“So, I suppose monsters can roam free here.” Reinhart said as he got up and patted himself. “Sure makes things more complicated.”

Red followed behind the man and looked over the trail of footprints left behind by the stampede. He crouched down and examined the ground. To his dismay, though, the creatures had left nothing behind during their panicked sprint that might have helped the boy identify them.

He looked over at the knight. “Do you recognize that cat?”

“Not this one in specific.” Reinhart shook his head. “It looks like a panther.”

“Panther?” Red wasn’t familiar with the term.

“You might know it under a different name. Cougar, mountain lion, puma… All kinds of terms people call them.”

Indeed, Red recognized one of those terms. “I heard of mountain lions before. Aren’t they supposed to be from the Great Serpent Canyon?”

“They are.” Reinhart nodded. “Actually, now that you mention it, we are kind of in a canyon ourselves, aren’t we?”

“Yes, so there might be other monsters from that region here. Do you have any knowledge about that?”

The knight sighed. “Unfortunately not. The only thing I can tell you is to be careful of the serpents. There’s a reason they call it the Great Serpent Canyon. Every rock and every hole in the wall might be hiding one of those snakes in them, and by the time you notice it, it might be too late.”

Red nodded. He hadn’t read much on serpent monsters before, but he knew how dangerous they could be with their venomous bites and lightning fast pounces. They were some of the deadliest ambushers out there.

The boy, however, had a weapon that made him virtually impervious to ambushes in the form of his crimson sense. He wasn’t going to tell Reinhart about it, though.

“We need to be more careful moving forward.” Red said. “If another stampede happens and we’re caught somewhere without cover, we will definitely die.”

Reinhart smiled. “All the more reason to get out of here as soon as possible, right?”

…

After collecting themselves, the duo resumed their travel.

This time around, Red kept an even closer look at his surroundings as they walked, taking a mental note of every hiding spot he could use in a pinch. The lightning continued to flash above them without end, and every now and again, the ground rumbled with the sound of thunder.

To their surprise, though, there were no signs of another stampede, or any other monsters, for that matter. Neither of them let their guards down, however, and a few minutes later, their alertness was justified.

A shrill sound came from somewhere ahead of them, and the duo both froze in their spot. This time, they immediately got on the move.

Red led them to another hiding spot - this time one small enough that only a kid his size would fit. Reinhart frowned at him once he saw it, but the boy simply pointed towards the other side of the trench.

The knight scoffed and ran over, finding another hiding spot, as Red had pointed out. The shrill sound continued to approach them, and it didn’t seem to come from the same creatures as before, and neither did the ground tremble. In fact, it belonged to a single creature. A very loud and angry beast.

Red held his breath and waited in silence for the inevitable moment the creature walked through. The thud of heavy footsteps reached his ears and Red also picked up its fluctuation.

‘Another Lesser Ring Realm beast.’

A few seconds later, he saw the shadow of a dark creature pass right in front of his hiding spot. For an instant, though, he was able to spot the monster’s eyes. They were all glowing green.

Red felt his heart skip a beat. Yet, before he could examine the beast further, it was already past him and had disappeared around the corner of the trench. Both the boy and the knight waited for a few minutes before coming out.

“… Did you see what it was?” Red asked the man.

“No.” Reinhart shook his head. “It had almost pitch black skin, so I couldn’t really make it out other than the glowing eyes. It was big and fast, though, so I don’t need to tell you it was at the Lesser Ring Realm.”

‘So I wasn’t imagining it.’

This description fit exactly with the insect monsters from the Moonstone mines Red had seen before. This possibility baffled him, but the boy tried not to make any conclusions. After all, how many different monsters existed in the world? How many of them shared traits? It wouldn’t be absurd for another similar but entirely unrelated beast to make its way here, so the boy tried not to jump to conclusions.

Reinhart spoke up again. “Either way, we should move before-”

Right as the knight was speaking, another shrill sound came from very close to them, and he looked in that direction with alarm. Red, who hadn’t felt any other fluctuations, didn’t panic, though, but he still looked towards the sound’s origin.

Another lightning flashed from above, illuminating the trenches for a moment. In that instant, Red saw it. A couple of moving silhouettes exiting from a hole in the wall. The boy had the sudden impression they were looking directly at the humans.

Then, the world went dark again.

“They’re coming at us!” Reinhart warned, confirming the boy’s suspicions.

A moment later, Red felt the first creature enter his detection range.

‘Not in the Lesser Ring Realm.’

The boy felt relieved. Yet he didn’t dare to underestimate the monsters.

A flash of lightning came from above, giving him another glimpse of their appearance. It was a lizard. Dark green scales covered the monster’s body, which reached well over five meters in length from head to tail, and the creature moved on all four outstretched legs with surprising speed. Its claws gleamed under the lightning, and its large tail bobbed and weaved as it moved while holding onto the wall.

There were also three of them. Surprisingly, all of the monsters were charging directly at Reinhart, who had already unsheathed his sword in preparation.

“Give me some cover here, kid!” the man said in a loud voice.

Red hesitated, but he still took out his bow, which had seen almost no use in this journey. He nocked an arrow and pulled back, focusing on the faint figures of the lizards in the darkness. Just as the first one was about to reach Reinhart, lightning flashed from above, illuminating the trenches and its dwellers.

