My SSS-Rank Grim Reaper System-Chapter 106: VELTHARR (4)

[Day 19 — Morning — South District]

Heren lived in a small house at the end of an alley that Kira’s map indicated as "accessible if you know how to look."

The door was open.

Kira knocked before entering because in Veltharr, an open door could mean either welcome or trap, and she preferred to confirm.

A voice from inside. "Come in."

---

Heren was seventy at minimum. Probably more.

His eyes didn’t focus well — not complete blindness, but the specific way the eyes of someone who saw something their brain never finished processing remain slightly offset from what they’re looking at.

Alex noticed it as soon as they entered.

The room was small. One table. Four chairs. A window covered with thick fabric because Heren clearly preferred controlled darkness to variable light.

Kira had made the contact. Alex went because it was his information that mattered. Grim went because Grim always went.

Heren looked at them.

He stopped on Grim.

The unfocused eyes focused for the first time.

"Ah," he said.

Just that.

"Do you recognize him?" Alex asked.

"Not him." Heren pointed at Grim. "What he carries on him." A long pause. "I saw something similar on level five. Bigger. Not as clearly defined." He pointed to the chair across from him. "Sit down."

---

Heren spoke for twenty minutes without Alex interrupting.

Eight years ago. Group of six. They entered under a private contract — a collector who wanted something specific from level four and paid enough that the risk seemed calculable.

The first three levels, no major surprises. The fourth with the Heralds — back then less established but already present.

The fifth.

Heren stopped.

"Level five has no undead." He said it the same way someone would describe the weather. "Groups that enter expect undead. That’s what the records say, it’s what makes sense given that the previous levels are full of them."

"What does level five have?" Alex asked.

"What the undead were before they were undead."

Kira took notes.

Alex waited for Heren to continue.

"The souls that the undead from the previous levels should have processed. The undead contain them. They retain them. But level five is where that process began — where the Harvester’s first seal touched the ground." Heren looked at Grim again. "Those souls aren’t contained in bodies. They’re in the environment. In the air. In the walls."

"Trapped souls," Grim said quietly.

"Exactly." Heren nodded at the skeleton as if he were the most qualified person in the room to understand this. "They can’t be harvested normally. They can’t be released by standard light magic. And they’re not exactly hostile — but they react to living presence in a way that..." He stopped. "Four of the six who entered with me didn’t come out."

"What happened to them?"

"I don’t know for certain." A long pause. "What I saw was that the souls in the environment responded to something in them. As if they recognized something." He looked directly at Alex. "You carry Fragment 1. The Core." It wasn’t a question. "On level five, that’s going to be either a problem or an advantage. I don’t know which."

"What was it for you?"

Heren smiled for the first time.

"I wasn’t carrying a Fragment. I survived because I’m invisible to whatever is looking for something." A pause. "You’re not going to be able to be invisible."

---

They left twenty minutes later.

Kira with her notebook full.

Grim quieter than usual.

Alex walking in silence.

"What do you think?" Kira asked when they were far enough from Heren’s house.

"That level five is the real problem and nobody in Viktor’s archives mentioned it because nobody who reached level five with enough information to report came back to report."

Kira nodded.

"And Grim?"

"Trapped souls." A pause. "Soul Prison can handle them. But many simultaneously... I don’t know."

"How many is many?"

"Depends on how long level five has been accumulating."

"And how long has that been?"

"Since the original sealing."

They calculated that in silence.

---

[Afternoon — Central Market]

The poster was on the central market post where high-priority announcements were nailed up.

Wood and ink. Reasonably accurate drawing — someone who’d worked from detailed description.

Crimson eyes. White streak in the hair. The faint mark on the left hand. And beside him, a small skeleton with a scythe.

REWARD: 500,000 CROWNS. ALEX CARTER. ALIVE. THE CELESTIAL TEMPLE PAYS DOUBLE.

Grim looked at it.

"Your face is everywhere."

"It’s flattering," said Alex.

Raven, who had appeared from the adjacent stall: "It’s a problem."

Emily from the other side, looking at the poster with her head tilted: "At least they drew you well."

Kira was already pulling the poster off the post.

"There are twelve more in the city. I located them this morning." She folded it and put it away. "I’ll remove them tonight."

Alex looked at her.

"Tonight?"

"When fewer people are watching." A pause. "Stop looking at the poster that’s no longer there."

Alex stopped looking at the space where the poster had been.

---

[Inn — The Split Rock — 5:00 PM]

The double room Alex shared with Grim — Grim didn’t need a bed but had his own corner that he’d established in the first hour.

"I don’t understand why you act like a pet yourself."

Alex was checking his gear for the next day when someone knocked on the door.

Maya.

She came in with her notebook and sat in the chair by the window without waiting for an invitation. Which was also Maya’s version of being comfortable.

She placed the open notebook on the table.

"Entry plan for the Catacombs."

