The city of Red Crown was famous for its natural phenomenon.

When the sun set, the light of the sun reflected from the natural lake next to the city cause the city to be bathed in red when viewed from a certain angle.

On the second days at Red Crown, Ayva was able to watch that phenomenon. They leave tomorrow, so tonight is the night or not at all. Leonel took Eliza, Aries and Aya to watch the sunset.

Micah accompanies them as the knight from the imperial city. Aeana, his junior, follows him too. Her face has healed, it won't leave scar anymore.

However, she has been avoiding Ayva. She was very close to princess Aries though. Wherever the princess went, Aeana was with her. It also explains the stink eyes princess Aries gave him at the beginning when Ayva knocked Aeana out.

When they return, it was already dark out.

Micah took a torch and Ayva took another. Micah declines to have Ayva hold the torch, asking for his junior, Aeana, however, princess Aries makes a comment which shuts Micah up. Ayva took the torch willingly.

Sometime, Ayva saw Aeana looking at how the princess treat Micah with a frown through the light of the torch. He does not know of their circumstance, but princess Aries is truly a hard to understand person.

Aeana looks up to Micah but she is close to princess Aries at the same time.

Under the moonlight and the light of the torch, the party went back to their inn quietly.

Goodbye Red Crown.

In the morning, two separate carriage was prepared.

Two separate, cramped carriage where they will be stuck for hours before they reach their destination.

Wisely, Ayva did not choose the big thermonuclear bomb of a carriage with Leonel, Eliza, Aries inside for the next 13 hours.

Instead, he chose to ride with Micah and Aeana, the two princess guard who will ride in the decoy carriage.

Their carriage will depart first as well as being more decorated. The princess carriage will depart at the same time as other merchant carriage who are going in the same direction.

Despite this being a dangerous position, Ayva feels that this is somehow less precarious than the other carriage.

There is only one problem.

Just two days ago, he decked one of the other person on the carriage and shattered her jaw. Yeah, apparently the right actually shattered her jaw despite Ayva not using footwork and putting his weight behind it.

And so currently, Ayva is looking to the left while Aeana is looking to the right.

Micah, the older knight sits next to Aeana, looking at the two young people, the knight felt annoyed.

"Knock it off you two. We will be riding together for the next 13 hours."

However, that did not change the awkwardness of the situation.

And so the journey continues.

Ayva looks out at the passing scenery. The trees became thinner as signs of human life appear. Trash mostly. There was even an axe laying on the side of the road. Getting stir crazy, Ayva starts distracting himself with songs.

For some reason, the songs from the other life seems so far away. The only thing he knew of is the janky tune of his hometown. The song that is sung when he is out chopping wood, the song that the three childhood friend sang around campfire, the song of the rainy season, the song of the rabbit and the girl.

Slowly, Ayva starts humming.

For his part, sir Micah actually closes his eyes for the first time.

"Rabbit rabbit where are you going?

Rabbit rabbit there is a hunter out there.

Your fur is black and your nose is red.

Rabbit rabbit what do you know?

Rabbit rabbit tells me your secret.

Hip hop hip hip hip hip hop hop."

Suddenly the silly song comes out of sir Micah's lips. The knight from the capital suddenly laughs.

When he came to Ayva's home village, the knight was young, but now he is an adult. Living for three years in the village, there was some cultural osmosis.

Excited that there was someone who sings along, Micah starts humming another song.

Suddenly, Micah taps Aeana's shoulder.

"Sing along Aeana."

The junior knight acts flustered. Bashfully, she looks away

"I don't know that song."

"It's alright to just mumble. It is a very good folk song."

Ayva hum the second song. A song about his village.

'All along the village wall, the torches never go out.'

To him, the song has great nostalgic value. It feels like he was at home, hearing the his younger brother sing along with the children. In a small village, the only few source of entertainment you have are game and songs.

The infallible Aeana starts singing, urged on by her senior knight

"AlL aLoNG tHE VillAGeee WAllllllllll, ThE TORCHES NeVER go OuT."

Sadly, lady Aeana was tonedeaf and sir Micah was actually deaf to listen to that shit. Ayva realizes that all he did was adding another source torment toward himself for the journey to come.

They stop singing along after around 3 hours. During that time, Ayva never has a moment of peace.

'Finally, it is over.'

Ayva looks at Aeana.

'It is finally over.'

He looks down at his hand

'Thank the goddess it is over.'

Suddenly, Aeana speaks up again, almost giving Ayva a heart attack thinking he has spoken his thought out loud.

"I will be challenging you again sir Ayva." The knightess has a look of conviction.

"Fighting in town with only our fist is impractical in a real battlefield. The next time, I will be challenging you with live steel. Please look forward to next time." The knightess said with all seriousness. There was not even an ounce of self-doubt.

Ayva looks at the knightess with a look that said 'Are you serious?'

