3] – [The Princess]

After a while, the young man finally got close enough to the edge of the crater, where Alexander's body, still unmoving, was lying at the center of its depths.

Turning his head around and failing to see the old man, the youth quickly realized why.

'Did this old man leave me here? Fine then, when I get back, my hands full of treasures, let's see how you react!'

'Because you won't get any of it!'

As the young man was trying to go down the crater in search of treasures, he ended up needing until night came to reach Alexander's clothes as he quickly realized the crater's depths, seemingly in the tens of meters.

'I'm lucky it doesn't have a very sharp incline. If it did…'

The young man, just a few meters away from the giant body suddenly froze as a howl could be heard from the forest all around.

"Oh no!" The young man shivering, he looked above, the darkness of the night sky looming over, decorated by the many twinkling stars.

'That was a Dark Wolf's howl! What shit luck!' Cursing his bad luck, the young man quickly tried to flee, but much to his horror, he found it extremely hard to get back up in time.

Looking around him, fear could be seen in his eyes as he saw nothing but flat dirt around him, albeit inclined.

'There is nowhere to hide!' With what felt like fear's claw gripping his heart, the young man started panicking, trying his best to climb back to the surface to hide in the dense vegetation, much to his worst nightmare however, was the unforeseen difficulty of this simple task. Even using his fingers as climbing gear to the point his nails bled and broke, he soon understood that he was not getting back up anytime soon.

'N-No! I can hear it getting closer!' With tears trickling down his cheeks, snot flailing about under his nose and terror reflected in his eyes, the young man looked up praying to only see the starry night sky.

Unfortunately, what he saw was not just the starry night sky, but a dark figure as well. The 5 meters tall wolf looked at him with glowing yellow eyes, as if looking at nothing but a juicy and tender piece of meat.

As saliva was dripping down the wolf's mouth, the young man started running in the other direction, slipping and tumbling down the crater with blood splashing everywhere around him. His fall however, was quickly interrupted as the Dark Wolf suddenly jumped at the tumbling young man, its maw wide open as in the next instant, this same maw closed violently on the ball-like young man's body, stabbing its sharp fangs as they started to grind the man's body until it looked like a bloody rag, before being eaten bit by bit by the Dark Wolf.

—–

The next day soon came.

At the outskirts of the forest of Gradavur, surrounded by tall dark trees, an old, dark, decrepit wooden house could be seen with faint lights coming from the few windows here and there.

Outside the house, armored horses lurked outside, with a sky-blue and golden insignia on them. One could tell at a glance that this belonged to a noble house at the very least.

Mounting some of the armored horses, a few armored knights were seemingly waiting for someone.

Inside the old man's house, the old man himself was sitting on a chair, next to a table with a fearful expression and ugly smile plastered all over his face, staring at the young woman in armor seated on the chair right in front of him.

The young woman had long blonde curly hair and sky-blue eyes, staring at the old man with a frown on her face, much to the old man's despair.

'What kind of curse do I have?! The first princess of the Golden Sky Kingdom! What do I do?! Look at her expression, one wrong move and my head flies off!'

Before the old man could think any further, the young woman's voice sounded in his ears.

"So, you went to look for that falling object yesterday with a young man, but decided to go back after seeing it was… a giant young man? Leaving behind the young man who didn't come back even until this morning…"

The young woman was clearly confused reading her notes, blankly staring at the interrogation's report.

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"is that it?"

"Yes, yes! It is! Your highness please believe me, this is the truth!" The old man quickly answered in a panicked voice, his feet trembling from his uncertain fate.

"Alright, then we will go there and investigate then…"

"Good luck your highness! Have a nic-"

Before the old man could speak further however, was the princess drawing her sword from her waist, interrupting him.

"Unfortunately for you, we cannot allow people aware of this to live and spread rumors!"

"W-Wait! Your highness! I won't say anyth-"

As the old man was trying to beg for his life, his head was swiftly decapitated by the princess' sword in a single, swift strike, ending his old life on the spot, as a fountain of blood quickly followed.

"Your highness, was it necessary… wouldn't we need his knowledge to attain that giant body?" One of the two knights in the corners of the room could not help intercepting, not hiding his curiosity.

