The canyon was a wound in the earth.

Ocher rock walls rose on both sides, so high that the sky was reduced to a ribbon of indifferent blue. The wind hissed as it passed through the crevices, a lonely sound that made the underlying silence feel heavier, more expectant.

Paul reined in the mule and jumped from the cart with an agility that betrayed his lazy demeanor of the last few hours. The polished shield he had bought in Creston was strapped to his back, shining under the sun like a promise of vanity.

“Alright, ladies. We’ve arrived at the theater of operations.”

Ghislaine landed beside him without a sound, a predator surveying the terrain. Her beast ears twitched, catching every echo, every whisper of the wind. Her hand rested on the hilt of her katana.

“This place reeks of old beasts and death,” she growled, her single visible eye narrowing.

“A charming description for the travel brochure,” Paul said. “Hilda, my love, any last words from the book of know-it-alls before we start making fools of ourselves?”

Hilda leaped from the cart, the Guild map in one hand and her sword in the other. The tension gave her face a seriousness that dangerously accentuated her beauty.

“The bestiary says cockatrices are extremely territorial. If we enter its nest, it will attack without hesitation. The problem is finding it in this labyrinth.”

“We don’t need to find it,” Paul replied, a smirk of pure malice spreading across his face. “We’ll make it find us. We’re going to put on the most pathetic show this canyon has ever seen. Ghislaine, your role is simple: stay back, in the shadows. Don’t move, don’t breathe, don’t exist until I give the signal. You’re our ace in the hole.”

The beast-woman nodded once, a sharp, precise gesture, and melted into the shadows of a rocky outcrop with a blood-chilling ease. She vanished.

“And the two of us, my dear battle-mage,” Paul continued, throwing an arm around Hilda’s shoulders, “are going to be the loudest, most incompetent, and most annoying adventurers in history.”

Hilda looked at him, arching an eyebrow.

“Basically, you’re going to be yourself, but louder?”

“Exactly! And you’ll be the nervous apprentice who won’t stop asking stupid questions. You need to look like an easy target. A walking distraction.”

“I don’t think I’ll have to act much to seem nervous.”

“Perfect. Use that fear. Fear makes you look authentic. Now, on with the opera!”

Paul unstrapped the shield from his back and started walking toward the heart of the canyon, banging it with the pommel of his dagger in a loud, irregular rhythm. The clang, clang, clang of the metal was a profanity in the sacred silence of the place.

“Hey, giant chicken with skin problems!” Paul shouted, his voice echoing off the rock walls. “We’ve come for your eggs to make the most expensive omelet in the kingdom! Come out and play!”

Hilda followed him, deliberately stumbling over a small rock.

“Paul, are you sure about this? I’m scared! The map said there were rabbits here, not monsters!”

“Don’t worry, sweetie!” he exclaimed, never ceasing to bang the shield. “Your brave and handsome leader will take care of everything! I’ve killed things worse than you in nightmares after a bad dinner!”

They continued like this for several minutes that felt like an eternity to Hilda. The plan was so stupid it was humiliating, but she trusted Paul’s twisted logic. He saw the world as a stage, and his enemies as actors with a predictable script.

And then, the script changed.

An unnatural silence fell over the canyon. The wind stopped blowing. The echo of Paul’s banging died as if it had been absorbed by the stone.

“Paul…” Hilda whispered, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end.

“It’s here,” he answered in a low voice, his smile vanishing to be replaced by a mask of total alertness. He stopped hitting the shield and properly strapped it to his arm, his posture shifting from that of a clown to that of a gladiator. “Get ready. On my signal.”

It appeared atop a cliff, silhouetted against the blue sky. It wasn’t large. It was horrifyingly agile. Its body was a blasphemous fusion of reptile and bird, covered in iridescent scales that shimmered with a sickly hue. Its rooster-like head twitched, and its yellow eyes, lidless and full of a cold, empty intelligence, fixed on them.

It didn’t roar. It let out a sharp hiss, a sound that crawled up the spine and lodged itself at the base of the skull.

“Gods, it’s uglier in person,” Paul muttered. “Hilda, don’t look it in the eyes. Focus on its feet, its chest. Anywhere but the eyes.”

The cockatrice jumped from the cliff. It didn’t fly; it glided on its atrophied wings, landing about thirty yards from them without the slightest sound. It moved, and the word “fast” didn’t do it justice. It was like a blink, a glitch in reality. One second it was there, and the next it was ten yards away, its head cocked.

“Alright, feather-faced reptile,” Paul said aloud, raising the polished shield. “I hear you like looking in the mirror. How about you see yourself in something worthy of a true king?”

He tilted the shield, catching a ray of sunlight and projecting a blinding flash directly at the beast.

