The fire crackled low in the stone hearth, casting flickering shadows along the wooden beams of Huina's kitchen hall. Plates scraped clean, mugs clinked together, and laughter slowly mellowed into quiet conversation as the feast wound down. Gilian leaned back on the bench, satisfied, picking a stubborn piece of meat from his teeth with a splintered stick.
Sitting next to him, Arvan was just finishing a chunk of roasted beary leg, the bone stripped nearly clean. He gave Gilian a smug look.
"Not bad," he said, "but next time, I'm taking the shot. You owe that kill to your dad's explosive arrow."
Gilian raised a brow. "And yet it was my arrow that landed first. Admit it—you'd have missed the shot and run home screaming."
Arvan scoffed. "I only scream when the pay's not worth it."
"You mean like last bloom season, when that squiry chased you up a tree?"
"Hey!" Arvan snapped, pointing. "That was not a squiry. That was a turtlewig. I couldn't do anything to its hard shell with my dagger. Ask Cren."
Cren, sitting nearby with a cup of berry mead, snorted into his drink.
Their banter drew chuckles from the others, including Alice, who had quietly wandered over with a bowl of soup in hand. She took a seat beside Gilian after returning her plate to the kitchen hall, brushing a strand of silver hair behind her ear.
"Actually," she said, "speaking of strange things… I heard something too. About the capital."
Gilian turned, intrigued. "From the merchant, Gustave?"
Alice nodded. "About two weeks ago. He said there was some kind of festival in the capital—right after the Grand Summoning—but it turned chaotic. I thought it was just noise from the celebration at first. But he said it wasn't that kind of chaos."
Arvan leaned in. "What kind, then?"
Alice hesitated. "He didn't say much. Just that something felt off. Like… the people didn't know whether to cheer or scream."
At that moment, the bench creaked behind them as a new figure plopped down dramatically.
"Chaos in the capital, huh? Sounds like you're talking about my favorite subject…"
Gilian groaned. "Oh no. Here comes the expert."
"Tedy," Arvan said, already grinning, "perfect timing."
Tedy, one of the younger village guards, was thin, wide-eyed, and always full of dramatic flair. He loved rumors more than patrol duty, and tonight, his eyes gleamed in the firelight like he'd just walked out of a ghost story.
"You're all wrong, by the way," Tedy said, glancing around the table with theatrical pause. "The festival wasn't three months after the Grand Ritual. That was a different event entirely. The real trouble started right after the summoning itself. Inside the palace."
A hush fell over the small group. Even the fire seemed quiet.
"…Inside the palace?" Gilian repeated.
Tedy nodded solemnly. "That's what I heard. They say the Hero did arrive—but something was wrong. Really wrong. Some of the summoners—loyal vassals too—died instantly. Burned up from the inside. And then… the palace doors sealed shut. Locked from the inside. No one's seen the Hero since."
Cren scoffed lightly from the side. "And who told you that? Another merchant?"
"Not just any merchant," Tedy said, lowering his voice. "One of the traveling monks in Gustave's merchant troupe. The kind that's been around the empire for decades. He said he hadn't seen fear like that on royal guards' faces in years."
Alice's fingers tightened slightly around her bowl.
"But wait—" Arvan said, "didn't that same monk say something about… the dead?"
Tedy nodded slowly, savoring the pause.
"They're calling them the ones Heaven rejected," he whispered. "People who die… and then stand back up. Not ghouls. Not the kind you can purify. These things don't respond to holy magic. Their mana cores—what's left of them—don't shatter."
Gilian's skin prickled.
"They say," Tedy continued, leaning in so only their circle could hear, "it's like something's wearing the dead like clothing. Moving them. Attacking without hesitation. Even if you crush the mana core, they don't die—not like ghouls should. It's something entirely different. An anomaly."
Crrrkk…
The fire popped, sending a small spark into the dark. Alice flinched. Gilian didn't notice—he was too focused on Tedy's words.
"You can kill them," Tedy went on, "but it's hard. Like… they remember how to stay alive. And if too many show up? They don't just attack. They surround. They strike without reason. And they can't be reasoned with."
He paused again, letting the silence settle.
"...That's what the monk said. Before he left the next morning."
Arvan swallowed. "You sure this isn't just a story to keep kids out of the woods?"
Tedy leaned back, eyes wide and solemn. "I don't know. But this doesn't feel like a ghost story. It feels like… something's creeping toward us."
A gust of wind blew through the cracks in the hall's wooden walls.
Wooosh…
The firewood in the center of the kitchen hall shifted. Shadows swayed and stretched, dancing like twitching fingers along the walls. Gilian glanced around. The laughter from earlier seemed distant now, muffled behind the weight of Tedy's tale.
Even Alice—usually calm—sat quietly, her gaze fixed on the flames.
Cren broke the silence, standing and stretching. "Alright. That's enough for tonight. We're a long way from the capital. The pact holds strong here. Whatever trouble's stirring out there... it won't reach us anytime soon."
But even as he said it, no one could shake the chill in the air.
Even the fire seemed to burn a little colder.
***
For a little while, everything in Huina felt untouched by the world outside.
But far, far away…
Far away, where firelight gave way to torches and chants, and the air reeked not of food but of incense and blood...
A change had begun—quiet, unseen, and unstoppable.
One that Chronoa would one day call...
Anomaly of The World.