Everyone stared fixedly at the wooden wall in front of us. Glassy eyes, rigid posture, gazes locked onto a single point. Someone even swallowed hard. But we weren't really looking at the polished wood of the caravan — we were looking at what lay beyond it. As if we could see straight through that wall.

  A sharp scream had just sliced through our conversation like a blade.

  For the first time in my life, I heard something as sharp as the knives I used in my “jobs.”

  It wasn't just loud — it was wrong.

  We all turned our heads at the same time toward where it came from. We were still inside the caravan, surrounded by creaking wood, and yet I had the clear sensation that I was staring directly at the source of that sound. As if the wall in front of us wasn't a real obstacle at all.

  “What the hell was that…?” Ford pulled on the reins, forcing the horses to stop. They neighed restlessly, refusing to move forward.

  The silence that followed weighed down on us. All that remained was the relentless sound of the wind slicing through the air like a razor.

  “Cadet Two,” Ford called, his voice far too steady for someone just as tense as the rest of us. “Did that come from your rear?”

  “N-no, sir!” The reply came from a few meters behind us. “It was closer. That voice… it was Cadet One's.”

  No one spoke for several seconds. Some looked grim, others tried to hide their fear, and the rest desperately attempted to piece together the origin of that scream. Everyone there expected the worst. Each of us had lived stressful enough lives to justify that way of thinking.

  “Bandits…? No, there's no activity like that in this area. Then what could it be…?” Ford muttered to himself, even though everyone could hear his reasoning.

  With a simple motion, Ford ordered Cadet Two to investigate what had happened. And, bravely, the man rode off toward the spot.

  His eyes carried guilt.

  Guilt for what, exactly? From my point of view, I couldn't tell.

  We listened to the muffled sound of the horse's hooves growing more distant, until the snowstorm swallowed everything.

  The wind kept blowing.

  And we waited.

  And waited.

  And the wind kept running.

  At first, it still felt normal. Just a few seconds longer than expected. Nothing more than that.

  But time passed… and nothing changed.

  That was when something heavy settled in my chest.

  He wasn't coming back.

  I wasn't the only one who realized it.

  “…! Damn it.” Ford muttered as he climbed down from the caravan. “And you — stay put. Even if you try to run, the mark will take over your bodies and you'll die anyway. Understood?”

  Not everyone took kindly to the way Ford referred to us. I stepped forward.

  “We already know that.”

  The rest of us understood that something very bad could happen.

  No… we were almost certain of it. As if something inside us was warning us of an imminent danger.

  Ford nodded and joined the other two remaining guards.

  He closed his eyes for a brief moment. Short. Calculated.

  “I don't like this,” he said, opening them again. “But I can't just let two men disappear.”

  He cast a quick glance at the caravan.

  “Especially with these special deliveries with me.” No one doubted what he meant.

  “Cadet Four. Go to the last known point. See what happened… and don't advance past it.”

  The guard hesitated for a second — then nodded.

  We watched him leave. The same scene. The same sound of hooves fading into the snow. This time, it felt as though the silence had learned something from the first attempt.

  He came back far too quickly.

  The horse nearly slipped as it approached, the guard pale, eyes wide.

  “Sir…” He swallowed hard. “There are no bodies.”

  Ford frowned.

  “Explain.”

  “Just… a trail.” He pointed at the white behind him. “Blood. A lot of blood. It leads straight to the edge of the forest.”

  That was enough.

  The discomfort spread like a silent disease. Some started pacing back and forth. Others clenched their fists. A few stared at the snow as if expecting something to burst out at any second.

  “A beast, maybe…” someone murmured. “From Tartarus.”

  “That doesn't make sense,” another shot back immediately. “The nearest portal is inactive.”

  “And bears don't hunt people like that,” a third added. “They don't leave trails… they leave remains.”

  The debate escalated too fast. Voices overlapped. First as an argument, then as accusations. Words spoken too quickly, heavy with fear and calculation.

  Some eyes changed.

  Greed isn't always about money. Sometimes, it's just hunger — hunger for a chance. And there, in that snowstorm, it shone clearly in a few faces.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  “If they're dying out there…” someone began. “…then there's no reason for them to keep guns pointed at us,” another finished.

  The shoving came right after. An arm yanked, a rope strained, someone stumbled. Nothing organized. Nothing heroic. Just ten confused, terrified people trying to turn chaos into opportunity.

  A mini rebellion. Nothing big. Just a fight among ten people.

  But he knew.

  He knew that was already enough.

  The logic was simple. Cruel. Inevitable.

  Less armed force meant higher chances of escape.

  And above all, it meant people separating from the group.

  “Stop this—” I tried to say, but my voice was swallowed by the turmoil.

  The pushing continued for a few seconds longer than it should have, to the point where half of us were already outside the caravan. Raised voices. Accusations flying. Someone laughing nervously. It was still a discussion. Chaotic, yes — but human.

