Joyce opened her eyes, and a bright smile appeared on her face. She jumped up in the bed, much to the dismay of one of the other two she shared it with.

»What are you doing … stop this«, Garet, the oldest of the three siblings, mumbled. He squinted his eyes and looked at her while Dilan was still asleep. »Please allow us this rest. It was an exhausting journey.«

»Oh, alright. I'm sorry.« She stood up and put on more clothes as the cold in the room assaulted her. For a moment she hesitated and looked at the warm bed but then decided not to be such a wuss. After all, hunting monsters was much more dangerous, and if she wimped out because of this, she couldn't really face true hardship.

She left the room and her two brothers behind as she decided to gather some information on this village. Since they had arrived yesterday late in the evening, she hadn't had any opportunity to talk to anyone so far, which was a shame.

So she made her way downstairs to the bar on the bottom floor of the inn. Although it was early morning, they were already some people sitting nearby and enjoying a drink. As she approached the man behind the counter raised his eyebrows. He was the owner of the inn and had welcomed them yesterday.

»I don't serve drinks for underaged lads. I am sorry.«

»I am already of age«, Joyce replied and pouted her lips. »But that's not what I am here for, anyway.«

»Oh?«, the man replied doubtfully. »What do you want then?«, he asked and stopped cleaning the mug in his hand.

Joyce put on her most enchanting smile. »I just wanted to ask for general information on this area. You know, if there's anything one needs to know. My brothers and I came here to hunt monsters in the nearby bailiwicks.«

»Is that so?«, he murmured while pouring some water into a clean mug and shoving it to her. »There are always some who come by and try their luck. Though, to be honest, it usually only rewards as much as any other day labor while being way more dangerous. Especially for fragile people such as yourself.«

»Well, I am much tougher than I look«, she replied and took a sip of the cold water. »Although I am obviously not as strong as a man in physical regards, I have quite a lot of practice with a bow and, therefore, quite proficient with it.«

»I see. So you support your two brawny brothers? In that case, I beg your pardon.«

Joyce nodded. »That's alright. So what can you tell me about the hunting? We are not too experienced with it yet. What are the best areas we should try out?«

»Hmm … that's not a trivial question. Everyone claims to know the best answers to these kinds of things. Where is the best spot to hunt? What is the best time of day? What is the best strategy? But most just talk nonsense, and those that know keep quiet about it. If you want good advice, you need to ask someone who really knows, and I am just a shopkeeper.«

»I understand. Thank you very much. Are there many other hunters currently active in this area?«

»That's indeed something I can tell you about. You actually arrived at a good time since there is currently a lack of those here. A few months ago, the local market was all of a sudden flooded with furs, meat … really all kinds of monster materials. Rumor has it everything originated from just a single anonymous seller. So many hunters left due to the falling prices and tried their luck elsewhere. By now, however, prices are essentially back to normal, but not many people have returned yet.«

»Oh wow, it does really look like we are in luck for once. But the one who flooded the market … he must be quite a skilled hunter … do you know anything about him?«

The man scratched his chin and averted his gaze when he saw her fluttering eyelashes.

»Well … as I said, no one knows for sure …«

»But you know something, don't you?«

»Well … I do know who comes and goes in this village. After all, I have good relations with all other places that offer accommodation … so I do have some suspicions.«

»So it was just somebody traveling through?«, she said with a disappointed look on her face. »That's a shame. Would have liked to meet that person.«

Seeing her without her happy smile, the man sighed. »Well, I didn't say that. But I am sorry. I can't help you any further with this. After all, it would destroy my integrity as a business person if I gave out the names and information of my customers.«

Joyce, who had lowered her eyes, suddenly looked up, a cheeky smile on her face.

»What did you say? He is staying in this exact inn?«

»No … No!«, the man exclaimed hastily and glanced at a corner of the room.

»I didn't say that«, he continued with a lowered voice. »It's absolutely not true … I already said too much, but I definitely didn't say anything like that.«

But Joyce didn't pay any heed to his words and instead turned around to see what the panicked man had glanced at.

A cloaked figure sat alone at a table with his body bent over the mug in his hand, and his face remained in the shadow of his hood.

She stared at him and emptied her own mug while the man behind the counter uttered more words of denial that only confirmed what she had inferred.

»Thanks for the drink«, she said and put the mug on the counter without averting her eyes from the target.

»Please, don't …«, the man weakly muttered, but she continued walking regardless.