Alex sat across from her.

For the next forty minutes, Maya went through each level with what they knew now — Viktor’s archives, the information from Kira’s herbalist, what Heren had said.

Level one: high density of undead but manageable.

Level two: new mechanics, narrow terrain, interference with light magic.

Level three: rune traps.

Level four: the Heralds and the ritual.

Level five: what Heren had described.

"Level five is the biggest variable," Maya said. "No real tactical information. Just one survivor’s testimony."

"I know."

"Does Grim have anything from the Harvester’s memories about that level?"

"Images. Without full context." Grim from his corner. "The Harvester passed through that level once. Before the sealing. The memory is blurry."

"Blurry how?"

"Like remembering something while you’re asleep."

Maya noted that.

"So we improvise on five."

"That was always part of the plan," said Alex.

Maya closed the notebook.

She didn’t get up immediately.

Akari on her shoulder, shifting slightly.

"Are you okay?" Alex asked.

"Yes." A pause. "Nervous. Which is useful... nervousness improves response time." She looked at the closed notebook. "I just wanted to tell you the plan is solid up to four. We’ll figure out five when we get there."

"I know."

"And that the team is good." Another pause. "Actually good. Not just functional."

Alex looked at her.

Maya looked back.

There was something in that that wasn’t exactly what it seemed... or maybe it was exactly what it seemed and Maya just didn’t have the vocabulary to say what she meant without getting flustered.

Akari turned her head toward Alex.

Her golden eyes assessing.

Maya stood up.

"Tomorrow at five."

"Tomorrow at five."

Maya went to the door. Opened it.

She paused for a second with her hand on the frame.

"Alex."

"Yeah?"

"Come back from five."

She said it the same way Emily had said come back at the baths. Without elaboration. Without extra context.

Just that.

Alex: "Yeah."

Maya left.

Grim from the corner, not moving his eyes from where he was looking: "Progress."

"Yeah," said Alex.

"A lot of progress."

"Grim."

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

"Understood."

---

[POV CAEL — Northern edge of Veltharr — Night]

The squad’s camp established in the forest north of the city, outside Veltharr’s jurisdiction by exactly two hundred meters.

Cael looking at the map of the Catacombs.

Davan to his left.

"Carter’s team entered the city yesterday," Davan said. "Contacts confirmed they’re at The Split Rock. An inn in the outer market."

"Movements?"

"Market. Artisan district. South district." Davan consulted his own report. "The south district contact is a Catacombs survivor. Level five."

Cael’s expression didn’t change.

"How long in the city?"

"Based on the pattern, two days."

"And Seraph Nox?"

"On the northern edge. Didn’t enter the city." Davan looked at him. "Do we watch her?"

"No." Cael folded the map. "Seraph Nox has her reasons for being here. As long as she stays out of the city, she’s not our business."

"And if she enters?"

"Then she becomes our business."

Davan nodded.

He looked at the Catacombs in the northern distance, the dark rock formation visible from the camp on clear nights like this.

"When do they enter?"

"Tomorrow or the day after. Depends on what they found in the south district." Cael put the map in his coat. "When Carter’s team enters, we seal the exit. Position here." He pointed at the map that was no longer in front of him — he had it memorized. "Five kilometers from the perimeter. Don’t get any closer until they come out."

"And if the ritual..."

"We already discussed that."

"I know." Davan looked at him. "Cael?"

"What."

"Do you think they’ll come out?"

Cael looked north for a moment.

"They interrupted Matthias in the Crystallines. Level 78. With terrain advantage, an army of creatures, and Carter’s team exhausted and damaged." Pause. "And they came out alive."

"Is that a yes?"

"It’s an I don’t know." Cael stood up. "But it’s the most honest one I can give."

---

[Inn — The Split Rock — Night]

The room in silence.

Kira had returned at midnight with the twelve posters in her backpack. She counted them in front of Alex to confirm the number and then put them away without comment.

Emily was asleep.

Raven too, or she was pretending well enough.

Alex stared at the ceiling.

The Anchor Stone in his hand. The crimson veins dimmer than yesterday.

[Corruption: 57%] — still stable. Still time.

Grim from his corner: "Are you sleeping?"

"Trying."

"Is it working?"

"No."

"Tomorrow you’ll need energy."

"I know."

A pause.

"Heren said level five reacts to something in the people who enter." Grim looked at him. "I think I know what it reacts to."

Alex sat up slightly.

"What?"

"To souls that have reasons." A pause. "The trapped souls on that level never had reasons for anything. They just existed and then they stopped existing and they stayed there." His eye sockets on Alex. "You have reasons. Many. And that’s going to be visible to them."

"Is that a problem or an advantage?"

Grim didn’t answer immediately.

"Both. Depending on what we do with it."

Alex lay back down.

The ceiling of The Split Rock.

Tomorrow the Catacombs.

He closed his eyes.

This time, sleep came.