Red was waiting for this opportunity. He adjusted his aim in a split second and let loose.

A bellow of pain sounded out.

‘A hit!’

Almost on cue, Reinhart charged ahead. A swishing sound rang out, followed by a crunching noise of scale and flesh being split apart. The creature bellowed in pain again. A cacophony of horrible sounds from its companions followed that, and a few seconds later, the creatures had reached their enemy.

Another flash of lightning.

Red saw the lizards’ tails swinging like a whip towards Reinhart, who didn’t hesitate to jump back to avoid them. A whacking sound rang out as the heavy appendages missed their targets. In the meantime, Red saw no movement from the first monster.

“Shoot again!” Reinhart called to him.

The boy followed his instructions. This time, though, he had a harder time with aiming for the monsters as the knight weaved and dodge in front of him. Finally, though, he let loose.

His arrow hit one of the monsters on the side. The creature roared in pain, and looked over at the boy, as if finally noticing him for the first time. Reinhart, however, took advantage of this distraction and slashed at the monster, cutting one of its legs clean off while his sword continued to bite into its body.

The knight tried to follow up on this attack, but the other lizard pushed its offensive as it saw its companion in trouble. A tail swung over, and Reinhart had to jump back to avoid it. The beast didn’t let up, though, and continued to press on in a flurry of claws, bites, and tail swipes.

The injured monster at the back groaned in pain, yet it still sought to rejoin the battle. Red wasn’t about to give it the opportunity, though. Another arrow shot out, digging into the beast’s neck. The lizard weaved and tried to move away, but Red didn’t stop shooting.

After almost five shots in quick succession, one of them found its way straight into the side of the lizard’s head. The monster let one last roar before its body fell into the ground with a thud.

The remaining lizard seemed to notice the plight of its companion and roared in anger once it noticed its unmoving corpse. Unfortunately for the beast, Reinhart was not one to let go of an opening.

The man dashed ahead, closing the distance between them in an instant. By the time the monster noticed it, the knight’s sword had already dug into its neck. The monster struggled, but Reinhart suddenly shook his hand, and the creature’s head was separated from its body in one swift movement.

With the last lizard dead, silence returned to the trenches. That is, other than the constant thunder.

Reinhart looked over at Red with a smile. “Who would have thought you were handy with a bow too, kid?”

Red shook his head. “We need to move quickly. The blood will definitely attract other monsters to this place.”

Indeed, there was a constant intense breeze blowing through the trenches. In this narrow path, the wind would carry the blood smell very far, and seeing as there were creatures in the Lesser Ring Realm around, Red didn’t want to take the chance.

“You’re right.” the knight nodded. “But what about that?”

The man pointed out at the hole the lizards had crawled out from. It stood halfway up the walls of the gorge, and Red couldn’t really see it from his current position. Still, he understood the man’s implication.

“You want to go in there?” Red frowned.

Reinhart laughed. “Of course I do. Look, the spirit said we could get rewards here, right? Yet we’ve walked for quite a while and even killed a few monsters, but we’ve seen no rewards.”

The boy understood the knight’s rationale. “So you think these rewards could be hidden in that hole?”

“It would only make sense, right? Either way, there’s no harm in checking.”

“We could also walk into a nest full of those monsters.”

“That would be preferable to facing some of the monsters out here, wouldn’t it?”

Red nodded and stopped arguing. Since he had come here, he was obviously prepared to take on some risks, and,all things considered, this wasn’t as big of a risk compared to everything they had gone through up until now.

“I’ll climb up first.” the knight said. “I’ll tell you if it’s safe to come up.”

Red agreed with the plan. The boy used his crimson sense to detect any fluctuations inside the walls of the trenches, but he could not find anything from his position.

He watched as Reinhart used the irregular rocky walls to climb his way up to the hole in the wall with little effort. Once the man reached it, he peeked inside. A few seconds later, he looked down at Red.

“I see nothing!” Reinhart said.

The boy frowned. “Do you mean you see nothing in the darkness or that you see no more monsters?”

“Uh… A bit of both. Either way, there are no monsters at the entrance, so you can climb up.”

Reinhart then disappeared out of view and into the hole. Red hesitated for a bit, but he still decided to climb up. His experience in this terrain gave him an edge for such tasks, and soon enough, he was already halfway up the wall.

However, at that point, the boy paused mid-climb and looked up. He could feel Reinhart’s position by his fluctuations.

“You’re not waiting right at the edge of that hole, are you?” Red asked out loud.

“Huh, how did you guess?” Reinhart’s voice came in response from inside the hole. “Either way, I’m not going to ambush you. Just wanted to scare you a bit.”

Red frowned. “Please step back.”

“Fine, fine. I will.”

Although the man said that, the boy could tell from his fluctuation he hadn’t moved.

Red sighed. “You know, the more we waste time here, the more likely it is that one of those monsters could wander by and kill us both.”

Reinhart laughed. “You make a fair point.”

Finally, Red sensed the man distance himself from the edge.

“I’m far away now.” the knight called out, his voice indeed fainter.

Without hesitation, Red climbed the rest of the way in one go and jumped up into the hole. He saw Reinhart with his arms crossed, leaning back against the wall with a smile.

“See? You can trust me.”