As she got closer, more features caught her eye. There was a black sword strapped on this person's back. But at the same time, another one hung from his hips. She could hear him mumble inaudible words with different intensities as if he argued with himself.

Joyce sighed inwardly while making sure not to show her dismay on the outside. She glanced back at the man behind the counter who watched her.

Had she been the one who had gotten deceived? No, that was impossible. After all, his reaction was so obvious … or had it been all intentional? She realized she was overthinking this when there was no reason to. This guy probably just didn't know anything and was just stupid. But better to find out herself.

She turned her gaze towards the hooded figure again. Although she stood only two meters away, he hadn't reacted to her presence yet. And the two other empty mugs on the table she saw now didn't fill her with any hope that this wasn't just a totally drunk old geezer.

»Ahem«, Joyce cleared her throat to get his attention. The hooded figure stopped murmuring.

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»I still got«, he said. »I don't need another one.« Then he just continued behaving like before.

Joyce was stupified. He didn't sound drunk at all but, at the same time, acted totally oblivious to his surroundings.

»That's not what I'm here for«, she said.

»Hmm? I don't need anything else, thanks.«

Her face twitched just for a short moment, barely noticeable with the smile on her face.

Oh, how she hated being ignored.

Without hesitating, she closed the rest of the distance between them and pulled the hood of his head in one swift motion.

The young man squinted his eyes when the light hit his face, but that lasted only for a few seconds. As he became aware of what had just happened, he glared at her with hostility.

»Do you have a problem?«, he asked, and his hand slowly made its way toward the sword on his hips.

Joyce studied this young man's face in detail. He couldn't be much older than her or her brothers, and he looked pretty normal – if one were to ignore his black, greasy hair being all over the place and the massive bags under his eyes. That definitely wasn't what she had expected.

As his hand touched the hilt of his sword, she lowered her head apologetically. »No, I am sorry. It was my mistake.«

The young man groaned in response and hid his face once again in the darkness of his hood.

Joyce walked away, pondering what she should do. In this brief encounter, her natural allure, which usually helped her out, hadn't worked at all. So she didn't know what to do from here. She wanted to get information out of him since his identity the inn owner assumed, didn't seem unreasonable. There was something strange about that one. She needed to come up with a different strategy to get the information she wanted.

But for now, she returned to her room to wake up her two brothers since her stomach had started growling.

Vern fixated his eyes back on the table. That interruption just now had pulled him out of it. He took one sip from his mug, but it didn't change much.

›I see you're still awake‹, a voice said in his head, overshadowing all the other ones that whispered to him. ›I really think you should sleep for a bit.‹

Great, now that interruption had also gotten Velvet's attention back onto him.

›No, I am … totally fine‹, he said but noticed at the same time how his eyelids wanted to fall shut. Damn, that was all that girl's fault!

›Ok, whatever you say‹, Velvet replied and didn't press him any further. ›Just tell me when you want to actually start doing something.‹

›Shut up already!‹ He vehemently shook his head, but there was no escape. Maybe he should take a little nap …

He slowly rose from his seat and walked through the room and up the stairs.

After pushing open the door to his room, he collapsed on the bed immediately, not even having closed the door behind him. When he woke up again, the sunlight flooded his room entirely. He sat up and looked around, wondering if he had slept just a few hours or more than a day – not that he cared too much either way. At least the nightmares had spared him. xxx

After going to the bathroom, the voices started to say good morning in their own way, much clearer than he would have liked.

He took out a metal pocket bottle and noticed it was empty.

So he smashed his head a few times against his hands instead but to no avail. His intoxication levels had just dropped too much, and there was only one way to fix that.

Without the alcohol numbing him, hunger also courted him for his attention now. He wasn't sure when he had last eaten something, but given the pain in his belly, it might not have been too recent.

After going downstairs, he ordered food and drink at the bar and took his usual seat in the corner. While he waited, the voices became even more annoying as they told him to kill everyone in this room, painting horrifying images in his head. Consequently, he shifted his focus away from himself and onto the conversations that took place around him. Since it was noon, there were plenty of people around he could listen in on. Although they all talked about the same pointless stuff, it was a good enough distraction to calm his mind.

As the inn owner came to bring what he had ordered, Vern noticed him being unusually nervous. For a brief moment, he wondered if his cover had been blown, but that was way too unlikely. In this remote area, nobody knew what he had looked like even before – and even now, his appearance was entirely different.

