Blair shot to her feet and slowly drew the dagger Ariela had given her.

Swish—

Something sharp cutting through grass. Not the kind of sound a wild animal would make.

Crunch, crunch.

Footsteps through the undergrowth, drawing closer. A steady, balanced stride. A sound she knew very well.

The hand gripping the dagger slowly loosened.

The tall brush parted. And beyond it stood the person she had been desperately hoping to find.

“Kalintz……?”

He stood perfectly still, his face frozen as though he had stopped breathing.

Blair ran to him.

But the sudden release of tension threw off her balance.

Thud.

Kalintz moved on reflex and caught Blair before she could fall. Only then did his eyes go wide, as though he had just registered who was in his arms.

“Blair……?”

His voice came out slightly rough and low. At the sound of it, Blair’s throat tightened all at once.

“Thank goodness. I thought I might never…… see you again.”

Blair buried her face in his chest, not wanting him to see her expression crumple.

“What on earth is……”

He still seemed unable to make sense of the situation. He stood there awkwardly, not quite holding her, and murmured to himself.

“Are you all right? Are you hurt anywhere?”

Blair rubbed at her reddened eyes and looked him over.

Kalintz, who had been dazed, suddenly grabbed the hand moving across his cheek. His face had gone rigid.

“Blair. What happened? Why are you here, in this forest?”

At the sharp demand, Blair held out the leather pouch with the antidote inside.

“I came to deliver this. It’s an antidote from Ariela. A potion that reverses the alchemical mutation on the beast.”

“What?”

His expression and tone grew sharper still, and Blair looked away slightly as she continued.

“Someone found evidence of alchemy being used on a boar. Almost certainly from Duke Brienne’s side. Fortunately, Ariela managed to make an antidote in time.”

But even as she explained, Kalintz kept staring at her with the same rigid expression.

“So. You came all the way out here for that? Into a place crawling with a mutated beast. Alone?”

“I came with Ariela’s escort mercenaries. There were only two antidotes so we split up—”

“I don’t see any mercenaries.”

Kalintz cut her off coldly.

“Something happened along the way. I ran into Sir Werner earlier and we were all searching for your trail together when a wolf pack—”

Blair stopped herself there, biting her lip. She regretted bringing that up. But Kalintz’s eyes had already darkened further.

“……And it’s not just that.”

“Blair.”

“Ariela said a beast mutated by alchemy can’t be dealt with by human strength alone—”

“That’s for me to handle!”

Kalintz snapped, as though he had finally run out of patience.

“Didn’t I make it clear? Stop getting involved in anything to do with Duke Brienne!”

He grabbed her by the shoulders as he raged at her, and the hurt came flooding up in Blair before she could stop it.

“What was I supposed to do when you could have died! Do you think I came all the way out here for nothing? Do you really not know what I was going through?”

“And what about you! Do you have any idea what it does to me, seeing you like this in the middle of this godforsaken mess?”

Kalintz looked at Blair’s face, scratched and marked from the branches, and clenched his jaw.

“Haah…… Blair. You don’t have to do any of this. I’ll make sure you get to the Armos Islands safely. I’m not going to die out here.”

“……What? The Armos Islands?”

Blair couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

Did he really think she had come running out here for the sake of her own future? So she could safely leave for the Armos Islands?

“You think I’m doing this because I’m worried I won’t make it to the Armos Islands if you die? That I’d end up like this, in this mess, for that reason?”

It was baffling. Absurd. Even with all the misunderstanding between them, she couldn’t fathom how he could say something like that looking at her right now.

She was about to snap at him, demanding to know where all that sharp perception of his had gone, when—

Shriiiiiek—

A sound that scraped down her spine cut through the air.

“That sound just now—!”

The wrenching, distorted cry was closing in fast.

“Blair, get on the horse! Now!”

Kalintz shouted, his sword already drawn and gleaming. His expression was more urgent than she had ever seen it.

