San lifted his eyes from Elena's wound. He could no longer bear the sight of the blood, that humiliating, vital reminder of their frailty. He directed his gaze towards the training yard.

  The sight was worse than he had imagined. The yard had transformed into a horrific tableau. Corpses were scattered, some dismembered, others intact but with eyes open to emptiness. Among them, black masses of Class E monsters moved slowly, feeding. The air was thick with the smell of blood, rot, and burnt flesh. What had been a sanctuary had become a trap, a slaughterhouse.

  The idea of reaching Jake, Shin, and Sarah behind the other building was impossible. The open space between them was filled with dangers. There was no longer any plan but survival, survival alone.

  And the curses were spreading. Emerging from every crack, from every shadow. Time was running out.

  San looked towards the main building, searching for an exit. And suddenly...

  His heart stopped.

  Less than three meters away, the thing stood.

  It was a distorted semblance of a human. Its height easily exceeded three meters, its body unnaturally tall and slender, covered in a pale, waxy skin. From every orifice in its body seeped a glossy black substance that burned the ground beneath it. It wore tattered remnants of the guards' blue uniforms, fused to its skin.

  Its eyes were completely black. But San felt its gaze. There was a cold curiosity in that stare.

  San felt a weight on his head. A physical sensation, as if being pressed from above. He tried to resist, but his head bent downward, slowly, with terrifying steadiness.

  What is this curse? It's different.

  His thoughts scattered. Why don't I stop? Maybe it will leave me if I submit.

  But the movement continued. His head was approaching the ground.

  This is going to hurt.

  Crunch!

  A cold shock exploded in his forehead, then a burning pain. The sound of his own skull bone shattering against the gravel.

  He lay on the ground. He was conscious. He felt moisture on his cheek.

  A warm, thick fluid wet his face. It was black. Not his blood.

  With immense effort, he turned his eyes – the eyes that were still in his head on the ground – to see.

  And he saw his body sitting headless. Blood was gushing from its neck.

  And beside it, Elena was suspended in the air on a long, black blade protruding from her abdomen. She was screaming, but the scream was muffled. The monster was carrying her as it walked.

  Then the monster stopped. It tilted its head. And licked the blood dripping from the wound on her shoulder. A tasting motion.

  My head... is cut off. I'm dead.

  He watched the monster walk away, carrying Elena. He saw the end.

  I don't want to die.

  From the depths of his consciousness, a memory of his ability surged forth.

  Return to Origin. One organ. My head only.

  He focused on his head. On its image, intact, attached. Two seconds ago.

  He felt energy surge from him, concentrated on only one organ.

  Return.

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  There was no world-flipping sensation. There was a feeling of a sudden shift.

  Then he was sitting. His head was on his shoulders. No pain. No bleeding. His neck was completely intact, as if it had never been severed.

  He looked at his body. It was whole. Clean. There was no blood.

  But the memory... was present. He remembered dying.

  He looked around quickly.

  Elena... was still impaled on the monster's blade. She was still screaming. He hadn't saved her. He had only saved himself.

  Then, suddenly, came the sounds. Battle cries. War shouts. But they weren't sounds of panic; they were sounds of organized anger and courage.

  From the destroyed gate, the two groups poured out together in suspicious timing. The First Group that guarded the academy and went out monthly to escort resources, and The Second Group that went out daily for exploration and hunting. Each group numbered over fifteen fighters; the First Group had Class C fighters, and the Second had the strongest Class D fighters. And it was a coincidence that the curse attack came when both were outside the academy.

  If it wasn't a coincidence, then the survival of humans in this Kingdom to withstand such timing was truly impressive.

  The fighters entered with astonishing speed. They were clearing the monsters with lethal efficiency. San saw one of them kill over eight Class E curses in moments.

  The waxy monster, which was carrying Elena, stopped. It looked towards the new commotion. Then, as if deciding the spoils were no longer worth the trouble with more challenging prey available, or as if the noise of battle annoyed it, it did something.

