“Are you out of your mind?!” the young man who so kindly dragged me on his back across the forest yelled, his voice nearly cracking. “Where is your father?”

  I was about to tell him that I didn’t know who my Father was, and was planning to ask my Mother at a more appropriate time, when someone else interfered.

  “Kal, you’re falling back. Keep running!” The man who initially jerked me away from before the tree and threw me onto the back of this young man barked with a look over his shoulder.

  Kal sped up, cursing under his breath, trying to work his legs fast enough to reach the back of the group.

  From his back, I could see that the group had a total of five people. Of those, two were women seemingly in their mid twenties, with another blond one looking much younger than them. Then we had Kal and the man at the front who had grays in his hair.

  Soul vision still active, I caught the colorful hues radiating from the two men in the group. They were Knights. Kal had streaks of thick bronze clinging about him, but the older man’s hue was decisively silver. The women were different. Their colors were a faint, almost undetectable bronze mostly concentrated around their abdomen, which could only mean one thing.

  They were Mages of the Bronze Rank.

  We dashed past through the bushes, around thick treelines, making our way toward the ambush prepared to receive the group in the distance. The Spikeback Lizards ushered us toward our fast approaching end with enthusiastic hisses, their hardened spikes crashing easily past the trees, sending splinters of wood and gravel scattering about the forest.

  I was about to warn the older man about the danger waiting for us when he slid to a stop and gestured for the group to do the same. Kal stumbled a step and nearly banged into one of the Mages, but to his credit, he managed to put me back to the ground without crashing into someone.

  “Why did we stop? They’re coming—” Kal tried to say, but was shushed by the older man who glared right through him, toward the Spikeback Lizards hiding between the trees.

  “We’re surrounded.” The explanation came from one of the women in the group as she grimaced and raised her staff to her chest, adorned with three circular jewels fitted to its top. She had her hair cut short, her white blouse stained with drops of blood, leather trousers covered in mud-like patches. Her eyes were green.

  “Shit,” Kal said.

  “I can smell at least two of them out there,” the older man said as he sucked in a generous amount of air through his nose and clasped his sword. It looked nothing like Beatrice. “There’s likely more. Meris, can you?”

  The green-eyed woman tapped her staff once on the ground, one of the jewels cocked on top of it glowing with a golden light. Soon the golden lights spread across the distance and covered a good deal of the forest, which proved just enough to highlight three hulking figures between the trees.

  “There’s one more,” she said, looking as though she’d chewed on rotten meat. “That makes it six.”

  The middle-aged guy nodded grimly, then turned and jabbed a finger at Kal. “Take your sisters and the child. Get them to the camp as fast as you can. Don’t look back.”

  “Father, I’m not leaving you here,” Kal said, his grip on his sword tightening. “We can take them on. If we separate—”

  “Your sisters are not in a position to fight. I’m not going to risk any of you. You’ll do as I say,” the man glared down at his son with strength. “Take them to the camp.”

  “It is my fault…” the younger-looking woman, who I thought was at best twenty years old, murmured with tears trickling down her eyes. “This is my fault…”

  Two hands reached out to her quickly, clamping down on her shoulders, supporting her to stand on her feet.

  So this was a family situation.

  The middle-aged guy was the father. He had three daughters who were all Mages and a Bronze Knight son. I didn’t know the whole story, but normally, a group like this shouldn’t have any problem dealing with a bunch of Bronze rank creatures.

  Obviously, something wasn’t right here.

  There was a problem.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to go out of the forest,” I decided to say, gesturing at the whole group, including the father. “You can go, though. I can take care of these guys.”

  Spikeback Lizards were cruel, insidious creatures, but that was only true when they caught you unprepared. I would rather face them alone than have to constantly check on my other, more vulnerable, party members. Especially the Mages.

  As Belfray had said so many times, Mages were fickle things. They probably couldn’t even take a hit from these monsters, which was what their father must’ve been afraid of before ultimately deciding to send them off with their brother.

  Cool guy.

  “You?” Kal said, glancing down at me before his eyes widened as they focused on my sword. “Where did you find that? You stole it?”

  “He must’ve gotten lost. Look at him. He’s in shock,” the green-eyed woman said with a tilt of her staff, her face softening. “Poor thing. Don’t worry, we’ll get you to safety as fast as we can.”

