Before Kae could respond, Aegis’s voice rang in his mind, sharp and cold as a winter morning.
[MISSION NOTIFICATION: THE WANDERING DIAMOND]
[OBJECTIVE: SECURE THE ASSET.
THREAT LEVEL: TIGER.]
“Hold up,” Kae said, his hand snapping up instantly to halt the group.
His body went rigid, his eyes locked onto the dense thicket ahead.
Lisa froze, her hand dropping to the hilt of her mana-blade.
“What is it, Kae?”
“Something really big and evil,” Kae whispered, his voice dropping into a low, focused tone.
“I can sense it.
The atmospheric pressure in my HUD is dropping.
It’s an anomaly.”
Before Lisa could even draw her sword, a rustling sound came from Kae’s shoulder.
Pixel didn’t hesitate.
With the fluid grace of a coward who valued his stock options, the black cat dove straight into the open traveler’s bag slung across Kae’s back.
She buried herself beneath a spare cloak, leaving only his amber eyes peeking out from the canvas flap.
“Since I have already established my profile as a non-combatant Strategic Consultant,” Pixel’s haughty voice echoed in Kae’s mind, “I shall oversee the logistics from this tactical bunker.
Do try not to get punctured, Master.”
Kae’s eye twitched in pure anger.
He threw a furious glare over his shoulder at his own backpack.
“Of course.
I can see that you spineless cat.
Now get in there and shut up!”
The conversation died instantly.
The trio stood on guard on the steep, rocky ridge of the higher ground, waiting for whatever nightmare was about to breach the treeline.
The silence stretching over the ravine was suffocating
The Clumsy Catastrophe
From the dense thicket of twisted, bioluminescent trees to their left, a high-pitched scream tore through the air.
It was followed by the heavy, thundering footfalls of something massive.
Then, a sudden crashing sound broke the tension, but it wasn’t a colossal boss monster.
A blur of dark fabric burst from the thick foliage far below the ridge.
Her short, light-brown hair flew wildly around her face, exposing a pair of long, trembling elven ears.
She was wearing oversized round glasses that were slipping down her nose, a heavy, dark-green hooded traveler’s cloak with elegant ash-blonde patterns along the hem, and a massive leather survival backpack strapped tightly to her back.
Her matching forest tunic and leather bracers were heavily stained with dark mud and briars as she scrambled for her life.
From their high-altitude vantage point, the trio looked down to analyze the situation.
Pixel poked his head slightly out of the backpack, his nose wrinkling.
“Is it a dog?
Argh!
I absolutely despise dogs.
Tell me we aren’t risking our lives for a mutt, Master.”
Lisa leaned over the rocky ledge, squinting at the distant, chaotic blur moving through the valley.
“Maybe it’s a small white goat, that’s been grazing…
They’re known to forage in these specific sectors.”
Kae reached into his tactical pouch, pulled out a pair of sleek, high-end binoculars—a piece of tech he’d managed to keep from Earth—and pressed them to his eyes.
He dialed the focus ring, his “gamer-focus” locking onto the target.
“That’s not a goat…
Isn’t that a girl?” Kae asked, pointing down into the valley at the running figure.
“And she’s clearly running for her life.”
“Like I said, it could be a small white goat who’s a girl,” Lisa countered confidently, crossing her arms.
Kae lowered the binoculars, sighing as he looked at her.
“What makes you think she’s a goat anyway?
I can see she’s clearly a human girl.”
“How can you tell from all the way up here whether it is or not a small white goat which is female?” Lisa shot back, gesturing wildly at the valley floor.
“She looks so tiny from over here!”
Kae stared at her for a dead second, then looked down at the binoculars in his hand.
He let out a long, exhausted sigh that carried the weight of a tech-support agent dealing with a broken server.
“That’s because we’re on a high altitude…
and you’re holding the binoculars completely backward.”
He reached over, gently took her hands, and turned the device around so the wide lenses were facing the valley.
