3-2

It was a cave storing food and some weapons. Unable to establish extensive outposts in Silithus, the Cenarion Hold army chose or dug dozens of more hidden and safe caves to provide resting points for those on missions.

Dwarf Tamara Stonebeard slapped his face with both hands, then shook his head, causing his fine braids to sway back and forth. To avoid the trouble of cleaning sand from his hair and beard, he had braided them all and wouldn't undo them for half a year. He grabbed a bottle of wine, drained the remaining liquid into his mouth, wiped his soot-colored lips, and said, "Come on, little Agnes, kill that beast. Finish it in five seconds, got it? Otherwise, Tamara Stonebeard will have to do it himself, and that won't be pretty."

"How many times do I have to remind you? Don't call me 'little'," Bossia said, holding a scalpel and tweezers between her thumb and forefinger, bending down closer to Tamara's face. Tamara's left eye was tightly closed, with a purple-red lump near the bridge of his nose.

"What's the difference? I don't consider human girls as women. Do you have a thick waist that Tamara can't wrap both hands around? Do you have breasts like a barrel? Hmph, you fall Shawlt in every way..."

"Shut up. If I hurt your eyeball, it's not my responsibility."

"Okay, okay."

As Bossia's fingers touched the underside of the lump, Tamara flinched. "Don't tense up," she said, carefully applying pressure and lifting Tamara's eyelid. Beneath the trembling eyelid was a slightly cloudy yellow eye, with a lump of extra soft tissue resembling a small blood-stained cotton ball stuck between the lower part of the eyeball and the eyelid. She used the scalpel, sterilized simply by boiling, to make a cut on the surface of the tissue; it was tougher than expected, so she had to apply more force to slice it open.

Here, she paused.

"Is it done? Is it clean?"

"I said shut up!"

She put down the scalpel and picked up the tweezers, probing into the small cut to grasp something. The sensation made her a bit nauseous. "I don't know if it will hurt. Just bear with it." She slowly pulled out what was hidden inside the lump.

It was a transparent white egg, shaped like two grains of wheat joined together. Without a second glance, she immediately discarded it. Two days ago, Tamara started rubbing his eye non-stop, initially thinking it was just sand, but the area under his eye swelled overnight. A tiny Qiraji fly had laid eggs in the corner of his eye. According to precedent, in three days the larvae would hatch and feast on his eyeball as their first meal. By the time the host realized it, the larvae might have already burrowed into his brain.

Bossia then applied some medication to Tamara's eye; whether he could keep his eye depended on his self-healing ability.

"Where did you throw that thing? I want to personally chop it in half for making a home in Tamara's eye."

"I don't know. It's dead anyway."

"What a pity. Thanks, good buddy Agnes."

"And don't call me 'buddy'." Bossia lost the urge to argue with Tamara, lying on the stone bed next to the rock wall, pressing the back of her left hand against her forehead. She needed to rest a bit before continuing the mission.

"Why are you lying down? My eye is treated, we can go back to work. If we run into any troublemakers, be they Twilight Cultists or bugs, we'll have a good fight."

"Give me half an hour to rest."

"Stop dawdling. What's there to rest for? Come on, come on, come on… come out and fight with me, Ag-nes…" Tamara said, tapping the small wooden table rhythmically with the back of his axe.

Bossia picked up a stone and threw it at Tamara, hitting the wall behind him. Fine sand splashed out, staining his braids with gray-white. "Don't disturb me for the next half hour." With that, she lay back on the bed, turning her back to Tamara, and closed her eyes again. Until she fell asleep, the cave was as quiet as if no one else was there.

Aside from the Dwarven Explorer's League who liked digging up ruins, almost no civilian organizations were stationed in Silithus, so mercenaries could only work for the military. The two main enemies of Cenarion Hold were the Qiraji and the Twilight's Hammer cultists, and they had to be dealt with in entirely different ways. The insects reproduced too quickly for killing a few to make any difference, so most military commissions for mercenaries involved scouting and reconnaissance. As for the Twilight's Hammer cultists, who lacked collective aggression and had a strong self-destructive tendency, the main approach was assassinating leaders and stealing intelligence. Comparing the two, Bossia knew she was more suited for dealing with the Qiraji, unpleasant as it sounded. The cultists might not be fierce warriors, but their fanaticism made their actions unpredictable. Many Qiraji were physically stronger than ordinary people but had obvious strategic weaknesses, as they typically followed very precise, predictable patterns. Before her first mission, Bossia received a military booklet describing various types of Qiraji, their habits, and how to handle them. The fly that laid eggs in people's eyes was on page fifty-eight. "Should be removed within four days"—this was at the end of page fifty-eight—"remove the eggs parasitizing the eye socket"—this was at the beginning of page fifty-nine. The military said if you didn't understand most of the contents of this booklet, you wouldn't survive a month in Silithus. After many practical experiences, Bossia had memorized most of it and could apply it when necessary, having survived in Silithus for over a year, but this couldn't be considered a reliable example. Ultimately, survival depended on personal ability, just as the booklet accumulated countless deaths' worth of experience. Of course, there was a clear advantage to dealing with bugs: no psychological burden.

