The campsite lay quiet beneath a pale dawn sky, the mist still curling through the skeletal remains of the wooden sheds. Inside one of them, the air smelled of dust, damp bark, and the faint iron tang of tools long unused.
Mino crouched beside a cracked wooden crate, hugging it to her chest as if it were a sleeping child. Her voice trembled slightly.
"Luciel, if we bury it here… no one will dig it up, right?"
Luciel looked around the ramshackle shed. The walls leaned as though tired of standing, and the floorboards creaked with every breath of wind. A crooked smile touched his lips.
"No one's going to bother with this place. There are too many huts around. This one barely stands. If anyone comes searching, they'll skip right over it."
He paused, his gaze sweeping the dim corners, then added in that quiet, matter-of-fact way of his, "And if someone does come poking around, it'll probably be your sister."
That last part made Mino blink. "My big sister?"
Luciel nodded, eyes distant with memory. "When people look for the ones they've lost, they search their homes first. They touch the things that still hold warmth, hoping for a trace of life. I learned that much back in the corps."
He didn't need to say which corps. His voice had the clipped edge of a man used to missions that never ended cleanly. Back then, searching for signs of life and laying traps for the enemy were often the same job.
"So, if it were the enemy," he continued, half to himself, "this would be where I'd hide the explosives."
Mino stared at him, unsure if he was joking. "I… think I get it." She swallowed and nodded. "All right. Let's do it your way."
"Good." Luciel stamped his heel against the dirt floor. The ground quivered; mud rippled upward, forming a jagged cone before splitting apart to reveal a dark hole. The movement was so swift and silent it made Mino's heart skip.
She lowered the box gently inside.
Luciel crouched, fingers brushing the rim of the pit. "I'll make sure your sister finds it," he murmured.
A silvery thread slid from his fingertip—spider silk, fine as breath. He looped it around the box, tied the other end to a small stone, and anchored it to the surface. The silk gleamed faintly in the light filtering through the cracks.
"Okay, cover it up."
Mino nodded and began shoveling the loose soil back in with her hands. The earth hissed softly against the silk.
When she was done, Luciel picked up the stone and began carving. His saber moved with precise, patient strokes, and soon a delicate figure emerged: a woman with long, stylized rabbit ears—the image of the "Rabbit-Ear Mother," a symbol every child in camp recognized.
"What's that for?" Mino asked, brushing dirt from her palms.
"A lure," Luciel replied simply. "When your sister sees this, she'll pick it up. That'll lead her to the thread, and the thread will lead her to the box."
He placed the carved stone upright in the center of the shed, where the light caught its edges. It looked almost sacred.
Mino tilted her head. "You're sure she'll notice it?"
"She will." Luciel's tone was absolute. "If I were her, I'd think my little sister carved it as a keepsake. And once she picks it up—" He tapped the stone with a gloved finger. "—she'll feel the silk. Curiosity does the rest."
He didn't say it aloud, but Mino could hear the soldier's instinct behind his calm reasoning. If this were an enemy's home, the same setup would end with an explosion instead of a discovery.
"That's all?" she asked. "Just this stone?"
"That's all." He dusted his hands off. The carved figure looked almost too perfect—better than anything Mino had ever drawn—and for a fleeting moment she wanted to keep it.
Luciel noticed the look in her eyes and chuckled. "Trust me. It's safer here."
He patted her shoulder and stepped outside. Above the shed's roof, a red-marked ghost spider hung in silence, watching. Luciel met its many eyes and received the message it carried without words:
The spies trailing the camp are gone.
Dealt with. Silenced.
"Good work," he whispered, and the spider slipped back into the shadows.
"Come on," he said over his shoulder. "Time to hunt down the thieves."
Mino ran to catch up, her boots crunching over the frost-stiff grass. Behind them, the shed looked like any other abandoned hut—just another casualty of wind and time.
---
By the time they reached the rock tortoise—an ancient creature whose broad shell served as their makeshift transport—the camp had shrunk to a smudge on the horizon. The red ghost spider settled onto Luciel's shoulder, and the three-colored lizard in his satchel flicked its tongue, sensing the direction of the Bloodbeard Clan's base.
With those instincts guiding them, getting lost wasn't a concern.
The journey was slow, the tortoise's steps steady and rhythmic. They spent the long hours tending to simple tasks—repairing gear, carving tools, preparing for whatever waited ahead.
