Coastline of Namer Island
Port Nagmash
Nuir Farmland
The air had turned unseasonably cold—far colder than it had been any night since summer began. A thin mist crept low across the fields, clinging to the earth like a living thing. Most of the farmers who once worked the land owned by the Nuir family were gone now, their lanterns dark, their voices absent. At this hour, the fields were supposed to be empty.
Rickard stood just outside the iron fence that marked the farm's entrance, swaying slightly on his feet. In his hand was a bottle of Mattiel whiskey, its label half-peeled and slick with condensation. He stared through the bars at the land that had once fed him, clothed him, and given him purpose.
Not long ago, he had worked those fields from dawn to dusk. Not long ago, he had believed that loyalty meant something. Then came the layoffs—not just him, but nearly everyone. The rumor was simple enough: the Nuir family was drowning in debt. The land had been sold to some unseen new owner, and the workforce that had maintained it for generations had been deemed unnecessary. Machines could do the work now. Machines didn't age. Machines didn't need wages.
Forty years of his life, offered up to rotten aristocrats who never once set foot on the soil they owned. And for what? Rickard had nothing to show for it. No savings. No severance worth mentioning. No family left to lean on when the world finally decided it was done with him. He took a long swig from the bottle, the whiskey burning as it went down, then let out a bitter laugh. Anger surged through him, hot and ugly. He lashed out, kicking the gate with more force than coordination. The iron bars parted with a metallic groan.
Rickard froze.
"Huh?"
That was… wrong. The gate was supposed to be locked tight against trespassers. He stared at it for a moment, confusion flickering through the haze of alcohol. Had someone broken in? Or had the new owner simply stopped caring enough to secure the place? The question drifted away before it could settle. Rickard was too drunk to dwell on it—and too numb to notice how much colder the air had become, how his breath now fogged faintly before his face on a summer night.
He stumbled through the open gate and into the field, boots crunching against gravel and dry grass. His balance wavered as he made his way toward the storage hut at the far end of the farm. That was when he saw it.
Light.
A pale, steady glow spilled from the hut's narrow windows, cutting through the darkness. Rickard squinted, his steps slowing. No one was supposed to be there. The gate should've been locked. Farming equipment was kept inside—expensive tools, generators, machines worth stealing.
So someone had broken in.
"Hmph," Rickard muttered, lifting the bottle again. "Let 'em take it all."
He didn't care. They could strip the farm bare for all he cared. The Nuir family deserved it. And yet… his feet kept moving. The hut loomed closer, a massive square structure with gray metal walls and a steel-painted roof dulled by age. The door stood slightly ajar, light spilling through the narrow opening. Rickard slowed to a stop just a few steps away. If he wanted to, he could lean in. Just a glance. See who—
"Hello."
Rickard nearly dropped the bottle.
He spun around, heart hammering, a strangled sound catching in his throat. Standing behind him was a girl—or perhaps a young woman. He couldn't quite tell. She looked youthful, somewhere between her early teens and late teens, with delicate features that seemed almost unreal under the moonlight. Her hair was a vivid blue, shimmering softly, and from within it protruded a single horn, curved and unmistakably real. She wore a black robe trimmed with deep red lining, the fabric shifting like liquid shadow as she moved. Her pale skin seemed to glow faintly, flawless and otherworldly. Beautiful—too beautiful. Rickard felt his stomach twist. Something about her was wrong. Deeply wrong.
"No one is supposed to be here," she said, her voice musical and light, as though the words themselves were a song. Her head tilted slightly, studying him. "Hmm… the others won't be happy to see you here."
Rickard opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
"Too late."
The second voice came from above. Something landed behind him with barely a sound, as gentle as a leaf brushing the ground. Rickard flinched, his scream dying before it could escape. He turned just enough to see a tall, broad-shouldered man pulling back his hood.
Brown skin. Hard eyes. And horns—larger, heavier than the girl's—curving from his skull.
The man fixed Rickard with a cold, assessing glare.
"Wyn," he said flatly, "you forgot to set the barrier, didn't you?"
"Sorry," Wyn replied, giggling softly. She clasped her hands behind her back, though she quickly stilled when the man shot her a sharp look. Even then, her eyes lingered on Rickard with unsettling curiosity—almost delight. That was when it finally hit him. The stories. Old warnings whispered to frighten children into obedience. Memories clawed through the fog of his drunken mind.
Beware the horned folk.
Beware the demons of the North.
Beware the children of the dark god—Menes.
