Cid swiped the old map… and the dusty, smelly cloak… from the basements hidden underneath the fortress.
They boarded a caravan carrying wounded soldiers and discovered artifacts and resources from the Shadow Monarch's former castle to the Alliance's capitals.
Of course, they snuck on, managing to hide for a couple of days. With Cid's nature and capabilities, it wasn't hard.
But they disengaged as soon as they neared the first military outpost that had been set up close to the border of Heliodor, and continued on their way from there—traversing the rest of the vast region with nothing but an old map.
"It's outdated," Cid deadpanned, finally realizing what the issue was.
The map was old. No… really old. About a couple of decades—or at least a century—and it took both Cid and Pip weeks of walking around aimlessly to realize.
Estan'te had changed a lot over the long centuries and decades of war, including its terrain and infrastructure. And as ancient and powerful as the Shadow Monarch was, he was really just a reclusive and introverted conqueror.
Since he began his conquest, there weren't many reasons for the Monarch of Shadows himself to make an appearance. This was why he had his Shadow Generals, like X'xaldreth and others, handle otherwise mundane tasks in his stead.
"This… this is unexpected." Cid rolled up the map with a heavy expression. "Our adventure is already at a big risk."
The goal was to find the nearest group of civilization; that was why he had blindly marched on to find the nearest river or body of water. To his brief understanding, where there was water, there were usually settlements nearby.
But however old the map was, the terrain had changed enough to make it unreliable—especially for someone as unskilled and unequipped as Cid.
The whole world of Estan'te would be incredulous to find out the great Monarch of Shadows couldn't read a map and was navigationally impaired.
That's polite for "lost cause."
Decades of edgy, reclusive brooding had finally caught up to him.
"Sire—I mean… Cid, isn't this bad?" Pip floated next to him wearily, looking around the forest with tired eyes.
Trees… trees, trees, trees, every damn where!
It had already been three days since they realized they were lost… again. Before that, they'd been wandering around a lot longer without knowing it. Pip was on the cusp of going mad from seeing the same view over and over again.
In the first place, Pip had always had mixed feelings about his master's sudden "change of heart." Although it seemed the Shadow Monarch was clearly unreliable in matters of the mundane—things that didn't involve destruction or marching an army of the dead upon the world.
Cid showed a deep and contemplative expression for a while, pinching his chin in thought as he looked around.
"Relax, Pip. It's not too late to turn this around," he said, a grin making its way onto his face despite the situation. "Challenges like this are what make adventures like this even better. All we need to do is have a change of plans…"
"And what do you suggest we do, my lord?" Pip stared through the gaps in the canopy at the sky with dry eyes, floating on his back languidly. He had mostly given up on his fate at this point.
As much as he couldn't admit it, he didn't fully understand the workings of Cid's mind now, yet he still wanted to wholeheartedly support his former lord and master—not as a subject or subordinate, but as a companion.
Cid unrolled the map, glanced at it once, and then put it away.
"For now… I say we try to get out of this forest, or at least find a path," he said, grabbing the little fur ball in his hands. "You know, like a road where merchants or people pass… or something."
Pip didn't protest against Cid's touch as he was drawn in. He let his small body settle into Cid's fingers like a plushie and asked,
"And how do we do that?"
Cid grinned as he looked at his little friend, a suspicious glint in his eyes. Pip's horns tingled with a bad premonition, and he suddenly became very aware of Cid's hold over him. He could smell a trap.
"Glad you asked, old friend. This is where you come in."
Before Pip could voice a protest, Cid raised a finger and pointed up into the sky.
"You take to the sky with those little wings of yours and scout around. You tell me if you see anything—a road, a path, a river… anything." He grinned.
Pip stared silently, his expression even more deadpan. With a sigh, the black furry companion rose into the forest canopy as Cid let go, his voice trailing after him.
"You know, I really don't think—"
The moment Pip rose just high enough to see above the thick, fluttering trees, his gaze froze toward the east. His expression flickered, tensing.
Although he was quite a bit high up, Cid raised his head—placing his palm over his eyes to shield them from the sunlight—and noticed the change in Pip's demeanor.
"Hm? What's wrong?"
Pip's urgent voice came shortly after.
"There's an ambush… It's an attack!"
All traces of amusement and casualness drained from Cid's face instantly. He stepped to the side and turned toward the direction Pip was facing in the sky, his cold black eyes glinting with a sharp purple hue.
Far Sight.
Cid's vision suddenly expanded omnidirectionally, then narrowed instantly like a tunnel, piercing through the very trunks of trees and bushes and into the vast distance as if reality itself had zoomed in.
In truth, Cid never really needed Pip to scout—because his familiar could fly, he could easily do it himself if he wanted.
His sight landed on something ahead—a couple of hundred meters at best—and his steady voice came shortly.
"Pip. After me."
"Yes." The black bat-like creature nodded sullenly as Cid's figure instantly vanished, dissolving into a pool of shadows that swiftly moved across the forest floor like a specter.
A few meters ahead, a stray merchant wagon was on a collision course with a monster resembling a tiger the size of a mature brown bear.
Its striped and dotted fur stretched over layers of thick, rolling muscles rippling beneath the skin. Massive tusk-like fangs jutted menacingly from its salivating maw. Its tall, broad tail swung like a flail, deliberately dangling behind it.
Its massive paws pressed into the ground as it crouched like a predator on the prowl, lowering its immense body close to the earth. Bloodshot red eyes glinted with hunger.
The wagon froze on its track, the rider tensing in his seat.
"Oh, dear…"
The sight of the monster sent the horses into panic, and Paul's grip on the reins tightened. He could hear his own heartbeat thundering in his ears, his breath growing sharper with every moment.
His first instinct was to turn around immediately. But he couldn't carelessly do that alone and abandon his wagon; that would barely save him any time and would only delay his fate by a second.
He didn't even think he could outrun the beast on his wagon—the monster itself was built like a carriage, but its speed shouldn't be underestimated.
At best, he could sacrifice a horse and buy some time… Paul's eyes flickered feverishly to one of them. But as his thoughts reached there—
Just as he feared, the larger tiger pounced from its position, kicking up dirt beneath it and sprinting forward like a mass of living muscle.
Paul's heart skipped a beat or two, his life flashing before his eyes as the monster covered over ten meters in a blur of an instant.
A scream died in Paul's throat as a shadow cast over him, and the world slowed into a cold, quiet crawl. Time seemed to freeze—those very last moments of his life dragging painfully into eternity.
The only sounds he could hear were his own racing heart, the panicked cries of his horses… and the flapping of a cloak in the wind.
"Huh?"
Paul managed to look up at the sky above.
The shadow that fell over him didn't belong to the monster.
Some mysterious figure had seemingly dropped from the sky out of nowhere and landed an astonishing drop kick squarely against the tiger's face.