MHHC Chapter 154

Fog

Adelheid bit down on her lip, her face stricken pale.

The more she looked around, the more hope dissolved into the murk.

She had poured every last trace of her mana into brightening the darkness, but it was nowhere near enough to pierce the fog. Now she could barely make out what lay a single step ahead.

"Donovan!"

She raised her voice once more with everything she had, but what returned was only the hollow echo of her own cry—sound swallowed up and flung back empty.

As if there were no one in this vast corridor but herself, and beyond her, nothing at all. The moment that realization settled, gooseflesh crawled across her entire body.

'What happened? He was right in front of me.'

Any number of explanations presented themselves, but none of them mattered as much as escaping this place—that was what needed to happen first.

She clenched and unclenched her cold hands repeatedly, forcing her emotions down through sheer effort.

'Making more noise will only give away my position. It might attract the attention of something that shouldn't be looking my way...'

The thought that something might be watching her from within the fog made her mouth go dry.

Come to think of it—hadn't there been a strange presence at her back, just a moment ago? Adelheid cast an anxious glance over her shoulder once more.

'First, get out of here. Donovan is a more capable knight than I am; he won't panic in a situation like this. I can follow the passage and find him again at the watchtower. Everything else can wait.'

She steeled herself and reached inside her clothing to close her fingers around the dagger.

Then she stretched her other hand out, pressed it flat against the wall, and began to walk forward—slowly, carefully, one step at a time.

With the fog unnatural around her and no clear way back, there had only ever been one choice.

Visibility was essentially nothing, and so her pace was maddeningly slow—but impatience, in a moment like this, would only poison her.

'The wind is coming from this direction.'

She moved with deliberate care, advancing and then pausing to listen, then advancing again. At some point, imperceptibly, the thick fog began to thin.

She still could not make out shapes with any precision, but the cool, steady breath of wind against her skin was unmistakable. Was she drawing closer to an exit?

'...Something isn't right.'

Adelheid stopped mid-step. A deep, insistent instinct told her something was wrong.

But what, exactly? The fog was thinning, and there was wind—surely that was an improvement.

'Is it the quiet? I can't even tell if this is the right path.'

She glanced uneasily at the mana clusters drifting around her, which had begun to lose their light.

What had once shone bright enough to guide her forward was now dimming—one orb blinking out after another as the mana drained from them.

She considered pouring more power into the light, then let the thought go. She couldn't afford to waste what she had. Not when she had no way of knowing how much farther this passage stretched—least of all now.

'That smell—good God...'

She had been moving with careful deliberation when she stopped dead, wrinkling her nose.

An oppressive, damp, nauseating stench rolled through the fog from somewhere ahead.

'What on earth is that?'

Foul and metallic at once—like blood left to rot.

She pressed her hand over her nose and mouth and stepped back.

Whatever lay ahead, anything that could produce a smell like this was surely something harmful. That much she was certain of.

Adelheid gathered the trembling pieces of herself back together.

'I can't give up and turn back now. If I can't pinpoint their location with certainty, they won't send a rescue party regardless—not even if people die waiting for it...'

She forced herself to press down against every instinct screaming at her to run.

That was when it happened—her palm, still tracing along the wall, met something.

Adelheid tore her hand away with a sharp gasp.

'What is that?'

The texture of the wall had changed entirely from what it had been moments before.

Warm. Slick. Like the fascia of some living thing—something that twitched and writhed beneath her touch—wait. Living?

Dread and revulsion crept upward from the soles of her feet and crawled slowly up her spine.

Adelheid, drained white to the lips, let out a short, breathless shriek. She stumbled backward in blind panic, caught her foot on something jutting from the ground, and went down hard—flung to the floor as though the earth itself had thrown her.

"Ah—"

Pain flared up along her spine from the impact. But there was no room in her mind to assess it.

A hand had emerged from the fog. It closed over her mouth. It held her fast.

