Chapter 418 The Pathfinder

Hermit shuffled over, pulled a length of dry, brittle vine from a hanging hook, and began to lash his father to his own hunched back with all the grace of a man tying a corpse to a donkey.

The vines bit deep into Kaka’s papery skin. There was no scream, just a soft, breathless groan from the old goblin as his ruined body sagged against his son’s.

Hermit winced.

 “Sorry, sorry, sorry—there’s no padding, I know, just try not to move.”

He then grabbed the pelt coat Suzuka had made him. He flung it over his shoulders, awkwardly draping it over Kaka’s naked form. It only covered about half of the older goblin, leaving one skeletal stump of his leg and a sagging elbow exposed like some morbid cloak rack.

Hermit took a deep breath. The box of hatchlings in his hands, swinging and squeaking. Kaka’s weight dragged at his spine like a sack of bricks filled with regret.

“I... I’m ready,” he said softly, lips trembling.

Then, a tiny sob escaped him. 

“This is gonna hurt so bad.”

He took one step. His knees cracked. Another. His back made a sound like someone stepping on a stick.

He whimpered.

Suzuka gave him a look—barely—and turned away, her boots crunching against the snow as she marched forward without waiting.

Behind her, Hermit hobbled forward into the cold, his steps wobbly, every inch of him a portrait of self-inflicted agony.

Then the wind hit.

A screaming, invisible wall of cold slammed into them the moment they stepped outside, tearing through seams and biting straight into skin like it had a grudge. Snow fell in sheets, thick and fast, swirling like angry ash in the air.

Hermit staggered under the combined weight of Kaka and the hatchling box, nearly losing his footing. The hatchlings squealed at once, the collective shriek of a dozen tiny goblins who had never known wind and hated it instantly.

“AAAGHH!! WHAT IS THIS?! WHY IS THE SKY STABBING US?!”

“MY EYES! MY EYES ARE MELTING!”

“I THINK I’M BLIND BUT ALSO FREEZING!”

They thrashed in the crate, tiny arms flailing, some trying to burrow into the hay, others shoving snow out of the box only to have it replaced instantly by more. One tried to eat the snow out of pure confusion and immediately began choking on the cold.

“IT’S EVIL! THE WHITE STUFF IS EVIL!”

Hermit groaned through gritted teeth, the ropes biting into his shoulders. 

“Stop wiggling, I can't hold it!”

The wind howled louder in response, like a warning.

Behind him, Kaka’s head lolled to the side as his body bounced limply against Hermit’s back. Snow caught on his exposed skin—his face, paper-thin and warped with age, turned toward the storm as though trying to escape from it but too weak to move. His eye, the one still intact, squinted uselessly against the stinging cold.

Bits of snow lodged in the sunken pits of his cheeks. A shard of ice clung to the edge of his lip. His expression—what little of it moved—twitched faintly in pain.

He made a quiet, rattling sound. Almost like a whimper. Or a question.

Hermit heard it and felt a pang deep in his chest. He reached back and tugged the coat tighter, trying to shield Kaka’s face with the scraggly flap of fur stitched near the collar.

“Hang on, Dada. We’re gonna find shelter... somewhere better.” 

Back in the box, one hatchling was now attempting to climb atop the others in a desperate attempt to escape the cold, while two others had frozen in place mid-scream, mouths wide, eyes full of snowflakes.

Suzuka, walking ahead through the white void like it was nothing but light rain, didn’t look back once.

Hermit took another step. The snow came up past his knees. Kaka let out a wheezing moan behind him. A piece of ice cracked as it formed across his ear.

Hermit gasped for breath, the cold burning his throat like dry sandpaper. The air was too thin, the wind too cruel, and the snow refused to let up—it pelted them with the consistency of coarse salt, coating his lashes, soaking through his coat, sliding down his neck like tiny blades.

And Kaka. Sweet, broken Kaka.

His jaw had gone slack now, lips bluish-grey and barely moving. The snow collected on his face like he was just another dead log abandoned on a mountain trail. Every bump caused a rattling wheeze from his chest. His eyelid fluttered. Not blinking—just twitching, like it had forgotten what blinking meant.

The vines tying him to Hermit’s back had grown stiff with frost, cutting into flesh and old scars alike. Blood—dark, almost black from the cold—had crusted around one strap near his shoulder. Hermit didn’t even realize it wasn’t his own.

“Hang in there, Dada…” he muttered, teeth chattering so hard his voice stuttered.

 “Just a little... farther... maybe... maybe a rock... or a ditch... somewhere we can die in peace.”

A hatchling sneezed. Then another. Then they all sneezed. At once. Loudly. One fell unconscious with its face planted in a clump of soggy hay, legs sticking up like dead twigs.

Hermit glanced back in panic. 

