Chapter 369

‘How many of them are coming? It’s chaos.’

The Owlbear’s gaze snapped to the one who had just spoken.

“Encrid?”

The monster saw another familiar face and called out his name without realizing it.

Encrid swept his eyes over everyone who had gathered, including the man in the feathered hat, then fixed his gaze on the creature.

Their eyes met. In that instant, Encrid sorted several facts at once.

The opponent knows him.

The opponent is likely a noble.

He is connected to the Black Sword.

He is in the process of Monsterization.

He knows how to use it.

Those brown eyes resemble someone he knows.

A name surfaced. A trained body, a gamey stench, a man who obsessively emphasized etiquette.

He hadn’t seen him much lately, but wasn’t he under Count Molsen?

So Count Molsen and the Black Sword were in the same boat?

New questions rose up, but Encrid already had an answer for one thing.

“Baron Vantra?”

He recognized him at a glance. That was what his sharpened intuition said.

Only then did Vantra understand why these faces felt familiar.

They were the ones he had briefly seen when he entered the Royal Palace.

And the moment he realized that, he kicked off the ground.

He was going to run.

Now that he knew what those Mad Company bastards had been doing.

But that escape was never going to work.

Whoosh!

The instant he jumped, a disc cut over his head.

His instincts screamed at the sound—if he went up, he would die.

An absurdly fast throwing axe.

Even with a monster’s body, he could feel the force behind it, and he dodged.

Instead of leaping higher, the Owlbear lowered his head and dropped into a crouch, killing his momentum and abandoning the escape.

“Yeah. I should cut him down.”

The blonde swordsman—who’d been radiating a murderous aura the whole time—stepped in and said it.

Before the words even finished—

He rushed forward and plunged his blade straight down, lightning from above.

Vantra, Monsterized, flared the feathers across his body and crossed his arms up to block.

Clang! Crack—thwack!

The blade was stopped—and still, his arm was sliced in half.

“Kuaaaaack!”

A scream spilled out, half human and half monster.

“Hey, this is revenge for our comrade.”

At the same time, Aisia’s thin blade shot for his heart.

She had been behind Encrid as if she didn’t exist, then burst out and stabbed.

‘Damn it!’

The Owlbear tightened his chest muscles and sprang back, keeping his heart from being pierced.

Thwack!

The thin blade slipped in and out through the gap between feather, flesh, and muscle.

Dark red blood followed the withdrawing blade.

The opponent was a Junior Knight of the Royal Guard.

No—that wasn’t the real problem.

Including Junior Knight Aisia, there were at least five people here with comparable skill.

Whether he turned into an Owlbear or an Owlbear’s grandfather, it didn’t matter.

This had been a fight that would end the moment they met. Finding them had been difficult; fighting them wasn’t.

In other words, it was always going to end as soon as the moon rose.

If the Junior Knights and the Royal Guard hadn’t stepped in, things might have been different. Once they did, this was the natural result.

What he hadn’t expected was Krang sending an escort, and the Border Guard captain stepping in.

Which, in the end, meant at least some people still cared about the city’s safety. That wasn’t a bad thing.

Ooooooh!

Vantra cried out again and again.

“Shibal!”

He cursed through it, forcing himself to endure.

“Save me!”

In the end, he begged.

Watching that, the Border Guard captain in the feathered hat cursed his own lack of insight for not recognizing the opponent sooner.

‘They’re all monsters.’

What else could he call people who could toy with a real monster like an Owlbear?

Only then did he realize the rumors about the Border Guard were true.

In the capital, people still called it nonsense—some far-fetched tale.

‘Bullshit.’

Having brushed past death, the guard captain wanted to tear the mouths off the bastards who said that.

Vantra endured, endured, and endured—until a hole opened in his thigh, his head was smashed, and then an axe blade took half his neck.

Splat!

Bleeding dark red blood, Vantra collapsed—thanks to Rem’s finishing stroke.

He pitched forward, head first.

As the monster’s blood drained out through fatal wounds, the transformation unraveled. He returned to human form.

