Chapter 32: The Decapitation Squad

The moment we woke up in the morning, we were greeted with the worst possible news.

No—more accurately, the bad news came to us on its own. At dawn, while we were still curled up in our bedding, Jols and the others came shaking us awake. None of us had slept well. The weight of yesterday still pressed on our hearts like a boulder. My body had rested, yes, but mentally I had been drifting in and out of uneasy dreams all night. The pressure hadn’t eased one bit.

And with the news we received, that pressure peaked.

“Divine envoys, all the fog fiends in the town have suddenly become active. They’ve started moving outward.”

The chieftain personally delivered the devastating news.

For safety, the rotted-face people kept watch every night at the town’s outskirts, just in case. Usually, nothing happened. But in the early hours of the morning, the sentries witnessed something shocking and immediately rushed back to report it.

The fog realm had been around for ten years. The rotted-face people had been trapped in the forest for just as long.

In all that time, the fog fiends rarely left the ruined town. Occasionally, a low-ranking lizardman would stray into the forest, but it would be quickly subdued by snares and traps. After all, fog fiends instinctively detested the purifying power within Lustrous Core; they avoided it by nature.

But this time was different.

All the fog fiends had become active.

They were leaving their territory.

And worse—

“Most of them are… slowly moving… toward the forest.”

Jols added grimly, his face drawn with worry.

“Hold on, wait, wait a minute!”

I pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to cool my throbbing headache, and confirmed.

“So you’re saying, we just lost a comrade yesterday, haven’t had time to recover, haven’t even made a new battle plan, and now the fog fiends have suddenly abandoned their zones and are marching straight toward us!?”

“Th-that’s… correct.”

“Just to be sure,” Felice raised a hand, “when you say… um… ‘most’ of the fog fiends, how many are we talking about?”

“According to estimates, around a hundred fog fiends will reach the forest by this evening at the latest,” the chieftain said gravely.

My vision spun.

A hundred?

A hundred!?

All our combined efforts in the last two sorties only managed to kill about thirty fog fiends. Now they were sending over a hundred at once? And why? What caused this? Did something happen deeper in the town? Could it be—could it be that killing Jack and Aldrich had the opposite of the intended effect?

“Could it be the boss?”

Jelena suddenly spoke.

“If we go by game logic—”

“Oh fuck off, can you reference anything besides games?”

“Shut up, Booker! A lot of bosses in games have the ability to command minions. I think it’s totally possible we pissed it off by killing its top two lieutenants, and now it’s—”

“Mobilizing all its troops for a full-scale assault on us?”

“““““…”””””

This was bad.

Incredibly bad.

Everyone was shaken by how disastrous this was. Even the chieftain looked pale. This had taken him by surprise as well. We’d badly underestimated the risk. And now, things hadn’t just taken a turn for the worse; they’d plummeted off a cliff.

We were completely at a loss.

Forget taking action—we couldn’t even settle on a next step.

Mizan was crippled. Rena was gone. The only people left with the strength to fight were me, Felice, Booker, and Jelena. The chieftain could assist in combat, acting in a support role, making a total of five viable fighters. As for the rest of the rotted-face people, they could only barely hold the line against the oncoming fog fiends. No matter how you looked at it, this was going to be an uphill, desperate battle.

And on top of that, we still had the boss to deal with—the Mist King of this region. Even if we somehow survived the fog fiend onslaught, what would remain of us to face the Mist King? Just a handful of tattered remnants? That was a guaranteed death sentence. What, were we supposed to beg the Mist King to have mercy and withdraw his forces?

…Wait a minute.

Beg the Mist King to mercifully call off his troops?

“Hey, Chieftain, listen.”

“Speak freely. Have you thought of a strategy?”

“Strategy? You could call it that, I guess, but…”

Was it a plan or a delusion born of desperation? Even I couldn’t tell anymore.

“Let me confirm—hypothetically, if we manage to kill the Mist King, then the fog realm in this area, and everything that came with it, including the fog fiends, will disappear, correct?”

“That is indeed the case… Wait, you mean to say!?”

“Mm…”

Looks like the chieftain had caught on.

The others were staring at me with strange expressions. They must have realized it too.

I took a deep breath.

“If we set out today and manage to kill the Mist King before nightfall… what then?”