“No! No dying! No freezing! Stop dying!”

 He slipped, fell to one knee, and dropped the crate hard enough that a hatchling bounced out and landed face-down in the snow with a soft thmp.

Hermit let out a noise. A real, full-bellied, guttural “GUUUHHHHH.”

He collapsed face-first into the snow next to the spilled hatchling, arms limp. The wind roared over them like a cruel god with a laugh stuck in its throat.

The hatchlings next to him sneezed violently and flopped back into the crate on their own.

Kaka gurgled quietly.

Suzuka had made it maybe ten paces through the snow before she heard the crash behind her.

A wet thud, followed by the unmistakable squawk of hatchlings and Hermit’s groaning, goblin-flavored despair echoing into the howling wind.

She stopped and turned around slowly.

There he was: Hermit, collapsed like a dropped sack of laundry, half-buried in a snowbank. The box of hatchlings had tipped, tiny limbs wriggling as they flailed in the cold like squeaky fish out of water. Kaka hung over Hermit’s back like a discarded puppet, frost glittering on his cheekbones, eyes rolling dully.

“One step! You managed one step outside the shed before collapsing like a drunken worm. Do you want a medal? Should I build a monument to your legendary endurance?”

“I’m sorry... I was just... I'm just a weak goblin.”

Suzuka turned her head toward the sky like she was asking the heavens for strength.

She stomped back toward them, boots sending up angry flurries.

“You. Goblin.” She jabbed a finger toward Hermit’s head, which was still barely visible above the snow. 

“You are going to get up, strap your whining skeleton back together, and carry your wriggling nightmares and your half-dead father down this mountain. Now stop acting like dead fish and lead the damn way! Do the only job you're good at. Lead the way!”

Hermit peeked up, snow stuck to his eyebrows. 

“But master Helen, I don't know the way back. The snow, it is so much of it. I can't tell the way.”

Suzuka’s eye twitched.

Just one twitch, barely visible, but loaded with the sort of frustration that could level cities if bottled too long.

She inhaled sharply through her nose. Held it. Let it out—very slowly—through clenched teeth.

“…Of course you don’t. Because why would you? That would be useful. That would be helpful.”

She looked down at Hermit, who was now trying to brush snow off his face with fingers too numb to function. The hatchlings had gone quiet again—likely out of fear. Even Kaka gave a soft, guttural groan, as if preemptively apologizing for his son’s failure.

Suzuka pressed a hand to her temple.

 “Let me see if I understand this correctly. You dragged me into this mountain hell to rescue a mutilated goblin lump with a pulse, made me watch your infant swarm eat like a pile of worms fighting over a dead beetle, collapsed immediately after stepping outside—”

She pointed a single, furious finger toward the horizon.

“—and now, now, you’re telling me you don’t know the way down this mountain back to Luminecia?”

Hermit winced.

 “I’m very sorry…”

“I don’t care if you’re sorry! Are you a pathfinder or a mossy pile of regrets with legs?! You had one job, Hermit! One job!”

Just as Suzuka was about to storm ahead, steam practically rising from her shoulders, a voice—dry, cracked, barely more than a whisper—cut through the wind.

“…Left slope.”

Hermit froze mid-step. Suzuka stopped, heel still planted mid-stomp. The voice came again, rasping and soft.

“Take the left slope past the bent pine. It’s… less steep. It leads to the stream valley. Then down to the moss lands. Safer trail.”

Hermit twisted his neck to glance over his shoulder. Kaka, his face still mostly hidden under the fur coat and ice, was blinking slowly—his one good eye open, cloudy but focused. He shifted slightly against Hermit’s back, just enough to be heard.

“Wasn’t always locked up. They’d kick me out to carry sacks. Messages. I know the cold paths. Know the breeding pits nearby. There’s two more. One in the crag below, one over the north ridge.”

“You never thought to mention that earlier?” 

Kaka wheezed a chuckle that sounded more like a cough. 

“Didn’t know if I was dying or dreaming… Still might be.”

Hermit looked stunned, then broke into a shaky grin. 

“Kaka! You… you really remember the way?”

Kaka didn’t answer at first. His eye drifted toward the sky, the falling snow.

“I remember every time they shoved me down those trails. You don’t forget which rocks cut deepest when you crawl back barely alive.”

“Fine. Old goblin knows a path. Great. That’s exactly what I needed to hear after almost throwing myself off a cliff. Alright, it's settled then. You guide, Kaka. Whisper it to Hermit. I’ll watch the front.”

She stepped aside just enough for Hermit to lumber past her. The hatchlings, silent for once, huddled deep in their box, peeking over the rim.

And with Kaka quietly murmuring the path into Hermit’s ear, the group trudged forward—still broken, still cold, still absurd.