Rickard tried to run. His mind screamed at his body to move, to turn, to flee—but his legs refused to answer. It was as if the ground itself had claimed him. The air around him grew heavier, colder, pressing down until his breath came out in shallow, trembling gasps.
His bones shook, rattling with a fear so pure it cut through the alcohol in his blood like ice. The presence of the two figures loomed over him, ancient and suffocating. Rickard understood then—far too late—that he had never wandered onto an abandoned farm at all.
"If you keep forgetting to set the barrier whenever we leave, what's the point of having you here?" another voice said.
Rickard's gaze dragged upward.
Perched atop the hut's roof sat yet another demon. Unlike the others, he was barefoot and wore a loose, flowing Middle Eastern–style robe instead of the black vestments. Two elongated horns curved back through his brown hair, framing a face that radiated effortless authority. His golden eyes glimmered as they looked down upon Rickard, calm and appraising. He sat cross-legged on the roof, perfectly balanced, like a king observing a condemned subject.
"Wow—you're here too, Blaze!" Wyn chirped. She pointed at Rickard, wide-eyed innocence poorly masking her delight as she looked up at the demon above. "Can I keep him?"
"Why don't we just kill him and be done with it?" the brown-skinned demon said flatly.
Rickard felt it then—the naked killing intent, sharp and suffocating, accompanied by a surge of inhuman magic that made his skin crawl.
I have to get out of here.
He tried to move. Before he could even shift his weight, Wyn slapped him lightly between the shoulders.
"Uh-oh," she said playfully. "Don't try to run from me."
Rickard tried again, panic flooding his thoughts—but his body didn't respond. He couldn't feel his legs. Had fear really severed the connection between his mind and his body? Desperate, he tried to look down—but even his neck wouldn't obey. Something was wrong. The figures around him looked taller than before. The hut behind them seemed to stretch upward, its walls looming impossibly high, as if the world itself were distorting.
"Fuck," the horned demon muttered. "Still can't get over your curse technique," Gyan said.
The human who had wandered onto the farm was already finished. The moment Wyn had touched him, her power had taken hold. Where Rickard—the former employee of the Nuir farm—had been standing moments ago, there was now only a malformed mass of flesh. A compressed, grotesque lump of humanity, as if his body had been ground down, squeezed, and reshaped by some unseen force. A living smear.
"Isn't he beautiful?" Wyn cooed. She bent down and scooped the fleshy mass from the ground with both hands, cradling it like a cherished doll. Her eyes shone with anticipation, already imagining how she might play with her new toy later.
"What's going on here?"
The cold, drawn-out voice cut through the air like frost. Another horned figure stepped out from the shadows. He was more beautiful than the others—unsettlingly so. His brown skin glowed faintly, almost luminous, while the night breeze toyed with his long white hair. He wore the same black robes trimmed in red, but his presence alone commanded attention. The air seemed to bend subtly around him.
"I found a new toy," Wyn said brightly, holding up the distorted mass in her hands.
"Wyn forgot to put up the barrier again," Gyan said. "Let an insect wander in."
"I don't get why I'm always the one who has to set it," Wyn complained, already losing interest in the conversation. She rolled the flesh-blob along the ground, her focus entirely on the sensations it produced.
"Assigning barriers to someone who failed at being a Scarab was never a good idea," Blaze said dryly.
"She's still the best at barrier magic," Gyan replied. "Are you ever going to get down from there?"
Blaze sighed. In a single smooth motion, he rose from the roof and stepped off. He fell gracefully, robes fluttering, and landed soundlessly at the entrance of the hut—like a monarch descending from a throne.
"Tonight was a shit show," Blaze said.
He turned his gaze toward their leader—the one who had drawn them together in the first place. "I still don't get what tonight was even supposed to accomplish."
"It was entertaining," Gyan replied with a shrug. "Leaving that kind of mess behind for the humans to clean up always is."
They had only just returned from the dungeon at the center of the island. The mission itself had been simple: disrupt the dungeon's internal systems and stir chaos among the Raiders exploring it. A distraction. While the hunters scrambled, their leader had pursued his true objective.
"Did you at least get it?" Blaze asked.
Kars Ma'ha-Ra didn't answer immediately. His expression remained calm, distant. Then he flexed his fingers. Six thin, spectral strands snapped into existence around the misshapen mass Wyn had been playing with. With a sharp, tearing sound, the lines constricted—ripping the flesh apart.
The blob came undone in an instant. Bones split. Organs burst free. Blood splattered across the dirt, the remains of Rickard finally reduced to what they had always been—meat. Wyn gasped, genuine horror flashing across her face.
