Belna Village had been dying for six years.

No violence, no tragedy. It simply thinned out.

In the first places the village's position wasn't in favour. The highway never reached it. The valley of Mount Huma swallowed signal bars, job prospects, and any reasons to stay longer than a few weeks or months. One by one, the young left, then the families, until only the elderly remained, stubborn as the mountains themselves.

However, the village refused to vanish; it adapted. Inns replaced houses. Camping stores replaced classrooms. Public baths steamed where playgrounds once echoed. Belna became a checkpoint for trekkers and hikers, a resting place for people passing through, never about staying long.

The breath of old times, however, never faded completely.

Deep in the outskirts, beyond renovated inns and clean-lit streets, stood the old elementary school. Too large to demolish, too forgotten to claim. Broken windows gaped like mouths. Paint peeled in dead, curling sheets. Keelsevain Forest pressed close behind it, trees looming as if reclaiming what humans had failed to erase.

The school has become a hangout place for things and criminals. Litters everywhere, murals, and the smell of piss soaked into concrete which created a lasting memory for anyone who tries to get close to it.

Rumours often said it was haunted, since the building has been abandoned and tallgrass covered most of the roads that leads there. However, such places are more scary for it means, not what exists there.

Inside a rickety warehouse, two men worked in uneasy silence.

Wooden boxes lined the floor, stacked on mouldy wooden floor. Each crate landed with a heavy thud, the sound echoing too long in the hollow building. When the last box was set down, the first man dropped into a cracked chair, breathing hard. He rolled his shoulder, grimacing, like rust had settled into his muscles.

"Damn it... that should be the last one."

The second man dragged another crate in behind him and let it fall before straightening, hands on his knees. "You done already?"

"Looks like it." A foggy breath comes off his mouth "What the hell does Regan want anyway? Tells us to haul this junk all the way out here without saying why. What's even inside?"

"That's what I'm wondering too." The second man squatted, rapping his knuckles against the wood. The sound came back hollow. He smiled. "If there're barrels here, it's gotta be about fire. Didn't Regan tell us to pick up kerosene too? Sounds like he's planning something big."

The first man's expression darkened. "That's what worries me. Regan's messed up, yeah, but I want to keep my hands clean enough, man. Not such a big thing like arson. If we get caught, what do you think happens to arsonists?"

The grin widened. "I dunno. Death penalty?"

He said it lightly, like a joke that didn't deserve weight. The first man clenched his jaw. He wanted to snap back, but he'd seen what happened to people who tested that grin. The second man never questioned Regan. As long as there was money—enough for booze, food, drugs—he'd do anything. He'd beaten strangers senseless just because he was told to. No theft. No reason. Just violence.

And Regan paid him. That was enough. He never asked for anything else.

Of course, he never knows what he said about getting caught might be true someday.

He was still smiling when his body locked up.

The grin stiffened. His eyes widened just a fraction before the color drained from his face. His knees buckled, and he collapsed face-first onto the filthy floor, the impact echoing wetly through the room.

"What the hell—?" the first man began, rising halfway from his chair.

Cold stabbed through his spine. Not the weak damp chill of winter, but something sharper, like ice driven straight into his heart. His breath seized. Vision dimmed at the edges. The world tilted, and he never finished turning around before his body hit the floor beside the other man.

Silence returned to the room, cold as the pike of snow outside.

Footsteps crunched softly on creaked floor as a third figure stepped forward. A boy stood among the boxes, dark skin stark against the pale frost gathering on his fingers. Silvery hair caught the dim light, and fog spilled from his mouth with each slow breath, curling through the stale air. He looked down at the two unconscious men, head tilted slightly.

"Good grief," he muttered. "Glad I can still hold back."

Florian Simon Millet, or also his friends called him Flo.

He stood near the fallen men, hands trembling as he worked to dissipate the ice crawling over his forearms. The frost receded slowly, stubbornly clinging to his skin before finally giving way. Color seeped back into his fingers in painful pulses, needles of sensation stabbing up his wrists. He flexed them once, then twice, before pressing the small intercom lodged against his ear.

"Here's ColdRain," he reported, breath still misting in the stale air. "Two hostiles neutralized."

> "You kill them?"

The reply came instantly, crisp and familiar. It's his captain, Howler.

"Putting them out cold, literally."

He stepped around the bodies and approached the stacked crates. Up close, they were worse than he'd expected. The wood was oak, old and slightly warped, darkened by moisture. He rapped his knuckles against the surface. Sounds hollow.

"Multiple boxes," he continued, voice steadier now. "Different weights. Smell's off. Should I check the contents?"

> "Are they sealed?"

"Rubber tape. And the wood's soaked in something like oil."

There was a brief pause on the line.

> "Open one. If it's flammable and unsealed, they didn't intend to keep it."

Flo swallowed. "Roger."

He raised his hands, hovering them inches from the crate. The temperature in the room dropped sharply as his Gift activated. Air crackled, snapping faintly as moisture condensed into frost. His skin paled, veins standing out beneath it, while his hair shifted in hue — dark strands blooming into a luminous violet sheen. Above his head, a thin halo formed, white and blindingly cold, radiating soft light against the rotting walls.

