“Whew…… we’ll make it there before it’s too late.”

  Monero loosened his scarf and caught his breath.

  White vapor slipped into the cold air and spread thin.

  “There. Piavel Village.”

  A rural village under Viscount Laurel’s domain, near the royal capital.

  Its entrance revealed itself cautiously behind a frozen old tree.

  Small. Quiet.

  Not a wisp of smoke rose from any chimney.

  “……Do people even live here?”

  Aira stopped and muttered.

  “At this hour you’d at least see smoke……

  but every chimney’s dead.”

  That was when—

  As he turned his head, something red flickered past beyond a wall.

  “……Hold on.”

  Rynel strode toward the fence.

  “Is that… a flower?”

  A single red bloom lifted its head through the leftover snow.

  Right in the middle of the white field, it stood out unnaturally vivid.

  “Winter’s not over yet……”

  Monero said quietly.

  A few steps past the village entrance,

  a noisy argument carried over from not far away.

  “No, listen to me!”

  “We need to clear it out. Now!”

  A man was raising his voice, insisting something had to be removed.

  Facing him was a middle-aged man who looked like the village administrator,

  shaking his head over and over with a troubled expression.

  “I told you already—we can’t just touch it carelessly……”

  It wasn’t persuasion or a fight.

  Just an awkward tug-of-war.

  In the end, the man who’d been shouting seemed drained

  and dropped into a squat right where the administrator walked off.

  Lips pressed tight,

  staring blankly into the air.

  After a moment of watching,

  Rynel’s group approached carefully.

  “Excuse me…… is something going on in this village?”

  The man only turned his head slightly.

  He didn’t meet their eyes.

  A short silence.

  Then he opened his lips, heavy.

  “……It’s village business. Nothing for outsiders.”

  His tone was tired,

  and firm with a clear message: he didn’t want to say more.

  It bothered them,

  but they left their bags at the inn first.

  Then they stepped back out and walked the street slowly.

  A snow-covered road.

  Between the drifts, red flowers peeked up here and there.

  They were beautiful.

  But the beauty felt wrong—unnatural, out of place.

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  Red standing in the middle of white winter

  kept dragging the eye.

  That was when—

  A middle-aged woman walking ahead suddenly staggered and collapsed.

  “Ma’am—!”

  Monero rushed over and caught her.

  “Are you okay? What happened—”

  Footsteps approached from behind, slow and measured.

  “How long…… are you planning to stay in this village?”

  A low voice.

  Rynel’s group turned.

  The man from the entrance—the one arguing earlier—was standing there.

  Monero blinked, a little startled.

  “You’re the guy who was…… arguing at the entrance.”

  The man’s eyes looked empty, as if they couldn’t focus.

  “If you can…… leave this village.”

  “Or it might get dangerous.”

  “……What do you mean?”

  “This village is cursed.”

  “So outsiders should just pass through.”

  His last words carried weight.

  “No matter what happens,

  this village has to overcome the curse on its own.”

  Aira lifted an eyebrow and stepped forward.

  “Hey, don’t be like that. Tell us what’s going on.”

  “We’re adventurers, you know.”

  Then she added, cheerful—

  “Of course, not for free~”

  The man narrowed his eyes.

  “……Forget it.”

  He said only that, then turned as if to leave.

  In that moment—

  “Is it these red flowers?”

  Rynel spoke quietly.

  The man’s step hitched.

  He turned only his head back.

  “……Go on.”

  Rynel walked to one of the red flowers by the roadside.

  He knelt carefully and studied it.

  “Flowers that bloom in winter do exist……”

  “But this color, this vitality—something’s off.”

  He didn’t touch it.

  He continued slowly.

  “And…… they’re all spaced evenly.”

  “One flower at a time, perfectly placed. Like someone planted them on purpose.”

  The man’s pupils trembled.

  The hard guard on his face loosened slightly,

  and something softer flickered in his gaze.

  “……Piara.”

  “Piara?”

  Rynel repeated it. It wasn’t a familiar word.

  Then—

  The middle-aged woman who had collapsed earlier slowly pushed herself up.

  “Ma’am, are you okay?”

  Aira hurried over, startled.

  But the woman tilted her head and said,

  “……Huh? Did something happen?”

  And as if nothing had occurred at all,

  she quietly walked off along the snowy path.

  No wobble. No unsteadiness.

  Rynel’s group could only stare at her back

  as it grew farther away.

  “……Hah.”

  A low sigh escaped.

  All three sets of eyes turned to the owner of that sigh.

  “……Come on. Let’s talk somewhere else.”

  A house at the end of an alley.

  The man opened the door without a word and motioned them inside.

  When the door shut,

  he dropped into a chair with a heavy thud.

  “It started at the beginning of last winter.”

  “That’s when the strange things began, one by one.”

  He rubbed his forehead with his fingers and continued.

  “The villagers just say…… they’re tired.”

  “But the truth’s different. They don’t know.”

  He looked at them briefly.

  “I’m Pyrug. I’m a herbalist.”

  Then, in a low voice, eyes narrowed—

  “You saw it just now.”

  “In this village, people sometimes faint.”

  “At first…… I thought it was just exhaustion from more work.”

  A bitter look crossed his face.

  “Until I learned the name of that flower……”

  “Before that, I thought it was just a weird phenomenon too.”

  Aira cut in.

  “Is the Piara flower…… really that dangerous?”

  “It looked kind of charming.”

