SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery

The fires had died down to a low, pulsing coals by the time anyone dared to break the silence. The embers smoldered softly, casting quivering light out onto the sand like the heartbeat of something wounded but not yet dead. Tendrils of thin, asymmetrical smoke rose and merged with the darkening dusk. The air was heavy with the scent of charred fur and blood.

The leopard’s body was exactly where it had fallen, a heap of muscle and wreckage now half-shrouded in a veil of ash and sand. Its jaws were open, tongue slack, eyes dead. There was something obscene in the stillness of it, as if we’d stumbled into a tableau that should not have played itself out so close to camp. Alexis had already begun dragging the carcass to the edge of the treeline, one hand clutching the hind leg, the other attached to a section of vine she’d knotted into a loop like a makeshift tether. Her expression was stoic—tight-lipped, eyes narrowed, muttering something under her breath. Terms like "rot" and "scavengers" were all that carried back to us, buried beneath the noise of wind rustling through the canopy.

Camille was the first to speak up. Her voice wasn’t bright anymore, the usual tease mellowed by fatigue and soot. She rubbed her hands along the hem of her soot-stained shirt, dark smears streaking across her cheeks like war paint. "You’re sure?" she said, glancing from me to the woods and back again. "A shelter?"

"I can’t be certain," I replied, my breath hitching. I could feel the soreness clawing at my ribs again, every word stoking a slow burn beneath the bandages. "But barbed wire doesn’t grow on trees. Someone made those wounds. Someone—or something—had to have kept it somewhere. And it got out."

A beat passed. Then another.

Evelyn, still crouched near me, let out a quiet breath through her nose. She picked up the stick she’d been sharpening before the attack, examining its jagged tip with a calculating expression. "I’ll reinforce the perimeter," she said finally. "Whatever camp we had before needs to be more than just a windbreak now. We’ll need barriers. Deterrents. Deadfall traps, if I can manage them. Maybe even pressure line triggers. Anything to slow down the next thing that decides we look like food."

Her tone was flat. Not panicked. Not frightened. Just prepared.

Alexis stood, brushing dirt and ash from her palms before walking to the others. Her gaze flicked over each of us, pausing on the darkening woods. "Camille and I will check the inland route," she said. "If there’s something man-made in that forest, we’ll find it. Shelter, station, wreckage—whatever it is."

"You’ll take rations," Evelyn said. "Two hours. No more. If you’re not back by then, we assume you’re compromised and we don’t send a second team."

Camille raised a brow. "Not even to rescue us?"

Evelyn gave her a look. "If you’re dead, there’s nothing to rescue. If you’re not, you’ll be smart enough to follow instructions."