Later that evening, they stopped to rest in the shell-hollow they called their "hall." It wasn't much—a space big enough for a table, a few boards, and a soft corner where Mino liked to sit. She was busy trying to fit a broken door from the wooden shed onto a new frame, though her hands moved without conviction. She kept glancing toward Luciel, her thoughts elsewhere.
Luciel was sorting through scraps of wood, picking one suitable for a table leg. When he caught her staring, he sighed.
"Go on," he said. "Whatever you're worrying about, say it."
Mino hesitated, biting her lip. "Luciel… what if we're leaving too late? What if the Bloodbeards move before we even get there?"
He didn't look up from his work. "That's intentional."
She blinked. "What?"
"I want us to be late." The saber hissed softly as he cut through the wood. "If we moved early, we'd run straight into them. Waiting means we miss their patrols and meet them when they're tired—or gone."
"Oh." She exhaled, shoulders relaxing. "So… we're avoiding a fight."
"Exactly."
Relieved, she hammered the last hinge into place and tested the door. It swung awkwardly but stayed up. "All right," she said, a touch of pride creeping into her voice. "Door done. How about you? Is your room ready?"
Luciel glanced around the bare shell. "There's nothing to pack."
He wasn't exaggerating. Their "home" was little more than wood planks laid into a bed frame, no chairs, no wardrobes—just what they could build and carry. Everything they owned could fit into one sack.
"Then what should I do next?" Mino asked, brushing sawdust off her hands.
Luciel looked her over. Her long hair had gathered dust and ash from the road, and streaks of dried mud marked her cheek. The animal-skin tunic she wore had once been white—he thought—but now it was an uncertain gray.
He glanced at himself. Not much better. Sweat, smoke, and dried blood clung to his uniform.
"Water shortage," he muttered under his breath.
Mino heard him and crossed her arms. "I told you I've been careful with the water!"
He shook his head. "Not what I meant. I meant… we need water to bathe."
She blinked. "To bathe? Now? Luciel, we barely have enough to drink! How can you even think about washing?"
He leaned the saber against the wall, amusement flickering in his eyes. "When was the last time you bathed, then?"
Her cheeks flushed. "Seventeen days ago. There was an acid rain that day, remember? I ran outside and washed in that."
Luciel arched a brow. "Brave choice."
"I wore clothes!" she blurted, mortified. "And it wasn't that bad!"
He chuckled softly, deciding not to push her further. Still, the idea stuck in his mind—seventeen days. No wonder the air inside the shell felt… ripe.
He stretched and said, "We'll need to build rain collectors. Even if the next rain's acidic, we can filter it."
Mino's eyes widened. "No! You can't drink acid rain! It drives people mad. The hunting team tried that once—one of them went crazy and attacked everyone with a knife!"
Luciel lifted a hand to calm her. "I'm not planning to drink it. We'll filter it, test it on an animal first if we have to. But it's fine for washing."
"For… washing?" she repeated, incredulous.
"Of course." He grinned faintly. "You really can't smell yourself?"
Her mouth dropped open. "I—I'm not smelly!"
He didn't answer, just gave her that infuriatingly calm look.
Mino's eyes narrowed. "Fine! I'll prove it!" She spun on her heel and stomped into her small room, muttering all the way.
Luciel leaned back against the shell wall, arms crossed, listening.
Inside, he heard her stop abruptly. Then came a long, horrified silence… followed by a shriek that could have rattled the tortoise itself.
"Damn it! How could I be so smelly!!!"
Luciel couldn't help it—he laughed. Quietly, but sincerely.
---
That night, while Mino sulked and tried to scrub herself with a damp cloth, Luciel worked by lantern light, sketching the design of a rainwater collector from fragments of memory. The red ghost spider dangled nearby, its body pulsing faintly in the glow, while the three-colored lizard snoozed beside a pile of wood chips.
He looked at them—creatures that had followed him through fire and ruin—and at the girl who, despite her stubbornness, had somehow become his responsibility.
War, traps, missions—all of it had once felt straightforward. But now, building doors and arguing about bathwater felt stranger and somehow heavier. Maybe because this time, he wasn't fighting for orders. He was fighting for the fragile, ridiculous thing called a home.
Outside, the night deepened, cool and silent except for Mino's indignant mumbling.
"…I'm not that smelly… maybe just a little…"
Luciel smiled to himself, then blew out the lantern.
Tomorrow would bring rain—or blood, or both—but tonight, the world felt almost peaceful.