  “That sword must be important to you,” said the other woman, the one that looked like an exact copy of the staff-carrying one, but with longer hair and no visible magical tools at her disposal. She stretched a hand out toward me. “I can carry it for you.”

  I had never, in both my lives, witnessed such a united act of compassion from strangers that for a second I thought I was dreaming. Now obviously I wasn’t talking about Kal, but these women were… too kind. I could see genuine sympathy in their eyes, which made it indefinitely harder to refuse their tempting offer.

  “Leave,” the father said with a voice that cut all the noise. He hefted his sword and glanced back to the way we’d come. “Now.”

  I did the same.

  The three Spikeback Lizards who lured the group here were crawling out of the bushes. Kal hesitated when he saw them, but under his father’s urging glare, he finally decided to drag me out with his sisters to safety. Or tried to. I didn’t budge from where I stood.

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  “Move, you little—” he lost his voice somewhere around mid-sentence after he pulled at my arm again. “How are you so strong? What—”

  “I’ll take the ones in the back.” I nodded toward the father who scowled at his son. “You can take care of those in the front, sir. Okay. One. Two. Three. Split!”

  I jerked my wrist free from Kal’s hold, moved around the women and toward the three hissing beasts crawling closer from behind. Beatrice’s tip gleamed almost eagerly as I considered my approach. I couldn’t be careless about this. I couldn’t let these beasts get around me and reach the Mages of the group. I had to make sure their focus remained on me.

  And yet I couldn’t risk a frontal approach. Nature had been a bit partial to Spikeback Lizards from their birth since their heads and most of their front side were covered in an elastic, drippy liquid that hardened on any touch. The hard spikes on their backs were a no-go as well since they weren’t dissimilar to a porcupine’s spikes; in fact they were thicker and meaner to deal with.

  But as with most things, these creatures had a weak spot. If I remembered my lessons with Belfray right, these monsters had quite the sensitive butts. So I would have to do something I didn’t want to. I had to betray Beatrice’s trust.

  I launched myself from the ground with a Quick Step by tapping myself on the forehead, a simple Grade 1 Practical Rune that basically pushed me away from the ground with a blast of air, feeling the wind splashing freely across my face as I flew toward one of the low-hanging branches of a thick tree. I was not even a novice when it came to utilizing practical runes, but as they said, practice was the only way to perfect something.

  So I pressed my index finger into my palm before I reached the branch, feeling the Grade 1 Soft Anchor rune activate from the ring-shaped strip I wrapped around my finger. Knowing this would make anything stick to me until I blinked, I grabbed the branch when I reached it and swung myself forward with all the momentum I carried.

  With a blink, I let go of the Rune and was sent flying over the three surprised Spikeback Lizards, and landed with perfect grace right behind them. Beatrice was up and ready when I floundered to my feet and trained my eyes on the beast standing out to the left.

  Its butt wasn’t the round, fleshy sight I expected. There was some layer of the hardening liquid on it, but the quantity was visibly much lesser than it was on the front side. Aiming Beatrice’s tip to one of the open spots, I stabbed with my Grade 2 Strengthening Rune powering my arms.

  The weapon squelched a clear sound as it drilled from under the long tail, into the soft flesh, carving a smooth line across the creature that stretched from its butt to nearly its head. It didn’t have a chance to perform a spike shower before it breathed its last. That was a dangerous move any Spikeback Lizard would use when they sensed danger.

  Done with the first beast, I wasted no time to move onto the second one, pulling Beatrice out of the now fully dead creature. The remaining lizards were quick to react, swinging tails dangerously with one of them preparing to launch its spikes. That was bad news. I didn’t actually think one of them would risk a spike shower when it was so close to its companion.

  The reason revealed itself soon enough. The lizard on the right turned its side when its brother — or sister, it was hard to tell — let go of its long, hard spikes, essentialy positioning its tough front side to brace against the impact. In seconds, the spikes exploded into thousands of pieces right after they lost contact with that membrane-like liquid that covered the creature’s body, most of them bouncing harmlessly off the other lizard’s shielded side. Others came drilling toward me in a cloud of shrapnel.

  Another Quick Step consumed a fair amount of soul energy and sent me flying to the side, where I followed it with a Soft Anchor to pull myself behind a tree. I heard the splinters of hard spikes crunch into the wide bark, chips of wood flying around me as I made myself as small as possible.

