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“Stay away from that,” he said, gasping for breath and deepening his voice to ensure she didn’t recognize him. In the dark night, he was sure she wouldn’t make out his face as long as he stayed away from the fire.

“Wh—” She turned to look at his silhouette standing above the foliage and stumbled back. “U-um, who are you?”

“I’m the guy telling you to keep away from the monster,” Zeth said. “Run back home, little girl. This doesn’t concern you.”

He started walking toward the dead fleshtaker, but Sophie didn’t budge, instead standing there and watching him. “Um, did you make the fire?”

“Yes. These monsters are extremely dangerous, and the fire is even more dangerous. It’s magic, unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. If you even barely touch it, you’ll—”

Sophie instantly took a step forward, face coming into view by the firelight. Her eyes grew wide. “It’s magic? You can do magic?!”

For a moment, Zeth was almost proud of her that his threats of danger didn’t push her away from trying to sate her curiosity, but right now, his sister’s hunger for information was extremely inconvenient. He bent down and grabbed the charred cloak that had been extinguished by now, still keeping his face angled away from her, and put it on, drawing the hood to hide his identity. “It’s—listen, you really need to get away from here.”

“I’ve never seen someone who could use magic as strong as that before! Can you teach me? My brother’s bought me some books about magic, so I already know a little, and I promise I’ll be good if you—”

“No,” Zeth said forcefully. “No, I can’t. Look, stand there and watch if you want. But do not get any closer.”

He bent over and used his dagger to cut the fleshtaker’s body open, watching dark blood pour out of it. Then, he grabbed the shirt covered with the now-impotent ritual circle lines and dunked it into the thing’s body, sopping up as much of the liquid as he could with the fabric. This thing was strong—its blood would be great fuel for further rituals. It’d be a waste to let the authorities drag it away and dispose of it before he could get some.

Turin’s voice came from the distance. “Hey, what’s going on over here?!”

Looking up, Zeth found him running over, stopping when he found Sophie and the scene of the fight. In his shaking grip was a small hand crossbow, held to point at the mutilated body of the fleshtaker.

“W-who are you?” he asked Zeth.

The shirt Zeth was using to sop up the blood had been completely covered by now, unable to absorb any more, so he set it on the ground and pulled his arms inward to take off the shirt he was currently wearing, leaving the heavy coat on as he did so. Once he had it off, he pulled it out from under the coat and bent back over to place it inside the laceration he’d made in the corpse, and looked up at Turin, who was still awaiting a response. “You should really take her out of here. It’s dangerous.”

“What happened?”

They really don’t like leaving things be, huh? I guess I’d probably be the same way in their situation. “I killed the monster. But, uh, latent magic in the area could still cause significant harm to anyone not acclimated to it. You won’t feel it causing changes in your body until it’s too late.”

He’d made up a fake excuse to get them away from there, and it looked like at least Turin bought it—Sophie only looked more intrigued at his mention of magic. Grabbing Sophie, he started pulling her away from the area, still facing Zeth. “Don’t hurt us, okay?”

“I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me,” Zeth said simply, eyeing the crossbow still held in his hand. He knew Turin wasn’t the type for senseless violence, but he didn’t quite trust those shaky fingers.

Eventually, once they got far enough away, Turin took one last look at Zeth, then turned and ran, still dragging Sophie behind him. Zeth heard him mutter to her, “What happened? Did you see?”

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“He used super powerful magic to kill the monster with a big fire! It went all like bwoom!” she responded, mimicking the inferno with her hands. “And there was this loud crackle before, and pink electricity—I think that was what caused the magic—and the man caught on fire too but put it out, even though the monster couldn’t put the fire out, so I think the fire was also magic, plus the pink electricity, so—”

“Pink electricity?” Turin asked, and Zeth spotted him glance back at him sopping up yet more blood. “So he electrocuted the monster?”

“No, no, the electricity came from him, and the monster caught on fire.”

Turin brought a hand to his chin. “Pink electricity…that sounds familiar. What Class have I heard of that used that?”

“I don’t know!” she responded. “I’m gonna look it up in the library tomorrow! I wanna get a Class like that one, it looked so cool! Turin, Zeth said you’re practicing magic, can you show me yours?”

