink, they reached the towering tree Anjelo had named.

The giant stood a hundred meters high, a mountain-pillar whose girth would take dozens of Lucimia to ring hand in hand.

Gazing up, Lucimia could picture a bygone bustle here, like birds once swarming a green hive, leaf-lanterns whispering over bright paths.

Yet its life had long drained like a dry river, and that sea of shade was bones now, a canopy that would never return.

Lucimia, look over there—what is that? Desty’s voice rang like a cracked bell in the hush.

She followed the point of her finger and saw, to the left of the giant, earth carpeted with corpses like storm-fallen leaves.

Not human—those same beasts and monsters from before, a mangled menagerie strewn like broken dolls.

They sprawled at crooked angles, the rot-sweet reek blooming like a fog, deaths that mirrored the village—illness stamped on every limp limb.

Why die here, all in one place? Did they drift here like sick fish, sensing some undertow, and expire en route?

Or did a hidden hand herd them like sheep into a killing pen?

The thought snagged like a knot she couldn’t loosen.

It’s night, what do we do—keep going or rest? Desty’s words fell like a fork in the road as the dark drew its curtain.

Unease went first, like a hand on her throat. Lucimia scanned the gloom, weighing the two stones in her palm.

If they pushed on, the way was a clogged artery—bodies heaped, rot and nameless filth pooled into a black mire that barred their feet.

Even a few steps closer, the stink hit like a wall, sharp and suffocating, and Lucimia had to clamp hand over mouth and nose.

Every instinct balked; she didn’t want to set foot in that tar-black swamp.

One careless splash and her clothes would drink that ink of filth.

Weariness draped them like wet cloth; better to rest.

Decision made, Lucimia drew Desty back many paces, putting tens of meters between them and that dead tide.

Sleeping beside them would be a pillow made of thorns.

As for the road after, they’d speak of it later; if not, they’d detour, though the sand in her five-day hourglass to Jaha Town felt thin.

She drew a tent from her Storage Ring, pitched it on clean earth, then coaxed small fires from fire-element magic like red fireflies.

Monsters or not, night in the wild needed a hedge of thorns—precautions were not optional.

…How do you have everything? Desty’s eyes flared like lanterns at each item Lucimia pulled out.

Of course I’ve got everything. Lucimia tipped her chin like a small crescent moon, smug.

Her Storage Ring held whatever she could think of, a bottomless gourd she stuffed without mercy.

Huh. Why did it suddenly feel… a bit like that blue robot cat from her old world, a cartoon cloud trailing after her?

Yeah, kind of, she thought, a shrug rustling like a leaf.

Like what? Desty tilted her head like a curious sparrow.

Nothing, she said, dropping the word like a pebble into a well.

With the tent set, Lucimia drew out a pillow and sank against it like a small cloud.

No share for Desty; that door stayed shut.

Letting her in the tent was charity enough, a warm loaf already handed out.

Ignoring the redhead’s drifting looks, Lucimia let her eyelids fall like shutters.

Fatigue pooled like lead; even with buffs humming, her legs were noodles and her mind a frayed rope.

She’d never worked her body this hard—book-bred muscles tossed onto a long road like a fledgling.

If only I could fly, she sighed, the wish floating like a kite as sleep rose like a warm tide.

That night a dream opened like a door, and Lucimia stepped into its painted river.

She was back in the Town of Tranquility; Elyssus appeared, and she solved it with Devouring, clean as fire eating paper. Not trapped—utterly gone.

She didn’t fall in water, didn’t face its pushback; instead she lived by her parents’ hearth, joy bubbling like a kettle.

They even decided to send her to a magic academy next month, a path laid with bright petals.

Yuna wasn’t dead; the two of them wandered the town each day, chasing fun like fireflies through a lantern-lit stream.

All of it was so sweet, like honey on warm bread. Then one day the taste turned to ash.

She realized it was fake—Elyssus had fooled her.

It hadn’t died, hadn’t been Devoured; it had used Deception Power, an Authority Power, to paint over her eyes.

What she took for salvation was a mirage shimmering over a dry well.

Everyone around her wore octopus masks, actors playing along on a false stage.

Terror snapped her leash; she ran and ran, the world tunneling into night.

She looked up, and the vault wasn’t sky at all but Elyssus’s octopus mouth, a ring of suckers and a black beak for a moon.

At that, Lucimia burst awake like a diver breaking the surface.

She jerked upright, a fist twisting in her heart, and she fell back clutching her chest.

Cold sweat beaded her brow like rain on stone; she gulped air, as spent as a runner at the tape.

“Huff… huff…” The waves took a long time to settle back to glass.

What kind of dream was that… she muttered, the words pricking like thorns.

She felt for Elyssus’s state and found no ripples, a pond gone still.

That octopus really is the shadow trailing my life, Lucimia said, palm to her brow like a weary sunshade.

She glanced at Desty; the red-haired girl lay on the other side like a warm log, hair a sleeping ember.

She peered outside; the night was an ink well without a bottom.

Her mind drifted like smoke as she sat back down.

What if all of this is false, a mirror maze? What if Elyssus tricked me, and I never solved it, and I’m still in the Town of Tranquility?

Tch, what am I thinking—she shooed the thought like a fly. No way.

Drowsiness rolled back in like a tide, and she hugged her pillow like a warm stone and slipped under.

...

“Lucimia, Lucimia, Lucimia!” The call tolled like a bell.

“Mm? What is it?” Lucimia rubbed her eyes through sleep-fog as Desty shook her like a sapling in wind.

Terror blanched the girl’s face to paper.

A prickle of alarm crawled up—had something gone wrong?

Lucimia snapped awake like a dunk in ice water.

“What is it?” Her voice came out like a clipped blade.

“Monsters! Monsters! Monsters…” The word beat like a drum.

“What about them?” Lucimia pressed, slipping her pillow back into the ring like a fish into water.

“The monsters—the monsters are all gone!” Desty’s hands flailed like an empty net.

“What?!” Her ears rang like struck metal; she thought she’d misheard.

“You mean they vanished—all of them? The corpses? Like dew at sunrise?”

“Yes!” Desty nodded hard, a bird pecking grain.

Lucimia’s heart dropped like a stone into a well; she scrambled out of the tent and hurried with Desty to the giant tree.

She looked left, and her skin crawled; her spine felt a knife of wind trace its length.

The imagined heap was gone; in its place lay barren ground, a table swept clean as far as the eye could reach.

If not for the foul slick staining the dirt like a bruise, she’d have sworn last night was a fever-dream.

“What in the world is this?” The question tightened like a noose.

“I don’t know… weren’t they dead?” Desty swallowed like a stone going down. “Last night—you saw those bodies too, right? It wasn’t my hallucination?”

“Mm… not your hallucination. I saw them too,” Lucimia said, her nod a slow pendulum.

A low cloud climbed through her chest.

This place felt crooked, like timber warped by hidden heat.

Things and people alike wore odd masks here.