The cheap car rattled over uneven road, wheels finding every pothole. Corren sat beside Lyra, watching the factory district fade behind them.
She was quiet. Always was before hunts. That focused silence where she ran through scenarios, calculated risks, prepared for violence.
He envied that certainty.
"You checked the posting three times," she said without looking at him.
"Making sure."
"It's E-rank. We can handle E-rank."
"You can handle E-rank."
She turned to face him. Those grey eyes that never quite warmed. "So can you."
"my Veil won't be very useful."
"You have a brain. Use it." She looked back at the road. "Most hunters rely too much on power. Forget to think. You think first. That matters."
Corren wanted to believe her. Wanted to feel like thinking was enough when Beasts had claws and fangs and Veil-enhanced speed.
But he just nodded.
The silence stretched. Not uncomfortable. Just... Lyra.
After a while, she reached into her pack. Pulled out a short sword. Plain steel, functional grip, nothing fancy.
"Here."
He took it. Heavier than expected. Balanced though. Good weight distribution.
"I can't afford this."
"It's a loan. Return it when we're done."
His pack sat at his feet. Not heavy but full. Medical kit, bandages, two healing elixirs Lyra had insisted on, rope, waterskins, and a small package of seasoning from home. That last one felt stupid. Unnecessary. But his mother always said proper food kept you alive longer than medicine.
Old factory wisdom.
The cart slowed. Shadowfen Woods rose before them like a wall of twisted shadows.
The driver pulled to a stop. "Far as I go."
Lyra paid him. Corren winced internally but said nothing. She always paid for everything. Hated that kindness more each time.
They stepped down. The driver turned his cart without a word and rattled away.
The forest waited. Trees too tall, bark too dark, branches bent in ways that seemed deliberate. Unnatural. The mist at ground level moved wrong. Not wind-pushed. Something else.
"Ready?" Lyra asked.
Before he could answer, footsteps crunched on gravel behind them.
"Took you long enough."
Corren turned. Darius stood there, hunter's leathers pristine and expensive, arms crossed, that familiar arrogant grin plastered on his face.
Lyra's expression went flat. "What are you doing here?"
"Hunting. Same as you." Darius walked closer, looking Corren up and down with barely concealed contempt. "Didn't expect Fragile to actually show up though. Brave. Stupid, but brave."
"Leave," Lyra said. Cold. Final.
"Can't. Your mother asked me to make sure you came back alive." He shrugged, smile widening. "Told her I'd keep an eye on things."
"I don't need—"
"She does. I don't." Darius glanced at Corren again. "But I'm not splitting any cores with dead weight."
Lyra's hand drifted toward her pack where her metal waited. "If you're staying, you split equally. No exceptions."
Darius's grin faltered. "Equally? With him?"
"Yes."
"He can't even fight."
"Then you'll carry more weight. Fair trade."
Silence stretched. Corren could see Darius calculating. Pride warring with something else. He didn't need the money. Everyone knew that. But letting Lyra and Corren succeed without him? That would sting worse than any shared profit.
"Fine," Darius said finally. "Equal splits."
Lyra nodded once. Turned toward the forest. "Then don't waste daylight."
They entered the woods.
Fifty paces in, the world outside ceased to exist.
Just trees. Mist. Silence that pressed against eardrums.
Corren's hand rested on the short sword's hilt. Unfamiliar weight. Wrong balance for someone who'd never trained properly. But better than nothing.
Lyra moved ahead, eyes scanning. Her metal Veil was invisible right now, dormant, waiting for her command. But Corren knew it was there. Ready to manifest the instant she needed it.
Darius walked beside her, flames absent but hands loose and ready. His Veil was dormant too. Conserving stamina. Smart, even if he'd never admit to being careful.
Corren stayed slightly behind. Watching. Calculating distances, terrain features, escape routes. Factory habits applied to different context.
"How deep do we need to go?" Darius asked.
"Thornwolves den about a mile in," Lyra said. "Posting mentioned increased activity near the eastern grove."
"That's where we start then."
They walked in silence. The mist thickened gradually. Not sudden. Just a slow accumulation that reduced visibility to maybe twenty feet.
Corren's instincts hummed. Not his Veil. Just normal human awareness that something felt wrong. The forest was too quiet. No birds. No insects. Nothing.
Just silence and mist and trees that leaned wrong.
Then movement exploded from the undergrowth.
Grey fur. Yellow eyes. Fangs.
Four Thornwolves, E-rank, bigger than natural wolves, moving with coordinated precision.
Corren didn't even have time to shout.
