"I think I just heard a scream. Who met any dangerous monsters?"
One of the contestants, the Marquis of Graz, rubbed his fluffy back and muttered.
Count Rosen, who was standing beside him, with his back to the tree, laughed.
"I don't think so, I don't see a single rat, let alone a monster."
They had dropped out of the convention in the middle of the tournament.
They were quite confident in hunting monsters, but this time they couldn't help it.
Even though they wandered for a long time in the west of the forest infested with monsters, they did not encounter a single monster, so it was impossible to hunt the mat all.
The situation was the same for everyone.
Except for the Marquis of Graz and Count Rosen, the other participants also said that they searched for the monster for several hours but found nothing.
There were already a few stragglers nearby, chatting and killing time.
The Marquis of Graz spoke again.
"It's really weird. The Schettenholz Forest is famous for being infested with monsters. Especially on the west side of the forest. But why can't I see anything like this?"
Hearing the question he muttered to himself, Count Rosen pondered and opened his mouth.
"I'm not sure, but... I think it is probably because of His Highness the Grand Duchess Letie."
"Why is His Highness the Grand Duchess?"
"She is the savior of the empire. It may just be a rumor, but it is said that the savior has special powers. The power to purify monsters?"
"Purification?"
The Marquis of Graz asked as if he didn't know anything, and Count Rosen lowered his voice again.
"This is a story I heard from my grandmother a long time ago, but in the distant past, monsters weren't as ferocious as they are now. At that time, it was not a monster, but a very good and beautiful being called a 'spirit'..."
"Oh. I heard that when I was a child. The story of Frida, the creator god, and the two guardians."
The Marquis of Graz pressed his rolled cigarette to the floor and thought about what he had heard.
When gods were still by the side of humans, this land was the garden of Frida, the creator god.
Frida used this vast land as a garden to cultivate flowers, and the most special flower was a flower called 'Lyssenblume'.
Frida loved and cherished Lyssemblume more than anything else, so she created two special guardians to protect it.
Lian, the guardian of the day.
Norde, the guardian of the night.
When the sun was up, Lian guarded the flowers, and when the moon was up, Norde guarded the flowers.
While the sun and the moon changed positions thousands or tens of thousands of times, they faithfully protected the flowers. But...
"Lian, one of the guardians of the Goddess' Flower, betrayed her and stole Lyssenblume. To give it to the fairy he loved... Did you say that the gods were furious because of this, and as a result, the spirits also lost their sense and turned into monsters and attacked humans?"
Hearing the story of the Marquis of Graz, Count Rosen shook his head.
"The Marquis knew about it, didn't you?"
"It's a story that the elderly used to tell me from a long time ago. So you mean that the monsters were purified by Letie's power and disappeared?"
"Isn't that possible?"
"No way. It's just an oral tale."
It was literally an oral tale that was secretly passed down from mouth to mouth.
It is a well-known story, so there may be some data left behind it, but, strangely, there was no material related to it anywhere in the empire.
There were only rumors circulating secretly that the imperial family had burned them all.
The Marquis of Graz was about to take out a new cigarette and talk about the tale again.
Count Rosen suddenly turned his head to the east.
"Hmm? I think I just heard a scream..."
"Look, I didn't hear anything wrong."
When he first heard it, he thought it might have been the wrong sound of the wind.
But if both the Marquis and the Count had heard the sound, there was no need to doubt it anymore.
The Marquis put the cigarette back into the crockery and his expression hardened.
"I don't have a good feeling. Maybe someone has encountered a dangerous monster."
"Shall I go to help?"
"If a truly dangerous monster has appeared, we will not be enough. It would be better to go back and inform Her Highness the Grand Duchess about the situation."
Since there was no game, it was impossible to hunt anyway.
Someone might even be in a dangerous situation.
They began to walk back the way they had come with a sharp pace.
***
Around the time when the contestants gave up hunting and were gathering in the clearing.
At the place where the screams that the Marquis and Count heard originated, a wild scream erupted again.
"Ugh, ugh!!"
The assassin who was about to slash Kishian's throat, unfortunately survived the lone survivor and writhed with his broken fingers in his grip.
The one who broke his finger, Kishian, stared silently at the assassin lying on the floor for a moment.
Then, at some point.
Wooddeok-
He stomped on the assassin's knee with his feet in thick leather boots.
The eerie sound of dislocation and intense pain burned the assassin's mind black.
The screams that had barely stopped rang out again.
"Ugh! Ugh! Ahh!!"
He gave him a pleading look as if he would rather kill him, but Kishian didn't want to kill the assassin easily.
The Immediate goal was not to end the life of this servile man, but to find out who was behind the assassination commission.
So Kishian sat down on one knee and made eye contact with the assassin.
Later, when he saw the eerie golden eye, he turned to the frozen assassin and asked in a low voice.
"Tell me. Who did it?"
"I... I don't know, I don't know. I just received a request, a request."
Even though he had already broken his bones in several places, the assassin was repeating the same words like a parrot.
I don't know, I just received the request, and I have never seen the client's face.
Thinking it was an obvious excuse, Kishian twisted the corners of his mouth and smiled.
"Was you sent by the Emperor?"
"Oh, no, I really don't know..."
Before he could finish saying "Puck!" a heavy fist struck the assassin's face.
After striking the Assassin by the scruff of the neck, Kishian warned him not to faint.
"If you say you don't know again, I'll break your neck bones like this."
"Ugh, cough...!"
"Tell me. I asked you who ordered you."
He grabbed the assassin's throat threateningly to extract an answer.
Unfortunately, he failed to control his strength.
Perhaps he had squeezed him too hard, and the assassin's eyes turned white. He spewed out bubbles and swayed, and finally, he went limp and fainted.
“...Tsk.”
Kishian slapped him a few times to wake him up again, but he didn't wake up.
Realizing that he could not interrogate him any further, the Kishan first began to tie the assassin to a nearby tree, using the rope he had brought with him for hunting.
Of course, it wasn't a good way to kill them so casually.
Another assassin might show up and take away his comrades, and if he did, the interrogation would be completely watered down.
However, the tournament was still in progress, so there was not much to do.
For now, he had to focus on killing the monsters.
As he tied up the stunned assassin, he thought for a moment.
'Are they sent by the Emperor?'
The foolish Emperor had already sent assassins to the Kishian himself, unaware of his subject.
Even though he could have taken the imperial palace and taken his life, he was generous enough to save him.
He must have sent an assassin with a grudge against him for it.
He was the only one who could aim for Kishian's throat.
"..."
Kishian, who had been thinking about it, suddenly silently gritted his teeth.
Is the Emperor the only one who can send an assassin?
It wasn't. There was another person who wanted to ignore the truth or who could have sent him an assassin.
A woman who was forcibly brought in even though she did not want to marry and became a Grand Duchess.
No wonder she had sent an assassin to kill her husband.
"..."
It could happen at any time, and it was
something he had expected to some extent.
When he was confronted with a situation in which the Grand Duchess might have used her hands, a strange pain welled up deep in his chest.
He stood up before the pain was completely swallowed up.
Even if the sender of the assassin was Indeed the Grand Duchess, even if it turned out to be, he still had a promise to fulfill.
To obtain the golden Lyssenblume, the Kishian resumed the monster hunt.
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