The smell of death never left.
It had been a month since the massacre, yet the island still whispered of it. The air was thick with the scent of dried blood and rotting fish. Murloc corpses had been dragged and piled, their flesh stripped, preserved, or left to decay in the heat. Even now, when the children dared to speak, they only did so in hushed tones. The laughter was gone. The lightness in their steps, vanished.
Vanthelis hadn't spoken to them much. Not that he needed to.
He had changed.
Gone was the plump, confused boy. Now, he was lean—scarred from hunting and surviving, his arms scraped, his back sore, and his knuckles split open from punching trees until bark and flesh blurred. His old softness had burned away, like fat over fire.
Every day, he trained alone.
He hunted murlocs that had strayed too far from their groups. Alone. Sword in hand—Ishlar's sword—still a bit too long for his frame, but he swung it with purpose, like a man carrying a legacy he hadn't earned.
Some days, he returned limping.
Other days, he didn't return at all until dawn.
And every night, when the others tried to sleep, they would sometimes hear the faint crack of bone against wood from deep in the trees. He never screamed. Not once. But the sound was constant.
The murloc bodies were mostly gone now. The first week after the battle, Vanthelis had dragged them away to keep the smell from overwhelming them. But now, the body count was much smaller. The land was quieter, but the tension was palpable. It was as if the very island itself was holding its breath, waiting for something.
Vanthelis had tried speaking to the system, the only tool he had to survive.
"System…" he whispered to the thin air around him one evening, his voice hoarse from the months of yelling at the system in vain. "How do I get mana?"
Nothing.
"Is there a way to exchange materials for gold coins?"
Again, nothing.
He was beginning to think the system was broken. Or worse, it just didn't care. And that pissed him off.
He clenched his fists, his nails biting into his palms. The truth gnawed at him more than any of his wounds. The system, the one thing he thought would make him special—had turned out to be useless. He didn't have the gold he needed to build those damn buildings. He didn't have any mana. He couldn't even be awakened. All he had were his fists, the sword on his waist, and the angry thoughts racing through his head.
With the system silent, the anger welled up.
"I should've died too," Vanthelis muttered, his teeth clenched. "What use am I… if I can't even make the damn system work?"
The memory of his father's smile haunted him.
He wasn't dead when Vanthelis saw it. It was a memory—clear and bright in his mind. His father's smile as he remembered Vanthelis had left the house for the last time. It wasn't a smile full of joy, nor was it a smile of sorrow. It was a smile of love, a smile meant to leave a mark that would echo through eternity. His father had always been so full of life, despite everything that was thrown his way.
And then, the face of his mother. Her bright eyes looking down at him, that faint smile on her lips. The smile she wore when she tucked him into bed and told him stories before sleep took him.
He remembered their words to him as clearly as if they were spoken to him today.
"Be strong, Vanthelis. Don't let the world make you soft."
Those words stung. His eyes narrowed, and for a moment, the world seemed to blur around him, as though nothing mattered. Everything he did felt like it would never be enough.
He couldn't even do what his father had asked of him. He couldn't protect his family. He couldn't protect anyone. All he had done was get people killed. He had let his people die. He had been too weak to save them. His grip tightened on the sword's hilt. His knuckles burned.
Without warning, something changed. In the silence of the night, with the cold breeze whispering through the trees, he dropped to his knees by the creek, looking into the water. His reflection stared back at him. A tired, angry face, streaked with dirt, hair messy, body thin and scarred. He was still wearing his clothes from the battle, ripped and torn, stained with blood from hunts long past.
And yet, as his gaze softened, the image seemed to change.
The water shimmered as if it were drawing something from him—something more profound than his physical self.
For a moment, he saw his father's smile again. It was bright, kind, untainted by the horrors he had witnessed. He saw his mother's smile too, warm and reassuring, the kind that always made him feel safe. And in the reflection, their faces glimmered, casting a shadow across his own.
But they weren't dead. Not in this reflection. They were just smiling. They were alive.
For that fleeting moment, Vanthelis saw himself as they had always seen him: a child. Not yet the man he needed to be. Not the man he would become.
Tears welled up in his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. He shook his head.
"You're still useless…" he whispered to his reflection, voice hoarse. "No matter what world you end up in."
But even as he spoke those words, his gaze shifted. In the corner of his vision, something moved. Something big, too large for the shadows of the trees to fully cover.
A shift. A presence.
Something… not human. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.
He immediately stood, hand gripping his sword tighter. But when he turned to look, the shape was gone. Just a fleeting glimpse—a shadow—vanishing into the thick, dark trees. A feeling lingered in the air, something that felt wrong, something unnatural.
He squinted into the shadows, but it was too dark.
Too far.
Still, Vanthelis felt the chill run down his spine.
He exhaled slowly, trying to steady his breath. Whatever it was—he wasn't sure.