"No need, the forest of Gradavur is dangerous, but mostly at night. During the day, finding even one C-Rank monster is difficult, at night on the other hand, finding a few B-Rank monsters, if not A-Rank ones is not uncommon!"

"That is exactly why we must depart right now, while it is still early." The princess already walking away, the knight was shocked, the answer received clearly not enough for him, asking back barely a moment later.

"Then why are we not waiting here until tomorrow morning, it is near midday, a few hours more to work with wouldn't hurt I believe."

"Unfortunately it is too risky, not because of the monsters but because of other groups like us, don't forget that this forest is near the border of our Golden Sky Kingdom, some outsiders might try and steal this opportunity!"

"We must not lose time like this!"

After receiving this answer, the knight simply nodded his head and did not speak further. His thoughts however, were not as calm.

'So just to save some time, you want to take such a risk?! If we are slow and get ambushed by even a B-Rank monster, we simple knights will get butchered just so you can live a little bit longer!'

Even though the knight felt aggrieved, he did not dare make his thoughts known.

—–

After departing from the now dead old man's house, as well as traversing the lush forest of Gradavur for a couple of hours, the princess and her escort group soon found the crater Alexander laid in.

As the princess' group was setting camp near the crater, a loud voice could be heard from its direction.

"Your highness! We found some blood down the crater! As well as some bones! We believe them to be human remains!"

A few moments later, a middle aged man with short black hair and a black beard could be seen running toward the princess.

"Captain Zark, why are you in such a hurry? Just some human remains, it is not uncommon in this god forsaken place!" The princess snapped back at the Knight Captain, not understanding his alarmed figure.

"Your highness, from the bones' state, we believe those remains to be the young man's!"

The princess could not help raising her right brow at this answer.

"The young man? Then what happened? Is his death related to the giant body down the crater?"

"It doesn't seem to be the case, by the looks of it he was brutally slaughtered by a monster, probably an adult Dark Wolf!"

The princess' brows soon turned into a deep frown.

'Dark Wolf? Isn't that a C-Rank monster? Wait, how could it be here when B-Rank monsters should be prevalent around here?'

But before she could ask what importance did such a monster have, she was shocked by the next words of the Knight Captain.

"That's not the important part though, as there seems to be some A-Rank and B-Rank monster remains around the giant body as well! They appear to have died quite recently too!"

"…What?…"

The princess could not help questioning her own hearing as she looked dumbfounded by this information.

'A-Rank monster remains… Just this is enough to make this trip worthwhile!'

A greedy look flashing inside the princess' eyes, she became agitated.

"How many A-Rank remains? Can you identify them? Are they usable? Can we sell them?"

"Ugh…"

The knight was soon overwhelmed by the princess' barrage of questions that followed shortly after.

"I managed to identify a couple of them, some are just too badly damaged, we can just tell they were A-Rank by the residues of Mana. As for the ones we could identify, most of them are still in pretty decent conditions. Out of the seventeen A-Rank monster remains we saw, seven were still in decent conditions, I can also confirm a Crescent Wolf King, two Bat-Winged Tigers as well as four Obscure Demonic Elks."

"Forget about the precious Obscure Demonic Elks, just the Bat-Winged Tigers and the Crescent Wolf King are amazing treasures!"

The princess became more and more restless on her chair as she thought about the potential such materials possessed.

But such fantasies were destroyed mere moments after being born.

"Actually… like I said… they are in decent condition, not great condition… Their most valuable parts other than the beast cores and pelts are most likely not harvestable… For both the Bat-Winged Tigers and the Crescent Wolf King, their fangs have all been shattered, as for the Obscure Demonic Elks, three out of the four have their Obscure Crystal Antlers reduced to dust as well…"

"How?" A simple question the first thought she had, she realized in horror that almost all of the useful parts to her Golden Sky Kingdom were useless to say the least.

But she quickly got back on her feet as she parted her rosy lips.

"Alright, whatever, just take them, let's set up camp here, have some knights look for other groups, you know what to do with them!"

"Yes, your highness!"