Chapter 54: Good Hunting

Mio

[Entering Incursion]

[??? — Grade: ???]

[Type: ???]

[Hostiles: ???]

[Time Remaining: 60:00]

The system didn’t know what she’d walked into.

That was new.

Mio’s feet hit ash. The door behind her was already gone—no bone-white frame, no darkness. Just dead trees stretching in every direction, their branches blackened and bare against a sky that wasn’t right.

Three moons. One white, one red, one the color of bruised flesh. They hung too low, too close, like they might fall. The darkness between them was thick and absolute, without a single star.

She looked up at them. Her breath fogged in the cold air.

The air smelled like smoke and something else—old meat, death that had been sitting in the sun too long.

She followed it.

The forest had burned recently. Weeks, maybe. The ground crunched under her feet—charred bark, brittle bones, things she didn’t look at too closely. The trail was easy to find. Drag marks through the ash. Footprints too large to be human.

She found the convoy in a clearing.

Wagons, overturned and gutted. Wood splintered by something heavy—axes, maybe, or clubs the size of her torso. Bodies in armor she didn’t recognize. Metal plates over leather, insignias she’d never seen, weapons rusted and scattered. The dead had been here long enough for the smell to settle into everything.

She crouched by one of the bodies. A man, maybe thirty. His armor had been torn open at the chest. Whatever killed him had been strong enough to punch through steel. His face was frozen in something between surprise and pain.

A cooking pot lay overturned nearby, next to a broken wheel. Sacks of grain had split open and were rotting in the ash.

Near the back of the convoy, a child’s body curled against a wagon wheel. Small, burned down to bone in places, but the shape was unmistakable.

Nana was eleven. This girl had been close to that.

Mio’s hands were shaking. She made them stop.

Civilians. This had been a civilian convoy with hired guards, families traveling together.

Incursions bled into her world. This felt like she’d bled out of it.

That was the theory she didn’t want to believe.

Incursion seeds.

Should have read the manual.

Her chest tightened at the sight of the bodies. The hunger wanted to check if any were still breathing.

Not yet. We don’t know what this place is.

Something moved in the wreckage.

Three figures picked through the convoy remains—cloaked, hunched, pulling rings off fingers and coins from pouches. Raiders. Mio looked at them and the numbers came without asking.

845. 931. 802.

Low—lower than most things she’d fought in C-grade incursions. But these weren’t Husks shambling toward her, weren’t constructs following programmed patterns. They moved like people—checking over shoulders, gesturing to each other, dividing the loot.

The first one saw her. His hood fell back—fur-covered face, pointed ears, teeth too sharp. Beastkin. He said something to the others, and Mio understood every word as naturally as she spoke Japanese.

That was also new.

“Well, well. Look what wandered in.”

The other two turned, same fur and teeth. One had a knife already drawn.

Mio didn’t move. In incursions, everything was a target. Here… she didn’t know what here was.

“Lost, little girl?” The first one grinned. “Bad place to be lost.”

“I’m leaving,” Mio said.

“No.” He stepped closer. “Grab her arms. Tie them up. She’ll fetch a good price somewhere.”

The one with the knife lunged.

Mio caught the blade with her right hand. The steel bit into obsidian and stopped. She squeezed. The blade snapped in half.

The beastkin stared at the broken knife. Then at her arm.

Her fingers were already around his throat. She didn’t squeeze—she pushed, and his windpipe collapsed like wet paper. Easier than it should have been.

The body dropped.

The second one swung his blade down at her head. It shattered against the obsidian arm. Shards of rusted steel scattered across the ash.

He stumbled back, weaponless. Mio stepped forward. Her fist went through his chest before he could run.

[Reservoir: 2,558 → 4,334]

Two bodies cooling in the ash. Their bloom had already flowed into her Reservoir, adding to the pool like it always did. The math was simple. The killing was simpler.

Husks didn’t beg. Constructs didn’t try to run. These two had names, probably. Bad decisions. Maybe someone waiting for them.

The third raider stumbled backward, tripping over a corpse. His hood fell back. Younger than the others—barely more than a boy. He stared at the obsidian arm and his bladder let go.

The smell hit her a moment later, sharp and acidic. He was terrified of her.

“Do your fucking job, witch!” he screamed at the shadows. Then he turned and ran, crashing through the dead trees.

Mio didn’t chase. She stood among the bodies, looking at her hand. The obsidian gleamed under the three moons like it had never touched anything at all. Clean. Always clean.

When did killing get this easy?

The answer came from somewhere deeper than thought.

Always.

Shut up.

The hunger went quiet. They both knew it was right.

A voice answered from the shadows. Low and bored, like she’d interrupted something tedious.

“There goes a third of my paycheck.”

Mio spun toward the sound.

A woman stepped out from behind a burned wagon. Gray ceremonial robes that might have been white once—faded script ran along the collar, prayers maybe, or names. The kind of thing you’d wear to a funeral. Or to make one.

Twin daggers hung at her hips, the handles wrapped in leather that shimmered faintly. Scales. Too large for any snake, too fine for any lizard Mio had ever seen.

She moved like smoke given form. Each step landed exactly where she meant it, silent even on the ash. A predator’s walk—no wasted motion, no sound.

“Although,” the woman said, looking at the two bodies, then at Mio, “you might be worth the loss.”

Her eyes found the obsidian arm and lingered. Then she inhaled, shallow and sharp.

“Ah.” Her gaze narrowed. “You have one of their monstrosities inside you.”

Then she yawned. Lazy yellow eyes caught the light of the three moons. Her ears were pointed, swept back against hair the color of ash.

An elf. An actual elf.

That’s definitely new.

[Engine: New Objective]

Eliminate hostile: 0/1

Mio looked at her and the number came.

28,000.

Her breath caught. Nearly as much accumulated life as the daemon that cost Kaito three years of his life.

The elf tilted her head. Studied Mio the way Mio studied monsters—looking for weaknesses, counting threats. Then she drew her daggers, casual as breathing.

“That arm, though.” She gestured with the right one. “That’s new. Even for your kind.”

Mio didn’t answer. Her mind was already running numbers. Exits, options.

There weren’t many.

The elf’s weight had shifted. Mori did the same thing before she struck—but Mori had handlers. Rules. Reasons to hold back.

This woman didn’t.

The elf used the left dagger to pick at her tooth. Mio could see the faintest drip of blood running down the edge.

“No matter.” She rolled her neck, something popping. “Vessels always think they’re special.”

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