The iron-bitter stench of fresh blood and rusted iron hung heavy in the cramped air of the cottage.
It had been three agonizing days since the logging accident, and the heavy silence of the cabin was broken only by Yukino's muffled groan as Yuriko finally extracted the jagged iron nail from the meat of his heel. Outside, the northern wilderness was a vast, unforgiving canvas of white. Snow drifted lazily down over the foothills, where winter trolls prowled the frozen heights and goblin scouts clung to the jagged crags above.
When dawn broke the following morning, Yukino forced his eyes open.
He looked first to his wife, sleeping fitfully, then to the hand-carved cradle where their twin daughters, Solvayne and Nyxelle, rested in fragile innocence. Finally, his sharp gaze settled on the single grain sack leaning against the corner hearth. It was slumped, hollow, and nearly empty.
His expression hardened into a mask of grim resolve.
*'Six days,'* he calculated silently, his mind racing. *'The girls are only months old. They can rely on Yuriko for a short time, but if she doesn't eat, they don't eat. I have to be the provider.'*
Moving with practiced, hunter-like stealth to avoid waking his family, Yukino tightly bound his open heel with a strip of rough linen. A white-hot spike of agony shot straight up his calf into his hip, but he merely clamped his jaws together until his teeth creaked. Grabbing a sturdy oak branch from the porch to serve as a makeshift crutch, he stepped out into the biting morning air.
Barefoot against the hard frost, armed with nothing more than a single hunting dagger at his hip, he began his hunt.
"I am a hunter by nature," he whispered into the frigid gale, his warm breath blooming in silver clouds before him. "A man by will. A father by choice. I will provide."
He tossed the branch aside into the drifts, choosing instead to limp through the heavy snow to keep a lower profile. After a full hour of agonizing, barefoot progress, he spotted his quarry: a Great Boar.
The beast was a massive mountain of raw muscle and coarse, bristling fur, its curved tusks long enough to impale a armored knight twice over. Yukino's knuckles turned stark white as he gripped his hunting knife, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
He was coiled to spring when a distant, thunderous explosion violently rocked the valley.
For a fraction of a second, Yukino's focus wavered toward the rising plume of black smoke over the ridge. In that single heartbeat of distraction, the boar charged. He threw himself sideways into the drift, feeling the rushing wind of the beast's momentum as it shattered a thick pine trunk where he had stood moments before.
"That was a bit too close," Yukino wheezed, a reckless, familiar smirk tugging at his lips despite the blinding pain in his foot. "Then again... my Ultimate Skill only kicks in when my back is pinned against the wall. And right now? This wall is looking pretty solid."
The boar pivoted sharply, its small, sunken eyes glowing red with murderous rage. It struck him with the sheer, blunt force of its snout, launching Yukino backward through the air. He crashed violently through a cedar tree, the frozen wood splintering like dry parchment under the impact.
Copper-tasting blood filled his mouth, and he spat it onto the pristine white snow.
"Is that all you've got?" he hissed, forcing his trembling arms to push his body upright.
He lunged. This time, he was a blur of pure, desperate momentum. He darted beneath the beast's guard, slicing cleanly at its hamstrings before using its broad, leather-hard back as a springboard to vault high into the air.
As he reached the apex of his jump, the morning sun broke over the mountain horizon, catching the thick strands of his brown hair.
In that moment of suspension, a surge of primordial, long-dormant energy erupted violently from his core. His brown hair ignited into a brilliant, shimmering white aura.
"Ultimate Skill: **THE HERO'S LIGHT!**"
He descended like a falling star. His hunting blade, now wreathed in a blinding, razor-sharp aura of pure mana, sliced through the air with a localized sonic boom.
Then, absolute silence.
The kicked-up snow settled slowly. Yukino stood over the fallen titan, his knife buried up to the hilt through the boar's thick skull and deep into the frozen earth beneath. He wrenchingly freed the blade, the steaming blood evaporating quickly in the freezing air.
Suddenly, a violent, full-body shiver wracked his frame as the white aura faded away.
"Achoo! Brrrr... okay, note to self: put on boots next time," he muttered to himself, shaking his head. He grabbed the colossal boar by its hind legs and began the long, grueling trek dragging the meat back to the cottage.
He arrived to find Yuriko standing in the open doorway, clutching the twins tightly to her chest, her pale eyes shimmering with unshed tears.
"Hey," Yukino said, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe with a tired, boyish grin. "I'm home."
However, their brief victory was shattered before it could begin. The plume of smoke he had observed earlier was not a random bandit raid—it was the grim herald of a far deadlier threat.
The Great Plague had officially reached the neighboring settlement.
"We have to leave, Yukino," Yuriko urged, her voice trembling as they stood together on the porch, watching the distant smoke gather against the grey sky. "The children will not survive if it spreads to these hills."
"Where can we go?" Yukino murmured, his tone dropping into a calculating whisper. "Every main road is going to be a death trap or a nest of infected refugees. We have the Pan Village to the south near Lurtra... or we make the push west toward the Kingdom of Durmount."
"West," Yuriko decided without hesitation, her voice firm. "Durmount values human life above all else. We will be safe behind their high stone walls."
Yukino nodded slowly in agreement, but as he turned to gather their belongings, a sudden movement down the trail caught his eye.
A lone traveler was stumbling blindly through the snow, coughing with such violent intensity that his entire upper body convulsed with every step. The man stumbled onto his knees, sprayed a bright crimson mist of infected blood across the untouched snow, and collapsed face-first, unmoving.
"Yikes," Yukino remarked, allowing a touch of his usual smug bravado to filter back into his tone to mask the cold knot of fear in his chest. "I definitely wouldn't want to be that guy right now."
They moved with ruthless efficiency after that, packing the sparse remnants of their life into travel packs. Yuriko securely wrapped the twins against the cold, while Yukino shouldered the heavy loads—the freshly dressed meat, the preserved water, and the cold steel necessary to carve out a future in an unyielding world.