CHAPTER 53: THE HUNT BEGINS

The air outside the wall tasted different. It wasn’t the clean, sharp scent of academy pines, or the damp earth of the greenhouses. It was wild, untended, thick with the smell of old leaves, animal musk, and something else—a faint, metallic tang of woodsmoke and rust that spoke of people who didn’t belong to any order.

Eric pushed himself up from the damp ground, his knees sinking into the soft loam. The stone was already back in place behind him, a seamless part of the ancient wall. If he hadn’t just crawled out of it, he’d never know it was there. For a second, a cold spike of panic shot through him. What if Bastion changes his mind? What if he doesn’t come back? He pushed the thought away. Worrying about a door closing behind him wouldn’t fill the void inside.

[HUNGER LEVEL: 32%]

The number was a silent scream in his skull. It was climbing faster out here, away from the academy’s dampening fields, as if the curse smelled freedom and was straining at its leash.

He moved.

He pushed the katana deeper into his pocket, the hard line of it a comfort against his thigh. He wouldn’t draw it yet. Drawing it meant admitting he was here to do violence, and a part of him was still clinging to the lie that he was just... collecting. Like picking berries. He knew it was a pathetic lie, but he needed it.

The forest began to slope upward. Up the hills, Opal had said. The road curved away, following an easier path. Eric left it behind, beginning the climb. His breath came quicker, and not just from the exertion. Every minute that passed was a unit of mana burned from a bank that was already at zero. The hunger was a physical weight now, a hollow ache behind his navel that pulsed in time with his heartbeat.

He crested the first rise and paused behind the broad trunk of an oak, scanning the next valley. And there, he saw the signs.

A tree with a crude, faded symbol hacked into its bark—a slashed circle. A little further on, a path not made by animals. Boot prints, several sets, overlaying each other in the mud near a small, foul-smelling stream. The bandits weren’t hiding their presence; they were marking their territory. They were confident. That was good. Confidence made people lazy.

A new smell hit him then, carried on a shift of the wind. Not just woodsmoke, but cooking fat. Grease. Meat.

[HUNGER LEVEL: 37%]

He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting back a wave of nausea. The beast in his core uncoiled, stretching, interested. Close, it seemed to whisper. Prey is close.

"No," Eric muttered into the mask, his voice a ragged breath. "Not yet. Not like this."

He couldn’t just rush in. The hunger was making him stupid, impulsive. That’s how he’d ended up surrounded by the corpses of his colony. A blind, roaring charge. He had to be smarter here. He had to be a hunter, not a hurricane.

He forced himself to move sideways, skirting the top of the ridge, putting the wind in his face. He needed a vantage point. He needed to see what he was dealing with.

After another ten minutes of careful, silent movement, he found it. A rocky outcrop, covered in ferns, overlooking the next valley. He dropped to his belly and crawled to the edge, parting the fronds with a gloved hand.

Below, nestled in a clearing where two hills met, was the bandit camp.

It wasn’t a fortress. It was a scrap-heap settlement. Three rough lean-to shelters made of stolen canvas and lashed branches. A fire-pit with a black iron pot hanging over it, the source of the greasy smell. Five men were visible. Two were sparring with notched, cheap-looking swords near the fire, their movements aggressive but sloppy. One was sharpening a dagger on a whetstone, his back against a tree. Another was asleep on a bedroll. The fifth, a larger man with a thick beard, was drinking from a skin and staring into the flames.

Eric’s eyes, sharpened by the System and a lifetime of survival, catalogued them. Their gear was mismatched—bits of rusted mail, hardened leather jerkins, filthy tunics. These weren’t soldiers. They were thugs. Bullies who preyed on the weak. The realization should have made him feel better. It didn’t. It made the hunger sharper, more contemptuous. This is what you hesitate for? This filth?

Then he saw the sixth man.

He was apart from the others, sitting on a fallen log at the tree line, whittling a piece of wood with a small knife. He was older, thinner. He wasn’t wearing scavenged armor, just simple, dark traveller’s clothes. He wasn’t drinking or laughing. His head was up, and he was slowly, methodically, scanning the tree line. His gaze passed over Eric’s outcrop, paused for a fraction of a second, and moved on.

A lookout. A proper one.

Eric’s breath caught. This changed things. This man wasn’t just muscle; he was sense. Taking the camp wouldn’t be a matter of just falling on them like a rabid animal. He’d have to deal with the lookout first, silently, or the whole camp would be alerted.

[HUNGER LEVEL: 41%]

A deep, unsettling tremor ran through his hands. He balled them into fists, the leather of Void’s gloves creaking. The sun was lower now, painting the clearing in long, deep shadows. He had time. Bastion had given him four hours. But his body was giving him far less.

He watched the whittling man. He memorized the rhythm of his scanning—left to right, a slow sweep, a pause to look at the camp, then back again. He noted when the man glanced towards the pot of food, a flicker of want crossing his stern face. He was disciplined, but he was still human.

Eric’s plan, half-formed and desperate, began to solidify. He wouldn’t charge the camp. He would draw the lookout away. Lure the sense out of the equation. Then, when the beast finally slipped its leash, it would fall on the chaos of the main camp, not on a single, wary man with a knife.

It was a hunter’s plan. It was what Void might have done.

Pushing himself back from the ledge, Eric melted back into the forest. He moved down and around, keeping the ridge between him and the camp, circling towards the side where the lookout sat. The hunger was a drumbeat now, a throbbing pressure behind his eyes. But it was a focused pressure. He had a target. He had steps.

He found a spot thirty paces from the lookout’s log, behind a thick screen of holly bushes. He could see the man’s profile through the leaves. Eric took a slow, deep breath, the mask filtering the air.

Then, he snapped a dry branch under his boot.

The sound was small, sharp. In the forest, it was as loud as a shout.

The whittling stopped. Eric saw the man’s head snap up, his body going still. He didn’t call out. He just slowly set down his wood and knife, and stood up, his hand going to the hilt of a short sword at his hip. His eyes were fixed on the holly bushes.

Eric didn’t move. He let the silence stretch. Let the man’s curiosity war with his caution.

After a tense minute, the lookout took a step forward. Then another. He was being drawn in, away from his clear view of the camp, into the deeper shadows where the trees grew close.

Eric felt a cold smile touch his lips, invisible behind the mask. The first step was done.

The hunt was on.