Here, she was known as Agnes. A name is a designation one must bear in life, making one's existence tangible in shared communication. Over the years, changing aliases multiple times made Bossia start to ignore the special significance of a name. When she was a member of the Cathedral of Light Guard, hearing someone call out Bossia Wislanzo was not just summoning her, but also an affirmation; it felt as if people recognized and approved of her education and faith in the Light just through her name. Now, "name" meant no more to her than tables and chairs, at most reaching the familiarity of "you," never the intimacy of "me." Sometimes, the thought of possibly dying as a non-existent person overwhelmed her with fear, like waking up in a small boat in the middle of the ocean at night, seeing no land at the horizon, with a dark sky above about to bring a storm. Luckily, there wasn't much time to think about these things, or she would deeply doubt the reasons for choosing this lifestyle.

Today's military commission was to scout the current area for any new insect nests. Silithus seemed overly vast and desolate, but almost every inch of desert and rock had an owner. The saying went: if the military wasn't stationed there, insects must be gathering; if neither were present, the area belonged to the Twilight's Hammer. Bossia was sent here based on this seemingly joking yet very guiding conclusion. The military hadn't passed through here in a long time, nor had there been reports of the Twilight's Hammer setting up camp, so there was a possibility insects were digging new nests in the sand.

Her current partner, Dwarf Tamara Stonebeard, claimed to have been a foreman at a small mine in Loch Modan. Due to being "too generous and too popular with women, with no time to achieve great things," he came to Silithus. He was an old hand here, having worked for eight years, but his earnings weren't necessarily more substantial than Bausia's. Only recently did Bossia learn that for the first five years here, Tamara had only maintained weapons at the Hold. She had to admit, Dwarves were good partners when they worked seriously, but to gain a quiet rest around a sober Dwarf, you had to tear your face apart.

Over half an hour later, Bossia woke up to find Tamara and his axe gone. It seemed he couldn't wait to go out and fight before she fell asleep, not joking around. No matter how eager, she doubted his eye could be used so soon. She donned her sand-proof cloak, put on her goggles, and walked out of the cave.

Outside, the wind was blowing intermittently strong. Occasionally, Bossia could hear the sound of flying sand hitting her cloak. It was said that particularly irregular winds might be caused by giant Qiraji wings flapping, so encountering such winds meant being cautious; though never definitively proven, many regarded it as a survival rule. Silithus was full of superstitions and rumors leading to death; no one ever said any sign would guarantee safe mission completion, return to the Hold, and a chance for a hot bath.

The area within a hundred meters around the cave had been investigated yesterday, and within this safe range, there was no sign of Tamara. The intermittently weakening wind suddenly intensified, then stabilized, quickly reducing visibility to less than twenty meters, leaving only some gray-white remnants of sunlight touching the ground. Based on experience rather than superstition, Bossia knew this was weather signaling approaching death.

A minute later, she heard Tamara's voice from the west. It was impossible to tell if it was a scream or a call for help—the slightly hoarse voice quickly sank due to the sandstorm. Bossia quickened her pace westward. She knew it was dangerous to continue investigating without backup, but still believed there was a safe distance allowing her to approach Tamara and ascertain his condition. This judgment wasn't based on real experience, but on everything she had learned and felt to survive until now.

After about thirty meters, the wind further strengthened. Continuing would make it impossible to find the way back to the cave. So far, she hadn't found any traces of Tamara, and based on the distance of the earlier voice, he shouldn't have been outside this range. With frustrating anxiety, she turned around. At this moment, a strong tremor spread under her toes, quickly extending throughout the soles of her feet, making her body tremble uncontrollably. She stepped back, but her right foot in front suddenly slipped downward—a large area of sand rapidly sank, forming a deep conical pit within seconds, causing Bossia to slide down the slope. Enduring the increasingly piercing noise, she tried to steady herself to avoid further slipping. Moments later, she saw a dark green triangular object emerge from the bottom of the pit—it was the head of a Qiraji. Following it was a forepaw twice as thick as Bossia's sword.