The forest thinned slowly, trees turning from twisted towers of glitch-flicker into gnarled oaks and crooked pines. The ground softened underfoot. The air smelled like smoke, soil, and old things—familiar, almost.
Ahead, beyond a rise of mist-covered earth, nestled in the valley's curve, sat a village.
"Elsbeth," Seris said quietly, voice stripped of the earlier sarcasm. "Home."
Ashen followed her gaze.
It was… smaller than he expected.
Most houses were made of rotting wood, patched stone, and thatch worn thin by seasons of neglect. Fences stood broken, fields half-harvested, and several rooftops bore signs of fire or claw damage. Chickens wandered freely. A single windmill creaked in slow, uncertain rotations. Everything seemed like it was trying to stay alive out of spite.
Ashen felt something tighten in his chest.
They walked into the village together.
People noticed immediately.
Heads turned. A few children stopped playing with rocks and sticks, watching the newcomers with wide eyes. A farmer paused his work in the field, hand shading his face. An older woman pulled her laundry off the line and hurried inside. A man sharpening a spear stood up straight, eyes narrowing.
No one raised a weapon—but no one smiled, either.
Seris gave a small wave. "He's with me."
The villagers relaxed—slightly. But the stares lingered.
Ashen couldn't blame them. He was an unknown figure in a forgotten place, following a bloodied healer with half her mana and a newly reset shoulder.
A tall man approached them—gruff, armored in leather, with a scar across his nose and a war axe strapped to his back.
"Seris," he said, voice deep but not unkind. "We heard screams."
"Glitched spawn. Big one," she replied, gesturing to her shoulder. "Would've ended me if he hadn't shown up."
She nodded toward Ashen.
The man turned to him, assessing. "Name?"
"Ashen Vale."
The man extended a hand. "Darin. Local defense head. Welcome to Elsbeth—such as it is."
Ashen shook his hand. Firm. Calloused. Real.
Darin turned back to Seris. "You alright?"
"Been worse."
He gave a grunt. "That's not reassuring."
Another voice called out from behind. A small girl, no older than nine, ran up and threw her arms around Seris's waist. "You're back! You promised you'd be back before the moon rose!"
Seris winced slightly, then bent down and hugged her back. "Told you I keep my promises, didn't I?"
Ashen watched that moment—quiet, soft—and felt something strange stir inside him. Something warm. Familiar.
It almost hurt.
---
Over the next hour, Seris gave Ashen a slow tour of Elsbeth.
She showed him the town center, where villagers gathered to eat from shared stocks. The old well, now sealed because the water had started… flickering. The grain storage, where they'd recently lost two sacks of food to a glitched rodent that exploded on impact. The guard posts—four of them—manned by tired, underfed men wielding mismatched weapons.
"We keep rotations," Seris explained. "Three during the day. Four at night. Doesn't matter if you're a smith, farmer, or widow. Everyone picks up a blade now."
"And the monsters?" Ashen asked.
Seris's face darkened.
"They've changed."
They sat near a splintered bench overlooking the east ridge. Smoke curled from a nearby chimney. Villagers moved past, still eyeing Ashen, but not with hostility anymore—just wariness.
"I've fought monsters before," Seris said, staring at the horizon. "But these… glitched spawns? They're something else. They don't act like normal creatures. They… loop. Freeze. Scream like corrupted audio. They target people not because they're hungry—but because something tells them to."
She went quiet.
Ashen didn't speak.
She continued. "Last month, a boy from the eastern huts went missing. Found him by the riverbank. His body was… bent. Like his joints had been rewired. Eyes gone. Teeth melted. We thought it was an isolated attack."
She looked at Ashen now.
"It wasn't."
Ashen's stomach turned.
"I'm sorry."
Seris shook her head. "We burned the body. Cleansed the zone. Even tried calling the Adventurer Guild for backup."
Ashen tilted his head. "They didn't come?"
She laughed bitterly. "No profit. No guild bounty. They won't waste their elites on a village that isn't even on the official map."
She paused. Her voice dropped.
"They're coming more often now. The glitched ones. Stronger. Smarter. They're not just attacking—they're adapting. And we don't know why."
Ashen looked down at his hands.
The image of the glitched soldier convulsing.
The monster that shattered just by touching him.
He was an error.
A thought crept in—unspoken, cold, and cruel.
What if it's me?
What if he brought this with him?
What if every step he took destabilized the world further?
What if Elsbeth's pain—the loss, the death, the screams—was all because of him?
His chest felt heavy.
"I might be…" he murmured, but stopped himself.
Seris looked at him. "You alright?"
He nodded, lying without words.
The guilt remained. Sharp. Quiet.
---
They sat in silence for a time.
Then, from across the village, a horn sounded.
Three short blasts.
Seris shot to her feet.
Darin came sprinting from the far path, his axe already drawn. "North perimeter! We've got a breach!"
Ashen stood. "Another one?"
Seris was already moving. "Too soon. I just cleared that path."
They followed the others past the fields and outer fence line.
Villagers armed themselves—bows, spears, tools. The defense line formed fast and desperate.
And then, from the tree line—
A shape burst through.
Not a normal monster.
Not a beast.
Aglitched spawn.
It ran wrong. Limbs flickering between lengths. Joints snapping mid-movement. Its eyes were not eyes—they were hollow sockets emitting red binary glow. Its skin shifted textures—stone, fur, bark, then back again.
And it was fast.
"MOVE!" Seris shouted.
An arrow loosed.
The spawn phased midair—vanished, reappeared two feet left—and kept charging.
People screamed.
Ashen stepped forward.
The thing's eyes were locked onto him.
And it was coming for him.
---
To Be Continued…