A peaceful village lay tranquil, built beneath a moon that perched perfectly above them—vivid in color and radiating a brilliant light. It was a perfect, white sphere.
In the village, residents were busy weaving knit bags, while farmers rhythmically threshed their paddy.
In a single night, everything transformed into a horrific terror. The Syx attacked.
"Krkk... krkk."
The creatures hissed. They possessed human-like bodies but were marked with patterns of black veins and glowing red eyes. Fleshy protrusions sprouted from various points on their bodies, mostly concentrated on their backs and elbows.
"Father! Help me!"
A little girl screamed from inside her shack. She tried to hide in a small cabinet, her eyes peeking through a tiny slit. She watched as her father attempted to kill the rampaging Syx, but the last sight she beheld was her father's throat being torn open by the creature's bite.
The red-eyed monster turned its gaze toward the shack, its stare locking onto the cabinet with the slit. The creature immediately lunged toward the cupboard, crawling with incredible speed using both hands and feet.
Just as it leapt toward the cabinet, a different sound echoed. A flash of green light streaked toward the creature's head, shattering it instantly.
Footsteps approached, and a hand slipped through the gaps of the cabinet—a human hand clad in a black glove. The hand opened the cabinet to reveal a man in a strange uniform, predominately black with small ornaments at various points, holding a rifle in his other hand.
"Are you alright?"
The man asked, his slightly long hair falling forward as he leaned in.
The little girl looked at him, then pointed toward the corpse that had been partially devoured by the monster.
"Father..."
She whispered, tears falling slowly from her green eyes. The man before her could only tap her shoulder gently, trying to calm the child.
"Forgive me for being late..."
It was an apology devoid of any real sincerity. The man's eyes didn't shed a single tear; the sight of death was his daily bread.
As they sat in the heavy atmosphere, another voice called out to him.
"Kael! Don't take too long. Do you think these monsters are alone?"
It was a woman's voice—specifically, a woman in her late teens or early twenties. The call caused Kael to turn his head toward the source.
A woman with deep blue hair and bright yellow eyes stood amidst the war-torn scene. Her ideal physique was well-covered by her uniform. Kael immediately scooped the little girl into his arms to take her to a safer, more protected location.
"Yeah, I'm coming," he replied.
On the path back, fighting through the creatures, he appeared exceptionally skilled; most Syx died at his hands with a single shot to the head. After dropping the girl off at a protection post with several other members, Kael immediately returned to the center of the village to continue the fight.
He ran swiftly, quickly merging into a combat formation.
"Sorry I'm a bit late, I had to get a girl to the protection post," he said, cocking his rifle and aiming in several directions.
"Oh? Then it's no problem."
The blue-haired woman—Vanessa—was a combat expert and the leader of this expedition.
The battle lasted for quite some time. Finally, after several hours, the situation grew much safer. Casualties among the members were minimal, though the civilian death toll was high.
"Wasn't this the easiest expedition? Makes sense, the threat was only D-rank," Kael remarked to Vanessa.
Vanessa looked over at Kael, who was cleaning his gloves in a bucket near a well at one end of the village.
"Yes, but that doesn't mean we should underestimate it. Lives are still lost if we are even a moment too slow," she stated firmly.
"We aren't gods who can save everyone. We're just trying to save more than the number of deaths, right?" Kael answered curtly, not bothering to dwell on mortality. Or perhaps, that was simply the ideology he used as a shield.
"You're still as anti-empathetic as ever. It's chilling."
Kael laughed softly. Vanessa wasn't wrong; perhaps he did lack empathy. Or perhaps he needed to be this way, especially since the Syx were essentially humans who had been cursed by the Goddess Nyx—people afflicted by the curse following the Goddess's death.
"Are the 'Stars' working well?" Vanessa sat beside Kael, resting her hands on her thighs after removing her cap.
"What do you expect? They're more like celebrities than saviors."
His hands continued to wash the stains off his rifle with water. Vanessa watched his repetitive motions, reflecting slightly on Kael's words.
The Stars were humans who had received blessings after the Goddess's death. They were individuals capable of using abilities that defied human logic—people hailed as "Heroes" by the public for assisting in major missions. In reality, the tedious tasks or missions with no media value were dumped onto the "Corps."
That was Kael and Vanessa's status. They were merely front-line Corps members who possessed no blessings—only skills, weapons, and luck that occasionally ran out.
"We're just exploited labor. Under the Stars, we're clearly just a pile of filth; if we're thrown away, nobody cares."
The words pierced Vanessa's chest; since childhood, she had dreamed of becoming a Star.
"Your words are quite cruel, aren't they?"
Their conversation ended as Kael and Vanessa walked together toward the protection post.
However, what they saw was a post in ruins, scattered with corpses everywhere. Only one tent stood slightly firmer than the others, though it was heavily stained with blood. The ground was littered with bodies covered in slash wounds.
Vanessa stood frozen, her eyes widening and her fists clenching. She immediately ran toward the post, followed closely by Kael.
"What on earth is this?! An ambush?"
Her eyes darted around, searching for any detail about the incident, but there were almost no signs of an external attack.
The only explanation came when Vanessa pulled back the tent flap. The cute little girl Kael had rescued stood there.
She had transformed into a Syx, with a tail protruding from her back, the tip of which was shaped like a sharp blade.
"You?"
The girl wore a wide, distorted grin—so wide it tore the muscles in her cheeks.
"Humans are so easy to fool, aren't they?"
As she spoke in a faint, eerie tone, Kael stood beside Vanessa.
"Are you kidding me?"