Until now, Willow had only cast the occasional spell in battle, usually [arcane shot] but she’d never held a spell for longer than a second or two.

Her fingertips were cracked and she winced she moved. There were light burns across her body, mostly her arms, but she’d survived. The bigger problem was the throbbing in her head. She suspected that she’d fallen and hit her head on the ground.

It was a dull throb, which was a good sign. But she’d have to stay awake just in case she had a concussion. The exhaustion wasn’t helping matters, but, luckily, the screaming was helping.

“What do you mean?!” Hana yelled.

There wasn’t an answer. Not a direct one anyway, not because no one knew the answer. Mostly because Seunghyo had explained it to them two times already.

“Your father was working on a potential outbreak just south of here with a party of players a little over three months ago,” Seunghyo explained. “They received an SOS from the barony which they reported to the Society.”

“And then?” Jinyoung asked.

Seunghyo sighed. “The Society tasked your father and his team to find out what went wrong up here. Another team, Survey Team-2 was tasked with patrolling the borderlands when they received an SOS. After that, we were sent in to find our way north and make contact with the barony.”

The story was, among other things, at odds with the one that Seah had told them in Seorak. According to her, they sent in the first team before sending in two more teams after the first team. But Seunghyo’s story was different.

“That’s not what Seah told us,” Jinyoung replied. Behind him,

Hana rolled her eyes. “What a surprise.”

“The first team was sent in a few months ago to make contact. And then the next two teams were sent in afterwards to get in contact with the first team.”

Hana sighed. “That doesn’t make any sense, Jinyoung. If a survey team goes missing, at best they send a secondary team in. They don’t send in two more survey teams, especially if there’s the potential for danger.”

Jinyoung spoke softly. “So Seah lied to us.”

Hana shot him a knowing look. “We can’t trust her, Jinyoung.”

Try as he might, he couldn’t look Hana in the eye. Instead he focused on trying to think of a reason that Seah would keep this from him.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Or something else all together.

“Do we have any way of communicating with the outside world?” Willow asked. She slowly rose to her feet to rejoin.

Seunghyo flexed his hand. “We didn’t bring anything with us and aside from emergency lights and structural mechanisms, nothing else works. That includes radios.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Hana saw Jinyoung flinch.

“Then, we’d better start moving,” she said before unsteadily rising to her feet.

Jinyoung started to complain, but Willow held up her hand. “Seunghyo, is there anywhere with beds or anything here?”

While she spoke, she put a hand out to steady herself on the wall behind her.

“Well, uh… there’s a housing area not too far from here. They had some beds and furniture. That’s where I left my team,” Seunghyo said with uncertainty. “But I haven’t been able to-”

The young scholar waved her hands. “You had me at ‘beds’.”

Without a word, she limped past the others and started making her way down the hall in the direction Seunghyo had indicated.

The ‘housing area’ as Seunghyo described it was a set of dormitories. The party chose one with a door and made their wainside. The walk from the gate-lock chamber to the dorms had been short, but it felt long. Jinyoung hurried to lend Willow a shoulder to lean on to take the pressure off an injured ankle.

Meanwhile, no one spoke.

Even when they reached the comfort of the dormitories, other than a sigh of comfort, no words were spoken.

Just silence.

***

The dormitories, like the rest of the structure, were neatly organized. Personal belongings from the previous inhabitants like books and jewelry boxes were stacked on shelves.

Willow shivered. It was like everyone here picked up and disappeared.

“They’re not here,” Hana said flatly.

There were only four rooms, easily searched and it was obvious that there were no other inhabitants here.

“No,” Seunghyo responded. “They must have moved on when I didn’t return.”

Hana nodded. “We need to check the perimeter, just in case. I’ll-”

“Get some rest,” Seunghyo interrupted. “You and Willow took the worst of it. Jinyoung and I will scout ahead.”

Reluctantly, Hana agreed to the plan. She knew that Willow was in no state to enter a fight and her own reserves were depleted.

“Watch your backs,” she said as they walked away from the dormitories. Hana stood in the corridor, half in the room and half out, watching the two of them until they turned a corner and disappeared from view.

Each dormitory was a square room with four bunk beds and one point of entry. The path they had come from didn’t branch at all, meaning the gate-lock was the only entry point which they had closed behind them.

But the path ahead could branch, leaving the potential for hostiles to approach them from the front. After a bit of hesitation, Hana closed and locked the door.

“Sunbae. What he said about there being no communications…”

She had the same thought. When Seah presented the mission to them in Seorak, she played them a radio communication from Seunghyo.

“I know,” Hana replied grimly.