Sae started with the teeth.

  The sword—the dulled sword—entered Baro's mouth, and the first tooth took exactly twenty seconds to fall. Metal scraped against bone, grinding, until finally wrenching it from the root.

  Baro's scream rattled Kurumi's bones.

  Baro: 『AAAGHHHH—!』

  But Sae didn't stop. Second tooth. Third. Fourth. Each with the same deliberate, amateurish, agonizing slowness. As if time had no meaning in the world—only this moment, this mouth, these teeth.

  Kurumi's stomach lurched upward. Her hand went to her mouth, but she suppressed the urge to vomit. Don't look. Don't look. But you can't look away, can you?

  After the teeth were done—all of them scattered in a pool of blood on the ground—Sae moved to the blade. No, not a blade. The edge of the sword. More painful.

  He began to peel the skin.

  Deliberately. Willingly. Clumsily. Piece by piece. The arm first. Muscle tissue was exposed, pink and moist and alive. Baro was still living. Still feeling.

  Baro: 『Hfff... hfff...!』

  The sounds of grinding teeth. The sounds of trying to breathe. The pain had already jumped to his brain—Kurumi could see it in Baro's eyes. Those eyes were no longer defiant. They were begging.

  Sae didn't stop.

  Stomach. Intestines. When his hands plunged into Baro's abdomen—truly plunged, entered inside—Kurumi turned and retched. Nothing came out. Just heaving, pain, tears.

  But her ears still heard.

  Slick. Wet. Ripping sounds.

  And Sae's voice—that calm, almost bored voice:

  Sae: 『You're lucky. I don't have much material on hand. So I'm being somewhat gentle.』

  When Kurumi looked again, death sweat was pouring from Baro's forehead. His body was convulsing—shock, or survival instinct, Kurumi didn't know. Didn't care.

  Those around her—Hu, Takamura, Mika, Aryu—all had turned to stone. No one could speak. No one could move.

  Kurumi's eyes locked onto Sae's face. Those empty, gray, cold eyes. There was nothing inside them. No rage. No pleasure. Just... absence.

  Sae wasn't torturing for information.

  He was torturing to inflict pain.

  And he was twelve years old. Twelve. The same age as Kurumi. But Kurumi could never do something like this in her life, couldn't even imagine it. Sae, however... Sae moved as if he'd done this a thousand times before.

  The curiosity in her chest—that constant question about Sae's past—swelled even more. But at the same time, fear swelled too.

  What happened to this child to make him like this?

  Baro couldn't endure any longer.

  One moment he was breathing—difficult, rasping breaths. The next moment... silence.

  Sae looked at the corpse. Then tossed it aside like garbage. The sound the body made when it fell—thud, wet, heavy—would haunt Kurumi's dreams. She knew it.

  Sae turned. Looked at Kurumi and the others.

  Takamura stepped back. Mika's hand trembled. Aryu averted his gaze. They were all thinking the same thing:

  Would he do this torture to us too?

  Sae noticed these looks. He was used to these looks—because he showed no reaction. He simply turned his head and spoke.

  Sae: 『We have no further business here. We can return to the sect compound.』

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  His voice was flat. As if they were returning from a walk. As if tearing a man apart was daily routine.

  Sae: 『Hu, talk with Master Rex later. We need to move early to further strengthen our position here.』

  Hu flinched. Since that moment—he'd been staring at Baro's corpse, unable to look away. Sae's voice pulled him from his trance.

  Hu: 『—Understood, Sae. I'll prepare a report and present it to Master Rex.』

  His voice was automatic. Robotic.

  Kurumi locked her black eyes onto Sae as he walked through the ruined houses.

  His snow-white hair swayed in the wind. Under the moonlight, he could almost look angelic—if not for the blood stains smeared across those locks.

  Kurumi didn't know what to think about him.

  Yes, Sae had saved them many times. They owed their lives to him. But... the way he did it. Always so brutal. So cold. So wrong.

  Could she truly trust Sae? She wasn't sure.

  Perhaps Sae's very existence was death itself. Where he went, someone's death became inevitable. Just like those three hundred soldiers.

  And Kurumi was weak. So weak.

  One day... one day would she die by Sae's side—or perhaps by his hand?

  「ーーーー」

  Hu's hand touched Kurumi's shoulder.

