Monsters seemed to know of Kartun’s absence, awakening in greater numbers than usual.

Eventually, even the knight apprentices were drafted. The knight order split into two groups—search parties and combat units—to carry out their missions.

Lara was assigned to a search party due to her keen eye. A fellow apprentice who was assigned with her grumbled.

“This could have been a good opportunity to gauge my skills while fighting monsters…”

The apprentice couldn’t even finish before Lara struck him down with a single blow.

“Your skills aren’t only proven through monsters. Besides, His Grace the Grand Duke is missing, and you’re concerned about showing off your abilities?”

The apprentice couldn’t say anything in response. Unable to bear the harsh stares from others, he eventually quit the search party.

Lara joined the vanguard, which served as the guide, taking the frontmost position. Despite giving her absolute best effort, Kartun’s whereabouts remained unknown.

It was exactly one month since his disappearance.

The search party was combing through a valley filled with massive boulders. Suddenly, the clear sky filled with ominous dark clouds, making it as dark as twilight.

When Lara, leading the group, ventured deep into the valley, the search party leader was deliberating whether to retreat.

Everyone dismounted. They gathered to discuss their options, but opinions were naturally divided.

“It might just be a passing shower. What if we set up tents and wait it out?”

This was the sensible judgment. However, the oldest knight among them objected.

“Something doesn’t feel right.”

“What do you mean by that, sir?” one of the apprentice knights asked.

The older knight gestured with his chin toward where the horses were gathered.

Though trained to remain quiet under most circumstances, the horses were constantly snorting and nervously pawing at the ground.

“We should withdraw for today.”

The captain, seeing the horses behave this way for the first time, agreed with the knight’s suggestion.

As the search party prepared to return and sent signals to recall the vanguard, something unexpected happened.

Suddenly, the surroundings lit up as bright as day, followed by a deafening noise. Thunder crashed and lightning struck with enough force to tear the earth apart.

That wasn’t all. Lightning hit nearby trees, causing their trunks to explode and catch fire.

The horses reared in fright, their bodies trembling before breaking loose from their lightly tied reins and galloping away from the valley at full speed.

“Take cover!”

People quickly descended from the boulders, throwing aside weap*ns and armor. They scrambled to find patches of soil.

Lightning striking soil wasn’t dangerous, but if it hit rocks or boulders, the current would spread in all directions. Being on a boulder during a lightning strike could be fatal.

The search party scattered, either escaping the valley or taking shelter where there was soil.

The problem was the vanguard.

The search party captain groaned with a despairing expression.

“They went in too deep.”

As he feared, the vanguard was in an emergency. Though they scattered like the search party behind them, they had nowhere to hide.

The biggest problem was Lara. Being at the very front of the vanguard, she had ventured deepest into the valley. Just then, lightning struck directly in front of her, hitting a large boulder.

BOOM! CRACK!

With a thunderous noise, the boulder exploded as if hit by a bomb.

She quickly threw herself aside, but a large fragment of the boulder fell onto her foot.

“Ugh!”

Pain aside, she tried to pull her foot free, but couldn’t move at all. Worse, there were no comrades nearby to help.

Due to the nature of the vanguard, they were spread far apart to survey the surroundings.

The lightning grew more intense. She could see a patch of soil just a few steps ahead.

“I can’t die like this.”

Lara recalled how trapped animals sometimes chew off their limbs to escape. She realized she was in a similar situation.

CRASH!

Thunder roared again and lightning flashed through the dark clouds. Lara heaved her chest with rough breaths and made her decision. She raised her sword, aiming at her leg trapped under the boulder.

Just as she closed her eyes tightly, about to strike, something strange happened.

Suddenly, her sword wouldn’t move. Lara hastily opened her eyes to find something covered in blood standing beside her.

Looking closer, she saw it was a person. He was holding the blade of Lara’s sword with one hand. Despite the force Lara had put into her swing, a normal person’s fingers would have been instantly severed. Yet his hand remained unharmed, and he didn’t seem to feel any pain.

