Leon's eyelids twitched rapidly before slowly, painfully cracking open. The dim light filtering through the small window made his eyes sting for a moment. His last memory remained a blurred image of pain, despair, and the sounds of brutal combat...
He blinked rapidly, trying to focus. The faint smell of disinfectant and an oddly comforting warmth told him he was no longer trapped in that blood-red fog. He tried to move. The agony that had raced through his body just hours ago... or maybe longer... seemed much more bearable now.
Where the hell am I?
Leon slowly pushed himself up to sit, looking around the cramped room that appeared to be a makeshift infirmary in the familiar patrol unit quarters. He turned left and right, then his gaze collided with the figure of an elderly man sitting on an old wooden chair beside the bed.
The man's salt-and-pepper hair looked more disheveled than usual, and dark circles under his eyes spoke of exhaustion.
"Hey old man... where am I?" Leon asked, his voice slightly hoarse.
Barton looked up from his daze. Seeing Leon had awakened, his expression showed a flicker of relief. "In River Bend, kid," he replied immediately, his tone still tinged with weariness. "How are you feeling?"
Leon ignored the question. He scanned the room again, trying to piece together the story. "What happened? Where is everyone? Eva... Ken..."
Then he froze when his eyes caught sight of one of his arms... the arm he clearly remembered being severed by that Vine-born's thorny claws... Now it was still there! No stitches, no scars. Only the torn sleeve he wore remained as evidence of that horrific event.
"Old man... how did I... how did I survive?" Leon asked, his voice trembling with confusion clear in his eyes. "My arm... it was..."
Barton sighed deeply, nodding for Leon to stay calm. "Easy there, kid. Listen to me carefully." The elderly man paused for a moment, his eyes gazing out the window dreamily before turning back to meet Leon's gaze with a complex expression.
"Actually..." Barton began with a heavy tone, "I... I had planned this with a certain group... a group called the 'Witherborn.'"
"Witherborn?" Leon repeated, not understanding.
"Yes," Barton nodded. "They're an independent group, similar to... well... bounty hunters or mercenaries. But their main target is dealing specifically with Vine-born. They're scattered across the globe and know far more about these things than we do."
Barton averted his gaze slightly when saying this, as if some guilt was clearly surfacing.
"Originally..." he continued, "our plan was to use River Bend's patrol team as bait to lure out that dangerous Vine-born lurking in the fog, then the Witherborn would come in and handle it." Barton stopped, swallowing dryly. "But... but things went way off plan. I never thought it would be so devastatingly powerful and able to control the fog so terrifyingly... I really underestimated it."
Silence engulfed the room for a moment before the understanding of what Barton had just said slowly seeped into Leon's mind... then fury erupted violently.
"Bait!?" Leon shouted so loudly his body shook. "You used us as fucking bait!? You stupid old fool! What about the people who had to die!? Ken! Eva...!"
When he spoke Eva's name, Leon's voice broke in his throat. The final image of her that he saw... the image of his thorn club embedded in her forehead... flashed clearly in his mind again. Guilt and anguish flooded in until he could barely stand.
Barton closed his eyes slowly, his face filled with no less pain. "Ken... Ken is safe now. He's resting in the next room," he said softly. "As for Eva..." The elderly man stopped speaking again, this time his voice trembling visibly. "...I... I'm sorry, Leon... I'm truly sorry."
Barton's apology didn't make Leon feel any better. It only hammered home the brutal truth. Leon said nothing more. He clenched his fists until his veins bulged, then muttered to himself quietly, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry, Eva..."
Then he turned and walked unsteadily out of the infirmary immediately, leaving Barton to only watch his retreating figure with guilt overwhelming his heart.
Leon wandered aimlessly out into the town's central market, which was beginning to close down. The evening sunlight cast down, making his shadow stretch long across the ground. The thoughts in his head remained confused and chaotic.
The Witherborn group, huh? Who exactly were they? And why did old man Barton have to cooperate with those people, causing... causing Eva to have to...
He didn't want to think about it anymore.
While his thoughts were battling in confusion, he noticed three people standing and talking not far away. They looked distinctly different from typical River Bend townspeople. Their clothing appeared more fitted and modern, their demeanor confident and experienced... and most importantly, Leon had never seen their faces in this town before.
One was a middle-aged woman with jet-black hair pulled back neatly. Her eyes looked sharp and perceptive. The moment Leon looked over, she turned to meet his gaze directly. The corner of her mouth lifted slightly.
"Well well, that kid there," she spoke up, her tone level but drawing the attention of the other two to turn and look at Leon together.
One was a tall, lanky man with golden hair so bright it almost seemed to glow in the evening light. He was gnawing on the remaining half of a roasted rat with relish. Seeing Leon, he waved the roasted rat in his hand in a friendly greeting. "Hey! Kid! Great job surviving that! And recovering so quickly too!"
The other was a man who appeared more quietly stern, with short dark hair. His eyes looked deep into Leon's as if searching for something.
Leon didn't respond. He remained standing still, trying to assess the situation and the people before him. His instincts were warning him that this group was "not ordinary."
Were these the... Witherborn? The thought surfaced in his mind.
Before he could think much further, the dark-haired man who looked quietly stern spoke up, his tone flat but carrying some power. "That's right, we're the Witherborn group you're thinking about," he said as if he could actually hear Leon's thoughts.
Leon startled slightly at those words, his wariness increasing.
