Their bodies tumbled over the grass until a mud puddle stopped them. The sword in Cyril's hand slipped out and fell near them, along with a split-in-half black furry object the size of a football, bouncing from the direction the wyvern was.

Tarantula?

Maisha stared at the giant spider carcass on all fours. The wyvern was no longer struggling and now looked docile.

The big man loosened his grip while Liam snapped his fingers, melting slowly the ice covering half the wyvern's body.

"The damn spider. It almost made Topaz destroy this place," Samson grumbled as he let go of the web. He turned to Maisha and asked, "Cyril, how long are you going to soak in that mud?"

Cyril?

A movement beneath her made Maisha look down. The girl froze when she saw the figure that had been her foundation crawling.

The man in armor was no longer as handsome as before after mud stained most of his body and armor. However, she could see the crimson color on his face.

"Hua! Sorry!" Maisha immediately stood up with a pale face. She did not mean to embarrass one of her brother's subordinates. "Sorry, I didn't mean to."

Cyril rose to his feet while shaking off the mud on his armor. The man's black eyes stared intently at Maisha before turning and walking away.

Damn, he was angry.

"Hey, Boy!"

Maisha halted, abandoning her plan to chase after the man. Instead, she turned to Liam with a questioning look.

"Here, help us!"

"Me?" Maisha pointed at herself. What could a cute girl like me do to help?

"Yes, you! Here!"

Maisha walked hesitantly. She approached the now snoring wyvern with its head lying on the ground and asked again, "What?"

"Were the applicants still waiting in line?"

"Applicants?"

"Yes, the ones you cut in line before," Liam said impatiently. "Are they still there?"

Maisha recalled the earlier riot and shook her head. "They all left."

"I knew it," Liam hissed before sighing. He then inspected Maisha's appearance from head to toe and asked, "What's your name?"

"Me?"

"Of course you are. Who else is here besides the three of us?" Liam's brow furrowed in dislike with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"Uh, Liam, he is short and... slow," Samson whispered to his partner. However, Liam immediately silenced the man with a low hiss.

"Mai- uh, Mansa," Maisha replied hesitantly. Her brother would certainly not approve if she told them her real name. A noble girl should not be in the forest, cutting her hair short, wearing clothes like a man, and conversing with half-naked men or other types of men without a proper chaperone.

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It was unseemly and unethical.

"Mansa Pablo. My name is Mansa Pablo."

"Mansa Pablo?" Liam's lips smiled crookedly. "Are you familiar with wyverns?"

Maisha spontaneously nodded. She understood wyverns very well, including their movement and sounds.

Right now, the wyvern was in a happy state. It rubbed its head against Samson's arm as he put the muzzle on its muzzle.

"You said you wanted to meet the Captain, right?"

Maisha nodded again.

"Well, this is Topaz, the Captain's wyvern. Take him to the stable. You can meet the Captain afterward," Liam continued. The man bent his knees slightly to grab the wyvern's bridle and handed it to Maisha. "Don't open the muzzle. It can spew poison."

Gerald's wyvern?

Maisha's brow furrowed, puzzling, as she received the bridle from Liam's hand. She had never seen this wyvern before. She then asked, "Is Youford hurt?"

"Who?" asked Samson, tilting his head.

"Captain's wyvern––"

"Oh, before that. Please sign this." Liam suddenly thrust a seemingly endless roll of parchment and an ink box toward Maisha. "Just stick your thumb on the ink and stamp here. Let me finish the rest."

"What for?" asked Maisha suspiciously. "I just want to see the Captain."

"The Captain is only willing to meet the person who has signed this agreement," replied Liam while rolling back the parchment. "But, if you don't want to, that's fine. Leave us. I still have openings for workers."

"Eh! Wait!" Maisha immediately pulled Liam's arm. "Here, let me read it first."

Liam snorted. He handed the parchment to Maisha and said, "We made a fair and honest agreement. You do not need to waste time reading it. Just put your fingerprints there."

However, Maisha did not fall for the man's bait immediately. She wrapped the wyvern harness around her left wrist before unrolling the parchment.

*****

"Article seven, forbidden to me–– spit?"

