The Uninvited Guest

Leonardo managed to wrench Elara and Anna down just as the explosion's searing debris sliced through the air where they'd stood.

The once serene hill had transformed into a hellish landscape. Jagged craters smoked, and the night sky, cold and indifferent, glinted eerily off the train's crumpled yellow exterior, a stark contrast to the devastation.

Chaos reigned unchecked. The inferno respected no barriers.

"What's happening?!" Anna screamed, her voice a raw shred of sound barely piercing the overwhelming cacophony of crackling flames and agonized cries.

Elara stayed frozen beside her, shock locking her limbs, managing only a choked mutter, "The people…" The intense heat had already scorched their clothes, singeing fabric and skin.

Elara's floral dress was now a charred, tattered rag. Leonardo's attire, though subtly imbued with some protective enchantment, couldn't withstand the furnace-like intensity of the flames licking hungrily at him.

Her thoughts spiraled into a vortex of panic.

What was she even doing here? Her quest hadn't even properly begun, and already they were beset with relentless problems: the detour to this place—and now, the catastrophic, unexpected explosion of the right star. A scream tore from her throat, joining the chorus of terror erupting around them.

Hundreds had entered the train; precious few survived. Leonardo's mind raced, a frantic whirlwind of possibilities and dread, searching for an escape, an explanation.

Hearing desperate, guttural cries from deep within the burning wreckage, he dashed forward without a second thought, ignoring the flames that greedily licked at his exposed skin.

[Adaptive Evolution taking effect]

The longer he endured the inferno, the more his skin began to adapt, visibly thickening and forming strange, resilient new layers against the assault.

He reached the source of the weakening screams, only to find the horrifically charred corpses of two school students, their forms barely recognizable.

His body stiffened; horror warred with the searing pain. The flames danced across his mahogany skin, reflecting like molten bronze, heat radiating in visible, shimmering waves from his ash-coated frame.

[Thermal Regulation (Minor)]

The agony was immense—a torturous symphony of physical burning and the soul-crushing sight of the lifeless young bodies.

Tears welled hotly in his eyes but evaporated instantly in the blistering heat, leaving salty tracks on his soot-streaked face. Then, a powerful voice cut through the chaotic din like a blade.

"Get down, everyone!!" a male voice screamed, raw with command.

From the miraculously untouched lake near the explosion site, a substantial wave, summoned by unseen force, rose with unnatural speed and crashed over the burning wreckage with a thunderous hiss, quenching the flames in a vast cloud of steam.

Leonardo stood rooted, stunned, the water sizzling and evaporating instantly off his seared skin.

"Death," he murmured, the word tasting like ash. This brutal baptism wasn't how he had imagined his first day in this new world.

The one who had doused the fire was like Elara and Anna—he too hailed from the Stem and had been given the perilous quest of exploration.

Story Skills: Jack of Elemental Trades (Stage 4)

Attachment Skill: Elemental Manipulation

Unwritten Skill: Priest

Title Skill: N/A

Rasvian Control Rank: Adept

He moved with swift, practiced efficiency to aid those in need, his striking blue hair shimmering like captured water under the moonlight as he directed the remaining liquid with precise gestures to extinguish the last stubborn tongues of flame.

His presence was commanding—a sudden, potent beacon of hope and control amidst the swirling chaos.

He wore a practical dark gray hoodie with a front zipper—unzipped—featuring bold, angular lettering across the chest, a simple black t-shirt underneath, and a pair of loose-fitting cargo pants in a matching dark shade, functional amidst the ruin.

"Did he just… move the waters of the lake?" Leonardo muttered, genuine bewilderment cutting through his exhaustion.

The boy's intense green eyes shone with fierce determination as he tended to the survivors with unnerving precision and calmness.

Despite the overwhelming devastation, a fragile glimmer of resilience began to fill the smoke-choked air.

His decisive manipulation of the water had turned the tide of the immediate disaster, and his utterly composed demeanor acted like an anchor, gradually steadying the panicked survivors around him.

Leonardo stumbled out of the once magnificent, now skeletal right star, his gaze fixed on how this boy—seemingly of his own age—had emerged from the chaos like an avenging spirit and resolved the catastrophe while he himself had been rendered motionless, paralyzed amidst the destruction.

A voice echoed, sharp and urgent, "Does anyone have a skill similar to healing?!"

A woman nearby raised a trembling hand, her face pale but resolute. "I—I know a healing skill. I'll need a few medicinal bottles, though. Quickly!"

Story Skill: Doctor (Stage 2)

Attachment Skill: Medicine

Leonardo looked closer. She was middle-aged, radiating a practiced calm. She moved swiftly among the injured, applying her attachment skill and precious potions, which knitted only slight wounds closed—but it was desperately needed succor, better than nothing.

Leonardo paused, a wave of realization crashing over him. Did everyone have skills? What were Elara and Anna's? He pressed his palm hard against his face, the grit of ash grinding into his skin.

How monumentally dumb could I have been? If only they'd gone straight to the Stem instead of detouring to the Mansion—everything, everything, might have been better planned, perhaps averting this.

He began walking unsteadily toward the spot where he'd left Elara and Anna. He spotted them in the distance—both unconscious, pale figures against the scorched earth.

He took one heavy step, then another. The world tilted violently. His mind spun like a top losing momentum. The savior, tending another survivor, noticed Leonardo's aimless, stumbling gait as he reeled.

"Hey? Are you alright?" he shouted, his voice cutting through Leonardo's daze.

