A twelve years old Tanya stood atop a high cliff. When she used to come here for picnics with her dad, mom, sister who was four years older, and younger brother two years her junior, she would forget her father’s warning not to go near the cliff’s edge and would stand here, dancing alone with her skirt fluttering.
Her sister would dissuade her, calling it a crazy act. Her younger brother wanted to join her, but was too afraid, thinking he was so light that he might get blown away by the wind.
Being here, Tanya felt free. Sometimes, as her brother said, she really felt like she was lifted by the wind. Having experienced the sensation of flying in the sky, pushed by strong winds for a very short time, she had promised herself that if it ever happened again, she would quickly spread her arms like wings and glide down below the cliff.
Now, Tanya had lost her freedom. Her parents had passed away, and her brother and sister had died trapped in a mansion fire. The girl, having cried prone in front of the burned mansion for a long time, had come to the cliff, the last place where she could be free.
Tanya went to the very edge of the cliff. It wasn’t her first time crossing the area her father had told her not to go, but it was her first time standing at the edge of this windy precipice. She took off her shoes and looked down at her toes. High waves crashed against the black rocks, creating white foam. It was an immense distance, but she felt as if the droplets splashing from the surface were touching her face.
‘Should I fly?’
Tanya thought. It seemed somehow possible now. Closing her eyes and jumping felt like she would not plunge into the dark seawater but be greeted by the blue sky.
‘How wonderful would that feel? I mustn’t forget to flap my arms. If I ride the wind well like a bird, I can fly. Everyone says I’m too heavy, but I can fly.’
Tanya closed her eyes. And slowly, she leaned forward.
‘I can fly.’
It was scary. The cold wind stabbed her body like an awl, and her face turned towards the cliff below. Tanya opened her eyes. She wanted to witness this miracle. As her feet left the ground and her body was thrown into the air, she looked down foolishly and thought.
‘No. I won’t fly. Even if I can, I won’t. It’s better to just die like this.’
As Tanya wished, her body fell below the cliff. Hopefully face first. Get torn and shattered! So that even if someone retrieves the body, it’s too ghastly and horrible to look at!
Tanya’s body stopped mid-air. Black waves were crashing against the rock, and she still had as far to fall as she had fallen.
Tanya looked behind her. The blue sky, which she never wanted to see because it would bring tears to her eyes, moistened her pupils.
Tanya cried whenever something happened. Her sister, who teased her for crying more than her younger brother, called her a crybaby. She had decided not to cry this time, but as the memory of her sister’s teasing voice lingered in her ears, tears came again.
Tanya’s body slowly rose and fell back on top of the cliff.
“That was a close call. If I had been a bit later, I couldn’t have lifted you. I didn’t expect you to jump so recklessly.”
Tanya, with tears overflowing, turned back. A man in a blue robe was approaching the cliff. He was handsome with a youthful face, slight build, and beautiful eyes, but Tanya found his voice dreadful. After all, he was a man.
He was panting, hand on his chest. Getting here had exhausted him, causing him to stop and catch his breath several times.
“Were you thinking of flying to the heavens?”
He stood beside Tanya without asking for permission. Then, without showing any fear of falling, he sat on the edge of the cliff, his legs dangling over the side.
“There are rules to flying. Training is necessary, and so is time to get used to it. If you just recklessly throw yourself to the wind, usually you can’t fly.”
The man started to lecture as if he was about to teach her how to fly.
Tanya asked in a flat tone,
“Did you make me fly?”
“I gave you the opportunity, but just now, you flew on your own. You don’t really want to die, do you?”
“I flew?”
“Yes. On your own strength.”
Tanya just looked at the man’s face for a long time. The man also just waited.
“Do you have a knife?”
“What do you need a knife for?”
“Do you have one?”
If he didn’t have one, Tanya was prepared to go back to the burned mansion to look for one. The man took out a pocketknife and handed it to her.
“Be careful, it’s sharp.”
Tanya said as she took the knife, “Good.”
Immediately, she drew the knife across her cheek. A distinct mark was etched onto her pale skin, and red blood spurted out. With a bold move, the knife reached the bone, causing Tanya to tremble in pain. But she didn’t stop. She cut her face again. It wasn’t very painful, but somehow she couldn’t put much strength into her hand. Still, she kept cutting. It hurt and was hard. By the fourth time she brought the knife to her face, her hand was trembling so badly that it was hard to hold the knife.