The middle-aged woman, whom the golden-haired man called "Genus," slowly approached Leon with a thin smile still adorning her face. "This isn't really the place to talk. How about we find somewhere quiet to chat?"
Leon hesitated for a moment, but finally nodded slightly. He could sense he didn't have many choices, and perhaps... this group might have answers to the many questions burning in his heart.
"Hey Genus, the roasted rat here has such a profound flavor, don't you think?" the golden-haired man said as they began walking, Leon following behind quietly.
"You're exaggerating, Cyrus," Genus replied while shaking her head lightly. "It's just ordinary rat that's been grilled to a crisp."
"Come on, don't ruin my imagination, Genus," Cyrus laughed heartily. "But fine, the taste is... strangely good. Quite tasty actually, hahaha."
Leon could only make an annoyed face at the two's pointless conversation. He couldn't understand why these people could still seem so relaxed after just going through bloody combat, or maybe... they were already used to this kind of thing.
They walked deep into the abandoned district of the town until they reached an old train station that had been deserted for many years. The rusted railway tracks were covered with weeds until they were barely visible. Ancient train cars sat motionless on the tracks like monuments to a forgotten past.
The dark-haired man who had remained quiet throughout the journey stopped walking and looked around. "No one should bother us around here," he said for the first time since introducing himself. "Let's rest and talk here."
Genus nodded in agreement. "Alright, kid, come sit here," she said while pointing to an old wooden crate that could serve as a seat.
Leon didn't object. He slumped down onto the wooden crate quietly. Although he tried to appear normal on the outside, inside he felt tense and wary to the fullest. His instincts were telling him that these three people... were much stronger and more dangerous than he had thought.
Genus, the middle-aged woman with sharp eyes, looked at Leon with that thin smile that was hard to read. "Alright, before we talk about other things... maybe we should introduce ourselves properly first."
She gestured toward the golden-haired man who had just tossed away his rat bone. "I'm Genus. And that crazy-looking blonde over there is Cyrus."
Cyrus flashed a wide grin, waving at Leon again. "Yo! Kid! Don't believe everything Genus says. I'm not crazy at all, just... exceptionally lively!"
Genus shook her head lightly at Cyrus's behavior before gesturing toward the dark-haired man leaning quietly against the wall, his eyes still fixed intently on Leon. "And the quiet one there is Raven."
Raven merely nodded slightly at Leon as a greeting, not saying a word.
"We're from the 'Witherborn' group," Genus continued, her tone becoming more serious. "Old man Barton... probably told you something about us already, right?"
Leon nodded slowly in acknowledgment. He still didn't trust this group much, but his curiosity outweighed his caution.
"First of all..." Genus paused for a moment, her eyes clearly showing regret. "We have to apologize... for not being able to save all of you in that incident."
Cyrus, who had seemed cheerful before, immediately grew tense. "Yeah... originally our plan was to lure out that 'Vine-born'—or what we call The Exiled—then we'd move in to kill it immediately. But it seems... its fog had much more severe and unpredictable effects than the data we had... especially over the past two years."
Leon clenched his fists tightly. The guilt and rage toward that Vine-born still seethed in his heart. "So now... have you killed it yet?" he asked in a level voice, but laced with expectation.
Genus shook her head slowly. "Not yet... it escaped." Her tone was tinged with disappointment. "It's smarter than we thought. It uses its fog as both weapon and shield. When it saw things going badly and us joining the fight, it avoided combat and vanished into that fog immediately. We tried to follow, but there was no trace."
She paused for a moment, as if recalling the scene. "After it fled... we found the body of a young girl lying there... her arm..." Genus glanced at Leon briefly. "...had your thorn club lying beside her body... When we got there, she wasn't breathing anymore."
Leon immediately turned his face away when Genus mentioned Eva. That final image of her remained vivid in his heart. Pain shot through him again.
"...And then there was another young man named Ken," Genus continued, trying to change the subject when she saw Leon's reaction. "We found him sitting there, staring blankly and unconscious... Don't know what terrifying thing he encountered, but it seems his mental state isn't ready for conversation right now."
Genus's words made the atmosphere even heavier. Leon thought about the other patrol team members who had entered the fog together.
"What about the others?" Leon asked in a faint voice.
Genus sighed deeply. "We found only a few other survivors... Most were injured and in terrible mental condition. Many are still terrified and speaking incoherently... and there are many others who... vanished completely into that fog. We couldn't find them—no traces, not even corpses."
Silence engulfed them for a moment. Only the sound of wind blowing through the train station's ruins could be heard. Leon still felt guilty and pained about what had happened. He tried to swallow the lump of emotion stuck in his chest before looking up at the Witherborn group with eyes full of questions.
"So... the Vine-born... what exactly are they? And what's their purpose in doing things like this?"
This time it was Cyrus who stepped forward. His playful expression was gone, replaced by a seriousness Leon had never seen before.
"Vine-born..." Cyrus began, his voice lower than usual. "There's not just 'The Exiled' alone in this world, kid... They exist everywhere, scattered across every corner of the world that damned fog reaches."
He paused slightly, staring meaningfully into Leon's eyes.
"All of them... are born from something called 'Life's Flesh.'"
Leon's eyes widened when he heard that term. A name he'd heard since childhood. A name that had seemed like mere legend... now it had become a terrifying reality standing before him.
"'Life's Flesh'...?" he repeated the words quietly, as if not believing his own ears.