The woman had a confused expression on her face, and looking at the group of boys whose ages varied by a lot, her perplexed expression only grew. "There are two, but where are your parents?"

Already expecting such a line of questioning, Melvin was prepared, and he began explaining, "We used to live in a small shack, but it was destroyed due to its poor conditions. We just want to stay here for a while until it's fixed. Here..." Finishing his piece, he stretched out both palms revealing dozens of silver coins.

The woman's brows slightly furrowed, and after a measurable silence, she said, "There are two rooms left. 5 silver coins a night without food, and 7 with food."

Still smiling, Melvin took out five silver coins and said, "Alright, we'll take a single room."

The woman shook her head, rejecting his offer, "We don't do single-day lodging, three at the minimum."

Melvin didn't argue much with her and immediately handed her fifteen silver coins, but then he thought of something, 'I will be trying out some new runes, and I can't do it in front of the others, and I also don't know this area that well...'

Gritting his teeth, he took out another fifteen silver coins, "Here, we'll take your two rooms without food for three days."

The woman's expression was still of nonchalance and laziness, which bothered him quite a bit for some reason. "Here," she mumbled as she gave him two keys, "Rooms three and five."

Without even saying a "Thank you" like he usually does, he nabbed the keys from her palms and walked back to the group. He gestured for them to follow him, and they climbed the stairs to the first story.

Reaching there, they found that the layout was quite simple. A long hallway with several doors on each side, he turned around to George and said whilst giving a key, "You guys take room three, I'll go to five on my own." Noticing his peculiar reaction, Melvin continued, "I need to work on something necessary and I need a bit of quiet and solitude."

He walked with the group until they reached the door that had the number three, and George gently turned the key and opened it. Inside were two simple single beds on the right side of the room, a desk and a chair on the left, and some long windows hidden by a dark brown curtain.

Observing that everything looked good, he told them to go rest. After leaving their room, he walked back to his which was on the opposite side, and true enough when he opened it, there weren't any windows in there, giving it darker lighting, but a cozier atmosphere. He stepped foot inside and closed the door behind him.

...

Just as George had guessed, when the stable guard noticed their suspicious behavior he entered the stable to make sure everything was alright. To the man's absolute shock, the young boys had ruthlessly killed one of the coachmen, leaving his lifeless body sprawled in a pool of crimson blood.

Witnessing that scene, he knew that he had to act. He was a soldier first and foremost, and so if he saw something he always intervened. Using his absolute speed, he ran toward their shack and blasted the door open. The scene that greeted him was something he was sure would stay with him for the rest of his life.

Although he was a soldier and had seen plenty of bloodshed in his lifetime, all of those bodies were still intact, just dead.

There was something just sick, gruesome, and deeply unsettling about sliced-up body parts, especially if they were huddled up in a long pile. The sight made him freeze for a solid three minutes, his mind's wheels slowed down to a crawl as he took everything in.

For some reason, the thing that scared most of them was the heads. In a circular pattern, four heads surrounded the pile of body parts. Their eyes open and their facial expressions frozen in both fear and misery.

Realizing the seriousness of the situation, he returned to the stables in a hurry. Undid the knot of a nearby horse, and bolted toward the nearest area that had guards, the southern gate.

Needless to say, the moment they heard the news he was relaying, a group of six guards and a captain followed after him. Even a reporter was shopping by in his day off and witnessed the peculiar scene and decided to follow after them, in case there was anything interesting.

When the group followed after the stables' guard on his horse, and they entered the shack, they had the exact same reaction as him. Looking at this scene of carnage and filth they felt a deep discomfort swell within them.

The group then continued toward the stables to see the other body, and they soon found it.

However, one of the guards felt that something was amiss when he heard the full recount of the stable's guard story.

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His gaze studied the ground beneath, and though there was just a layer of shit, he noticed some traces. The one that stood out to him the most was none other than one that was slightly deeper than the others, and he immediately reasoned that someone must've jumped for it to result in this. Thus, his steps gradually guided him to the stable's door, and threw a look inside.

At first glance, nothing looked amiss. Three beasts, with some bones beside them. Business as usual. But for him who had already approached with suspicions, he scrutinized everything that he saw more deeply.

A very single thing stood out to him, the fact that the bones were too thin. He knew that most coachmen who had carnivorous monsters only got them Ironhide Bulls meat because it's the cheapest. But all of these beasts who presumably belonged to different coachmen, had these thin bones lying around them. And taking everything he had learned about this incident so far, the bags, the body parts, and so on, his mind immediately connected the dots.

