Beautiful city, surrounded by giant walls with a forest beyond. Sapphire City. The walls were sixty meters tall and twelve meters wide.
On the walls, a young man walked calmly, looking around. His dark brown hair was tousled by the wind, while his gray eyes shifted from the bustling city to the lush forest.
Bone spikes jutted out from the back of his palms.
He took a deep breath and smiled as he exhaled.
'It's nice to walk sometimes!' Rune muttered.
He was on patrol, checking if everything was alright on the walls.
'I should ask the commander if I can go hunting!' He had spent most of last month's salary on history books, essentials, and some other books related to Water-type Soul Arts.
While thinking about random stuff, he reached the first checkpoint, where a guard was standing firmly.
'Guard sir looks tired,' Rune thought as he approached.
"Good morning, Rune!" the guard greeted him with a pleasant smile.
"Good morning, Guard Sir!" Rune replied with a soft smile.
He walked past the guard and asked casually, "Is everything alright?"
"Nothing big. But there are lots of beasts attacking—more than usual. Everything's fine here, though," the guard replied.
Rune nodded and walked forward.
'Maybe it's because winter is near. Beast attacks increase drastically during winter.' He repeated the process with the next guards.
After asking three guards, Rune felt something was wrong. 'That's weird. All the guards have faced increased beast attacks. That's not normal.' He looked around suspiciously.
Beasts attack the city when they can't find food in the forest. Most will leave if there's enough food, but not all.
It had been eight weeks since Rune became assistant commander of Sapphire City's Ranger Department. In that time, he had learned a lot about beast behavior.
He asked the other guards as well. There were eighteen guards positioned on the wall. Twelve said the same thing, but a few had different answers.
Some had faced foreign beasts—black hyenas with long, spiraled red horns.
'I'm damn sure something's wrong here!' Rune muttered, trying to make sense of it all—but he couldn't.
Eight weeks wasn't enough to become an expert on beast behavior.
At last, Rune decided to check the main gates before returning to the station.
'Let's just fly!' With that, Rune jumped down from the wall.
He unfurled his wings. Beautiful white feathers grew from his back. His shirt didn't tear—it simply made space for the wings. The white feathers shimmered in sunlight. He flapped them, pushing air downward.
'That's the benefit of being Zerai! We have wings and spikes. But it's bad that we can't retract our spikes like we can with wings!'
'Not again! Still complaining about spikes at 18? Grow up, Rune. Focus!'
He landed in front of the guard station. The large gate beside him was open—a path leading toward the forest. Rustling sounds put him on alert.
Two guards staggered toward Rune, injured, their hair disheveled and burn marks visible here and there.
'What happened? Where are the others?' Rune rushed toward them.
Three more guards emerged from the bushes, also injured.
'What happened? Where were you all?' Rune asked, slightly panicked.
He had never imagined all five guards could be beaten like this—they were supposed to be strong.
"Ahaa… beasts… there were more than twelve. Black hyenas with long, spiraled red horns," one of them replied.
"But why the hell did you all leave the gate?"Rune demanded.