Scumbag Fate System-Chapter 27: Noctyne ruin (2)

Reinhard realized something strange as they approached the gate.

There were names carved into it.

He glanced sideways to see if the others noticed, but they seemed preoccupied with checking their weapons.

Rika had a purple bow across her back, Sirin carried a crimson spear, Alice had a bronze sledgehammer slung over one shoulder, and Yor wore a plain black sword at her waist. Reinhard touched his own sword briefly, then checked the gauntlets on his hands.

Then his eyes moved to the gate itself.

The names were placed in neat rows that ran from top to bottom. It looked like there were fifty, maybe more, names there. Some were easy to read, and others had been worn down.

"Look at all these names," Alice whispered.

"I wonder whose names are?" Sirin questioned.

Everyone glanced at Yor, but she was silent as she walked past them. Reinhard leaned in and let his eyes move along the lower rows until they caught on one name near the bottom.

Michael Noctyne.

The letters were darker than the rest, but he could tell this person was related to Yor. He glanced up, seeing her glance at the name, but continued walking. She pressed her hand flat against the gate, and nothing happened for a moment.

Then the stone shuddered.

A grinding sound rising up and rolling out across the empty streets like a wave. The split halves of the arch shifted and opened wider, as though the gate had simply been waiting for permission.

"It opened for her," Sirin said quietly, and there was genuine wonder in it.

"Like it recognized her," Alice added.

Yor stood still in front of the open gate, and her face was unreadable. Her fingers, hanging at her side, trembled slightly.

"Shall we?" Reinhard asked, keeping his voice soft.

She nodded and walked forward. The others followed, and Reinhard moved with them, and then the silence hit him like something solid.

There was nothing, no sounds of birds, no wind moving through the streets, or signs of living at all. Reinhard took a step, and to his surprise, the sound bounced back off the black walls around them.

It kept going long after it should have stopped. He took another step, and this echo lasted even longer.

"You hear that too?" Rika whispered. Her voice came back to them twisted and wrong.

"The echoes shouldn’t do that," Alice whispered back.

Sirin raised one hand. "Everyone stays close. Nobody wanders."

They walked deeper into the ruins. Black stone buildings lined both sides of the street, walls bending inward overhead like they were slowly closing in.

A sound crept into the air around them; it was as if someone was humming. It seemed to come from everywhere at once.

"What is that?" Reinhard asked in surprise.

"That’s the unique sound the Void Distortions make," Yor said. It was the first thing she’d said since they walked through the gate. "Just ignore it."

Everyone nodded while the hum continued. They walked forward for five minutes before Sirin stopped and turned to the others.

"We need to split up, so we can cover more ground."

A pause followed.

Nobody looked comfortable with that.

Rika’s eyes went wide. "Split up? In here?"

"The ruins cover an entire city. If we stay together, we won’t reach even half of it before our time runs out."

Alice sighed but nodded. "Two hours isn’t much for a place this size. And we won’t know when we will get another approval to come here from the headmaster." 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

"But what if something goes wrong?" Rika gripped her bow tighter. "What if one of us runs into trouble and the others aren’t close enough?"

"Which is exactly why we don’t go too far," Sirin said. "The moment you move into an area where you can’t feel anyone else’s magic, you turn back."

Reinhard closed his eyes and let his attention go inward. Reaching out with a quiet focus until he could feel the others around him.

Sirin’s magic came through first, bright and warm like standing near a bonfire. Alice was steady and grounded while Rika’s flickered like a candle in a light breeze. Yor’s was different from all of them; it was like staring at the bottomless abyss.

He opened his eyes. "I can feel everyone clearly."

"Good." Sirin pointed in three directions. "Yor and Reinhard take the eastern section. Rika and Alice go west. I’ll handle the center."

"You’re going alone?" Rika asked.

"I’ve done this before. I’ll be fine."

Rika looked at the black walls bending inward, the echoes that were still wrong, and nodded once. "Please be careful... Let’s do it."