“Stop it!”
The man grabbed Tanya’s wrist, and the knife fell to the ground. Blood from the blade splattered on the rock.
Tanya screamed, a scream she hadn’t let out even as her face was being cut.
“Let go! Let go!”
Tanya struggled and backed away, and the man let go of her hand. The girl fell to the ground, not holding her injured face, but her shoulder. Blood flowed and dripped onto the wet rock.
“Don’t touch my body.”
Tanya, with her face stained with blood, glared with bloodshot eyes and said. The man looked down at her with a bewildered expression.
“I want to know what happened to you. But I won’t ask. However, if you collapse like this and die here, wouldn’t the evidence that your parents and your siblings ever lived disappear from this world? Count Crimlos was with me and…”
“Don’t talk about my dad! Leave me alone.”
Tanya kept muttering in a weakened voice. The blood running over her face seeped into her eyes and mouth.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t touch my face… Don’t.”
Tanya, trembling, held her shoulder and lay on the wet rock, repeating the same words. The man reached out his hand towards Tanya’s face. Tanya caught his hand and growled.
“I told you not to touch!”
“I am a sorcerer. If you have painful memories now, I can erase them, and I can heal the wounds on your face.”
The man spoke quietly. Tanya, hearing the word ‘sorcerer,’ showed no surprise. The eyes of the young girl, only twelve years old, were filled only with anger.
“Don’t do anything.”
Tanya said.
The man replied calmly without panic,
“Then at least I want to stop the bleeding. The face has many blood vessels, and once bleeding starts, it’s hard to stop. And instead of erasing your memories, tell them to me.”
“What difference would that make?”
“Your anger and memories will become clearer. So deeply ingrained that they won’t be erased. Forever.”
A cold wind blew around the man. Tanya found she liked this chill for some reason.
“Who are you?”
“I am Tailed, a sorcerer of Lutia.”
☆ ☆ ☆
The night in the Sky Mountains was tranquil. The tremendous roar that had just occurred seemed as if it never existed, leaving only the sounds of the forest behind.
Master Tanya placed her hand on the ground and closed her eyes. Following her touch, blue mist emanated and absorbed into the earth, and the blue energy, which had been undulating from the ground, climbed the trees and extended into the night sky. The whispers of the forest wind and the scent of the trees lingered around her ears.
Tanya opened her eyes again. Her pupils, emitting a deep blue light, pierced the darkness, distinguishing what should and shouldn’t be there. She found distinct footprints in the mud covered with fallen leaves. Judging by the shape and size of the shoes, unless there was another being in the Sky Mountains that matched perfectly, they were Kassel’s. And beside them, faint but present, were footprints of another person.
Kassel was not alone now.
‘Who is it? Is someone following Kassel? Or accompanying him? Or taking him away?’
Tanya stopped her pursuit of Kassel’s trail. Though it was clear that he was with someone, the almost invisible traces of this unidentified companion plunged Tanya into confusion throughout her tracking.
An hour ago, Tanya, Kassel, and Jaymer were attacked by an unidentified sorcerer in a black robe. Then, they were assaulted a second time by a gigantic creature that appeared behind the sorcerer.
Jaymer swiftly evaded the attack. Tanya also reflexively tried to dodge but remembered Kassel was behind her and stopped. The dark breath exhaled by the creature devoured the blue light emitted from Tanya’s orb. Her full-strength effort merely managed to slightly deflect the direction of the creature’s power.
The dark force, missing Tanya, stretched straight towards Kassel. Tanya turned back, feeling dizzy, praying that the dark force would miss Kassel. At that moment, someone snatched Kassel away towards the forest. Right after, an explosion occurred, and Tanya, caught in it and thrown into the bushes, couldn’t see who had rescued Kassel.
Tanya, barely able to move, forced herself up and lifted the orb around her neck. The light-filled orb swelled from the size of a fist to that of a watermelon.
‘Should I break the seal?’
Tanya hesitated for a moment. She had long believed that she would never hesitate over this issue. She thought there would never be a need to break the seal. But the situation was so sudden that her mind lost its restraint, and her thoughts their judgment. She lifted the greatly swollen orb above her head, scanning the surroundings.
