The merchant rubbed his eyes for the fourth time in the last ten minutes.
His office, if one could call the cramped, cluttered room above a half-abandoned warehouse an “office” was lit only by the flicker of a single mana lantern that was running dangerously low. Shadows stretched over the stacks of parchment on his desk, giving the numbers a warped, almost mocking look.
He leaned back in his rickety chair and exhaled through his nose.
Too late. Too many ledgers. Too little coin for the trouble. I suppose coin isn’t his goal…
The wooden boards above him creaked as the wind shifted outside. The whole building wasn’t in great shape, but it served its purpose, quiet enough for deals, out of the way enough for secrecy.
He tapped his quill against the latest ledger, the scratching sound loud in the silence.
“Shipment 12, delayed again,” he muttered under his breath. “Shipment 13. unconfirmed pickup. Shipment 14, damn mushroom suppliers taking their sweet time.”
He scowled. Purple mushrooms weren’t rare, not technically. But ones with the right concentration of toxin and hallucinogenic effect were. And the only people willing to cultivate and sell them in bulk were the sort that didn’t ask questions and didn’t keep books.
Which made them unreliable.
He scratched out a line and scribbled a new one. Every shipment was worth more than ten gold coins once processed, sometimes double, depending on which person placed the orders. The noble houses never bought them directly, of course. That would tarnish their immaculate reputations.
So they used people like him. And he used the idiots in the forests and fields.
He leaned forward again, elbows on the desk, eyes scanning the invoice. “They should’ve been here two nights ago,” he muttered. “What in the, did those fools go drinking again, or—”
He stopped.
No, they wouldn’t be that stupid. Not this close to a councilor’s personal order. He ran a hand through his thinning hair and pushed the ledger away.
Unless something happened.
He drummed his fingers on the desk, staring at the schedule pinned to the wall. Each column marked a shipment. Each shipment tied to a noble who’d never admit they needed a substance like this. And every delay risked everything.
“The master will not accept another excuse,” he growled. “Not after last month. Not after—”
The lantern flickered again, and he scowled harder.
If the mushroom runners didn’t arrive tonight… there would be consequences. Either for the runners, or for him. And between the two, he knew which the councilor would choose to punish.
He sighed heavily, pushing himself up from the chair with a grunt. His back popped loudly, these numbers and sleepless nights were killing him. He shuffled to the window and pushed it open a crack. Cool night air drifted in, carrying the metallic scent of Coria’s forges.
He stared toward the distant warehouses where his suppliers were supposed to deliver the goods. Only darkness. No movement. No signal lantern.
“Damn unreliable fools,” he muttered. “If they don’t show, I swear—”
A person driving a wagon approached the place. The hooded figure driving it didn’t look up at him, but something about the way it stood sent a cold shiver down his spine. Too calm. Too silent. Too intentional. His fingers tightened on the windowsill until his knuckles whitened.
“…Probably just a new worker of theirs,” he muttered, trying to reassure himself.
The cloaked figure stood beside a shabby transport wagon, one hand lifting the canvas flap to reveal the crates inside. With the other hand, he pointed toward the goods. slow, deliberate, allowing the guards hidden behind the warehouse gates to see exactly what he carried.
The two guards stationed behind the metal screen of the warehouse yard exchanged a look. Then, almost as one, they turned their eyes upward. toward the merchant’s window.
He felt the weight of their question.
Is this the shipment?
He swallowed once and nodded. That was enough.
The guards immediately turned the wheel on the gate mechanism and began sliding the iron grate open with a loud metallic scrape that echoed through the alley.
The merchant kept watching, his pulse rising. He’d been expecting the shipment, yes, but not from this wagon. He leaned farther out, squinting.
“…Wait. That’s wrong.”
The carriage was old. Certainly not the kind of transport his hired collectors were supposed to return in. He scowled deeper.
Where did they even get a runic engine? They couldn’t afford a metal screw, let alone a transport core.
Then his eyes widened.
“…There isn’t a runic engine.”
He leaned farther out, cold prickles running down the back of his neck.
The carriage was moving, but nothing was pulling it.
No horses.
No engine hum.
No glow of runes beneath the axles.
Just smooth, unnatural motion guided by—
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He looked at the cloaked figure again. The hood was low, mask covering the lower face. The figure stood perfectly still, not even shifting its weight, gloved hand still resting on the edge of the canvas.
It was… unsettling. Too composed. Too silent. The merchant licked his lips.
No engine. No horses. And those idiots never even wore cloaks.
Had he hired this man? No. He’d hired a group of sloppy, loud, half-drunk forest-dwellers who barely knew how to count change. And this figure did not belong among them. The merchant’s brain ran through possibilities.
A thief trying to pass as his men? A councilor’s inspector? Or, His gaze returned to the crates inside the wagon.
Packed. Sealed. Ready for delivery.
But he didn’t recognize the cloaked figure. He didn’t recognize the method of arrival.
And he certainly didn’t recognize the silence that followed him like a shadow.
The merchant suddenly felt very small in his office. He straightened, forcing his shoulders back.
“Whoever he is,” he muttered to himself, grabbing his ledger and coat, “he brought the goods. That’s all that matters. I am too tired for this nonsense…”
But as he moved toward the stairs, something gnawed at him, sharp, instinctive, warning.
Those footsteps outside… The way the wagon moved… The dark hood and mask…
Nothing about this delivery was right.
