The Captain stared at the worm's gleaming eye, the words still hanging in the air while something cold settled in his chest.
'Kenny abandoned them?' he thought, his grip tightening on the claymore until his knuckles ached. 'He lied to the King, to the council, to me. His squad didn't get vaporized by some freak mana blast, he ran and left them to die.'
The worm's eye shifted, watching his face as if it could read every thought passing through his mind.
"Oh, that look," it said, its voice dripping with amusement, "I remember that look. He wore the same one when he realized he could not win, when he dropped his sword and started begging, crying about how he had a family, a name to protect, how he would do anything if I just let him go."
The Captain's jaw tightened, a vein pulsing in his temple.
