A certain coastal city in the Holy Nation of Alphernia glittered with abundance every day. A beautiful seaside resort, expensive hotels in a leisure district, a civilization as developed as any great city. It was, in every sense, a place like paradise.

But when night fell and darkness spread, a foul-smelling rabble that crouched in the shadows during the day began to gnaw at the city’s prosperity.

The criminal organization lurking in the shadowed back alleys of the city, pulling the strings of the underworld, was busy making money again tonight. Coiled like snakes, they stirred the moment the sun went down. They headed for the harbor.

“Move faster!”

“You, go over there and check that everything’s been transferred.”

“Are all the goods loaded onto the ship?”

“Yes, sir. We’re ready to depart.”

“Good. Let’s start clearing out.”

A coastal city had a harbor, a harbor had ships, and with ships, you could smuggle anything across the sea, goods or people alike.

If the goods were legal items and the people were moving of their own free will, there would be no problem at all.

But these criminals specialized in smuggling, and human trafficking was second nature to them. Because the cargo had to be moved illegally, departures only happened deep in the night.

Winter was long past and summer was drawing near, yet the night still carried a chilly wind. The ringleader of the thugs, who came to oversee tonight’s departure, shuddered without meaning to and pulled his collar tight.

As the ship began to move, the thugs one by one gathered their things and turned to leave. But before they cleared the dock, something strange happened.

“What the…”

“Hey, what’s wrong with it?”

“What the hell, look at that!”

The ship, which should have been moving smoothly forward, was behaving strangely. It couldn’t advance, lurching in place as though bound by an invisible rope, and the surface of the water, relatively calm until then, heaved violently.

Caught off guard and unable to make sense of it, the thugs stirred with alarm. A few among them looked at the motionless ship and guessed the cause. Those who grasped the truth sooner went pale.

“D*mn it, run! Everyone run! Drop the cargo and get out of here!”

“What? Boss, what are you…”

Stopping a ship dead in its tracks without touching it, binding it like a rope. And not just some small piece of cargo, but an entire large vessel.

The more seasoned thugs, hardened by years in the underworld, recognized what they were seeing. They witnessed it before, more than once. And every time, the outcome for them was brutal.

“D*mn it, it’s the knights!”

Sure enough, brilliant white blades flashed from every direction.

At the same moment, knights and local security officers burst out of the darkness and charged the thugs.

It was an effective ambush.

Twenty-two-year-old Taniel Elapha clenched her teeth and focused on channeling her sacred power.

Even with others helping, it was clearly a grueling task. Beads of sweat formed on the knights’ brows.

The three knights finally succeeded in pulling the ship back. No longer able to advance, it rocked in place, then was slowly dragged back through the water toward the dock by a force with no visible form.

When the ship touched the dock, they moved to the next phase of the mission. While half the force captured the thugs at the harbor, the other half’s objective was to secure evidence of the smuggling and rescue the people on board.

The knights reinforced their bodies with sacred power and leaped onto the ship’s deck with nothing but their own strength. The security officers threw grappling hooks to fix lines to the deck, then began climbing up.

Taniel landed nimbly on the deck and glanced to the side. A black-haired man a full head taller than her met her eyes and smiled gently.

“Why are you looking at me like that, Senior?”

Twenty-year-old Rain whispered warmly. A flicker of worry crossed Taniel’s brown eyes.

“Just… be careful.”

Taniel murmured. Rain’s gaze softened with something tender.

“You too.”

Once all the security officers were on deck, the operation began in earnest. The knights and security officers split into three groups to search the ship. One knight was paired with four or five officers each.

Taniel went left. Rain went right. Before they parted, Taniel briefly squeezed Rain’s hand and let go. It was a wordless farewell, a promise to meet again later.

Taniel turned away first. Rain’s gaze lingered on the back of her head. He closed his fist for a moment, then opened it, seemingly reluctant to lose the warmth that just left his hand.

Rain soon composed himself. He moved with the security officers, quiet and swift. His expression settled into something frighteningly still.

They crept forward like cats. One of the officers spotted a hatch on the deck and signaled the others to stop, then crouched down and pulled open the round door.

‘I’ll go in first.’

Rain used the security officers’ hand signals, and the officers nodded.

With the holy sword shifted into bracelet form and fastened around his wrist, he threw himself without hesitation into the pitch-black darkness visible below the hatch.

It wasn’t a long drop. Rain landed cleanly on the floor below. He looked around. Thick darkness pressed against his eyes. There wasn’t a single light source in the space.

‘Is it always this dark inside a ship? Or…’

There were surely crew members on board beyond the thugs left at the dock. It seemed unlikely they would normally move around in darkness like this. Which meant…

‘They realized something was wrong and killed all the lights.’

The criminals on the ship were ready to face intruders. There was no way to know where they were hiding right now, waiting to strike.

Rain kept his cold composure, placed his hand on the bracelet, and drew it out smoothly. He poured sacred power into it, and the bracelet became a sword, pushing back the darkness with a soft glow of white and gold.

Rain scanned his surroundings again. He stood in a long corridor. Sharpening his senses as a knight, he determined there were no ambushers nearby, at least for now.

He tilted his head back and let out a low whistle. The signal that it was safe to come down. The security officers descended the ladder shortly after.

‘This way. I’m sensing something. I think we can find the trafficking victims.’

Rain explained with hand signals. The officers nodded. Rain gripped his holy sword, the officers gripped their firearms, and they moved with care. Rain led the way.

Nothing happened until they reached the end of the corridor. The only light in the darkness came from Rain’s sword, and the only sounds in the silence were their own breathing, their footsteps, and the beating of their hearts.

A staircase appeared at the end of the corridor, and Rain and the officers descended slowly. Another corridor waited at the bottom. Rain’s face, already cold with tension, grew colder still.

‘There are people here. They’re all terrified.’

Rain turned to the officers and mouthed the words. His blue eyes burned like ice.

‘I think we’re getting close to where the victims are being held.’

Several doors lined the corridor. Which one to open to reach the people inside. Rain pressed down a rising wave of nausea and forced himself to assess the surroundings with a clear head.

But the moment he sharpened his knight’s senses, a sharp spike of hostility stabbed into him like a blade and set off a loud warning in his mind.

“Danger!”

Rain shouted out loud. At that exact moment, the enemies came.

Thugs armed with guns and daggers rushed at Rain and the security officers. About ten of them, roughly. They moved too fast to count properly.

Rain cut down the nearest one without hesitation. Capture was the principle, so he stopped short of a fatal wound. But there were many ways to make someone wish they were dead without actually killing them.

“Aaaargh!”

The thug, his wrist hanging at a sickening angle, screamed and crumpled to the floor. Rain kicked him in the head and knocked him out. The motion was without hesitation, and his eyes held no pity.

He brought down another one the same way, then crushed the man’s hand so thoroughly that even if he came to, he wouldn’t be able to grip a weapon again.

At that moment, Rain sensed killing intent from behind. He ducked in one clean motion, dodged the attack, and drove the pommel of his holy sword into the attacker’s face.

“Ugh!”

Bone cracked. The thug collapsed with blood streaming from his nose, and Rain kicked him too, leaving him unconscious.

The remaining thugs were all locked in combat with the security officers. Rain left his back to them and sprinted down the corridor, throwing open doors one after another.

‘The victims… I have to find the victims…’

Keeping the mission’s primary objective in mind, he shoved the doors open with enough force to tear them off. Several actually did come off entirely and clattered to the floor.

After that string of destruction, only one door remained unopened. Rain threw it open.

Inside were people. Small children, huddled together like squirrels or rabbits, so small that even standing, they might barely reach Rain’s waist.