The village had forty-seven people left.
Yuji knew because he counted them every night.
He didn't tell anyone he did it. It wasn't superstition. It was preparation. When monsters came, it was easier to notice who was missing if the number was already clear in his head. Forty-seven voices. Forty-seven doors. Forty-seven chances for something to go wrong.
That night, the number felt wrong before anything happened.
Yuji stood at the eastern fence, spear resting lightly in his hands, eyes fixed on the dark tree line beyond the torches. The air was still—too still. No insects chirped. No leaves rustled. Even the distant night birds had gone quiet, as if the forest itself was holding its breath.
Yuji swallowed.
His chest felt tight in a way he couldn't explain.
Something was coming.
He turned his head slightly and called out toward the next watch point.
"Stay awake," he said. "Don't sit down."
A tired voice answered. "I'm awake, kid."
Yuji didn't relax.
He never did.
The first impact came without warning.
The eastern fence didn't creak or bend—it exploded. Logs shattered inward as a massive shape slammed through, sending splinters flying like shrapnel. Yuji was thrown backward, hitting the ground hard enough to knock the air from his lungs.
He rolled instinctively, coming up on one knee, spear raised.
Monsters poured through the breach.
Not a few.
Not a scouting party.
Yuji counted automatically as his body moved.
Two goblins, blade raised. Another was a wolf-type, ribs showing beneath stretched skin.
Then another, and another.
Four...five, six—
"Monsters!" Yuji shouted. "Wake everyone up, now!"
The spear punched through the first goblin's chest. Yuji twisted, yanked it free, pivoted exactly the way his body told him to, and crushed the wolf's skull with the butt end. Bone cracked. The creature collapsed.
Something slammed into Yuji's side.
Claws ripped through his flesh, tearing a long gash across his ribs. Pain exploded through his chest, sharp enough to blur his vision. Yuji gasped—but his feet stayed planted.
He grabbed the monster's arm and drove the spear up under its jaw.
Blood sprayed.
Yuji staggered back, hand pressing instinctively against his side. It came away red.
Deep, his mind noted distantly.
There was no time to stop.
Screams erupted from the north.
Then the south.
Yuji's head snapped up.
"No—"
Two more crashes echoed through the village as the other fences gave way almost simultaneously. Monsters flooded in from all directions, their numbers wrong, far more than the village had ever faced at once.
Someone screamed his name.
"Yuji! There's too many!"
He ran.
Not away—from them.
Toward the center of the village.
He killed as he moved, strikes precise, brutal, economical. His body knew what to do even as his mind struggled to keep up. A goblin lunged—Yuji ducked, shattered its knee, crushed its skull against a wall. A wolf leapt—Yuji braced, took the impact, drove his spear through its chest.
Blood soaked his clothes.
Pain stacked, layered, constant.
He ignored it.
People were running now—older villagers stumbling, shouting, trying to herd each other toward the meeting hall.
"Inside!" someone yelled. "Get inside!"
Yuji intercepted monsters where he could, dragging them down, killing them before they reached the slower ones. He counted without meaning to.
Seven dead.
Eight.
Nine.
A massive shape slammed into him from the side.
Yuji flew, hitting the ground hard enough to crack stone. Something snapped inside his shoulder. His left arm went numb instantly, hanging at a wrong angle.
He screamed.
Then rolled as claws tore into the spot where his head had been a moment earlier.
Yuji came up gasping, vision swimming, left arm useless. He switched the spear to his right hand without thinking and drove it forward.
The monster died choking.
Yuji stood, swaying.
Broken, he thought. Arm's broken.
He moved anyway.
The hall doors slammed shut behind the last group—twenty-three people inside. Yuji stood outside with the rest.
Which meant everyone else.
Monsters rushed the hall.
Yuji threw himself into them.
A blade punched into his thigh, sinking deep enough that his leg buckled. He roared and crushed the goblin's skull with his knee, then ripped the blade out.
Blood poured down his leg, soaking into the dirt.
"That's bad!" someone shouted.
Yuji didn't answer.
He couldn't feel his leg properly anymore.
Another impact crushed into his chest. Ribs shattered. Air left his lungs in a wet, choking gasp. He dropped to one knee, coughing blood, vision narrowing dangerously.
Lung, his body whispered. Collapsed.
He forced himself back up.
Because there were still screams.
Inside the hall, something broke.
Wood splintered.
A monster burst through the back.
Yuji ran.
He arrived in time to see an old man, one who had always complained about Yuji carrying too much—fall beneath claws.
"Get back!" Yuji screamed.
He killed the monster with his bare hands, fingers digging into its eyes until it stopped moving.
The old man was already gone.
Yuji dropped beside him, hands shaking.
"I'm here," he whispered. "I-I'm here."
No response.
Something inside him cracked.
The rest blurred together.
The spear snapped in half mid-thrust.
Yuji didn't stop.
He fought with fists, with stones, with broken wood. His knuckles shattered. His wrist bent the wrong way. Pain flared, then dulled, then vanished entirely under adrenaline and refusal.
A jagged blade plunged into his abdomen.
Deep.
Too deep.
Yuji gasped as warmth flooded his stomach, blood spilling freely with every movement.
That's fatal.
He ripped the blade out anyway.
Another monster tore open his back.
He didn't fall.
By the time the last scream faded, Yuji had killed thirty-one monsters.
There were zero villagers left alive.
Yuji stood alone in the center of the ruins, swaying, blood pooling beneath his feet. His body was failing—organs damaged, bones broken, blood loss severe.
He should have died.
He didn't.
He wandered through the village until dawn, apologizing to bodies that could no longer hear him.
"I'm sorry."
"I was too slow."
"I should've been stronger."
The sun rose.
The truth was clear.
Everyone was dead.
Except him.
Yuji stood there, shaking, broken, and alive—and that felt wrong in a way he couldn't put into words.
If he stayed, he would die here.
And dying here would mean nothing.
So he turned toward the road.
Toward Orario.
Each step hurt.
Each step felt like betrayal.
But his body moved anyway.
Because that was all he knew how to do.
Move forward.