Then he turned, heading back down the stairs two at a time, boots hitting cracked stone with dull thuds. Once he reached the bottom, he paused. Scanned the area. Fog still rolled in low across the ruined plaza, but there was a faint parting to the north—just beyond the splintered bell tower.
That was the direction the NPC mentioned.
And if the Spectral Residue came from those things—Remnants of Spite, Greed, Rabid Hounds—then whatever waited out there wasn't going to drop it politely into a loot bag.
He double-checked his gear: busted leather scraps, chipped daggers, and empty inventory. No potions. No food. Nothing but the default starter loadout and the nerve to keep walking.
No backup. No comms. No healer.
He followed the path out of Hollowrest, toward the foggy breach beyond the bell tower ruins. Stone steps dipped downward into what looked like an old graveway—a winding trail between shattered tombs and sunken mausoleums. Moss-covered statues leaned at broken angles. Trees with no leaves stretched like bone fingers toward a dead sky.
Then he heard it.
A low, clicking snarl—wet, jittery, close.
He slowed. Crouched. Daggers drawn.
From behind a half-toppled monument, a shape emerged. Gaunt. Crawling. Its limbs were far too long, back arched in a painful, jerking posture. Eyes like faint embers flickered inside a skeletal face half-covered in scraps of ceremonial cloth.
[Remnant of Spite – Lv. 3]
Three levels above him.
Of course.
It hadn't seen him yet. It twitched, scanned the tombstones, sniffed the air like it could almost taste him.
Mar crept closer, flanking wide. He positioned himself behind it. Timing mattered now. No skills. Just raw reflexes and that one edge he had:
Back attacks hit harder.
He waited. Counted the creature's movements. Steady rhythm—jerk, pause, sniff, twitch.
Then he moved.
Silent step. Pivoted behind it. Dagger drove up into the back of its neck.
[CRIT – 61 DAMAGE]
The thing let out a hiss that sounded like boiling oil. It spun wildly, flailing one elongated claw.
Mar ducked, slashed across the gut, and felt resistance—its body didn't move like flesh. More like stretched hide stuffed with smoke.
It swung again. He dodged back, clipped along the ribs, circled to its blind side.
[CRIT – 54 DAMAGE]
[CRIT – 49 DAMAGE]
The Remnant stumbled, hissed again, and burst into black mist.
[+12 EXP]
[Item Acquired: Spectral Residue x1]
Mar stood there, panting lightly. That was one. He needed thirty.
"Great," he muttered, eyes narrowing at the winding trail ahead where more movement flickered between the gravestones.
At least now he knew they could bleed.
Sort of.
The next one came crawling out from under a collapsed statue—another Remnant of Spite. This one screeched the moment it saw him, lunging low like a cornered animal.
He didn't wait.
He sidestepped the rush and jammed a dagger up into its jaw. It went stiff mid-lunge, then collapsed in a black vapor swirl.
[CRIT - 51 DAMAGE]
[+12 EXP]
[Spectral Residue x1]
Two down.
A Remnant of Greed followed, clawing through a split tomb wall. Its face was stitched with old coin pouches, eyes hollow. It moved fast but clumsy. Mar caught it across the back when it lunged past him.
[CRIT – 72 DAMAGE]
[+14 EXP]
[Spectral Residue x1]
Third.
Fourth and fifth came together—two Rabid Hounds, their flesh torn and mouths dripping black foam. He backed up, baited one into overextending, then drove his blade into its spine. The second clipped his leg—barely—but he managed to finish it with a cross slash to the ribs.
[+10 EXP+10 EXP Spectral Residue x2]
"Fourteen percent in," he muttered, checking his bar. Not fast. But steady.
The sixth was a Greed again. He got sloppy. Took a claw to the ribs. Red slashed across his HP bar. First serious hit.
He gritted his teeth, circled wide, and stabbed it in the back as it tried to reorient.
[+14 EXP Spectral Residue x1]
He staggered back. Knees tense. Breathing sharp.
Seven kills, and he finally saw something drop that wasn't smoke and a number.
The corpse faded, but two small icons shimmered faintly in the air where it had died.
He walked over and tapped one.
[Item Acquired: Lesser Healing Potion x1]
Then the second.
[Item Acquired: Edans x5]
Currency. Real drops.
He stood still for a second, staring at the small glowing icons fading from his vision.
Finally.
He slipped the potion into his inventory and flicked the currency total open. Still a long way from useful, but something had shifted.
The system was loosening its grip.
He adjusted his stance, scanned the gravestones ahead, and muttered under his breath:
"Let's keep going."
The next stretch blurred.
Blades flashing. Fog shifting. Screams that didn't sound like anything alive.
By the time Mar stopped, he was at 28 out of 30.
His cloak was torn worse than before. A long gash ran down his side—red, but no bleeding. Just a flashing HP bar that hovered a little above halfway.
He crouched behind a crumbled mausoleum wall, letting his breath slow.
The graves ahead were quiet. No movement. Just fog rolling over cracked stones and half-dead trees.
He opened his menu and flipped to Loot History.
[Loot History]: Edans x17, Lesser Healing Potion x3, Gravel x3, Spectral Residue x28
"Gravel," he muttered. "Awesome."
He closed the window and leaned back against the wall, letting his HP tick up naturally. Slow regen. But safer than wasting a potion right now. He only had three.
He watched the fog shift for signs of movement. Nothing came.
Just silence.
Almost peaceful—if not for the constant hum of the menu UI in the back of his mind.
