My Infinite Gacha In Another World: Surrounded By MILFs

Chapter 48: Chapter 48 — The Silence Before the Storm

The pillars were still there at midnight.

I stood on the porch of the cabin with a cup of cold tea in my hands, watching the four columns of violet light scrape the sky. They hadn’t dimmed. They hadn’t moved. They just stood there, silent and impossible, like scars on the world that refused to heal.

Behind me, the cabin was quiet. Lia had cried herself to sleep an hour ago, curled up against Chimera’s side. My shirt was still damp from where she’d buried her face against my chest, asking questions I didn’t have answers for. Why is the sky broken, Daddy? Are the monsters coming back? Are you going to die again?

That last one had knocked the air out of me. I’d held her tighter and told her no. I wasn’t going anywhere. I’d promised her that before, but this time it felt different. This time I meant it in a way that had nothing to do with luck or gacha pulls or divine intervention.

Samira stepped onto the porch and stood beside me. She’d changed out of her sleeping tunic and into her combat gear: reinforced leather, the green dress she’d worn the day I summoned her, her hair tied back in a tight braid. Ready. She was always ready.

"The columns haven’t moved," I said. It was a stupid observation, but I didn’t know what else to say.

"No. They won’t." Her voice was flat. Controlled. "They’re anchors. They dig into the ground and hold the rift open. In my era, we called them stakes. Once they’re set, they don’t move until the rift is closed or the world breaks."

I set the cup down on the railing. "How long do we have?"

"I don’t know. The last time, it took months before the first wave hit. But back then there was only one rift. Now there are four." She turned her head toward the nearest pillar, the one rising somewhere beyond the eastern forest. "I don’t know, Hal. I don’t know anything for certain. And that terrifies me."

That was the thing about Samira. She rarely admitted fear. Not when we faced the Lich, not when I died in the canyon, not when Odessa pushed her way into our bed. But she was admitting it now. And somehow, that scared me more than the pillars.

"Then we figure it out," I said. "Together. Like we said."

She nodded, but her eyes didn’t leave the horizon.

---

We reached Prusna an hour before dawn.

The village was unrecognizable. The festival banners had been torn down. The streets were empty except for patrols of guild guards carrying torches and crossbows. The smell of roasted meat and flowers had been replaced by something sharper: woodsmoke, iron, and the faint, acrid tang of fear.

Ronald Pain met us at the gate. He looked like he hadn’t slept. His shirt was untucked, his hair was a mess, and the stub of a dead cigar was still clamped between his teeth. But his handshake was firm, and his voice didn’t waver.

"Took you long enough," he said. "We’ve been setting up a command post in the square. The Church brought healers, scouts, and a couple of mages who think they know what we’re dealing with. They don’t. But they’re better than nothing."

"Any attacks?" Samira asked.

"Not yet. But we’ve lost contact with three villages on the eastern perimeter. Oakvein, Thornfall, and Millbrook. No messengers. No smoke signals. Nothing." He glanced at the pillar on the horizon. "Whatever’s happening, it started there first."

"We’re going to Oakvein," I said. "At first light."

Pain raised an eyebrow. "You, the spiritist, the giant, and the bookworm? That’s a small party for an unknown threat."

"Small is fast. And I’m not bringing Lia anywhere near those pillars until I know what we’re dealing with."

"Fair enough." He clapped me on the shoulder. "Get some rest. You leave in two hours."

---

The Church had taken over the guild hall. Saintess Karina was standing over a map table when we walked in, her golden hair tied back in a practical knot and her white robes replaced by a traveling cloak. She looked tired. The kind of tired that makeup couldn’t hide.

"Harold. Samira." She nodded to us as we approached. "I wish we were meeting under better circumstances."

"So do I."

She gestured to the map. It was a rough parchment showing the eastern territory, with Oakvein marked as a small dot near the base of the mountains. Someone had drawn the pillar of energy as a dark smudge next to it.

"Our scouts haven’t been able to get close," Karina said. "There’s a pressure. A weight in the air that gets worse the nearer you go. Some of them came back with nosebleeds. One didn’t come back at all."

"Then how do you know the village is still there?" Samira asked.

"We don’t." Karina’s jaw tightened. "But if there are survivors, they need us. And if there aren’t, we need to know what we’re facing."

Odessa stepped forward and ran her fingers over the map. "The energy signature is consistent with high-level possession magic. I’ve seen something similar in the old texts. The victims don’t die. They’re converted. Their bodies remain functional, but their will is overwritten by whatever is controlling them. They become puppets. And puppets can be used for anything."

"Anything like what?" I asked.

"Anything. Spies. Soldiers. Bait."

