He exhaled slowly, trying to clear the fog in his mind. The ghosts, the table, Melissa's voice—they were all behind him now.
But the weight in his chest lingered.
"I miss her," Adrian muttered under his breath, eyes downcast as his fork scraped the last bit of chocolate from the plate. The words slipped out quietly, as if spoken more to the empty seat across from him than to anyone else.
He stood abruptly, the warmth of the café fading behind him as he stepped out into the city's afternoon haze. A few coins hit the counter as he paid, and then he was gone—just another wanderer on the stone-paved streets.
It had been days since he told Misha about the church. Days of eating sweets, drifting from one quest to the next, trying to smother the growing restlessness in his chest. He'd made good money—around 6000 guldens just from small jobs—but even the weight of the coin purse didn't fill the void of waiting.
He strolled through the street now, eyes scanning for anything remotely exciting. Market stalls barked out their prices. Perfume mingled with the scent of roasting meat and cheap ale. But nothing caught his interest.
Misha had told him to lay low. "Too risky," she'd warned. "You stirred too much up." And she wasn't wrong—but Adrian felt like he was rotting inside from boredom. More than once, he'd considered storming the church alone, just to feel alive again.
The only thing that kept him grounded lately was Misha herself. Teaching her mana gathering had been… weirdly fulfilling. She caught on quickly—too quickly for someone who supposedly had no mana. And now they were trading lessons. He taught her control; she taught him the basics of pyromancy and cryomancy.
His pyromancy was pathetic—a flickering flame that could barely toast bread. But cryomancy? That, he clicked with. Large, sharp icicles bent easily to his will, and with matter manipulation, he learned to reshape and launch them like crystalline spears. Cold magic and solid force—his combo was starting to become lethal.
And yet… it still wasn't enough.
He kicked a loose stone down the street, watching it skip.
"Damn it," he muttered, his breath fogging just slightly—an unconscious shimmer of ice forming at his fingertips.
Adrian stepped into the narrow alley, the lazy sun above casting the path in long shadows. Just a shortcut to the guild—he hadn't even picked a quest yet. Maybe he'd just go bother Misha again, watch her fume when he pretended not to understand her instructions. Something to kill the boredom.
Ahead, two men walked side by side, chatting casually. They looked like any other pair of townsfolk enjoying the afternoon air. But as they passed him, their movements snapped into precision.
Adrian's breath caught as twin flashes of metal slid into his gut, followed by a rough cloth jammed into his mouth to muffle the scream.
Pain flared hot and sharp. He staggered, eyes wide, falling to one knee. The men looked down at him, grinning—empty, glassy-eyed grins. Adrian had seen those eyes before. The same dead stare as the church husks.
His fingers twitched.
He spat out the filthy cloth, blood mixing with the cotton fibers on his tongue. Then his lips curved slowly.
He tore the knives from his gut in one fluid motion. A soft pink glow pulsed from the wounds, and before their eyes, the flesh stitched together, sealing with faint cracks of steam.
He looked up at them, his grin feral.
"Fucking finally."
Without hesitation, Adrian hurled the bloodied knives back at them. The husks dodged, shifting unnaturally, and the fight exploded into motion.
One swept low, smashing a foot into Adrian's calf. The other went high with a sharp uppercut, but Adrian anticipated them—his hands moved like liquid, redirecting their momentum and sending them crashing to the ground.
They didn't stay down.
The moment they stood, their hands flicked, hidden blades flashing. Two quick strikes—one aimed for his neck, the other toward his heart.
Adrian saw it. Felt the cold bite of steel just graze his skin—and reacted.
Mana surged.
The blades turned soft, warping like melted wax before they could pierce deeper.
In the same breath, Adrian slammed his palms into the ground. Two pillars erupted beneath the attackers, stone and dirt crashing upward like fists from the earth, aiming for their jaws with enough force to launch a troll sky-high.
The impact landed. Crunch.
But they didn't move.
Adrian's breath hitched as he looked at them. Their heads had snapped back violently, jaws mangled, teeth shattered, blood pouring from broken mouths.
And yet—they stood. Still grinning.
"Ew, gross. Can't you die at least? Damn, that's gross." Adrian's nose wrinkled in distaste as he looked down at the mangled, bleeding grins of the husks.
He slammed his palm into the ground with a sigh, and cuffs of stone shot up from the earth, clamping tightly around their wrists and ankles with brutal finality. They jerked slightly, trying to move, but the stone held fast.
"I'm not fighting you when you look like that." Adrian waved a hand lazily. "Vitalis."
Soft, pink light pulsed from his fingers, washing over their ruined faces. Their jaws shifted with sickening cracks, bone reforming, teeth regrowing, flesh sealing. In seconds, the grins were intact again—too intact. Uncanny.
He exhaled and stared at them, then down at the dirt. "Now how the hell am I supposed to carry you two meat puppets?"
A faint shuffle behind him. Too quiet.
One of the husks had started moving—crawling with a slug-like desperation. It slithered over the ground, silent and twitching, and before Adrian could turn fully, it clamped its teeth into his calf.
He glanced back, expression flat.
"…Really?"
With a sharp kick from his other leg, he launched the thing back a few feet, then casually healed the puncture on his skin with another quick Vitalis. The glow disappeared as fast as it came.
"Oh well. Dragging it is."
Adrian grabbed both by the leg—one in each hand—and began the slow, unceremonious trek toward the guild. Stone shackles scraped along the street, and the two men—silent, faces restored but wrong—left streaks in the dirt as they were hauled behind him like sacks of meat.
He didn't even bother to explain himself to the people staring. Frankly, their horrified expressions were kind of funny.
"Mommy, look! Look, that man is carrying those two!" a little boy cried out, pointing excitedly at Adrian.
The mother gave a distracted response. "No, honey, I'm sure it's just people messing arou—"
She turned. Saw.
"What the hell…" she muttered, eyes wide.
Adrian just kept walking, humming something tuneless under his breath, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smile that looked far too satisfied. Honestly, in that moment, he looked more disturbing than the two barely-living corpses trailing behind him.