He kicked away the boulder crushing Lara.

The boulder, heavy enough that she had been prepared to cut off her foot, flew in an arc and landed far away.

Lara stared blankly at the flying boulder before suddenly coming to her senses.

‘A new monster!’

The hand that withstood her sword and the superhuman strength that sent the boulder flying—it couldn’t be human.

Moreover, he wore no clothes, and blood dripped from his n*ked body. At first she thought he was injured, but he seemed to have pieces of flesh attached to him in various places.

“You, did you eat my comrade?”

Lara’s eyes flashed with rage.

She released the sword handle gripped by the monster and quickly rolled backward. Then she pulled out a dagger from her chest and slashed at the creature’s ankle. It was a surprise attack meant to sever the tendon and incapacitate her enemy.

But she couldn’t even scratch the monster’s skin. It was too hard and solid, like striking steel.

The monster, seemingly angered, grabbed Lara’s injured ankle and lifted her upside down.

Her already injured ankle felt like it was being crushed. She struggled while dangling in the air, but the monster didn’t budge at all.

“I’ll kill you before I die!”

She threw her dagger at the monster with all her might, but it bounced off as if hitting solid armor.

Lara didn’t give up. She drew a double-edged sword from the holster on her thigh and aimed for the monster’s armpit, but it was useless. The monster remained unmoved, and her sword broke in half.

Just as Lara was about to throw the remaining piece of sword at the monster’s eyes…

The monster narrowed its brightly glowing hazelnut-colored eyes while watching her struggle, then spoke.

“…Lara?”

At that moment, Lara stopped struggling and stared at the monster.

Monsters couldn’t speak.

But the sound that came from its mouth was clearly her name.

‘Are there monsters that can speak?’

There was one.

The manticore.

A monster with a lion’s body, a scorpion’s tail, and dragon wings. It typically lived in rocky mountains like these, possessing intelligence beyond humans and magical power beyond imagination.

The manticore was the king of monsters, the embodiment of terror for people. Peace only came after Kartun’s ancestor sealed it in the forest 200 years ago.

But Lara had another reason for thinking of the manticore.

True to its ferocious nature, even its birth was incredibly cruel. A manticore harms others from the moment of its birth, tearing through its parent’s belly to emerge.

‘They say when the parent writhes and wails in the pain of childbirth, the earth shakes and lightning falls from the sky!’

And when newly born, it was said to have the appearance of a fully grown person.

If this truly was the manticore, a terrible calamity was beginning.

Lara unconsciously squeezed her eyes shut. She prayed to the gods that this wasn’t the manticore’s resurrection, when suddenly she realized something strange.

‘How does it know my name?’

Moreover, if it were a monster, it would have killed her already. Instead, it asked an odd question.

“How old are you?”

Lara was so taken aback by the unexpected question that she stared blankly until the creature glared at her again.

“Twenty… sir.”

“Then she must be nineteen.”

The monster muttered.

Whoever “she” was, just thinking about her seemed to smooth out his distorted features, and the bestial gleam in his eyes faded. Then he gently set Lara down and surveyed the surroundings.

“Cloak.”

“Pardon?”

Lara unconsciously used formal speech. The monster pointed at the cloak draped over her shoulders.

“Let me borrow it.”

“Ah!”

Only then did she realize that he was asking for the cloak because he wasn’t wearing anything. Having occasionally seen n*ked bodies since entering the world of knighthood, Lara wasn’t particularly flustered by his nakedness.

But she felt an inexplicable pressure she couldn’t resist and hurriedly removed her cloak to hand it to him. He wrapped it around himself carelessly and asked her:

“Were you looking for me?”

Only then did Lara carefully examine him.

Although she had only seen Kartun up close a handful of times, the features matched the face she had gazed upon with reverence.

Kartun closed Lara’s gaping jaw and asked:

“Can you walk?”