“Try it now.”
Lisa blinked, pressed the corrected binoculars to her face, and gasped as the image zoomed into high-fidelity clarity.
“Oh!
You’re right!
She’s…
she’s definitely a human girl.
Haha…
my bad!” She let out a frantic, embarrassed laugh, rubbing the back of her neck as her cheeks flushed pink.
The Blurred Rescue Mission
Down in the valley, the silver-haired girl was sprinting blindly.
Her oversized round glasses had slipped halfway down her nose instead of sitting on her eyes, turning the entire landscape into a blurry, smudged watercolor painting.
Through the haze, she spotted a tall, stationary silhouette standing near the path.
“Thank God!” she hollered, tears prickling the corners of her eyes as she ran toward it at full velocity.
“I need your help!
Please, help me!”
She threw her arms out and skidded to a halt directly in front of the shape, crying out in panic.
“Help!
Someone!
Anyone!” she shrieked, looking directly into the mossy surface of a massive, unmoving boulder.
“Sir!
Please!
Save me from the fuzzy death!”
The boulder, predictably, did not respond.
“She’s talking to a rock,” Pixel drawled, her voice a dry rasp in Kae’s mind.
“I like her already.
She’s as delusional as you are.”
Crashing through the trees behind her were three Ursa-Fiends—monstrous bears with jagged bone plating and eyes glowing with the sickly red light of the Demon King’s curse.
The girl stopped, fumbled with her staff, and began to chant.
“By the light of the…
uh…
the thing!
Greater Mend!”
A burst of brilliant gold light erupted from her staff.
It didn’t work on the girl.
It instead hit the lead Ursa-Fiend.
The bear’s wounds instantly knit together, and its bone armor thickened and grew spikes.
It let out a roar of pure, healed fury.
The ash-blonde haired girl was trying to buff herself but unfortunately she buffed the enemy instead.
“Did she just…
heal the enemy?” Lisa asked, her jaw dropping.
“Negative aim,” Kae sighed, his eyes narrowing as his [Subsurface Profiling] kicked in.
“She’s a high-output unit with a broken tracking system.
Lisa, take the left.
Pixel, don’t just sit there looking pretty.
Put your brains to work, you are our strategist and consultant, come up with something”
Kae moved with the precision of a high-fidelity script.
He didn’t have mana, but he felt the Void Energy—the ancient power Lisa had mentioned—pulsing in his veins.
It felt cold, like liquid nitrogen, and absolute.
He intercepted the lead bear just as the girl tripped over a tree root.
Her glasses flew off, skidding across the dirt.
“I can’t see!
The world is a smudge!” she cried out, waving her arms wildly.
“Pixel, what’s the plan…
I charged in without a weapon?” Kae asked in a panicked tone.
“Well…for starters you can use your void energy to slay the beast.
Meow!” Pixel muttered from inside the bag.
“What are you kidding me!” Kaelen stormed, if I did know how to use it , do you think I’d be here to entertain your lousy advise?”
” Calm down master, Pixel interrupted, calm down.
You need to be calm for if you wanna manipulate the void energy.”
So Kae tried to calm himself mid battle,he closed his eyes and shut down everything around him focusing only on drawing energy from the void within him.
Slowly but surely he managed to pull out a tits bit of the void energy taking form round his hand.
He reached out, his hand cloaked in a swirling vortex of black-and-purple energy.
He slammed his palm on the bear’s chest, and the sheer power of the energy went vibrating vigorously inside the bear and shattered it’s heart on spot.
[VOID STRIKE: CRITICAL HIT]
The energy didn’t just hurt the bear; it erased the space where its heart should have been.
The creature collapsed into ash instantly.
Lisa followed up, her mana-imbued blade carving through the remaining two bears with professional efficiency.
Their timing was flawless; they ended the battle in a flash.
While Pixel stayed…
completely hidden in the bag.