  Until the sound came.

  It wasn't loud. It wasn't explosive. It was short and wet.

  The sound of a neck snapping.

  Everything stopped.

  The marked man's body collapsed onto the ground like an empty sack, eyes still open, mouth half-parted in a sound that never came to exist. Only then did I realize the silence had returned — far too heavy to be natural.

  The brawler held the body for a second longer, as if weighing it. Then he dropped it.

  “Ahh…” He cracked his own neck, satisfied. “I always wanted to do that. He talked too much.”

  No one reacted right away. No screams. No panic. Maybe because everyone there was already used to seeing this kind of absurdity in this world. It was just… unexpected, given the level of that argument. Unnecessary. That was the word.

  That was when the two guards rushed forward at the same time, weapons raised, trying to contain the situation before it turned into something worse.

  The gunshot thundered inside the caravan. The smell of gunpowder burned my nose.

  He didn't fall.

  The brawler only staggered a step to the side — and smiled.

  In the next instant, his fist slammed into one guard's jaw. A dry, precise blow. The man collapsed unconscious before he even understood what had happened.

  “Bastard.” Ford drew his sword on instinct.

  The blade cut through the air with solemn calm — and struck.

  Blood sprayed onto the snow. The brawler was thrown backward, dropping to his knees, breathing heavily, his body finally giving in.

  But not dead.

  Far from it.

  He laughed. A hoarse, broken sound.

  “See…?” he muttered, spitting blood. “Chaos is easy. You just needed someone to start it.”

  We were nine now.

  The realization came far too simply for something so wrong.

  The body was still on the ground when we were shoved outside the caravan, lined up in the snow like children being scolded. The two remaining guards — Ford among them — barked orders no one truly listened to. Not because we didn't want to — but because the shock was still lodged in our throats.

  My gaze returned to the fallen marked man. Not to his face. To his skin.

  There they were.

  So… they're there, I thought.

  The fungi.

  Dark patches, almost discreet, spreading beneath exposed skin like veins that shouldn't exist. It wasn't new. It wasn't exclusive to him.

  It really is a rule among us.

  “Psst.”

  Rafe stepped close enough to speak without raising his voice.

  “Jack Frost… you saw it too, didn't you?” he murmured. “The fungi.”

  I nodded.

  I didn't need to say anything else for him to understand what that meant. The silence that followed wasn't immediate fear — it was worse.

  It was doubt.

  What the hell did that cult do to our bodies?

  The question repeated itself in my head, heavy and persistent. The Mark, the symptoms, the unspoken rules… That didn't feel like a side effect.

  It felt like a project.

  “Alright then,” someone said, trying to break the mood. “What if this is… I don't know, an assassin?”

  I shook my head before even thinking it through.

  “Assassins don't kill without contracts,” I said. “And no sane person would pay to wipe out a group of convicts… and a mid-ranking lieutenant in the middle of nowhere.”

  Silence.

  Hypothesis discarded.

  “Maybe,” another muttered with a nervous laugh, “it's just this shitty government being incompetent like always.”

  Several eyes widened at once.

  Damn.

  Ford pretended not to hear it. Not because he disagreed — but because even if it were true, it didn't change anything at all.

  The brawler, now tied up behind us, let out a short laugh. Just enough to draw our attention.

  He twisted his own wrist.

  The sound was low. A wet crack, almost disappointing — like old wood giving way. The bindings fell loose to the ground before anyone could react.

  The brawler smiled. It wasn't nervous — it was pride.

  “Next time, I'll kill the rest of you myself!” he shouted, rolling his newly freed arm as if testing it. “With the power they gave me… I'll be invincible!”

  No one moved.

  No shouts. No orders. No urgency.

  Ford didn't even reach for his sword. It wasn't worth it. A wounded, bleeding man, drunk on delusion… letting him go was easier.

  Cleaner.

  The brawler laughed when he realized that.

  And ran.

  His footsteps quickly faded, swallowed by the blizzard. His silhouette grew smaller and smaller, until it became just another dark stain moving among the snowdrifts.

  For a moment — just a single moment — it looked like he'd made it.

  Then, as he passed by a mound of snow beside him—

  The world exploded.

  A white cloud burst upward nearly six meters high, as if the ground itself had been ripped open from within. The mound beside him simply collapsed.

  And something emerged and swallowed him in a single bite.

  There was no scream. No struggle.

  Just the grotesque sound of bones being crushed and flesh disappearing.

  The blizzard, the darkness of the night, and the snow-filled air hid most of it from view.

  All we saw was the silhouette.

  Something insectoid, immensely large, far too wrong to exist there.

  For a second, I had the unmistakable feeling that it didn't belong to this world.

  …No.

  It didn't belong to this world.

  Then, between the rhythmic sound of something chewing and the howling wind, that noise came.

  The silence that followed was absolute.

  No one even blinked.

  All of us understood the same thing at the same time.

  We had found the culprit.