"Surprised? I believe this is the third time that we met, dear Essairyn. Yet you're looking at me so coldly. I'm hurt."

The man's simper annoyed the girl. "Cut the flirty villain speech crap. What were you planning to do with these villagers?" She retorted while bashing the lock free on the truck's back doors. Essairyn kept an eye on him as she strapped a magic rope around the bars of the cage, dragging the imprisoned townspeople out. To her vexation, he only smiled leisurely at her actions, not moving a finger to counter the escape of the captives.

"Were planning to do? Who said I'm not doing anything right now?"

Essairyn's eyes widened in slow realization. His underlying message indicated that this truck wasn't the only one with townspeople. She jerked forward, yelling at Kajarn, "You bastard! What'd you do?!"

"Did. Everything's complete now. Good work holding her off, Lyam." Kajarn turned and walked away.

"I asked you a question!" Essairyn burst forward and swung her scythe at him. He shifted his head back and lifted a hand up to block her blow. Electric sparks the color of byzantium erupted from the collision. To her utter shock, Essairyn was flung backwards. Catching herself in the air, she skidded on the dirt and quickly regained her balance. Kajarn peered at the trickle of blood from his fingertips.

"The prototype isn't complete after all." He frowned and looked up at Essairyn. Tipping his head to the side, he faintly grinned. "You're a strange one. I don't suppose you'd care to join us?"

"You—!" Speechless, she couldn't believe the gall of this guy. He merely chuckled softly and waved his hand.

"Lyam." The black scarfed man appeared at Kajarn's side. Drawing out his daggers, he readied his stance to face off Essairyn as Kajarn stepped back. Worried about him escaping before she could interrogate Kajarn, Essairyn dashed forward, but Lyam deftly repelled her. Visibly incensed, she hurled her scythe to the right, and it vanished into thin air. Taking advantage of Lyam's split second surprise, Essairyn ensnared him with magic ropes before harshly kicking his chest. He spat out blood as he dropped onto the ground like a rag-doll.

"Ah." Kajarn murmured with a hint of disbelief. He had barely taken a step away, and Essairyn had trounced his second in command. It seemed that this girl had been holding back after all. Or rather, she was too inexperienced in real battles to employ her full potential yet. He clapped heartily. "Bravo! If you had fought like this earlier, maybe you would have found out about our real plan! Too late, I hope we meet again, Essairyn." A ray of disintegrated black that glowed like red cinders streaked toward Essairyn immediately following his words. Without a second to dodge the close-range, unexpected attack, she braced herself for the impact.

Boom! The black beam struck a virescent barrier that abruptly materialized in front of Essairyn. The force of the explosion knocked her backwards. But she she never felt the fall as sweeping arms caught and steadied her back on her feet. Black boots, black pants, and an oddly familiar cloak.

Surprised, Essairyn whipped her head at the person who had helped her. It was the hooded man. Or, it could've been any man in a cloak, but somehow she knew it was the same mysterious person she had met before. In fact, if it weren't for his cloak, she might've even thought it was the enemy for a split second and elbowed him in a knee-jerk reaction. The man felt her gaze and dipped his head lightly in a nod. She could've sworn he winked under his hood when he said, "Hello again, princess."

Something fluttered inside her heart, making her wonder why she felt so happy seeing him in this moment. Inwardly shaking her head from such puzzling feelings, she quickly returned to the precarious situation at hand. Not only had Kajarn fired off an attack on Essairyn, but darkly garbed men and gnarled, humanoid demons had descended from the rooftops around them.

Caught surrounded, Essairyn hurriedly dashed forward with a sweep of her scythe to part the way toward Kajarn. Her unanswered questions were many. She couldn't let him leave without an explanation for their attack on Farinheld. And sure enough, he was escaping through the concealment of the attackers.

"Don't let him get away!" A thundering voice resounded from above. Essairyn jerked her head up in time to see a well-built man drop into the heart of the encirclement. With one flourish of his great sword, he severed all the enemies around him, over two dozen total. As they fell, Essairyn spotted the twinkling remnants of a teleportation charm. "F***! He got away." The blonde man cursed and flipped the great sword onto his back with a half-sigh. His sword arm dropped while his other hand placed itself on his hip in defeat.

Although astounded by his one-hit strike and sudden appearance, Essairyn didn't forget about Lyam who was still bound. Ripping off his scarf, she commanded, "What did Kajarn mean? Why did you attack Farinheld and capture the townspeople?"

Lyam calmly gazed at her as blood dribbled from the corners of his mouth. After a quietly tense moment's face off, he replied, "Head northwest. You'll find your answers there." And with that, he bit the pill in his mouth and disappeared in a flurry of black specks.

Distraught, Essairyn clenched her fists and gnashed her teeth. The mission was a complete failure. And not only that, the mysterious man had disappeared in the fray yet again after helping her. The third time was not the charm to know his name, much less who he was. Exhaling, she composed herself and straightened her posture. Angling her head toward the blonde stranger, she inquired, "You are..?"