Two more kills.
Then he could head back. Turn in. Figure out what the hell came next.
He stood, stretching his shoulders. Muscles—or whatever passed for them now—ached from repetition. Two more and he'd be done.
But then he saw it.
Just off the trail. Half-hidden behind a leaning gravestone and the base of a dead tree. A small crypt entrance—stone doors half-buried in earth, one side cracked open. Moss grew thick around the seams, but there was a faint, unnatural light leaking out from within.
Faint. Pale blue.
Mar narrowed his eyes.
No markers. No map icon. No UI ping.
Just… there.
He took a step closer.
Then another.
He should've finished the quest. Cashed in. Banked the EXP. Played it safe.
But safe never led to shit worth remembering.
He crouched at the entrance, peered down the stone stairway swallowed in shadows.
It wasn't deep. Maybe two levels at most. But the fog didn't reach down there. Whatever was inside—if anything—was untouched.
His hand hovered near his dagger. He checked his HP again—just under 70%.
"Fuck it," he whispered.
Then he slipped inside.
The air changed the moment he stepped in.
Cold. Still. No wind. No UI buzz.
Just quiet stone, and a smell that didn't make sense—like dry rot and metal. The crypt descended into a narrow hallway barely lit by faint blue sconces that flickered like candle ghosts. At the bottom, it split into two short passages. Left and right.
He checked the left first.
The room was small. Dust thick as ash on the floor. A few broken urns. And in the far corner—almost tucked behind a collapsed pillar—a chest. Old wood. Iron trim. Standard low-tier lootbox look.
Mar approached, cracked the lid, and peered inside.
[Item Acquired: Wooden Shield]
He scoffed. "Yeah. Perfect. For all my non-existent blocking skills."
He dropped it into his inventory. Junked. Sell later. If merchants even existed out here.
"Sooner or later I'm gonna find a town," he muttered. "Or a merchant. Or a dude in a cloak who wants to trade crap for meat. Something."
He turned and checked the second room.
And stopped cold in the doorway.
A massive humanoid figure stood in the center, surrounded by cracked bones and broken weapons. Over two meters tall. Cloaked in faded funeral cloth. Bone-white armor molded into its ribs. Two-handed sword buried tip-down in the stone at its feet like a gravemarker.
Its eyes weren't lit, but the name floated above it:
[Skaro, Guardian of Grief][Level 6 – Elite]
Mar's throat tightened. He stepped back without realizing it.
"Fuck…" he whispered. "I don't think I have any chances against that."
He stood there a second longer, staring at it. Still as a statue. Not aggro'd. Not moving.
"Yeah… I should probably go finish the damn quest and visit this bad boy in a minute."
He turned, quietly retracing his steps out of the crypt. The elite didn't follow.
But it watched.
Mar stepped out of the crypt, boots crunching softly on old gravel. The air outside felt different. Lighter. Like the fog had shifted while he was below.
He gave the cracked stone doors one last look.
"Don't go anywhere," he muttered.
Then turned back to the path.
The graveyard waited—still, but not empty. A low snarl echoed from the west. Another Remnant, stalking between mausoleums. He crouched, circled wide, and caught it behind the knee. It went down in one clean combo.
[+13 EXP][Spectral Residue x1]
Twenty-nine.
The last one took a little longer—a Hound, limping along a dry creekbed behind the ruined bell tower. Mar waited for it to sniff the air, then pounced from above. Fast and quiet.
[+10 EXP][Spectral Residue x1]
[Quest Objective Complete: 30/30 Spectral Residue Acquired]
He exhaled through his nose and stood, stretching the tension out of his shoulders. Then without a word, he turned and made the walk back toward Hollowrest.
The plaza was still empty when he arrived. The fog thinned as he stepped across the boundary. No mobs. No spawns. Just cracked buildings and the faint, cold pulse of the save crystal.
The old man was still on the second floor of the ruin, exactly where Mar left him.
Idle.
Frozen.
Mar climbed the steps again. As soon as he came within reach, the NPC blinked.
"You have brought silence to the restless," the man said, voice flat and hollow. "Their grief lingers—but the Tower remembers."
[Quest Complete: Whispering Ashes]EXP Gained: 130Edans Gained: 274Bonus Item Acquired: ???
Mar raised a brow. "Bonus?"
Another item appeared in front of him—a faint glow, no chest or window. Just a single shard hovering in the air.
He reached out and took it.
[Item Acquired: Class Specific Skill Box]
Mar blinked.
A small bronze cube hovered in the air, its surface engraved with swirling etch marks.
"Okay... what the hell are you?"
He tapped it in his inventory.
[Use Item?]This box contains a skill manuscript compatible with your current class.
He hit confirm without thinking.
The cube disintegrated in a soft burst of gold pixels. In its place, a slim black scroll appeared in his inventory.
Item Acquired: Rogue Skill Manuscript Lv.2: Defiant Thrust
Mar's eyebrows rose. "Oh wow. I guess I'll just use it—finally a skill."
He tapped use.
[Command Failed: Level Requirement not met. Skill Requirement: Level 2]
"…Ah, fuck me."
He closed the inventory window and looked out over the ruins of Hollowrest. Fog still lingered on the horizon. Wind whistled through empty windows and shattered beams.
"Guess I should just grind my way to level 2."
He stretched his fingers, adjusted his daggers, and stared toward the graveyard path once more.
"Maybe then I'll have a chance killing that elite."
Then he started walking.
Back into the fog.