"You didn't…" she whispered.
"Perhaps you should focus on doing your job," Kars said coldly, "instead of worrying about which toy you want to keep." He looked at her then, eyes sharp. "I didn't pull you out of the trash you crawled within so you could amuse yourself."
Silence fell.
"I still don't understand why we're fixated on that orphan boy," Blaze said after a moment. "I felt the Hero Candidate's presence in the dungeon. We could've gone after him instead. Why chase that brat?"
"We wasted Roach on him," Wyn added, pouting.
"You named a Maleficant?" Gyan said, incredulous. "You're strange."
Wyn shot him a glare, the pleasant mask on her face slipping for just a second.
"You will do as I say," Kars cut in. The air shifted. "The boy is all that matters. We failed to capture him—and in doing so, we've drawn the Hunters' attention to him as well." Kars turned his gaze to Gyan, one white eyebrow lifting slightly. "Care to explain?"
"Princess Rey was glued to him," Gyan said. "Did you expect me to take him with her standing right there?"
"No," Kars said flatly. "I don't expect anything from anyone."
He turned away and pushed open the hut's door.
Light spilled out, revealing the interior in stark detail. The space had been completely repurposed. Long tables lined the walls, cluttered with racks of vials filled with swirling potions—some glowing faintly, others thick and opaque. The farming equipment that had once occupied the hut had been stripped down and reforged into specialized apparatus: injector rigs, restraint frames, and humming consoles etched with arcane sigils. Nothing inside resembled tools meant for tending crops anymore.
At the center of the room stood a single pod. It hovered a few inches above the floor, its surface glassy and smooth. Inside, suspended in a greenish liquid, floated Alastor Kinsway. Unconscious. Motionless. Thin tubes were attached along his spine and temples, faint pulses of light traveling through them in steady intervals. His chest rose and fell slowly, as though the pod itself were breathing for him.
After Wyn's roach Maleficant had failed to capture Eren Walker, Kars had observed the confrontation from afar. The speed of the Hunter Association's response had caught even him off guard. One of their best had been dispatched almost immediately, forcing him to retreat before his presence could be traced.
Hidden within the bell tower of the Lumerian cathedral, Kars had adjusted his plans on the fly. The Maleficant was gone. Eren had awakened his Irregular power—far earlier than he should have.
What did Alastor Kinsway do?
The question had gnawed at him since the battle in the district park. All the effort spent acquiring materials to summon a high-grade Maleficant—wasted. Reduced to nothing. So Kars had returned to the board. If he couldn't reach Eren from a distance, then he would have to get close. And to do that…
He needed a new face.
"Seems our guest is still asleep," Gyan said, glancing at the pod.
"Doesn't matter," Kars replied. "We're moving him soon."
"What for?" Wyn said eagerly. "I captured him. He's mine—"
A thin strand of red light snapped into existence and coiled around her neck.
Wyn choked, her words cut off as the pressure tightened just enough to remind her of her place.
"Enough of your shit," Kars said coldly.
With a flick of his wrist, the crimson string dissolved. He turned to Gyan without sparing Wyn another glance.
"Get the mobile unit ready," Kars ordered. "We're shipping him out."
****
Middle floor
Resting area
Dungeon
Namer Island
It was an unnatural sight—the crushing stampede of monsters bursting from their nest and flooding the Resting Area.
Annabelle Satou had seen stampedes before. She had survived them, scrambling into hiding more than once to avoid being trampled beneath a tide of claws and steel-hard hide. But never had she witnessed one here.
The Resting Area was meant to be a sanctuary. Neutral ground. A place where Adventurers on the Middle Floor could breathe, recover, and prepare before descending back into the Dungeon's jaws. The chaos unfolding below shattered that illusion completely.
Nothing could be trusted in the Dungeon.
Belle hovered above the destruction, the air beneath her vibrating with the roars of Minotaurs as they tore through buildings. Their massive frames smashed stone and metal alike, steel-like skin shrugging off debris as if it were nothing. She gripped the handle of her broom tightly, steadying herself as she activated the amulet-tablet strapped to her left arm.
Her grimoire—Makina—projected a lattice of holographic schematics into the air. The Resting Area appeared in perfect detail: every structure, energy signature, and living presence mapped in real time. Belle scanned it all.
Nothing.
She couldn't trace where the Minotaurs had come from. No breach points. No spatial distortions. No summoning residue. There was no logical path by which creatures like these should have reached a protected station.
Preliminary scan complete. No detectable abnormalities present within the floor.
Makina transmitted.
