The Otherworlder dashed up the dark and cold stairs. Luckily, most of the guards stationed here were down below and the one person who would guard the entrance from above would have been aptly dealt with by Cockarista. He skipped steps and went up as fast as he could. At the end, he could see an open metal door and a zoned-out guard leaning on the wall against it.

He smirked and went up the last stretch, passing by the gates to finally come back into the palace of Angnarmarak.

The Otherworlder internally pumped his fists as a slight excitement ran through his veins. After four whole days, he was finally making his way out of the hellhole. He was at the last step towards his escape. He could vividly recall the sensation of being dragged from the princess’ room and thrown into the cell.

Letting out a giant sigh, the Otherworlder shook his head and alerted himself again. The last step was not the end, he still had to see this through. He cautiously walked straight ahead, but couldn’t see Cockarista or the girl. As he soon approached a splitting path, the Otherworlder turned his head in confusion.

‘Shh! Lad! This way!’

Cockarista’s voice resounded in his head. The Otherworlder nodded and raised his leg before stepping back again.

‘What way?! North-east or North-west?’ Since they were using telepathy, there was no way he could tell where the sound was coming from! It all sounded in his head. ‘Oi! Cockarista! Cockroach!! Answer meee!’

There was no answer.

‘What delay are you instigating? Come here already!’

Cockarista couldn’t hear him.

‘Is my telepathy range low or something?’

Sighing again, the Otherworlder clicked his tongue and pulled out his coin.

‘Heads North-west.’

-Shwing!

The coin soared through the air and flipped over and over. It reached a peak and arced back down. Before it could fall, the Otherworlder snatched it out of the air and placed it in his hand.

Tails.

The Otherworlder dashed towards the northeast with no hesitation.

‘Hey, lad! Where–’ Cockarista’s voice cut off midway, the Otherworlder simply assumed he shut up after seeing him and continued on.

A few meters into the northwestern part, Cockarista put both his forearms against his head. ‘This bastard just ran in the other direction.’

The knight, unable to hear any of Cockarista’s thoughts, blinked her eyes and tilted her head in confusion.

In the end, Cockarista grabbed her hand and dragged her along with him towards the Otherworlder.

Far into the route Cockarista and the Knight were hiding at stood a burly man with a face resembling a bear and a beard its fur. The man, Mathias, furrowed his eyebrows as he sniffed at the air.

In case the ambush failed, or it was averted, he was standing here himself to take them on. He wished they would come up so that he could tear them apart with his own hands, and they did. It was uncouth to call the guards up here when the inhabitants of the palace were asleep. So it was his duty to take them on himself.

Yet, the smells that were slowly moving towards him were now going away.

Farther and farther.

They were certainly on their way to him, the knight girl and the criminal bastard she wanted to meet.

How? He was hiding to perfection. Not even the best of trackers should be able to notice his presence. How did they figure out that he was here? How did they avoid him? Mathias growled in frustration at the turn of events.

“You won’t escape...”

┈ ┈ ┈ ⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟ ┈ ┈ ┈

‘Lad! Here!’

‘Again, where?!’

‘Behind you!’

The Otherworlder screeched to a stop and turned back to see Cockarista and the knight girl chasing after him.

‘When did you get there?’

‘You scurried off on the wrong path.’

The Otherworlder slightly stuck his tongue out and averted his gaze as the other two caught up to him. When the knight girl saw his uncharacteristic reaction, she let out a quiet chuckle.

“Even you can make faces,” she whispered.

The Otherworlder did not know what she meant, but found it rude and ignored her.

‘Well, lad, how do we escape?’

“The canals flow behind the northern end of the palace through a tiny area. We need to get to the seventeenth storage room and break the bottom left corner of the northernmost wall. From there, we can slip out directly into the canals and escape.”

“Understood. We should make haste,” said the knight girl with a determined nod. “Please leave your backs to me.”

‘Will she be fine? I don’t think it is possible to channel your mana even up here.’

‘Worry not, lad. Don’t make light of a knight’s words.’

The Otherworlder nodded at Cockarista’s words and took the lead for himself.

Once again, the group set off through the hallways on the lowest floor of Angnarmarak palace. They moved with all the caution they could take. The Otherworlder even stopped them all at the smallest whispers of the servants in the palace and checked to clear the routes himself. The closer they edged to the northern end, the quicker their heartbeats got.

Cockarista, who had been locked up in the dungeons of the palace for a long time.

The knight girl who had been falsely framed and set for execution after years of devoted service.

And the Otherworlder, who had been dragged and locked, forced to choose between a servile mutt or a caged one.

Escaping the place was all they could think of. And now it was almost in their hands.

┈ ┈ ┈ ⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟ ┈ ┈ ┈

“Mathias.”

“Wh- Ah!” Mathias’ fierce frown melted in fear as he turned and saw the regal blue hair falling like streams of water and the sparkling gold eyes. He immediately took to his knees and bowed deeply. “Your Highness, lady Amelia. I apologize for the unseemly sight.”

“Mathias, are you looking for those bastards?”

A sense of incongruence hit the chief executioner as the princess’ words trickled out. They were sharp, strong, and derisive. A complete opposite of the angel-like princess he knew.

“What do you...?”

“They are at the northern end of the floor. They are planning to escape from the seventeenth storage room. That bastard, the hero-killing scum and the disgusting roach, all of them.”

‘How does she...’ Mathias’ eyes widened at the amount of information she revealed. He slowly peeked up to see the princess, a ghastly emptiness reflected in her gold eyes as her spring-like smile looked colder than the bleak winter.

Fear crawled up behind his spine and up to his mind.

“Mathias. Go catch those bugs. Don’t let me down, ok? Or I’ll have to teach you things myself.”

