I walked straight toward a barely discernible target, which for a moment appeared in the haze. The disease-ravaged brushwood crumbled to dust as soon as I touched it with my boot. The skulls of small animals that had been exposed to the sulfur that had forced them out of the forest crunched beneath my feet. Here, on the border, one could feel the struggle of the last guardian of the Darkwoods and the eerie gray earth pulling the life out of the entire forest.

"Yes, this was the castle to which the waystone pointed. There, at the crossroads, I made a note to the other hunters that I was leading the work here for them to move on. But it felt like there was no one behind me. How many of us were there? Fourteen? Fifteen if you count the hunter who took part in the tournament itself? This is definitely the place the forest villagers were talking about. Nearby, near it, there must be a village, what did they call it? Sgulli… Sgugli? I don't remember." The headwind gutted the remains and ashes, and even through the mask my throat choked and I coughed. I had to cover myself additionally with the edge of my cloak. The fine particles floated like mist, so I didn't see the charred hulk of the village building right away.

I wandered around the ashes. It was all that remained of what had once been a fairly large settlement. I saw an anvil among the ruins of one of the houses, and an unpleasant feeling came over me. With bitterness I remarked to myself, "There was even a smithy here long ago, but despite its size, the settlement still perished." My face was covered by the mask of a milchemist, so I wasn't afraid to breathe. But the air in this small depression in front of the castle where the village was located still felt stifling. Burnt houses and huts. What had happened here? The dust storm had intensified, but the Titan Jodkheim was at the zenith of its power, shining through everything for twenty meters around. A premonition visited me, and I raised my green lantern higher. Ahead, the silhouette of a stray dead man emerged from the shadows of the haze around him. He took a couple more steps forward, then jerked sharply and turned toward me. He saw me.

"Wheeewurrrgh!" came the shroud of mischief from all directions. The dead man ran when he saw his prey, and another and another followed him out of the mist with his hands out in front of him.

I stood in the protective stance of an aspid, lowering the sting of my spear downward. As soon as the enemy approached, I sliced him open with a swift thrust of my spear. Another swing followed, and then another. One blow, one corpse. All the dead came at me from the same direction. It was as if all the former inhabitants of the village had gathered in one place for some reason. I took step after step back under their onslaught, chopping up the mindless bodies.