The sweet, sweet stench of Penelope's Curse.

I must be cursed. I must be fucking cursed. No way this amount of shit luck is normal!

Because why in the hell was I getting ready to make a leap that might just lead to my death by either high fall or getting eaten by a load of fucking monsters??

I swallowed, one hand clasped on the tree trunk while checking the distance between the shaking branch I stood on and the tree trunk nearest to me once more.

There were stray branches that could hinder my jump, holding small birds or measly leaves, but a few scratches would be their biggest threat to me. I needed to grab that scratchy, thin and sturdy trunk, climb it up somehow to reach for a second branch, stabilize and then repeat.

That was my emergency plan; Grapple onto trees and make it out of this forest. Trace my way back to the campsite once I lost the monsters and excecute The Plan.

I was a bit ahead of schedule, and the circumstances were a lot worse than they should have been. But this was nothing to me.

I let go of the used-to-be long garment I wore, now partially ripped down the front's middle and tied around my flimsy calves. Gotta-do-pants, because playing Tarzan in a wannabe dress would be suicide.

I clenched my fists to stop the shivering as I took another breath. Deep, controlled. I was not scared—no, that's for people who have time to be.

I threw a reluctant look towards the area where the large bonfire used to be. Nothing but the dim and eerie echo of night was left of the screeching and clammer that once filled this hill.

The battle—if it could be called as such— between those creatures and the knights was over. And I had a nasty hunch about who the winner of it was.

The sound of the creatures—SKRELF—had drilled itself into my memory. They were jumping up and down, their limbs moving in disproportionate moves, sending vibrations across the tree every now and then, making it clear that seeking refuge up here was not a good call.

I could barely stop myself from looking down at them. Or from measuring the fall between the branch I stood on and the ground. I waited for hours for them to leave, to forget that I was here, for someone to come for my rescue.

But to no avail. The monsters were here to stay, awaiting my descent and surrender.

The shivering in my fingers intensified, making me the more angry. I glared, eyed narrowed kn my target. I let out a long, shaky breath as I lowered my waist.

Before my precious shoes left their standing on the branch, my eyes spotted a silver shimmer in the dim below the trunk I was ready to leap onto.

Both of my eyebrows rose as a semi-hopeful look spread on my face, cocking my head to the side to get a better look at the approaching silver chun-

"Blert?" I mumbled, nose scrunching up.

There, a few meters away from the tree I was on, on the ground, Blert approached in slow, uneven steps.

He was rough around the edges, but that armor was recognizable anywhere, regardless of how bloodied and torn. The number Four plastered on his chest plate mockingly glinted at me.

"Is he suicidal or what...?" I frowned, trying to make out his whole silhouette under the faint moonlight. "Why's he walking towards the monsters...?"

He stepped closer, head down and watching the ground—not because he wasn't careful, but because he was carrying someone on his back.

Holison. It had to be. He's his cousin or whatever...

Holison lay limply on Blert's back, bleeding and unconscious. The Commander himself didn't seem very healthy, one of his arms was limp, making his carrying Holison only possible thanks to the strength in his shoulder and his remaining arm.

With that realization, I opened my mouth to yell at him to stop, but as I moved my lips, my jaw's remaining light pain reminded me of its offender.

He doesn't deser—

I shook my head.

"Go away!" I yelled down at the creatures, eyes shut to avoid seeing their nightmarish silhouettes. "You shitty MONSTERS!"

The last word echoed through the hill.

I froze as I reflected on my action.

... Why did I do that? That man has a tracking spell on me. I need him dead.

I turned back to Blert, spotting his surprised look as he seems to have spotted the source of the warning. Me.

"Shit..." Blert muttered, freezing at the sight of the monters at the tree's trunk.

SKRELF. By the next few seconds, those creatures would surely sense him.

Blert's gaze met mine, and despite the dim, I could imagine it; the tired, defeated look on his face. The pain from his injuries echoing through his entire body. The fear shaking his soul...