  The sudden contact severed all the disaster scenarios in her mind. All she heard was Hu's slightly uneasy and tired voice.

  Hu: 『Come on, Kurumi. We're heading back. Chuya and the others already left.』

  Kurumi nodded. She looked around—everyone had truly gone. Time had passed while she was alone with her thoughts. Only Taka, Hu, and Kurumi remained.

  Taka waited with his arms folded, wearing a bored expression.

  Kurumi: 『We can go now.』

  Her voice was flat. Empty. The chaos inside her head didn't reflect in her voice.

  The silence was heavy as they walked to the sect house.

  Since Kurumi, Sae, and the others had been constantly going on missions and operations lately, they hadn't been able to keep up with new events within the Veil of Shadows sect.

  Tora had left the sect. According to rumors, he'd been very close to Harkan recently. Meanwhile, it was said that Harkan had many powerful names in his own gang. And some of these names had bad blood with the Veil of Shadows sect—at least that's what was whispered from ear to ear.

  Rex still hadn't recovered. Problems among the unit leaders in the sect were also being murmured among the soldiers.

  After the long journey, when they arrived at the sect compound, Kurumi noticed something:

  Celebration preparations had been made. Banners. Food tables. But... no one was there.

  Taka: 『Where could everyone have gone?』

  He wasn't hiding his confusion.

  Kurumi looked around. In a corner of herself—selfishly, so selfishly—she'd wanted there to be people celebrating her return alive from a mission where death was almost certain.

  But thinking about it again... how selfish was that thought?

  She didn't want to boast about a mission where she'd been useless. She didn't want to let her heart and conscience become ugly. She gripped her clothes tighter, from shame.

  Hu: 『Sae, Chuya, and the others must have arrived before us. When they told everyone how many people we lost... their loved ones must have been devastated. That's why no one's in the mood to celebrate.』

  He paused. Rubbed his arm.

  Hu: 『Plus they need to build their monuments, their graves. Even though there are so many dead—』

  He couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't face the weight of what he was saying.

  Over five hundred soldiers had died. But they couldn't bring back a single body to their loved ones. The soldiers' corpses had either been devoured or had taken on creature forms.

  Even if the region under Dravok's control for centuries had been reclaimed... with such massive losses, no one would want to celebrate.

  As the crimson light of sunset gave way to darkness, Kurumi, Hu, and Taka joined the soldiers gathered around the campfires and saw Rex and Sae on the high platform.

  Next to Rex's confident stance, Sae's cold presence was barely noticeable. The faint red bloodstains on the tips of Sae's white hair gleamed under the moonlight.

  The moment Kurumi noticed those bloodstains, the unbearable disgust in her stomach intensified.

  Today's events... while she didn't want to remember them for the rest of her life, it seemed like a law that she would see more of these things beside someone like Sae, whose very existence was death.

  Rex's authoritative voice echoed in the ears of Kurumi and the others. At the same moment, the unit soldiers also stood at attention.

  Rex: 『I commend all soldiers who successfully completed the Shogun district operation!』

  His voice was powerful. Commanding. But as Kurumi listened, she felt a strange emptiness inside.

  Rex: 『Reclaiming the region under Dravok's rule for centuries will be the beginning of everything! Eventually we will liberate all of Ayanon! We will only continue! We will build our own lives in the Shogun district, and we will build graves for our soldiers who were martyred in this operation!』

  All the unit soldiers began shouting at once. Cheers. Cries of joy. Hope.

  Kurumi felt something swelling in her chest from within.

  She couldn't tell if this was because of the strange disgust in her stomach, or because of Rex's words.

  All she wanted... was to repay her debt to the people who had sacrificed their lives for her, who had believed in her, in this mission.

  Even if she wasn't particularly useful right now—weak, inexperienced, only a three-month member—living with Amy in a free Ayanon had become what she wanted most since joining this sect.

  And until she achieved that, she would continue to do whatever she could.

  On the platform, Sae's gray eyes scanned the crowd. Empty. Cold. When they met Kurumi's—for just one second—Kurumi's heart stopped.

  That gaze said nothing.

  But at the same time, it said everything.

  If you want to survive... you must become stronger.

  Kurumi looked away. Breathed. Waited.

  Rex's speech continued. Words of hope. Words of the future.

  But only one thought circled in Kurumi's mind:

  To survive in this world... do I need to become like Sae?