Chapter Five
THERE WERE FEWER LIGHTS ON IN THE CASTLE TOWN than usual. The city below my window felt heavy and quiet, and I had to fight the tears that pricked at the corners of my eyes.
More than a week had passed since we returned to Bern. We’d dropped everything once we received the news and rushed home.
Lucas and the Black and White Order of Knights hadn’t returned to the capital even once since then. They’d been out in the border forest this entire time hunting monsters and searching for Lucas’s mentor, Marshal Webber.
The whole thing began with a traveling merchant from Majaar, who’d taken a desperate gamble to save a sick child from the brink of death.
“They said if I went to the Abyss in the border forest and offered a sacrifice, a monster with incredible healing power would be born… And if I could defeat it and bring back its core, it would save my child!”
Someone had tricked him. Desperate, he entered the forest with a mercenary he hired from the guild, and that’s when they found Marshal Webber’s unit.
The knights refused to let him enter, of course.
The abyss was a sacred place, untouched by humans. No one even fully understood why dragons and powerful monsters came from there. The only reason it hadn’t unleashed any catastrophes was because of the intervention of Heroes with divine power.
There were several abysses across the continent, and it was believed they were all somehow connected to the Depths. That meant that even if Bern controlled the border forest’s abyss, any decisions they made regarding it were subject to the Egrich Empire’s authority, since they oversaw the Depths itself.
It wasn’t a place someone could just delve into on a whim, not even with Lucas the Hero.
But suddenly, a stranger showed up, somehow already knowing that a miraculous monster would appear from our abyss? It was too suspicious to ignore.
Marshal Webber told the man he couldn’t allow it and was going to bring him back to the capital for questioning. But the man wouldn’t be refused. He drank the offering, turning himself into a beastman, and broke through the knights’ ranks to throw himself into the abyss.
The monster that consumed him grew violent and aggressive, crawling out of the abyss. Other monsters followed. The knights had no choice but to try to hold them back.
And the day that man threw himself into the abyss was the same day the horde of wyrms attacked Aram.
“Haah…” I heaved a sigh as I sorted through everything I’d been told.
After Prince Akeem’s betrayal came to light, Prince Islan secretly ordered a census of Canaan. At the time, no residents were reported missing. And since traveling merchants didn’t have permanent homes, they weren’t counted among them. Also, no one thought anyone would willingly become a beastman. No one imagined a desperate father would be manipulated like that.
“I’m sorry, but if the monster appears, please use its core for my daughter!” He cried and begged forgiveness from the knights as he ran toward the abyss.
Whether it was that plea that moved him or something else, Marshal Webber hurried after the merchant into the abyss, and he still hadn’t returned.
A sacrifice… A monster with powerful healing powers… A beastman capable of speech…
The only conclusion I could reach in my head made me shiver.
“They created a divine beast… On the level of a dragon.”
Marshal Webber was incredibly strong, but now that Lucas had bonded with Eckesachs, he no longer had access to the divine weapon. All he had was an ordinary sword.
And dragons couldn’t be slain except by a divine weapon. That was why a Hero always had to be dispatched to fight them.
The moment the truth sank in, everyone turned to Lucas.
So it’s your fault the marshal jumped into the abyss.
Why did you have to bond with Eckesachs?
Whispers of suspicion spread through the council chamber. Lucas didn’t respond. He didn’t even flinch. He just kept staring at the massive map of the continent spread out before him and quietly gave orders.
“I’ll take Barn and check everything outside the capital myself. Start securing the areas closest to the city. Leon, don’t deploy in standard formation. Use one optimized for taking down Rank-A targets. Make sure every White Knight is paired with a defensive knight and send in your heavy hitters to finish the job quickly.”
His calm, detached voice was so sharp and cold as it echoed across the war council chamber. The Azure Knights didn’t know Lucas that well, and they stared on in disbelief. Their confusion turned to anger, and someone actually shouted, “You’re not even trying to rescue your mentor, you ungrateful bastard?!”
Leon tried to diffuse the tension, and so did the vice-captains Carl and Alphonse. But it didn’t matter. The air turned ice-cold after that one accusation, and dozens of harsh eyes turned their ire on Lucas.
“Please don’t let them hurt you any more than this…”
I pressed my hand to the window, watching as golden mana bloomed beneath my fingers. It shimmered in the glass, mirroring the shape of my palm. It looked like a prayer, because it was.
You wouldn’t know it from the outside, but I knew how shaken he was.
Ever since the moment we heard Marshal Webber hadn’t come back, I had been confined to my room, and Lucas had forbidden anyone from seeing me without his express permission. He wouldn’t even let the maids open the windows.
His behavior, which swung from one extreme to the next, had tanked his reputation, but I couldn’t argue with him. The cage of golden light was a defensive barrier meant to protect me, not imprison me, after all. It was to keep him from losing me, in the same way he feared he’d lost his mentor.