And I couldn't help but feel a sense of victory as I clenched my fists.

It wouldn't be my fault if he died, either. If anything, I had done more than I should have.

“HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!” The sight of Blert's chest in front of my face, and the sensation of his hurled fist on my lower right cheek came back to mind. I remember blacking out at the impact for several moments.

The excrutiating pain from forcing my jaw back into place in that miserable carriage.

“And who said I was going to kill you, wench...? I shall slit your throat just deep enough to ensure that you survive but can never again speak with that sweet voice of yours..." His poisoous whisper against my ear...

The amount of times I begged for survival because of that man...

The memories flashed through my mind, making me grit my teeth. A part of my being shriveled as I stood there, safely looking down on that measly, sorry excuse for a man. He stood there powerlessly, surrendering to his fate.

Only one of his eyes was obvious to me from this distance. A blue iris.

Suddenly, it all made sense. 

His eyes were never hazel or brown. It must have been some kind of spell.

He's been hiding his affinity for mana. How pathetic.

As he watched in what seemed to be helpless fear, I bent carefully and grabbed one of the precious shoes he gave me.

Unconsciously, I was pressing the thing so tightly in my palm it had folded onto itself.

Blert opened his mouth and spoke words I couldn't hear from this distance.

The strange, yet familial clarity which haunted my heart as I prepared to throw the shoe in his direction and point him out for the monsters and essentially cause his death was chilling... And I wished I could be angrier. 

Right. Perhaps then, if I could hide behind utter fury, behind my deserved rights as a victim of this shitty world, and behind the fact that I was so blinded by rage that, for just this once, I was estranged from the concept of reality, or duty...

Maybe then I could have it in me to kill a man.

I turned around, holding my breath. I ignored every fiber in my being that pushed me to throw the shoe at Blert and spit at him to top it off. I threw the shoe in the opposite way, watching as the cloud of monsters followed the object like the hungered beasts they were, leaving a few moments' chance for Blert to run away with that nice boy.

The sensation of the branch's rough extrerior under my bare foot, the light breeze tickling at my hair and the hardened anger abandoned in the pit of my being...

A liquid dripped down my chin, making me realize I was biting my lip too hard.

I took a breath and turned back to look at Blert, part of me hoping he was gone while the other wished he would stay and be spotted by the creatures.

He was there.

Blert was looking me dead in the eyes. The moonlight spilled through the trees, illuminating his face, revealing a grim expression that cut through the shadows. The forest felt eerily still, as if holding its breath in anticipation.

His expression held pure, undivided calm.

A bleeding nose.

Moving lips, letting out words I couldn't hear.

My eyes widened at the familiar, burning sensation climbing up from the pits of my stomach as I watched him complete his sentence.

And the pungnant rage that filled me as the realization sunk in threatened to outspill. Tears filled my lenses as his just now casted spell's effect came into play.

"—nd may she fall to her death," Blert's lips finished. With that, he hurried away, blending into the darkness.

A pained, fury-fueled grin spread across my face as the burning sensation engulfed my entire body.

"I fucking deserve this." I said through gritted teeth, eyes still wide from the realization and pain I felt.

Without a moment's thought, I took a step into the emptiness, a step I did not control.

And just as he'd cursed me to do, I unwillingly jumped off of the tree and into the pit coddling my upcoming death.

Faraji Murshaad, otherwise called Truman, had always been a rather carefree a man. One would even peg him for an airhead. Indeed, he was slow on the uptake and quite the sucker at lying.

He couldn't deny such claims at his person.

However, if there was something that Faraji was not, it was a man of broken promises.

When he snapped open his eyelids, finding himself immobilized in a pile of lifeless bodies, stacked over his own, the first thought he had wasn't about how chillingly familiar this set-up was for his fickle memory, but a question concerning the Lavender Lady.

The monsters were gone. Terrifying quiet veiled the hill, sharing the nightsky's eerieness.

