Bermuda

Elder Millie Peninsula.

That name, which he had long been accustomed to hearing, made it impossible to doubt or deny the existence of the queen any longer. Moreover, now that he had confirmed the contents with his own eyes, there was absolutely no reason not to believe those words.

Leonardo, who had raised his head to look up at the widely spread mountain range, felt a faint energy mixed in the wind, then looked back at the last sentence of the stele beneath his hand.

'What is this feeling?'

His golden eyes slowly traced back up from the bottom, savoring each character once again.

'Elder Millie. Another ruler. Mother of evil spirits.'

From the beginning, the name itself had been referring to the queen sleeping on the peninsula, but it was both amusing and surprising that the majority, himself included, had been unaware of what it meant.

It had simply been passed down orally. Like an old story hidden in a children’s fairy tale.

As Leonardo’s gaze, which had been reviewing the characters one by one, drifted off the edge of the stele, it was drawn to the statue standing next to it, past the pillar.

That strange thing, distributed throughout the ruins of the peninsula and also seen inside the tunnels. The empty gaze of the woman on a high pedestal, looking down, didn’t give a pleasant feeling, stirring an odd discomfort. Because of that sensation, his eyes always went to the face first when looking at the statue, but this time, perhaps because the pedestal was unusually high, his gaze also reached the base.

As Leonardo’s eyes followed the silhouette and looked at the hem of the carved dress sliding down, they widened slightly.

Because below that, the ankles of the statue, bound by shackles, were visible.

With his gaze fixed there, he suddenly recalled what Alec had said.

'Especially in the case of founding myths, they often personify things that aren’t human.'

Leonardo slowly straightened his bent knee and stood from his spot to look around. Then, the walls and structures forming a curve surrounding him gradually came into view.

They were all shaped as if bent in an arc toward one direction, wrapping something in layers.

With his thoughts reaching that point, he could instinctively realize that the things here were not mere ruins, but contained meaning.

'An enduring, giant circular formation.'

Exhaling an uneven breath, he turned his head to look at Alec Siles. The grinning face was still impossible to read, but now, more than that, the things he had heard from him last night seemed more important.

The story of him being an imperial scholar exiled for researching something the imperial family disliked.

He had entered the Elder Millie Peninsula for that research, and the contents written on the stele he had been searching for were clear evidence that this peninsula was the product of the first emperor’s achievements.

If, for some reason, successive emperors needed to hide records related to the first emperor for their authority and the legitimacy of their succession to the throne, and what Alec had been researching was that hidden history, and this Elder Millie Peninsula was one of the fragments of that history...

In a «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» different sense, Alec Siles had practically staked his life on entering this peninsula. And he and Kenis had become entangled in that life-risking journey.

"...ne."

The moment they were arrested by the Council, a background check would begin. If it was revealed that a scholar exiled for prohibited research had once again entered a restricted area to conduct such research, the aftermath would certainly not be smooth.

His own position, bound by a contract with that guy, wasn’t much different. So he couldn’t rest assured until that guy completely got out of the peninsula.

"...Blaine—."

It felt like things had gotten more complicated, but considering that, Alec seemed strangely too relaxed.

Moreover, his words that he would figure out how to return on his own made Leonardo newly doubtful about what he was hiding behind that smile and whether he really needed his help to get here.

"Mr. Blaine!"

Suddenly hearing a loud voice calling him, Leonardo started and turned to look at the owner of the voice.

Where his gaze reached, Kenis was holding a bundle in his left arm and a sword in his right hand. But for some reason, his face was full of fear.

At the moment the thought 'That guy, was he holding a sword all this time?' occurred to him, Kenis spoke in a trembling voice,

"They... came close."

Even before pondering the meaning of his words with the subject omitted, black shadows were seen swiftly passing by inside the forest. Leonardo instinctively lowered his posture, held his breath, and stared between the bushes.

In an instant, he saw almost seven or eight, but that definitely wasn’t all.

The suspicious presence formed a large circle around this place, moving counterclockwise. Then, it slowly approached as if tightening a noose from within the forest. The movement was very bold, as if not trying to hide from them but rather making them aware of its existence to provoke fear.

Having entered this forest, the creatures’ main den, he had expected to be surrounded, but it seemed he had let his guard down too much while distracted by the contents of the stele for a moment. The creatures that had approached silently were quite numerous and had already encircled them from all sides, making it quite threatening.

He wanted to examine the contents of the stele a bit more, but he thought it was the urgent priority to quietly get out of here first.

Of course, from the moment they arrived in front of the stele, the contract was as good as fulfilled, but he still had a lot to ask Alec Siles and hadn’t secured a tunnel to hide him in, so he couldn’t rashly cause a commotion.

Leonardo gestured to Alec and Kenis to come closer to him. He deliberately moved slowly, down to his fingertips, thinking that if he showed hasty or violent actions, it might trigger the creatures.

As the trembling Kenis carefully took a step, Leonardo had his eyes on him first between the two. At that moment, Kenis suddenly turned his head toward Alec and shouted loudly,

"Mr. Scholar! Behind you!"

As Leonardo also quickly turned his head at the urgent tone, he saw a slimy-skinned ilaptor sticking its long neck out from the gap of a large structure erected behind Alec.