  “In a quiet winter village, having a few flowers like that…… it’s pretty, isn’t it?”

  Pyrug let out a long sigh.

  “……That flower blooms by draining people’s life force.”

  “And people…”

  he continued, bitter,

  “they say the same things you just did. Mood, atmosphere, feelings.”

  “Not realizing their own strength is being sucked out.”

  “No matter how many times I warn them, they just say the red flower is ‘beautiful.’”

  Rynel asked quietly.

  “So…… that argument earlier was you trying to get rid of the flowers.”

  Pyrug stood and went to the bookshelf.

  “Yeah.”

  He pulled out a book, opened it, and spoke.

  “The villagers are being fooled.”

  “They’ve come to believe the flower is purely good.”

  “And they treat me like I’m the idiot.”

  He flipped pages, then stopped.

  “Look at this.”

  An entry titled “Piara” was written there.

  Pyrug traced a line with his finger.

  A red flower that blooms in winter.

  The more life force it drains from nearby living things, the more vividly red it becomes.

  If humans are present,

  it appears in dreams in the form of someone they long for

  and creates ‘false memories’ connected to the flower.

  Over several years, it lies dormant in a village.

  “And…… here.”

  Pyrug moved his finger to the next paragraph.

  After enough life force has been absorbed,

  the flower merges with its ‘main body’—a tree connected by roots—

  and transforms into a massive monster.

  The beast crosses into the village for a final feeding,

  then moves on to the next village.

  “……If this many red flowers are blooming,”

  “it means we’re not far from that monster appearing.”

  Silence.

  Aira nodded and brought her hands together lightly.

  “So that’s why you told us to leave.”

  “So we wouldn’t get dragged into it.”

  Instead of answering, Pyrug tilted his head slightly,

  then cleared his throat twice.

  “No one listens when I talk.”

  “These villagers…… I don’t know if they’re stupid or just ‘pure.’”

  “In the end, because of their stubbornness,”

  “they’re going to get eaten by their own problem.”

  Monero shrugged and said lightly.

  “But can’t you just find the main tree and yank it out?”

  Pyrug shook his head, unimpressed.

  “I’d love to. But the problem is……”

  “Out of all those trees, we can’t tell which one is the main body.”

  Monero clicked his tongue.

  “Tch.”

  Rynel picked it up immediately.

  “Then what about carefully pulling one flower……”

  “and following the roots?”

  Pyrug exhaled.

  “Tried it.”

  “But the roots break halfway.”

  “They spread out in every direction and reconnect. You can’t trace them.”

  “……Then there’s no way.”

  Monero muttered.

  Pyrug opened the book again and tapped the page.

  “The red flower grows up to a hundred blooms.”

  “And even if you pull one…… it grows back in about five minutes.”

  “……Five minutes?”

  Aira frowned.

  “Then the whole village just has to pull them all at once.”

  Pyrug nodded.

  “Right.”

  “If the main body can’t absorb life force, it loses vitality immediately.”

  “Then it withers into an old dead tree…… obvious at a glance.”

  “That’s when you remove it.”

  “So the conclusion is……”

  Aira pressed a hand to her forehead, voice low.

  “If we can’t convince the villagers, the flowers keep coming back.”

  “And they keep getting chances to drain life force.”

  Rynel nodded slowly.

  “And…… it’ll be hard to bring in outside help, too.”

  Pyrug shrugged.

  “Yeah.”

  “This may look like nothing, but it’s still a village under a viscount’s domain.”

  “If outsiders interfere without permission……”

  “it becomes an unauthorized matter. It only gets messier.”

  Aira snorted.

  “Then we should ask that fancy viscount to do some persuading.”

  “This is life-or-death. He should act responsible, right~?”

  Pyrug looked at her with tired eyes, then muttered low.

  “Hah…… that’s why I told outsiders to just pass through.”

  Then he spoke firmly.

  “Listen.”

  “No matter what your reason is, there’s only one way to solve this.”

  “Before the flowers grow back.”

  “In that five-minute window, pull all one hundred blooms.”

  “That’s it.”

  Rynel rose slowly and asked,

  “Then…… how much time do we have left?”

  Pyrug flipped pages and answered.

  “According to the book……”

  “About two weeks, give or take, until it turns into the beast.”

  Rynel nodded, not stopping there.

  “So the key is……”

  “Locate every flower.”

  “And prepare a way to remove them simultaneously.”

  “The locations……”

  Pyrug trailed off and closed the book.

  “I’ve found about eighty blooms.”

  “But the remaining twenty……”

  “I haven’t found those yet.”

  The room went quiet.

  Everyone fell into thought, wordless.

  “So you’re telling me to play some kind of treasure hunt.”

  Monero scratched his head, grumbling.

  “Can’t we just let the monster revive and beat it to death?”

  He added with a half-joking look toward Pyrug.

  Pyrug replied flatly, shaking his head.

  “Before that, the villagers might dry up and die.”

  “……Tch. This is annoying.”

  After a brief silence,

  Pyrug turned his head and glanced at Aira.

  “You there, half-elf lady.”

  “You sounded pretty confident earlier……”

  He narrowed his eyes, voice low.

  “You really think you can solve it?”

  Aira laughed awkwardly and waved her hand.

  “Hahaha, it’s kind of rough, but……”

  “Still, we can do it. We’re pretty good, you know~”

  Then she clapped her hands once.

  “Alright.”

  “Strategy meeting—let’s start.”