“Right. You can’t. You have a fever, so what camping?”
It was the right thing to say, but seeing Matiel giddy with delight at the fact they’d be camping alone together tonight somehow irked him. When you think about it, Kaniel had essentially been camping alone with Taeyon almost every day.
“Alright….”
“Then let’s go. Get on my back.”
“Huh? I can walk, Taeyon.”
“It’s hard for you. Get on.”
At the repeated urging, Kaniel hesitantly climbed onto Taeyon’s back. Piyod’s expression as he waved somehow looked pleased.
‘I want to tell him it’s okay to confess….’
Now doesn’t seem like the right timing.
I’ll tell him tomorrow when we meet at the lord’s manor.
The pink earrings Matiel had gifted today dangled from Piyod’s ears.
***
Crash!!
At the sound of something breaking, Kaniel’s eyes flew open. Taeyon was already up, peering out the dark window.
“What, what’s happening?”
Kaniel hurriedly sat up and asked while picking up and putting on his clothes. But he didn’t need to hear an answer. A chilling howling sound—Krrrr—rang in his ears.
Kaniel’s face hardened, having heard a similar sound before.
“It’s a demon beast. We need to get out of here.”
The sound was coming from quite close by. Probably somewhere in the lord’s manor. The lord’s manor was the center of the city and at the same time the most heavily guarded place—how had a demon beast gotten all the way here?
Kaniel held his breath and left the room as Taeyon led.
“What about the people? Shouldn’t we save them?”
“There was an evacuation signal. For now, we take shelter according to the lord’s instructions.”
It seemed to be a different case from last time at the Underground City of Centanid. Kaniel nodded and crouched low as Taeyon pulled him along.
Outside, sounds of things breaking and burning could be heard. Feeling something strange, he turned his gaze toward the wall and saw a shadow stretching long from outside all the way to the wall.
A tiger. It was the shadow of a giant tiger. Even just the shadow prowling about looked threatening, as if one wrong move could result in having one’s throat bitten off in an instant.
Kaniel covered his mouth to stifle a groan and pressed flat against the wall beneath the window. He felt his breathing growing rougher. It was because he was too tense.
“……”
“……”
At the feeling of a slight tug on his hand, he raised his head to find Taeyon tickling the back of his hand with his thumb. What are you doing at a time like this! When Kaniel’s eyes widened in surprise, Taeyon wore an expression of amusement. Kaniel narrowed his eyes.
After that, the demon beast had already moved elsewhere.
Taeyon began moving again, pulling Kaniel’s hand. The place where they stopped was in front of the stairs. If they went down the stairs leading to the lower floor, there was a door leading to the courtyard. If they went that way, they’d run right into the demon beast.
So the path Taeyon chose was the window at the end of the corridor. Timing it with the crash of something breaking, he opened the creaking window and first sat Kaniel on the window sill.
“Be careful.”
“Yeah.”
After that, he had Kaniel wrap his arms around his neck, grabbed his waist, and leaped with all his might. That jump reached the rooftop of the adjacent building.
“Whew….”
“It’s okay now.”
The city was a complete mess. In the grayish darkness as dawn broke, there were smashed buildings everywhere, and knights and guards faced off against monsters. Among them, panic-stricken people scattered here and there, evacuating toward the city outskirts.
It had been a peaceful village just a few hours ago. He had vivid memories of returning after stopping by the night market with Taeyon, bustling with cheerful laughter and the sounds of commerce, but now all of it was a mess.
A terrible thing was happening. Kaniel panted with tension as he scanned the complicated streets.
Just then, at the edge of his vision, he caught sight of a girl being threatened by a monster. Without time to think, Kaniel recited a spell.
“<A barrier to protect our allies…!>”
Crack, the monster’s teeth struck the protective barrier and bounced off. The child who had been trembling, clutching her head and crouching, raised her head with a confused expression when nothing happened.
“Taeyon. Can we take those kids too?”
“Yeah. Let’s go together.”
The girl was protecting four other children hidden behind her. No adults were visible. Either they had no parents, or they were clearly of a status that required them to be out defending the city right now.
