Through blurry eyes, Milly stared out the window, watching the Sun climb over the lip of the horizon and dip ever so gently into the ocean of the sky above, leaving behind a trail of blazing red and yellow in its wake as it rose to greet the morning.

The past day had been absolute hell for her. Riding frantically towards civilization with a bunch of initiates in tow was enough to wear on anyones patience, but Milly had to keep up a strong front for them.

Saddlesoreness was the least of her worries. The truth was that she was shaken. Shaken to the core. Her commander had been killed infront of her, along with a dozen of his elite troops and 4 B rank mages from the adventurers guild hired for the occasion.

What would she say to her superiors? To the Adventurers guild? Had she any excuses to offer that would satisfy the council? In actual fact, Milly was pretty certain that if she reported exactly what she saw to the council, she would be summarily dismissed, perhaps even charged with treason.

Those crusty old men in their forlorn robes would laugh at her and say ”What? A child? A little kid wiped out the commander and his squad? Surely you were the one who did it. Envious of his position, you took the opportunity to get rid of him and lured him into a trap! You have the ability and the ambition for it, so why not?”

They resented her enough as it was. Perhaps because she was too young, or perhaps because of her family. Regardless of the reasons, the old codgering coots did not look upon her favourably. She was certain that they'd vigorously exploit any opportunity to rid themselves of her if one presented itself to them. And she wasn't going to deliver herself to them like that. This was her life, not theirs.

Milly got a bleeding headache just thinking about all of it. She stared out the window at the sun that slowly illuminated the dark nooks and crannies of the little settlement she was staying in.

It was called Harbrook town, the midway point of her journey to the capitol. It acted as the last outpost before one entered the monster infested wildlands and contained the amenities one would need for such a trip. It was not a commercial town, but one that dealt with adventurers on a regular basis and served as a base for them.

She had of course thought about slinking back to the fucking guild master and apologizing, but no matter what kind of shit she found herself in right now, she was not yet that desperate. Her sister siphoned all of her glory anyway, so what was left for her? Hmm. The Academy. She still had a few connections at the Royal Academy of Xuberanth, though going back so soon after graduating from the place was a little bit tasteless.

Still, it was a better plan than committing career suicide by returning and reporting truthfully what she saw that day...

Milly put pen to paper and began writing her report, which incidentally also doubled as her resignation letter.

Under normal circumstances, one couldn't just up and leave the kings service, but given her previous track record and current rank, aswell as her family... The old King had to give her some face and accept it. If he didn't, there was always Fiona... But no, she hated relying on her big sister for everything. When she joined the Knights, she vowed to never depend on anyone else ever again.

She would forge her own path, and Xuberanth was the only way she saw of proceeding forward right now. Beating on pretentious nobles and self-righteous mages under the pretense of teaching them actually sounded like fun, which would be good for a change.

Being a knight in service to the king was decidedly not fun, and not really all that it was made out to be.

She shuddered as another image of that monstrously strong thing in the cave seared her mind. Gosh this headache needed to piss off.

Having finally finished her report, Milly rolled up the parchment, bound it with spindlerope and slipped it into a silvery metal tube. Then she sealed it with wax and pressed her Knights signet ring into it. That would have to do for now, since she didn't bring a proper seal on this trip.

Who would've thought she needed to bring a seal along on what was essentially just a routine patrol of the old hunting grounds.

Most nobility wouldn't be caught dead without their signet rings, but Milly didn't really like her family and wanted to distance herself from them as much as possible...

This was supposed to be an ordinary patrol, no biggie, right? But then they had met that disgusting slaver... and at the mention of an escaped demonkin slave, her superior just couldn't help himself and ordered them to hunt it down.

If only Milly had listened to her heart... By Kings orders no less, this stupid tradition of hunting and enslaving demonkin had been kept alive since anyone could remember, and Milly had never found a good reason for such a thing. Just another reason she hated nobles.

Nobles were self-serving and uncaring of others. But who was she to talk about their morals so pompously? She had participated in the hunt of that child, after all... ordinary monsters and wild beasts were no threat to a trained squad of knights. But what she had encountered out there could not be compared to any monster she had ever faced.

No, it was something far more powerful than she had ever seen before. An unthinkable existence.

Thinking back to her time at the academy and most powerful mage she had ever met, Milly doubted that even that woman could do what that ...thing did so effortlessly. Milly shivered, then called for her second in command to give him instructions.

She had a long day ahead of her, and she wouldn't be going back to face the King. Instead, she would be taking the mountain route along the spine and hopefully make it to Xuberanth before the snows fell. In truth the journey wasn't very long if one knew the right path to travel the journey would last a week tops, but the weather at the spine was a bit erratic, and sometimes errant snowstorms blew in from who knew where even at the height of summer.

And they'd left the height of summer behind some time ago, even if the chill had yet to really set in.

Milly felt that there, in that secluded place far removed from the world, she would be safe. That thing couldn't find her there, she was sure of it. After all, why would it go there? It should be safe. It had no reason to hunt her to the ends of the world. It let her escape because it didn't care about her, right? Milly tried to convince herself of that as she saddled her horse, dragging her sore carcass onto its back.

With a click of her heels, she was off. She'd left her gear for her second to take back, and only wore some cheap leather crap and a brittle shortsword at her side. She'd laugh at her pitiful image if she didn't feel like weeping right now.

Knight no longer. She was just Milly. What she would be in the future... That was anyones guess, but she didn't think she would ever become an adventurer.