How long had it been?
I didn't know. I stopped trying to count a while ago and forced myself to keep walking instead.
The forest was not normal. I had known that almost immediately, but the longer I walked, the more certain I became. The silence was abnormal; it was as if every creature in these woods had collectively decided that making noises was a very bad idea.
I sure hoped I wouldn't run into whatever was responsible for it. Surely — surely — the gods could grant me one calm, uneventful walk after everything. That wasn't too much to ask.
I had also realized something else. My body was different now. It had been hours since I started walking, and yet I felt neither hungry nor was I bothered by the cold.
Do I have a new body?
The question sat uneasily alongside the silence and the empty trees and the mist that had, at some point, decided to make itself at home.
At first, I had barely realized it, but it slowly grew denser and denser until I could no longer ignore it. It was now directly obscuring my vision, and I could barely see more than 15 meters in front of me.
I could feel the hair on my neck slowly stand up, and my instincts warned me not to continue down this path.
But what else could I do? It was far too late, and I had no other choice but to continue down the path. I wanted to survive this shitty ordeal after all.
I kept walking down the path until eventually I was forced to stop.
I had picked up a peculiar scent, one that ceaselessly assaulted my nose. Curiously, I turned to my right and noticed the path split, with one continuing to my right.
Without thinking, my body moved towards the right. It seems like my curious nature had struck again, and I found myself moving down the path.
Curiosity killed the cat, they say.
I really hoped I wasn't the cat.
My body had moved before my mind caught up — which was either a new instinct or a new body doing things I hadn't authorized yet. Neither option was particularly comforting. I filed it away and kept walking.
The scent grew stronger the further I went, strong enough that I'd started preparing myself for something unpleasant — a carcass, maybe, or worse.
What I found instead was a clearing.
Out in the massive clearing and through the misty haze I could see the faint outlines of something slow and massive. The long silhouettes of wagons. The shifting shadows of horses grazing somewhere in the white distance. Human figures moving between them, unhurried.
A caravan and a quite large one at that.
I stopped walking.
I'll be damned.
Humans. In a death zone.
How is this possible?
Was I hallucinating?
These people are traversing straight through the death zone as if there were no dangers.
Is this not a blessing in disguise?I stared for a long moment, waiting for the image to dissolve. At first I thought I had finally gone mad at last and so I waited for a bit for this image to dissolve. I figured that this was a mirage,
Oh how wrong I was. The figures out in the distance did not disappear and instead as I moved closer to them, I could finally hear the faint chatters that filled the atmosphere. And most importantly, the scent of food being prepped.
Warm-blooded humans. Real living beings.
The thought arrived with a strange weight to it, as if I'd needed to confirm it even to myself.
I felt my shoulders drop slightly. I hadn't realized how tightly I'd been holding them.
I caught myself and pulled back. I was in a death zone I didn't recognize, approaching a group of strangers who had no reason to be friendly, in a forest that had emptied itself of every living thing except apparently these people and whatever had driven everything else away. Relaxing was not the appropriate response.
And yet.
The thought of food, warmth, and being protected by a group instead sounded far more alluring than traveling alone.
Each one sounded more tempting than the last. I hadn't felt hunger yet — whatever my body had become didn't seem to require it for now — but the cold was a different matter, and a group this size meant fires, and fires meant heat, and heat meant I might stop feeling like I was slowly being preserved from the outside in.
More than that, they were alive in a place where nothing should be. Which meant either they knew something about surviving here, or they were spectacularly stupid. Either way, they knew more about this place than I did.
Should I approach them?
I turned the question over, watching a guard make his slow round along the caravan's edge.
Should I not?
I stood there, carefully weighing my options.
Or the illusions of said options I had.
I had nothing, after all.
I shrugged and reluctantly made my way toward the rear of the group — until a short, slightly chubby guard with brown hair finally noticed me.
"HALT."
His voice cracked through the silence of the forest.
"Who are you? State your business."
He sounded nervous, or perhaps he found my presence unsettling. His eyes lingered over me in a way that was more akin to fear or wariness then suspicion. His hand drifted toward his weapon before stopping, as if he'd caught himself.
I paused briefly.
"I'm a traveling merchant, from a distant land. I was moving with a small group — we were attacked by monsters. I'm the only one who made it."
The lie arrived without effort. I was mildly impressed with myself.
The guard's gaze moved over me again, scanning for weapons. I must have looked haggard enough to be convincing — after everything, I couldn't imagine I looked particularly threatening. I needed this lie of mine to work.
"A traveling merchant," he repeated. "Are you heading toward the Agraven Empire?"
I had never heard of such an empire in my life.
"Yes," I said, keeping my expression calm. "Is this caravan heading there as well?"
"It is. We're transporting merchants and refugees from the Great War." He seemed to relax slightly, though not entirely. "I see no reason a survivor like yourself can't join us. We can always use the extra hands, especially crossing through Lystheria."
I recognized that name.
The Forest of Lystheria. I was now certain that I was in middle of a death zone. And out of the 7 death zones, Lystheria was a place known for its biting cold and the kind of monsters that had driven back every expedition ever sent into it. No emperor had ever managed to map it. No king had ever tried twice.
And for some reason, this caravan was traveling straight through it, as if it was a minor speedbump.
"Hello? Are you alright?"
The guard was waving a hand in front of my face.
"Forgive me," I said. "It's been a long few days."
He studied me a moment longer, then pointed left. Somewhere in the mist, I could make out the faint shape of a large tent.
"Head straight and ask for Hanna. She'll sort you out with food and somewhere to sleep."
I thanked him and moved past.
The Agraven Empire. I turned the name over as I walked. We had been told at the orphanage that nothing existed near the regions of Lystheria.
So either my geography lessons had been catastrophically wrong, or something else entirely was happening.
I filed that thought away and focused on not looking like I was filing thoughts away.
I had apparently gathered an audience. The people moving through the caravan watched me with open curiosity and poorly concealed unease — adults stepping slightly closer to their children, and preying eyes that seemed to linger over my silhouette. Some didn't bother hiding their displeasure at all.
They looked exhausted. The children, especially. They were filthy and haggard, their expression seemingly dead.
The atmosphere truly was solemn.