chapter 08
Mayna sensed it.
That this was an extremely dangerous situation.
“Mayna Winslet.”
Ah…!
At the sound of her own name coming from the coachman’s mouth, Mayna let out a silent gasp.
He was nothing more than a man driving a passenger carriage.
Why would he know her name so precisely?
The only possibility was… that he wasn’t a real coachman.
She recalled the news article about bandits who had recently been targeting nobles.
The man in the hooded robe didn’t reveal a single feature.
More precisely, it was as if the place where his face should have been was a gaping void.
“Poor noble lady.”
His voice was chilling, like claws scraping across glass.
She couldn’t even tell if it was male or female.
Only because of his tall stature did she assume he was a man.
One step.
Then another.
As he slowly approached, Mayna squeezed her eyes shut and forced them open again.
Get a grip.
She had never entered a dungeon herself, but she had lived seven years as an aide to a top-class Holy Knight.
From experience she knew that the more dangerous the moment, the less she could afford to panic.
She looked behind the figure, who gave off the atmosphere of someone who could pull out a terrifying weapon at any moment.
No one’s there.
Unfortunately, not a shadow of another person could be seen.
But fortunately, this was right in front of Lennox Castle.
If she screamed for help, perhaps one of the guards standing watch each night would hear and come out.
“Help—”
But as Mayna opened her mouth wide to scream, terror overcame her.
No sound came out.
As though some unknown force had completely blocked her throat.
“I’m hungry.”
“…….”
“Shall I eat you?”
“……!”
What? Eat?
Eat who?
Surely… me?
At his words, which went far beyond her imagination, the strength left her legs.
Thud.
She collapsed onto the rain-soaked ground.
Her already damp dress now clung to her like a drenched tissue.
Uhh… Uhhh…
Forcing out what little voice she could, she crawled backward on her bottom.
The figure knelt on one knee.
Then slowly raised his hand.
From beneath the long robe’s sleeve, his wrist was revealed.
“……!”
It was impossible to think of that gray-white skin as belonging to a living person.
It was more corpse than human.
And below his wrist, where his hand should have been, it was brutally severed.
“I’m hungry.
I’ve been trapped for three years and two months.
In all that time I couldn’t eat anything.
I was so hungry I tore off and ate both of my own hands, but even then I couldn’t ease the hunger.
I starved for too long. I’m hungry. I’m unbearably hungry.”
Drip. Drip.
Drooling as he smacked his lips.
“Slurp, slurp. Slurp, slurp, slurp.
Sluuurp! Slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp. I’m hungry.
Slurp.
Slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp.
Sluuurp! I’m hungry. Slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp.”
The moment Mayna saw his bluish tongue slither out to lick around his lips—
She fainted on the spot.
***
“Uhh…”
Groaning in agony, she jolted awake.
When she looked around, it was morning, and she was inside her own bedroom.
For a moment she just lay there, staring at the ceiling.
Her heart pounded furiously, as if it would burst.
“It was a nightmare.”
She couldn’t even recall getting out of the carriage, and yet it was already the next day.
The wall clock read 8 a.m.
Luckily, Kalif had no morning schedule today.
As though possessed, Mayna rose from bed, changed her clothes, bathed quickly, and went straight to Kalif’s chamber.
Before she could even knock—
“Come in.”
He somehow knew.
Creak.
As she pushed the door open, a strange feeling brushed her.
The source of the ominousness became clear as soon as she stepped inside.
“……This is…….”
There were at least twenty people in the room.
Kurden sat at a side table working.
Adonis stood in just a shirt.
The head maid Magia and the maid Hozie.
Five knights and four mages from Guild 928.
By the window, noble men and women sipping morning coffee at their leisure.
And on Kalif’s bed—two noble ladies in their undergarments.
“Hello, aide?”
One of them was Sera Parker.
Kalif, in a robe, sat between the two women with his arms spread.
Like a rogue, he had one woman on each side, languidly brushing back his hair.
“Excuse me a moment.”
He excused himself from the two women and stood.
Disheveled, he walked over to Mayna.
“Pitiful beggar’s daughter. Lady Mayna.”
Her heart dropped with a thud.
He twisted his lips.
“You may quit your job.”
Why? All of a sudden, why…?
The sentence stabbed her chest like a blade.
Mayna staggered, feeling actual pain.
Everyone in the room was watching her.
All of them with mocking smiles.
Even the colleagues she had worked with for seven years—every last one of them.
“Well. You’re the daughter of a criminal who caused the late Emperor’s death. Who knows what you might do to Lord Lennox?”
“How pitiful. No one will need you anymore.”
Mockery flew at her from every direction, and Mayna bowed her head.
Through her blurred vision, something appeared.
“Gasp…!”
A knife was stuck in her belly.
The excruciating pain made her shut her eyes.
When she opened them again, she was in the carriage.
What on earth…!
It was a dark, rainy forest road.
She was wearing Kalif’s jacket, and in the distance she saw Lennox Castle.
What is happening!
Her mind was in chaos, as though someone had poured black ink over it.
Just as she leaned out the window to see the coachman’s face—
The carriage stopped.
***
At the same time, Kalif stood in the middle of a tavern that had suddenly become a hellscape.
Crash! Smash!
Glass shattering rang from all sides.
