The ancient forest seemed to stretch on endlessly, the heavy air thick with the scent of damp moss and the incessant, low hum of hidden insects. For six grueling hours, we had marched without a single second of rest—no breaks, no shade, just the rhythmic, torturous crunch of grass and tangled roots beneath our boots. My unathletic human legs were screaming for mercy, my throat burned like wildfire, and my patience had officially crossed its absolute threshold.
"Hey! Human lady! Exactly how much longer do we have to trek through this wilderness until we actually arrive?!" I finally shouted from the back of the line, bent over and panting like a dying dog.
Rosella didn't even bother spinning around to face me. "For a monstrous race that is supposedly endowed with ten times the physical strength of an average human, you certainly complain an incredible amount," she replied, her melodic voice entirely calm but laced with effortless mockery. "If you must know, we will reach Lumeris—the magnificent capital city of the Arvania Kingdom—in approximately two hours."
We're heading straight to the imperial capital? I blinked, a sudden wave of genuine relief momentarily easing my physical frustration. Okay, so that means they definitely won't execute me out here in the woods. At the very least, my lifespan is extended by two hours.
But my hyperactive curiosity quickly clawed its way to the surface. "Uh, wait a minute… if I remember the regional lore correctly, aren't all captured demons immediately executed upon entering the capital? Why do you humans insist on dragging exactly one of us back with your tax crates every single month?"
Rosella let out a heavy, deeply irritated sigh, muttering beneath her breath, "And this is precisely the reason I despise seasonal tax collection duty… being fundamentally forced to make casual conversation with a low-tier demon completely ruins my mood."
She raised her voice slightly so it carried over the sound of armor plates clanking. "Don't flatter yourself, captive. Not every single demon is sent straight to the chopping block. Unless, of course, you happen to be one of the high-ranking heretics—like the elusive Demon Queen or her inner circle of fanatical followers."
A cold bead of sweat slowly slid down the back of my neck. So the truth hasn't actually spread to the public yet… they still don't know the exact identity of the human who masterminded the Demon Queen's prison break.
But my fleeting sense of safety was instantly crushed into dust when Rosella's tone turned entirely glacial.
"I still find it utterly mathematically impossible to believe that a human being actively helped that monster escape our high-security dungeon," she hissed, her fingers tightening around her silver staff. "What kind of blind, pathetic idiot fails to distinguish the physical difference between a righteous human and a literal demon? If I ever manage to locate that treacherous fool, I will personally fill his entire body with consecrated holy water until his stomach physically bursts from the pressure."
"Haha… a-ahaha… yeah, wow. What a total moron…" I forced out an incredibly high-pitched, nervous laugh, desperately trying to suppress the absolute tsunami of panic rising in my chest. Yeah, note to self: never, under any circumstances, let this woman find out my real name.
She glanced back briefly over her shoulder, her sharp lavender eyes narrowing into a dangerous squint. "You know, I serve as a high-ranking holy priestess of the Grand Church of Arvania. I have personally stood on the front lines alongside Sir Hero himself… yet I have never in my entire career encountered such a bizarre demon. You talk way too much."
Turning back around, she abruptly accelerated her pace, her elegant green dress swaying as she made it crystal clear the conversation was officially over. That was my cue to shut my mouth and blend back into the scenery.
Two Hours Later
After another hour and a half of pure physical torture, the dense treeline finally gave way to a massive, imposing rock formation. Nestled into the cliffside was a gargantuan cave—tall, jagged, and yawning wide like the cavernous jaws of some ancient, subterranean beast.
"We are almost through the mountain pass," Rosella announced to the squad, raising her glowing silver staff to ignite a bright magical torchlight. "Stay alert, everyone. This specific cavern system is known to be crawling with aggressive ground goblins."
Then, her sharp gaze snapped violently back to me. She pointed the blazing tip of the torch directly at my face. "And as for you… stay exactly three paces away from me. Attempt a single suspicious movement, or cast a single rogue spell, and—"
With a fluid, terrifyingly practiced motion, she slipped a short, silver-gleaming dagger from the folds of her green cloak, the sharp edge reflecting off my wide, terrified pupils.