The cockatrice hissed, irritated, but it halted its advance. It cocked its head, its vacant gaze fixing on the distorted reflection dancing on the metal’s surface. It saw itself: a monster of gleaming scales and contained power.

It liked what it saw.

“That’s it, pretty boy. You’re gorgeous,” Paul provoked, backing away slowly, maintaining the dance of light and reflection. “Has anyone ever told you that you have beautiful eyes? They could petrify anyone.”

The beast took a step, then another, mesmerized, following the reflection like a cat following a point of light. Paul was guiding it, luring it toward the center of the clearing they had chosen as their arena.

“Now, Hilda!” Paul shouted, his voice a thunderclap that broke the concentration. “Take the ground out from under its feet!”

Hilda reacted. The fear was still there, a frozen knot in her stomach, but her training, the hours of theoretical lessons, and the previous battles took control.

“O, earth, soften and yield, Soft Ground!”

The hard, rocky ground beneath the cockatrice’s claws turned into a thick, sticky mire. The beast, in the middle of an elegant, swift advance, lost its footing. Its feet sank, and its speed, its greatest advantage, was stolen from it. It hissed in fury, splashing awkwardly as it tried to free itself.

“Yes! That’s what I like to see!” Paul roared, narrowly dodging a tail swipe that could have broken his legs. “Now it’s angry! Don’t let it think! Wall behind it! Box it in!”

Hilda raised her hands, feeling the earth’s energy flow through her. It was no longer a request. It was a command.

“O, earth, rise and protect, Earth Wall!”

A wall of solid, compact rock, nearly two meters high, erupted from the ground right behind the beast, blocking its only escape route. The cockatrice was trapped between the mud, the wall, and the hypnotic reflection in Paul’s shield.

“It’s in the cage!” Paul yelled, his face slick with sweat from the effort of holding the beast’s attention and dodging its desperate attacks. “Now, punish it! Let it know this is your turf, not its!”

Hilda’s confidence soared. She was no longer a novice. She was a battlefield controller.

“O, earth, gather and strike, Earth Bullet!”

A rock projectile the size of her head shot out and struck the cockatrice on its flank. It didn’t do any real damage, but the dull, humiliating impact enraged it further. The beast ignored the reflection for a second and fixed its lethal gaze on Hilda.

“Hilda, don’t look at it!” Paul warned at the top of his lungs, banging the shield with his dagger again to regain the monster’s attention. “Over here, you feathered idiot! The pretty face is over here!”

The cockatrice refocused on Paul, but the brief moment of distraction was enough. Hilda saw her opportunity. Not to attack, but to paralyze it further.

“You’re thinking like a strategist! Keep it up!” Paul encouraged her, guessing her intentions.

“O, earth, rise and bind, Stone Shackles!”

It was a spell that wasn’t in any textbook. One she improvised, visualizing not a wall or a spear, but the earth itself coming to life, extending arms to trap. Two thick vines of rock and dirt emerged from the mire and wrapped around the cockatrice’s legs, anchoring it even more firmly to the ground.

The beast struggled, thrashing with impotent fury, but it was completely immobilized. Its speed was useless. Its agility, a memory. The only thing it had left was its gaze.

Paul saw the window of opportunity. The cockatrice, frustrated and trapped, was completely focused on the reflection—the enemy it could see but couldn’t touch.

“NOW, GHISLAINE!” Paul’s shout was the signal.

From the shadows, a figure emerged. It didn’t run; it flowed. Ghislaine’s movement wasn’t human. It was the personification of speed, a blur of muscle and steel that crossed the distance in a single heartbeat.

Her katana left its sheath. There was no whoosh. The air itself seemed not to dare touch the blade.

The sunlight caught the steel for a fraction of a second.

Ghislaine didn’t aim for the armored neck or the scaly body. Following the instinct of a sword master, her blade plunged into the one vulnerable point a living thing can have: the joint where the wing meets the body, a soft spot where the main artery beats close to the surface.

The cut was clean, deep, and absolutely lethal.

The cockatrice froze. Its hiss was cut short in a choked gurgle. Its empty yellow eyes widened slightly, not in pain, but in sheer surprise. It looked down at the wound from which a torrent of dark, thick blood now gushed, and then, slowly, it collapsed into the mud Hilda had created.

Dead.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Hilda bent over, hands on her knees, panting, sweat sticking her hair to her forehead. The adrenaline rush began to fade, leaving behind a profound exhaustion and an overwhelming euphoria. They had done it.

Paul lowered the shield, his arm trembling from the strain. He walked over to Hilda and placed a hand on her shoulder, a firm gesture filled with a pride that was worth more than any words.