"So it seems," Belle muttered.
She reached into her satchel and withdrew two prototype magic pistols—unfinished magitech she was still refining. The polished frames hummed faintly as they came online.
Do you intend to engage? Makina asked.
Below, screams echoed—raw, desperate cries from Raiders crushed beneath hooves or locked in hopeless combat. Blood misted the air, thick and metallic. Bodies littered the streets as the stampede continued its mindless advance.
Belle felt none of it. She dipped her broom and aimed. Anima bolts streaked downward, tearing into the Minotaurs with concussive force. She weaved between collapsing structures, firing continuously as buildings fell around her. Each shot was measured. Controlled.
Data mattered more than fear. One of the Minotaurs burst through a rooftop, launching itself into the air with a bellow. Its horned head barreled straight toward her. Belle twisted sharply, narrowly avoiding the charge, and fired point-blank.
"Bam."
She smirked as the blast ricocheted harmlessly off the creature's steel-reinforced skull. The Minotaur roared and swung, its massive fist slamming toward her. Belle didn't bother to raise a guard. A white pentagram flared into existence between them, intercepting the blow with a thunderous shockwave.
Insufficient Anima output detected, Makina reported.
"I thought you calculated efficiency margins," Belle said calmly.
Calculations were accurate. However, the pistol's frame material is insufficient for sustained Anima conduction.
"Which means… more expensive materials," Belle sighed.
The Minotaur's corpse would be sufficient,Makina suggested.
"I see."
Belle discarded the pistols mid-air as her tablet reconfigured, unfolding into a heavy ray cannon. Energy lines snapped into place along its barrel.
"Its durability comes from channeling World Energy to reinforce its skin."
An optimal medium for Anima conduction.
"Perfect," Belle said, sighting down the weapon. "Its core is saturated with Anima too. We can use it for cultivation."
She began charging the cannon.
Then—
The atmosphere shifted. A crushing pressure descended over the floor, distorting the ambient flow of World Energy. Belle's Anima wavered violently, control slipping as the very rules governing the space began to twist. Something had changed. And whatever it was, it was far worse than a stampede.
Looks like he's here.
Belle's ray cannon was already fully charged.
She fired. The beam tore through the Minotaur that had been hammering against her shield, annihilating its upper body in a flash of white light. What remained collapsed into ash and fragments. Belle darted forward, plucking the exposed core from the debris and slipping it neatly into her satchel.
Without slowing, she angled her broom toward the epicenter of the pressure.
At the center of the stampede stood a young man clad in battle-worn armor, a curved shortsword held loosely at his side. An aura of intense magical power radiated from him, thick enough to distort the flow of World Energy itself. His Anima output was absurd—far beyond what should have been possible for someone his age.
And yet—
He's only an Acolyte.
"Didn't know he was here," Belle murmured.
The Hero Candidate.
Reo Rykiel tightened his grip on his blade as he stared down the monsters blocking his path. The Resting Area lay in ruins. Buildings were shattered, streets torn apart, and the vibrant community that once thrived here had been reduced to wreckage and bloodstained stone. Reo bit down hard on his lip, frustration and guilt twisting in his chest.
This is on me.
Those damned demons of the North. If he could hunt them down, he would. If he had succeeded in disrupting their plot, none of this would have happened. Lives wouldn't have been wasted. This was his first time entering the Dungeon on Namer Island—something he had once looked forward to. Now it felt like a failure carved into memory.
Reo drew his sword fully from its sheath and inhaled slowly. The Minotaurs weren't to blame. He could feel it—the curse clinging to them, a malignant compulsion that had driven them from their nest and forced them into a senseless rampage. He had sensed the intruders earlier, on a lower floor. A presence that didn't belong in the Dungeon at all.
When he and his master had given chase, the demons had retaliated by cursing the monsters, turning them into living distractions. Reo had left the pursuit to his master and rushed here instead. Most of the residents had already been evacuated. Those capable of fighting were holding the line, buying time with their lives.
Reo held his breath.
One… two… three… four… five.
He exhaled. The moment his breath left him, the Minotaurs sensed the shift. Three of them charged at once, hooves cracking stone as they lunged. Reo vanished. In the next instant, he reappeared behind them. Their bodies came apart in a spray of blood and gore, severed cleanly before their minds could register pain.
Reo moved again—flowing forward into the horde, blade flashing as he carved through the stampede. He danced between massive bodies, each strike precise, lethal, and unhesitating. Like a living cataclysm unleashed. Reo didn't bother using magic. He relied instead on his body—on speed, precision, and the discipline of his sword.
