After leaving the gold camp near the stream the two rode through the adventurer road. Leila was excited to see some adventure as the name implied. Contrary to her excitement, the road was so quiet and serene. On top of it, Ethanial did not speak a single word on the road. He was afraid he might miss noticing an enemy while talking. An ambush might occur anytime on Adventurer Road so it was never wrong to be alert at all times. He only focused on the road so Leila started to get bored.

"I thought I would see some adventures. I was excited. What is this?" She complained.

Ethanial watched her turning sulky and laughed. They had already reached near the village yet there seemed to be no signs of danger so he decided to talk.

"Isn't this more exciting? It is like we are walking in paradise."

"Ah, I see. So you were excited. I felt something hard keep touching my bottom but I didn't know what to expect because you were as silent as a monk."

"What!? No! It is that gold I showed you in the morning."

"Oh,_ is it that gold again? Disappointing." She goofed around.

Ethanial laughed at her. He liked how she was witty and straightforward.

"I will keep it for now. I don't want to mistake it again with another thing. Hehehe."

"You are a pervert, miss." He handed over the gold.

"It is heavier than I thought. What will you do with it? Buy a land?" She asked.

"Erm... No. I will make rings from it."

"Rings? Why?"

"For us. Next time, I will put the actual ring on your finger. Pure gold with only our names engraved on them."

What he said touched her heart. Gold rings represented commitment. Since ancient times, people used it as a vow. Now rich people around her used fancier and more colourful pieces of jewellery to express their love. But she loves plain gold more.

She believed a man who proposed with gold rings was the one who would never have a change of heart, loyal to her, even in front of prettier girls.

Soon they reached the outside of the forest. The fields along the road are full of golden wheat, left and right. It was a beautiful sight except there was no one tending the field, not even a single cattle.

"No wonder the Rode region is referred to as the gold. Look at all those golden fields. It is beautiful. "

"I believe we called it such because of the gold mines. Midlake has far more fields than here." Ethanial corrected her.

Leila gave a glare from the corner of her eyes. Luckily he noticed it and changed his stance.

"But yes. They are also one of the reasons. Hehehe." He laughed awkwardly, "Anyway where are all the people? These fields should be busy and loud; not serene and quiet."

"Maybe they are in the village celebrating something. I can see some smoke from afar. They must be cooking something delicious."

While Leila was too positive, Ethanial was wary of the situation. It was not normal to be this quiet. Did bandits change the location here to get them off-guard? They could be hiding behind the mounds.

Ethanial alerted the steed and cautiously drove along the path. But even after they rode a distance away from the forest, bandits were nowhere to be seen. Then Ethanial saw something white in the field, and he understood the situation immediately.

"Shit! Leila, put your cloak on. When I say 'run', run. Understand?"

His sudden warning frightened her. She asked, confused, "Wh... Why?"

"There is a monster up ahead. It must have come from the forest. If I am right, it must be a Mantila. It is a dangerous monster. I am not sure I can handle it alone."

"Then let's go from other roads."

"No. There is no other road. We have no choice but to ride across the village. Leila, promise me that you will do exactly what I say."

Since Ethanial sounded urgent, she gave her promise quickly. "Okay. I promise."

They cautiously rode toward the village and reached the outskirts. There they saw broken spikes blocking the path and farming tools used as weapons, scattered in tattered. The villagers must have made a stance against the monster here and the result was nothing but a tragic horror_ethanial concluded. "Damn. Another day monsters have won over the humans."

"Oh lord Mordu'."

Human bodies lay around all over the place without their heads. Some bodies were stuck to a giant cobweb between the two houses.

"Ethan, look at the one in the middle. Is that a mother hugging her child?"

Ethanial looked at the body Leila pointed to. It was wrapped inside the mantila's web. The big body had no head but a smaller head could be seen sticking out near the chest.

Ethanial got off the horse and rushed to the body. With his enhanced sword, he cut the web wrapping the mother and the child carefully. He tried to separate them but the mother's body was already stiff so he had to break the arms to save the child inside. A young girl came out of the clothes. She was unconscious.

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"Check her breathing. She might still be alive."

Ethanial checked as Leila instructed. The girl was not breathing anymore. Her lips and nails had turned purple. He shook his head. Leila could no longer hold her tears and cried on the spot.

The mother did her best to protect her child. She put the girl in her chest so that the monster would not see the girl. It chopped her head yet her arms did not come loose and kept hiding the girl inside her chest. Unfortunately, the monster did not leave the mother's body on the ground. It webbed around the body together with the child and stuck them to the giant web.

"The poison must have gotten her. Mantila's web is known to be poisonous. It numbs your body and relaxes the muscles. Soon the victim finds itself hard to breathe and suffocate."

"I know. I have read it. Poor child. ... ... Ethan, let's kill that monster."

"I will. So when you see the monster, take the horse and stay away."

"What? No!"

"Leila, you promised me. This is a very dangerous monster. I need to know you are safe."

"No. I am not leaving you behind. I can help."

"You don't even have a sword. And it is my job to keep you safe."

"So that's it. I am a 'job'. All the times we spent together and I am just a 'job'."

"No. I mean as a man. It is my job to protect the woman I love. That night when I gave you a promise, I meant to keep it, for the rest of my life."

"But you said so yourself, you can't win alone. I can help."

Before they reached a consensus, their argument was interrupted by a clicking sound along with green spiky arms appearing from behind a house, followed by eight hairy legs clinging onto the wall and roof of the house.

Leila was confident that she could be a helping hand for Ethanial until she saw the monster herself. It was the first time she saw a hybrid monster that looked like both a mantis and a spider.

