“I’m sorry, my dear brothers and sisters, for I must sacrifice you. But in the grasp of eternal rest, I hope you seek comfort knowing that you saved the world.”

  The rain didn’t stop, no matter how much Sen pleaded. Each droplet felt like a cold icicle, piercing his skin as he sought the meager shelter the tree provided. It was a stark contrast to how sturdy and resilient his body had been just moments ago when he had been going rampant. He had felt invincible… now, he was simply cold… colder than he had ever felt in his life. But the rain wasn’t entirely to blame, for there was something else that played a far bigger role: the bitter chill in his soul.

  Sen would give up anything just to not feel its grasp inside of him. He would sacrifice any limb, any finger, any single new power that had awakened just to not feel it any longer, for it was worse than any physical pain that had plagued him in his lifetime. At that moment, he considered something that he had never thought in his life. Something that his normal and critical brain always denied, saying it was simply foolish no matter the circumstances he was in.

  The thought of killing himself.

  Sen stared helplessly at his hands, his soul screaming in the confinements of his body to be set free—begging for the pain to stop.

  “I…” Sen whispered to himself, his natural blue eyes seeming awfully dull. “I tried to kill mother.”

  Like a dam being destroyed, a wave of memories that had been buried within his brain was released. Memories of his body being violently controlled against his will and the look of fear in his mother’s eyes as he tried to choke her– frothy saliva dripping from her mouth. He had acted like a ravaged beast… a monster—trying anything in his power to kill his meal.

  How… No, why did I see my mother like that? Why did I see her as nothing more than an animal? I know that I would never think that, that’s not me… but that still doesn’t change the fact that I… that I tried to kill her. Was something truly controlling me? What if that was just my true self coming to light? What if I was always like this, but I just never recognized it?

  How….

  How…

  “HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW?!”

  …

  Sen felt warm raindrops fall from above, splashing on his palms. It had not been an act of sympathy from the rain—its powerful wrath still continued.

  No… he was simply crying.

  Sen gritted his teeth, tears clouding his vision, his throat choking up. The throbbing urge to let out a groan—to let out a pitiful whimper so that it could reflect even an ounce of the pain that he felt—was far too immense.

  “Stop it…” he whispered to himself, his tears continuing to travel across his cheek in an endless cascade.

  “I SAID STOP IT!” He gouged his eyes with his fingers, seeing his vision turn red from blood. But it wasn’t enough. No… he couldn’t stop at simply drawing his body's scarlet liquid.

  “I don’t deserve it,” he murmured. “I don’t deserve to cry after what I did to her.”

  Squelch.

  Squelch.

  Squelch.

  Again and again, he gouged his eyes with the little strength he had left—feeling the gut-wrenching and horrid pain that would make any sane person pass out. Yet he still didn’t collapse… no matter how much agony he endured.

  “Why…” His voice sobbed, the blood from his vision clearing up to reveal his unharmed eyes. “Why can’t I get hurt…” He stared at his scarlet-covered hands. Sen couldn’t even harm himself correctly. The most basic thing any person could do, and he failed miserably.

  I don’t deserve to live… not after everything that I have done. Everyone would be better off if I never existed. Then they would never have to live in fear any longer—then I wouldn’t have to live in fear of hurting them. I don’t want to live in a world like that… where I kill those I love—

  …

  Then something flashed before his eyes—a vision… No… a distant memory that never took place in his world. It was filled with bodies of people, young and old, fragile and strong, families and strangers stacked upon each other in a mountain of death and blood. He couldn’t see their crushed and mutilated faces since everything looked awfully blurry, as if he wasn’t supposed to see it in the first place—as if he was breaking a rule that should never be possible.

  Yet, regardless of the blurriness and nauseating smell coming from the bodies, he could recognize a few that lay limp in the mountain. A girl with long white hair next to another who looked like an older version of herself. Instinctively, he knew who they were.

  It was his sister and mother.

  Each of their limbs was torn from their bodies and thrown away someplace else as if someone had been grotesquely playing human fetch with them.

  Sen convulsed and leaned down to vomit, not being able to handle seeing his family in that state. However, when he did, a person's head rolled next to his feet. His eyes widened, and the vomit didn’t even escape his mouth due to the utter shock. It was the head of a beautiful girl with long dark red hair and wide-open lifeless green eyes that had once been shimmering with hope and joy. Something that he got to see his whole life yet never appreciated until now.