"Swear!" snapped Liam impatiently. They had spent almost half an hour while Maisha seemed to have to spell out the words written there, one by one. "No swearing by our goddess's name!"

"Liam, why don't you find someone else?" Samson, who also looked bored, muttered near his partner. "He's too short and––"

"I'm stamping now," Maisha cut in hastily. The writing was so terrible that the parts she could read contained unimportant information only. The girl dropped the parchment onto the grass until she reached the last part. She immediately pressed her thumb on the stamp box from Liam and stuck it there.

A look of relief appeared on the faces of the two impatient men. Liam rolled up the parchment while pointing towards the north. "Take this wyvern to the stable behind the inn, then I'll show you where you can meet the Captain."

Maisha looked in that direction. However, the girl remembered her horse and said, "Princess, my horse. I left her near the tent."

"Let me go get her." Samson volunteered. "Take this wyvern to the stable. I'll take your horse there."

Maisha thought for a moment. Her horse had a high price. However, she could sell this wyvern for ten horses. They shouldn't have been foolish enough to steal a horse with a wyvern as collateral.

"In the stable behind the inn?" repeated Maisha, confirming, and was greeted with nods by the two.

Maisha took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She yanked three times on the wyvern's rope, as her late father had taught her, and made the giant reptile stand up.

"What's its name again?" asked Maisha towards Samson and Liam, who were watching her behavior intently.

"Topaz," Samson replied.

"Come on, Topaz." Maisha walked north, leading the giant reptile—roughly the size of a full-grown elephant—without flinching.

*****

Just as Liam had said, a large area with a wooden fence as tall as Maisha's chest was behind a two-story inn. Stable for horses on the right side, while on the left side, wooden stakes were attached to the grassy ground, specifically for tying up wyverns.

Maisha's eyes scanned the almost empty stable and found only three horses resting in the stables and one wyvern. However, the giant reptile that was there was not Youford.

Youford, her brother's wyvern, had a physical form similar to Topaz: a long giraffe-like neck, a slender body, wings, and small horns on the top of the head, which indicated they were males. However, while Topaz was purple, Youford was yellow, and the wyvern there was a female wyvern, as evidenced by its fat, winged body that resembled that of a rhinoceros with a pendulum at the tip of its tail and a tiny horn on its nose.

Is Gerald leaving? Maisha thought anxiously. She didn't want to wait too long. Her aunt, as well as her fiance, might have already sent a search team.

The pink female wyvern seemed to recognize Topaz because the giant reptile whined as if asking the wyvern Maisha was leading to come closer.

"Ah, she is your partner, huh?" said Maisha when she saw Topaz walking to answer the call.

The two wyverns rubbed heads as Maisha tethered Topaz's neck rope to the wooden stake near her partner.

Maisha exhaled a long breath and leaned against the cutting rod, observing the interaction of the two wyverns in love. Wyverns were not a rare thing. However, a wyvern that can spit out poison like Topaz or fireballs like Youford is extraordinary. Only high-ranking soldiers in the elite troops can have it.

The king must like Gerald a lot. He gets to have two special wyverns at once.

"Hey, Boy! Here's your horse!"

The sound of the stable opening made Maisha turn around. Her expression brightened when she saw Princess walking in, led by Samson.

Maisha ran up to Princess and accepted the horse's reins from Samson before asking, "Sir, can I see the Captain already?"

"Uh, yeah. Put your horse there and bring your stuff. I'll take you to the Captain."

Maisha led Princess to the stables and put her in one of the empty bulkheads. She filled the water in the trough and put the hay for her horse before releasing the saddle and retrieving her backpack. Princess looked relieved. The horse seemed to need some rest.

"I'll go first, ok? Later, I'll comb you and give you an apple after meeting Gerald," Maisha said as she patted Princess' hip. The animal whinnied happily.

Maisha smiled. She left the partition, closed the door, and locked it before placing the saddle on the door handle shaped like a horizontal bar.

"Used to taking care of horses, eh?"

Samson's question made Maisha turn her head and reflexively hold her breath. He is huge.

The two-meter-tall man had already removed the chain around his body, displaying the previously hidden abdominal muscles.

"Uh, yes. I can take care of horses," Maisha said in the end. The girl then cleared her throat while looking away.