Just as a wise scholar can measure another’s wisdom with a few exchanges of conversation, and a skilled warrior can assess an opponent’s ability just by their stance with a sword, a great sorcerer can gauge an opponent’s power by the color of their magic alone.
Tanya immediately recognized that the sorcerer who had brought the creature was either as powerful as her or more so. The giant life form that emitted the dark force was not just a monster of large size but a magical being of immense power.
‘Could it be a dragon? No way. Why would a deity of the Sky Mountains travel with a sorcerer?’
The alliance of a dragon and a sorcerer was a menacing thought. If they attacked her again, Tanya doubted she could win, even if she broke the seal and exerted her full power. Fortunately, neither the creature nor the sorcerer was visible in the light of the orb.
‘Not now.’
Once a magical seal is broken, it cannot be restored. Tailed had told Tanya that she could break the seal anytime after she turned twenty, but feeling that her current power was sufficient, Tanya had maintained the seal until now, at the age of twenty-six.
‘Tanya. I think I might have turned you into a monster.’
Master Tailed had said this when he deemed Tanya’s magic lessons to be complete. Tanya, not understanding, had asked him.
‘What do you mean by a monster?’
‘You have gained the knack of drawing out even your hidden power to fight. Usually, one has to be over forty to reach that level. But you, not even eighteen yet, have acquired such power at a far too young age.’
‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. You have overcome your painful past with your will and transformed it into magic. That makes it even more dangerous. If you draw out that power to its limit, the well within you will dry up, and you might never be able to use magic again, or in the worst case… you could die.’
Tailed decided to place a seal on Tanya’s body, so she could properly use her magic when she was old enough to restrain it herself. However, he hesitated until the last moment to place the seal and regretted it afterwards. But Tanya didn’t care about the ‘side effects’ of the seal. It was what she had wanted.
After Tailed went missing, Tanya resolved not to break her seal until she found him. In fact, having the seal made it more convenient for her to operate in Acrand.
‘I still haven’t recovered my strength.’
The dark force emitted by the creature was overwhelming. Even a mere brush with it had rendered her body immobile. Ideally, she should have protected and healed herself with magical power on the spot, but worried about the missing Kassel, she moved despite her poor condition.
There were no traces left at the site of the explosion. She ran in the direction she thought Kassel had gone, based on her brief sighting and intuition. From a distance, she heard Jaymer calling for Kassel.
Fortunately, it seemed Jaymer was alive.
‘He’s a skilled hunter, so he should be fine for a while, right? Dethain will be here soon.’
The urgent matter was Kassel. He was a man who wouldn’t survive if left alone.
Tanya left Jaymer behind and followed Kassel’s trail.
As she ran, Tanya kept thinking about the creature that had attacked them. Considering its size and magic, the only being that possessed both was a dragon.
Tanya had never heard of a dragon in the Sky Mountains crawling on the ground and attacking other creatures. To the Lemifs, dragons were gods, and to humans, sacred protectors. The dragon Tailed and she had met in Carnelock was like a wise sage of Lutia in human terms. However, the dragon that attacked them tonight seemed like a ‘demon’ emanating evil power throughout its body.
‘Who knows? When humans cross a border, customs change; across the sea, skin color changes; over a mountain, languages change. Not all dragons can be wise like sages. Sorcerers might act all-knowing, but we know nothing about the Sky Mountains. Even less about dragons.’
Even in Carnelock, where dragons had lived for a thousand years, the university and library experts on dragons knew only a fraction about them. It was said that dragons are born from eggs, but since no one had ever seen an egg, there was no certainty. Tailed had once confronted a scholar who claimed to know about dragons, asking how he could know whether dragons were viviparous or oviparous without ever having seen an eggshell.
Tanya did not know more about dragons than what was mentioned in the Kainswick textbooks. Therefore, she lacked the basis to speculate whether the monster that appeared was a dragon or not, and if it was a dragon, why it attacked.
What Tanya was certain about was not the monster, but the sorcerer in the black robe who had attacked before the monster. His magic was too similar to hers. It was like looking in a mirror while casting spells.
‘He must be a master from Lutia.’
The sorcerers that immediately came to mind were Grand Master Ruskin, Dethain, Luder, Justin, and her mentor Tailed. Golbein, Philip, and Ettley had slight differences in their way of casting spells and couldn’t perform attacks as powerful as hers. They were masters not because of their power, but for other reasons, so Tanya naturally focused on the other four.