"—I will purify your soul right where you stand."
"Y-Yes, ma'am. Understood. Crystal clear," I croaked out, doing my absolute best to look anywhere but at the razor-sharp blade.
We officially entered the cave. Instantly, the ambient temperature plummeted to near-freezing, the air turning thick, heavy, and laden with stagnant dampness. The standard torches carried by the infantrymen flickered violently, their meager illumination seemingly swallowed whole by the oppressive, ink-black darkness stretching ahead.
Exactly eight heavily armored soldiers surrounded us in a tight, impenetrable defensive box—four leading the vanguard in front, four securing the rearguard behind, and two maintaining a strict perimeter at our flanks. Rosella walked dead in the center of the formation, her manicured hand keeping a viciously tight grip around the coarse fiber rope bound to my wrists.
Each echoing step we took deeper into the earth added to the primordial chill creeping up my spine. My deliberately torn villager shirt and ragged pants offered absolutely zero insulation against the freezing subterranean drafts. Compared to the soldiers' thick steel breastplates and heavy wool cloaks, I was practically naked in an icebox.
I rubbed my bare arms desperately, shivering so violently my teeth were practically chattering. Seeking even a fraction of human body heat, I quietly closed the physical gap between myself and the priestess, stepping closer than allowed.
"Um… excuse me, Lady Priestess," I whispered softly, leaning in near her ear to ensure the surrounding guards wouldn't overhear my weakness.
Unfortunately, because I was freezing to death, a heavy gust of my incredibly icy breath hit the bare, sensitive skin of her exposed neck well before the actual words did.
"W-Whaaa… ahhh~!"
Rosella jerked forward instantly as if she had been struck by lightning. Her shoulders trembled violently as an incredibly muffled, profoundly strange noise—somewhere entirely between a shocked gasp and a high-pitched moan—escaped her lips. The highly suggestive sound echoed with embarrassing, crystal-clear resonance through the quiet, stone tunnel.
Every single soldier in the formation stopped dead in their tracks, instantly whipping their heads around in absolute, stunned bewilderment.
Rosella's entire face instantly flushed a brilliant, radioactive shade of crimson. "W-WHAT WAS THE MEANING OF THAT?!" she shrieked, her voice cracking as she spun on her heel.
I immediately threw my hands up in a blind panic, waving them defensively despite the constraints of the rope. "N-No! Wait! It is absolutely not what you think! I swear on my life! My breath was just super cold and I leaned in too fast, that's all!"
She glared at me with pure, unadulterated homicidal intent, her flushed cheeks practically glowing in the dim torchlight. "Y-You degenerate—! Explain yourself right this instant before I execute you without trial!"
"I just… I really, really need to pee!" I blurted out at the top of my lungs, completely averting my eyes as my voice cracked into a pathetic squeak.
Her furious, righteous expression froze instantly. The entire elite infantry squad went completely, utterly silent. A heavy, awkward beat passed before one of the rearguard soldiers let out a muffled cough, desperately biting his own lip to prevent himself from bursting into hysterical laughter.
Rosella blinked once. Then twice. She slowly dragged her hand down her face, letting out a long, exhausted groan. "Of course. Of course a historic diplomatic extraction would devolve into this."
"Please," I said, putting on the most pitiful, desperate face I could muster. "If I am forced to hold this any longer, it is going to become a much bigger, much more biological problem for everyone in this tunnel."
She clenched her jaw so tightly I could hear her teeth grind, visibly fighting a civil war between absolute fury and intense awkwardness. Finally, she snapped, throwing her hand outward. "Fine! You!" She pointed directly at a burly guard. "Take him into the side fissure. Actually, take four of you. Ensure the beast does not attempt anything stupid."
"Yes, Ma'am!"
As the four heavy infantrymen aggressively grabbed my shoulders and dragged me toward a side passage, I could hear Rosella's distant, echoing voice muttering in total defeat, "I have successfully mended dying soldiers on a bloody battlefield with far fewer headaches than this single idiot gives me…"
A Few Minutes Later
The four guards led me through a narrow, winding side passage away from the main path, finally stopping near a massive, protruding stalagmite that provided an adequate amount of structural privacy.
