Voltara al Famyn nervously sipped her wine. She had returned to the Wisteria Concord only a few days ago, and every day had been nerve-wracking. At this point, she was worried she was going to develop a drinking problem.
Back when the war first started, they had heard of a Marked One who, while able to force Alorek back and allow passage for his own team as well as several other teams behind their lines, sacrificed an unthinkable amount of lives. With the casting of a single spell, hundreds and hundreds of sparks of life were snuffed out in an instant.
Thankfully the casualties were almost exclusively Marked Ones; however, the horror of the action was so sudden and terrifying that it had the military's leadership scrambling for an explanation.
After piecing together a series of eyewitness reports and correlating that information with the soldiers' known skill sets on the field, they were able to narrow it down to a single teenage boy, Lucius, a boy with an unknown mark from Pelith.
The boy's name had been floating through noble circles at the time because of a romantic relationship he had with the daughter of Richard von Petra. It was such a scandal that nearly half of the Union had heard of it within a week of the relationship's discovery. So, when Voltara heard that same boy was a deceptively powerful and clever fighter.
She heard about his execution and said nothing about it, thinking it was only just given how much of a harmful element he was to their military. On top of that, Richard seemed all too happy to rid his family of a thorn that had festered in their side.
What it turned out they had done was attempt to murder the same boy who they were warned not to betray. The heir to the House of Kane...
"Shit..." she breathed out. Though the wine in her cup was a fine vintage, she was in such a state that she likely could not have told it apart from cheap swill served at a whorehouse.
On her desk was a collection of reports and mission orders that would be left unfinished. The moment that she was free, she ordered her agents to cancel all operations related to searching for information on Titan. Voltara also had to field requests from other nobles who wanted to look into Lucius Kane's Origins.
All of those requests would be rejected until the leaders of the Five Kings Union gathered together to determine the next steps. The question on all of their minds in the meantime: had they already fallen on their swords? If they did, then why wait for death to come when they could fight against it? However, if they were still safe, then... it would be best to play nicely.
Rubellia was unable to hold in the loud gasp that escaped her lips when she saw a familiar necklace being held out in front of her face. It was a simple strap with a pendant shaped like a deer made out of Alpha Deer antler. It had been more than four years since she last saw it, and it was hanging around her son's neck.
"I can't say much more. But I will return this keepsake to you so you can give it to it's rightful owner, but we have to leave now."
The man's voice was frantic. A lot of things were not adding up, however enough of the right things were. The necklace, the fact the person was clearly a beastman... it had to be Lucius... right?
As she stuttered to respond, the beastman's ears twitched, and he looked towards the woods. Rubellia stepped outside and looked in the same direction. She could not hear anything, but she felt a sickening presence and a familiar scent outside her home. It was the smell of monster bait that her husband used to make for trips into the woods. Someone was trying to lure something to her home.
"Okay." She answered, grabbing the stranger's hand. He quickly draped a cloak around her and picked her up in a princess carry. "I apologize for the rude behavior, but we need to go quickly. Whatever you do... please don't tell the Commander I did this when you see him..."
"[Lux: Enhanced Speed]"
Light enveloped the man's body, and he took off as quick as an arrow away from her home. She did not have time to gather anything from the place, but as he had warned, there was no time. When she looked back and was about to ask for a little more time, she saw a massive creature step out of the forest.
The monster was nearly three times the size of a bear and had massive fangs that were too large to fit in its mouth. From some angles, the creature might have resembled a pig, but the massive muscles and hulking form cast a fair amount of doubt on that presumption. Thanks to her late husband's penchant for sharing knowledge, she was able to recognize it as a Fanged Boar immediately.
They were supposed to be rare monsters and were considered B to A-Rank beasts, depending on their size.
The Fanged Boar charged at her home, attracted to the bait that someone had scattered around the outside. Wood splintered and sprayed into the air as the monster rooted through the land around the house and the house itself, seeking the substance that called it out of the woods.
Had she been inside, Rubellia would have been dead from the initial charge. Someone tried to kill her, and were it not for this strange man, they would have succeeded.