Taeyon, who had jumped down from the building, set Kaniel down and charged at the wildcat monster. The back of the wildcat monster that had been charging at the girl again split deeply, and soon it dissolved into black smoke and scattered.
“Kids, come here. Come with us.”
“Thank you!”
The children cried out with tearful faces and followed along. From then on, Taeyon silently kept watch of their surroundings while running ahead. Of course, while striking down and killing attacking monsters, he didn’t take his attention off Kaniel and the children.
As he continued cutting down monsters without much struggle, the expressions of the running children brightened too.
However, the situation wasn’t good. The closer they got to where the evacuation signal had sounded, the more the number of monsters increased. That meant it was becoming more dangerous, and also that Taeyon would have to push himself harder.
“Taeyon, are you okay?”
Kaniel asked Taeyon, who was cutting down a monster and wiping blood droplets from his cheek with the back of his hand.
“Yeah. No problem. You?”
“I’m just hiding in the back.”
“You’re protecting the children from behind.”
“…Yes.”
With a slightly flushed face, Kaniel answered.
It was then that a crying sound—waaah—could be heard. Startled by the child’s crying and turning around, he saw a man bleeding from his forehead collapsed on the ground while holding a child.
The man tried somehow to move his body, but his legs, frozen with fear, wouldn’t move as he wished and he only managed to struggle a bit.
Soon the demon beast’s hoof, laden with weight, came down toward him.
“<Powerful force reaching far…!>”
Crash!!
The man who had curled up in preparation for pain soon felt a strange sensation and opened his eyes. His body was being dragged somewhere. The demon beast that had been moving away recognized there was nothing beneath its feet, growled, and then began charging at the man again.
With the quick footwork characteristic of four-legged beasts, the deer monster approached in an instant. The sharp antlers of the lowered deer monster surged forward.
Clang!
With a sound like metal striking metal, part of the deer monster’s antlers were cut off.
“Are you alright?”
The man flinched in surprise at the hand grasping his shoulder and sat up.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Uh… huh?”
As the man, who still hadn’t properly come to his senses, stared blankly, the children who had been following Kaniel spoke up.
“They helped you, you should say thank you!”
“They saved your life!”
“Right! Pull yourself together, mister.”
The man came to his senses at the children’s scolding, probably thanks to escaping from fear. The man hugged the child in his arms tightly once, then spoke in a voice that seemed to exhale breath, as if realizing the fact that they were alive.
“Thank you, thank you….”
“I’m glad you’re not hurt. We need to run away now—can you stand up?”
“Y-yes.”
The man stood up from his spot, still dazed. When he turned his head, he saw the black-haired wolf beastkin thrusting his sword between the ribs of the deer beastkin with severed front legs and twisting it. The deer beastkin, with air leaking into its lungs, gasped and stopped moving.
Taeyon, who had swung his sword to shake off the blood, returned to the group.
“Let’s hurry.”
There were no more words. Taeyon began running again, and the group earnestly chased after him.
Continuing to run while saving people like this, by the time they arrived at the territory outskirts, where the lord’s evacuation signal had been shot into the sky, they were with 7 children and 4 adults.
The children panted and collapsed to the ground. It was because they had moved at the maximum speed the children could barely keep up with.
The adults were in somewhat better condition, but they too were gasping, their tension released at the thought that they had finally arrived at a safe place.
“We’re alive….”
“Thank, thank you….”
“If it weren’t for you two knights, we would have died.”
At the almost tearful voices, Kaniel was startled. He wasn’t a knight. It seemed these beastkin had mistaken the magic he used for abilities that knights often used.
“Uh, I’m….”
Before Kaniel could continue, the beastkin spoke.
“We’ll take responsibility for the children and find their families. You two knights don’t worry about us anymore and go do what you need to do.”
“We will definitely repay this debt!”
“Thank you!”
“Thank you, hyung!”
Among them, the girl who had been standing dazedly while holding her siblings suddenly seemed to come to her senses and grabbed Kaniel’s hand.
“I, I’ll definitely repay this debt.”
“U-uh?”
“I’ll definitely repay it. Thank you so much….”
And then, as if only now realizing they had escaped from a place full of monsters, she began sobbing.
