Krugen held up his right hand, his intense brown eyes shifting from Kennedy to Hill. It was clear that he was someone powerful because everyone in the tent seemed to pay attention to his every move.
Even Hill found himself captivated by his movements, his heart beating loudly as if he was in danger.
Then, the old man spoke. "Let the boy speak for himself."
His voice had a calming texture to it, but Hill deduced that it was mostly because the old man seemed a bit spent. The map in front of him was covered in markings and paths. He must have been working on it for quite a while.
Krugen spoke again. "Tell me everything, son. Start from the moment you entered the soul trial."
Hill raised an eyebrow. "Soul trial? I-I'm sorry, I don't quite unde—"
"The arena."
Hill flinched but quickly composed himself as he recounted his story. He spoke of the arena's appearance, the sudden appearance of the sword, the fight against the humanoid creature that was a mirror of the one he'd died to back on Earth.
He detailed the brutal fight against the creature up to the point just after he'd been impaled. He explained how he went blank after that, with no memory of victory or any kind of "blessing."
As he spoke, Hill noticed the small girl, Eliana, subtly lean in from her sitting position. She was watching him with narrowed blue eyes. She didn't move or make a sound, but Hill couldn't help but pay some attention to her as well.
When Hill finished, silence filled the tent.
Krugen looked toward Eliana.
The little girl spoke without hesitation. "He was telling the truth."
The old man smiled as he nodded slowly, absorbing this judgment. Hill turned toward the girl, a droplet of sweat rolling down his brow as he realized what the girl could do. Somehow, Eliana could detect lies.
What a frightening ability for someone so young! He couldn't help but imagine how her ability must have been used during the formation of this camp. It was clear to Hill that she was central to the leadership of this place.
His eyes darted back to Krugen, who had gotten up from his seat. He was a tall man, above six feet with a healthy disposition.
"Do you know you have no 'blessing' that you know of? And you cannot summon your runes to see your status? Do you know why that is?" The old man asked, trying to extract as much information from Hill as possible.
Hill shook his head, feeling a familiar frustration building up within him. "I don't know if I have a blessing or not. I can't see any runes to check. When I try, nothing happens. As for why... I'm not sure."
Krugen turned to Eliana, who simply nodded in response. The old man let out a tired sigh.
The blonde man finally decided to make a move. "So what we have here," he drawled as he spat the toothpick from his mouth, "is a run-of-the-mill human who somehow ended up here. No powers, no blessing, no nothing."
He walked in front of Hill, his bright blue eyes piercing through Hill's crimson ones. "In other words... dead weight. Quite literally, too. I don't know how you were able to survive the soul trial, but it must have been through luck alone."
Krugen's hand clamped on Zeke's shoulder, gently pulling him away. "That's enough, Zeke. You're scaring the poor kid."
Zeke scowled but stepped away, allowing Krugen to step closer. The old man looked Hill up and down before reaching out and grabbing Hill's shoulders.
Hill flinched as the old man gave his shoulders a tight squeeze. "Uh, sir. What—"
"He may be frail, but he's not completely weak. He'd fit right into the Third Company, right?" Krugen said, turning to the blonde man. "He's a young one too, so he can adapt quickly."
Zeke smirked, a glint of something cunning in his eyes. "No, not the Third. I think we should add him to the Fourth Company."
Krugen looked surprised, his eyebrows raising. "The Fourth Company? I created that 'group' as a punishment for the Deulegarde girl. I don't see the need to put him there."
"Oh, but I disagree," Zeke replied, his smirk widening as he looked Hill up and down like he was assessing livestock. "Until this kid can prove he's not a complete waste of resources by summoning his runes, he will join that brat in dealing with the camp's maintenance work."
He paused for effect, letting the unpleasant implication sink in.
"Waste disposal, cleaning the latrines, hauling slop. All the dirty work. It'll build character. Or, at the very least, it'll make him useful."
He turned to Krugen. "So... what do you think?"
Hill was fighting the urge to scowl. For some reason, despite having grown used to being treated like this by his father, he couldn't stomach being treated like trash by some stranger. Also, the way Zeke was behaving seemed to irk him beyond belief.