The man turned toward Essairyn at her voice. A spark of interest flashed across his mien, and he walked over while grinning. "You must be Essairyn." He stuck out his free hand while the other still rested on his hip. "The name's Classerth. I was sent here to help you all in this mission. But I arrived a little late, heheh.." He smiled apologetically.

"No, I'm thankful for your assistance." She politely responded. "I didn't realize that they would both teleport away. It was my miscalculation." She gritted her teeth.

Classerth shook his head. "If I had listened to Chaera and gone here when I should've, then the outcome might've been different. It's my bad." His eyes narrowed slightly when he furrowed his forehead in contemplation. "Damn! Why didn't she just directly order me to arrive earlier?! Tch! I swear that woman is always scheming for me to mess up!" Realizing that his outburst made no sense to Essairyn who stared at him blankly, he hastily explained with a dismissive wave, "It's nothing. Just an internal communication issue."

Essairyn blinked. "So you are Lieutenant Classerth Ajenak? And you were speaking about Knights Commander Chaera Ch'tahur?" Her words subconsciously sped up in anticipation despite her efforts to remain level-headed. She was keenly curious about the top leaders of the Knights Order, especially after seeing Classerth's easy one hit-ko against so many enemies.

Classerth merely grunted in confirmation. It was expected that all knights, much less the common people, would know about them. He was used to the fame, especially as the youngest Knights Lieutenant ever. So he just went about casually, not caring about his status and adoration from the people. For him, fighting was his first love.

"Essairyn!!" Izlende, followed by Ennrion and Aispin, sprinted toward her. "Are you okay?! Ah, this is—" She gave a curt bow to Classerth as a greeting.

"What? That's all I get after not seeing you in ages? No hug? Izlende~~" Classerth shuffled coyly against Izra's shoulder. No sooner had his sleeve touched Izlende that an air-splitting chop numbed his arm. Ennrion then swept the silver-haired girl possessively into his arms.

Classerth huffed and disregarded his injury as if Ennrion's brutal strike was nothing. Or perhaps he was just used to it by now. "Wuu, why is he so vicious to me? Do something, Izra! A knight shouldn't treat his superior like this!" If fighting was his first love, then Izlende was surely his second.

Izra whacked the top of Classerth's head with her magic staff. He shrunk down in pain yet seemed oddly happy by it. "Still fooling around as usual, I see. Now tell us why you're here."

Classerth instantly switched and became serious. He caught her underlying drift. "I don't know why Chaera withheld the mission's intelligence from me, but this situation went beyond the Knights' expectation. Look at this." He held up a shredded piece of cloth with a torn emblem.

Izra peered closely at it and read out loud. "Hyd' Tyml." Her gaze darkened. "This is.."

"Yes." Classerth handed the cloth to her. "Hand of God. The name of the group that attacked Farinheld and other towns."

"Other towns!? You're kidding!?" Izlende and Essairyn gasped.

He shook his head gravely. "I'm afraid that this hidden organization is much larger and more connected than we had foreseen. Only now are they finally showing themselves. The first attack on Farinheld was merely a test. From what I gathered on the way, H.T. advocates for equal rights and power among humans and elementals."

"Equality?" Essairyn uttered in disbelief. "Their goal seems right, but to demand it through violence is..."

Izlende gave a stern nod of agreement, asking, "Are you sure that H.T.'s objective? It's not just a false declaration to coverup something else?"

"We can't be sure of anything at this point. But even if that is indeed their objective, their methods are unjust. We, the Knights, cannot allow the destruction of towns and capture of innocents."

"Did you also find out why they're capturing people?" Izlende subconsciously looked over at Aispin who was currently freeing the caged villagers.

"Not completely. The focus is definitely on mages, so they're after magical power. I can only imagine what they're doing with them back at their base, wherever it is."

Everyone shuddered at Classerth's words. If their violence was any indication, then the mages surely would suffer from the extraction of their magic. But only that was a supposition. H.T. could also be brainwashing people or use them for other nefarious deeds. It was a complicated situation where the goal was congruent with the Knights, but the actions were just too malevolent. Perhaps rather than equality, Hyd' Tyml sought a complete turnover of power.

"Let's discuss more after we clean up the town and tend to the injured," interjected Essairyn. "We have more to solve on this issue, but we can't let more people suffer."

"Right." Izlende agreed and the others nodded. At this point, Rakun and Theryn had arrived along with Darren and Brynhilde on their tails. They had finished dealing with the rest of the H.T. intruders and came to check on Essairyn and the rest.

With the assistance of uninjured townspeople, the group mended the town and its people the best they could. By the end, Izlende was thoroughly wiped being the only healer. As for Essairyn, she no longer tried healing people after Akari's fierce disapproval of it. Instead, she better used her talents to fix the buildings. Throughout her work, Essairyn was tempted by the stinging urge to seek out her little fox. She kept hoping that Akari would come to her as usual, but the day went by without a single appearance.