The lead wolf lunged at him. He stumbled backward, hand reaching for his sword but too slow, too inexperienced, going to die—
Metal flashed.
Lyra's whip manifested mid-strike, rigid and gleaming, caught the wolf across its throat. The impact sent it crashing sideways into a tree trunk. It hit with a crack that might have been bone or wood or both.
Didn't get back up.
Two more wolves attacked from the flanks. Pack coordination. Smart.
Darius grinned. Finally. Violence he understood.
He released his Veil in a massive burst. Flames erupted outward, wide and uncontrolled, a wall of orange fire that consumed everything in its path.
Both wolves died instantly. Didn't even have time to yelp.
The flames kept spreading.
Undergrowth ignited. Small trees caught fire. Heat washed over them in waves.
"Darius!" Lyra shouted.
"Got them didn't I?" He was laughing, proud of his destruction.
The last wolf fled. Smart enough to recognize losing odds.
But now they had a bigger problem.
Fire. Spreading fast. Hungry.
"Put it out!" Lyra snapped, already forming metal sheets to smother the larger flames.
Darius stared at the growing fire. "How?"
"Dirt! Kick dirt on it!"
They scrambled. Corren grabbed his cloak, beat at flames. Darius stomped on burning leaves, looking increasingly less proud. Lyra used metal barriers to contain the spread.
For a frantic minute, they fought fire instead of Beasts.
Finally, the last ember died.
They stood in a circle of scorched earth, breathing hard, covered in soot.
Lyra turned to Darius. Voice flat. Dangerous. "If you burn me, I will break your legs."
"I didn't burn you."
"You almost did. And him." She pointed at Corren. "Control your Veil or leave."
Darius's jaw tightened. "Don't tell me what to do!"
"Then don't be an idiot."
They glared at each other. Two strong personalities, both used to getting their way.
Corren cleared his throat. "We should extract the cores before something else shows up."
That broke the tension. Barely.
They harvested three cores. Each one pulsed faintly with stored Veil energy. E-rank, worth eight hundred valys each.
Two thousand four hundred valys total.
Corren did the math automatically. Still needed two hundred forty-seven thousand six hundred.
Impossible. But slightly less impossible than before.
They moved deeper.
The second attack came from above.
Corren saw movement, branch-level, too late to shout warning.
Mistcat. Grey-furred, twice the size of a housecat, dropping like a stone toward Lyra's back.
She spun at the last second. Pure instinct. Her metal whip lashed out, rigid form, straight through the creature's chest mid-fall.
The Mistcat died confused. Hit the ground already gone.
Darius looked between the corpse and Lyra. "How did you—"
"Heard the branch creak."
She said it like it was nothing. Like perfect reaction time was normal. Expected.
Corren's hands shook slightly. Two attacks. Two times he'd been useless. Two times others had saved him.
He hated it.
They extracted another core. Eight hundred valys.
Kept moving.
The third pack found them an hour later.
Six Thornwolves this time. Bigger. More coordinated.
And Corren felt them before he saw them.
Not vision. Not his broken Veil doing anything visible. Just... presence. Like eyes on his back. Like knowing someone was watching without seeing them.
"Stop," he said quietly.
Lyra halted immediately. Darius took two more steps before realizing.
"What?"
"Something's close." Corren turned slowly. Trying to feel direction. "Multiple somethings. Watching us."
"I don't see anything," Darius said.
"Neither do I. But they're there."
Lyra's metal coiled around her wrist. Ready. "How many?"
"Five. Maybe six. Spread out. Circling."
"You're guessing."
"Yes."
She nodded. "Good guess. I trust it."
They formed a rough triangle. Backs toward each other. Watching different directions.
The wolves appeared from three sides simultaneously.
Perfect coordination. Intelligent ambush.
Lyra reacted first. Her whip snapped toward the nearest wolf, caught it mid-leap, but the creature twisted. Her strike scraped its hide without cutting deep.
Not sharp enough. The rigid metal whip could bludgeon but not slice properly.
She cursed. Rare sound from her.
Darius released controlled bursts this time. Smaller. More focused. Learning from his mistake.
Fire caught one wolf. It yelped, rolled, kept coming.
They weren't dying fast enough.
Corren saw a gap. One wolf breaking from the pack, circling toward his back.
His hand found the short sword. Drew it. Awkward grip but functional.
The wolf lunged.
He didn't think. Just moved. Brought the blade up in a desperate arc.
Connected.
Steel bit into flesh. Not deep. Not lethal. But enough.
The wolf yelped, stumbled, fell on its side. Bleeding.
Corren's heart hammered. He'd done that. Actually hurt something.
