Neo and Alice spent two more days together.
The tower no longer felt like so distant thing ant to mock him from the horizon. It still stood far ahead, rising above the jungle like a dark promise, but the difference was obvious now. Each morning it looked a little larger. Each evening it felt less untouchable. At this pace, they could probably reach it in a few days.
That should have been good.
Instead, the road there had grown stranger.
They found almost no Soul Beasts.
For two days, the jungle gave them long stretches of nothing, broken only now and then by the carcass of sothing that had already been killed. A spider torn open near a wall of roots. Another one half-eaten beneath a broken arch. Once, the remains of a larger beast dragged halfway across the ground, its Soul Core long gone.
Neo did not like that.
A place this alive did not go quiet for free.
Sothing was moving ahead of them, or around them, or through them. Sothing hunting well enough that it left empty stretches in its wake.
Alice noticed it too, though she never said much unless she had sothing worth saying. When she did speak, it was usually low and direct.
"Do you think it’s one person?" she asked that afternoon while they moved between black stone slabs half-swallowed by vines.
"Or sothing strong enough that the rest learned to stay away," Neo replied.
Alice gave a small nod after that and kept walking.
By the ti evening started lowering itself through the trees, they stopped near a cluster of roots and broken masonry to rest.
That was where they found the blood.
Neo slled it before he saw it. Fresh enough to cut through damp earth and leaves. Once he turned toward it, the rest ca quickly. Two bodies lay a short distance away, half-hidden under broad jungle plants. One on his side. The other flat on his back. Both dead. Both stripped of their Soul Cores.
Neo’s shoulders tightened at once.
"Focus," he said quietly. "And don’t make noise. The blood’s recent. Whoever did this could still be close."
Alice went rigid.
Her great axe appeared in her hands in a flicker of light. Neo did the sa with his sword. Neither moved toward the bodies. They stayed where they were and read the jungle around them, every branch, every patch of dark, every high angle between trunks.
A voice ca from above them.
"Neo!!!"
Both of them snapped upward.
"Oh, thank god," the voice went on. "Finally soone I know. Oh! And Alice too. Thank you twice."
Snot.
He crouched on a thick branch overhead, half-hidden among leaves, smiling like a man who had stumbled into a miracle and found it wearing familiar faces. He dropped from the tree a second later, slid a hand against the trunk to control the descent, and landed lightly in front of them.
Neo lowered his sword only a little.
"Snot?"
Snot spread both hands. "The one and only. What, you don’t recognize ? I’m hurt." He grinned, though fatigue had dragged at the corners of it. "I’ve been alone for a while. I just kept heading for the tower and hoped I’d run into soone worth seeing before I lost my mind."
Neo took him in properly.
There was blood on Snot’s clothes. Not a little. Enough to notice. Enough to make the bodies nearby feel less like a mystery and more like an answer.
He said nothing about the blood.
He had killed Nep himself. If Snot had done the sa to these two, Neo was in no position to start talking like so offended saint. Besides, Snot had already explained what his class could sense. If he had struck first, there was probably a reason.
The light kept falling around them.
Night would not wait for anyone’s explanation.
Neo flicked his chin toward the corpses. "Can I take the clothes?"
Snot followed the motion and shrugged. "Go ahead. I don’t know them." His expression shifted slightly when he glanced back at Neo’s borrowed trousers and missing boots. "Guessing a lot happened to you too. We’ve got ti, and it’s getting dark anyway. Might as well make camp."
That part made sense.
So they did.
Neo stripped the dead awakened of what he could use. It was not glamorous work, and he did not pretend otherwise, but jungle survival had no room for dignity. One pair of trousers fit decently. A shirt was close enough. The boots were ugly, worn, and much better than going barefoot through roots, stone, and whatever else this place wanted to hide under leaves.
By the ti he was done, the three of them had chosen a patch of ground hemd in by roots and low stone, with enough cover to break sightlines from a distance.
Neo built the fire.
The habit ca easily now. Dry inner bark from protected wood. A little patience. Enough control to keep the fla modest instead of stupid. The jungle darkened around them while the fire grew into a steady orange core that pushed back part of the night.
Alice sat near it with her axe resting across her lap.
Neo gave her a brief look and said, "You can sleep. We’ll take watch."
She glanced between him and Snot, hesitant for a mont, then gave a quiet nod. That was Alice. No argunt. She wrapped her arms around her knees at first, listening to the jungle and the low crackle of the fire, and eventually lay down near the roots where the warmth reached without putting her in the open.
It took her a little while.
In the end, exhaustion won.
Snot watched her settle and let out a small breath through his nose. "I really didn’t expect to find you two," he said. "But I’m glad you’re alive."
Neo rested one forearm on his raised knee and stared into the fire.
"Yeah."
Snot glanced sideways at him, amused enough to show it. "Still the sa, I see."
Neo did not take the bait.
After a brief pause, Snot tilted his head toward the bodies lying farther off in the dark.
"You’re not going to ask?" he said. "You probably figured out I did it."
Neo’s reply ca flat and easy. "Should I? If you want to talk, I can listen. I just don’t care that much. You had your reasons."
That caught Snot more than Neo expected.
For once, he did not answer right away.
When he finally did, his voice had lost so of its usual noise.
"I think I’ll feel better if I tell soone." He rubbed one hand over the back of his neck. "I was in a temporary group with them. Not long but at the sa ti long enough." His mouth twisted faintly. "My class told what it needed to tell . They were planning to kill , so I killed them first."
Neo gave a short nod.
"Good."
Snot blinked. "That’s it?"
"What else do you want?" Neo asked. "A speech?"
Snot huffed a laugh despite himself. "I don’t know. Sothing a little more elaborate."
Neo shrugged once.
"Congratulations on surviving."
That pulled a real laugh out of Snot.
"Thanks," he said. "I’ll treasure that."
The fire cracked softly between them. Sowhere beyond the roots, sothing moved through the jungle and kept going.
Snot watched the flas for a mont before turning his head again.
"And you?" he asked.
Neo frowned slightly. "What about ?"
Snot’s expression did not change much.
"Don’t do that," he said. "You know what I an." He held his gaze a second longer. "Why did you kill Nep?"
User Comments
0 comments from readers