Ice crept outward from his palms, spreading across the box in delicate, branching patterns. The rubber seal stiffened, then froze solid. Six seconds passed. Seven. Flo exhaled, a thick plume of white fog spilling from his mouth as the halo flickered and vanished. Warmth rushed back into his limbs, sharp enough to make his jaw clench.

He tapped the seal once.

It shattered like glass.

Flo's Gift, ⟨Radiator⟩, was an affector-type ability. He could transfer heat between points, siphon it away entirely, or absorb it into himself, converting excess thermal energy into light through his hair and halo. The colder he forced a target to become, the brighter the manifestation grew. It was efficient. It was brutal. And it always demanded a price.

He gripped the wooden plank and lifted.

His breath caught.

A face stared back at him, with the eyes wide open. With pupils blown and glassy.

"Corpse!" he said into the comm, forcing his voice level. "Boxes are filled with corpses. That explains the weight variance."

It was a woman. Mid-twenties, maybe. Small frame, under fifty kilos at most. Her body had been twisted violently to fit inside the crate; head forced between her legs, limbs bent at angles that made Flo's stomach churn. Her hands were pressed over her mouth, fingers stiff and contorted. Oil soaked her clothes and skin, the smell sharp enough to sting the back of his throat.

They hadn't just killed her.

They'd prepared her.

> "As expected. They're likely the robbery suspects from weeks ago. Faces were already recorded. No way to erase that trail without eliminating them."

"And they brought the bodies here to burn them," Flo added, covering his nose. The oily stench coated his tongue, thick and nauseating. "Total disposal."

> "Most likely. Document everything. Then move on."

Flo nodded, even though Howler couldn't see it. "Understood."

He pulled a compact camera from his pocket — Roxley Security Division issue, silent shutter, encrypted storage. He photographed the body, the crate, the oil residue, and the unconscious men nearby. Each click felt heavier than the last.

When he finished, he hesitated.

The corpse's eyes were still fixed on him.

Not accusing. Not pleading. An empty eyes, yet somehow full of memory. Flo wasn't a forensic specialist. He didn't need to imagine what had happened here. He could picture the struggle, the bones bending, the breath forced out as a living body was twisted like wet laundry.

He lowered the lid.

"May you rest in peace," he murmured.

The box closed with a dull thud.

Flo straightened, shoulders tense, and turned away from the room. As he walked, he pressed the intercom again.

"ColdRain reporting. Warehouse secured. Moving to the rendezvous point."

> "Copy, ColdRain."

His footsteps echoed as he left. The cold finally fading from his skin, but not from his thoughts.

When Flo stepped out of the warehouse, the first thing that caught his attention wasn’t the school ahead—but the sky.

Red light bled through the clouds, thick and uneven, staining the frozen ground and stretching shadows into long, warped shapes. He narrowed his eyes and stopped walking, giving himself a full second just to look. Belna Village sat high on a hill, and from here the city of Argon unfolded below him—rooftops, streets, distant lights—quiet and unaware beneath that crimson canopy.

The view was almost beautiful.

Cool air brushed against his face, sharp with winter’s bite. That much was expected. But then the cold pressed harder against his forehead, unnatural and sudden. Flo frowned and tilted his head up just as a pale drop landed on the bridge of his nose.

Snow.

It was starting to snow.

His jaw tightened. As the sun dipped fully beneath the horizon, the red only deepened, like a wound refusing to close. Flo turned away from the view, a single thought settling uncomfortably in his mind.

What a nice sight, he thought, bitterly. Right before everything goes wrong.

> “GreenEyes to Howler, reporting bad news. No kerosene found in the southern building. No hostiles found, over.”

Rosa’s voice cut cleanly through the radio static. She had been searching for flammable fuel alongside Klaus. Flo barely had time to process her report before another transmission followed.

> “Porter to Howler. No kerosene found in the library either. But the smell of oil is everywhere. Most likely it’s already been poured throughout the area.”

Silence answered them.

Not radio static—real silence. Several seconds stretched on, heavy enough that Flo became acutely aware of his own breathing, the crunch of frost beneath his boots as he started walking again. He moved through a narrow corridor, past rows of rusted shoe racks, metal warped by age and neglect.

The rendezvous point was supposed to be Classroom 6–1.

Supposed to be.

> “Howler to all Surveyors. Abandon the rendezvous. A suspect is fleeing toward the East Wing. All units, hold your fire. Capture him alive.”

Flo stopped completely.

His eyes lifted toward the teacher’s building—the only structure in the eastern section of the school. For a fraction of a second, his body hesitated.

Then his legs moved on their own.

“Copy,” he said, already turning. “ColdRain on the move.”

> “GreenEyes on the move.”

> “Porter to all Surveyors, visual on the suspect. He’s climbing the stairs past the teacher’s room. Pursuing.”

The snow continued to fall, thin and quiet, as the hunt began.