In this manner, she tried to imagine the face of the black-robed sorcerer, which he had not shown, but soon gave up. She didn’t want to believe that one of the masters from Lutia, with whom she had been so comfortable, had attacked her.
Tanya decided to concentrate solely on finding Kassel. Soon, she found traces of Kassel. Tanya was startled. There was only one set of footprints. Knowing the dangers of the Sky Mountains, it seemed as if Kassel, having lost his mind after seeing the monster, was sprinting alone through the forest.
The Kassel she knew from Aranthia sometimes acted recklessly, but there was always a reason for it. It was unlike him to do something so erratic.
Someone must have been with him, guiding his actions, but there were no traces of that person.
Instead, there were unexpected overlapping traces. They seemed to be the gigantic footprints of the monster from earlier. They were the size of two palms. If it was this big, it was larger than the dragon of Carnelock, which was killed by the Excelon Knights ten years ago.
‘Is it following Kassel?’
Kassel was running away, and the ‘creature assumed to be a dragon’ was following him, but there were no traces of the companion who had saved him. Tanya was very tired from following these inconsistent traces.
Only after finding a third party’s traces did Tanya feel relieved. Judging by the size of the footprints, the person was taller and slightly heavier than Kassel. As soon as the footprints left the muddy ground, they disappeared again. Tanya was proud of herself for being able to find them. If this person was moving alone, Tanya would never be able to track him with her skills.
‘This hunter is even more skilled at concealing traces than Jaymer.’
Although they often bickered, Tanya highly regarded Jaymer. She had seen many hunters during her travels across the continent, but none as exceptional as Jaymer. If she had to choose one person from the entire Wolf Knights for such tracking or a dangerous journey, she would have chosen Jaymer. Surprisingly, Kassel also chose Jaymer as his companion for this mission. Whether he made that decision based on this understanding or simply because they were close, she wasn’t sure.
‘Should I have taken the time to bring Jaymer along? He would have been helpful.’
Deep monster footprints were imprinted in the mud, just as before. Judging from the shape of the toe marks pushing through the mud and the stride being twice as long as earlier, it was clear that this gigantic creature was now running. With such a stride, Kassel would soon be caught. There were many signs of the massive creature running down and pushing over trees. Eventually, it made a path as wide as its own body. While this made it easier to follow, it also increased Tanya’s anxiety.
Kassel’s tracks headed downhill. The steeper the slope of the forest became, the clearer both Kassel’s and the pursuing monster’s footprints were. Occasionally, there were signs where Kassel, slipping, had plowed through decades of fallen leaves with his hips. In his apparent panic, he had left handprints on everything he could touch.
Considering the slope, Tanya formulated two hypotheses: either Kassel was fleeing down a path disadvantageous to a dragon, which would have much larger hind legs compared to its front, or he was simply headed in this direction and it was coincidentally downhill!
‘I shouldn’t overestimate Kassel. Faced with a monster the size of a house, anyone would lose their cool. It’s unlikely he’s choosing his path logically.’
Tanya ran, hoping not to find Kassel’s body at the bottom of this downhill path.
She leapt onto a tree root jutting out like a giant’s finger with light steps. The root she stood on was easily two arms wide, and the tree itself was too massive to be measured in arm spans. The branches spread out and covered the entire view below, resembling a huge beam supporting the sky.
A squirrel, with ears bigger than its head, peeked out with wary black eyes, glancing at Tanya. She silently hopped from root to root, reaching another massive tree, no less giant than the previous one. There, the monster had left gruesome marks where it clawed and passed. A herbivorous snake above, plucking grass, flicked its tongue curiously.
The Sky Mountains hardly had any carnivorous animals that preyed on humans. It seemed impossible for such a large creature to be anything other than a dragon. Tanya was convinced that the monster, capable of stripping every tree it passed, was indeed a dragon.
Assuming this monster was an intelligent being, the purpose of this chase became clear. It was pursuing Kassel, and the initial target of both the sorcerer’s and the dragon’s attack was also Kassel.
