The deep night was like a heavy velvet cloth soaked in ink, shrouding the entire outskirts of the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts. The woods were pitch-black, with only the occasional low roar of a magical beast echoing through the deathly still valleys in the distance, making one's skin crawl. A bone-chilling night wind threaded through the tangled branches and leaves, letting out faint, mournful whimpers like countless dead souls whispering in the dark. The cold slipped through gaps in clothing and pierced deep into the bones.
Only in a forest clearing did a campfire crackle. Dry branches snapped in the flames, scattering sparks, and the orange-red firelight barely drove back the surrounding cold and darkness, casting shifting light and shadow over a group of lowly mercenaries seated around it.
Their clothes were ragged, covered in dust and bits of grass. Many had rough strips of cloth wrapped around their arms and legs, faintly stained with seeping blood. Days of traveling and hunting magical beasts had long since exhausted their strength. Every face was weary, their eyelids almost too heavy to lift, yet deep in their eyes lay a trace of relief at having survived and a measure of ease. The constant tension and vigilance of the daytime had faded. Now they simply leaned languidly against rough tree trunks, chatting intermittently about the most ordinary family matters.
There were no grand declarations, no lofty ambitions. Every plain word held the sorrow of insignificant people at the bottom, swept along mercilessly by life and struggling to survive, along with a faint hope that refused to go out.
The young third-level warrior in the group was only eighteen or nineteen. His face still bore a youthful innocence that the years had not yet completely worn away, his features still boyish, but his