"Liora," I whispered, leaning in so close I could smell the faint scent of copper and old wood on her. "Who is the man with the bells?"
The little girl didn't speak. She just pointed a trembling finger at the back of the driver.
In the sudden, heavy silence of the wagon, I heard it. A faint, rhythmic tink... tink... tink. It wasn't the sound of the harness or the wooden wheels. It was the sound of small silver bells swaying under the floorboards.
My blood turned to ice.
I looked at Kael again. He was a high-level knight, a man who could fight off a dozen assassins without breaking a sweat.
There was no way he would sleep through a wagon ride this bumpy. I reached out and shook his shoulder—hard.
"Kael! Wake up! Kael!"
His head just lolled to the side. His body was limp, like a puppet with its strings cut. I checked the woman next to him—the pregnant traveler.
Same thing. Or so I thought.
They weren't just sleeping; they were under some kind of magical suppression.
I lunged for the small window that looked out toward the driver's seat.
"Hey! Stop the wagon!" I yelled, banging my fist against the wood.
The driver didn't turn. He didn't even flinch. From the back, his cloak looked like it was made of shadows rather than fabric.
The horses were still galloping, but they weren't making any noise anymore. No hoofbeats. Just the bells.
Tink. Tink. Tink.
I remembered. The "Game Lore" finally clicked into place like a puzzle piece falling into a slot.
The Bell-Ringer of the Border. In the game, he was a rare "World Event" boss. He was a soul-collector for the Inquisition.
He would intercept travelers on dark roads, put them into an "Eternal Slumber," and deliver them directly to the Cathedral's basement for "purification."
If we reached the destination, Kael would be executed, and I'd be turned into mana-fodder. And Liora? Liora was the "Cursed Seed" he needed to complete the ritual.
"Leo..." Liora whimpered, grabbing the sleeve of my tunic. "He's looking at us."
I turned my head slowly.
The driver had finally moved. He hadn't turned his body, but his head had rotated a full 180 degrees. A pale, porcelain mask stared at me through the small wooden slats. It had no eyes, only two black slits and a painted-on smile. The fuc-
"One awake," the mask whispered. The voice sounded like dry leaves skittering across a grave.
"One soul still flickering. How... inconvenient."
I scrambled back, my heart hammering so hard I thought it would burst. I looked at Kael's belt.
His sword was right there, but I didn't know how to use a longsword. I was a "Gamer," not a fencer.
"Who the hell are you?" I whisper. he doesn't even answer.
Think, Leo. Think! How do you break a Slumber Curse?
I grabbed the heavy iron key Elian had given me and slammed the sharp edge of the key into Kael's thigh.
Nothing. He didn't even twitch. The curse was too strong.
Suddenly, I felt a hand on my arm. A cold, soft hand.
I turned. The "pregnant woman" was awake. But she wasn't looking at me with fear. Her eyes were swirling with a sickly violet light.
I thought she was just a passenger. She was an Entity—a Cursed Weaver.
Her "pregnancy" wasn't a baby; it was a mass of concentrated curse energy.
I remembered the lore for her kind too. They could regress an adult's body back into childhood, stripping away their levels, their strength, and their memories.
"Such a noisy little bird," she cooed, her voice echoing inside my skull.
"Why not go back to when you were small? Back to when you knew nothing?"
"Don't touch me!" I shouted
She reached for me, her fingers glowing with that violet rot. If she touched me, I wouldn't just be Level 1—I'd be a Level 0 toddler.
"The bells," Liora whispered, her eyes wide with terror. "You have to stop the bells before she touches you!"
I looked down at the floorboards. The sound was coming from directly underneath us. The "Bell-Ringer" had attached the cursed items to the axle.
"Liora, stay behind Kael!" I commanded.
I grabbed a loose wooden bench and began to smash it against the floor.
CRACK.
The wood splintered.
The wagon began to tilt. We weren't on the road anymore. The "Driver" was pulling us off into the dark trees.
"Stop it," the masked man hissed. He stood up on the driver's seat, his spindly frame silhouetted against the moon. He held a staff decorated with silver bells.
"The Duke's daughter is waiting for her sacrifice," he screeched. "Give me the girl, Villager, and I will let you sleep forever!"
The Entity woman lunged at me from the corner, her hands outstretched to turn me into a child.
"Go to hell!" I screamed.
I grabbed the side of the wagon and threw all my weight toward the left.
"Liora! Jump to the left! Now!"
She lunged.
The wagon hit a protruding tree root at high speed. With our combined weight shifting the center of gravity, the rickety wooden box groaned.
SCREECH—BOOM!
The world flipped. The wood shattered like glass.
I felt the impact go through my ribs, knocking the wind out of me. Everything went black for a second.