He didn’t even poke a single whisker out until the sound of claws scraping against stone had entirely ceased.
The battle was over in seconds.
The ash-haired girl was currently patting the air in front of her.
“Oh, thank you, brave…
tall…
blurry tree person,” she said, reaching out to shake the hand of a nearby horse-like creature that had been grazing nearby.
Kae, Lisa, and Pixel all froze, their expressions completely dropping in unison.
“Are you kidding me?!” they all blurted out simultaneously, staring at her in sheer disbelief.
“Can she even see without those glasses?!”
The horse-like creature let out a low snort, blinking down at the girl’s extended hand with utter confusion.
Pixel poked her head out from the canvas flap of the traveler’s bag, letting out a series of flat, consecutive meows.
“Clearly, she’s as blind as a bat, poor thing,” the cat remarked dryly in Kae’s mind as she stretched her front claws over the rim of the bag.
Kae rubbed the bridge of his nose, exhaling a long breath.
“Agreed.”
“We’re over here,” Kae said, his voice laced with flat exhaustion as he stepped forward.
He paused, gesturing toward the grazing animal.
“And that…
is a horse-like creature.
Not a savior.”
The ash-blonde haired girl gasped, her cheeks instantly flushing a deep crimson as she snapped her head toward the sound of his voice.
“Oh!
My bad!
I didn’t mean to be weird, you see…
I just can’t see clearly without my glasses!”
She stumbled toward Kae’s voice, but her trajectory was completely off.
She marched right past him and leaned down, plant-facing Pixel who had just hopped out of the traveler’s bag.
She stared blindly at the dark silhouette of the cat, thinking this was the leader of the group who had spoken.
Before she could say another word, her nose twitched violently.
Her amber eyes widened behind her blurry vision.
“A-Achoo!”
She let out a massive, high-velocity sneeze that caused Pixel to flatten her ears in absolute disgust.
Karen rubbed her nose, sniffing loudly as she blinked down at the dark shape.
“Mmm…
that’s weird.
I only ever react like that around cats…
but you’re a dog, right?
Isn’t that funny?”
Kae, Lisa, and Pixel all let out a synchronized, heavy sigh of utter disappointment.
“A dog?!” Pixel’s indignant roar echoed directly into Kae’s skull.
“Master, activate the Void strike again.
I want this visually impaired heretic erased from the server immediately.
My lineage is ancient, not canine!”
Kae ignored the cat’s mental tantrum.
His “gamer-focus” tracked a faint reflection in the dirt.
He used his basic detection senses to spot her round glasses lying safely near a patch of moss.
He walked over, picked them up, and blew a layer of dust off the lenses before extending his hand.
“Here,” Kae said, placing the frame firmly into her wandering hands.
“Put these on before you start talking to the wind next.”
The ash-blonde haired girl took the glasses from Kae’s hands, her fingers trembling slightly as she slid the frames over her ears.
She blinked once, twice, as the blurry watercolor landscape snapped into crisp, high-fidelity clarity.
Her amber eyes went wide.
“Oh!
You’re people!
And you’re not demi humans!
And you’re…
holding a…”
Her voice completely dropped its timid, gentle pitch.
It twisted into a terrifying, guttural gasp of sheer horror as her gaze locked onto Pixel’s black fur.
“…A CAAAAAAT!”
She let out a piercing shriek that startled a flock of birds from the nearby trees.
Karen scrambled backward, her boots skidding on the dirt as she put a frantic ten feet of distance between herself and the feline.
The moment she stopped, her allergy radar went into absolute overdrive.
“Achoo!
Heh— Achoo!
Snaff— ACHOO!”
She began sneezing continuously, each blast bouncing her ash-blonde hair up and down as she pointed a trembling, terrified finger at the cat.
“Get it away!
The tiny, judging paws!
The fangs of darkness!
Achoo!”
Lisa watched her bounce around in a panic, completely bewildered.
“Wow.