The abundance of injuries on Truman was astronomical. His survival, let alone his being conscious, was nothing short of a miraculous feat.

His golden eyes sparked with worry as he took in a sharp breath, mustering all of his strength to get himself out of the suffocating mass of corpses pressing his chest and legs and leaving but space for his face to breathe.

With a few pushes and much grunting and aching, Truman, with lightheadedness and only halfway healed injuries, succeeded in getting himself out of the stack.

His senses—usually sharper than any normal human's—were dull and barely functioning.

It was idiocy, really, the fact that Truman thought he could be of any help to the Lavender Lady, whose scent was nowhere to be found to the heavy eyed Truman.

Dragging his feet, he stumbled over several corpses on the ground but quickly pushed himself up again, drawn toward it like a moth to a flame.

He had seen her climb it after he sent her away with that promise. It was at a long distance, yes, but he had seen it all.

With all the power of a fallen noble lady who's never touched the soil properly, that girl grabbed that tree with a firm grip using both hands, the tree faltered from its standing. With that same determination, she plastered her feet onto the edge of the tree, and with each climb, she left molded handprints on its trunk.

All she must have been thinking was that she needed to get to that tree's top.

And now all Truman was thinking, was how he could get to her before it was too late.

He needed to fulfill his promise. No matter how painful it might b—

Before Truman could finish that thought, he spotted her body. Relief sparked in his eyes, but it quickly faded as he saw her being flung from the high branch, falling through the air.

The pained expression on her face became clearer as he rushed toward her, igniting his sense of empathy.

He pursed his lips, seizing the moment when the monsters were distracted by something a few meters away, and lunged to catch Penelope, determined to save her from imminent pain.

Truman's vision went blurry, and the pain from his injuries that only just stopped bleeding surged through his body, awoken by the hard collapse of Penelope's body against his shoulder.

Truman set the woman down on her feet, widening his eyes to wake himself up the best he could.

"Why di—com—don—need—THERE!" With the last word and the Lavender Lady's pale expression as she pointed behind him, Truman's lightheadedness faded, letting in his survival instincts as he sensed an attack coming at him from behind.

No, it was multiple attacks.

The monsters were back, and they were here for the two of them.

Truman wanted to be of use. He truly did.

He fantasized about saving this noble lady's life, and getting rich as a result. Yes. That was all there was to it.

That gold she wore.

He needed it.

But now, as he turned and tucked the girl behind his back, all Truman could consider was whether it was worth it to even join the knights after all...

For a moment, his vision cleared, and he caught sight of the creatures that haunted the edges of the darkness. They stood grotesquely disproportionate, their limbs twisted and elongated, moving with a jerky, unsettling grace. Their eyes glowed a malevolent crimson, like embers in a dying fire, reflecting an insatiable hunger. Rot marred their skin, a patchwork of decaying flesh that dripped with a viscous, foul-smelling ooze. Jagged teeth protruded from their gaping maws, and their gnarled claws scraped the ground as they advanced, leaving trails of muck in their wake. Each breath they took exhaled a rancid stench that mingled with the night air, intensifying the terror that seeped into Truman’s bones.

Truman's eyelids became too heavy for his stubborness to carry. Blood was gushing out of his injuries once more, dying the dried dark shade of red a brighter, more vivid, and foreboding color.

The lack of blood in his limbs couldn't be healed through his lucky attributes, nor could it stand using his determination.

It was time for Faraji to surrender to sleep.

He slumped to the ground, revealing a girl with an unfazed expression behind him. Detaching her stark blue eyes from Truman, she gazed up at her newest threat, her gaze filled with eerie desperation.

Drawing a glass dagger from her clothes, Penelope licked the blood trickling from her lip and locked eyes with the blood-red orbs of the creatures facing her.

Perhaps it was because of how often her encounters with death occured, but though Penelope hadn't realized it yet... She was getting used to the feeling.