Mirac and Carmen didn't waste another second.
A single glance of understanding—shorter than the blink of an eye—was enough for their minds to synchronize on the same thought.
Without hesitation, the two moved in perfect unison, dashing from opposite sides of the hall toward the burning Rogthar.
But as she ran, Carmen carefully assessed the situation.
The horned Rogthar was still engulfed in flames, its body a glowing mass that distorted the air around it.
Getting close to it in those conditions was simply out of the question.
Wielding daggers meant fighting at extremely close range, which would force Carmen to expose herself too much, stepping within reach of that living furnace and risking being hit by both the flames and any blind, furious counterattack from the agonized creature.
Keeping all these factors in mind, the red-haired woman chose another approach…
Without slowing down even a step, she wrapped Mana around her legs and quickly altered her trajectory.
Instead of heading straight for the monster, she began to trace a wide semicircle along the perimeter of the Rail Hall, keeping a safe distance while calculating the perfect angle with a cold, methodical gaze.
When she judged she had found the exact spot, she stopped abruptly.
She raised her right arm, then her left, and threw her daggers in rapid succession. They spun through the air at high speed along a perfectly calculated trajectory.
Thunk. Thunk.
A heartbeat later, while the horned Rogthar was still thrashing among the flames, both daggers buried themselves in its eyes with two sharp, precise strikes, sinking all the way to the hilts.
The Rogthar let out a hoarse, instinctive roar, its enormous hands flying up to its face.
But Carmen had already stopped watching it. This was not the time to savor a successful hit.
"Quick, put out the flames!" she shouted, her words aimed squarely at the Wind Mage.
Joren, however, couldn't hold back, and his voice exploded before Seren could even act:
"What?! Have you lost your mind?" he demanded, glaring at Carmen with a look that was as confused as it was indignant.
Seren raised her fan into the air, but she hesitated, her eyes shifting back and forth between Carmen and the monster as if seeking confirmation. "Are you sur-?"
"Do it quickly, just as she said!" Captain Alvern interrupted, his tone leaving no room for argument.
At those words, Seren didn't hesitate a second time.
With her usual elegance, she swept the fan from left to right in a wide, fluid motion. A mass of air surged forward, sweeping away every flame it encountered, including those still devouring the horned monster.
The silence that followed lasted only a single breath.
The Rogthar's skin was largely charred, its muscles reduced to blackened flesh, its internal organs damaged. Yet, as soon as it felt the flames go out, the creature shot upright—still alive, still dangerous—and tore the daggers from its eyes with an angry roar.
Its vision was partially compromised, but it was enough to clearly see the group of humans facing it.
They were all there… except for one.
The masked human!
The Rogthar spun around sharply, extending its arm out preemptively as it had done before.
It was certain the masked boy would try to attack it from behind again, but it was very wrong…
Mirac was not behind it.
He was above it!
While the monster was still blinded by the flames and the daggers, Mirac had already calculated everything.
With Mana channeled into his legs to the absolute limit, he had dashed toward a nearby wagon, using it as a springboard to launch himself even higher than a simple jump from the ground would have allowed.
The moment Seren dispelled the flames, Mirac was already falling with his sword raised above his head. The gray-silver vein along the blade glowed with intense blue light from the Mana infused into the weapon.
'This is a once-in-a-lifetime opening… I can't fail!'
The thought flashed through the boy's mind like lightning.
In the final instant, as the horned Rogthar swung a blind blow behind itself, Mirac twisted in mid-air, driving the slash with all the momentum of his descent.
The horned Rogthar felt the cold touch of the blade against its skin for only a fraction of a second.
But by then, it was too late to dodge.
Mirac's sword came down with devastating force, tracing a perfect horizontal arc. The blade sank into flesh and bone without the slightest resistance, cleanly severing the creature's massive neck.
The horned head shot away in a violent arc of dark blood, spinning as it flew, while the decapitated body remained standing for one final moment.
Mirac landed with a roll to cushion the fall. When he slowly rose to his feet, sword still in hand, the headless body of the horned Rogthar toppled backward with a heavy thud that made the last intact rails tremble.
This time, the monster did not get up again.
The masked boy straightened slowly, breathing hard.
The pain in his back was still there—a dull, throbbing ache beneath his ribs, a stark reminder of the blow he had taken earlier. But right now, it didn't matter.
For a few seconds, the only sound in the Rail Hall was the crackling of the torches on the walls.
His gaze then met those of the other team members—tired, stained with blood and soot—but still standing.
"It's over…" Mirac murmured, slowly lowering his sword. The blue glow faded from the blade like a receding tide, leaving the metal dull and silent.
There was nothing more to say.
