MBOMEN 27

Chapter 27: The Beast of Kizel (4)
“Sir Yustar, the transfer preparations are complete.”

Barens, who had been standing in front of the mechanical device, spoke. Yustar immediately took Lila’s hand and stepped onto the portal, which resembled a round platform.

“Coordinates set. Departure point: Sersita. Destination: Habashuka Headquarters. Initiating transfer.”

The moment he pulled a small lever, Lila instinctively took a deep breath. She braced herself for the sensation of her throat, lungs, and stomach filling with water again. But this time, it was different.

Instead, she felt her body freezing to its limit. It was like standing naked in a fog made of ice and dry glass shards.

Her skin seemed to crack and shatter, collapsing like a sandcastle… The last thing she saw before a wave of nausea overwhelmed her was her fingers scattering and falling.

“Ugh…!”

Was this another symptom of portal sickness? It felt similar to her first time—dizzying, nauseating, and her vision fading. Then, familiar fingers pried her lips open…

“Don’t bite, Lila.”

She wasn’t sure what he meant—don’t bite his fingers, or don’t resist the awful-tasting motion sickness medicine. Just one lick made her shudder; the taste was that horrific, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

“What is this? What did you bring with you?”

A sharp voice startled Lila, and she looked up in surprise. She didn’t even have time to check if her fingers were back in place.

Before her stood a girl—or rather, a small woman—with long, oddly lemon-colored hair. She glared at Lila with a fierce expression.

“A witch. So you finally found one. I’m so sick of your persistence.”

She was clearly blaming Yustar. Judging by appearance, she seemed like his niece or youngest sister, but her tone was anything but juvenile.

“What are you doing? If you’re not here to grow mold in that spot, get up. We’re in a hurry.”

Snapping, the girl turned on her heel. Yustar helped Lila to her feet. Just in time, the “orange” on her tongue had fully dissolved, and Lila was starting to feel better.

“Are you okay?”

Lila quickly shook her head.

“Not at all. That medicine tastes terrible.”

“I know. I’ve been trying to make it more edible, but it’s not easy.”

As they spoke, the girl who had gone ahead suddenly turned around and yelled.

“Can’t you walk any faster?!”

Her arrogant and rude tone surprised even Lila, but Yustar just shrugged. As Lila followed, she whispered,

“How old is that girl…?”

“She’s not a child. Hmm… in human years, maybe around a hundred? Possibly older.”

Lila’s eyes widened.

“What do you mean? Don’t tell me she’s a sorcerer?”

Yustar tilted his head in a noncommittal way. As if to say, “Maybe…”

“She is a sorcerer. But… hmm. There’s no time to explain now. For now, just know that she’s not a child. Her name is Olga, head of Tentinel’s 2nd Branch—this Habashuka branch. Just call her Olga. Don’t use her full name.”

Lila wanted to ask why, but she sensed there was no time for that either.

The atmosphere here was different from the Romel branch she’d first visited.

There were far more mechanical devices here than in Romel, but to Lila, most of them looked like they were a hundred—or several hundred—years old. Some barely looked functional.

In a space that served as both meeting and break room, Olga banged her small hand on a table twice. Then she clenched her teeth, grinding them audibly.

“We lost seven. Seven! Three apprentice knights and four full knights! Damn it, do you know how much effort it takes to train weak human bodies into warriors?!”

After venting into empty air, she turned toward Yustar and Lila with the same angry face. Lila noticed her eyes glinted like glass—strange but beautiful.

“That’s why I called you, Yustar. Now explain why you brought a witch. Don’t tell me she’s a combat witch?”

Yustar replied calmly.

“She’s not. Lila won’t participate in combat, Olga.”

“Then why bring her? To show off her dress?”

“Don’t take it out on her. She just started learning about Tentinel. She’s seen some ghosts, but this is her first time facing monsters. She needs to see how we fight. If she’s working with me, she’ll have to face them sooner or later.”

Olga crossed her arms and looked up at Lila. Her gaze was so cold that even Marquis Himierd seemed like a kind mother in comparison.

“You brought her, so you’re responsible for her. My knights and agents will assist you, but I’m not assigning anyone to protect a witch. Anyway—is she the witch you were looking for? Can she overlay magic without any constraints?”

Hearing the familiar term, Lila flinched. But when Yustar nodded, Olga didn’t push further. She must have decided solving the issue was more urgent than arguing.

She spread out a map on the table—one of the entire Kingdom of Searow and another with more detail of the surrounding terrain.

Olga pointed to the upper reaches of the Kizel River.

“The first ‘sink’ appeared upstream, near the river’s source, not far from a canyon. You know the creature ‘Dingonek’ from old stories about forest-dwelling sorcerers? This monster looks similar—only bigger, smarter, and faster.”

Both Yustar and Lila were familiar with the Dingonek—a creature with a sharp, angular face, a tough, sleek body, huge tusks that reached near its front legs, and deadly spines. A monster parents used to scare kids near the forest.

Olga continued.

“When it moves through the river, it’s even faster. Since the sink appeared in water, I assume it has water affinity. But it doesn’t stay submerged. It dashes through steep canyons like a goat with wings.”

Yustar frowned.

“A troublesome one. And cunning on top of that. A head-on attack won’t work. We’ll need to trap it.”

“We tried. Twice. Failed both times. It ambushed us first. Some survivors returned, but they’re badly injured—might not return to duty again.”

“What’s its weakness?”

Olga tapped the table.

“It can’t see. Or rather, it seems not to. It has no pupils. But it still detects everything precisely—meaning it must have alternative sensory organs. It’s said to have rows of sharp spines along its back—those might be its eyes.”

“Like a cat’s whiskers. Then we should target those spines.”

A reasonable idea. Olga agreed but shook her head.

“We tried that. Lost two veteran knights. The monster is too fast—in movement, in attack, even in detecting threats. It’s all over before you blink. Got any better ideas?”

Yustar fell silent in thought. Lila watched him with concern. He had said she wouldn’t need to help, but standing there doing nothing filled her with helpless dread.

A monster unknown even to stories—how could one possibly defeat it?

She turned the thought over and over. It couldn’t see. Olga said the spines on its back might be sensory organs. Then… what if she could block them?

“If… just hypothetically…”

When Lila spoke up, both Yustar and Olga turned to her in surprise—especially Olga, who looked like she hadn’t expected the “doll” to speak at all.

“Go ahead, Lila. Say whatever you want.”

Encouraged by Yustar, Lila’s face flushed. She worried they’d think her idea was foolish, but still…

“That monster—if it senses its surroundings with those back spines… what if we paralyze them? It might lose awareness, or at least have trouble sensing anything. Then we could strike.”

Olga scoffed.

“Hit it with a tranquilizer dart? We tried that. Didn’t work. Couldn’t penetrate its damn scales. Might as well be made of stone.”

Despite the harsh response, Lila didn’t back down.

“I don’t mean using weapons up close. I mean from far away, wait for it to appear… and release something. I’m a witch—I can make all sorts of tinctures. One of them slows everything so much, it makes a person seem dead except for a heartbeat. We could create a version and spread it like fog—where the monster shows up.”

She recalled the freezing fog of glass shards she’d felt during the teleport. The sting, the fear that she might silently dissolve…

If that monster felt the same way—what then?

Yustar and Olga grew serious as they pondered Lila’s proposal. In the end, it was Olga who made the decision.

“Alright, witch. We’ll try it your way. But there’s no time to build a new machine before we face that beast. So we’ll have to use what we’ve got. Come with me. Make that tincture—make lots of it.”