They separated.

Reinhard fell into step beside Yor as she turned down a side street as if she already knew where she was going. Buildings pressed in close on both sides, all empty doorways and broken stairs.

As they turned the corner, something moved ahead.

A figure stepped out.

From the alley ahead.

It was purple-black and roughly human in shape, more like a shadow that had been given a body than anything solid. Reinhard’s hand moved toward his sword on instinct.

"Don’t," Yor said quietly, without looking at him. "Don’t react to them."

The figure stood there and watched. Its head tilted to one side.

"It’s easier..." It whispered. "...This way." And its voice echoed and repeated and layered over itself in a way that made the words hard to separate from each other.

Another figure stepped out from a doorway. Then a third. They gathered without urgency, surrounding the street in a loose ring, all of them still and watching.

"Don’t want." One said.

"It’s easier this way." Another repeated.

They didn’t move closer or raise their hands. They simply stood there, watching and whispering their broken phrases over and over.

Yor walked forward without breaking her pace, moving past them like they were part of the scenery. Reinhard kept his hand away from his sword and followed. The shadows watched them go, whispering behind them until the street curved and cut the sound off.

More shapes stood ahead.

These beings looked like purple and black knights or armored entities. They had various weapons strapped to their backs and sides. As Yor and Reinhard walked by, the figures turned, following them with blank, eyeless faces.

They made no move to fight or speak. Only watched until Yor and Reinhard passed.

"They won’t attack," Yor whispered. "Just stay calm and keep walking."

The pair moved through twisted streets, past leaning buildings that should have fallen years ago, and across squares where the ground curved up like folded paper. The Echoes stayed at the edges, still whispering while the tall figures kept turning their quiet heads to watch.

Step by step, Yor guided him through the streets without any map or hesitation. But what stood out after the third turn was that she wasn’t walking blindly or looking around.

She was remembering where to go. First by a fountain flowing with ink-black water, then through a garden of stone flowers frozen before bloom.

And finally, into an open space where they could see the sky.

Then she stopped.

A white mansion stood at the end of the street ahead of them, and unlike everything else in the ruins, it was completely intact. Three stories of white stone, not a single crack in the walls, not a broken shutter or a dark window. The doors were closed, and the stone looked freshly cleaned.

Everything around it was crumbling.

Something cold moved up Reinhard’s spine, and a whisper pressed in at the edges of his thoughts, quiet but insistent.

Turn back. Don’t enter. Leave.

Every instinct he had was pointing in the same direction, away from those white walls and that untouched stone. The whisper had been building for the last two blocks, pressing against the inside of his thoughts with the specific insistence of something that wanted to be heard.

He glanced at Yor.

Her expression hadn’t changed. But her jaw was set in a way it hadn’t been before the mansion appeared.

She hears it too, he noted. And she’s still walking.

This made him grin.

Yor walked toward the doors, and Reinhard followed even as the whisper in his mind grew louder and more frantic the closer they got.

Turn back, turn back, turn back.

He kept walking.

Yor pushed open the door, and they swung open without a sound, not even a creak. But inside was completely empty.

No furniture anywhere, paintings on the walls, rugs on the floors, no sign that anything had ever been placed inside these rooms. Just white walls and white floors and white ceilings, and a stillness that felt different from the stillness outside.

There should have been years of dust, the kind that builds up after weeks. But the floor was spotless, as though someone had swept through only hours ago.

Then Reinhard watched a small particle of dust float from behind them. Drifting in a lazy spiral until it reached an inch above the floor. It stopped there as if it was frozen in time before drifting back outside.

"The dust doesn’t settle here," Yor said softly. "For some reason, the gravity in here only affects things that dirty the place."

"That’s... A first." Reinhard muttered.

They stepped inside.

Instantly, the air changed, but Yor’s hand closed around his wrist.

Not pulling him back.

Just holding on.