Kasser felt as though scalding liquid had been poured over him. Unable to penetrate Praz’s barrier, the liquid dripped to the ground, emitting a sizzling sound and thick smoke.
Poison? Kasser’s thoughts raced.
Thanks to Praz’s defense, his body remained unharmed, but the attack could have been disastrous.
Meanwhile, Mahar’s plan had been set in motion. It had calculated that inflicting severe injuries on at least one king would slow their pursuit, and had targeted the Fourth King as the most dangerous. Feigning attacks with its tails, Mahar had secretly concentrated its venom, and over the years of slumber, the poison had grown potent enough to dissolve almost anything. Even if it couldn’t kill a king outright, it should have inflicted devastating burns.
But the plan failed. Seeing the Fourth King standing unscathed within the blue serpent-shaped Praz, Mahar was visibly shaken.
Is the King’s Praz really that amazing?
Mahar gathered the remaining poison, directing it toward Kasser once more.
Kasser reacted instantly, leaping aside to dodge the attack. Despite his Praz moving on its own and exerting tremendous force, his movements felt effortless. There was no lingering sense of fatigue—only a sharp clarity in his reflexes.
As he landed, he saw the spot where he had been standing dissolve, the ground sinking as the poison ate through it.
It’s targeting me. No, it must be targeting this, Kasser thought, narrowing his eyes.
Mara’s earlier statement about the seed revealing “weaknesses” had been unclear, and the idea of consuming a seed created by such a cunning monster felt deeply unsettling. That was why he had kept it all this time—an uneasy curiosity mixed with caution.
But now, with everything falling into place, Kasser instinctively knew the seed held the answer. Without hesitation, he reached into his pocket, flicked the cap off with his fingertips, and tossed the seed into his mouth. He swallowed it in one swift motion.
Almost immediately, a hot, intense energy swirled in his stomach. His senses heightened. When he closed his eyes and opened them again, the light embedded in the monster’s body had completely vanished.
***
“Mara needed those of us who knew magic, and we needed a safe place until the children grew. Our mutual understanding led us to a trade,” the elder explained, his voice heavy with memories.
Aldrit furrowed his brow. “Then the shelter created back then still continues to this day? Why did you choose that place?”
He had always thought the shelter, while ideal for hiding, lacked any real advantages. The barren land and dry climate made farming nearly impossible, leaving the tribe constantly hungry. Most left once they reached a certain age, driven by the scarcity of food.
It was true that the shelter’s remote location had kept them safe from monsters—until recently, when the tribe was finally pursued as wanderers. But Aldrit realized that in the past, they had chosen to hide there, not because they were running, but because they needed to remain undetected.
The old man’s expression grew more somber. “No matter how much we lived for survival, I was afraid of someone finding out that we, descendants of those who summoned the first lark, were forming an alliance with them. So, I wanted to go somewhere no one could find us. And since that creature, the water snake, thrives in water, the perfect place came to mind.”
“Were you familiar with that place?” Aldrit asked, his curiosity growing.
“Yes.” The old man sighed, a soft, regretful sound, before continuing. “It is where our sin began. That’s where the first lark was summoned.”
Aldrit’s unease grew. It felt too perfect, too orchestrated to be mere coincidence. Since the day their ancestors had summoned the lark with magic, it seemed as though the tribe had been trapped in an endless cycle—unable to escape the consequences of their past actions.
“What you’re really asking is whether we knew what Mara was doing outside, how much we helped, and why, right?” the old man asked, his tone almost teasing.
Aldrit paused for a moment, then spoke carefully. “I’m more curious about why you decided to deal with Mara from the start. It couldn’t have been an easy decision to ally with the lark and go to the place that symbolizes your ancestors’ original sin. Didn’t you think Mara might be even more dangerous?”
The old men chuckled knowingly.
“Trying to skip past that, huh?” one of them said with a grin.
“This one’s sharp,” another added, his voice light with amusement.
“We also thought it was unreasonable at first. What was he up to? Was he planning to eat us all? Probably had some other agenda,” the old man continued. “If he’d threatened us, we would’ve all died right there, refusing to submit. We had nothing left to lose. But, you know…” He trailed off, his expression shifting as if recalling a distant memory.
The old man cleared his throat a few times before continuing. “We were convinced.”
“…What?” Aldrit asked, confused.
“He told us his whole story, asking for help to avenge him,” the old man explained. “And my wife—bless her—hit me on the back and said that if I didn’t help after hearing all that, I’d have no blood or tears left in me.”
“…What?” Aldrit echoed, still unable to process.
“He was a bit naive back then,” another man added, shaking his head with a faint smile.
“Yeah. He wandered around, seeing all sorts of bad things, and changed,” the first man said thoughtfully.
“Aldrit, he’s been scamming people outside lately, but he used to be the one getting scammed,” the second man remarked with a chuckle.
“At some point, he started complaining about humans being obnoxious, and this is how he turned out,” the first man mused, sounding almost wistful.
“…What?” Aldrit could only ask, still dumbfounded. The Mara they were talking about didn’t seem like the same Mara he knew. He listened intently, but the pieces weren’t fitting together.
Meanwhile, Mara, listening to the old men’s voices from inside his body, sneered. These chatty old men, he thought bitterly. I didn’t change, I just got smarter. These old folks are so immersed in magic that they don’t know the world at all. Humans are so devious. Betrayal is just part of life.
He wanted to interrupt the conversation, but Mara resisted, not wanting to provoke any unnecessary memories in the old men and risk hearing irrelevant tales from their past.
Don’t call me changed; they should look at themselves. They weren’t this talkative back then, Mara muttered inwardly, his irritation simmering beneath the surface.
As he listened to the old men continue, something stirred in his mind—a distant memory from long ago.
He remembered the night of his awakening. It had been a dark, rainy evening. Before that moment, he had no understanding of what he was. One moment, he was nothing, and the next, he simply existed.
At first, he lived solely to survive, driven by the instincts of his new form. But as time passed and his body grew stronger, a question began to form in his mind—why was he alone?
His curiosity grew day by day, questions piling up with no answers. He longed to speak with someone, to ease the gnawing uncertainty that plagued him. So, he set out in search of other mythical creatures. But all he encountered either attacked him or fled in fear.
Then, one day, he met a creature that neither attacked nor ran. It called itself Mahar and claimed to be his parent, saying it had separated part of itself to create him.
What a fool I was to believe that, Mara thought bitterly.
But rather than truly believing Mahar, he now realized he had simply wanted to. Back then, he had been desperate for connection, so eager to believe in something.
Mahar had taught him many things, shared its knowledge and its own story. Looking back, Mara recognized that having his memories intertwined with another being had been something he had enjoyed at the time.