"Yeah, I'm—" Leonardo tried to force the words out, but his body betrayed him, collapsing bonelessly to the ground.

The cumulative toll of the flames, the searing agony, the bone-deep exhaustion, and the crushing emotional strain finally overwhelmed his tenuous hold.

"Stay with me," the boy commanded, his voice firm yet laced with an underlying thread of urgency.

He knelt swiftly, placing his cool hands directly over Leonardo's worst burns. A soothing chill, drawn from the lingering water essence, flowed into the seared flesh, offering a blessed, temporary respite from the fire's memory.

Leonardo's vision blurred, tunneling. Darkness crept in from the edges, thick and insistent.

Through the encroaching haze, the last thing he registered was the unwavering, determined look in Marquis's vivid green eyes—a steady, piercing gaze that stood in stark, almost alien contrast to the swirling chaos and despair surrounding them.

Yet, amid the overwhelming devastation, a strange, nascent sense of camaraderie and shared, grim purpose began to flicker weakly in Leonardo's fading mind.

As his consciousness fled, he clung to the image of Marquis—a figure of undeniable resolve and emergent leadership.

The world faded to impenetrable black. The sounds of the crumbling star and the panicked cries receded into muffled, underwater tones of distant conversation.

"Oh damn, he's down," someone muttered nearby—a mix of frayed frustration and weary resignation in their voice.

Marquis turned his head sharply towards the doctor, who was working diligently over another groaning victim.

"Miss," he called out, his tone leaving no room for delay, gesturing decisively toward Leonardo's prone form. "Could you come here for a bit?"

The doctor, wiping soot from her brow, approached with her satchel. Her healing potions had stabilized many, but Leonardo's condition was visibly far more severe.

Marquis's gaze swept past the healer, landing on Elara and Anna, unconscious, their dresses scorched rags clinging to them.

His green eyes lingered on the trio for a cold, assessing moment before his lips thinned. "Is this who you picked as your guide?" he asked, his tone flat, dismissive, and edged with contempt.

"They'll be dead before they see the first wonder," he added with a sigh that sounded like a death knell.

"Seems the de Meaux won't last long," he muttered, the disdain now slow and careful.

With a final, scornful look at the fallen trio, he turned sharply and began walking with purposeful strides towards the distant, silhouetted bulk of the Mortimers mansion.

He gestured curtly in the air, a complex, fluid motion. From the coalescing shadows beside him, a mysterious figure materialized as if stepping through a veil.

The figure was draped in dark green robes that seemed to absorb the low light, its face hidden deep within a voluminous hood.

"The quest given by the Sage is an elimination quest," Marquis stated, his voice carrying a note of grim, unflinching determination that brooked no argument.

"Most families will be eliminated swiftly. In honor of the House of de Lorraine, I will lead ahead of this... culling."

The cloaked figure nodded once, a silent ripple of fabric, in solemn acknowledgment but then abruptly halted its movement, awaiting further instruction.

"Take the de Meaux daughters and their... guide," Marquis ordered, the pause before "guide" dripping with derision.

"Yes, Seigneur," the figure replied, the title delivered with deep, formal respect, yet hollow.

Marquis's face hardened instantly at the address, a flicker of deep irritation crossing his features. "Don't call me that," he said flatly, the command absolute.

He watched, arms crossed, as the cloaked figure moved with unnatural silence towards Elara and Anna. With a roughness that spoke of expediency over care, the figure lifted each girl with unsettling, mechanical precision.

Leonardo, whose body still trembled with residual convulsions from the flames and shock, proved more difficult. The doctor had managed to slow the worst of the tremors, but his condition remained visibly precarious, breaths shallow and ragged.

The figure approached him, bending and lifting Leonardo's limp form with no effort. The sight of his trembling body, wracked by unseen aftershocks, contrasted starkly with the figure's unnerving calm.

"What's wrong with that one?" Marquis asked, gesturing at Leonardo with a slight, impatient flick of his hand. His curiosity was laced with clear annoyance.

"I have no clue, Seigneur," the cloaked figure responded, its voice dry and utterly devoid of empathy or inflection.

Outside the imposing gates of the Mortimers mansion, Uncle Richard had stood as a silent, hunched sentinel, observing the unfolding chaos.

His wizened face was etched with deep lines of resignation and profound concern.

As the grim procession approached the gates, the elderly man's expression shifted to one of acute, embarrassed discomfort, his eyes darting away from Marquis's piercing gaze.

"Ah, Marquis," Richard said, his voice strained, attempting a veneer of familiar warmth that fell utterly flat.

"Uncle," Marquis responded, the single word dropping like a stone, flat and devoid of any familial warmth.

Richard opened his mouth, perhaps to offer explanation or plea, but Marquis cut the air with his voice. "You're a sorry old man," Marquis said coldly, staring him down with undisguised contempt.

Marquis was slightly taller than Elara. His lean, imposing presence seemed to dwarf Richard's frail, stooped figure against the backdrop of the mansion's dark stone.

"Get inside," Marquis continued, his command a whiplash of sound, sharp and unyielding, leaving no space for protest or delay. Richard, shoulders slumping further under the weight of the words, swallowed visibly, nodded once with defeat, and turned, shuffling slowly towards the mansion's heavy doors.

Marquis and his silent entourage followed, the injured trio carried like macabre offerings into the maw of the Mortimers mansion.

A palpable sense of urgent foreboding hung thickly in the still air—as if the ancient mansion itself was holding its breath, waiting for the next act of the tragedy to begin.