Blair broke into a run toward the horse. But the beast’s merciless roar shook the ground beneath her and her legs kept threatening to give out.

Then Kalintz’s large hand closed firmly around hers.

“It’s all right, Blair. Run!”

They reached the horse in moments, and Blair hurriedly put her foot in the stirrup. But at that instant—

Grrrrrr—

The beast’s breathing came from right beside them.

Blair turned her head on instinct. Two blazing red eyes stared back at her from the dark undergrowth.

Then, with a roar that felt like it was wringing out her insides, the creature burst through.

“Good lord……”

It looked like something out of a story.

The beast stood taller than three grown men combined, with tusks of terrifying thickness. The left tusk was broken, a long spear was lodged in one eye, and blood poured freely from its hind leg, yet it charged with horrifying speed, as though none of it mattered.

Getting on the horse was no longer an option.

“Blair! Get back!”

Kalintz shoved Blair toward the undergrowth and shot toward the beast like an arrow.

Claaang—!

A sharp crack split the air. Watching Kalintz go up against a creature that size, Blair screamed and clapped her hand over her mouth.

How could any human fight something like that. It seemed impossible, yet Kalintz held on, trading blows by the narrowest of margins.

Blair watched with her heart in her throat, and then she noticed something wrong.

Kalintz’s movements were off.

He winced every time he swung his sword, and his stance was unstable at moments. At one point, the flow of his counterattack broke entirely.

“……Are you hurt?”

Only then did Blair notice the blood seeping through his abdomen.

Her stomach turned. Because of the injury, Kalintz couldn’t even find an opening to use the antidote she had brought.

Then the beast let out a long roar and slammed its head hard into the ground.

Crash—!

The earth shook, and a cloud of dirt filled her vision.

Blair coughed repeatedly and turned frantically, searching for Kalintz through the haze.

Slowly, the air began to clear, and a faint silhouette appeared.

“Kalintz……?”

He was down on one knee, sword braced against the ground.

Another ominous cry rang out.

“No, no……”

Her vision went dark at the edges. Watching the beast lunge at him as he knelt, Blair pressed her hands to the ground and crawled toward him like a person out of her mind.

That was when it happened.

Thud. Something knocked against her hand. A cylindrical object, roughly half the length of a forearm, shaped like a firecracker.

‘It’s still in testing, but I thought it might work well for sending a signal.‘

It was the object Ariela had given her along with the dagger. The panicked horse must have thrown it from the saddlebag when it bolted.

Blair picked it up, almost without thinking.

‘See this cord? Just pull it hard toward the sky. Simple.’

Following Ariela’s instructions, Blair gripped the cord attached to the end of the cylindrical object. The direction she aimed it, however, was not the sky.

“Kalintz! Get down!”

Blair fired the flare at the beast rearing its tusks over Kalintz without a moment’s hesitation.

Bang—BOOM—!

A tremendous blast rang out, followed by the sound of something tearing apart. Red smoke shot into the sky, and the beast’s howl followed close behind.

She wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, but at the very least, it seemed to have stopped the beast from tearing into Kalintz.

The relief lasted only a moment.

A roar full of pain and fury drew closer, and the beast came crashing through the red smoke, thrashing wildly. The blast appeared to have blinded it completely.

Blair scrambled to her feet. But the frenzied creature swept everything around it and came at her fast.

Shriiiiiek—!

The distorted cry was almost on top of her when—

“Blair!”

Kalintz’s voice came, and his solid arms wrapped around her.

Claaang—!

Metal and tusk collided again, cracking through the air. But this time, a splitting sound layered over it.

“Your Highness, your sword—!”

Blair cried out at the sight of Kalintz’s blade snapped in two.

“Same goes for it.”

Sure enough, the beast’s one remaining thick tusk had snapped off just as badly.

But the beast had no intention of stopping.

Grrrroaar—!

The creature’s jaws gaped wide and drove toward them. Blair saw the fangs flash before her eyes and squeezed them shut on reflex.