Seized by a terror so absolute it swallowed all thought, Adelheid squeezed her eyes shut and flailed her arms wildly in every direction.

[Adelheid. Open your eyes.]

She didn't even register that someone was calling her name. Tears streamed down her face, and then—

[Calm down. Please.]

Very slowly—so slowly—Adelheid understood. She had not been seized by a monster.

She was held in familiar arms.

The figure turned her body gently to face him.

In the darkness, she could see Valentin's eyes, faintly luminous—the same eyes that always looked as if they had been carved from captured light. She stared at him through wet lashes, her expression wide and undone with disbelief at this impossible reunion.

"Valentin? How—how did you—"

[That's what I'd like to ask. How are you here?]

Adelheid registered the faint edge in his voice.

There was far more bewilderment than relief at finding her—or, if she was being entirely honest with herself, he did not seem pleased to see her in the least.

"Are... are you really you?"

Valentin pulled her up from the floor and questioned her again directly.

[Please tell me what happened. You should have stayed at the fortress. Why are you here?]

"I—I volunteered for the missing persons search party."

He raised one eyebrow as if the words made no sense whatsoever.

Adelheid wilted visibly and stumbled through an explanation.

"They said they couldn't divide the forces arbitrarily—that once a definite location was confirmed, they'd dispatch a rescue party at that point. I had no other option."

Her answer seemed to leave him momentarily without words.

"After I heard that Ansgar's knights had gone missing, I was completely out of my mind with worry..."

He exhaled—a short breath that carried the distinct weight of a great many things left unsaid.

The way he looked at her made even her earlobes burn hot. She turned her face away from his gaze and let the questions pour out of her instead.

"Are you hurt anywhere? Have you been here the entire time? And the other knights—where are they?"

She knew she was behaving strangely. But she could not bear the silence.

His silence was a reproach—she felt it pressing down on her. She understood why he was shaken; she did. And yet something raw and wounded rose in her chest against her will.

"I truly thought something had happened to you..."

[Even so. You should never have attempted anything this dangerous. How could you think to come here with only a single escort?]

"There was no other way. The rumors being spread are too dreadful—I couldn't simply... Are you angry with me?"

He exhaled again. Lighter this time.

[Yes. And separate from that—I'm glad I got to see your face a little sooner.]

Valentin drew the pad of his thumb slowly across Adelheid's cheek.

She felt a sting where the skin caught—a small, sharp graze. It was only then that she realized she must have scraped herself when she fell.

[Does it hurt?]

"I'm fine."

It occurred to Adelheid only then that he was speaking through his will.

What had once overwhelmed her completely, she now received so instinctively that she could barely distinguish it from spoken words.

Whether that was a good development, for a human being to make—she genuinely didn't know. But she pushed the thought aside and glanced around the passage.

"We should get out before the monsters find us. Where are the other knights?"

[I sent them back. There's no longer any need for them here.]

"That means..."

[Questions can wait until we're outside. As you said—we've already stayed in one place far too long.]

He stepped forward to lead the way, clearly expecting her to follow. She fell into step behind him without thinking—and then stopped as a memory surfaced, sudden and sharp.

"Wait—Donovan! We have to find him. The fog must have separated us. He was right beside me just a moment ago..."

[He's unharmed.]

"Unharmed? You know where he is?"

[He's somewhere safer than either of us. Come. Something is about to descend on this place.]

"Descend—what is about to—"

[Everything in the vicinity.]

In that moment, Adelheid felt a cold breath of air sweep along her back.

Valentin went still—listening, it seemed—then shook his head slowly from side to side.

[There's no time.]

Had she been even slightly calmer, Adelheid might have noticed that his complexion was not right. But calm was entirely beyond her just then.

Because the direction Valentin was walking—was exactly the direction that terrible stench was pouring from.

"Forward? Not back the way we came?"

[The fog behind us isn't an ordinary kind. It isn't something a human can endure.]

She blinked, unsettled.

"Then what is it?"