Warrior Monk
Warrior Monk
Clatter.
Aslan reached down among the gore-spattered rocks and retrieved the Executioner's Sword.
Forged from some brass-hued mystery metal, the blade was broad and razor-keen, married to an elongated grip—a weapon of the highest order.
Not that this was unusual. A Warrior Monk wielded nothing less than masterwork weaponry.
He turned the sword over, a frown settling onto his face.
"...Hm."
The heft traveled up through his wrist.
Five kilograms, give or take?
Formidable weight by any measure, whether for a blade or a headsman's tool. Still, recalling the physique of the one who had wielded it, Aslan found the weight unsurprising.
Nearly three meters tall. Six arms.
Given the grip's length, the creature must have used it two-handed, Monk or not.
Aslan had witnessed it in battle, those six hands manipulating the weapon with surgical precision.
Five kilograms was a meaningless number against such a frame.
From the fallen Monk's body, Aslan stripped the leather sheath, slid the blade home, and secured it to his belt.
The weight dragged at his hip, but not enough to concern him. His heightened fighting spirit would push his body past the fatigue such a heavy weapon imposed.
"Ah."
A small murmur of satisfaction lingered in the air as Angie suddenly let out a sigh—a sound thick with regret.
Aslan turned. Angie was staring down at the axe in her hands, her expression crestfallen.
"Damn it, my axe..."
It had been a hand-axe of middling quality at best, so the outcome was expected. But the weapon she had buried in the Monk's spine was now utterly ruined, its blade and haft both shattered.
Axe-heads issued to indentured prisoners being what they were, the broken haft was par for the course. The shattered blade, however, caught him off guard. His gaze drifted downward, tracing over the Monk's corpse.
Where Angie's axe had struck—the Monk's spine, right at the base of the neck—the chitin had split apart, baring the glistening pink flesh underneath.
She fractured a Warrior Monk's exoskeleton—one of the hardest substances known—and dealt real damage.
Astonishment flickered in Aslan's eyes. Harod, who had been thrown clear by the javelin earlier, trudged back over.
"You truly won. I knew you were strong, but this..."
"A plan well-executed."
"...Indeed. Fortunate that events unfolded as you designed them."
Aslan's strategy had been this:
He would press the Monk and present a constant threat while simultaneously looking for a way to strip away the creature's shield and spear.
Once deprived, Harod would use them to parry and create an opening. While Aslan held the Monk's attention, Angie would join the fray and strike.
The surprise of Angie's intervention—or her mere presence—would stun the Monk just long enough for Aslan to end it.
Simple enough in words. But Harod seemed to find the plan's success difficult to accept.
A poverty-stricken girl emerging from the shadows ought not to have fazed a Warrior Monk. Yet the creature had frozen far more completely than anyone could have expected.
Angie's strike had bitten deep, and the Monk had perished without recourse.
Staring at the shield with a spear driven halfway through it, Harod cast a strange look Angela Tail's way.
She wasn't supposed to be capable of that... Or has she been holding back all this time?
Suspicion shadowing his thoughts, Harod stepped closer to Aslan.
Aslan wrenched the broken spear from the shield and held it out to Angie, blade-end first.
The haft ran roughly a meter. The blade stretched beyond eighty centimeters. It was closer to a glaive than a true spear.
"Here. Yours."
Angie accepted it, her eyes going wide.
"What—this is mine?"
The delight in her voice was unmistakable. Aslan nodded once.
"You performed. You deserve a share."
What Angie had done was genuinely remarkable, even by Aslan's standards.
To land a telling blow on an ancient monstrosity—the eldest among the Warrior Monks—armed with nothing but a hand-axe was nearly incomprehensible.
Without the aid of his Combat Arts and their final perk, Aslan himself could not have managed it.
In that moment, he glimpsed her potential. Dexterity born of strength and agility played a part, yes—but it was her instinctual targeting of the body's center of mass that revealed her promise.
Considering her stats would only continue to grow, that latent talent might one day be the greatest asset they had.
Their greatest chance of surviving this world, Geladrion.