After he had left him alone, Vern hastily drank a good chunk from his mug, and he felt the familiar warm feeling traveling through his body. He sighed and took a few bites from the food. His appetite wasn't there, but his stomach somewhat forced him to do this.

While halfhearted chewing on some meat, a conversation on the table next to him suddenly caught his attention.

»Oh really?«, one man said, doubt lacing his voice. »You're not telling me some nonsense again?«

»No, no, I swear«, another one replied. »This is real news I have picked up from the guards in one of the bigger cities I traveled through.«

»I that so? Do you know anything more specific? Why would a bailiwick all of the sudden start to expand?«

»I don't know. I mean, nobody knows as far as I know. That's why everyone is so concerned about it.«

»But if it happens in the north now, and it happened near the capital a few months ago … can it also happen with the ones around here?«

»Yeah, that's the point, right? That was what they were wondering as well. But as far as I know, it seems to be a unique anomaly, nothing we should be too concerned about. Both instances are quite far away anyway.«

»True. I've been to bailiwicks many times, and hearing something like this really concerns me. If more were to expand randomly in the future, it would force many people to leave the adjacent towns and villages.«

»Yes, it isn't a problem just yet in the north, but no one knows how much bigger it will get. After all, the one near the capital stopped its expansion and is now in regular use again. There are many rumors about what caused it there to start and stop. However, the officials keep quiet about everything. The only thing that we know for sure is that one of the heroes died in the endeavor of stopping it, so these anomalies are no cakewalks to deal with.«

Those last words pierced deeply into Vern's heart, and he covered his ears with his hands, not wanting to hear anything more that would remind him.

›You want to do anything about it?‹, Velvet asked.

›What do you mean? I can't do anything about what has happened …‹

›I mean the new bailiwick expansion. Shouldn't it only start to do that years from now?‹

Vern slowly dropped his hands on the table. ›You're right. But what am I supposed to do about it?‹

He continued eating the meal in front after the two people at the table had changed their topic of conversation.

›Isn't it obvious? For one, you could start to actually do what Durant told you by showing you those memories.‹

›But I have already looked around a lot in the forest. How am I supposed to find those Immortals? He didn't give me any information besides a vague location. What do you expect?‹

He grunted and had another sip.

›Well, at least a bit of effort. You didn't even try to gather more information from the people living here. Wouldn't you expect them to know something? But I guess that would require you to actually speak to people. Maybe that's too difficult for you, even if you're running out of time now.‹

Vern didn't reply and instead angrily chewed on some meat. He couldn't deny that at least Velvet's last point was true.

›Fine … Fine!‹, he said eventually. ›I'll see what I can find out.‹

After finishing his meal, he brought his dishes back to the counter and handed the inn owner his pocket bottle to refill. They had already done this many times before, so no words needed to be exchanged.

However, to the man's surprise, Vern cleared his throat. »Do you have a library or something … no stupid question … forget it. I mean … do you have something similar to that where I can find information on this area? Like old tales, history, and stuff?«

»Uh, sure«, the man replied. »Things like that usually fall into the purview of the village eldest. I can give you directions if that's what you're looking for.«

Vern nodded and gave the man an extra silver coin on top of the usual.

When he arrived back in his room, he drew his sword and watched his reflection in the blade. Although the image was contorted, he could tell he needed to do something about his appearance before meeting other people.

With another sip to motivate himself, he took a bath in the inn for the first time. Afterward, he felt quite refreshed, and his mirror image in the bathroom looked much better than before.

He was a little hesitant to put on his dirty clothes again, but he didn't have anything else to choose from. So had no choice but to put on his muddy cloak and pitted gloves to hide his rings.

Fully clothed, he took another look in the mirror to fully grasp his appearance.

›Oh, you really look terrible‹, Velvet commented in his head.

›What do you mean?‹, Vern replied and touched the spots below his eyes. ›Not that I can do anything about this now.‹

His hand went to his hood, but Velvet's voice made him hesitate.

›Don't do it that. A little sunlight won't hurt you and is probably good for your skin.‹

Vern wanted to object at first, but looking once more at his pale skin in the mirror, he followed Velvet's advice.

As he stepped outside into the sunlight without the hood covering his head, he squinted his eyes a few times before getting used to the brightness. Although it was winter and the sun was a lot weaker than during summertime, the reflective snow made more than up for it.

He drank from his pocket bottle one more time before he made the first step into the snow and recalled the direction he had been given.