"Make it quick, demon," the leading guard grumbled, resting his hand on the pommel of his sword.
"Right, right, nature calls," I muttered, quickly slipping behind the large rock.
Stepping out of their direct line of sight, I quickly manipulated the knots on my wrists. Thanks to the meticulous fiber adjustments Tez had helped me make back at Kraven, the coarse rope around my arms slipped loose with a single, fluid tug. I quietly stuffed the bindings into my waistband.
Then, I focused on the task at hand. "Ahhh…" I let out a massive, full-body sigh of pure, unadulterated relief as the physical tension evaporated. It was an experience that felt almost holy.
Several meters away, the four guards stood in a loose circle, their torches raised high as they conversed in hushed, bored tones.
Then—the air changed.
A faint, sickeningly wet sound echoed from the high ceiling of the cavern. It was soft, foreign, and entirely predatory.
"Did… did you hear that?" one of the guards muttered, his grip tightening on his halberd.
"It's probably just water dripping from the stalactites, stop being paranoid," another replied, shaking his head.
"No. Listen carefully to the shadows—"
The soldier never got the chance to finish his sentence.
A massive, pitch-black blur flashed down from the ceiling like a striking viper, completely cutting through the flickering torchlight. A sickening squelch echoed through the chamber as a torrent of fresh crimson blood splashed violently against the stone wall. The soldier who had been speaking collapsed instantly, his fingers spasming against his sheath as his throat was cleanly torn open.
Before the remaining three guards could even process the casualty or draw their blades, three more hunched, terrifying shapes lunged out from the dark crags—moving with unnatural, blinding speed, their jaws snapping with rabid hunger.
"Amb—!"
The frantic warning was brutally cut short. One by one, the heavily armored men were ruthlessly dragged backward into the absolute darkness of the fissures, the horrifying sounds of razor-sharp claws scraping against steel armor plates and muffled, gurgling screams fading into nothingness within mere seconds.
By the time absolute silence fell over the side passage once more, my entire body felt frozen solid with pure, unadulterated terror. My breath hitched in my throat.
Slowly, carefully, I peeked out from behind the safety of the stalagmite. "...Guys?" I whispered, my voice trembling hesitantly.
No one answered. The erratic flicker of a solitary, fallen torch on the damp ground revealed absolutely nothing but deep smears of fresh blood and a chaotic mess of webbed, clawed footprints.
Then, from the deep, pitch-black void of the upper tunnels—I heard the unmistakable, wet hiss of something moving. Something incredibly large, incredibly fast, and deeply hungry.
My heart instantly leapt right into my throat. "Okay… nope! Absolutely not, I am out of here!"
I spun on my heel and began sprinting with everything my legs had to offer, barreling back toward the safety of the main tunnel. As I ran, my heavy, frantic footsteps echoed wildly off the stone walls like a siren.
The exact moment I rounded the corner back into the main cavern, a deafening wall of sound crashed directly into my senses. Shouting. Steel clashing against bone. Screams of agony.
Rosella and the remaining four vanguard soldiers were trapped in the center of the massive main chamber, completely surrounded. Dozens of feral ground goblins—hideous, muscular, reptilian-faced humanoids—were pouring out from every single crack and crevice in the rock, their yellow eyes gleaming with malicious intent.
The imperial soldiers were fighting desperately, forming a frantic steel wall around their priestess, but they were entirely cornered. They were slowly being pushed back by the sheer, overwhelming weight of the horde.
Rosella stood in the dead center, her face ghostly pale as she clutched her silver staff with both hands. She was desperately trying to maintain a shimmering, pale golden barrier around her remaining men while simultaneously chanting faint, frantic healing prayers. The holy light flickering around the gemstone was weak, trembling, and rapidly fading to black.
Her voice shook with pure physical exhaustion. "You must hold the perimeter! I can't... I mathematically cannot sustain the defensive barrier and cast high-tier healing spells at the same time!"