I opened my eyes to see the wagon laying on its side.
Silence.
The bells had stopped.
I crawled out of the wreckage, my skin scraped and bleeding. Kael was lying nearby, his eyes fluttering as the Slumber broke.
The Entity woman was crawling out of the debris too, her violet aura flickering angrily as she hissed in pain.
But the "Bell-Ringer" was already standing. His porcelain mask was cracked, revealing a single, glowing yellow eye.
"You... little... brat," he growled, raising his staff.
I looked at the ground and saw it. Kael's sword had fallen out of its sheath. It was lying right at my feet.
I didn't know how to fight. But I knew the "Opening Animation" for this boss.
He was going to swing the staff in a wide arc to reset the curse.
"Kael!" I screamed, grabbing the hilt of the heavy sword with both hands.
"Wake up or we're dead!"
The Bell-Ringer lunged.
The heavy iron hilt of Kael's sword felt like a mountin in my hands. My palms were raw, and my ribs screamed with every breath, but I didn't let go. I couldn't.
"Ghost Step," I whispered, my heart hammering against my chest.
The Bell-Ringer guy swung his staff, the silver bells let out a discordant shriek.
I moved. To a normal observer, I was a blur—three jagged, translucent flickers of motion in a single second. It was the technique Kael had beaten into my soul during that brutal training session.
I appeared behind the masked man, swinging the heavy blade with everything I had.
CLANG.
The porcelain mask didn't break. The Bell-Ringer didn't even stumble. He simply caught the blade with the wooden shaft of his staff, his single yellow eye glowing with amusement.
"Fast," he hissed. "But weak."
He kicked me in the chest. The force sent me flying backward, my back slamming into a tree with a sickening thud. Before I could even gasp for air, a violet light flared to my left.
The Entity woman—the Cursed
Weaver—wasn't "pregnant" anymore. Her stomach had collapsed into a hollow vortex of dark energy. She moved with a twitching, spider-like grace, appearing above me in an instant.
"Let's see how many years I can strip from those tired eyes," she giggled.
She slammed a palm into my shoulder. I felt my muscles wither. For a terrifying heartbeat, my hand shrank, my skin smoothing out as if time itself was flowing backward. I screamed, rolling away just as her second strike shattered the tree trunk where my head had been.
It was 1 v 2. And I was the ball in their twisted game.
The Bell-Ringer caught me with the butt of his staff, sending me spinning toward the Weaver. She swiped at my legs, her claws leaving deep purple gashes that refused to bleed, instead leaking a grey, numbing mist.
They were playing with me. Every time I tried to use a Ghost Step to escape, my stamina bar flashed a violent, pulsing red. My lungs felt like they were filled with hot coal. My MP was a joke. My SP was gone.
I hit the dirt again, spitting out a mouthful of blood and pine needles.
"Is this the 'Hero'?" the Bell-Ringer mocked, stepping onto my bandaged hand. I heard the bones groan. "A child playing with a man's toy?"
I looked past them. Liora was huddled by the wreckage, her eyes wide with tears.
Kael was still struggling to shake off the Slumber, his fingers twitching toward his empty scabbard. He wasn't going to make it in time.
I was going to die. Alisa was going to
die.
No.
That wasn't happening..
I shut my eyes and ignored the flickering HUD. Forget the stats. I reached past the game logic and grabbed hold of that glitchy, rotting
"Curse" Elian warned me about. It felt like swallowing broken glass, a power that had no business existing in this world.
"Entropic... Mana," I wheezed.
Thin, oily black smoke seeped from my pores. It crawled over the blade of Kael's sword like a dying ember. The grass beneath my boots turned a sickly, brittle grey, the mana feebly sucking the moisture out of the air. It looked pathetic—nothing like a legendary power-up.
The Weaver stopped laughing, though she looked more annoyed than scared. Her violet aura flickered when my Entropic mana bumped into it, acting like localized static interference.
It was a hard counter to her magic, sure, but it was weak. I was trying to put out a forest fire with a leaking cup of water.
"That energy..." the Bell-Ringer muttered, squinting at the black soot staining the air.
"It's repulsive, boy. A parlor trick from the void?"
I forced myself up, but the pain in my ribs only sharpened. Every second I held this form, the mana chewed on my actual life force. A steady stream of dark blood leaked from my nose, and my vision blurred. My eyes felt like they were bursting under the pressure.
Ghost Step was off the table; my stamina had hit rock bottom. I just stumbled forward, dragging the heavy sword through the dirt, the Entropic smoke hissing whenever it touched the ground.
"My turn," I croaked. My voice broke, thin and desperate against the copper taste of blood in my throat.
I swung the sword in a clumsy, There was no cinematic finish here. I just needed to touch them with the rot before my heart gave out from the blood loss.