Measured against the possibility she had just demonstrated, a broken spear was hardly a generous reward.
To Harod, Aslan handed the remnant—a truncated haft just over a meter long.
"What will you do now?"
Harod took the shaft, gave it an experimental roll through his fingers. "I suppose... I'll make for the Kallus Empire."
"And what would you have me do about it?"
At that, Aslan looked up at Harod Claw. The Dragon-kin's eyes were grave.
"That's something you'll have to decide on your own."
Harod responded with a low, noncommittal hum.
He must have assumed they would travel together.
But that was impossible. Harod would be of little use in the main quest ahead.
A meat shield at best. And Aslan had no appetite for that.
I've no wish to pile up unnecessary casualties.
The ideal outcome was the one that left the fewest people wounded or dead. In Geladrion, that ideal was rarely attainable—but saying farewell here, now, at least made it possible.
The words that left his mouth were a parting.
"I told you at the start. Your aid earns you your freedom. You've obtained it."
He took in Harod's nature as a Claw, the fact of his discovery in Olpasbet, and spoke plainly.
"There are precedents for those who return from exile at Belus Alpen. It may seem hopeless now, but if you amass renown and honor—if you make your name ring loud enough—you'll find a way back."
Harod Claw's features, so often unreadable to human eyes, shifted with unmistakable surprise.
Reading the expression, Aslan answered before the question could form.
"How do I know? Any Claw found outside is almost certainly an exile. Given that you were a prisoner, it required no deep deduction."
"Hrm... I see."
Harod looked briefly uncomfortable but said nothing further, as if weighing Aslan's words.
Sensing the conversation was at an end, Aslan called up his status window.
[Active Main Quest]
[None]
[Completed Main Quest]
[ ! Defeat the Priest and Survive ]
[LEVEL UP]
As expected, his level had risen. He distributed the points evenly.
For Angie: Strength, Agility, Health.
For himself: Mana, Fighting Spirit, Luck.
The volume of mana flowing through his body swelled, and the quiet fatigue that had lingered in his muscles eased, then vanished entirely.
Luck remained intangible, but that was always the way—there was nothing concrete to feel.
Angie, on the other hand, flinched as though sensing something odd. Her head whipped around.
Her gaze fixed on the severed head of the Warrior Monk.
The Monk's compound eyes were wide open, staring right at Aslan and Angie.
Only then did Aslan detect it: an ambiguous presence, like a touch ghosting over each hair on his body.
The sensation emanated from far above.
When he lifted his eyes to the sky, there was nothing to see—yet the pressure only intensified.
He understood, then, what the fallen Monk was doing.
It was whispering to its god. Whispering about the last remnant of the Ancient Gods. Whispering about the Master of Combat.
An exercise in futility. The gods had already sensed the fiercely growing power of the Ancient God.
A malevolence clung to the distant zenith of the sky, as though something vast hung unseen above them.
"...What troubles you, my lord?" Harod asked.
Aslan did not answer. He simply stared upward in silence.
...The Luck stat at work.
A creeping chill slithered from all directions. A searing sensation accompanied it—his sixth sense, blazing—and he felt it clearly then: the gaze of the gods.
This was the true beginning of the main quest. The game had always begun here.
Recalling the reason, Aslan allowed himself a twisted smile.
These gods, who had once stamped their footprints across the world and slaughtered countless humans and Ancient Gods alike, could not simply invade the mortal realm. This was why they relied on their pawns—their priests.
The last Ancient God, the God of Sorrow and Death—she had seen her own murder approaching and understood that the world must be sealed.
Before the killing stroke fell, she gathered up the souls of her comrades, her fellow Ancient Gods.
Death was her very essence, and through them, she became mightier than ever. Mighty enough to close the world.
But the power was insufficient. The gods were too vast to be wholly shut out.
In the end, the world's seal was imperfect. Only a narrow passage remained—just enough for the gods to intervene in the form of their priests.
The gods longed to crack that seal wide open, and for that they required the power of an Ancient God.
The sole surviving Ancient God's power in all the world.
