The tension was visible on everyone's faces. It was a dead end. Surrounded by trees and screams, and the curses flying above them. Then Shin spoke: "Stopping is not a good option. Let's move, let's walk along the wall, maybe we'll find a passage or something."

  The group continued moving. And indeed, what Shin said was correct. There was a cave, and near it a corpse. The corpse's body had wounds, but San glimpsed the corpse's face. It was someone he had seen, even if for seconds, hours ago. It was the young man who was being bullied. His body had wounds from the curses, but there was a deep, clear wound in his stomach. Someone had stabbed him and left him to bleed to death.

  Clarissa said: "Do you know him?"

  He replied: "No. I thought his face was familiar."

  Then San stood up and said: "Come on, let's enter the cave."

  The group entered. The cave was damp, with a straight path, and stones from which water drops fell. And there was another thing: light. There was light shining, they discovered its source was a burning fire. There was a group of more than ten people sitting near a fire. As soon as San and the others approached, they stood ready to attack. Shin raised his sword and said: "We are not curses."

  So one of them smiled and asked them to come and sit with them. When they sat down, he offered them water. He said the cave water was fresh. San looked: some of them drank it. After the others drank, he waited for minutes then decided to drink.

  A girl from the group began to speak with fear and anger: "Why are they doing this to us? We are superior to the others! We are the pride of this generation! Why are they killing us? My father will show those damned ones hell!"

  Then the person who offered the water spoke and said: "Well, it's the best academy in the kingdom. Whoever graduates from it will live the best life, and will have political and social power. For these things, some will sacrifice their lives."

  San said to the young man who was speaking: "Do you have a plan?"

  He smiled and said: "Survival is the plan."

  San grabbed Shin's shoulder, and in a voice inaudible to the others said: "Let's move." His eyes were very serious. Shin said: "Okay."

  He stood up and looked at everyone and said that he and the others were grateful to them, but they had to move. Thanks again.

  Another young man stood up and said: "Why don't you join us? Let's be a group. The more our number increases, the higher our survival rate."

  Then San spoke: "That's not an option. I prefer to move with people I know. You understand this, don't you?"

  The young man replied: "Yes, that's your right. But what about the two young ladies? Will you take them into danger? We are ten men here, safe for them. Or am I wrong?"

  Clarissa and Elena stood up and moved without saying anything. San approached them and said: "I think that's enough answer for you. Thanks for the water."

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  Then three approached and stood in front of Elena and Clarissa, their glances uncomfortable. "How beautiful they are! What do you two think, would you like one of us as a lover? But we will protect you here and at the academy."

  Clarissa began to show anger on her face, and Elena was cold as ice. As for Shin, he was holding his sword. The smiling person said: "It seems you should leave the two girls. In the end we might die, I want to enjoy ourselves before that."

  Shin spoke and said: "San, what is that on your back?"

  And when everyone looked, a sound appeared. The sound of things falling from a not-high height. When the others went to see what this sound was, came the shock. The three had their heads severed, all of them, with one strike from Shin's sword.

  San thought: He was charging his sword, distributed his cursed energy, and with the wind wave and his speed with the sword, he made the range larger. He cut their heads with one strike. He asked me deliberately and made an element of surprise for them. Their group was eleven, and we are four. Now they are eight and we are four. And with this strike, the rest will understand that one-on-one they might be doomed against us. He gave us an amazing advantage. This bastard. He's brilliant.

  Shin turned to them and said: "We will pass. Is there another objection?"

  "Why did you kill them?" said the smiling one, the smile turning to anger.

  Shin replied: "If you tell me how the one outside the cave died, I'll tell you."

  The person returned to smiling nervously: "He was wounded and died. We won't bury him in these circumstances. We would put the group at risk if we did that."

  San said: "Shin, enough. Let's leave."

  Shin didn't avert his eyes and said: "And the wound on his stomach, it's a sword wound. The only one among you who owns a sword is this scum. The same scum who was bullying him earlier today in the city."

  San thought: He saw him too. He's not a doctor, but seeing them in the morning and his experience with swords allows him to distinguish a sword wound. Connecting things isn't difficult after that. But I don't want an uncertain fight here, and we don't know anything about them. This idiot should stop.

  The smiling one looked coldly and said: "It's not good to create enmities like this. We will meet again."

  Shin didn't answer him, and continued, he and the group, into the depths of the cave, towards the unknown.

  ---

  The darkness inside the cave was heavier than they expected. After moving away from the other group's fire, the cave returned to its dark nature, damp and cold, with that faint light emanating from nowhere. The cave walls were smooth, as if carved precisely, but they seemed natural, ancient, as if they had been here for thousands of years. Water drops were falling in a steady rhythm, like a clock counting the minutes, or as if counting their lifespans.

  San was now leading them. Shin directly behind him, his sword still in his hand, and the remnants of blood still on its blade. Elena and Clarissa behind them, walking silently, their steps cautious, their eyes scanning the darkness. No one spoke. No one dared to break this silence.

  But the silence wasn't empty. It was filled with questions.

  Why did he kill them? San thought. We could have passed without fighting. We could have left things as they were. But Shin chose to kill. He chose to send a message. A message that meant: We are not prey. We are not weak. We are the ones who choose when to fight and when to pass.

  San turned to look at Shin for a moment. His face was calm, focused, showing no regret. He didn't kill out of anger, nor out of fear. He killed out of calculation. He saw the corpse outside the cave, saw the wound, saw the sword, saw the young man who bullied that poor soul in the city, and connected everything together.

  He's not stupid, San thought. He's dangerous.

  San felt something like comfort. In this world, with these companions, perhaps survival was possible. Perhaps.

  They continued walking for minutes, maybe an hour. No time here. No sun, no moon, no stars. Only that eternal darkness and that repeated damp sound.

  Suddenly, something changed.

  The air became different. It was less humid, less cold. And it carried a smell. A strange smell, not like the cave's smell. A smell of plants, and a smell of earth, and a smell of something else... something he couldn't identify.

  San stopped. He raised his hand. The others stopped behind him.

  "Do you smell that?" he whispered.

  They inhaled. Elena nodded. Clarissa closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and said in a low voice: "Outside. There is outside."

  They advanced cautiously. The tunnel began to widen, and the walls began to recede from them. Light began to appear, faint light, not like fire, but like moonlight, or like dawn light before sunrise.

  Then they saw it.

  An exit.

  The exit was circular, wide, overlooking an open space. They emerged cautiously, their eyes adjusting to the light, their hearts pounding intensely.

  They were on the edge of a slope. Below them, hundreds of meters away, was a wide valley. In the middle of the valley, there was a lake, its water clear blue reflecting the sky. Around the lake, there were buildings, ancient ruined buildings, as if a city from another time. Among the buildings, there were trees, plants, and even flowers.

  But what drew their attention wasn't the lake, nor the ancient city. It was what surrounded the valley from every side.

  Walls. Vast white walls, stretching to the sky. The same walls they had seen outside the forest. The same walls they thought were a dead end.

  But here, below, in this valley, there was something different. There was a gate. A massive gate in the opposite wall, open, emitting golden light.

  San looked at his companions. They looked at him. Then everyone looked at the distant gate, at the golden light, at hope.

  "It seems we found a way," said Shin, and for the first time since they entered the cave, he smiled.