And it wasn’t just this tavern.
Out on the streets, people were running, screaming in terror.
“Quickly, cough! You must run, run away!”
A man who had collapsed, coughing blood, shouted.
The dozen or so people inside the tavern all rushed toward the door.
“Wait.”
Kalif, calmly observing the situation, stopped them.
“You must not go outside.”
“If we don’t flee, we’ll die!”
The blood-soaked man screamed.
Slash.
Kalif’s dagger cut through his neck.
“Kyaaaah!”
Someone shrieked.
The people stared at Kalif in horror, faces pale at the brutal sight before their eyes.
“Wh-why did you kill him?”
“That thing was no human.”
Thud!
As if to prove Kalif right, the beheaded man shot upright.
Thud.
Thud, thud!
He staggered blindly, bumping into pillars and tables, before suddenly freezing.
Then his limbs and joints twisted grotesquely, and his body melted like waterlogged mud.
Dark green liquid spread across the wooden floor.
Thud.
One noble lady fainted dead away.
“A Gate must have opened.”
Kalif diagnosed the situation without a hint of emotion.
“Th-then what must we do?”
A pale-faced man cried out.
And frightened voices erupted from all sides.
“What about us, huh?”
“Where is this Gate that opened?”
“Are monsters roaming outside right now?”
“I want to go home! I left my child behind! Sob!”
Kalif sheathed his dagger and drew a large sword from his waist.
“I’ll find the source and take care of it. Until then, survive as best you can.”
And just before stepping outside, he added,
“Staying together will be safer, so do not go out if you can avoid it.”
The moment Kalif finished speaking, the patrons huddled together like fried vegetables on a plate.
Outside, Gillingham Square was already a wasteland.
Rubble of collapsed buildings everywhere.
People screaming, running in all directions.
Horrific bloodstains and severed body parts scattered on the ground.
Only a few minutes had passed, yet at this scale, it had to be at least an A-rank dungeon.
In the distance, a monster rampaged.
It looked like a lump of black charcoal, spewing fire that incinerated everything around it.
Kalif ran toward it.
Slash!
He gathered mana, transformed it into water energy, and cut the creature in half with his sacred blade, Lennox’s Wave.
“Kiiaaaaaah!”
The monster let out a horrific scream as it split apart.
Black blood sprayed into the air.
Kalif wiped the blood off his cheek with the back of his hand and kept walking.
Slaying monsters large and small, he eventually found the open Gate.
It was at the central fountain of Gillingham Square.
The marble statue modeled after the god of the Empire’s state religion, the Bizan Church, was spraying holy water—
but hideous monsters were pouring out instead.
From the massive fountain basin, a woman crawled out.
Drenched in water, she clutched her pregnant belly as she approached Kalif.
“Help me. The baby is coming.”
Sweat poured down her face as she reached out a hand.
Kalif struck her face with his elbow to push her back, then stabbed his sword.
The woman screamed horrifically as her heart was pierced.
From between her legs, a massive snake slithered out.
“Dammit.”
Kalif gritted his teeth as he cut off its head.
After the northern region of Solodom, now here in Asirius on the eastern continent, his own home.
Two times now, Gates had abnormally opened.
After slaying the serpent-shaped monster, Kalif hurried to seal the Gate.
He wanted to enter the dungeon and investigate, but first, he had to quell the situation and save the citizens.
“Please, save us!”
“Kyaaaah!”
“Mama! Uwaaaaah!”
From the alley to the right came screams of citizens and the cries of a child.
Kalif rushed toward the sound and saw a huge monster.
It had trapped around ten people in a transparent, slimy membrane and hung them upside down from a lamppost.
It was a storage, saving its prey before going to hunt more.
“It’s Lord Lennox! Sob! Please save us!”
A young man recognized Kalif and cried out desperately.
The monster slowly turned to face him.
Opening its mouth, hundreds of razor-sharp teeth gleamed.
“…….”
Kalif tightened his grip on his sword.
A bloody battle was inevitable.
Thud!
Thud!
Each step the creature took shook the ground.
And then someone came to Kalif’s mind.
Mayna.
He had sent her off alone in the carriage.
He told himself she must have arrived home safely.
But he couldn’t shake the foreboding feeling.
If I opened a portal and went to Mayna now…
His gaze wavered uneasily.
Before him loomed the colossal monster.
Behind him, citizens cried out, begging.
As an X-rank Holy Knight with imperial sanction, his role was to protect citizens from the threat of monsters.
But if… something had happened to Mayna?
Thud!
Thud!
The monster was nearly upon him.
He was about to swing his sword when—
“What are you doing, like an idiot!”
With a familiar voice, an axe slammed into the monster’s skull.
“Kkiiaaaahhh!”
The beast screamed, staggering.
Startled, Kalif turned back.
“Gamlipo. Rob.”
It was the two men who had gone along with him to the second round of drinking.
Clang, thunk!
The monster yanked the axe from its head and went berserk, charging at Gamlipo.
Kalif quickly stabbed its side, and at the same time Rob stepped forward.
A greenish light enveloped Kalif, Gamlipo, and Rob.
The monster writhed in pain.
“If you were distracted in front of a monster, there can only be one reason.”
Rob added.
“Go to her, quickly.”
Kalif thought to himself.
Damn. That was kind of cool.