It was big, its tarantula body alone was that of a small hut, and its black and red-stripe hairs looked demonic. The spiky blades of its mantis arms were sharp and terrifying. Its slanted big eyes were menacing. One look at it and Leila found herself frozen on the spot.

Ethanial whistled to Rings and it immediately sprinted away from danger along with Leila.

"No! Ethanial!! Stupid horse!! Stop!! We need to take him with us."

But no matter how much she shouted, the steed carried her away from danger, toward the forest.

Ethanial, on the other hand, taunted the monster and ran inside the village, the opposite of Leila. As expected, the monster followed Ethanial.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. How am I supposed to kill this bastard alone?"

He ran as fast as he could but the monster caught up to him easily and attacked him from behind. Luckily he dodged the attack by rolling inside a house. But it did not stop the mantila's attack. It stabbed through the wall of the house but its arm stuck to the hole it just made. Ethanial used the chance.

"Die! You ugly bug! Divination!!"

Even with divination, it didn't cut off completely. He felt like he was chopping a tree rather than a flesh.

The monster retreated its wounded arm while another arm swung an attack. It cut the house horizontally in half. It was pure luck Ethanial was sitting down to take out his dagger or his body would also be cut in half along with the house.

He immediately ran off to another house while dodging all the attacks. It was the same as before. The monster stabbed through the house and its arm stuck again. He slashed it hard. But this time, he did not wait to be cut in half. He ran off again immediately after the attack. And he was right. A moment after he got out of the house, it was cut, lower this time. He would not have survived if he had been there.

He ran to another house which was on the other side of the road. But the monster noticed his intention and destroyed the house before he reached inside. To his surprise, there were people inside that house. They are villagers hiding from the monster. And they were killed along with the house, their heads cut off.

"Oh lord Mordu'. What have I done? Fuck! Fuck!! Hey you ugly bastard, you will fucking pay with your head!"

The anger and guilt grew in his mind, he decided to no longer use the houses. He challenged a frontal attack on the monster. He threw the dagger to its green menacing eye. Although the monster blocked it, it gave Ethanial some time to strike one of its hairy legs.

"Divination!"

He slashed using all his strength, he could feel his sword embedding into the leg. He smiled thinking he successfully cut off one leg. But in reality, it did not cut off and rather it was his sword that couldn't be retrieved back. The hair was so sticky and thick, that his sword drowned in it.

Without his sword to fight, he found himself unarmed and nowhere to block or run from the attack. The monster screeched loudly as if it won and threw its final blow at Ethanial.

"I am sorry, Leila. I may not be able to take you back to your home."

He closed his eyes and accepted his defeat.

"I guess it is time to follow my friends."

Ethanial closed his eyes awaiting his death. He imagined what would it be like if he met them in the afterlife. Would they welcome him? Or would they send him to hell for betraying them? No matter. At least he could say 'sorry' face to face. He felt closure.

It took a while for him to realise all the sounds did not go silent yet. Rather there was another sound coming from the opposite direction.

"Take this you ugly bug!!"

Even with his eyes closed, he knew who that voice belonged to. This melody_ it must be Leila. He opened his eyes and saw Leila, thrashing a hunting spear inside the ass of the monster.

"I will be damned." He muttered.

Because of the surprise attack on its delicate part, the monster screeched out of its lungs. It forgot Ethanial and turned to Leila; striking with its arm.

But the great steed figured this out and already ran back to the distance it could not reach.

The monster, painful to its core, chased Leila angrily.

Ethanial, now, back to his senses, ran after the monster and caught the back of the spear. With him catching and the monster running in the other direction, the spear was pulled out of the wound on its own.

The monster stopped and screened again due to the immense pain. It threw out poisonous webs to protect itself but it did not stop Ethanial from putting it back into where it belonged again. This time he pushed it in deeper than Leila.

"Divination!"

The poor monster did not even know what to do anymore, it blindly swung its arms around hoping to hit Ethanial or Leila.

Ethanial fell back, dodging its blind swings. But after twenty steps, he suddenly felt dizzy. His arms numbed and his feet unstable. He found it hard to even stand upright.

"Damn it. It got me. So this is the infamous mantila poison."

He tried to clear off the webs from his body but the ruthless poison already got him. He could no longer feel strength in his body anymore. It was as if his body was not his.

"Damn it. ...Leila. Run."

He forced his voice out but only a whisper came. It did not reach Leila. He looked at her from the corner of his eyes while lying on the ground helplessly. Although he got the attention of the mantila, he saw her doing the stupidest thing he had ever witnessed.

"I am a mantila." She mumbled. Her hands were shaking like crazy from fear. Yet she took out two sickles and with one in each hand, she pretended like a mantis. She was determined to draw the monster away from Ethan. She was scared. But she wanted Ethanial to live and it was the only way.

The rule of the animal kingdom was simple. A predator would focus more on a potential threat than harmless prey.

In its eyes, Leila on horseback with sickle arms looked like a rival challenging to take its prey.

Leila successfully shifted the monster's attention away from Ethanial.

It screeched, louder and sharper than before to intimidate the new challenger.

Leila stood her ground so it decided to attack to show its dominance.

It charged toward her.

"No. No. No....!" Ethanial shouted but only a wind came out. He mustered all the strength he had left in him and forced his arms to move, and legs to stand. But his body did not listen.

"Stand!!" He screamed in silence. "I must get up. Even if I have to die, I will take that mantila away from Leila."

However, defeated by the ruthless poison, his body failed to follow his command while he desperately and helplessly watched the monster reach Leila.

He cried.