“You did it. You controlled a C+ rank beast like it was a puppet.”

Ghislaine approached the corpse, wiping her katana clean with a swift, precise motion before sheathing it. Her face was an impassive mask, but her single visible eye shone with a savage satisfaction.

“A clean job,” she said, her voice a grunt of approval.

“Teamwork works,” Paul replied, smiling. “Now, for the prize.”

The nest was in a cave at the back of the canyon. The entrance was flanked by strange, twisted figures.

“Are they… statues?” Hilda asked, approaching cautiously.

“No,” Ghislaine said, her voice grim. “They’re trophies.”

They were the cockatrice’s previous victims. Adventurers, animals, a boar turned to stone… all frozen in time, their faces a mask of eternal terror. The cave was a museum of death.

In the center, on a bed of bones and feathers, the Mountain Hearts gleamed.

They were crystal geodes, of an amethyst color so deep it seemed to absorb the light. They pulsed with a soft, contained energy. Hilda could feel the latent mana within them, a quiet, ancient power.

“There’s our book,” Paul said, crouching to pick up one of the largest and most perfect crystals. It was heavy, and cold to the touch.

Hilda picked up the cockatrice’s head, a macabre task she performed with cold determination. It was the proof they needed for the Guild. Ghislaine, for her part, picked up a couple of the smaller crystals.

“A bonus for the trouble,” she muttered.

They left the cave, blinking in the sunlight, their hearts beating with the rhythm of triumph. They had the loot. They had the victory. They were tired, low on mana, and covered in dust, but they had won.

“Well,” Paul said with a grin of pure satisfaction. “I think this calls for a celebration. The best dinner Creston has to offer, and it’s on me.”

They were about to head for the cart when a voice echoed through the canyon. A voice that was cold, controlled, and filled with a steel that belonged to no sword.

“An impressive performance, Greyrat. Truly.”

Paul froze. His body tensed instantly, the victorious smile wiped from his face and replaced by the grimace of a cornered predator.

Hilda and Ghislaine spun around, following his gaze.

Blocking the only exit from the canyon was a group of men. They wore quality armor, clean and functional. They were professionals. And at their head, tall and imposing, stood Captain Gideon Fleurmont.

He didn’t look tired from the chase. He looked fresh, rested, and filled with a terrifying calm. At his side, the young knight Marcus looked nervous, but resolute.

Paul moved subtly to place himself between the captain and Hilda, his hand near the hilt of his sword. He didn’t say the man’s name. He didn’t know it. He only saw the leader of the guards who had been hunting them.

“Well, well,” Paul spat, his voice thick with disdain. “The family’s lap dogs. I thought we’d lost you on the road.”

“I’ve found a new devotion,” Gideon replied, his voice flat, ignoring the insult. He took a few steps forward, and his men fanned out to his sides in a perfect combat formation. “To cleaning up the trash that stains the honor of the great houses.”

His gaze shifted from Paul to Hilda. There was no anger in his eyes. There was something worse: a frigid disappointment, a final judgment.

“Lady Hilda. Your little adventure is over,” he said, each word a hammer blow. “It has been… entertaining to follow your trail. The swordswoman who becomes a mage. The noblewoman who sleeps in sleeping bags for two.”

Hilda felt a chill, but it wasn’t from fear. It was fury. She clenched her jaw, her face becoming the same mask of cold determination she had worn in the battle.

“I am no longer Lady Hilda,” she retorted, her voice surprisingly firm. “And you are not my jailer.”

Gideon smiled. It was a terrible smile, devoid of any joy.

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. I’m not here to take you to an altar. That ship has already sailed, hasn’t it?” he said, his gaze landing on Paul with absolute contempt. “I’m here to take you before your father. To answer for your shame. For your dishonor.”

Paul and Hilda were exhausted, their energy and mana spent in the brutal battle. Ghislaine, having only delivered the final blow, remained poised and ready. But facing them stood a dozen elite knights, fresh and led by a man consumed by an icy fury.

They were in a perfect trap.

Paul drew his sword. The movement was fluid, without hesitation. Ghislaine did the same, her single eye glowing with the promise of imminent violence. Hilda took a step back, her hands already glowing with the earth’s energy, preparing the first spell.

They fell into a back-to-back formation, an unlikely trio against an army.

“I’ll give you this,” Paul said, his voice dangerously quiet, directed at the captain. “You’ve got a great sense of timing.”

“And you, Greyrat,” the captain replied, drawing his own sword, a magnificent blade that gleamed with a cold light, “are about to learn the true meaning of the word ‘consequences’.”

Gideon raised his sword.

“Take them!” he ordered. “I want the swordsman alive. For now.”