“Wasn’t this supposed to be a strategy game?”

The spot where Chupi had swept through looked like a bombing zone. It was just a small monster, but I could seriously understand why it caused such devastation to civilian areas.

Not to mention, sacrificing kidnapped children? What a horrific setup that was.

“Hah…”

Eden finally took a breath and looked at her palm.

Everyone was a mess, sitting there defeated, but Asmun was staring at Eden with a serious gaze.

“…How did you know it would respond to whistles?”

At that, Eden let out a weary laugh. She picked up the fallen Chupi from her palm and handed it over to the oncoming hunting party.

Then, she shrugged at Asmun.

“I told you, I can see all the information about every monster.”

It was clear that even he didn’t quite believe that. He stared at Eden with a somewhat grave expression.

As Eden’s unusual ability was proved, it was unavoidable that suspicion would grow.

Karon, who had sorted out the situation to some extent, ran over to Eden.

“Thanks to you, Priest, we caught them.”

This was the first time Karon truly felt Eden’s abilities, so his eyes were full of admiration and respect as he looked at her.

“This is Chupi. That’s the name of this monster.”

As soon as she said that, a strange expression crossed Asmun and Karon’s faces simultaneously.

“As the commander said, it really is cute.”

Karon chuckled at Eden’s joke. To think someone could make jokes in a situation like this! He surely thought he had met the right person.

“There’s been a ruckus, so more monsters will be coming. We should leave the forest before that happens.”

At those words, Eden’s eyes, which had been dull, suddenly lit up.

Return just like this?

Eden quickly murmured under her breath while checking her quest window.

Shit!

Eden clenched her fist in frustration. She had contributed to defeating Chupi, but most of them were just knocked out, and it looked like only eleven had actually died among the many.

If she returned like this, not only would progress on the quest halt, but she wouldn’t be able to get anything at all. She couldn’t clear the game without receiving rewards.

‘Hah… I guess I’ll have to resort to this method…’

As Karon seemed ready to turn back and reorganize the hunting party, Eden, still mounted, firmly grasped the reins. She really didn’t want to resort to such reckless measures, but there was no other choice.

“……”

Asmun kept staring at Eden, who had turned red in the face and seemed to have made some sort of resolution.

“Let’s move out.”

At Karon’s words, the reorganized hunting party stepped forward to retrace their path. Just as he had predicted, low-intelligence monsters came charging from all directions, enticed by the commotion.

With the morale of the hunting party deflated due to the Chupi incident, Karon assigned Eden’s protection to his subordinates while he took the lead, slicing through monsters.

“……”

Eden still seemed reluctant to join the hunt and glanced at Asmun, who was riding beside her, guiding his horse closely.

Asmun was definitely aware of her significance. He was even willing to go through such hardship for her sake.

Eden took a deep breath and subtly tightened her grip on the reins. Thanks to the glowing bracelet on her wrist, her confidence in controlling her horse hadn’t diminished one bit.

‘Today, I’m clearing this.’

Eden decided to make the most of this opportunity and the item.

“Ugh…”

Eden tilted the reins slightly, making the horse wobble unsteadily, and let out a panicked sound. As expected, she felt Asmun’s gaze shoot to her like lightning.

“Priest? What’s wrong?”

One of Karon’s subordinates kindly asked, and Eden slightly moved her fingertips to jerk the reins tightly. Suddenly, her horse reared up, letting out a scream.

Thanks to that, the hunting party came to a sudden halt. Seizing the opportunity, Eden yanked the reins again. The horse, startled by something, bucked wildly…

“Kyah!”

In an instant, she dashed off the hunting party’s line and fled down a side path in the forest.

“Priest!”

Eden heard Asmun and Karon shouting in unison. She skillfully adjusted to ensure they wouldn’t lose her and kept screaming,

“Help me!”

Her screams needed to attract monsters. Eden pretended to sob and glanced back, only to freeze upon seeing Asmun charging toward her with a terrifying expression.

‘Why… why is he so fast?!’

He looked like death itself, rushing to kill her. The thought of being caught gave Eden an instinctual jolt.

As Eden picked up speed, trying to focus ahead, that moment came.

Kyaah!

The monsters which had come charging in after hearing the commotion were wildly sprinting towards her. Eden held her breath and tightened the reins.

With the wind slicing past her at lightning speed and the oncoming monsters about to collide…

“Ugh!”

Eden managed to barely dodge the monsters at the right moment. She immediately heard a scream tear through the air behind her.

Simultaneously, a quest window popped up in front of her.

Nice!

Asmun was certainly following her, taking out monsters left and right. Everything was going according to plan.

Eden crouched down low and skillfully weaved through the monsters charging at her with terrifying speed. Excited monsters kept leaping out without any strategy.

The numbers on the quest window were rapidly filling up.

‘That’s right!’

Eden cheered internally and turned towards the crowd of monsters.

“Priest!”

Karon’s voice was getting closer. The two men were following Eden, cutting down the monsters that popped up.

“You need to stop, Priest! Pull the reins!”

Eden saw the number now at 29. There were no more monsters in sight, and if she pressed on any further, Asmun would definitely get suspicious, so she decided to head for a safer area.

At that moment, ding!

A quest window appeared right in front of Eden, who was still sprinting.

‘What? An event quest? Here?’

Eden was flabbergasted by this unexpected turn of events and furrowed her brow. An event quest was something she had experienced during previous playthroughs.

‘Special rewards’ truly meant special rewards, but the specific types were so random that she had no idea what it could entail right now.

Eden quickly started brainstorming.

‘Seruka? Is that the monster said to be the natural enemy of Chupi?’

If it’s comparable to Chupi, it shouldn’t be a top-tier monster.

She wanted to look up Seruka’s information right now, but she didn’t have the luxury. While Eden was busy reading the quest window, Asmun had overtaken her and blocked her path.

“Ugh!”

Asmun raised his sword, seemingly ready to strike down Eden’s horse, and as soon as she realized this, Eden quickly veered away.

Thanks to that, Asmun’s sword barely missed, but Eden let out a screech as she fell off the horse. It was a moment of carelessness.

“Ugh…”

“Priest!”

Karon, who had quickly followed, jumped off his horse to support Eden. She looked up sharply and saw Asmun, his normally cool face now pale with anger, raising his sword again, determined not to fail this time. Eden’s face turned as white as a sheet.

“No!”

Eden forgot her pain and scrambled to get up, running in front of her horse to block him.

“Move aside. That horse nearly killed the Priest.”

Asmun’s voice was devoid of inflection. Eden was well aware that she was in the hunting party under the royal command, and the punishment for a horse that endangered its owner fell under military law, rendering Karon powerless to intervene.

“It was my fault for holding the reins wrong! I’m still alive, so that’s what matters!”

Eden shouted desperately, wrapping her arms around her horse, causing Asmun’s face to grow colder. That expression sent a chill down her spine.

Blood from the monsters still clung to his sharp clothes, not to mention that his hair and face were drenched in blood.

“……”

His cold, red eyes, covered in blood, made him look like a harbinger of death, and she could sense the oppressive future of him becoming a tyrant.

She was standing before a truly furious tyrant, and the instinct that she couldn’t stop the one about to kill her horse filled her heart with despair.

But unlike the vicious monsters, the horse had done nothing wrong. Eden opened her arms wide and clenched her eyes shut.

However, after a few seconds passed, there was no sound of a sword being swung, no screams of the horse, nothing at all. As Eden cracked her eyes open, she saw Asmun still holding his sword up, frozen in place.