"Captain, there are still a few bodies here." He turned around and yelled to the captain who was speaking with the reporter. Upon hearing such news, the duo quickly approached.

After they heard the young soldier's assessment, the captain hastily agreed climbed the door, and jumped. Although he could have just broken the lock, he didn't want these coachmen who already struggled to make ends meet to be obligated to buy another lock.

Scaring the monsters with his strength, he gathered all of the bones and took them out. By then, several guards had also noticed that something was amiss in this area as they were patrolling and approached them.

The group collaborated and they pieced the bones together, and in the end, what took shape before them were two skeletons. They instantly knew that these came from the remaining two bodies they had been worried about.

They could easily tell from the pile that although there were four heads, it was too small to contain body parts from four. Now, this answered their questions.

The reporter began to jot down and draw everything and made sure to note every important information. When he finished there, he approached the stable's guard and began assaulting him with a barrage of unending questions about the boys.

...

*Thud*

The door closed behind Melvin, and he momentarily paused for a minute or two, taking everything in. He steadily walked towards one of the beds, put his bag, and sat down next to it.

'What now?' He thought, both confused and somewhat hopeless. Along the way, George had been hammering on him how the guards had been very active recently.

He was certain that the moment the stable guard found the dead body, he would alert the guards who in turn would go through their shack and find the pile of bodies. And because of the death of the daughter of the vice-president of the adventurer association, the guards will work extra hard to catch them.

What made him terrified about all of this, was the fact that the introduction of magic and supernatural abilities made his knowledge completely obsolete.

'What if there was a skill that showed them exactly where we are?' He pondered, and it didn't sound that much improbable. An old habit unconsciously took over, as he started biting his nails while blankly staring at the ground, lost in thoughts.

After a while, he stood up brushed his sweaty palms against his pants, and began going through his bag.

He took everything that he needed and began the process of creating his own Ink once again. Using a similar brick and a book he found on the table, he positioned the piece of metal on top of them and began lighting the candles.

Once that was done, he scrapped everything off and began mixing the ingredients with different ratios than last time.

Glancing at his final creation, Melvin slightly nodded, 'It seems better?'

He took out his remaining 16 pages of parchment and began writing. Although he wanted to experiment more with the story because he understood how the concept of storytelling was filled with infinite possibilities, he didn't have the leisure to do so.

His survival was only hanging by a thread, and that he knew very much. Taking that into consideration, he went with the already proven method. To write something that had happened to him, that he understood, and affected him to a big degree. In other words, just this morning.

He woke up to a punch whose sting could still be felt from the tinge of pain his lips would send whenever he spoke as the wound brushed against his teeth, and then one thing led to another, and found himself chopping up bodies like a butcher and feeding them to the beasts.

As he began writing, he quickly noticed how much this quill felt perfect in his hand, unlike the last time. "Thank god I went and asked." He thought, his heart filled with both satisfaction and anticipation as to how it'd affect his rune.

Although his state of mind was slightly in turmoil which wasn't ideal for writing, he attempted to use that same anxiety and channel it into his work. Paying more attention to his way of writing as the skill suggested it was important, he found that now he had the liberty to explore the issues more deeply, which in turn allowed him to incorporate more details, something that factored in the strength of the rune.

From time to time, he would pause, and start walking to and fro in his room. Then as if enlightenment would strike, he would frantically rush to the desk and start writing again.

The process took around three hours before he finally put down his quill with a satisfied expression on his face.

He stood up from the chair and stretched as a wide toothy grin sneaked onto his face. After doing that, he pushed the chair to the side and stood before the table glancing down at the parchment that had 10 pages filled.

Taking a brief glance at his Interface, he noticed that the mental energy used in creating the ink had already recovered, and he exhaled a long breath and began.

Moving his palm above the parchment, he triggered the skill, something that felt very natural and instinctual. As his mental energy moved through his body and out of his palm, it began to transform under the miraculous effects of the skill of a Legendary class. Paying attention to his mental energy, he continued pouring drop after drop. The moment a slight headache was felt, he instantly stopped the skill and patiently watched.

The astonishing process began to take shape once again. Arcane symbols danced, and ink-black characters swirled around them. The two ingredients soon began merging, before their previous forms were forged and refined under a magical dance until what remained was a pure form of energy that coalesced into each other.

[Congratulations! You have created a Rune: Endless Carnage]