A soldier let out a horrific shriek as a goblin's jagged rusted dagger tore cleanly across the joints of his armor, dragging him into the swarm. Within seconds, two more infantrymen collapsed under a sea of grasping claws.
I immediately ducked behind a thick stalagmite near the entrance, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird as I watched the carnage unfold. She's a pure support mage… she doesn't possess a single offensive combat spell. If those frontline guards fall, she's completely finished.
My eyes locked onto her trembling form. Despite being a fragile mage who couldn't fight to save her life, she was standing her ground, maintaining that barrier through sheer, stubborn willpower.
Think, Zacken, think! If she dies here, those goblins are going to sniff you out next. Her survival is quite literally your ticket out of this cave.
Reaching into the deep pocket of my ragged villager pants, my frantic fingers fumbled around until they locked onto a smooth, cold object. The hidden Smoke Crystal. The single emergency asset I had intentionally withheld from the council because I knew a situation exactly this catastrophic would eventually happen.
"Well… I guess this is officially as bad as it gets," I whispered to myself, gritting my teeth.
I waited for the absolute perfect tactical moment—the exact second a massive wave of ground goblins swarmed closest to her fading golden barrier.
Lifting my arm, I channeled every single ounce of adrenaline-fueled human strength I possessed and hurled the crystal straight into the dead center of the cavern floor.
CRACK!
The crystal shattered violently upon impact, instantly detonating into an immense, rapidly expanding cloud of thick, violet alchemical smoke that flooded the entire chamber within a fraction of a second. Piercing shrieks and panicked snarls erupted from the darkness as the goblins, relying heavily on their dark-vision, were instantly and completely blinded by the dense fog, stumbling into one another and clawing the air in a frenzy.
Through the thick violet haze, Rosella violently covered her mouth, coughing as her lavender eyes widened in absolute, terrified confusion. "What—what is happening?! Is this an ancestral spell?!"
"Don't waste time asking stupid questions, just move your legs!" I shouted from the depths of the smoke, waving my arm frantically as I stepped out from behind my stalagmite. "This way! Follow my voice!"
Through the shifting curtains of violet fog, Rosella managed to spot the vague outline of my silhouette. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, her imperial instincts telling her to distrust a demon—but looking at the slaughter around her, she made a choice. She firmly gripped her silver staff, shielded the lone remaining torch from the wind, and rushed blindly toward me.
The moment her hand caught my sleeve, I grabbed her wrist and pulled her into a narrow, secondary tunnel I had scouted on the way in. Together, we stumbled blindly into the darkness, the thick cloud of alchemical smoke swallowing the chaotic battlefield and the dying shrieks of the goblins behind us.
We ran blindly through the pitch-black tunnels until the horrific noises of the horde completely faded into nothingness—until there was absolutely nothing left but the frantic, echoing sounds of our own ragged footsteps.
When my legs finally gave out, we collapsed into a small, secluded grotto. Rosella leaned heavily against the damp cave wall, sliding down to the stone floor as she gasped desperately for oxygen. The faint, flickering light of her solitary torch cast long, erratic shadows across her sweat-streaked, utterly exhausted face.
She slowly raised her head, her sharp lavender eyes locking onto me with a mixture of intense suspicion, confusion, and raw vulnerability.
"You… you were the one who caused that detonation?" she breathed out, her voice trembling.
"Y-Yeah," I admitted frankly, sliding down opposite her and leaning my head back against the cold stone as I tried to calm my racing heart. "That was me."
Her brow furrowed deeply, her worldview clearly fracturing. "You actively saved my life? A demon… intentionally putting himself in harm's way to rescue a holy priestess of the realm? Why?"
I let out a weak, thoroughly exhausted human grin, looking at her through my gray-skinned disguise. "Honestly, Lady Priestess? I just really, really didn't want to become goblin food today. Your survival directly guarantees my survival. We're partners in trauma now."
Rosella stared at me for a long, quiet moment. A faint, barely perceptible trace of a genuine smile tugged at the corner of her lips before she promptly rolled her eyes and let out a soft huff.
"Idiot."