The wolf scrambled up, limped away into the mist.
Five left.
Lyra's whip caught another across the legs. It collapsed, snarling. She stomped on its skull. Efficient. Final.
Darius burned two more with concentrated flame in a single. Better control. Less spread.
The last two wolves retreated. Smart enough to know when the hunt turned against them.
Silence.
They stood catching their breath.
Corren's hands shook. From adrenaline or fear or both. He'd actually fought. Actually contributed. Not much. Not enough. But something.
Darius said nothing. Just glanced at Corren once, expression unreadable, then turned away.
They extracted five cores. Four thousand valys.
They found a small clearing as afternoon faded toward evening. Relatively open. Good sightlines. Defensible enough.
"We camp here," Lyra said. "Too dangerous to travel at night."
Darius gathered wood. Set it in a pile. Released a small, controlled flame. The fire caught easily.
They had rations. Dried meat. Hard bread. Water.
And one Ironback Boar core they'd taken from a lone juvenile they'd ambushed near a stream. That had been teamwork. Actual teamwork.
Corren had spotted it first. That growing sense of presence guiding his awareness. He'd pointed. Lyra had created metal stakes in its path. Darius had driven it toward the trap with flame bursts. The boar had impaled itself trying to escape.
Six thousand valys. Clean kill. No one injured.
It had felt good. Like maybe they could actually do this.
Lyra set chunks of boar meat on the fire. Plain. Unseasoned. Just meat and heat.
They waited in silence.
The meat cooked. Smelled good enough. Looked edible.
Lyra took a piece. Chewed. Her expression didn't change much, but Corren saw the slight grimace.
Darius tried his portion. Managed three bites before setting it down. "That's... not great."
"It's food," Lyra said.
"It's burnt leather."
Corren reached into his pack. Pulled out a small cloth bundle. Unwrapped it. Seasoning mix. Salt, pepper, dried herbs his mother used for everything.
He sprinkled some on his portion. The smell improved immediately.
Lyra watched him. "You brought seasoning."
"Didn't think you'd eat it plain."
"We're hunting Beasts in a corrupted forest and you packed spices."
"...Yes?"
Darius started laughing. Actual laughing, not mocking. "That's the most Corren thing I've ever heard."
Lyra's mouth twitched. Almost a smile. She held out her meat. "Share."
He did.
The seasoning helped. Not gourmet. But edible. Almost good.
They ate in comfortable silence. Fire crackling. Darkness gathering beyond their small circle of light.
For one moment, sitting around that fire with improved food and successful hunts behind them, it felt almost easy. Like maybe they weren't three mismatched teenagers in over their heads. Like maybe they were actually a team.
Darius leaned back against a log. Satisfied. Full. "Not bad. We made what, thirteen thousand valys today?"
"Thirteen thousand two hundred," Corren said automatically.
"Split three ways is..."
"Four thousand four hundred each."
Lyra smiled. Small. Genuine. "Better than factory work."
Corren smiled back. "Much better."
Even Darius grinned. Not his usual arrogant smirk. Something warmer.
The fire popped. Sparks drifted upward into darkness.
Then Corren's boot sank into something soft.
He'd got up early at dawn to stretch. Moved toward the clearing's edge. Away from firelight.
Stepped wrong.
Not mud. Wrong texture. Too soft in places. Too hard in others. Lumpy. Irregular.
He looked down.
Cloth. Rotted. Dark stains. Professional hunter's leathers. Quality make.
Badge on the chest. He could just barely read the ranking in the dim light.
C-rank.
Face down. Most of the back torn open. Days old but preserved somehow. Not rotting properly.
His breath stopped.
"Guys."
Something in his voice made them move immediately.
Lyra reached him first. Saw what he was standing on. Her face went blank. That cold mask.
Darius arrived second. Stared. His flames ignited involuntarily around his hands. Fear response.
"That's a C-rank hunter," he whispered.
The mist thickened around them.
Not gradually. Suddenly. Like something had opened a door.
Visibility dropped to ten feet. Five feet. Three.
Corren's new sense pulsed. Not immediate danger. But presence. Lots of presences.
Surrounding them.
Everywhere.
Something chittered in the fog.
Left side.
Then right side.
Then behind them.
Then ahead.
Closing in from all directions.
Darius's flames grew brighter, wilder. "What is that?"
Lyra's metal whip coiled tight. "We need to leave. Now."
"Which way?" Corren asked.
His sense screamed from every direction. No safe path. No escape route.
All directions had teeth.
The chittering grew louder.
Closer.
Coordinated.
Something moved in the mist. Multiple somethings. Big. Fast. Intelligent.