  Kaiyo…

  Then he slowly pulled his trembling hands into his eyes view… only to realize that they were covered in her blood.

  He screamed.

  It was so loud that it made his ears mute, making the only way to tell that he was still screaming from the way his vocal cords moved and burned with ache.

  …

  The vision flashed again, and Sen found himself leaning on the same tree he had been before, the rain still continuing to persist. His heart thumped violently in his chest, and his breath came in short, desperate gasps. The only thing he managed to do was stare in front of him helplessly—too stunned even to continue crying. His brain was too exhausted to think—too exhausted to feel any more emotions than he already had.

  Sen wanted nothing more than to hide underneath the sheets of his bed and forget everything that had happened. The pain of feeling was too much. He envied how dull and blank he felt for the majority of his life because if he knew how agonizing it was to experience it all, he would have never even tried filling the gaping hole inside of him.

  “Help.”

  In the midst of his inner turmoil, his Hearing activated on its own, and he heard the familiar voice of someone dear to him. Sen jerked up from the tree, twisting his head in all directions as he tried to find where her voice came from. He had been so pathetically blinded by his feelings that he neglected the most important thing: to find and protect Kaiyo.

  “I…” Sen glanced at his hands, drenched in his own blood—if that even mattered since his body seemed to heal on its own. He clenched his fists, feeling the sticky liquid, then looked ahead into the depths of the forest. “I’m coming, Kaiyo.”

  Sen stepped forward, leaving the shelter the tree provided–not caring that he would get wet or caught in the rain– and began to walk slowly in the direction of Kaiyo’s voice.

  If it had been any other person, they probably wouldn’t have been able to stand up as he did, much less continue onward to save someone. Yet his slow march began to quicken as the earth started to incline, turning into a run. Even the rain, no matter how hard it tried, couldn’t stop him. Nothing could.

  His eyes turned blue amidst the rain, and his muscles tensed with immense strength as he dashed through the forest, leaving imprints in the earth with every stride he took. Even as he noticed monsters lurking in the forest's undergrowth, he pressed on, indifferent to killing them or harvesting their fear. At that moment, he had only one goal in mind, and nothing would prevent him from achieving it—not even the faint blue lines of fear that tried to seduce him.

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  He didn’t know why he didn’t feel tempted anymore. Perhaps because, above all else, there was a feeling far more powerful than simple temptation. He didn’t quite know the feeling’s name because he couldn’t even fully grasp what it was. Yet, it dominated any other distraction with such ease that it was almost otherworldly.

  “Sen...” The voice of Kaiyo whispered in his ears again, causing his glowing eyes to widen. Sen’s legs strengthened further as he lunged into the air in large arcs, even able to see above the trees. The surroundings flickered with color and light as his Sight activated, and then accompanying it, a new sensation he had never felt—or at least, not to this extent—awakened.

  His sense of smell.

  In all the textbooks he had read explaining the ability, none of them did it justice. It had been described as useless and inferior to the other senses; however, experiencing its grasp for the first time, Sen would beg to differ. A rush of various scents potently filled his nostrils—the woody, sweet aroma of bark, the earthy, rough smell of dirt, the refreshing scent of rain, and the musty odor of damp grass. However, merely smelling everything more acutely wasn’t what made it fascinating. Accompanying those scents, vivid images filled his mind with the same elements, as if he could see them without even looking. Once a potent odor of a monster in the forest hit his nostrils, images of how it looked and even moved materialized in his head.

  The scents held memories.

  However, like a video recording ending, the images eventually faded away once the smell did. One scent trail could only carry so much memory.

  Sen half-expected his Taste to activate. However, it seemed he wasn’t tasting much at the moment, nor did he plan to. Of all his senses, Taste wouldn’t help him at all with his current objective. Its abilities were mainly inherent to the body, like being immune to toxins, enduring long periods without food, and digesting any organic material without issue, so it wouldn’t serve him well now. Although the abilities sounded appealing, he needed the useful and powerful ones—perhaps even those that made him lose control, as long as it meant he could protect Kaiyo.