Attacking Kassel, the captain of Aranthia’s Wolf Knights, who had only been appointed a month ago, raised a question: who in the Sky Mountains could possibly know Kassel’s identity? Even Dethain thought the White Wolves had no captain, and even Master Quain had seen Kassel’s face later than Tanya.
Tanya was confused and prayed repeatedly that Kassel’s body wouldn’t be at the end of these tracks.
☆ ☆ ☆
In fact, at twenty-six, Tanya was still considered young in the world of sorcerers. In Lutia, one had to be over twenty-five to even be considered for a teaching position in Kainswick, and after about ten years of accumulating knowledge, one could earn the title ‘sorcerer.’ Then, with the approval of the Lutiano, one could finally ascend to the status of master.
Tanya had risen to a position counted among the top ten on the continent at the age of twenty-five.
Receiving the title of Master was a great burden, but Tanya accepted it for a different purpose. She wanted to leave Lutia to search for her mentor in Acrand. For that, the title of Master was necessary. Among the duties of a Master was to oversee the Lutia branches spread across the countries of Acrand, a task that older Masters tended to avoid. Tanya was able to easily take on this role.
The Masters, knowing Tanya’s goal, assigned her the task anyway. They too wanted to find Tailed, who had been a Grand Master, and believed Tanya was more suited for the task than anyone else.
After Tailed’s disappearance, Ruskin, who was past the age of retirement, reluctantly sat in the Grand Master’s seat again, though he greatly disliked it. Dethain and Golbein, who had the most suitable skills and experience for the next Grand Master, said they might consider it in about 20 years, indirectly refusing. Given these circumstances, Grand Master Ruskin could not oppose Tanya’s journey to find Tailed.
There was no set time limit for her journey. Tanya planned not to return to Lutia until she found Tailed. However, one day, while looking up at the night sky alone, she felt lonely and decided to return to Lutia. She had gazed at the night sky alone for a year or two, but why did she feel that way that day? Perhaps she was just tired.
Tanya headed towards Lutia, using a short rest as an excuse, and got involved in an incident while crossing Aranthia.
‘I could have chosen not to help Kassel. There were plenty of other things I should have done at that moment. But I accompanied Kassel, and I am still following him now. I could have waited for Dethain the moment the dragon appeared. But I am following Kassel without looking back. Why? Just because he’s the captain of the Wolf Knights?’
She felt as if something was pulling her, forcing her to move. It was displeasing to her as a sorcerer to be influenced and moved by something else, especially since she still didn’t fully understand what it was.
‘Maybe it’s better to think that I am being moved by a rational attraction to a man named Kassel. That’s less displeasing.’
Tanya stopped her descent after a while. For the first time, the dragon’s footprints showed hesitation. The dragon had circled around in one spot and even stepped back. The traces were unanalyzable.
‘Could Jaymer figure out why the dragon stopped just by looking at the footprints? No, that requires experience, and he couldn’t analyze the traces of a dragon he’s never seen.’
Tanya racked her brain to decipher the meaning of these traces alone. She found another set of footprints beyond the monster’s. They belonged to the person who should have been with Kassel but had almost left no trace until now.
This was the second time traces of this person appeared in non-muddy terrain. Kassel’s footprints continued further back and stopped behind a large tree.
Tanya reviewed what had happened here based on the current situation and the traces.
‘Let’s call the third party ‘Tuktuk’ for now, since their traces are spotty. Tuktuk has been following from a location not far from where Jaymer, I, Kassel, and Dethain were. Tuktuk knew the identity of the dragon and sorcerer approaching us four. He appeared at just the right time to save Kassel, so he must have been very close. Yet, neither Jaymer nor I noticed…’ (TL Note: The word ‘Tuktuk’ (툭툭), has no meaning. It’s just the sound of something bursting or popping out. Basically, because this person came out of nowhere.)
Tanya felt embarrassed recalling the moment she had an argument with Jaymer just before the incident occurred.
‘Firstly, Tuktuk saved Kassel and didn’t lead him back to me or Jaymer, but instead, they fled from the dragon. Why?’
That was the first question. If Tuktuk had saved Kassel, the logical step would have been to join forces with Tanya or Jaymer.
‘Tuktuk is guiding Kassel southwards, down the mountain, and the dragon is following them. And I am trailing them. But here, the dragon stopped. Why?’
That was the second question. If the dragon had stopped on its own, there wouldn’t be traces of it stepping backward and the heel marks being deeply embedded.
