Yet, Glen’s expression didn’t falter. His mad, almost childish obsession with embodying the perfect hero forced him to appear unfazed even as he witnessed such a mind-boggling shock. He got up as he watched Lyla greet Zich like a newlywed wife welcoming her husband back from an overseas trip.
“It’s been a while, Sir Zich.” Glen approached Zich and stretched out his hand. Lyla turned in his direction. Unlike when she was greeting Zich, there wasn’t a trace of a smile left on her face. Glen’s annoyance rose to another level at this, but there was nothing he could do about it.
“Yes, it’s been a while, Sir Zenard.” Zich lightly grabbed Glen’s hand and let go.
“I heard that you went to investigate the abnormality of the monsters’ movements. Have you made any progress?”
“Not at all.” Zich shook his head. “Since a significant number of nearby monsters had come down already, I couldn’t see as many as before. That was all I saw. I still don’t know about the cause of this abnormality is.”
“Hm, what a pity.” Contrary to what he said, Glen was overjoyed to hear this news. If Zich had found out the cause of this current happening, his fame would only grow higher—and there was no way Glen would be pleased about that. News of Zich’s failure filled Glen with joy.
Zich asked while looking at Lyla, “How are the monsters acting now?”
“There hasn’t been a mass ambush like before. They have been appearing less frequently than before, but it seems like they are still coming down near the city’s vicinity continuously.”
“I suppose that means the problem hasn’t been solved yet.” Zich slowly nodded and turned in Glen’s direction.
“I will be returning to my room. I am quite fatigued after walking through the mountain range for several days,” Zich said.
“Ah, how senseless of me to not notice and keep you here, sir. Please go and have a good rest.”
Zich left with gratitude in his eyes and turned his back. Lyla followed behind him. Although she also bid farewell to Glen with her eyes, she clearly showed him that she had absolutely no more interest in him. Glen stared at the place where the two had disappeared for a while and also turned around.
* * *
Zich placed Windur in one corner of the room and threw his body onto the bed.
“Uh, so comfortable!” As the soft blanket enveloped his body, it appeased the tiredness he felt. With his mouth wide open, Zich wiggled his body like a caterpillar making a cocoon.
“Are you tired?”
“Just a bit.”
Although he said only a bit, it was surprising to hear that Zich was tired from just walking through a mountain range—even if it was the Denest Mountain Range.
“Something must have happened.”
“Something sure did.”
Lyla pulled a chair forward and sat next to him on the bed, demanding Zich to tell her what happened immediately.
“I told you I’m tired.”
“I thought you said it was only ‘a bit’. There’s no way you would be groaning on the bed this much.”
“That’s true.”
Unable to refute this perfect logic, Zich raised his torso. Then, he checked to see if anyone was eavesdropping on them. The lodging was completely empty and he couldn’t feel the presence of Glen’s party, which he was most wary about. It seemed that they had left.
“I found it.” Zich barely gave a detailed account, but Lyla understood what he was saying by those three words.
“Which element?”
“Wind.”
“What did it look like?”
“It wasn’t as fancy as the fire or water one, but it floated in the air and wind whirled in strong currents around it.”
Lyla’s eyes sparkled. As a mage, she felt considerable curiosity about a floating tree. She wanted to ask so many questions about the wind tree immediately, but she held back. There was something more important than that now.
“Was there nothing much?”
“Yeah. If there were something, I would’ve returned immediately and requested your help.” Yet there were no long-eared creatures that wanted to be kings, giant statues that moved by themselves, or an experiment created during ancient times.
“Thank goodness. I thought you would be sucked into a strange happening like all the previous times.”
“I did, actually.”
Lyla looked at Zich questioningly, and Zich slowly recounted everything he had experienced. Lyla listened to everything he said quietly and sighed after Zich finished his explanation.
“Wait a minute.” Her head was in a mess after hearing too much information. Zich lay on the blanket quietly to give her some time to think in peace. Some time later, Lyla lifted her head and stated, “That means you’ve learned almost everything about the regressions surrounding the empire.”
“Yes.” Yet, after getting up again, Zich didn’t look relieved or pleased. “It’s unfortunate that I couldn’t learn much about the most important figures: Glen Zenard and the mastermind behind him.”
“You said Zich Brave suddenly disappeared, right?”
“Yeah. If I think about the situation then, I’m sure he didn’t intend to do that.” It was clear that something had interfered.
“Is it that person we think is the mastermind?”
“Or that guy might have stupidly forgotten that there’s a time limit to these things.”
“…Don’t you think that sounds unlikely?”
It seemed that Zich wanted to put down Zich Brave in whatever way possible.
“No, he’s totally capable of something like that. That’s why he even broke the promise with me. Wait, hold up. What if he just escaped because he didn’t want his head cracked?” Then, Zich muttered that he would crack Zich Brave’s skull immediately the next time they met and mince his limbs as interest. He also mumbled other horrific things that would’ve struck fear in any innocent soul. After confirming that Zich’s obsessive resentment toward Zich Brave was the same as ever, Lyla shook her head.
Then, Zich asked, “Did nothing much happen here?”
“Nothing really. We just kept going on monster raids.”
“If that’s the only thing that happened, why did you seem so close to Glen Zenard?”
“What? Are you jealous?” Lyla asked with a slight smile.
“I was just curious. There’s no way the Lyla I know has such low standards.”
“You should just say you are jealous in times like this.”
“I was jealous. So jealous that I wanted to pierce Windur through Glen Zenard’s face as soon as I saw him.”