From this moment forward, the gods would set their sights on Angie.
And the first to make an attempt will be the War God.
He sensed with visceral certainty that an emissary of that attempt would soon cross his path.
That premonition proved true not long after.
*
The thunder of armored riders rang out, horses snorting and plunging through the trees.
The sound of that charge quickly resolved into soldiers, a single knight, and several mages.
Encircled.
Harod glared past the undergrowth, his expression tight. Angie looked openly annoyed.
Only Aslan remained composed.
The mages dismounted and began drawing up mana. The knight stayed in the saddle, gesturing to his men.
Soldiers in heavy chainmail—regulars, by the look of them—tightened their ring, weapons leveled.
Through the cordon, Aslan spotted a figure emerging.
Hair swept back, nearly platinum. A neatly trimmed mustache and beard clung close to his jaw. A short fur mantle draped one shoulder, and his black doublet caught the light with a polished sheen.
The man strode forward through the ranks of soldiers.
Clearing his throat, he clasped his hands behind his back and addressed the shadows where Aslan, Angie, and Harod stood.
"Good day to you, good people. Might we share a word or two?"
Aslan offered no reply. He simply lowered his gaze and extended a palm to halt Angie and Harod.
"I do hope this sudden... encirclement hasn't caused you too great a displeasure. I am Kornil Ashuld, of House Ashuld."
Met with only silence, the man who called himself Kornil Ashuld smiled placidly at the tree-shadows that concealed Aslan's party.
A composed, oleaginous smile.
"Hmm. It seems you're in no mood for pleasantries. That's understandable, given the weapons pointed your way. I ask you to understand that these are precautions for my safety. Now then... to business!"
A light clap of his hands. The smile broadened.
"We detected a surge of immense power nearby. A surge far too significant to simply... overlook. I may not look it, but I serve as an Imperial Investigator. My role is to examine suspicious occurrences within the Empire, to deal with them as I see fit—or to report them. I am here in the course of my duties."
A long-winded explanation boiled down to a simple fact: he found them suspicious, and he intended to investigate.
Kornil Ashuld delivered the finishing nail with a brief addendum.
"So. Would you kindly show yourselves and cooperate? I'd like to take your statements."
The smirk he wore radiated arrogant certainty.
Aslan listened, and for a moment he deliberated.
He knew this man well. Knew well enough that everything coming out of his mouth was a lie.
That was precisely why he deliberated.
Because Kornil Ashuld would trigger the next main quest.
More precisely, his spectacular betrayal.
A betrayal whose details Aslan already knew—its motivation, its objective, its hidden sponsors. There was nothing to fear in it.
If anything, he could wring every possible advantage from the journey leading up to that betrayal.
So he deliberated.
After a long moment, Aslan gestured to the girl.
Angie rose from the undergrowth first. Aslan emerged from the tree-shadows behind her.
As they stepped into view, Kornil Ashuld's smile curled higher. He extended a hand.
"Ah, there you are. Please, don't be too alarmed. These men are merely my escor—"
The words died in his throat.
His gaze had drifted from Angie to Aslan, and now his mouth hung agape, as though the unspoken words were a dam holding back his thoughts and emotions.
His expression crumbled by degrees.
What surfaced through the ruin was shock, bewilderment, and threaded among them, a thin strand of pure dread.
The full tableau of his face complete, Kornil Ashuld choked out a whisper.
"The... Emperor-slayer?"
Aslan exhaled a short sigh and rested his hand on the pommel of his sword.
It was nothing more than a posture of ease—wrist propped against a weapon—but Kornil Ashuld swallowed hard.
The fear was spreading like contagion, radiating from the man outward to every man under his command. Aslan watched it take hold, then spoke, his voice low.
"Go on."
Silence crashed down. Not the ring of a drawn blade, not a single swallow—just absolute stillness.
Aslan tilted the pommel and angled his chin toward the investigator.
"Go on. Tell me what the Emperor's hound wants."
The man who had been called the Emperor's hound—Kornil Ashuld—felt his pupils tremble violently.