Feathers fell away. His whole body trembled. The torrent of blood slowed.

But returning to human didn’t change the fact that the wounds were fatal.

“Cough.”

Vantra hacked up blood where he lay. Encrid approached and crouched in front of him.

“Why were you here?”

He asked.

Of course, he didn’t expect an answer.

But with regret swelling as he died, Vantra spoke with bitter resentment.

“It’s unfair.”

That resentment wasn’t aimed at Encrid.

It was aimed at the one who had made him like this.

The intoxication—desire, pleasure—had been a side effect, not what he truly wanted. He’d lost himself as a human by becoming a monster, yet at the end, a fragment of his humanity surfaced again.

That was why it was unfair.

“How did you become Monsterized?”

Encrid asked.

“Drug… drug.”

Vantra murmured as he died.

The light in his eyes dimmed, fading slow.

Encrid couldn’t press further.

Vantra scraped together what strength he had left.

He couldn’t die without saying it.

“I’m not the last.”

—

Count Molsen received the report and nodded.

“He was discovered and killed earlier than expected.”

A subordinate stood in the middle of the study. The Count leaned back in his chair and replied without interest.

“It’s fine. He was disposable anyway.”

Was it those Encrid bastards again?

They were truly becoming a nuisance.

But he meant it.

“The preparations?”

“Less than a fortnight left.”

“I see.”

On a full-moon night, the Count drank wine as if the night itself were his snack. He set the glass down and spoke.

“Let’s meet in a fortnight, Your Majesty the Queen.”

When the time came, it would be decided whether he—or the Queen—sat on the throne.

—

Before the corpse of the Owlbear—Baron Vantra, rather—the Border Guard captain in the feathered hat saluted Encrid.

“Please forgive my rudeness earlier.”

“It wasn’t rudeness.”

Guarding the gate was his duty.

“I appreciate your help.”

He said it.

Encrid waved it off. He thought anyone would have done the same.

He was more concerned with what Baron Vantra had said before crossing the river.

“But were you allowed to leave your post?”

Encrid asked Matthew. He didn’t know what was happening inside the Royal Palace, but he knew it couldn’t be good.

Yet Krang’s escort had come out here.

“No country without people. No King without people.”

Matthew answered. Encrid understood. It must have been Krang’s words.

If he became king while ignoring people dying to the Moonlight Beast, it would mean nothing.

Encrid liked that.

Krang was the kind of person who made you want to help.

“Anyway, looks like we cleaned up.”

Encrid said.

Rem called it anticlimactic and suggested sparring.

Ragna wiped blood and oil from his sword.

Off to the side, Dunbakel picked up her curved swords and nodded.

“Good. This.”

She looked satisfied, having taken them from the assassin’s hand and been given them.

“But were there more of those gamey-smelling guys?”

Encrid asked. Dunbakel shook her head.

“I didn’t see anyone with a similar smell.”

Then what was Vantra talking about?

If there were more, could they really have stayed quiet?

Was there more than one Moonlight Beast?

No. The opponent had been intoxicated with monster blood, surrendered to instinct, and used slaughter as a tool for pleasure.

That was the conclusion Encrid had reached from rumors and inquiry, even without the guard captain’s account.

Maybe Vantra had been spouting nonsense as he died.

But in that moment, he had been sincere.

Encrid wasn’t dull enough to miss that.

So what was “more”?

Not in the capital.

Then what was it? What else was there?

After a brief pause—

“Count Molsen created a Chimera.”

Encrid said it and arrived at the conclusion.

“Hey, we should report that to the Royal Palace right away.”

Aisia said, then left. Night or not, it was urgent.

“You.”

Before leaving, Matthew approached. In the end, he hadn’t even had a chance to use his whip.

Rem, Ragna, Dunbakel, and Aisia were the only ones who had actually stepped in to bring down the Owlbear.

“Anything to say?”

Matthew hesitated, searching for words. Then he bit down hard, as if making up his mind.