  Then Sen caught a new wave of scents drifting in from the north—the scent of people. An image started forming in his mind—dozens of hooded figures standing in a vast clearing at night, obscured by the deluge of rain. Because the scent’s memory was recorded in its native environment, Sen couldn’t make out any individual details like he was able to when using Sight, but he had a feeling that he was close… very close. Their faint voices, which his Hearing picked up, were proof of that.

  “When do you think he will come, Keni?” a hooded contestant asked his friend as they waited in the clearing, along with a handful of others.

  “When he comes, Todd,” his friend shrugged, sighing as he looked up at the grim sky, the downpour continuing to persist. “The rain is a bit annoying, though, so I hope he arrives sooner rather than later.”

  Todd frowned at his response. “I don’t find that answer reassuring. By the way the Boss was talking about him, it’s like we’re about to fight a Diamond-rank monster. Shit is scary, bro.”

  “Stop acting so scared. It’s one boy. How strong can he be? Even a Gold-rank Knight would have a hard time fighting against all of us at once, and I know damn well he isn’t even going to be close to that level,” Keni said confidently, though even Todd could tell a hint of uncertainty was hiding in his tone.

  “I don’t know, man, I just have a bad feeling about this,” Todd said. “It’s just… this whole thing is weird.”

  “Weird?”

  “Just think about it. The Boss paid over two dozen people competing in the challenge to track a team, and...” Todd glanced hesitantly to the side. In the middle of the clearing, a teenage girl with red hair sobbed pitifully on the ground while two large contestants held her arms up, keeping her captive. Bruises blemished her face, and a trickle of blood escaped from her nose. She had been crying and pleading for someone to save her for so long that, eventually, she lost her voice, the only remaining sound being her inaudible mutters. “…And kidnapped one of them, simply to lure in a particular boy that may or may not even come. Listen, I took the offer, so I know it sounds a bit rich coming from me, and it was obviously gonna be a bit shady, but… that? It’s a bit too much, don’t you think?” He pointed at the girl in the center. He knew his friend well enough to know he also didn’t take pleasure in seeing such a sickening sight.

  Then Keni finally sighed out.

  “I can’t say I like it either, and yes, the whole premise of this thing makes no fucking sense, but at this point, I don’t care. You and I both know how much he paid us upfront for doing this. Upfront, dude. Do you know how rare that is? That money will support my family for years. At this point, I don’t care if I get expelled or if I don’t even pass the challenge, because we struck gold, Todd. We don’t have to work our part-time jobs on top of going to that shitty school anymore. And you can finally pay for your sister’s cancer treatment.” Keni’s voice was filled with excitement, even though the situation was far from it.

  Todd clenched his fists and gritted his teeth as an image of his little sister emerged in his mind. He had worked countless sleepless nights at his various part-time jobs just to give her a slim chance at life. Though his parents were doing their best, without his help… without his sacrifice, his sister would likely be dead by now. That’s why he decided to become a Knight in the first place: to earn more money. He had never truly wanted to join, and, in all honesty, it terrified him, but he at least had Touch, and some people even praised his strength in using it. He realized this was the only option left. Of course, there was another option, but he promised himself that he would never stoop so low.

  “I know…” Todd murmured, his hoodie covering the top half of his face. “It’s just hard to see it.”

  Keni put a hand on his shoulder. “Same for me, but just remember all the people that are counting on you right now. This is a small price to pay to survive.”

  A small price to pay to survive… Todd echoed his words in his mind, his head subconsciously turning to the bruised-up girl who was held captive—someone who looked eerily similar to his little sister.

  Why is there a price to pay for something that is meant to be a given right? he asked himself.

  “What are we talking about over here?” A low voice emanated from behind them, interrupting Todd’s train of thought. A chill ran down his spine, and he jumped faintly before turning his head slowly to face the person. The contestant was large and stocky, towering over both of them, even though Todd had once considered himself tall. The hoodie of the tracksuit concealed most of his face, leaving exposed the most chilling feature of him—his wide, thin smile.

  “Uh… nothing, boss, just getting prepared for the visitor that you so generously paid us to keep an eye on,” Keni said before Todd could utter a word—possibly predicting that he would say something out of line. Keni’s worries weren’t exactly uncalled for since Todd did have a habit of speaking his mind, even if it meant it would land him in a bad situation. In this case, however—

  I would never dream of trying anything funny. Maybe Keni remembers the times I stood up to bullies and still got my ass beat, but this is different. This is not about my pride anymore or anything about me. I have people that I need to protect—people who are counting on me. If I jeopardize this, I will never be able to forgive myself.

