A moment later, the door opened, and a group of people in black cloaks filed out.
Strangely, there wasn't a soul in sight on the street. Beneath the fog, only a line of faint footprints stretched toward the outskirts of the village.
The ground outside the village was soft, and the footprints were clearer, but the fog shrouded everything.
Rustle, rustle...
"Captain, did you hear something?" a voice asked nervously from beneath a cloak.
"Stop!" the middle-aged Captain said sharply. The group came to a halt at once.
Rustle, rustle...
The middle-aged Captain's hair stood on end. He whirled around and looked in every direction, but the faint rustling sounds abruptly disappeared again.
His unease only grew.
At some point, the fog had thickened, turning everything gray and indistinct.
"Could it be bamboo shoots breaking through the ground? It just rained," one of the party members guessed.
The words exploded in the middle-aged Captain's mind like a thunderclap. His pupils contracted, and he cried out urgently,
"They're underground! Move!"
Before the words had left his mouth, he pushed off with both legs and shot forward. Most of his invisibility faded, revealing a hazy silhouette.
He had run only a few meters when he abruptly stopped, staring blankly ahead, his face ashen.
"Captain, you..."
The lean, dark-skinned Ranger followed close behind, but when his gaze swept over the night, he couldn't get another word out.
Dense fog enveloped them. One thing after another broke through the soil and crawled out, staggering as they surrounded the group. Shadowy figures filled the area; there was no telling how many.
Grinning bones and the stench of corpses surrounded them. It was as if they had fallen straight into the Shadowfell, despair spreading like the fog.
The middle-aged Captain felt cold to the bone. "Undead..." he murmured.
"Where are the lookouts? Why didn't they report—" the lean Ranger roared in despair.
It was a foolish question. The scouts had already vanished into the fog.
But only by venting could he feel that his body still belonged to him, instead of being controlled by despair.
He turned to look at the Captain, his heart full of regret. The Captain's instincts had been right. Something really was wrong here.
The other members of the party stared blankly, drawing their weapons by instinct as they gazed around in a daze.
"Aren't those the bodies we buried?" the Dragonborn said, pointing ahead with a trembling finger.
The middle-aged Captain looked in the direction he indicated. A group of bloodstained Zombies were staggering toward them. They wore the tattered clothes of refugees, and their bodies showed no signs of decay.
They looked just like the refugee corpses the group had disposed of over the past few days.
"We've been living in their lair this whole time," the Dragonborn murmured.
"Stay calm!" the middle-aged Captain roared. "Do you want to live or not?"
He kicked the others one by one, forcing them to snap out of it and fight. "Get a grip! Grab your weapons! Form a charge..."
At his orders, everyone obeyed without thinking, and a faint glimmer of hope stirred within them.
With a metallic clang, the middle-aged Captain drew his longsword and pointed it ahead. "Everyone, follow my lead. We'll break through toward that camp. Charge—"
"Kill!"
There were barely a dozen of them, yet they cut through the horde like a sharp blade, surging forward and covering over a hundred meters in no time.
But the Undead that had just crawled out quickly reacted. They swarmed toward the humans and surrounded them completely.
The party was mired in a swamp, unable to advance or retreat.
A powerful sense of unease stirred Anse from his sleep.
He jolted awake. The tent was pitch-black, and it was quiet outside. Everything seemed normal.
Click. His pocket watch sprang open. The faintly glowing dial showed that it was just past two.
"This unease..."
He quietly got up, put on his shoes, and picked up his staff. As soon as he opened the tent, damp fog washed over him, carrying a faint stench.
"Where's that smell coming from?"
He closed the tent and looked around.
A faint snore came from Brat's tent. A large bird perched on a dead tree stump nearby, and a figure sat beside it.
Noronos was standing asleep beside the tent. At the sound, he shuffled over and rubbed his big head against Anse's chest, nearly knocking him over.
Finn approached with a lamp. Seeing the solemn look on Anse's face, he froze. "What's wrong?"
"Something's not right!" Anse felt deeply uncomfortable, though he couldn't say why. "When did the fog get this thick?"
"Probably... sometime before dawn," Finn replied uncertainly.
"Get Gray Hawk up there to take a look." Anse patted his arm.
At Finn's command, Gray Hawk gave an irritated cry, but still beat his wings and flew into the sky, circling low over the area several times.
"I don't see anything." Finn shook his head at Anse.
"No, no, no..." Anse muttered.
That uneasy feeling had returned. His chest felt tight, but he couldn't figure out why.
His gaze fell on the staff in his hand. He jolted, and one word slipped out. "Magic!"
Something was wrong with the magic in this area, though it was subtle. Magic Control had detected an anomaly, but couldn't determine its source.
"Go pack your things."
Leaving him with those words, Anse swung onto Noronos and galloped east toward a grassy slope.
The sound of hooves broke the silence of the night, waking many people.
As soon as Anse crossed the slope, the holy symbol against his chest suddenly grew scorching hot. Radiance streamed through the gaps in his cloak, illuminating his face.
But gray fog filled the view ahead. He couldn't see a thing.
He turned around and left without the slightest hesitation.
Noronos galloped straight back into the camp, startling the night watchmen into gaping at him.
"Wake everyone up! We're leaving right now! Hurry—"
Emon hurried out of his tent, bare-chested. "What happened?"
Anse said nothing. He tugged at the chain around his neck, pulling the holy symbol on his diamond necklace out from beneath his cloak. Its brilliant light dazzled everyone.
"The holy symbol!" Emon froze, then immediately understood. "Quick, quick, wake everyone up!"
He had no idea what was happening, but he recognized the holy symbol of the God of Justice!
"Forget the tents! Leave your belongings! Put on your shoes, grab your weapons, and move!"
Emon ran around camp with his axe in hand. Whenever he saw someone dragging their feet, he slapped them, growing more and more frantic.
When Anse returned to the campsite, Finn and Brat had already packed everything except the tents.
"Head west."
As he spoke, he tied the packs together and slung them over the horse's back. Then he mounted and rode off without waiting for Emon and the others.
Finn jogged after him. Brat's eyes wavered, and he hesitated for a few seconds before choosing to follow Anse.
"What's going on?"
"I don't know."
"Huh?"
The people from the Stonemason Guild's camp also trickled out. They came in small groups, looking disgruntled, and trailed far behind.
Emon and Alva didn't emerge for several minutes. They ran while glancing behind them, but beyond the fog there wasn't so much as an insect's chirp or a bird's call.
Just then, a brilliant light suddenly flared behind them, drawing everyone's gaze.
A scorching radiance burst through the churning fog, tearing through the mist and darkness and spreading across dozens of meters.
Wherever it passed, shadowy figures collapsed to the ground. The fog scattered, and even the moonlight grew clearer.
The thin wisps of mist left behind couldn't conceal the scene below. Hundreds of shadowy figures appeared in the haze, their eyes aglow with ghostly blue, sickly green, and ashen light. They formed a sea of light, as if the underworld had descended, making everyone's hair stand on end.
"Undead!" Emon forced the word through his teeth.
Among the horde, only a few hundred meters from the camp, a hazy group of figures charged this way and that, but couldn't escape the encirclement. One by one, they fell.
With the fog no longer hiding them, the Undead on the outskirts sensed the living nearby. They paused, then began pursuing them in twos and threes.
Everyone stood stunned for a moment, then turned and ran, putting every last ounce of strength into it. Not a trace of their earlier resentment remained.
"This doesn't have anything to do with me, does it? They would've run into this even if I hadn't come."
Anse had a mount, so he wasn't too worried.
Before you continue