However, the person to speak up this time again was sir Micah, her superior

"Was getting humiliated in front of princess Aries before not enough? I already told you to drop this foolishness. Ayva is-"

When Micah was cleaning up on the bandits and the demon infiltrator, Aeana showed up as reinforcement.

Corpses were strewn around the forest ground.

Some charred, some torn up beyond imagination.

The charred corpse made up of the majority of the fatality. There was a few surviving bandits with horrific burn.

Those, Micah puts out of their misery. After cleaning through the smell of cooked human for a while, Micah gave up on the burning zone. {If they live, they live. If they die, so be it}

That was why, for Aeana's peace of mind, Micah only took her through the area where physical confrontation happens.

However, that is not to say it was any better.

Micah holds back his bile after seeing a bandit torso being torn into four pieces. There was no predator yet because the fire previously has scared or killed them off. The scene was left at it is.

Now that he remembered it, that scarily smart boy Leonel sent his friend as vanguard to act as an intimidation tactic.

And what an intimidation that monster was. The boy could not control himself, savagely tearing a person into four with that spear of his, spilling guts all over the floor. When that happened, all the bandits in the area surrendered.

There was another time when his spear penetrated straight through another's face, leaving a giant gaping hole in their skull.

There was another time when the boy lifted his spear up with strength that comes out of nowhere, bisecting a bandit in half.

As they walk through the Ayva shaped massacre, even Aeana was getting sick.

The boy could not control himself. What he hits, he killed viciously...

'Four times' the boy keeps muttering as he shook his hand. It was a sign of hesitation and fear but when he killed, there was no hesitation at all, only vicious strikes.

"Did the demon do this?" Aeana asks him furiously. However, at that time, Micah didn't answer

'It was a human' Micah wanted to say. 'Why was this boy not known?' However, he has the answer. The incident a few years ago, a very famous knight was humiliated by a country boy. Micah was transferred then from the capital city after failing his previous mission.

A man's pride is a very powerful thing. It could make certain facts disappear.

Then, Micah took his junior to gather the corpse of the demon. It was a special 'infiltrator' demon, they have to take the corpse back for study. However, sadly, Micah didn't think there was anything left to study.

Aeana was stunned at the sign of the demon.

A demon is a scary existence to a human. Magic, natural strength, superior stamina, endurance and magical defense.

Any of those attribute can be learned by a talented human at a time. However, a demon was born with all of it, and they only get better with age.

A sufficiently adult demon can butcher whole company of knights after a hard battle. Only with the light of the goddess and the power of magic could human fight back against that kind of power.

And yet, it is still an uneven trade.

When a demon appears in a human village, that village is written off. When a demon appears in a human city, effort will be made to evacuate the citizen but it is known that the city will probably be abandoned soon.

And yet here in front of their eyes, a demon was laid on the ground.

'That thing' descended in the body of the boy and proceed to make a spectacle out of the demon's execution.

Execution because it was not a fight.

With speed that makes her almost invisible, 'she' toyed with demon until finally, having enough, she cuts him into small parts with countless attack.

Not only that, she took out the heart of four other bandits at the same time, leaving them falling in a circle around her.

'That thing' is definitely not a human. Inhuman hair, inhuman eyes. A face that is so perfect that it cannot exist in the real world. Was it the manifestation of the Goddess or the devil? Micah was afraid to ask.

He was afraid of the boy. It was perhaps the same fear that big shot knight along time ago feels

At that scene, Aeana could only mutter weakly

"Is this the power of a hero? In front of that kind of inhumaness, what can we human achieve?"

Micah did not have the heart to tell her.

After Aeana acted antagonistic toward that human-monster, along with his human-monster friends, the human-burning-monster and the cruel-calm-logical monster, Micah wanted to take her to the side and yelled at her.

However, he has to be professional around here. He was the only figure she could look up to now.

Knights are still human in the end. They could not be compared to the aberrant monsters, the faster he drilled that lesson into her head, the better.

So he told her the truth

"F'ses 'hit. I have to ch''alenge that guy. Fist does not count."

She slurs out of her mouth

"Listen to me Aeana, you can't challenge Ayva."

"I know you wanted to protect him sir Micah, but I can't. He is not yet proven worthy, and he dishonored me in front of the princess. I will have to gain that honor back."

"I am not protecting him Aeana. I'm protecting you.

Ayva is not a normal punk. He is not a normal human either. Do you remember the massacre in the forest.

It was him."

Aeana puts up a hand to stop sir Micah

"I know what he is sir Micah. However, this is not something that I can compromise. Only after I have confirmed with my eyes and my bodies will I be satisfied. So what if this body may be lost, it is nothing to gaining favour in front of princess Aries. There is nothing to gain by thinking it through

Or sir Micah

Did

You

Forget

How

You

Lost

The

Princess's

Favor?"

The words were spoken normally, however, when Micah heard it, it almost lasted for an eternity, leaving Ayva to look confused between the two.

After hearing those words, Micah has no rejections left and become quiet for the rest of the journey