Chapter 20:

I Hope It Isn't Tomorrow

Undead Blade: The Crimson Gate & The Last Swordsman

The expedition had been routine.

At least, that was what everyone had said. As routine as an expedition during the apocalypse could ever be.

No one could be certain what might lie hidden beneath ancient ruins, but when it came to the Grand Academy, the pursuit of knowledge had always been considered worth the danger. That was why several knights walked among the scholars as they ventured deeper underground.

And why eleven-year-old Ludmilla walked proudly among them too, hugging a leather notebook almost too large for her arms.

“Don’t wander off.”

“I won’t!”

Her father spoke without looking up from the weathered stone tablet in front of him, already far too absorbed in an argument with another historian.

“I still say it’s ceremonial.”

“It’s a drainage inscription.”

“You’re just guessing.”

“Right back at you!”

Ludmilla giggled quietly. Her father and his research partners always argued like this, sometimes for hours if nobody stopped them, and she loved listening to every second of it.

Her father finally glanced down at her.

“What do you think?”

Ludmilla blinked, then immediately straightened as though she had just been called upon during a lecture.

“It’s.. Ceremonial. Without a doubt.”

A satisfied smile appeared on his face.

“You see?”

“She’s eleven, Rosenberg.”

“And already showing excellent judgment.”

Ludmilla tried very hard not to look pleased.

She had spent almost her entire life inside the Academy, raised among its halls by her father after losing her mother when she was still too young to properly remember her. While other children played in gardens, Ludmilla wandered libraries, learned how to preserve brittle manuscripts and watched researchers debate history until long after she had stopped understanding what they were arguing about.

Excavations, however, were different.

This was where history stopped being words on a page and became something she could reach out and touch, which was why she had insisted on accompanying her father on one for as long as she could remember. When she finally turned eleven, after years of asking and several promises that she would follow every instruction she was given, she had finally been allowed to come.

One of the researchers called from deeper inside the ruins.

“Professor Rosenberg!”

Her father immediately looked up.

“What did you find?”

“I think there’s another chamber.”

The entire team gathered around a stone doorway hidden behind centuries of collapsed rubble, its ancient seal already crumbling with age.

“That’s very… peculiar.”

Someone brushed away the remaining dust, revealing ancient symbols stretching across the doorway.

“I’ve never seen this dialect.”

Neither had Ludmilla, though that didn’t stop her from leaning forward and trying to memorize every symbol before anyone could disturb them.

Her father noticed.

“Notebook.”

Ludmilla looked up.

“You’ll remember more if you draw them.”

Her eyes widened before she hurriedly opened the enormous notebook in her arms.

“I knew that.”

“Of course you did.”

The last stone finally shifted, and the chamber slowly opened before them, revealing nothing but darkness beyond. For several long seconds, the researchers simply waited, until a few exchanged relieved smiles and cautiously leaned closer.

“I suppose that’s—”

A low groan echoed from somewhere inside, wiping the smiles from their faces. Before anyone could speak, another answered it from deeper within the chamber… then another.

“…Undead? All this way down here?”

Nobody waited to confirm it. The Academy knights accompanying the expedition immediately drew their swords and moved between the researchers and the open chamber.

“What the—”

Then shapes began emerging from the darkness, far more than any of them had expected. One of the knights turned toward the researchers, his face grim.

“RUN!”

The chamber erupted into chaos as lanterns crashed against the stone and books scattered across the floor, centuries of careful academic discipline forgotten while researchers fled through the narrow tunnels.

“Ludmilla!”

She turned at the sound of her name, but her father had already disappeared somewhere inside the fleeing crowd.

“Father!”

Someone grabbed her hand.

“This way!”

“But my father—”

“Move!”

The tunnel shook violently as dust rained from the ceiling, the groans of the undead following them through the chaos while Ludmilla stumbled after the researchers pulling her forward.

Ahead, the corridor divided into two paths and the fleeing group scattered between them. Ludmilla twisted around desperately, searching every face she could see.

“Father!”

No answer came, and before Ludmilla could call for him again, another tremor tore through the ruins as a crack raced across the ceiling overhead.

“GO!”

The world disappeared beneath a deafening roar as stone crashed behind them and a cloud of dust swallowed the corridor. Someone threw themselves over Ludmilla while fragments of rock bounced across the ground around them.

When the noise finally stopped, only silence remained.

“...Father?”

Nobody answered.

Hours later, more Academy Knights arrived to secure the site while the surviving researchers gathered together in exhausted silence. Some cried quietly while others simply stared at the collapsed entrance, but Ludmilla searched every face she could find without stop[omg.

“…Where’s my father?”

The knights looked between one another before eventually, one of them lowered his head in regret.

“…Miss Rosenberg.”

She didn’t want to hear it.

“…No.”

“He wasn’t among the survivors.”