“That’s how you usually feel.”
Zich wanted to stick Windur on Glen’s face all the time after all. Zich snickered, and Lyla continued, “After you left, he suddenly approached me. He asked me to have a cup of tea with him and kept initiating light conversations, so I just played along thinking that it was a good opportunity to extract information.”
“So, were you able to fish out any information?”
“Not at all. He’s really good at hiding information about himself. When he talks about himself, none of the details he provides are important.”
“He’s someone who’s lived with lies and trickery his whole life. If you’re able to get information out of him so easily, it’d be suspicious instead.” Zich also acknowledged Glen’s skills in this department, so he wasn’t disappointed that Lyla wasn’t able to elicit any information from him.
“But it seems like he really picked you out as his comrade? I’m so, so jealous.” Zich quickly threw his body back to the ground when he saw that a sharp ice shard had formed in Lyla’s hand. Then, he stared at Lyla without looking at her left eye. “Do you have anything else to tell me?”
Lyla erased the ice shard and said, “I had a dream.”
“A dream?”
“I didn’t think much of it until now but…” Lyla told Zich that she saw herself as the Clowon Princess and the Brushel System’s core. “If I calculate the timing of the dream, I think it’s around the time you met Zich Brave.”
“So you’re saying that my meeting with him might have influenced you.”
“After I had that dream, Glen Zenard didn’t try to flirt with me as much.”
Zich narrowed his eyes. “Did that guy also have a dream?”
“There’s definitely a possibility. Judging by how that guy’s behavior changed, that dream might have influenced him in some way.” There was another reason to observe him a bit more carefully.
“Anyway, we’ve reached our goal here, right?”
Zich pushed a thought to the corner of his mind at Lyla’s question. “Yeah. Even though it’s I couldn’t finish hearing what Zich Brave had to say, I know what I have to do next so it’s fine.”
Zich got up from the bed and lifted Windur, which he put in the corner of the room. Windur seemed to read Zich’s thought as it began to swerve and point in one direction. It was in a different direction than its previous target. Lyla stared at Windur with fresh eyes. She was amazed that it used to be part of the World Tree. She knew that it was an extraordinary sword, but she hadn’t imagined it to be a part of something so amazing.
“Then, are we going to leave right away?”
“No, we have to stay for a little longer. There are still some matters we need to resolve.”
“You’re talking about Til and Glen Zenard, right?”
“There’s that too, but you also said that monsters are still ambushing the area. We need to solve that matter and then go.”
Lyla blinked several times. She looked like she was in complete disbelief, but this lasted for only a moment. Her eyes curved into a smile and she said, “Yeah. We need to save a city from dangerous monsters.”
“…I feel some sort of unpleasant feeling.” Lyla looked at him like a mother proud of her son. Of course, Zich never experienced such a gaze from his father, stepmother, or biological mother.
“You’re probably imagining it.”
“Yeah, it’s probably my imagination.”
“Without considering Til or Glen Zenard, we also don’t know when the monster ambushes will stop. Are we really going to stay here until the monster ambushes stop?” Lyla didn’t feel happy about staying in one city for a matter that they didn’t know would end or not, especially at a time when they had a clear goal to accomplish.
However, Zich was relaxed. “The fact that Glen Zenard can’t regress anymore has given us more leisure time.” This was true. The fact that everything they achieved and worked for was no longer in the danger of disappearing like a passing dream gave them a huge sense of security and relief. “Moreover, I think that the monster ambushes are happening because the Tree of Wind’s seal was half released, and mana spread to its surroundings. There’s a high possibility that these ambushes will soon lessen.”
Zich’s words also had a point. However, Zich was only half right. The monster ambushes did not lessen and exploded in number again.
* * *
Slice!
Zich sliced an ogre’s neck as it bared its fangs. He made such a clean cut that the ogre couldn’t realize its death yet and clattered its teeth. Zich evaded the ogre’s body as it fell and looked for other monsters. His surroundings were filled with monster corpses and blood, but his appearance was extremely clean.
‘It’s over.’ His comrades defeated the other monsters. Zich tied Windur to his back. He glanced at his comrades, and no one was injured. However, Lyla’s face as she walked toward Zich didn’t too good.
“They keep increasing, Zich.”
“Yeah, they are.” Zich stared at the Denest Mountain Range. The mountain range peeking over the clouds seemed to be looking down at the people in the city and mocking their desperate efforts.
“Is it because of the Tree of Wind? Contrary to our thoughts, that tree might be drawing the monsters here.”
This was a possibility, but Zich thought the possibility of this was very low. “Monsters didn’t act in a frenzy in the Adrowon Great Forest.” The Tree of Fire had been fully released from its seal early on, but he hadn’t heard any news about monster ambushes from the elves. A great number of monsters lived in the Adrowon Forest. If the Tree of Fire was drawing in the monsters, the elves wouldn’t have been able to live in peace.
“It might be because the Tree of Wind was just released from its seal.”
This conjecture had a higher possibility. “We should look more into Violuwin and Shootuol’s situation.” The trees’ seals in these two places had recently been released. If Pialu was experiencing devastation because of the Tree of Wind, then those two cities should have also been affected in one way or another.
“But I don’t think it’s because of the tree.”
Lyla asked, “Then what?”
Zich stared at Pialu’s city walls from far away. Glen Zenard should probably be still at the city walls if he was following the patrol shifts.
‘Glen Zenard.’ Zich’s eyes turned cold.