“““““…”””””

Everyone fell silent.

Under the weight of a powder-keg atmosphere, I forced myself to continue.

“Even if we survive the fog fiend horde, we’ll have nothing left to face the Mist King with. So actually, our odds might be better if we strike first.”

“Brother Hong, are you out of your fucking mind!? Wtf!?”

Sure enough, the one with the shortest fuse exploded first.

“We—we just got through all that fucking mess yesterday! We’re not even remotely ready, mentally or physically, and now you wanna shove us out the door and go charging in blind!? Are you trying to get us all killed!?”

Jelena followed up right after, protesting too.

“Yeah! And weren’t you the one last night preaching about how you hid the rotting issue to stop people from acting recklessly? Now look at you; you’re contradicting yourself!”

“Yesterday was a perfect example, wasn’t it? Rushed into a fight with two bosses before figuring anything out—and what happened? What happened!? Damn it!”

“This isn’t a game! There’s no save points, no respawns! ‘Let’s just die once and scout ahead’—that mindset will get us all killed!”

Booker and Jelena went back and forth, shooting down my so-called plan like it was a death sentence. Their fear came through loud and clear, as loud as my own.

And I understood them.

Of course I did.

Because the same fear that flashed in their eyes was burning in mine.

Fear.

It’s easy to talk big, but what really paralyzes us is the terror rooted deep inside. Harsh battles. The deaths of comrades. We weren’t hardened veterans; we weren’t used to this. What happened yesterday had branded that fear deep into our hearts.

We were already cornered—there was no time to explore slowly, no time to settle our emotions, no time to prepare thoroughly. No matter how unknown the danger, we had to charge forward. Whether we went today, tomorrow, or the day after made little difference. If anything, considering the fog fiend horde would arrive by nightfall, today might be our best—and only—shot.

This was it.

A true life-or-death battle, with no second chances.

I was terrified.

Utterly terrified.

If I weren’t standing in front of everyone right now, I’d probably be curled up, sobbing for my parents in heaven.

But the world doesn’t stop for weakness. This wasn’t a matter of wanting to win.

We had to win.

Even with my heart twisting in pain, I had to make a choice.

So—

“…Beheading Operation.”

I said it—this cold military term that sounded absurd in a place like this.

“Booker. Jelena. You two stay behind as the defense team. The fog fiends will start arriving this afternoon, which means their vanguard could show up even earlier. We need to split up and hold the rear.”

Their eyes widened. The surrounding rotted-face people began murmuring among themselves.

But that wasn’t the main point.

“Felice and I will form the decapitation squad. We’ll infiltrate the Academy’s main building and—before the fog fiends launch their full-scale attack—kill the Mist King.”

I tried to make my voice sound confident, convincing. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to withstand everyone’s stares.

A defense team and an execution team.

The former was obvious.

But the latter couldn’t just be decided on my word alone.

I looked to Felice.

She hadn’t said a word since earlier, her eyes fixed directly on me.

I couldn’t read the expression behind her violet irises, clear as frosted glass.

“This is just my own idea. In terms of success rate, the two of us together probably have the best odds. But it’s not an order. Felice, you… you don’t have to risk your life for me.”

I didn’t want to do this.

If possible, I’d love to pound my chest and declare to the world, “I can handle this on my own.” That way, no one else would have to risk their lives for me. Even if the nest falls and not a single egg survives, at least they might live a little longer.

I suddenly realized I felt a strange resistance to relying on others.

It was childish, really.

Emotion said, ‘Don’t drag others into this.’

Reason said, ‘You can’t do this alone.’

In the end, it all came down to Felice’s choice.

I even found myself quietly praying in my heart, please say no.

I didn’t even know what I wanted anymore.

But Felice’s response tightened my entire chest in an instant.

She blinked her beautiful eyes and gave a small, steady nod. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, she said, “Of course. I want to help you, Yuhong.”

***

My mother was a devout Catholic.

My father was a staunch atheist.

Raised between them, I had always wavered between utter idealism and cold materialism. But now—now, for the first time in my life, I, Zhou Yuhong, offered up a wholehearted prayer. To a god who might exist somewhere.

“God… Please, let her be safe. At the very least, don’t let another innocent companion die because of me.”