*Chapter 1: The Baby in the Box*
The night refused to die.
The Sage Kingdom still burned.
Smoke didn't rise. It _coiled_. Like living things, black serpents strangling the golden moon until the sky was blind.
Below, the city wept.
Not with tears. With ash. With the crack of collapsing homes. With the kind of silence that comes after too much screaming.
Bodies were streets now. Survivors were ghosts. They wandered, hollow-eyed, through the bones of their lives.
But ghosts don't loot.
The living do.
They came from beyond the ruined gates. No banners. No shouts. Just shadows that moved with purpose.
Thieves.
They flowed through the corpse of the city. Fast. Efficient. Predators picking at a carcass before the sun could judge them.
One of them kicked open what was left of a door.
The house inside was dead. Smoke hung low, thick enough to choke on.
His eyes were quick. Professional. They skipped the broken furniture, the shattered pottery, the things grief had already taken.
They stopped on the box.
Wooden. Unburnt. Too clean for this place.
"…What's this?"
The lid was heavy. He grunted, lifted it.
Gold.
His breath caught.
Stacks. Bars. Coins. More wealth than he'd seen in ten lifetimes, just… sitting there. Waiting.
A grin split his face, ugly and real.
"Boss is going to love this…" The words were a prayer. "This kind of treasure isn't a joke."
He slammed the lid. Didn't look back. Carried it out like he was holding a god.
The others were waiting at the edge of ruin. Piles of boxes. Sacks. The guts of a kingdom, stolen.
Their leader stood apart. Tall. A wand of black wood in his hand, crawling with symbols that hurt to look at directly. They pulsed, slow, like a heartbeat.
"Everyone." His voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. "Touch me."
Hands on his shoulder. On his arm. On each other. A chain of flesh.
The wand flared.
*[Spatial Transit: Active]*
*[Destination: Unmapped]*
The world hummed. Then tore.
And they were gone.
They fell back into existence on a forest road. The air here was clean. Cold. It bit the ash out of their lungs.
No fire. No screams. Just trees and night.
The leader exhaled. "Luisa. Where are we?"
A woman stepped forward. Young. Map clutched in white knuckles. "Near the capital of Artesik Kingdom… close to a town. Small one."
Before the silence could settle, boots crashed through it.
"Boss! You won't believe what I found!"
Heads turned. Annoyed. Tired.
"What is it, Ignis?" The leader's tone said _this better be good_.
Ignis was grinning. All teeth. "Gold. A whole box full of it!"
The group broke. Laughter, sharp and sudden.
"Yeah, right."
"Finally lost it, Ignis?"
"Trying to impress Luisa?"
Luisa looked away. Cheeks red. The laughter doubled.
"I'm serious!" Ignis' face twisted. "Come and see!"
He shoved past them. Grabbed the box from the pile. Thumped it down in the center like a challenge.
"Look."
The lid flew open.
The laughter died.
A corpse couldn't have silenced them faster.
"…What?"
No gold.
Just cloth. Dark. And inside it —
A baby.
Breathing. Sleeping. Alive.
Ignis staggered back. "That… that's not possible…" His voice cracked. "I swear… when I opened it before, it was full of gold!"
The leader moved. No rush. No waste. He peered into the box. His eyes were stones.
"…Illusion magic," he said finally. The words dropped like coins. "High-grade. Whoever hid this child masked him with energy. A clever trick."
Ignis stared at the baby. Betrayal and confusion warred on his face. "So… what do we do now?"
Luisa stepped forward. Fast. Certain. "We can't just leave him."
The leader's eyes didn't soften. They sharpened. "We can't take him either."
The forest went quiet. Even the wind held its breath.
"I won't have a child growing up as a thief," he said. Each word was iron. "We leave him. If he survives… that's his fate."
Luisa opened her mouth. Closed it. Her hands clenched.
Ignis knelt. Slowly. Like his knees might break.
"…You're unlucky, kid," he whispered. The box was at the base of a great tree now. Roots like gnarled fingers around it.
"But… your mother was strong." He almost choked on the word. "Strong enough to fool me."
His hand hovered over the baby. Didn't touch.
Then he stood. Too fast.
"If you survive…" The words were for the wind, not the child. "Come find me someday."
They left.
No goodbyes. No looks back. The darkness swallowed them whole.
Silence came back. Heavier than before.
For a breath. Two.
Then the world broke again.
The baby cried.
Not a whimper. A wail. Loud. Raw. A demand to a universe that had already taken everything.
It echoed. Tree to tree. A hunter's call.
And it was answered.
"…Did you hear that?"
Footsteps. Small. Fast.
Children, running through the dark, toward the sound.
---
*To be continued…*