Aslan suddenly stopped.
He stood still, his breathing and even his blinking halted, as he stared blankly at the window in front of him.
Twelve years was by no means a short time.
For Aslan, those twelve years had been anything but easy, and even if it wasn’t even half a human’s lifetime, he couldn’t ignore the pain.
Just reflecting on those twelve years was painful enough for Aslan, and he couldn’t comprehend the appearance of the main quest itself.
Who was Angela Tail?
Why had the main quest appeared now?
Aslan couldn’t understand it at all.
His slowly moving reason was telling him that the first main quest would begin in the prison city of Olpasbet.
This wasn’t his first time visiting the prison city of Olpasbet.
During his previous visits, the main quest had never appeared.
If there was any difference between his past visits and now…
As Aslan’s thoughts reached that point, the moment the girl’s figure came into view, she clashed with the men.
Crack!
To be precise, it was the stone in the girl’s hand that was swung.
Despite not being tall, the stone she swung with an extended arm accurately struck the man’s head.
The man, who had just been about to charge, was hit on the side of his head by the stone and grabbed his head.
But he only staggered; he didn’t fall. The man gritted his teeth and charged again.
“You damn bitch!”
The man, spitting curses as he charged, easily grabbed the girl’s wrist. Though he was full of momentum, the girl’s limbs were frail.
‘There’s no way she can break free.’
Aslan thought that and was about to step forward. Considering what was about to happen, this was his chance.
But contrary to Aslan’s expectations, the girl moved.
Seeing the man raising his fist, she lunged forward.
Crunch!
And she bit the arm that was holding her wrist.
It was a filthy method, but its effectiveness was outstanding. As the girl clenched her eyes shut and bit down, blood spurted from the man’s forearm.
“Ah! Let go! Let go!”
The man screamed and swung his fist. The swung fist struck the girl’s head, which was almost right next to him.
Each time the fist made contact with the girl’s crimson hair, it made a thudding sound, but the girl didn’t give up, her eyes wide open as she kept biting.
“Ugh! Ah!”
Finally, when the man let go of the girl’s wrist, she raised her knee and kicked. The girl’s knee struck the man’s groin.
“Ugh!”
The man fell with a single scream, and the girl laughed through her disheveled hair. The crowd jeered at the fallen man.
Only the dragonkin remained.
But the dragonkin simply crossed his arms and looked down at the girl, showing no hurry.
From his relaxed demeanor, Aslan could sense two things.
One was the dragonkin’s confidence.
The other was the dragonkin’s insight.
The dragonkin wasn’t just a large being; he was a warrior.
A warrior with enough experience to compare his opponent’s strength with his own and predict the outcome.
And that warrior seemed to find no reason to hurry.
Though she had taken down his subordinates with luck and dirty tricks, there was no way the girl could win against a dragonkin over two meters tall.
The girl seemed to realize this too, as the fierce smile she had been wearing slowly faded.
The dragonkin, reading the girl’s expression, spoke.
“Angela Tail. Was my offer so unpleasant?”
The girl, without a word, picked up another stone from the ground. Even with a weapon in her hand, the dragonkin didn’t seem particularly wary.
Instead, the dragonkin looked down at the girl with arrogant eyes and said, “You’re a lowborn who needs my protection. Was my offer to take you under my wing so distasteful?”
The girl, hearing his words and seeing his expression, showed faint contempt and anger. Her hand, not holding the stone, trembled, and she shouted, “Then why don’t you just drop it, you damn lizard bastard!”
And with anger, she threw the stone.
The cleanly thrown stone flew toward the dragonkin with a whooshing sound, but the dragonkin easily caught it.
The stone made a thud as it hit his large palm and rolled to the ground.
The dragonkin sighed.
“Angela Tail, it seems I’ll have to draw blood…”
As he spoke, the dragonkin stopped.
Because the girl who had been in front of him was gone.
The crowd was looking behind the dragonkin, and only then did he snap out of it and turn around.
The girl had run away while throwing the stone. The figure of the running girl wasn’t far off.
The dragonkin frowned in displeasure and began chasing the girl. The crowd, watching the girl and the dragonkin chasing her, began chattering nonsense.
In the midst of it, only Aslan followed the girl’s escape path with his eyes and slipped into an alley that opened to the side.
*
“Pant, pant, huff.”
The girl ran. Behind the running girl, a dragonkin three heads taller than her was following.
With his large tail balancing him, the dragonkin leaned forward and ran quickly.
As she ran, the girl pushed aside the people in front of her, and those pushed aside rolled to avoid colliding with the dragonkin. That’s how she barely kept her distance.
‘He’s catching up!’
The girl was a lowborn.
She was born and raised in the city of Belus Alphen, a city of dragonkin.
Who gave birth to her or how she came to be was unknown. The girl had lived in the slums of Belus Alphen since she was young.