“…Then let’s keep looking.”

The knight said nothing in response.

“There has to be another way inside.” Ludmilla looked desperately between the researchers. “We’re scholars. We can find one! We… we can make a plan!”

Still, nobody moved.

“We have maps… We know where the tunnels are! If we bring more knights, or find another entrance—”

“Miss Rosenberg…”

“We just have to think!”

The knight lowered his head even deeper, bowing before the little girl.

“We’re sorry.”

Ludmilla stared at him.

“...Eh?”

“The undead have spread throughout the lower chambers. The tunnels are unstable, and we’ve already lost too many people.”

His voice softened.

“We cannot go back in.”

Ludmilla stared at the collapsed ruins.

Ever since that day, her father never came back, and nobody could tell her what had happened to him. Whether he had been crushed beneath the stone…

Or whether…

He was still wandering those tunnels.

Waiting.

The ruins were eventually sealed, but her questions never were.

Ludmilla never saw her father again, and her father never saw his daughter grow into the young woman she was meant to become.

For years afterward, she replayed that expedition in her mind, wondering whether they could have recognized the warning signs, whether bringing more knights would have changed anything, or whether simply knowing what waited beneath those ruins might have given them the few precious moments they needed.

One different decision. One piece of knowledge they hadn’t possessed.

Would her father still be alive?

She never found the answer, but the question remained with her as she grew older.

If ignorance had left them helpless that day, then knowledge was the one thing she could never allow herself to lack again.

And if that knowledge could prevent another tragedy…

She would dedicate her life to finding it.

Years later, she finally had a team of her own.

People she had carefully chosen. People who trusted her to lead them safely home after every expedition.

And now…

Inside the safest place she knew…

They were gone.

𓌏

The dormitory had long since fallen silent, with moonlight spilling through the window and painting pale lines across the wooden floor. Murry’s steady snoring drifted from the bunk across the room, while Isla slept peacefully on the opposite side.

Flint was the only one still awake, lying beneath the covers with his eyes fixed on the ceiling as the past few days replayed through his mind. He still wasn’t used to the idea that the Bloodblade had somehow become the center of an entire Academy department, with historians digging through centuries of records just to understand the weapon hanging from his belt.

Only a few weeks ago, he’d been splitting firewood.

Now they were debating the fall of a kingdom because of him.

“…”

His eye drifted toward the black sheath resting beside his bed.

It still seemed surreal.

Not because of its appearance, but of everything that came with it.

He quietly let out a breath.

“…I guess this thing really isn’t leaving my life.”

Not anytime soon.

His thoughts drifted elsewhere.

To the monastery.

To the cliff overlooking the valley.

“If tomorrow a child stood behind you…”

The Abbot’s voice still echoed clearly in his memory.

“Would you still refuse to draw it?”

Flint closed his eyes.

Back then…

The answer had come so easily.

Of course he would draw it. He’d never really been lying to the old man.

He’d only been lying to himself.

He didn’t need to know how or what the conditions were… the question was simply whether he would save the child when doing so meant relying on a sword he despised

“…”

For so long…

He’d believed drawing the Bloodblade meant giving up on becoming the hero he’d dreamed of as a child.

That’s why he refused to do it.

Now…

He wasn’t so sure what mattered more.

Saving people…

Or protecting that dream?

A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“…Guess the answer’s obvious.”

If someone needed him…

He’d draw it. He hated that answer.

He hoped that day never came.

But…

He already knew what he’d choose.

Even if it meant abandoning the image of the hero he’d spent his whole life chasing. Even if he couldn’t look his younger self in the eye.

Even if a real hero never needed to rely on such a weapon.

If it meant protecting people… he would lay down his dream if he had to.

“…Just…”

He stared into the darkness above him.

“…I hope it isn’t tomorrow.”

KNOCK

Flint blinked.

Another knock followed, faster and more urgent than the first.

“Flint! Isla! Murry!”

Ludmilla’s voice immediately pulled him upright. There was none of her usual composure in it, nor even the excitement she showed whenever the research uncovered something new; beneath the urgency, Flint could hear something he had never expected from her.

Fear.

“What… the hell?”

“Is something the matter?”

Murry and Isla were already stirring behind him, but Flint reached the door before Ludmilla could knock again.

She stood in the hallway breathing hard, her usually immaculate hair fallen loose around her face. Flint had seen her confronted with impossible artifacts, centuries-old mysteries and the possibility of undead descending upon the Academy without losing her composure, yet now she looked completely shaken.

“…Ludmilla?”

Her lips parted, but the words seemed to catch in her throat.

“They’re…”

She swallowed.

“…They’re gone.”

Flint felt his stomach drop.

“…What?”

“My team…”

Her voice trembled.

“…He took them.”

Flint caught her before she could lose her balance.

“Ludmilla…”