After walking for another fifteen minutes, Tia stopped between two enormous trees and thought to herself:
‘This is bad!’
She had started walking because she needed to reach the Imperial Capital—
but no matter how long she walked, the capital never came into view.
‘Hiiing… In Jongno District, a huge city would appear if you just walked a little.’
Apparently, the Imperial Capital of this world was much farther away than she had imagined.
“What do I do…?”
Birds chirped overhead as they flew through the trees.
‘If only Tia had wings too, she could zoom through the sky.’
Wait.
Wings?
“……”
Her eyes sparkled brightly.
Tia slowly turned toward Kkamangi.
He was standing about five steps away, leaning against a tree with his arms crossed.
“Kkamangi, you know…”
“I can’t carry you.”
“O-Oh… I see…”
Tia’s face instantly drooped.
She had secretly hoped she might be able to ride on Kkamangi’s back.
Now that she looked carefully, though, his wings did seem a little small for a legendary Puppetmon.
Still, Tia refused to give up and quickly thought of another idea.
“Kkamangi, then…”
“I can’t use teleportation either.”
“Huh… really?”
That was honestly shocking.
Kkamangi was supposed to be a legendary Puppetmon.
He had even brought her here from South Korea.
As she stared at him in confusion, Kkamangi added:
“I already pushed my power to its limit. Do you think bringing you here was easy?”
Tia immediately closed her mouth in surprise.
Now that she looked closely, Kkamangi’s complexion did seem pale.
“I had to interfere with dimensions to save your father, and on top of that, you fell asleep, so I even had to prepare a place for you to rest…”
Kkamangi suddenly stopped talking and muttered to himself:
“…Why am I even explaining this?”
But then he looked back at Tia as if it didn’t matter.
“Anyway. I can’t do anything right now.”
Tia pressed her lips together.
Suddenly, she felt sorry for him.
Kkamangi was her benefactor.
He had saved the father she might have lost forever and even brought Tia back to her homeland.
‘…I shouldn’t keep bothering him without being grateful.’
She didn’t want to become a burden to Kkamangi too, not after already depending so much on Daddy.
Tia hesitantly walked toward him.
“Kkamangi, should I massage your shoulders?”
Kkamangi made a strange expression.
“What?”
“I learned filial-piety massage at kindergarten! I got first place in Quail Class!”
“No thanks.”
Tia reached out her hand, but Kkamangi quickly stepped back.
Still wearing an uncomfortable expression, he added:
“There’s no need. Even if I still had power left, I couldn’t use high-level magic anyway.”
“Hm?”
“High-level magic. Especially movement magic that leaves traces, like teleportation—it’s easy to track.”
The word track made Tia’s face go blank.
Whenever the word “tracking” appeared in newspapers or on the news, Daddy would always make a dark expression.
Actually, Tia knew why.
‘If they track you, you get deported…’
Deportation meant being chased away.
She didn’t know why Daddy had to be chased away, but adults said that if he got deported, Daddy and Tia might end up separated forever.
Tia shook her head fiercely.
Tracking—
deportation—
those absolutely couldn’t happen.
Not after finally making it here.
Not after finally returning to the homeland where Daddy was still alive.
Tia quickly looked up.
“Kkamangi!”
She was about to tell him never to use magic again, but—
“Kkamangi?”
The place where he had been standing moments ago was now empty.
Tia hurried over and spotted a black stone lying alone between the fallen leaves.
She stared at it in shock before quickly picking it up.
Then she opened the kindergarten backpack she had brought along just in case.
“Kkamangi…”
He had said he used too much power, so apparently he had fallen asleep.
When Puppetmons exhausted themselves, they returned to their Puppet Balls to rest too.
‘Kkamangi, don’t worry about anything here.’
With a determined expression, Tia placed the stone carefully into the inner pocket of her backpack and zipped it all the way shut.
Then she checked twice to make sure it was secure before putting the backpack on.
“Even if it’s hard, I gotta keep going!”
She remembered Grandma from Room 107 always saying:
“Even if you fail, you still gotta try.”
And so Tia bravely continued forward—
without the slightest idea what awaited her ahead.
“Tastes disgusting.”
Basto muttered while crunching down on a wild carrot.
He knew this wasn’t the time to be picky about food, but after eating the same thing for three straight days, he was getting sick of it.
Leaning against a tree trunk, he quietly scanned the area around him.
It had been two hours since he set up traps nearby, but there were still no signs that anything had been caught.
“…Damn magical beasts.”
Once upon a time, this forest must have been filled with rabbits, deer, and all sorts of mountain animals.
But now it stood empty, largely thanks to the monsters.
“Mercenaries, imperial soldiers… no matter how many they kill…”
Destroy one mana stone, and another appears elsewhere.
Destroy that one, and yet another newly formed mana stone begins spewing monsters again.
The damned creatures poured out endlessly.
“Ptooey.”
Spitting out the carrot, Basto rose to his feet.
As he stretched his stiff body, his joints cracked loudly one after another.
After stroking his overgrown beard once, he pulled a map from inside his armor with rough hands.
[Brio Wood]
The place he currently occupied was a medium-sized forest located five days south of the Imperial Capital.
Stretching long across the land as though wrapping around the capital from afar, the forest had three red dots marked clearly on the map.
Basto pulled out a piece of charcoal and drew an X over one of them.
That had been the location of the small mana stone he conquered the previous night.
‘Yesterday, I really almost died.’
Thinking back to the chaotic battle, he let out a hollow laugh.
Even a small mana stone was still a mana stone.
When flying monsters suddenly appeared, even he had panicked.
Sometimes he grew disgusted with this job that constantly risked his life.
But…
“…Whatever.”
To clear his thoughts, Basto strapped his armor back on.
No matter what, the important thing was that he had survived again.
Drifting alone as a wandering mercenary.
Slaughtering monsters like a madman and bathing in their blood.
Someday, when his breathing finally stopped, all of it would end too.
“I should dismantle the traps and start heading back to the capital.”
Just as he put away the map and prepared to leave—
Ting—
A small but familiar sound reached his ears.
It was the sound of a tightly pulled rope snapping loose—
the signal that something had triggered his trap.
Basto grabbed his weapon, a massive war hammer leaning against the tree, and immediately began running toward the trap.
‘Thought all the mountain animals were wiped out.’
Maybe a rabbit?
Or a rat or weasel?
A boar or deer would be ideal, but honestly even a rat was fine.
Rat meat wasn’t exactly delicious and was annoying to debone, but it was still edible.
But then—
“…Hic.”
His sharp hearing caught another sound.
It was definitely coming from the direction of the trap.
His pace slowed slightly.
‘That sounded almost like a human…’
“Hic!”
Basto frowned.
He had been right.
The sound coming from the trap was unmistakably hiccuping.
Silencing his footsteps, he lowered his stance and quickly moved through the trees.
Anyone inside a forest containing three mana stones was most likely a mercenary or knight.
But he couldn’t lower his guard.
If the trap had really caught a person, they should’ve screamed or begged for help.
Or they would have cut themselves free with a weapon already.
Yet there were no screams.
No cries for help.
Only hiccups.
He had never seen anything like that before.
At last, Basto reached the trap and quietly peered through the bushes.
A net he had woven himself hung dangling from a high tree branch.
As he tried to see what was inside—
his body suddenly froze stiff.
“…Hic.”
Inside the net—
a pair of vivid green eyes met his gaze.
Someone inside the trap was trembling while staring back at him.
A small child, terrified out of her mind.