An unknown pressure choked Mathias down as he barely managed to give her a nod of acknowledgment.

“Hurry, now, shoo. Put those dogs to sleep.”

┈ ┈ ┈ ⋞ ⟨ ⏣ ⟩ ⋟ ┈ ┈ ┈

The Otherworlder, the knight, and Cockarista all peeked their heads out a wall to check out the path ahead, the last turn before they reached the seventeenth storeroom. A maid was taking a service cart with her towards another room. They all went back behind the walls and waited for her to leave. When her footsteps disappeared, the Otherworlder alone went out to make sure she was really gone.

Cockarista and the knight waited patiently when a wave of killing intent flooded Cockarista’s senses. Like an arrow spinning towards them, the sharp killing intent prickled through his carapace as it neared with relentless speed.

Cockarista picked up the knight girl with one hand and flung her behind him as he took a defensive stance with the three free hands.

-BOOM!

A shock wave spread out. Cockarista was pushed back by the force, his bottom limbs left a mark on the ground from the impact.

A punch had dug into his guard. Standing there was a bearish man with madder red eyes. The man lept backward to put some distance between them.

“Hmph. So there really was a cockroach. Did you sense me last time as well?”

‘Lad, come back here! A bear has appeared in the palace!’

“You seem to be a worthy opponent, cockroach.” Mathias scoffed as he dusted his shoulders and stretched his neck. “State your name.”

Seeing the challenger, Cockarista too stretched his limbs and jaws. The two glanced at each other...

... and disappeared.

They were suddenly in front of each other again. Mathias jabbed towards Cockarista’s head, which he dodged by slightly tilting to the side.

Cockarista followed up with two punches from the right.

Mathias twisted his body and lept in the air to dodge. He fluidly turned and launched a kick at Cockarista. The cockroach grabbed the bearish man’s legs and swung him around.

Before he could do anything else, Mathias lifted himself up mid-air and punched the cockroach, forcing him to let go.

The Otherworlder came rushing back after hearing Cockarista’s message to see a crazed battle ongoing. Both the parties fought toe to toe as a storm of punches and kicks broke out. Neither side seemed to be winning as they both dodged the other’s attack with pinpoint precision.

The knight girl rushed towards him and covered him as if guarding him.

‘Cockarista! Are you alright?’ the Otherworlder asked.

‘Yes, but he’s powerful... It might take a tad to defeat him.’

The Otherworlder clicked his tongue and turned back. “Let’s go, we’ll create our exit,” he said to the knight as they both took a step towards their destination which was just a few meters away.

“Where do you think you are going?!”

A rage-filled scream resounded from their backs. Mathias turned toward the Otherworlder and grit his teeth. He pulled his hand back as the air around gathered towards it.

‘This–!’ Cockarista jumped and grabbed the Otherworlder and the Knight. He picked them up and dived to the floor.

The air above them stood still for a second. Like the rays of the sun, a beam of white light spread from Mathias’ hands and shot above the three. The walls in its path burnt away as the beam slowly dissipated.

‘W-what was that... It should be impossible... in the castle...’

Right as the beam went away, Cockarista shot to his feet and dragged the two ahead. He kicked open the door to the storeroom and rushed inside.

‘That madman! He’s using his Life Ki! He is shortening his life to kill us!’

‘W-what?’ Stunned, the Otherworlder couldn’t help but stammer on his words. The knight girl was in an even worse state as she trembled in his hands.

Cockarista dropped the two on the ground and turned towards the door. ‘Lad!! There isn’t much time!! I’ll hold him back.’

Snapping back to reality, the Otherworlder calmed his raging heart and turned towards the northernmost wall. Bottom left, bottom left. They planned on Cockarista breaking it, but he could use his wires. The covert escape had gone to shit, but getting out of the palace meant they could get away.

The Otherworlder ignored the still shaking knight and rushed to the wall. He set the wires against his hands and swung them around. With the momentum of his hands, the special alloy wires were just sharp enough to cut through the walls.

“Get back!!!”

“KUH!”

Sounds of an intense battle resounded from his back, but the Otherworlder didn’t as much as a glance behind. He kept swinging the wires to cut through the walls. They sliced through the top and moved towards the sides.

“Don’t disturb me, bug!”

‘AHH!’

Unrelenting, unmoving, the Otherworlder only focused on cutting through the walls.

The sides were cut through. Then the bottom.

-Scratch, scratch.

He broke the wall as fast as he could. He chipped away at the bottom and then connected the cuts.

Just then, a scream resounded in his head.

‘Lad!! RUN!!’

Time seemed to have slowed down as the Otherworlder cut through the final bit of the wall and slowly turned his head back.

As if everything had frozen. As if fate was being written again...

... As if a coin had been flipped.

A bearish man. A beam of white. Cockarista, jumping towards him, too close to be safe from the attack, yet too far to stop it.

‘Is this, the end...?’

Such a strange thought entered his mind. In the stopped world, his gaze finally landed next to him, where a brown-haired girl had placed her hands on his shoulders with horror-struck eyes.

-BOOOM!!!

The white light covered his sight as time started flowing all at once. A hot sensation brushed against his skin and a blunt one hit his back.

The sound of burning.

A shortened scream.

A loud crack.

And an unfamiliar buzzing.

How many seconds had passed? How much time had flowed?

As the Otherworlder opened his eyes again, the glowing blue and indigo of the morning sun greeted him after many days. Clenched in the brown and spindly hands of his friend, the Otherworlder soared through the sky. His flying friend lacked the heavy metallic bands wrapped around him and instead had spread his wings towards freedom. The sound of Cockarista’s wings was just soft enough for him to hear the morning birds.

They had escaped the palace.

Just them.