Why is this guy treating me like this? I went through something that was incredibly traumatic, yet he doesn't seem to care...
Did he not experience the same monster horde as I did? Did he not see the horrors?
How can someone behave like this among all that?
The old man didn't immediately respond to Zeke's suggestion. Instead, he turned away and walked over to the map, proceeding to sit back down. Then, he spoke. "He'll join the Fourth Company, as you suggested, Zeke. But... if he discovers his runes, he must be brought back to me, without fail. Am I understood?"
Zeke nodded and turned to Kennedy, who had been standing there awkwardly.
"You heard him," Zeke said, his tone dismissive as he pointed toward Hill. "Take our new recruit to his post. Introduce him to Soleil. I'm sure she'll be thrilled to finally have a comrade."
Kennedy's expression remained neutral. She nodded once. "Yes, sir."
She turned and pushed Hill out of the command tent, back into the damp, grey twilight of the forest camp. The air outside felt a bit heavier now, mostly because of how Hill was feeling. He felt completely disrespected.
His fists were clenched at his sides and his fingernails were digging into his palms. He didn't really care about being powerless anyway. Blessings could be damned. It was just annoying to be treated like an expendable.
He followed Kennedy as she led him away from the center of the camp toward the outskirts, opposite from where he had been tied up.
Here, at the outer bounds of the camp, the ground immediately became softer and muddier. The smells of damp earth and decay suddenly grew stronger, and the faint smell of human waste seemed to cling to the air.
The smell of smoke was still present as well, but it didn't seem to get stronger in comparison to the other smells.
They passed the last row of tents and entered a sparsely populated area at the edge of the settlement. Here, a series of deep pits had been dug into the ground. Beside them, several large reeking piles of compost and garbage could be seen.
And there, kneeling beside one of the compost heaps with a crude, shovel-like tool, was a girl.
She was young, around Hill's age but with a slightly aged facial composition that seemed to be born from stress. Her hair was an unusual light blue that was caked with dirt, and her eyes were a glistening amethyst color.
Her clothes were even more unusual. Hill recognized them despite the layers of dirt, dust, and waste that seemed to coat their surface. Her trousers and shirt were from a reputable brand that charged their customers insane prices. From what he could remember, the brand that she was wearing—Cherderell—sold clothing at an average of fifteen hundred crowns a piece.
Which was just... insanity.
Her shirt probably cost the same as her trousers, maybe a bit less. But if he added the cost of those two articles of clothing, it would be around three thousand crowns, give or take five hundred.
That meant that her outfit, if sold in brand-new condition, could cover around a year of utility bills. Hill remembered how his father and mother used to struggle to pay off a month's worth of bills.
This really put things into perspective.
The girl paused her work, resting the shovel on the ground and watching them with undisguised anger as they approached. She didn't say a word.
Kennedy stopped a few feet away, clearly not wanting to get any closer to the stench than she had to. "Soleil Deulegarde," she announced, her voice painfully flat. "This is Hill. He's the newest member of the Fourth Company. Show him what to do."
Soleil's amethyst eyes flicked from Kennedy to Hill, sizing him up in an instant. A slow smirk traveled across her face.
"Another one?" she said, her voice surprisingly fluttery and harmonious. "What did he do to get stuck with someone like me?"
"As of right now, he doesn't have a blessing," Kennedy stated simply, as if that explained everything.
The smirk vanished from Soleil's face, replaced by a flicker of surprise. Her eyes widened slightly as she looked at Hill again, this time with a strange curiosity.
Without another word, Kennedy turned on her heel and marched back toward the main camp, leaving Hill standing alone in the mud and the stench, facing the blue-haired girl who was now his sole companion in disgrace.
Soleil stared at him for a long moment, the silence broken only by the buzzing of flies around the refuse pile. Finally, she jabbed her shovel into the compost heap and gestured toward another identical tool lying nearby.
"Well, don't just stand there, Hill," she said. "The crap doesn't move itself."