Six months had passed since Elian Vane was declared dead by the Solara Empire.
In the depths of the Azure Mist Forest, the seasons had turned. Giant purple leaves began to fall, replaced by silver shoots shimmering under the increasingly cold moonlight.
In a small clearing surrounded by poisonous flowers, a beautiful "girl" sat on a fallen log. She wore a simple tunic stitched from wolf skin, her long black hair braided loosely and falling over her left shoulder. She appeared to be crying, her shoulders shaking gently, her face buried in her palms.
"Please... anyone..." she sobbed softly, her voice fragile and heartbreaking.
From the underbrush, an Iron-tusk Boar—a Tier 2 monster known for being aggressive but stupid—emerged. Its red eyes locked onto the small figure. To the monster, this was an easy meal. No threat, no killing intent, just prey that was weak and desperate.
The boar snorted, pawing the ground, preparing to charge.
Suddenly, the sobbing stopped.
The "girl" lifted her face. There were no tears. Elian's face—for it was indeed him—was dry and expressionless. His pink lips curled into a crooked, terrifying smile.
"You were fooled," Elian whispered.
The boar had already charged with full momentum. Its speed was enough to shatter stone.
However, Elian did not draw a sword. Nor did he leap away.
Just as the iron tusks were a hand's breadth from his stomach, Elian dropped his body backward into an extreme bridge, his spine arching with inhuman flexibility.
The tusks passed right over his nose.
From that inverted position, Elian's hands jerked upward. He wasn't holding a weapon, but a thin strand of Spider Silk he had strung between two trees moments before.
Zip!
The boar ran through the wire trap at full speed. Its thick neck slammed into the invisible silk, which was sharp as a razor.
Blood sprayed. The boar's head separated from its body, rolling onto the grassy ground. Its massive body continued to run for a few meters due to inertia before finally collapsing, twitching in death throes.
Elian stood up, dusting off his tunic. He stared at the carcass without emotion.
"Your acting technique is decent, but your sobbing was too manufactured," Lunaria's voice drifted down from the tree above. The Elf Queen was sitting casually, eating a wild peach.
"It was enough to fool a beast, Master," Elian replied, walking toward the carcass to begin harvesting the meat.
Lunaria hopped down.
"Beasts, yes. But humans? Nobles? They are far more intelligent predators. They smell falsehood like a shark smells blood."
Lunaria walked up to Elian, lifting her student's chin with the tip of her index finger. She stared at Elian's androgenous face, which grew more mesmerizing by the day. His skin, tempered by various alchemical baths, now possessed an ethereal quality, as if glowing from within.
"You possess a weapon more dangerous than a sword, Elian," Lunaria said seriously.
"Your face. This ambiguous, 'weak' appearance of yours. In the outside world, people will look at you and think: 'Ah, what a poor beautiful girl' or 'What a useless boy'. They will lower their guard."
Elian swatted his teacher's hand away gently, a flash of distaste in his eyes. "I hate being thought of as weak. I am the son of Duke Vane."
"Throw away your pride," Lunaria hissed sharply. "Pride is a luxury for the dead. You want revenge? Then become a whore to fate if you must. Use your face. Let them underestimate you. Let them laugh. And when they are complacent... tear out their throats."
Elian fell silent. He knew Lunaria was right. Over these six months, he had learned that fighting wasn't about who screamed the loudest or who had the biggest aura. Fighting was about who was left standing at the end.
"I understand," Elian murmured.
"Good," Lunaria smiled with satisfaction. "Because your next test isn't against a stupid pig. We are going to hunt a Chameleon Basilisk."
Elian's eyes widened slightly. "A Basilisk? That's a Tier 4 monster. Its skin changes color to blend with the environment, and its poison can melt flesh in minutes. I'm not ready."
"You will never be ready if you wait," Lunaria cut in. "And you won't kill it with strength. You will be the bait."
***
By late afternoon, they arrived in the swampy southern sector of the forest. The air here was humid and hot, smelling of rotten eggs.
"The Basilisk is around here," Lunaria whispered, concealing her aura perfectly so she was virtually non-existent. "It is an ambush predator. It won't attack if it senses the prey is dangerous. So, you must look very, very delicious."
Elian sighed deeply. He removed the wolf-skin guard from his arm, leaving his white skin exposed. He walked unsteadily along the edge of the swamp, feigning injury.
His Nature Sense was working overtime. He couldn't see the Basilisk, but he could feel the distortion in the air. There was a void where the natural mana was blocked.
There. On the mangrove branch to the left.