  It threw Elena aside.

  She fell to the ground a few meters away and curled up on herself.

  An opportunity. Born from chaos.

  San hesitated for a moment. Crossing that exposed space now... But seeing her there, discarded, made something inside him rebel.

  He launched forward. He ran towards her, ignoring the danger. He lifted her – she was frighteningly light – and placed her over his shoulder.

  "The wall!" He heard Jake's voice shouting from behind the building where he was hiding with the others.

  San ran towards them. "Jake! Here!"

  From under the rubble of a collapsed building, Jake lifted stones to reveal an emergency hideout they had likely thought of. But in that tense moment, the arm of the monster with the three hands extended from above, aiming for Jake and the others who had begun to emerge.

  "Move away! It will hit you!" San shouted.

  Jake looked up, the enormous arm approaching rapidly. San knew it was useless. Jake would die.

  San tried to use his technique, but it needed three more seconds to activate. Time was running out.

  At that moment, Shin emerged from the hideout. He took a step forward and raised his already-broken wooden sword. He didn't strike the arm; he struck the air in front of him with force.

  A powerful wave of wind, almost visible, erupted from his strike. It collided with the arm and pushed it more than a meter off its course, saving Jake from a certain blow. But the price was steep: the wooden sword was utterly destroyed in Shin's hand, turning to splinters.

  "Run!" Shin shouted.

  They didn't waste time. They all charged towards the wall. There was a section that could be crossed with difficulty. They helped each other up. San was the last, carrying the unconscious Elena.

  Before climbing, he turned for one last look. The waxy monster was standing in the distance, watching the battle between the guards and the two main monsters. Then, as if sensing San's gaze, it turned towards him. Across the distance, through the haze. Their eyes met. San's eyes were filled with a strange resolve, the monster's eyes black and empty. Then the monster's cracked mouth smiled, and it turned away, disappearing into the shadows.

  San climbed the wall and dropped to the other side.

  The forest. Darkness, a smell of decay, and a sudden chill.

  They ran without stopping, driven by fear and adrenaline. Branches slapped their faces, roots tripped them. They didn't speak. The only sounds were their ragged panting and stumbling footsteps.

  After half an hour of continuous running, they collapsed at the base of a huge, dead tree, in a small hollow formed by its tangled roots.

  Jake lit a small emergency lamp. The faint light revealed exhausted faces, covered in dirt and sweat.

  Elena was unconscious, but her chest rose and fell regularly. The wound in her abdomen was bad, but the bleeding was unnaturally slow.

  Sarah sat beside her, sobbing silently.

  Jake, his face full of scratches and grime, said: "Let's rest a little, then we'll search for the way back to the Kingdom. The curses are fewer here, and if we're lucky, we might encounter the First Group on their way."

  Shin, who was sitting a little away rubbing his aching arm, said: "Before we crossed the wall... I glimpsed members of the Second Group. Can't they defeat the monster with the hands?" There was a desperate hope in his voice.

  Everyone looked at San, waiting for his answer.

  San looked at the ground, then raised his eyes. "It's useless," he said in his hoarse voice. "Because a stronger curse appeared."

  A heavy silence settled in the hollow.

  "Stronger?" Sarah whispered, her eyes wide. "Stronger than the one with the hands can only be..."

  "A Class C curse," San finished her sentence. "The Second Group fighters won't survive if that's true."

  Sarah said, her voice trembling: "But that means..."

  "It means," San cut her off, "that they will die. The only certain thing is that their death there... is what allowed us to survive death here. It gave us those minutes. That escape."

  And he looked at the unconscious Elena, then at the dense darkness of the forest outside their small hollow. He wondered in silence about the price he would personally pay, not only for his head that he stole from death, but for every second of those minutes he purchased with the deaths of others. And he wondered when that waxy monster, with its black eyes and cracked smile, would demand its share of that price.