The northern treeline parts like a curtain pulled by reluctant hands. Kenji is first to emerge, boots dragging through frost-stiff grass, cloak burned down to uneven threads. The others follow—Seikaku limping, Mikage with one arm bound tight across his ribs, Fukugen half-covered in dirt, Mireina exhausted but upright, and Anzuyi steadying herself. They look every inch the ghosts they've become—ghosts who survived.
Korvath's gate guards freeze as if struck by lightning.
"Team Kenji—returning!" one shouts.
And the city stirs.
Runners sprint toward the Guild Hall. Civilians poke their heads out of doorways. A group of young adventurers scramble onto a cart to get a better look. Rumors outrun reality—Giggleburg, the battlefield, the enemy commanders. By the time the squad reaches the inner courtyard, half of Korvath already knows they're alive.
Healers rush forward, but Kenji raises a scarred hand.
"We report first."
There is no room for negotiation. His voice is iron wrapped in exhaustion, and the healers step aside.
They walk through the guild doors like soldiers entering a shrine. The hall falls into reverent quiet. Kouki rises from the center table, coat still dusted with map-chalk, face unreadable. He looks at them not with warmth, but with expectancy—because victory or tragedy, both must be spoken plainly.
Kenji stands at attention.
"Giggleburg Operation complete."
He gives the summary with clinical precision, each word weighed like battlefield currency:
"General Varric Drayen—eliminated. Commander Rick Kaiser—eliminated. High-value targets neutralized. Enemy supply lines collapsed. Giggleburg thrown into disarray. All objectives fulfilled. Zero casualties."
Kouki doesn't breathe. The only sound in the hall is the faint crackle of torches. When Kenji finishes, the guildmaster nods once—slow, deliberate.
"This is a decisive victory," Kouki says. "Stand down. All of you. You're under mandatory rest for seventy-two hours."
Kenji salutes, the motion stiff from bruises.
---
They are escorted immediately to the healer wing.
Seikaku collapses onto a runic chair as two robed specialists grip his temples, recalibrating his disrupted mana pathways with soft, rhythmic pulses. Mikage receives bone-knit enchantments that hiss like living smoke. Fukugen and Mireina lie in neighboring beds, both drifting in and out of consciousness as restorative crystals glow over their chests.
Anzuyi remains standing.
Her hand trembles—just faintly—in her grasp.
She asks the question before the healer finishes bandaging her shoulder.
"Where is Kaito's team?"
A junior officer responds, eyes downcast.
"No sighting yet. They have not crossed the southern checkpoints. Honor Guard units have been dispatched along the river."
"Why the Honor Guard?" she presses.
The officer hesitates, then reads from the order slate:
"Kaito Mugenrei—unstable Berserker strain. Ryuji Rei—near-total mana depletion. Risk of collapse high. They may require extraction."
Anzuyi swallows hard. It's the kind of fear that doesn't scream; it burrows.
She is guided away with the others to their assigned recovery suites—luxury by wartime standards. Hot water. Thick blankets. Soft food that doesn't taste of rations or ash. But worry is a sharper hunger than any feast can satisfy.
---
Meanwhile, Korvath's command engine begins to grind at full speed.
Kouki convenes the senior captains on the war-room balcony overlooking the city. Candles burn low over maps marked in red and blue pins. The air smells of ink, metal, and tired hope.
Reports fly across the table like thrown daggers.
Scouting quests are issued—urgent and large-scale. The fall of Giggleburg may cause the smaller strongholds to cannibalize each other, or regroup, or fracture. Intelligence is a race against chaos.
North of the city, the Honor Guard marches out in three units:
shieldbearers in a diamond formation, medics at the center, a courier mage prepared to send immediate word back to Korvath.
Their directive is crystal-clear:
"Retrieve Team Nogare at all costs."
Kaito's berserker strain is listed as "volatile."
Ryuji's mana state is "terminal depletion threshold."
Nogare's stability level is… simply labeled "Unknown."
No one says what they fear, but the silence in the command hall carries the shape of it.
---
Night settles slowly over Korvath.
In her recovery room, Anzuyi sits by the balcony window, wrapped in a healer's robe, staring south. The city lights glitter below her like a scattered array of half-remembered hopes. She holds a cup of warm herbal tonic in both hands, but it has long grown cold.
Her lips barely move.
"Kaito… enough wandering. Come home."
The river winds far beyond her sight, a silver thread under the moon. Somewhere down that path, her comrades are fighting the aftershocks of battle, struggling to return before their bodies or mana give out. She can do nothing but wait.
And waiting is a kind of quiet torture.
She rises when the first horn echoes across Korvath.
It is sharp. Urgent. From the western gate tower.
The second horn follows.
Guards shout. Torches flare to life along the wall.
Anzuyi presses her palms to the balcony rail, breath caught halfway between prayer and dread.
Someone is approaching the gates.