Naturally, her surname became Tail.
The city of the dragonkin existed beneath the bones of an ancient dragon, and the city was divided into sections based on the dragon’s body parts, segregating people by status.
The most miserable and lowly beings in the city were those living in the slums clustered around the tail.
They were all Tails.
Tails were all humans.
Humans who weren’t tall, didn’t have tails, and didn’t possess superior physical abilities.
Considering that all the city’s nobles were dragonkin, it wasn’t particularly unique.
The girl hated the dragonkin.
Though she had to fight and growl with other Tails every day to get even a little more food, she hated the dragonkin even more.
Their arrogant, disdainful gazes.
The girl hated that immensely.
She hated the way they avoided her as if she were filth.
She hated how they tried to manage the Tails as if they were livestock.
So it was only natural that the girl rebelled against the dragonkin who wanted her under his wing.
There was personal dislike, but the fact that they weren’t equals also made her reject him.
“Huff, huff, ugh.”
So the girl rebelled and fought. Even if the result was futile.
The girl, barely suppressing her breath that was rising to her throat, moved her legs. She ran across the crimson-stained street and turned a corner.
Thud.
“Ugh!”
The moment she turned the corner, she stepped on a rolling stone and fell.
As her body thudded to the ground, her rising breath turned into nausea. The girl covered her mouth and coughed.
The sound of the dragonkin’s footsteps grew closer. The girl gritted her teeth and clenched her eyes shut.
And just as the sound of footsteps reached right behind her.
“Ugh?!”
Someone grabbed the girl’s wrist and pulled her. The girl was dragged helplessly into an alley, her posture unstable.
That someone covered the girl’s mouth and leaned her against the wall. The sudden change in situation made the girl open her eyes wide.
“Shh.”
When she opened her eyes, she saw a man.
A black-haired man with unique turquoise eyes, about two heads taller than the girl.
With a somewhat tired complexion and a melancholic expression, the man pushed the girl against the wall and placed a finger on her lips, signaling her to be quiet.
Naturally, resentment surged within the girl.
“Damn it… Did I lose her?”
Before the girl could make any move, the dragonkin’s voice was heard, and the resentment subsided.
The girl, hearing the voice, understood the situation and suppressed her resentment, frowning.
‘Did he help me?’
Only after the dragonkin’s footsteps faded did he release her wrist and remove his hand from her mouth.
“That was close.”
As the man said, the girl had been on the verge of being caught.
It wasn’t clear what would have happened if she had been caught, but it certainly wouldn’t have been something the girl would have been happy about.
Though it was clearly something to be grateful for, the girl frowned as she looked at the man in front of her. Her golden eyes flickered with wariness.
“Who are you?”
The girl didn’t know this man. There was no way she could know him.
She hadn’t been imprisoned for long, and because of that, she didn’t know anyone among the imprisoned.
In reality, the only people she knew were the poor she had worked with in Belus Alphen.
Most of those poor people were dead, and her employer was also dead, so the chances of the man in front of her being someone she knew were low.
Though she hadn’t been in this city for long, the girl knew that there weren’t many decent people here—perhaps no one was decent.
“Why did you help me?”
The girl assumed the man had another motive. She thought he would demand something.
“It looked dangerous if you got caught.”
On the other hand, he answered immediately.
And with that answer, he closed his mouth.
His closed mouth seemed like it wouldn’t open again, as if that was all there was to it.
The girl, looking puzzled, twitched her eyebrows, and the man added, “I was watching. You fighting that dragonkin’s subordinate.”
At those words, the girl looked even more puzzled.
Throughout her escape, she hadn’t seen anyone else chasing her.
If he had wanted to get ahead of the dragonkin and her to wait in the alley, he would have had to run at an incredible speed.
The man, as if reading her question, gestured toward the inside of the alley with his head.
The alley stretched long, blocked by a wall that extended out disorderly.
It wasn’t very high, but it looked like it could be climbed if one grabbed and pulled themselves up.
The girl looked at the wall and then turned her head, and the man said, “I saw the direction you were running, so I thought you’d come this way. I just cut straight across. No need to be surprised.”
The girl frowned at his words.
She couldn’t tell if that was possible.
But he seemed to think no further explanation was needed, as he took a step back from the girl and said, “Even if it was a fight, I didn’t want to see one person being attacked by many.”
It was an incomprehensible reason. The girl opened her mouth to argue but closed it again.
Gurgle.
What interrupted the girl’s retort was none other than herself.
To be precise, it was her body.
The girl, her stomach rumbling like thunder, tightly closed her lips and lowered her eyes.
“…You’re hungry.”
The man, as if understanding, nodded lightly and said, “Want something to eat?”
As he silently watched the girl, the man thought to himself.
He wouldn’t miss this chance for the main quest that had finally appeared.
