A young woman, dressed in a black and white maid's uniform, stepped inside with a tray in her hands.
Their eyes met.
She stopped.
Her eyes widened. She gasped.
Before Kael could say a word, she turned and bolted out of the room, the door slamming shut behind her.
Kael blinked. "...What the hell?"
He wasn't bleeding. He wasn't screaming. Why would a maid react like she'd just seen a demon?
A few moments later, the door opened again—this time with purpose. The man who entered carried the air of someone who had authority but wasn't used to being disobeyed.
Kael recognized him instantly.
Walter Grefen.
He'd seen him several times standing on the raised wooden platform in the village square, barking orders or giving his carefully rehearsed speeches during harvest festivals. Kael never had a personal encounter with him before. Now here he was, standing in the village head's bedroom, looking like a man walking a tightrope above a pit of fire.
Walter's eyes locked onto Kael's like a hawk sizing up a falcon.
"You're awake," Walter said, stepping forward. "Good. Saves me the trouble of sending for a healer to slap you back into it."
Kael straightened. He refused to be cowed by this man.
"Where am I?" he asked bluntly.
Walter raised a brow, folding his arms. "You're in my home. You were found unconscious in the forest. Carried in looking like you crawled out of the guts of a beast. The medics had to pour half their stock of salves into you. Thought you'd die for sure."
So I'm in the lion's den, Kael thought. He kept his voice neutral. "Thanks for the save, I guess."
Walter didn't smile. "Save your gratitude. I didn't drag you out of the woods. My men did. Now, why don't you tell me what in the five hells happened out there?"
Kael hesitated for a breath—not from fear, but calculation. He needed to control this narrative, not get dissected by it.
"There was a group of teenagers," he began. "I followed them when I saw them sneaking out with weapons. Saria was there... and your son, Tilly."
Walter's jaw clenched ever so slightly.
Kael continued. "They went deep into the forest, and Tilly used a scroll. Summoning magic. I don't know where he got it, but the thing he called... it wasn't normal. Big. Wrong. I don't know what the hell it was, but it wasn't from this world."
Walter's brows were furrowed so tightly Kael thought they might merge.
"We tried to run," Kael said. "Some were faster than others. I stayed with Saria for a bit, but we got separated. The last thing I remember... is being hit. I must've blacked out."
He left out the part where he'd been dangling helplessly in the creature's claws, paralyzed with terror and pain, his soul nearly ripped from his body. He didn't even understand what had happened next—how that surge of power had burst out of him like a volcano cracking open.
How the cold... had become heat.
How the fear... had become fury.
Walter exhaled, stepping closer until he was towering over Kael. "You're leaving something out."
Kael didn't flinch. "Wouldn't you?"
A long silence followed.
Walter stared at him, not with the arrogance of a village head—but with the suspicion of a man trying to solve a puzzle that scared him. Finally, he stepped back and ran a hand through his graying hair.
"Fine. Keep your secrets. But let me make this clear—something terrifying is in that forest. If I find out you're connected to it in any unnatural way, Kael... I won't care whose son you are, or where you came from."
Kael's expression darkened. "Good. Because no one remembers who I am anyway."
Walter paused at that. Something flickered in his eyes—recognition? Guilt? He didn't say.
---
Walter Grefen stood by the door after Kael's recounting, his mind not at peace. The explanation—if you could call it that—only added more questions to the pile. The creature. The power surge. Kael's survival. None of it aligned with what the other teenagers had described.
And more importantly—what happened to the creature?
Walter's frown deepened, the lines on his weather-worn face furrowing like trenches of worry. He stepped out of Kael's room, shutting the door gently, and walked down the wooden hallway toward his study.
His mind flicked back to the night before...
The forest air had been thick with dread. The trees themselves felt like they were holding their breath.
Walter remembered it clearly—that moment. A roar that made their bones rattle followed by a pulse of aura that hit them like a tidal wave of death. It was unlike anything he'd ever experienced, and he'd fought off wild beasts and even a rogue warlock once in his youth.
None of the villagers dared take another step forward after that.
So Walter made the call—he scribbled a message with trembling fingers and sent one of the swiftest boys back to Thornmere, demanding urgent assistance.
The initial response?
Skepticism.
The town chief of Thornmere had dismissed the danger report as rural exaggeration. Missing teens? Not exactly grounds for emergency deployment—especially when most towns received at least one such report every fortnight. Forest mischief. Wild beasts. Hormonal idiots.
But everything changed when the name —Saria Millsworth — appeared in the second message.
She wasn't a direct noble, but her lineage was connected by blood to Baron Yurevan, the noble who oversaw Thornmere's territory. If anything happened to the girl under their jurisdiction, heads would roll.
Suddenly, things moved very fast.
Within an hour, a trio of soldiers—armed with Tier I weapons—and a certified Tier 0 summoner-mage were dispatched to Thormans village, riding in through the fog like ghostly sentinels. The villagers had gawked at the shimmer of runes engraved into the soldiers' spears and swords.
Real magical weapons.
Even a Tier I weapon was leagues above what the villagers had ever seen. To the common folk, this was the equivalent of divine favor descending from the heavens.
With the mage in their midst, confidence surged. The man—tall, pale-eyed, and draped in a violet and obsidian cloak—wasted no time. He summoned a swarm of night wisps to scout the forest, their glowing bodies bounding through trees like wind itself.
What followed was a surprisingly swift retrieval of the scattered teenagers.
One by one, they were found—exhausted, traumatized, but alive.
Every one of them.
Except...
There was no creature.
No signs of a battle. No bodies. No claw marks. No traces of blood.
Even the area that Kael was found in—charred and cracked—was eerily empty. The mage had noted it, muttering something about "unstable residuals" before calling back his summons.
Walter remembered how the man had looked around nervously then, as if something more was watching them.
When they returned, the mage had privately pulled Walter aside.
> "Whatever was summoned," he said in a low voice, "it's either been banished... or it's still here, hiding. Either way, I don't think your village is prepared for what comes next."
Walter hadn't slept a wink since then.
---
Kael walked in stiff silence, his fingers twitching slightly against the hem of his sleeve as he followed behind Walter down the hall. His stomach was no longer empty—thanks to the food the maid nervously left behind—but it twisted now for an entirely different reason.
"The mage still has some questions," Walter had said.
The same mage who had walked into the forest, found him unconscious, and decided not to leave him to the wolves. That same mage whose summoned beasts had sniffed out something they shouldn't have been able to.
The moment they entered the village head's office, Kael instinctively stopped just past the threshold.
Seated calmly behind a medium-sized wooden table was a man cloaked in rich violet robes etched with silvery threads—runes faintly shimmering like pulsing veins. His dark brown hair was tied behind his head, and his eyes—light grey, almost silver—seemed to read Kael like a book the moment their gazes met.
"Kael, son of no record," the mage said, voice low, smooth, but undeniably sharp. "Come. Sit."
Walter gave Kael a gentle nudge from behind, and Kael reluctantly stepped forward, pulling out the chair across the table. The chair creaked as he sat, trying to appear calm—even though his palms were already moist with sweat.