The horde had been annihilated. The horned Rogthar was dead.
Carameo Squad had won the battle!
"Well done, kid," Alvern congratulated him, giving an approving nod, while the other team members nodded with tired but sincere smiles.
They looked at him with something that went beyond simple respect, and under those gazes Mirac felt an unexpected warmth rise in his chest.
'Tsk! Don't get cocky, brat… I took down way more enemies than you!' Joren thought to himself, sheathing his sword with that superior air he wore like armor.
No Rogthar was moving anymore.
Silence once again filled the Rail Hall.
Slowly, almost cautiously, the adrenaline began to drain from their muscles, their breaths grew deeper and steadier, and their guards lowered just a notch.
Alvern scanned the hall from one end to the other, his voice low and firm:
"Keep your eyes open. It's not over until we're out of here."
One by one, the team members gathered at the center of the hall, among the rails, the fallen Rogthar corpses, the blood-stained ground, and the metal still warm from the flames.
It was then that Brann, Felisia, Aisha, and Lirael joined them from the rear guard.
Lirael lowered her bow only when she was certain nothing was moving anymore, her eyes still darting quickly across the shadows at the edges of the hall. Brann arrived right after her, his mace still gripped tightly in one hand.
Felisia returned to the group with the left side of her face bandaged, while her remaining intact eye scanned the surroundings with the same vigilant attention as always.
When Aisha finally reached the group, her eyes were already moving rapidly from person to person, looking for bruises, bad postures, any sign the body hides when adrenaline is still running high.
"Is everyone alright? Has anyone been injured?" asked the young healer.
She expected deep cuts. A few cracked bones. At least a sprain.
Instead, she found only tired gazes, a few scratches, and nothing more.
"Don't worry, we're all fine," Alvern replied on behalf of the team. "What about Dorran and Blake?"
Aisha hesitated before answering, then turned slightly to the side, toward the far end of the Rail Hall where the torchlight barely reached the distant shadows.
"They stayed back there, in the rear guard. They didn't move an inch from their position." Her voice was calm, laced with that professional yet pained tone doctors use when updating someone on a patient's condition. "Dorran is fine… physically, I mean. He's visibly shaken, more than he wants to admit, but overall he seems alright. Blake, on the other hand…"
She paused, carefully choosing her next words.
"He has completely lost touch with reality. When I reached him, he was curled up in a corner, his hands clamped over his ears, eyes wide open but empty. He was trembling. He wasn't responding to anyone. I tried to calm him with a couple of 'Calming Incantations,' but they had no effect. It's clear he has suffered psychological damage. Something inside him has broken… And unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about it."
Mirac, who had remained silent until that moment, tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword almost imperceptibly.
Aisha lowered her voice slightly, almost as if speaking to herself:
"I didn't want to leave him in that state, so in the end I chose the only solution I had left: I put him to sleep. And it was quite simple. Almost too simple, I'd say… All it took was a 'Soporific Incantation' to relax his tense muscles, and Blake fell asleep instantly, as if he had been waiting for nothing else but to switch off."
Aisha pointed again toward the far end of the Rail Hall, this time toward the corner shrouded in shadow, where the massive silhouette of Dorran could be seen kneeling beside a figure lying on the ground.
"Blake is now resting on a blanket that Dorran spread out for him. His pulse is steady, his breathing slow. He's sleeping deeply, and I believe he won't wake up for at least a couple of hours, maybe more. But when he regains consciousness… I don't know in what mental state we'll find him. In the worst case, he might show symptoms of catatonia."
At those words, a heavy silence fell over the group.
No one spoke.
To Mirac's great surprise, not even Joren opened his mouth—he who took every opportunity to discredit Blake with his usual sarcastic jabs.
This time, instead, he simply clicked his tongue against his teeth, letting out that annoyed and contemptuous sound so characteristic of him:
"Tsk!"
After that, silence.
Alvern recognized it immediately: that subtle weight creeping between the ribs and dampening the team's spirit.
For this reason, he didn't give it time to take root and intervened at once, cutting through the tension with his firm voice:
"Thank you for the report, Aisha…"
The girl nodded silently, tightening her grip on her gnarled staff.
For a moment Alvern kept his gaze on her, as if to emphasize the weight of what she had just said.
Then, without allowing the silence to settle again, he changed the subject:
"Anyway, we have other things to think about now…"
He glanced around for a moment, his eyes slowly sliding from one decapitated beast's corpse to another.
"These monsters…" Alvern's voice was now flat, devoid of emotion. "Has anyone ever seen them before?"
No answer.
"Their build is similar to that of Orcs…" Brann commented, frowning. "But they aren't red, and more importantly, they don't regenerate."