The dragon had successfully tracked Tuktuk and Kassel and caught up to them here. Kassel hid behind a tree. Tuktuk appeared in front of the dragon. Finally, the traces that had been invisible so far were revealed.
Tuktuk appearing and the dragon retreating…
‘Tuktuk drove away the dragon? Impossible.’
This must be interpreted as Tuktuk blocking the dragon’s charge. Although the dragon stopped and stepped back, it did not flee. It was difficult to conclude these as traces of a fight. After a short stay, they resumed the chase.
Suddenly, Tanya became more curious about who Tuktuk, who was fleeing with Kassel, was, rather than the identity of the Lutia sorcerer who attacked them.
‘I can’t yet conclude that this person actually saved Kassel.’
The number of trees decreased, and the surroundings brightened, making the tracks clearer. Consequently, Tanya could focus less on tracking and her pace quickened. As she sped up, her two legs could no longer keep up with her will, her hands touched the ground, and her legs stretched back as her body was covered in white fur instead of clothes.
Tanya ran as a wolf. The trees around her flowed past. A foolish deer from the Sky Mountains, amused by her presence, followed her at a similar speed. But as her pace quickened, the deer was eventually left behind and disappeared from her sight.
Something was ahead.
Tanya abruptly halted. The wind following her brushed through her fur. In front of her stood a knight, cloaked in black robes, riding a black-furred Venon, blocking the path. An eerie, ghost-like aura filled the air around him.
‘Kagua?’
Before Tanya left for her travels in Acrand, there was an unsettling rumor in Lutia. It was said that a Venon with an impossible black fur appeared, ridden by a ghost, and people called it ‘Kagua’. At that time, Tanya wanted to verify the truth of the rumor and had chased the ghost knight. But it was too fast and left no traces, almost as if it were a real ghost.
Even in the Sky Mountains, where strange events were commonplace, there was a cause and effect. Thus, she was convinced that the black-furred Venon and the knight appearing like a ghost were not actual ghosts but entities in Lutia with a specific purpose. However, it had not appeared again before Tanya left on her journey, and her mind was occupied with searching for Tailed as she roamed the continent, so she had completely forgotten about it. Yet, now, here it was.
Tanya waited for the other’s reaction first. The identity of Kagua was a mystery she had long wanted to solve, but now was not the time for that.
‘When I wanted to know you and chased after you, you fled. So, just disappear now as well.’
Tanya lowered her stance in case the opponent decided to attack, instinctively growling softly from her wolf form, which seemed to reveal her frightened state of mind.
Kagua glanced at Tanya for a while before leisurely pulling on the reins in the Venon’s mouth.
‘It’s a relief. It seems he’s backing off.’
At the moment, the existence of the dragon, Kassel, and Tuktuk was enough to give her a headache. Kagua slowly receded into the thicket atop the lazily moving Venon. Dawn was approaching, but it was still dark, and Kagua’s figure quickly vanished due to the black cloak and the darkness.
Tanya steadied her trembling legs and got up.
At that moment, a spear flew from the direction where the black knight had disappeared, embedding itself right in front of Tanya’s feet. Had she not instinctively moved, her front paw would have been severed by the spear.
Tanya sidestepped. Although her magical power was slightly weaker in her wolf form, she didn’t have the luxury of time to transform back into a human. She cast a spell while remaining a wolf.
A magical aura formed in front of the wolf’s forehead, materializing into a blue orb. The orb exploded, sending blue light forward. The light precisely hit the target hiding among the bushes.
The hidden darkness burst open, and Kagua’s body, concealed within, was lit up in blue flames. It was a much farther distance than she had anticipated.
‘To throw a spear from there to here with such speed and accuracy?’
Despite being directly hit by Tanya’s magic, the figure moved as if unharmed. Normally, a person would have frozen solid from the waist up and died instantly, or if wearing armor, turned into a hard statue fit only for wall decoration. Yet, the figure, still with blue flames clinging to him, spurred the Venon towards Tanya at a pace that seemed to rival her own sprinting speed in her wolf form.
‘Now’s not the time for this.’
Tanya bit the spear embedded in the ground, flung it aside, and fled towards the forest.