“I can’t do it yet,” he responded. From his tone, Zeth was pretty sure he’d checked out of the conversation, instead preoccupied by his thoughts. He sure hoped Turin wouldn’t suddenly remember that it was Blood Mages who used pink electricity with their rituals, and come try to expose his identity or something. Though, Turin could’ve also just been focused on keeping an eye out for more monsters, not trying to remember a random detail about a Class.

Once the second shirt had absorbed all the blood it was going to absorb, Zeth picked them both up, staining his fingers red, and slinked back into the grass. Definitely didn’t wanna stick around out here. So he hurried back to his room, hoping he could get over there before anyone noticed he’d been gone.

By the time he got to his window, Zeth was exhausted. Not just tired from it being late and him having gone through way too much stress in these past few minutes, but the toll taken on his body was starting to catch up to his mind’s ability to ignore the pain. Every movement shot aches through the arm and shoulder that had been stabbed, every minute motion causing his coat to rub against his burns and make his entire upper body feel like its skin was tearing off.

There was absolutely no way he’d be able to hide this from his family. Even if he could try to ignore the pain in daily life and wear long sleeves to conceal some of his injuries, he hadn’t even seen his face yet. And if there were any cuts or burns there, there’d be no way to keep people from knowing.

So, instead of climbing back into his room and hoping nobody would notice his absence, he took off the coat, used it to bundle up the bloody shirts, and hid everything in the tall grass below his window. After that, he ran back toward town. If he couldn’t hide the injuries, he’d just have to hide the method through which he got them.

Sneaking now-shirtless through the grass away from his home, Zeth got his first decent look at his own body. His Endurance Stat was only at eighteen, but even that much had clearly been enough to help him avoid serious harm—and work together with Poise to dull the pain somewhat, he suspected.

The fire had been touching his skin for far longer than it should have, but he spotted no areas where his skin had outright melted, instead only seeing some bubbled-up sections and lots of blistered patches. Which, compared to some of the horrific sights he’d seen from accidental friendly fire caused by the combat teams that sometimes went into the guild mineshafts to clear out monster infestations, he had clearly avoided the worst. They liked to use flame-based Classes since it offered great power and didn’t have as much chance for collateral damage due to the stone walls of the caves, but when an ally caught a stray fireball…

Zeth shuddered and pushed the memory of the woman on the stretcher from his mind. He definitely looked better than that, at least. But his arm was aching more and more with every step he took, energy wearing away as he left the danger behind. At least his legs were uninjured, so even if he could barely flex his shoulder without pain shooting through his upper body, he could still put one foot in front of the other.

So he hurried down the road, trying to get to town as quickly as possible. Every second counted right now; if someone found him before he did what he needed to do, it’d all come crashing down.

As Zeth came into town, he entered one of the guild’s residential areas. Countless copies of the same house were plastered all around, lining each street with a dozen buildings constructed from the same template. He knew these places well; he’d lived in one for several years, until he’d been fired just a couple days ago. Or, rather, four months ago.

It was at the edge of this neighborhood that one of the fires had broken out. And it wasn’t just one of them. Off in the distance, Zeth could spot two or three more pillars of smoke coming up from behind the buildings. That fleshtaker had wreaked total havoc on its way to him, it seemed.

Flames were all around him as well, though. Entire neighborhood blocks had been engulfed by this point, buildings near the center having collapsed into charred rubble as the disaster spread further and further outward. What could have caused so much damage? When Zeth first saw the fires from afar, he assumed it was just a stray fireball. But this much…it almost reminded him of what his own Hellfire Ritual might do if it went off in the middle of a housing area. Had the Blood Mage done this? Did they have secret Hellfire Rituals set around the town streets, or something?

That was irrelevant for now, though. Currently, he had to make a sacrifice for the sake of his identity.

If his family saw Zeth with unexplained holes in his arm and burns covering his body after watching some unknown individual sustain exactly those injuries fighting the fleshtaker in front of their house, they’d obviously realize he was that person. But if they saw another explanation for why he’d have injuries like that…

Zeth walked up to a building on the edge of town. It was on the edge of collapse, completely charred at this point. The fire had mostly moved on from it, having eaten up all of the wood and left behind blackened crumbling logs. In front of him was a support beam holding up a ceiling that covered the entrance to the house.

Sorry, whoever lives in this one. But it was probably gonna collapse anyway.

After a moment of mental preparation, Zeth lifted his leg and threw out as hard as a kick he could into the crumbling pole, and it instantly snapped in half. The beam fell, and the ceiling caved in on Zeth, trapping him underneath.