It gets worse before it gets better...(1)

"Mr. Lucius, we can't search the entire forest for those two! We need to be strategic about it, or we'll lose precious time." The knight named Paul said as he bolted through the path that leads to Darkmoon Grove. Despite his heavy armor and large build, he was quite fast, running at a speed that would put most speedster beasts to shame.

"Yes, I know. Sir Paul, I will leave the outskirts of the forest to you while I dive deep into Darkmoon Grove. I am able to sense my daughter's mana when she's near, so the inside of the forest, which is difficult to search, would be best left to me." Lucius replied, coming up with a solid plan.

Paul was a bit astonished to hear about the fact that Lucius can sense the mana of others, as it is widely known as a skill that is only achieved by either extreme talent or those who train their mana control for years. Yet Lucius who was supposed to be an ordinary merchant claimed to possess such a skill.

But Paul knew there was no reason to lie in such a dire situation so he believed his words and nodded to Lucius's proposal.

"Very well, Mr. Lucius. I will leave the interior of the forest to you while I search the outlier. Now let us make haste!" Paul said and sped up even further. Lucius increased his speed just like Paul, to not be left behind.

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Dawn was having a dream. In the dream, she was playing with her father and mother.

"Come on, Dawn! Let's see if you can catch your daddy!" Her mother pointed at Lucius while flashing a bright smile.

"What?! Me?! Why are you telling her to target me?!" Her father was flabbergasted at his wife's betrayal.

But the woman didn't reply and instead ran up to him. She then held her husband tightly in spot by grabbing his arms and putting them behind his back. Then she forced him to kneel. Preparing him as food for the predator.

"Hold on, Dawn! You wouldn't allow your father to embarrass himself by losing in a tag game right after it starts right? Right?" Lucius pleaded for mercy from his daughter. But her slowly approaching figure caused him to start sweating.

Dawn took each step menacingly as the distance between her and Lucius shortened.

"No, No, No! Alice! Why would you betray me like this?!" Her father squirmed around like a worm.

"Silence, filthy human! Be devoured by our queen and become a stepping stone for her ascension to the throne!" The woman named Alice shouted in a commanding tone.

"Wait. This roleplay is taking a weird tur-"

"TAG! You're it!" Suddenly Dawn ran up to her father and touched him.

"Nooooo!" Her father wailed in misery.

"Ha! That's what you get for forgetting our anniversary this year!" Alice laughed with joy.

"You're still holding a grudge over that?!" Lucius complained as this wasn't the punishment Alice gave out to him.

Alice and Dawn looked at each other after witnessing the man's helpless demeanor and started laughing. Lucius joined their laughter soon as well.

"All right! Now it's my turn to catch you two! I'll finish this game in an instant!" Lucius suddenly announced.

Alice quickly ran and so did Dawn.

Dawn was smiling brightly as she enjoyed these days extremely. It felt like her life was perfect. While she thought about these things and ran, she felt a soft grip on her hand.

"Daddy? You didn't even count to te- Ouch! Daddy, you're hurting me!" Dawn said and looked at the figure whose grip had started to get stronger.

But instead of Lucius, stood a bald and scar-faced man. He had a sword on his back and a sickening grin was plastered on his face.

"Who are you?! Let me go! Ah!" She exclaimed as her skirt was torn by the brawny man.

"No! Stop, please!" She started screaming and thrashing her small arms on the figure. But it didn't do anything to the man.

Tears started to trickle down her cheeks as she screamed continuously so the man would let her go but he just continued ripping her clothes.

However, something about the unpleasant situation felt familiar to Dawn.

"That's right! When this happened before, Dusk saved me! Where is he?!' She thought as she searched with her watery yet hopeful eyes.

Then she found a small boy lying down some distance away from her and the man.

"Dus-" she was about to call him but then she noticed it.

Blood all over his body, swords and spears sticking out from everywhere. His deep blues were lifeless and had lost color. When she saw this horrifying sight her mind had gone blank. But the boy's body was not done being played with.

A mysterious rope had come out of nowhere, forming a noose on Dusk's neck before lifting his body up slowly. Until finally he was on full display for her. His figure flickered for a few seconds replacing it with an adult woman that Dawn had held dear. Then it returned to being the young friend she had made.

"NOOOOOOOOO! DUSK! NOT YOU TOO!" She screamed with all her might and reached out her hand trying to touch him. But the scar faced kept her in place.

She screamed and screamed. Wanting to deny the sight before her. Then suddenly her vision blacked out.

Her nightmare had fortunately ended there and Dawn awoke with a gasp. She started weeping immediately after waking up. But after a few seconds, she came to her senses and realized she had left Dusk to confront the frightening strangers.

'No! Where is he?! He has to be alive!' she thought when the smell of something unpleasant entered her nose.

She turned her head in the direction of the smell and saw something that she had not expected. The sight was gut-wrenching for a child like her but it wasn't anything like the nightmare she had.

The figure of a silver-haired boy standing on top of a sea of red, lightened up by the moon's glow. Two lifeless bodies, the source of all the blood were beside him. The boy was looking up at the moon with a thoughtful expression as he let out a deep breath that was visible due to the cold night.

He muttered something to himself that Dawn couldn't hear. Her skill [Emotion interpreter] had activated automatically as her desire to understand the situation had become strong.

When the skill activated what she could feel from Dusk was.....something she had never felt. She didn't know the emotion so she couldn't identify it.

"Dusk?" She instinctively called him out.

The boy turned his head quickly and gave her a chilling gaze. When he did so, it seemed like his eyes had gone red for a second. But as Dawn blinked his eyes returned to being blue and his demeanor had softened, as he realized who he was looking at.

"Oh. You're awake. You must be a pretty deep sleeper if you slept through all that noise." Dusk said and approached Dawn. He didn't even wipe off the blood all over him, as of he had forgotten about it.

This would bother Dawn but right now the only thing she felt was relief from seeing that Dusk was alive. She smiled brightly as...once again....her eyes had turned watery.

"Wait. Are you about to cry again? How much can you cry? At this point, you could earn a good deal of money from becoming the first living water source for those in the desert." Dusk said as kneeled down in front of Dawn.

"Dusk...What happened here?" Dawn asked as she wiped away her tears. Although she was happy to see Dusk was his usual self, saying strange things she couldn't understand. She still wanted to know what had happened.

"You want to know? I guess I can explain things as you rest up some more. Though it might take a bit."

Dusk sat down as he prepared to explain the situation. Albeit, an explanation that wouldn't paint him as some cold-blooded murderer...

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Meanwhile, Brad who had seen the mercenaries he hired get slaughtered by an 8-year-old was standing like a statue, because of what he witnessed. He wasn't a fool to claim that it was the mercenaries who were weak. He had seen others fight before and knew that they were strong. The abnormal one here was obviously the child. Who mercilessly slaughtered his mercenaries.

Brad looked at the slave carriage and was reminded by it that he was on a tight schedule. But he didn't know what to do. The forest was dangerous to travel on his own. But at the same time, he wanted to run as far away from the kid as possible. After seeing the boy walk over to his friend as if he had forgotten Brad, he decided he would run away to his destination.

As he got on the driver's seat of the carriage and took the reins of his horse he heard something. The loud cry of a monster. He thought it was his imagination and wanted to dismiss it but the cry got closed and louder before he could feel tremors on the ground. Then a large monstrous figure came out of the forest and stood on the path he was about to take. It was a troll.

"OH FUUUUUU-!!!" Brad swore loudly and cursed his fate.