The Forest Master

As Arthur and Tristan continued deeper into the forest, they began to encounter goblin corpses scattered along the path. Someone had clearly defeated them.

Kneeling by one of the bodies, Tristan observed the goblin and muttered,

“They’re still twitching… Someone is fighting up ahead. Please stay close to me, Your Highness.”

“Yeah, got it.”

Just as Tristan had said, a bit farther in, they began to hear raised voices—an argument between goblins and someone else. Rushing toward the noise, they reached a clearing where trees opened up to reveal a lake in the distance.

There, Elaine stood facing off against a group of goblins.

“Tristan!!”

“No need to worry. An aggressive Saintess is beautiful in her own way…”

Though Arthur tried to give an order for support, Tristan made no move to ready his bow. The reason soon became clear.

Elaine dodged an incoming goblin strike, and in the same fluid motion, crushed its skull with her mace.

They could see blood and brain matter splatter through the air.

“Holy crap, that woman is ridiculously strong!!”

Arthur was slightly shaken by how cleanly she had dispatched the goblins. For a brief moment, fear overtook any sense of rivalry.

“Prince Arthur!? What are you doing here…? Don’t tell me… You were worried about me…”

Elaine, noticing Arthur’s pitiful cry, widened her eyes in surprise and then smiled faintly, blushing slightly as if she had misunderstood something.

If this were in town, her expression might have seemed cute. But here, in the forest—covered in goblin blood and holding a mace drenched in brain matter—she radiated an undeniable intensity.

It felt like stumbling onto a serial killer at a crime scene.

This woman… she’s smiling at me. Is she telling me I’ll be next if I get in her way…?

Arthur, cold sweat running down his back, began to panic. But when he looked toward the spring, his expression froze.

“Prince Arthur… I appreciate the reinforcement, but this is a matter for our country. Beyond here lies one of the Five Great Beasts—the Cockatrice. Even you would be in grave danger…”

“Enough talk! Let’s go kill it!!! My chicken!!”

“Lord Arthur!?”

Elaine said something with a polite cough, but Arthur didn’t hear a word of it. His gaze was locked onto the creature in the center of the poisoned lake—the Forest Master. It had a bird’s head, a dragon’s body and wings, and a serpent’s tail.

And floating all around it, poisoned and lifeless, were the Gokuuma Birds—victims of the creature’s venom.

‘Kei was so happy when she ate them… We were supposed to bring them back as a souvenir!! This thing… How dare it!!’

Driven by a surge of rage and panic that more Gokuuma Birds might be killed, Arthur dashed forward.

“Could it be… he’s rushing in to save me…? I’m fine, Prince Arthur!! I’m only here to scout—”

“It’s too dangerous to go any closer, Lord Arthur!! Ahh, my arrow—!!”

Elaine tried to stop him, misunderstanding again. Tristan, alarmed, fired an arrow at the Cockatrice—but before it even reached the monster, the arrow decayed and crumbled in the air.

This was the poison of the Cockatrice, one of the Five Great Beasts. Mere proximity was enough to kill anything. The title was no exaggeration—it had once wiped out an entire city.

To defeat such a monster, you either needed to bombard it from a distance with powerful magic, or somehow nullify the poison completely before attacking.

“Kwaaah!!”

Seeing Arthur charging in recklessly, the Cockatrice let out a screech, mocking what it deemed a foolish prey.

Any normal human would have dropped dead just by setting foot in the poisonous swamp. But Arthur, so convinced of the perfection of his healing powers, didn’t hesitate and charged forward.

Whether it was bravado or delusion, to Elaine and Tristan, Arthur’s reckless advance into the toxic marsh to face a Five Great Beast looked nothing short of heroic.