Kai arrived at Kleo’s house well past midnight, the shadows draped over him like a second skin. He lingered near the rooftop for several minutes, watching, listening, waiting. The inquisitors hadn’t followed him, at least not yet, but caution was survival. He swept his aura low and narrow, compressed into the folds of his Umbral Mantle, before finally slipping inside.
Kleo still lay unconscious, curled up on the nest of blankets he had thrown together earlier. Her breathing was steady. Peaceful. That, at least, hadn’t changed.
Kai didn’t sleep.
He got to work immediately, kneeling in the centre of the house and carving intricate sigils into the floors and walls using his bone chalk. Every rune was a silent prayer to shadow, stillness, and misdirection. Barriers to hopefully deflect divine detection. Enough power to require several mages to assault the house from the outside to break them.
Something to give him enough time to fight or flee if it came to that.
Hours passed in eerie silence as he fortified the building with layer after layer of concealment magic. But something else gnawed at his mind: a question.
A test.
A boundary he had not crossed yet.
From his shadow space, Kai withdrew a small, leather-bound tome, cold with residual necrotic energy. A soul throbbed from within. It pulsed like a candle’s flicker, fragile but eternally protected within the tome.
He spoke softly. "Soul manipulation."
The words, charged with intent, rippled through the room.
The tome quivered.
Kai focused, and like unwinding string from a tangled knot, he extracted the soul within. It came free with surprising ease, trailing wisps of light and memory. It hovered in the air before him.
A small orb tinged with pink and gold.
[Petty Human Soul]
Visions struck him like whispers in a dream.
A little girl. Brown hair. A stuffed rabbit in her arms. Laughing beneath a blooming cherry tree. Her parents arguing. The first thunder of war. Fire in the distance. People screaming. A necromantic spell rupturing a nearby building and hitting her like a wave. The agony of her death. And then, a soft voice. A kind voice. A man, his features cloaked in unnatural shadow, knelt beside her ruined body. He sealed her into a tome made of words from another world.
Kai blinked the visions away, stunned.
He couldn’t recall the man’s face. Not even a shape. Only the feeling of... familiarity. That unsettled him.
His chest tightened with guilt. She was just a girl, caught in the crossfire of a war she couldn’t understand. Yet he was about to use her essence like currency.
"I’m sorry," he whispered, then absorbed the soul.
It melted into his soul vault like a final breath fading on cold glass.
He repeated the process with several more items, stripping them of their imprisoned souls and absorbing each one, though the guilt lingered. The house floor became littered with hollow, useless artifacts that had once carried the final echoes of lives lost.
[Souls Acquired: Petty Human Soul (5), Lesser Human Soul (4), Greater Human Soul (2), Grand Beast Soul (1)]
"That should be okay for now," he murmured.
The end of his activities were timed perfectly, as the morning sun now poured through cracked shutters in the room.
Kleo stirred, groggy but alive. They didn’t talk much as they packed their things and left the city’s edge. The citadel behind them, and the Wyvern Grotto ahead.
Rael was busy with his own pursuits, and Kleo... she still hadn’t recalled the names of those she had spoken to while drunk, so getting that job would still take more time. There was no step forward to take except for the Adventurer’s League job.
---
Mountains loomed in the far distance, jagged and cold like old bones. Their trail meandered through craggy hills and silent woods. Somewhere to the east, the ravine mimic waited for more morsels of food.
"I don’t know why the guild didn’t press for more information," Kai said. "Maybe they already know what’s out there. Cladeus said that ravine mimic served him for hundreds of years. Maybe most people just avoid it."
"You really couldn’t kill it?" Kleo asked.
Kai shook his head. "Not without incurring divine wrath. I would’ve been obliterated. Like... wiped from existence."
Kleo accepted that in quiet contemplation.
"How are you doing, though?" Kai asked her, glancing at her from the side.
She blinked. "What?"
"This is the first time you’ve asked me that," she said with a small, stunned laugh.
"Hm. So... you don’t want to answer?"
"No! I do. I-I’m okay. I believe we’re doing our best for Firra. And... I believe in you, Kai."
"That’s good."
She smiled. "And what about you?"
Kai paused mid-step.
He hadn’t thought about that question in... years.
’Am I okay?’
The silence stretched between them.
"After we rescue your sister," he said at last, "I’ll set you free, and focus on my goals. Right now, I’m barely content. I have people to kill, people to save, and promises to keep. When all of that is done... maybe I’ll be okay."
"Free?"
"Of course. You’ve helped me enough, and my promise to you will be finished once we get your sister."
Kleo didn’t respond immediately. She turned her face away.
He heard something like a sniffle, but when he glanced over, she just kept walking.
---
It was a little further than Kai had expected.
Their journey had taken four days already, and the wear was beginning to show, not just in the bags under Kleo’s eyes, but in the silence that grew longer between them. After Kleo’s muffled sniffles and hasty retreat that morning, the distance between them had turned less physical, more emotional. He hadn’t said anything. Neither had she.
The village they arrived at near sundown was small, little more than a collection of moss-covered stone huts nestled at the edge of a dense, gnarled forest. Smoke curled lazily from crooked chimneys. Chickens scattered as their boots crunched over gravel, and children peered at them from behind worn shutters. There was no sign, no welcoming banner, not even a proper road. It didn’t have to say it. This was the kind of place that didn’t want outsiders.
Or at least didn’t usually take in guests.
Still, it made for a decent stopover.
While the sun dipped behind the treetops, Kai and Kleo purchased dried meats, flatbread, and smoked fruits from a hunched old woman who barely spoke. The copper coins clinked softly, louder than the words exchanged. Kleo lingered in front of the fire pit near the inn, soaking in the warmth like a cat left out in the rain. Her hood remained up the whole time. Her eyes didn’t meet his.
Kai didn’t push her. She needed rest. And honestly, he felt a little strain on his body.
The inn was modest but clean. The wooden walls creaked when he leaned against them, and the bed he rented was barely wide enough for one person, but it was better than the ground. He gave it to Kleo without a word, rolling himself in a travel blanket in the corner. She murmured something he couldn’t hear.
Soon after, she snored softly.
Kai still didn’t sleep. But he didn’t do anything else, either.
He just waited, counting the seconds as they passed. The day, from the moment they stepped into the village, felt weird.