  It wasn’t until I was sure the shower was over that I risked a glance and looked over the situation.

  The two remaining lizards were glaring with beady eyes toward me. Of those, the one who carried out the spike shower didn’t look so dangerous anymore. Without the spikes, it resembled a big lizard covered in a sticky, green liquid, no different than a turtle that’d shed its shell.

  Beyond them, the family situation was a little intense. Me taking half the creatures definitely alleviated the pressure for them, but the Mages were awfully silent and still. It soon dawned on me why their colors had initially seemed so faint and almost blurry.

  Their mana was low, and now I could hardly see any colors about them.

  Which turned them into normal humans.

  The father–son duo, on the other hand, were putting in some work. They’d already handled one of the creatures and were about to send the second one into a good rest. To be fair, the Father was the one who carried most of the load, with his son only providing limited support and looking as though he was afraid to interfere with his father’s rhythm.

  That was a good call. The difference between a Silver Knight and a Bronze Knight was big enough that his father was probably finding it easier to fight alone. I felt very much the same. After all, I could be considered a Silver Knight in terms of power with my set of Grade 2 Runes.

  Then again, they looked like they could use some help. I decided I might as well lend them a hand.

  ……

  Meris’s POV

  I’d seen Knights fight before. I’d even fought beside a few in my apprenticeship years, clumsy and overeager as I was back then. And I’d seen plenty of monsters, but I had never, in my life, seen a child move like that.

  It was like watching a Greytooth bolting across the forest with purpose, knowing where to exactly land, which branch to pull, and when to pounce on its prey. Not even father was capable of doing that, but this child could somehow keep up with the wind.

  I’d initially thought of helping him with my last Mana Bolt stored in one of my Spell Holders, but soon I realized there wasn’t actually a window that I could chime in. He didn’t leave any openings. He was in and out before the lizards or anyone, for that matter, could react.

  Therefore I pulled my sisters to my back and stood before them, watching this odd scene with amazement, not really sure when I stopped being afraid and started feeling glad to have chanced upon such a strange creature.

  None of this would have happened had Renis listened to me and stayed in the camp. But no, she had to sneak out into the forest in the middle of the night, thinking she could find one of the rare medicinal herbs and prepare a healing elixir for all the sick people waiting in the camp.

  My sister had a saint’s compassion and had the potential to be a good Healer in the future, but there was a reason why medicinal herbs were so rare to begin with. Beasts consumed them whenever they were hurt, which was why they never left one out in the open without protection. On the slim chance that she actually managed to snatch one from the forest, then she had to hand it to the army lest she would be punished for theft.

  After all, this plane and everything inside it belonged to the Palark Kingdom.

  We were just slaves to be exploited.

  I turned around and glanced to my father, my heart thundering in my chest. I saw his sword cutting through the thick membrane of another lizard, pushing past into its heart, blood pouring out into his face. I saw Kal hesitating right behind him, looking as though he wasn't sure what he should do or if there was anything he could do in this situation.

  He was only eighteen years old. That he’d become a Bronze Knight by the age of sixteen was enough to put him above many of his peers in the village, which was why it instilled in him a sense of false confidence that led him to believe that he could, if he wanted, take care of himself and his family when needed.

  That was one of the reasons why we came here in the first place. To teach Kal humility and help our unfortunate neighbours in the process as best as we could.

  Instead, we were the ones who needed help right now, and we found our savior to be a ten-year-old kid who looked like he’d made a habit of slaughtering magical beasts before his nap time.

  I heard a loud squelch, followed by something large crashing to the ground. I couldn’t turn my head fast enough, my heart beating in my throat.

  The child wasn’t there.

  All that remained of the three Spikebacks were mangled heaps of flesh, their bodies carved open so neatly it made my stomach twist. Before I could process it, a rush of air swept past my face. A blur vaulted over me and landed beside Kal, slipping around him with effortless grace before driving a blade straight into the last lizard’s skull, stopping it inches from reaching father.

  “He’s…” Reni, my youngest sister, muttered weakly at the sight. “How?”

  “I can't believe I just told him I could carry his sword because I thought it’d be too heavy for him,” Lera, my other sister, covered her face in shame.

  I opened my mouth to say something, but words just eluded me.

  Who in Earth’s grace was this child?

  .........

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