She really wasn’t kidding about the allergy…
or the phobia or whatever it’s called.”
“I am Pixel, the Supreme Consultant,” the cat hissed, though only Kae heard the words.
“Tell the four-eyed healer to watch her tone or I’ll freeze her in a compromising position!” Pixel’s amber eyes flashed with genuine anger as she puffed out her chest, her white-tipped tail thashing against the grass.
“Look at her!
She’s running away from me as if I’m some kind of bio-hazardous germ!
My fur is pristine!
My aura is majestic!
This is defamation of character!”
To the white haired girl, however, none of this high-class corporate ranting translated.
All she heard was a rapid, high-pitched series of continuous, pathetic-sounding meows from the black cat, as if the poor creature was deeply protesting her sudden rejection.
She paused mid-sneeze, her expression softening.
She could tell that much—running away from it like it was a monster must have genuinely hurt its little feelings.
Sucking up her terror, she tentatively shuffled back toward them, stopping exactly six feet away to maintain a safe hazard zone.
“Oh…
um…
I’m sorry,” she muttered, bowing her head apologetically while keeping her eyes glued to Pixel’s paws.
“I didn’t mean to startle you or make you feel bad, little kitty.
I’m just…
really, really bad with cats.”
“Little kitty?!” Pixel sputtered in Kae’s mind, his ego fracturing further.
“Master, I demand a tactical deployment.
Throw me at her face, let me at her , let me!”
“I’m Karen,” the girl said, bowing so low her ash-blonde hair swept the dirt, causing her to lose her center of gravity.
She wobbled dangerously on her heels before snapping back upright, her cheeks turning bright pink as she nervously wrung her hands around her wooden staff.
“I…
I was with an established party,” Karen continued, her voice dropping into a small, fragile whisper as her fingers nervously fidgeted with the hem of her robe.
“They called themselves the Black-Thorn Squad, led by a C-Rank adventurer named Shawn.
I actually stumbled into them along the road while I was traveling toward the Eastern Continent.”
Kae tilted his head slightly, his eyes tracking her anxious posture.
“You met them in transit?”
“Yes,” Karen nodded softly, a faint, bitter smile touching her lips.
“They were originally from the Eastern Continent as well, belonging to one of its most famous guilds.
At first…
they were so incredibly nice to me.
When they found out I was a support unit, they told me their usual back-line healer had just left, and they practically begged me to come with them on this mission.”
She paused, her chest tightening as she remembered the deceit.
“Shawn promised me a massive split of the reward afterward.
He even swore he would personally present me to their Guild Master so I could get officially recruited.
But the moment we stepped into the borderlands, everything changed.
Shawn kept glaring back at me, telling the others I was nothing but dead weight, slow, and that I kept getting in their way.”
Lisa’s posture went completely rigid, her green eyes flashing with an immediate, dangerous heat.
She slammed her hand flat against the hilt of her mana-blade, the metal clicking sharply in the silence.
“Shawn …
Shawn Miller” Lisa spat the name out like venom, her jaw clenching tightly.
“That notorious, arrogant bastard.
He’s one of the star chumps from the Crimson Crest Guild.
They think because they’re a top-ranking faction, they can treat independent travelers like disposable trash.”
She stepped closer to Karen, placing a firm, reassuring hand on the half-elf’s trembling shoulder, though her eyes remained fixed on the dark horizon.
“Don’t worry, Karen,” Lisa whispered, her voice vibrating with a cold, absolute promise.
“We’re heading toward the same sector.
The next time our paths cross with the Black-Thorn Squad, I’m going to personally ensure Shawn gets exactly what’s coming to him.”
What do you think happened next?
Did Shawn’s squad use Karen’s “negative aim” as tactical bait to escape?
Did her extreme cat allergy accidentally blow their stealth cover?
Did they simply run out of patience with a healer who talks to boulders?
Find out in the next Episode, to uncover the cold truth.