“…Yeah.
It’s good to be positive, but that’s not a place to be taken lightly.” Mister Paul was worried she was setting herself up for a devastating fall.
“Still, I won’t give up hope.” Elena trusted her parents.
She hadn’t realized it before, but the more she thought about it, the more mysterious they seemed.
Mister Paul sighed, his expression conflicted.
“What are you going to do?”
“About what?”
“Are you going to search for them?”
Her heart yearned to investigate further.
Believing in her parents didn’t erase her concern.
But she had no one to ask for help.
“No one here will go anywhere near there.” The local hunters had lived here their entire lives, and they knew the risks better than anyone.
No one would agree to a search that went beyond the boundary.
“…There’s Jayden,” Mister Paul pointed out.
“So that’s why you came to me in secret.”
Mister Paul offered an awkward laugh.
It all made sense now—his timing, his secrecy.
Mister Paul had met Jayden shortly after he came to live with Elena, so he had experienced Jayden’s complete lack of social graces firsthand and was understandably intimidated by him.
‘His disposition was certainly… unique.’ It was so typical of Mister Paul to plot to use the very man who terrified him.
And he was right.
Jayden could probably search the entire mountain range.
From the way Mister Paul described his prowess, demonic beasts were no threat to him at all.
But she couldn’t ask that of him.
“Don’t bring it up.”
“Why not?
Jayden would do anything for you.”
That was precisely why she couldn’t ask.
Elena suspected Jayden’s past had been brutal.
He had only just escaped that torment and found a measure of peace; she refused to be the one to shatter it.
Lately, the murderous aura he’d carried when they first met was fading, replaced by a growing sense of stability.
His expressions had become more varied, and the man who once slept with one eye open had begun to sleep soundly through the night.
She couldn’t send him back into danger.
Especially not for something she could do herself.
Now that she no longer had to care about the villagers’ opinions, she could go.
‘But if I set out to follow their trail now…’
There was Jayden.
The thought of leaving him behind was unbearable, but taking him with her felt just as wrong.
“Elena?” Jayden’s voice called from the other room; he was done washing up.
Elena made her decision.
“I’m not asking Jayden.
So don’t bring it up again.
I’ll handle this myself.”
Mister Paul gave her a worried look, but Elena just smiled, trying to reassure him that she would be fine.
Elena had never forgotten.
She had always known that if her parents didn’t return, she would one day have to go looking for them.
Though her departure from the village was sudden and driven by her situation with Jayden, she seized the opportunity to finally begin the search.
The path, however, was far more grueling than she had ever imagined.
She’d been told it was dangerous, but… ‘I can’t believe I’m actually climbing a sheer cliff face.’
As she left the village behind, the path grew progressively steeper until it became a vertical rock wall.
If not for her preternatural strength, she would have given up long ago.
Her village was nestled in an incredibly remote location on the mid-slope of a great mountain range.
There was only one proper road connecting it to the outside world; behind it lay nothing but vast, untamed wilderness.
Some people called it the end of the world.
It was that isolated, its surroundings that harsh.
This was, in fact, Elena’s first time ever leaving the village.
Like her, most of the villagers had never ventured out.
The only exceptions were the hunters and her parents.
On her journey so far, she had already spotted several monsters.
The world outside the village was every bit as perilous as she’d been told.
‘But that’s strange, too…’ For the first time, a question took root in her mind.
‘Why is our village so safe?’
In all her years there, she had never once been threatened by a monster or a demonic beast.
The village was an island of peace in a sea of danger, yet it had never been invaded.
The villagers didn’t fear raids; they simply accepted that the outside was dangerous and never thought to leave.
It seemed the village held a secret of its own.
‘That’s a problem for later.’ For now, she had to focus on finding her parents.
The closer she got to the Demonic Beast Boundary, the more treacherous the terrain became.
She finally understood why the village hunters avoided this route.
It wasn’t just the fear of demonic beasts; it was the sheer unwillingness to scale a rock wall.
Not even two hours had passed since she’d left her home, but Elena already felt that life on her own would not be easy.
A doubt began to creep in.
‘Did my parents really come this way?’ Experiencing the climb firsthand, she found it hard to believe they would have deliberately chosen such a pathless, arduous route.
No one would willingly subject themselves to this kind of labor.
After what felt like an eternity of climbing, she spotted a place to rest—a small alcove carved into the cliff face, just large enough for two adults.
Catching her breath, Elena scanned her surroundings.
A demonic beast could appear at any moment.
The hollow seemed natural, and the path to it was so difficult that not even animals had left any tracks.
She was about to relax when she saw it.
A single, long strand of hair.
Her heart hammered with a sense of foreboding.
She picked it up, brushed off the dust, and examined it closely.
It was hard to be certain, but… ‘The color and length… they’re just like Mother’s.’
It seemed her parents had passed through here after all.
The discovery weighed heavily on her.
‘Why on earth did they come this way?’
She couldn’t fathom why they would choose such a route.
They couldn’t have planned it; she was certain of that.
When they left, they hadn’t packed any climbing gear.
The fact that any trace was left at all was suspicious.
A single strand of hair was something you’d only find if you were looking for it.
But a hunter skilled enough to make this climb would surely spot it.
This raised another question.
She scoured the area more carefully, examining not just the alcove but the entrance.
‘Just as I thought.
There are no human tracks.’ It confirmed what she had felt on the way up.
She had expected as much.
Back when the scene of their disappearance was discovered, the search party had found no trail leading away from it.
It was as if they had vanished into thin air.
So, they had traveled all this way without leaving a trace, only to leave evidence of their stay right here.
Was it a simple mistake?
‘No.
A single hair might be a mistake, but…’
When she considered the piece of cloth Mister Paul had found, it felt intentional.
Her parents could be careless at times, but they weren’t foolish enough to make multiple mistakes when it mattered.
In fact, on occasion, they could become as sharp as blades, like entirely different people.
‘Why would they do something so strange?’ Her thoughts tangled, but no clear answer emerged.
She didn’t even know if her theory was correct.
All she could do was press on.
She let the strand of hair, likely her mother’s, drift from her fingers.
It caught the wind and floated away, erasing the last sign of their presence.
After a brief rest, she started climbing again.
She finally reached the Demonic Beast Boundary.
The journey had been so arduous it made her want to curse.
Moving carefully to avoid leaving her own tracks had made it even more exhausting.
‘Mother, Father, when I see you again, you’ll have to forgive me for being a disobedient daughter at least once.’
After saying a silent apology to her parents, she began observing her surroundings.
The first thing she noticed was a massive footprint, easily the length of her forearm.
‘A demonic beast.’
True to its name, the area was littered with similar tracks, all of a consistent size.
A single creature had been patrolling this territory.
Judging by the print, it wasn’t a fully grown adult, which was a small relief.
But one of the tracks was fresh.
‘I need to be careful.’ A confrontation was likely.
She had to find what she was looking for and leave quickly.
She intensified her search, scanning for any man-made signs—a broken branch, flattened weeds.
She saw plenty, but they were all the work of the beast.
‘Should I have asked Mister Paul exactly where he found the cloth?’
Just as regret began to set in, she felt an icy gaze on her back.
Elena turned her head slowly.
Peering from between the trees were two luminous yellow eyes.
‘Grrrrrr.’
The eyes glowed, the only points of color on the shifting, pitch-black form.
She had realized it too late.
A demonic beast was right beside her.