Elian felt a cold, sticky killing intent lock onto him.
He kept walking, his heart beating calmly. He had to let the monster strike first.
Suddenly, the air rippled.
A long, sticky tongue shot out from the void, aiming for Elian's neck.
Elian didn't dodge. He let the tongue wrap around his left arm.
SPLAT!
The tongue coiled tight, its acidic slime instantly hissing as it burned Elian's skin. The pain was excruciating, like being doused in hot oil.
Now! Elian's mind screamed.
The Basilisk retracted its tongue, intending to drag Elian into its maw of poisonous teeth.
Elian didn't fight the pull. He leaped with the retraction, adding his own speed to the momentum.
In the blink of an eye, the monster's camouflage failed. A giant lizard with green-brown scales materialized from thin air, its mouth gaping wide, waiting for its meal.
Elian flew straight toward that mouth.
In mid-air, he drew his steel dagger with his right hand.
Use momentum. Don't fight it.
Just before he entered the monster's jaws, Elian stomped his foot onto the Basilisk's lower jaw.
CRACK!
His leg bones, hard as dragon steel, shattered several of the monster's teeth, using them as a foothold. With that leverage, Elian launched himself upward, dodging the bite, and landed on top of the monster's head.
"Die!"
Elian drove his dagger into the Basilisk's left eye.
SKREEEE!!
The monster shrieked, a sound that pierced the eardrums. It thrashed its head wildly, slamming Elian's body against a tree trunk.
THUD!
Elian felt his ribs crack again. The pain was familiar. The pain was an old friend.
He didn't let go of the dagger hilt buried in the monster's eye. He twisted it ruthlessly.
The Basilisk panicked. Its tail whipped around, slamming into Elian's back.
"Cough!" Fresh blood sprayed from Elian's mouth.
But Elian's hand didn't slip. His grip was like an iron clamp.
"Stop... moving... you damn lizard!" Elian growled.
He pulled the dagger out, and with the last of his strength, stabbed it in once more. This time deeper through the eye socket, piercing the cerebellum.
The monster convulsed once, then collapsed into the swamp mud, dragging Elian down with it.
Silence returned to the swamp.
Minutes later, Lunaria appeared. She looked at her student, who was half-submerged in mud, his left arm severely blistered from the acidic tongue, his face pale as death.
Elian crawled out from under the monster's carcass. He sat against a tree root, his breathing heavy and wheezing.
Lunaria crouched in front of him, examining Elian's arm.
"Your skin is destroyed," Lunaria said flatly. "The poison has entered your bloodstream."
"I... know..." Elian smiled weakly, his teeth stained with blood. "But... I didn't die."
Lunaria looked at the wound. Strangely, the bleeding had stopped. And at the edges of the burn, new skin tissue was beginning to grow at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Elian's regeneration was becoming increasingly unnatural.
"Your body truly loves pain," Lunaria muttered, a tone of admiration mixed with horror in her voice. "Basilisk poison should kill a human in five minutes. But your body is eating it."
Elian leaned his head back against the tree, staring at the twilight sky.
"Master... when do we leave this forest?"
Lunaria stood, looking toward the horizon where the sun was setting.
"Soon. You have mastered the basics of survival, the basics of monster anatomy, and the basics of killing without emotion. This forest can teach you nothing more but repetition."
Lunaria turned back to Elian. Her beautiful face looked serious, a shadow of the past crossing her purple eyes.
"Elian, listen to me. In the outside world, you will meet many people statistically stronger than you. They possess Golden Mana Cores; they possess Aura that can split mountains. Never try to fight them fairly."
"I know," Elian replied.
"Be a cheat. Be a coward if necessary. Use poison, traps, acting, and seduction," Lunaria pointed at Elian's chest. "Because to this world, your existence is an anomaly. And the world always tries to correct anomalies."
Elian closed his eyes, feeling the itch and sting of regeneration in his arm.
"I am no hero, Master. I don't care about justice or knightly honor. I just want those who destroyed my life to feel what I feel."
"Good," Lunaria smiled, this time a genuine but sad smile. "Rest. Tomorrow we start moving to the southern border. Toward a small port town in the Kingdom of Noctis. It's time you saw human 'civilization' again."
That night, under the moonlight, Elian didn't sleep. He stared at his self-healing hand. He realized one thing: his emotions were dulling. Physical pain no longer made him cry; it was merely an information signal. And fear... fear was slowly transforming into an eternal coldness.
He was ready to get out. But he didn't yet know that the "suffering" in this forest was merely a warm-up for the true hell that awaited him once he parted ways with Lunaria.