Chimera, who had been standing in the corner with her arms crossed, let out a low growl. Her heterochromatic eyes were fixed on the map, on the smudge that marked the pillar. Odessa’s quill stopped scratching against her parchment. Pain set down his cigar.

"I feel it," Chimera said quietly. "The energy. It’s familiar."

"Familiar how?" Samira turned to look at her.

"Like something I’ve tasted before." Chimera flexed her right hand, the one with the hidden mouth beneath the skin. "Something old."

I exchanged a glance with Samira. We both knew what Chimera was made of. Dollmun’s flesh. Dollmun’s essence. If she recognized the energy, it meant the same entities that had tortured the Lich four hundred years ago were behind this.

The same entities. The same darkness. Four centuries of silence, and now they were back.

"We leave at dawn," I said. "Samira, Chimera, Odessa. Dorko and Domack stay here and protect Lia. Pain, if anything comes through those gates while we’re gone—"

"I’ll handle it." Pain crushed the dead cigar under his boot. "Go find out what we’re dealing with. And try not to die. I’m running out of competent adventurers."

"Compliment accepted."

---

The inn was empty except for us. Pain had cleared it for the Church healers, but Karina had set aside a room on the second floor for my family. Lia was already asleep when I checked on her, curled up under a thick wool blanket with her bear plushie clutched against her chin. Dorko was sitting in a chair by the door, his club resting across his knees.

"Any trouble?" I asked.

"No, Master." The young orc shook his head. "She asked for you once. Then she said she was going to wait up, but she fell asleep before I could tell her that was a bad idea."

I smiled despite myself. "You did good, Dorko."

"Domack-ham helped. He told her a story about the Ash Warriors. I think she liked it."

"She likes your stories too."

Dorko’s ears perked up. "Really?"

"Really. Now get some rest. We leave early."

I closed the door quietly and walked down the hall to the room I was sharing with Samira. She was standing by the window, looking out at the pillar. The violet light painted her face in shades of bruise and shadow.

"You should sleep," I said.

"So should you."

I crossed the room and stood behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist. She leaned back against me, and for a moment, neither of us spoke.

"I’m scared, Hal."

"I know."

"Not of the pillars. Not of the monsters." Her hands closed over mine. "I’m scared of failing you. Of making the same mistakes I made with Almira. Of watching someone I love die because I wasn’t fast enough, or smart enough, or strong enough."

I turned her around gently, cupping her face in my hands. Her violet eyes were wet, but she held the tears back. She always did.

"You’re not going to fail me," I said. "And I’m not going to die. I’ve already done that once. It was overrated."

A laugh escaped her. Small. Fragile. But real.

"Idiot."

"Your idiot."

She kissed me. Soft. Warm. Her lips tasted of the herbal tea she’d been drinking, and her fingers curled into the collar of my shirt.

"Come to bed," she said. "If we’re leaving at dawn, I want to hold you until then."

We lay down together, her head on my chest, my fingers tracing slow circles on her shoulder. The pillar’s light flickered through the window, casting long shadows across the ceiling. I didn’t sleep. I just held her and listened to her breathe.

---

The messenger arrived just before sunrise.

I was already dressed and strapping on my boots when I heard the commotion outside. Shouts. Running footsteps. The creak of the main gate opening.

I ran downstairs. Pain was already there, along with two guild guards who were half-carrying a man between them. He was pale, gaunt, his clothes covered in dust and dried sweat. His eyes were wide and unfocused, darting around the square as if he couldn’t quite believe where he was.

"Found him on the road," one of the guards said. "Just standing there. Didn’t move when we called out. Didn’t blink."

I knelt in front of the man. "Hey. Can you hear me? What’s your name?"

He blinked. Swallowed. His lips moved, but no sound came out at first. Then, in a voice that sounded like it hadn’t been used in days:

"Bran. My name is Bran. I’m from Oakvein."

"Oakvein is a day’s walk from here," Pain said, frowning. "How did you get here so fast?"

"I don’t... I don’t remember." Bran’s face twisted in confusion. "I was at home. It was night. The sky was wrong. And then I was here. I don’t remember walking. I don’t remember anything."

I glanced at Samira. She was standing behind me, her expression unreadable.

"Bran," I said slowly, "do you remember anything else? Anything at all?"

He looked at me. His eyes were bloodshot, the pupils too wide, too dark.

"The man with the eye," he whispered. "He told us to wait. He told us to be patient. He said the guests would arrive soon, and we had to be ready to receive them."

My fingers went cold. I’d felt that cold before—in the canyon, when the giant’s shadow swallowed me.

"Get him to the healers," I said, standing up. "And double the guards on the gate."

Samira was still watching the messenger. "It wanted us to know. It’s not hiding. It’s inviting us."

The eastern road was empty. The pillar’s light flickered against the gray sky. We walked toward it without speaking. There was nothing left to say.