Each strike was swift. Each kill was clean. If mercy could exist in slaughter, he practiced it, ensuring that none of the Minotaurs suffered as he cut them down. If only I could reason with them, he thought, even as his blade flashed again. If only they would return to their nest.
He had no hesitation when it came to fighting magic beasts within the Dungeon. Monster hunting was part of an Adventurer's life—necessary, unavoidable. The creatures of the Dungeon were dangerous because they attacked anything that entered their territory.
But Reo also knew the truth most preferred to ignore. Some monsters were sentient. Some possessed intelligence equal to humans. Some did not deserve extermination. He didn't know whether these Minotaurs were evolved beings or mere beasts acting on instinct. He didn't know whether they would have attacked the Resting Area even without the curse that drove them mad.
He couldn't afford to find out. Even if he dispelled the curse, there was still the risk that the rampage would continue. For the sake of the community—what little remained of it—Reo chose violence.
Around him, the other Adventurers had slowed, then stopped altogether. Most of the Minotaurs had abandoned them, drawn instead toward Reo's overwhelming presence. Relief and shock warred on their faces. There was nothing they could do. Many of them were low-level Adventurers, still finding their footing on the lower and Middle floors. A few among them, however, were hardened veterans—fighters capable of holding their own.
Reo left those ones to their battles. He focused on the Minotaurs the others couldn't handle, cutting through the largest and most dangerous among them with efficient, relentless grace. It didn't take long. When the final Minotaur collapsed, its head severed cleanly from its body, Reo exhaled and slid his sword back into its sheath.
"Another display of heroism at its finest," a familiar voice drawled.
Reo turned.
Annabelle Satou—the Plundering Princess—was already at work, rummaging through the corpses with professional efficiency. He wasn't surprised to see her. He'd noticed her magitech earlier, firing experimental weapons into the stampede.
Helping had likely been secondary. Belle dragged several Minotaur bodies together into a neat pile. Reo raised an eyebrow, curiosity creeping in despite himself.
"I need their carcasses," Belle said.
"What for?" Reo asked. "The Dungeon Association—"
"Yes, yes, I know," Belle cut in. "The Dungeon Association claims the rights to your kills." She gestured casually at the bodies. "These are mine. I wasn't going to let you have all the fun."
She wasn't wrong. Reo hadn't seen a single mark of blade work on those corpses—only perfectly cauterized holes burned straight through steel-hard flesh—ray cannon strikes.
"What do you need them for?" Reo asked. "Isn't Satou Industries already stocked with more materials than you could ever use?"
"You know," Belle said without looking up, "you ask the same questions every time."
"That's because I don't understand why someone of your status would—" Reo stopped himself. He exhaled. "Sorry. That was out of line. You don't need anyone's permission. You've more than proven you can handle yourself."
His relationship with the Plundering Princess was… complicated. When they'd first met, he'd assumed she was just another spoiled aristocrat—untouchable, detached from reality. Annabelle Satou had shattered that assumption almost immediately. For a member of a Major Family, she was strangely hands-on, obsessively practical, and utterly unconcerned with appearances.
Belle finished dragging the last corpse into place and smiled faintly at her work.
"Twenty kills," she said. "That should be enough material."
She reached into her satchel and withdrew a small metallic cube—a dimensional storage device. With a flick of her wrist, the bodies vanished one by one, swallowed into compressed space until nothing remained.
"I can't figure out what drove them out of their nest," Belle continued. "I ran diagnostics across the entire floor—no anomalies. Mana beasts don't attack Resting Areas. A horde doing it? That's completely out of spec."
Reo knew the answer. But this wasn't something he could talk about freely—not yet. This was Hunter Association business. Dungeon Association business.
I just hope Master tells me everything.
"So," Reo said instead, changing the subject, "I heard you're enrolling at the academy this fall."
"I am," Belle replied. "And so are you." She glanced at him sideways. "Honestly, I don't know why someone like you even needs school. You already qualify as a Hunter."
Reo smiled. She wasn't wrong. He'd been raiding dungeons and hunting monsters since he was thirteen. Experience alone would've been enough. But experience wasn't everything.
"Maybe," Reo said, "but I want to see what all the fuss is about at Namer University."
"If you say so," Belle replied.
She mounted her broom, lifting smoothly into the air. "Guess I'll see you in the fall."
Then she was gone. Reo's smile faded as he turned back to the aftermath—the ruined Resting Area, the shaken Adventurers, and the lingering sense that this disaster was only the beginning.