Prologue: The Knights Face Defeat

The eastern wastelands of the country of Raiten were home to a bottomless ravine, a scar left on the world as a gruesome reminder of the terror sewn by the Harbinger. A single strike from the fierce demon had split the world in two.

Though it was massive, traversing the Great Divide was not impossible; there were three different methods available to get to the other side:

The first option was to use a magic stone that allowed for flight. Rare and expensive, they provided the quickest, safest way to cross the ominous pit.

The second option was to take an alternative route. The fissure extended far beyond the horizon, so going around it took a considerable amount of time, but it did allow one to reach the other side.

The final option was to take the bridge. It was not a man-made structure; rather, it had formed naturally during the Harbinger’s furious rampage. When the ground was split apart, a part of it had miraculously remained intact, leaving a path across the humongous expanse. Being the sole piece of land to survive the attack that had created the endless divide, its sturdiness was unquestionable, and as such, many travelers preferred to use it to get across.

Connecting Raiten’s port town with a commercial city, the land bridge had served as an important trade route for hundreds of years. However, that had changed three months earlier.

“Wh-What is this?!”

Shaer, commander of the Raiten Knights’ First Corps and a woman serving directly under the king, wiped the sweat off her spotless face. A dozen of her trusty subordinates were lying unconscious right in front of the bridge. She had managed to ready her shield in the nick of time, but it was all for naught. Her enemy had thinned the group of famed knights in mere moments with a blast of wind.

Reports of the beast had told of its ability to fire such blasts, but their speed and power were greater than she could have ever imagined. The last thing Shaer had expected was for her shield, imbued with powerful and extremely rare magic, to crumble and her troops to fall after a single strike from some ruffian.

“Y-You monster!” she shouted, her voice tinged with both hatred and panic.

What stood before her was a monster in more than just name. Its appearance, too, was that of a terrible beast. Its muscular, rock-hard body covered in jade-green scales was complemented by two gigantic wings and a long tail with a sharp talon at the end. The beast wasn’t overly massive, but a single look at it was enough to send shivers down her spine.

Those chills were only partly due to the monster’s appearance, however. The power it displayed by quickly and easily wiping out her troops was much more terrifying. Shaer was the strongest of the Raiten Knights—strong enough on her own to scare foreign powers into submission—yet her troops had been downed and she herself left completely defenseless. The odds she would emerge victorious from her encounter with such a beast were practically zero.

Still, she couldn’t watch her subordinates perish under her command. Driven by her desire to save their lives, she mustered up all her courage and stood, drawing the sword the king himself had presented her with as she glared at the creature.

Like her shield, her sword was more than just steel. The handle was inlaid with a magic stone, able to produce a violent burst of sharp wind that relentlessly cut through the strongest armor. She had what was effectively a deadly whirlwind at her command.

Channeling her mana into the sword, she prepared to strike while the monster had its back turned. It was about to return to the middle of the bridge, which was decorated with a vast amount of weapons, armor, and other such items from Hunters that had previously arrived to dispatch the monster. Such ornaments were proof of its overwhelming power, but it had its back turned, ready to retreat. Was such a powerful monster afraid of Shaer?

“So, you’re choosing to run?!” Shaer asked while keeping her guard up against a possible surprise attack. She had been tasked with defeating the monster that terrorized the area, and as such, she couldn’t let it run away.

“‘Run’? Don’t make me laugh!” the monster shot back, turning to face her. “You bore me to death, m’kay?”

The reports had mentioned that the monster was capable of human speech, so Shaer wasn’t caught off guard. After all, it wasn’t an actual demon, but a human whose appearance was altered through the use of a magic stone. What did surprise her, however, was its voice. She hadn’t expected the magic stone user to be a girl, though that revelation didn’t change her objective.

“Whether you’re having fun means nothing to me! I won’t let the crimes you’ve committed go unpunished! Surrender at once if you wish to remain unharmed!”

“That toy sword will never work on me! I was kind enough to not hit you directly with my Wind Blast, so be a good girl and run home, m’kay?”

The beast had deliberately missed Shaer with the attack that had wiped out the rest of her troops. However, that left her wondering if the girl who had transformed with the help of a magic stone looked down on her because she was a woman. Shaer couldn’t allow herself to be humiliated in such a way, but more than that, the girl had had the audacity to mock her sword, the very weapon that signified her pride as commander of the First Corps. That was the final straw; Shaer was ready to fight her to the death.

“Shall we put that to the test? Let us see if this sword is truly as useless as you make it out to be!”

She poured mana into her weapon and slashed the air diagonally, sending a razor-sharp blade of wind—said to be able to demolish mountains—at the monster.

“Wha—?!” Shaer cried upon seeing her slash connect with her foe. “It had no effect?!”

All her might channeled into a single attack wasn’t enough to put even a scratch on the monster. Despair began to creep into her heart, but she suddenly noticed a thin layer of ice climbing up the monster. One of her subordinates had regained consciousness and sealed its movements.

“Are you okay?” Shaer asked.

“More or less, so leave the rest to us, Commander! You have to take this chance and run!”

“What?! I will never leave my troops behind! I’ll fight at your side until the bitter end!”

“Please, just go! I know you’re powerful, but you can’t win here! There’s only one person in the country who stands any chance against this monster. We’ll buy you some time, so please, find Lord Merkalt and bring him here!” As painful as it was for Shaer to leave her subordinates behind, it was clear that she couldn’t subdue the beast. The only one capable of such a feat was the strongest man in the country: Malshan Merkalt. “Go, Commander! Run!”

“Ngh… U-Understood! I swear on my life that I won’t let your hard work be in vain!”

Focusing her mana into a ring that contained a Pegasus stone, sparkling, snow-white wings sprouted from her back. She immediately began flapping her magical wings and flew away.

◆◆◆

As the monster watched Shaer fly off into the distance, she raised her legs, shattering the ice that had been restricting her movements.

“Tch…”

The knight’s only objective was to delay her, if only for a second longer. He, who had encased her legs in ice before, began focusing his mana into his ring again, whereupon she walked over to him.

“Don’t think that flimsy sheet of ice will work on me, m’kay?” She slammed her sharp claws into the ice, shattering it. The man behind the curtain of ice shards flying through the air went completely pale. “You lost. Now scurry back home, m’kay?”

“Wh-What?”

“Are you deaf?” she asked, looking at the confused man as if he were a pesky fly. “Go home. You all failed, m’kay?”

“‘Failed’? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You bore me to death! I held back as much as I could and you losers still blacked out! You might be better than those worms who broke down in tears and begged for their lives, but that doesn’t amount to much. You’re slightly braver worms, m’kay?” After she finished talking, she was ready to return to the middle of the bridge, but something suddenly came to her mind. “That ‘Lord Whatsit’ you mentioned before had better be strong, m’kay?”

“Lord Merkalt is the strongest Hunter in the country! Your days controlling this bridge are numbered!”

“Just make sure not to send another woman, m’kay?” The knight could only nod in response to her strange demand. “Good. But still, those other worms said your group was strong, so I won’t get my hopes up, m’kay?”

She flew back to the middle of the bridge while muttering to herself, then looked at the defeated knights as they slowly woke up one after another and made their retreat, keeping an eye on the terrifying monster as they did. Once they’d disappeared beyond the horizon, the girl let out a sigh and lay down beneath the azure sky to watch the fluffy clouds float by, quickly becoming drowsy.

“I hope I’ll find the strongest man in the world soon, m’kay…”

Just like that, Bram Boise, the monster on the bridge, fell asleep.