An enormous animal… she felt an absurd sense of intimidation, as if standing n*ked before a being superior from birth, one who considered looking down on her to be its natural right.

Regan’s blue eyes flashed brilliantly even in the darkness. He spoke in a low voice.

“My name is Regan Fenril. I am a general of Soleil, the country where the owner of that corpse came from.”

General. Gen…eral?

Haniel, standing there stupidly, waved her hand.

“Wait. What? You’re a general…? Not just a leader, but a general?”

“Yes.”

Regan continued.

“And I was chased all the way here for the crime of killing Sol’s prince, ‘San.'”

He flipped over the corpse below with his foot.

The back was revealed. A tail half-covered with fur characteristic of Humes was visible.

“Gasp…”

“These people were unfortunately swallowed by this Rift while prowling around here under Sol’s orders to hunt me down.”

Their purpose would have been to find a criminal, but the infamous Nightmare Forest and the Rifts of the forest that do not distinguish between friend and foe ultimately swallowed them.

Crunch! Regan somewhat nervously crushed the tracker’s bones with his foot.

He should have warned Haniel more firmly about these trackers and the Rifts.

But to do so, he would have had to tell his experiences and past in detail, and if she knew the details, it was obvious that Haniel would end up being more deeply entangled, so he had hesitated.

And while he dithered, things had turned out like this—how ironic.

Now, the probability of dying right now inside the Rift had become closer to reality than the probability of Haniel getting involved in his affairs and something terrible happening.

Especially since Haniel didn’t know, but he, Regan…

If one could escape a Rift once, it would be a miracle, but twice would be nearly impossible.

Impossible. That’s how Regan was predicting his future.

‘I should have revealed everything earlier.’

Even if she became somewhat entangled in Regan’s circumstances, wouldn’t it be better to avoid living trackers than the Rift?

Feeling that all of this was his fault, Regan bit his lip with a bitter taste.

And in front of such a Regan, Haniel… was just blankly standing with her mouth open, her jaw nearly touching the floor.

‘Is this for real…’

She thought she had picked up a dog.

Although she had thought he must have his own circumstances… Regan had been just a wolf, a dog, a member of the household that Haniel had to take responsibility for since he entered her territory and home. But “general”?

‘I heard there was a country, but I didn’t know it was such a formal class society!’

Come to think of it, the noble atmosphere emanating from Regan and the knowledge he possessed were the kind that couldn’t be explained without the authority unique to the ruling class and the benefits derived from it.

Only after hearing Regan’s explanation could Haniel understand where the strangely intimidating speech and behavior that occasionally showed through him came from.

‘Also, Regan is a wolf. It’s not strange if I think of it as a more highly developed wolf pack society.’

Wolves living on Earth also form their own societies.

Such beings that communicate with each other, perform their assigned tasks, and live intertwined with various emotions or roles are not only wolves but are widely distributed across various taxa such as ants, bees, primates, and so on.

Unlike other predators that live only independently, Regan didn’t seem uncomfortable living with Haniel.

In fact, thinking about it now, that too might be evidence that Regan was accustomed to living in groups.

…In any case, the Hume country outside, “Soleil,” seemed to form a structure more similar to human society on Earth than Haniel had expected.

So Nasir’s “country where those creatures live in groups outside the forest” was referring to Soleil. Haniel nodded her head.

But a criminal? And for the crime of… killing a prince?

Had she not picked up a dog but a treasonous son of a b*tch? Her head started to ache.

‘Couldn’t he somehow get his sentence reduced by paying a fine? Or community service?’

Would that be possible?

Community service… could that society not be that advanced after all?

No matter how she thought about it, only an advanced form of hanging seemed to be the answer, and she placed both hands on her head and groaned.

“Ugh. So… you k-killed that prince ‘San’ or whatever?”

“That’s a false accusation.”

A flat denial. Haniel asked him, speaking each syllable clearly, questioning his sincerity.

“False accusation? Really?”

“I swear on my ancestors’ bones.”

Regan’s gaze turned to a distant place, piercing through the darkness toward where trackers might lurk beyond the tunnel.

“I did not kill him.”

A false accusation. The crime of treason.

He hadn’t spoken until now for fear that the crime would ensnare Haniel too… but now it didn’t matter.

With his muscles tensed to their limit, not knowing what might jump out from where, he opened his mouth.

“…It was the day when Sol’s heir, the little sun ‘San,’ was injured.”

The Humes prove their strength and establish their dignity as royalty by hunting strong and honorable beasts.

San, Sol’s first child and primary heir, also often went hunting with his guard, and that day, General “Regan” was with him.

But on that particular day, San was attacked and injured by a beast during the hunt.

“But it wasn’t such a serious injury.”

Half of his beautiful ear was left ragged from the beast’s teeth marks, but fortunately, with the help of Regan who was beside him, his life was not in danger.

Although his dignity was hurt as his ear was cut short, it was nothing more than thinking of it as evidence of victory.

But… when San returned and had an audience with his father. Sol’s reaction upon seeing his son was of a completely unexpected kind.

“It was you. The sun riding on the back of the black wolf was you…”

Sol, who was so surprised that his complexion turned white, muttered incomprehensible words to his son San.

Then, without any pleasantries, he barely managed to say, “Return to your palace.”

Regan could still recall the murderous glare in Sol’s eyes when he looked at him with unmistakable killing intent.

But the next day, news suddenly came that the little sun San had passed away.

It was almost simultaneous when executioners unexpectedly visited Regan’s house. The charge was treason!

“Criminal, criminal Regan Fenril, come out and obey the command of Sol!”

Regan Fenril, survivor of the black wolf Fenril clan, general guarding the throne of the sun. The reason was that he was the culprit who had murdered San.

“What? Does that make any sense?”

Haniel waved her hand indignantly.

“No, but they just arrest someone who’s a general like that?”

Regan rubbed his chin at her words.

He, too, had had quite some time to reconsider San’s death since then.

“In fact, Sol… always disliked me. To be precise, me and my dead family, and even my pack. If it was related to Fenril, he was desperate to interfere with everything. If he hadn’t bound me with his cowardly tricks, I would have torn him apart at any time.”

“That’s brutal. But you didn’t actually act on it… right? Right?”

“That’s right. Unfortunately.”

Regan smiled with killing intent dripping from it. Yes, truly regrettably, tearing him apart remained only a thought.

However, unlike that man, Sol did act.

Declaring Regan Fenril a criminal and traitor, transporting him, and those swift movements to pull down everything he had. It was too systematic and ‘prepared’ to not have been thought out in advance.

Regan knew that Sol was hostile to him, but he was taken aback because he hadn’t thought Sol would eliminate him so formally without considering the consequences.

In the country of Soleil, it was a long-standing history for the sun, Sol, to be with the wolves that followed him.

In other words, a Sol without the wolf clan ‘Fenril’ was like a soldier without a weapon or a country without an army. Even if it was just for show, legitimacy was necessary.

So, because of that appearance and tradition, Sol had hated and despised Regan but still kept him on a leash and prevented him from escaping.