  “Hmm… good,” the boss said, his voice making Todd flinch, although he was prepared for it. “But I can’t help but think that was not exactly the context of your conversation. Am I right?”

  Todd and his friend exchanged a sideward glance underneath their hoods. He almost wanted to let out a chuckle from amusement, although his feet were shaking. That’s the boss for you… always observant.

  Todd had never found out exactly how many senses the boss had, aside from Touch, which he had openly used before, but he had an inclination that perhaps Hearing was one of them. Save some senses for the rest of us, Todd thought, a bead of sweat trailing down his chin.

  “I… uh, I mean, we…” Keni stammered, feeling the boss’s demanding gaze land on them, despite not being able to see his eyes. Aware of his friend’s pathetic attempt to explain himself, Todd let out a sigh and placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder, trying to reassure him, even though he felt just as terrified.

  “In truth, boss, we were discussing the motive for this plan of yours,” Todd said truthfully. “With how odd it is, I think it’s reasonable that we have doubts and questions. However, I apologize for not being upfront about them. Instead, we talked behind your back, and that is simply disgraceful. We will never do that again.” He bowed respectfully.

  “Y-yes, yes.” Keni nodded beside him, following his gesture. “It was foolish.”

  Their boss stood eerily still with his arms crossed, making Todd anxious if he chose the right words. Even while petrified, he felt that he did a good job. The response was fair and—

  “And?” the boss asked.

  The question threw Todd for a loop. “P-pardon?”

  “I’m asking you, ‘and’ what else were you talking about?” The boss vaguely turned his hooded head to the side toward the captive, suggesting what he had in mind. Todd gritted his teeth, understanding what the boss meant; however, whether he could stay calm when discussing it was another matter.

  “Yes… I spoke poorly of how you treated the captive,” he acknowledged.

  “And will you apologize?”

  …

  Todd clenched his fists, his mind whirling with different ways he could answer—ways to submit and de-escalate the situation.

  So then, why… did his mouth seem to move on its own?

  “I will not.” Todd closed his eyes, hearing his friend trying to hold in his gasp as he blurted out his answer. Fuck…

  …

  “Hahahaha!”

  Then, to Todd’s astonishment, the boss cackled. As his laughter echoed louder and louder, the paid contestants in the clearing turned their attention to him in confusion. Todd and his friend were no different. Still half-bowing, they were frozen in bewilderment, unsure whether the boss found the answer amusing or so foolish that he had to laugh.

  “S-sir! Please forgive my friend for saying such appalling things!” Keni exclaimed, leaving his bowing position and making a salute. “He doesn’t truly believe that! R-right, Todd—”

  “Oh, will you just shut up already? Your voice is annoying,” the boss’s laughter faded as Keni immediately complied. Stalking toward Todd, he knelt down so he could whisper in his ear—Todd could even feel his hot breath even though his hoodie covered his head.

  “Tell me something, will you…” the boss said. “Why did you not apologize?”

  “Because then I would be lying. I do have a problem with how she is being treated because my instincts tell me so. I don’t want to apologize for something if I don’t mean it, especially after I told you that we would be upfront with our concerns instead of whispering them behind your back…” Todd said.

  The smile on the boss widened. “And what will you do about your concern?”

  Todd paused…

  “Nothing. There’s nothing I can do.” He gritted his teeth. “My sister needs the money to live, so if you are worried that I will rebel, I’d like to make something very clear: I won’t let the suffering of a stranger overpower the duty I have for my family. But even so… seeing a person like her getting beaten, I can’t help but feel sorry.”

  The boss’s smile faded into a grimace as he whispered in Todd’s ear. “You’re a good man.”

  His words left Todd’s body even more frozen than what it was before. He widened his eyes under the concealment of his hoodie and slowly lifted his head, looking up at the leader’s face.

  The expression that Todd was expecting was one of anger, hatred, and, most of all, evil. Yet that was not what he saw–instead, It was one of sympathy.

  “Keep the money…” the Boss said. “And leave with your friend.”

  … What?

  “S-sir, I don’t know what you mean. Why?” Todd choked on his own words. The leader stood up from his leaning position and gazed solemnly down at him.

  “You have a few seconds to leave...” he said. "I hear him coming."