Even as she fled, Tanya ran in the direction she had been following Kassel. The sound of the Venon’s hooves chasing her grew closer. Apparently, a wolf couldn’t outrun a Venon in the forest. However, for some reason, Kagua gradually slowed down and eventually disappeared from her sight. It seemed he was no longer pursuing her.
Tanya continued running without letting her guard down. After a while, she paused to listen for the sound of Venon’s hooves or any other signs of pursuit. It seemed like she was no longer being followed.
Tanya sniffed the ground, picking up Kassel’s trail again. However, the dragon’s traces had disappeared.
‘What was that?’
Now she had one more thing to consider.
The sorcerer in black robes, the dragon, Tuktuk, and now Kagua.
☆ ☆ ☆
Tanya skipped searching and kept running. Only Kassel’s traces remained as the dragon’s had vanished. Now the forest was entering an area with comparatively fewer trees, which would be advantageous for any large pursuer, and it was flat ground, making it easier for a dragon to run than the earlier downhill. Yet, there was no pursuit.
‘Why is that? Nothing makes sense. I might as well run without thinking.’
Tanya suddenly wondered if the place where the dragon stopped chasing coincided with where Kagua appeared.
‘Was it because Kagua was blocking the path that the dragon couldn’t come?’
Rather than adding clues, it only increased her confusion. Moreover, instead of the monster’s traces disappearing, other traces increased.
Tanya immediately stopped in her tracks.
Tanya, now in her wolf form, had her senses sharpened, allowing her to pinpoint the location of those nearby based on the sound. However, the opponents, having good hearing and vision, noticed Tanya’s approach and moved towards her direction.
Tanya transformed back into her human form and gripped the orb in her hand. A faint blue light enveloped her body. Minor spells would be repelled by this magic, and any sword or arrow would break upon contact with the blue mist.
Soon, the beings approaching Tanya revealed themselves from between the bushes. Dozens of round, doll-like eyes set in faces with elongated, slit pupils glared at her. Their long ears drooped, their skin was white, and their dark hair, a mix of green and blue, intertwined among the trees. White feathered wings on their backs fluttered in a rhythm akin to breathing.
They were the Lemifs of the Sky Mountains, armed with spears and bows.
One of them spoke.
[Ag yoe moru yoev moedl u ba yoe, ugeh wazaiybt.]
Lemif voices are always soft, like singing, but this voice sounded like a warning or a threat.
Surrounded by more than ten spears and bows, proper conversation was impossible. Tanya raised her hands in a gesture of peace. Even this small movement made them twitch their spears, ready to attack.
The fact they warned rather than attacked outright suggested they weren’t intent on immediate aggression. Trusting the inherently gentle nature of Lemifs, Tanya quietly pondered their words.
Tanya had learned a bit of the Lemif language through Master Golbein, so she could understand to some extent. However, speaking was her weak point. Moreover, she hadn’t used either skill for a long time, making her uncertain.
At least the last two words were clear. ‘Ugeh’ meant ‘fairy,’ the word Lemifs used for ‘human,’ and ‘wazaiybt’ was ‘sorcerer.’ They knew Tanya was a sorcerer.
Pretending not to understand, Tanya pointed to her ears, prompting the Lemif who had threatened her to repeat the phrase.
This time, Tanya understood their message completely.
‘Speak and you die, human sorcerer.’
Tanya closed her mouth, which she had opened to introduce herself.
[Goho mu.]
That was easy to understand.
‘Follow.’
Without provoking them, as they had threatened to kill her if she spoke, Tanya followed them.
After being attacked by the sorcerer in black robes and pursued by a creature presumed to be a dragon, and following the vanished traces of Kassel only to be attacked by a ghost appearing in Lutia, and now Lemifs had appeared?
Looking at the morning sun rising between the trees, she solved at least one mystery. The dragon stopped chasing because this was Lemif territory. It was highly likely that Kagua also stopped pursuing for the same reason. However, her many questions became more complicated with the appearance of the Lemifs.
‘What about Tuktuk?’
Lemifs don’t wear shoes, but the shoe prints belonging to Tuktuk in the mud were clear. Unless a Lemif wore shoes, the person who saved Kassel, Tuktuk, was human. And if Tuktuk truly saved Kassel, then he had brought Kassel into Lemif territory.
Tanya returned to her initial question.
‘Who exactly is it?’
–TL Notes–
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