“Please help my lord.”

“Yeah.”

“If danger comes—just once…”

“Uh.”

“…Huh?”

“I said I’ll help.”

What did he think Encrid had been doing, sticking around and not going home?

He’d stayed to see what Krang would do—and to swing his sword at his side.

Krang would become king of Naurilia.

More than that, he had proven it by sending his escort out here.

He said he would care for the country, the people, the citizens.

He said he would become that kind of king.

At the same time, he said he would become a friend.

If he was that kind of person, even if Encrid didn’t become his knight immediately, it would still be worth swinging a sword for him.

Encrid had already decided, so the answer came out without delay.

That was why Matthew looked so taken aback.

“He’s not the kind of man who’ll stop by my side. So he won’t even ask for help.”

That was what Krang himself had said.

He said he would do it on his own. A gamble—but also that he couldn’t win unless it was a gamble.

“Then.”

Matthew turned away.

When night passed and morning came, news arrived at Andrew’s mansion.

It wasn’t about what had happened overnight.

Baron Vantra’s death was buried immediately. Everyone kept quiet.

The Moonlight Beast being caught—its merit—was buried as well.

The news that came was about the Grand duke investiture ceremony.

It was Krang’s signal.

Maybe because of that, Aisia didn’t show her face anymore.

After days of her being around, it felt strangely empty.

“What, isn’t that Junior Knight coming?”

Rem was even looking for her.

“They say the investiture ceremony is being held. She must be busy.”

Encrid answered, sweating as he trained. He was disappointed too.

‘I wish I could’ve done it a hundred—no, two hundred more times.’

Then he would have broken Sword Tip Aiming.

It would have taken much longer to overwhelm and beat Aisia in the first place, though.

He regretted all of it.

She was an opponent he wanted to fight dozens—hundreds—more times.

“Since I’m disappointed, I’ll beat up the captain at least. Come out.”

Rem licked his lips and scratched at his own itch. Encrid felt the same.

—

Inside the Royal Palace, the situation shifted day by day—exactly as Krang intended.

And Krang added fuel to the fire.

“Are you just going to watch like this? A Grand duke!”

“Is he digging his own grave?”

The kind of provocation that would make the entire noble bloc rise.

In the Royal Palace, where Marquess was the highest rank, the Queen declared she would grant Krang the title of Grand duke.

“Where did Baron Vantra go?”

Baron Mernes asked.

He was the one uniting the factions inside the Royal Palace now.

One reason the scattered factions had become one was because Krang stood on the opposite side.

After swaying Markus Vaisar and several nobles, Krang had secured the Queen’s backing and moved to claim the title of Grand duke.

Everything he did threatened the noble bloc.

From reforms meant to strengthen royal authority—none of it was something they could watch quietly.

It was clear they had to remove him. He threatened the entire nobility.

It looked like the Queen was supporting him from the shadows, but the rule was simple: remove the one who steps forward and shouts loudest first.

‘Is he acting arrogant because he has the Queen behind him?’

Baron Mernes judged that what Krang was doing was, in the end, the Queen’s will.

‘Why did you do this, Your Majesty?’

This would inevitably end in catastrophe.

The factions had gathered and unified. If that unified force wasn’t released outward, it would turn inward and become a problem.

The Queen had dug her own grave.

The investiture ceremony was in a week.

Baron Mernes mobilized the assassination alliance.

He also called on the power that backed him.

The remnants of the Black Sword bandit group entered the Royal Palace.

He used his own people within the Royal Guard.

He also informed those who had crossed over from within the Royal Guard about the coming uprising.

‘This is loyalty.’

The momentum had already tipped.

Civil war would only gnaw at the country.

So the answer was to crush it before it even started.

If the Queen wanted to raise her suddenly appeared younger brother as a shield—

‘That younger brother will die.’

Then the Queen would never attempt this again. She would become a doll on the throne.

After that, they would let the true king step in.

‘My job ends there.’

Mernes murmured quietly.

Everything would end the day before the investiture ceremony.