The creature’s jaw joint, made of wrinkled thin mucous membrane, was completely wide open, revealing the red and rough gums inside its mouth. The quivering flesh twitched and secreted venom from the tips of the curved teeth.

In the midst of the venom dripping to the ground from the hideous teeth that looked like hundreds of iron skewers were stuck in them, Alec’s head was positioned between the closing jaws. It was just before becoming a beehive.

Leonardo, without even having time to shout anything, instantly teleported in front of Alec and grabbed him by the collar. Then, while pulling him out of the ilaptor’s mouth, he drew the dagger at his waist and sliced the creature’s neck.

Kieeek—!

As the length of the dagger was not very long, the creature screamed and writhed with its neck only half-cut. As Leonardo jumped back widely, lightly avoiding the creature’s dangling neck and fiercely swinging tail, Kenis’s voice was heard again.

"Ah, aaaah!"

The moment Leonardo turned around upon hearing that sound, another creature’s body shot up from the ground and approached right in front of him in the blink of an eye, snapping threateningly.

Ilaptors were not the ones that dug tunnels, so in that startled moment, he suddenly realized that the ones running from the forest were meant to draw attention, and these were the real deal.

He barely leaned his body back to avoid it, punched the head to take down one, and several more burst out of the ground in clusters, gradually widening the hole and starting to crawl out.

Creatures with bodies twice as large as the usual size of ilaptors he was familiar with surrounded the area and charged at him. As a result, his vision was obscured, and he couldn’t see where Kenis was either.

While Leonardo, with Alec, was caught in the encirclement, Kenis was leaning against the wall, trembling and holding on with both hands gripping the hilt of his sword, the tip pressed against his solar plexus.

In front of him, he saw a foolish and hideous head clashing its teeth, trying to tear off the flesh before its eyes, even though the tip of the sword had pierced through its throat. The sunken yellow base with red eyeballs moved back and forth. As if trying to reach the prey in front of it somehow, the creature roared, revealing its torn throat.

At the same time, the venom that had pooled in the ilaptor’s mouth splashed on Kenis’s cheek and flowed down with a slurp.

Realizing that what had gotten on his face was venom, Kenis’s scream rose to his throat, but he bit his lips hard, fearing it would draw attention.

To make matters worse, he felt something sticky and heavy fall on his shoulder with a thud, and when he looked up, a creature identical to the one in front of him was looking down at him from atop the wall, dripping an opaque liquid.

"Hng..."

Kenis’s jaw trembled as he clenched his teeth and swallowed a fearful groan. Then, as something sticky brushed past his cheek once more, he immediately lowered his head and tightly closed his eyes, worried it might get into his eyes.

Eventually, the brutal sound of claws gripping and crawling down the wall could be heard, and as the sound got closer and closer, the creature thrashing with a sword stuck in its neck pushed its mouth forward, biting the blade near the hilt Kenis was holding.

When he was half out of his mind and even tears wouldn’t come out, Leonardo’s voice rang in his ears.

"Get down—!"

The moment he heard those words, Kenis threw away everything he had been holding onto, the sword and all, and lay flat on the ground, hugging only the bundle wrapped in remains.

The sharp sound of crackling and a dazzling blue light that could be seen even with eyes closed flickered, and he felt heat behind his back.

Kwaaang—!

A blue lightning bolt, too fast to even perceive, passed over Kenis’s head.

That lightning, which flew toward its target at an ultra-high speed in just 0.1 seconds of perceived time, directly hit the creatures targeting Kenis, blowing them up without a trace, and penetrated the wall and structures behind, creating a glowing trajectory.

As a result, some of the ruins in that direction crumbled, and the view became hazy as if a smokescreen had been laid, with hot steam and dirt mixed together. As an ear-splitting thunder followed, echoing in all directions, Kenis couldn’t dare raise his head.

While the creatures surrounding them momentarily faltered at the terrifying power, Leonardo condensed the air into a spherical shape in his right hand and consecutively detonated it, blowing away all the dirt.

Eventually, as the view ahead cleared, Kenis, crouching under the wall of the ruins with crumbling pieces of stone, came into sight.

Leonardo moved to his side in a single breath, forcibly grabbed his arm to lift him up, and once again teleported with the two of them, instantly disappearing from the scene.

The ilaptors that had charged just before they disappeared couldn’t slow down and collided with each other, tumbling and howling fiercely. Some had their heads buried in the ground, writhing with their slimy bodies and tails, tangled together to form a bizarre mass.

Boom—!

At that moment, a huge sound and vibration shaking the entire area suddenly rang out. It was similar in scale to the vibration that had spread throughout the peninsula some time ago, making many people tense.

Perhaps due to the extraordinary resonance, the ilaptors that had been fighting and clawing at each other all stopped moving and raised their heads to look in one direction.

Kiaaak—! Kaak—!

Eventually, the creatures seemed to be having a conversation among themselves, then one by one, they separated from the tangled mass and scattered, quickly disappearing into the forest.

And the large ones that remained at the scene until the end picked up the corpses of their fallen comrades, sprawled out after being knocked down by Leonardo, in their mouths and dragged them away somewhere.