The wagon rolled over the warehouse threshold with an eerie smoothness, no jolts, no clatter, just a quiet glide that made the hairs on the back of the merchant’s neck stand up. Once it crossed fully inside, the massive iron gate slammed shut behind it with a heavy, echoing clang.
From the shadows of the storage hall, guards emerged. Sixteen of them.
Each carrying runic weapons, daggers with glowing edges, short spears with etched sigils, and five men holding a rune-engraved crossbow humming faintly with stored mana. They fanned out around the carriage in a practiced formation, each one keeping their weapon trained on the silent cloaked figure sitting on the driver’s bench.
Still as stone. Still as the grave.
The merchant walked down the stairs from his office, gravel crunching under his boots, hands clasped neatly behind his back. He wore a polite smile, the kind he used when speaking with either idiots or explosives.
His underlings parted for him, stepping back to give him a clear path to the wagon. He stopped two meters from the carriage. The cloaked figure didn’t so much as twitch.
Not a shift. Not a breath. Not a whisper of fabric. It was like he wasn’t alive.
The merchant cleared his throat. “Quite the entrance,” he said lightly, though his voice carried a hard undertone. “I appreciate punctuality, but this shipment was supposed to arrive two nights ago.”
No response. He stepped closer, brow tightening. “Where are the others? They were instructed to report back in groups of three, the suppliers, the escorts, the handlers.” Still nothing.
The cloaked figure remained hunched slightly forward, hands resting loosely on his knees, head lowered beneath the hood. His tattered robe made him look like one of the forest drifters, worn, dirt-stained, and forgettable.
Except he wasn’t. Because those drifters never sat this still.
Never moved this quietly. Never gave off the kind of suffocating presence that made trained guards keep their fingers trembling on their triggers. Still, that didn’t make sense, this place only operated by night and only a handful people knew of this location… The merchant also knew that those guys wouldn’t be caught by anyone from the league. They were small fries, but small fries that survived for years without being caught. The merchant’s voice sharpened.
“I’m asking you a question. What happened to the others?”
Not even a stir, not a shift of breath or tilt of the head.
The guards exchanged uneasy glances.
One whispered, “Sir… is he asleep?”
Another muttered back, “No one sleeps like that.”
The merchant forced a tight smile, stepping even closer. “Listen here, you—”
Then he stopped. A flicker of movement.
Not from the cloaked figure, but from the hood itself.
The faintest tilt upward. Just enough for the merchant to see two green eyes glowing faintly through the shadow, cold, sharp, and utterly inhuman in their stillness.
The merchant’s breath hitched. Suddenly, the silence wasn’t just silence.
It was a threat. The cloaked figure finally moved, just barely, lifting his head a fraction more.
But he still said not a single word. The warehouse felt colder. The guards tightened their grips. And the merchant realized, far too late: Whoever this was… It wasn’t one of his men.
The merchant snapped out of his hesitation with a surge of anger and fear.
“Kill him!”
The order cracked through the warehouse like a whip. Instantly, the guards reacted, six runic weapons raised, sigils flaring with sharp blue-white light as they unleashed a barrage of magic bolts straight at the unmoving cloaked figure.
They streaked through the air, only to vanish into a sudden explosion of mist.
A thick, choking wall of mist surged outward like a living wave, swallowing the wagon, the guards, and the warehouse in one breath. Visibility dropped to zero. The lanterns dimmed under the dense fog, their light diffused into useless halos.
“W–What the—!?”
“Where is he!?”
“Keep firing!”
Bolts slammed blindly into the mist.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Not against flesh. Not against wood. Against something hard. Something like glass. Then came the screams.
“ARGH—!”
“MY ARM—!”
“Behind you, BEHIND—!”
The wet crunch of bones shattering echoed in the fog. A guard’s body slammed into a stack of crates. Another thudded against the stone wall with a sickening snap. The merchant staggered back, nearly tripping over his own feet.
“Protect me! PROTECT ME AT ANY COST!” he shouted, voice cracking with panic.
No one came. No footsteps answering his cry. No guards forming around him. Only pained gasps turning into gurgles… then silence.
The merchant spun, tried to run, but slammed into a wooden beam, falling hard onto his back. Fear flooded him so quickly he could barely breathe. He began to crawl, dragging himself on elbows and knees through the swirling fog.
“Help…! H-HELP ME—!”
No answer. The only sound was the faint drip of blood hitting the stone, somewhere beyond the mist.
Then, a step. A single footstep, soft, deliberate, impossibly loud in the hush.
Step.
Coming closer. The merchant’s lungs froze.
He clawed at the floor, nails splintering, scrambling blindly. Every instinct in him screamed to flee, to hide, to vanish. But the footsteps followed.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Slow. Methodical. Like the figure behind him had all the time in the world.
The merchant finally reached the far wall. His back hit the cold stone. Nowhere left to run.
He wheezed, eyes wide and stinging from the mist. “S–Stay back! I—I’m a servant of master Verk and a friend of Lord Roderick! If you touch me, you’ll—”
The footsteps stopped just outside the last curl of fog. A dark silhouette formed in the haze, tall cloak, hood drawn low, mask hiding everything but the cold, unblinking green eyes that stared directly into his. The merchant’s heartbeat pounded so loudly he could barely hear his own voice.
“W–Wait—please—I can tell you everything—just—just don’t—”
The figure took one final step forward. The mist curled around him like smoke bowing to its master. And the merchant finally understood:
He hadn’t called an assassin. He hadn’t hired a courier. He hadn’t even attracted a thief. He had summoned a reaper.