"Maybe they're a mutant species?" Lirael suggested, her gaze sliding over the fallen bodies with the detached attention of a scholar. "Perhaps a degenerate variant, altered by some form of magic or particular environmental conditions…"
Mirac listened in silence.
He knew exactly what those creatures were.
He knew their name, their history, everything the Seven Sacred Gospels reported about them. But the pact he had made with President Jun had built an invisible cage around him, and the boundaries of that cage were clear: what he had discussed with Jun regarding the Rogthars was classified, and sharing it with the team would violate the confidentiality bound imposed by the Association.
'I don't want to risk falling out of favor with the President…' Mirac thought, while the others' theories layered in the air like smoke.
At that moment, however, another detail—far more disturbing—was gnawing at his mind…
Thanks to his secret ability "Instant Knowledge of Age," from the very first glance at the horde he had registered their biological ages.
The three Rogthars they had faced a few days earlier to save Blake had—strangely—been about three months old.
The ones in the mine, on the other hand, were much older, with varying ages ranging around thirty, forty, and some even fifty years old!
The discrepancy was abyssal.
Disturbing.
And inexplicable!
'How is that possible?!'
Unfortunately Mirac couldn't talk about it with anyone, not even with Carmen—at least not yet, not there in front of everyone.
For all these reasons, he had no choice but to bear the weight of those thoughts alone, while they wrapped him in a confusion he couldn't shake off.
Meanwhile, Felisia—who until that moment had remained off to the side, studying the bodies with an impenetrable expression—knelt beside one of the fallen Rogthars.
With the tip of her dagger she gently moved aside the few tattered shreds of blackened, blood-stiffened cloth still hanging from the enormous torso. The rest of the garment was reduced to ragged strips, tied loosely around the hips like a primitive loincloth.
"Wait a moment…" she murmured.
The group turned toward her.
Felisia grabbed one of those dark brown scraps, encrusted with dirt and ichor, and lifted it to the flickering torchlight.
"These… aren't just scraps of cloth." She turned the fabric between her fingers. "Look here: the reinforced seam on the side… the high collar… and this!"
She pointed with the blade at a symbol sewn onto one of the scraps: a cart with an open flatbed, overflowing with coins.
The seal was slightly faded, but everyone recognized it instantly.
"That… is the emblem of the Raerno Merchants' Company?!" Roric exclaimed, eyes widening in shock. "So those scraps… belong to the miners' uniforms?!"
In the frenzy of battle no one had noticed, but now—with the bodies motionless on the ground and adrenaline making room for some clarity—they saw that all the Rogthars were wearing the same tattered dark brown rags.
And since those were the remains of the standard miners' uniforms, it was rather easy to imagine what had happened to the miners…
"Well, it makes sense," Joren commented, crossing his arms. "These monsters probably invaded the mine with the goal of turning it into their den, and they must have wiped out whoever was here at the time, ultimately taking the miners' uniforms for themselves."
"However…" Mirac intervened, his voice lower but firm, "along the way, we didn't find any traces of blood. No corpses. If it had been a normal invasion, we would have seen signs of a massacre: torn bodies, remains scattered everywhere throughout the mine. Instead, nothing. Not even at the entrance, where it was most likely swarming with guards."
'Tsk!' Joren hated to admit it, but the masked boy was completely right—and on this no one could object. 'So what do you suggest, little genius?!'
All eyes turned to Mirac.
The masked boy slowly sheathed his sword. Then he approached the Rogthar's corpse in silence, crouched down beside Felisia and carefully examined another fragment of clothing.
"Look at the edges…" he said, slowly rotating the scrap to show it to everyone. "When someone rips clothes off a body, the tears follow a specific pattern. There are signs of pulling, gripping, cutting. Here, there aren't any."
He straightened up slightly, letting his gaze pass over the other fallen Rogthars.
"The seams burst outward. The fabric gave way all at once, at the points of greatest pressure."
Joren furrowed his brow, opened his mouth to retort, but found no immediate words.
Mirac raised his gaze, meeting Alvern's eyes, then Carmen's, then everyone else's.
His voice came out low but clear:
"There was no invasion. These monsters didn't come from outside, and they didn't massacre anyone. We didn't find any corpses because… there never were any…"
He paused, letting the silence swallow every echo.
At that moment, he felt the blood drain from his face beneath the mask.
The ages of the Rogthars…
The remains of the uniforms…
The sudden and inexplicable disappearance of all the miners…
The conclusion forced itself upon him, cold and inescapable.
Mirac swallowed hard before continuing:
"My hypothesis is that… these Rogthars… are the missing miners themselves."