The two of them stopped talking and looked at each other. Kishiar turned around and immediately issued an order.

"Yuder, follow me. We're going to check on the mages. Everyone else stays put and protects one another. The majority of you are not yet acclimated. Leave the guarding to the Hinn and Finn Eldore."

"Understood!"

The mages were within a stone's throw, close enough to reach with a quick sprint. However, letting one's guard down in this dense jungle was not an option. Placing Ejain among the group members, Yuder promptly moved toward the mages with Kishiar. Even as Yuder and Kishiar approached, the mages were engaged in a heated argument.

"We should just move on! By the time we finish arguing, we could have been long gone!"

"Are you mad? We should obviously go back!"

"Go back where? In this situation!"

"...What on earth is going on?"

Upon Yuder's interruption, Lorna turned around and answered with a grimace.

"We discovered something that wasn't there before we arrived. There's a tense standoff between those who want to ignore it and move on, and those who want to go back. What do you think? What does it look like to you?"

Yuder followed her pointing finger, but all he saw were the familiar trees they had been seeing thus far. However, squinting slightly and focusing, he realized there was something else amidst them.

Twisted black lines seemed to be haphazardly drawn between the spaces. A strange crevice.

Yuder's eyes widened in surprise.

'That is...'

It looked like a long black shadow formed naturally by overlapping trees. Yet, to Yuder's eyes, a smoky energy appeared to be emanating from the crevice. It looked as though there was a crack in thin air.

'Impossible But it seems correct. How can that be here?'

While Yuder was reeling in shock, formulating thoughts quickly, Kishiar, who was studying the phenomenon next to him, finally spoke up, addressing the mages.

"A crack in the air... Is there any possibility that this is a sign of a monster emerging?"

"If that were the case, it should have already appeared. We've been watching, but there's been no change."

"You're right to be concerned."

"Thank you for understanding."

The crevice was thin like a line, but it stretched out over a considerable range. Under normal circumstances, they could have taken another path. But now, the uncertainty of where a monster could emerge caused the mages' dilemma. There was a confrontation between those who did not want to leave the path they perceived as safest and those who thought they should brave the risks and change direction.

Seeing this, Kishiar turned to Yuder, who had been silently observing the crevice.

"You've been observing it for a while. Are you surprised?"

"...Yes. A little."

To others, his face would not have betrayed even a hint of surprise, but it seemed he couldn't hide it from Kishiar. Yuder readily admitted his astonishment.

"I've noticed you often see things differently than others. Do you see something strange?"

"No, it's not that I see something different"

As Yuder started to answer but trailed off, Kishiar gently pressed him.

"If there is something concerning, speak freely. Anything will do."

It was challenging to hide anything before him. Yuder finally averted his gaze from the crack he had been staring at for quite some time. After a long ponder, he barely managed to find the words to describe it.

"To me, that... it appears more than simply ominous. It feels like... the starting point of a disaster."

Yes, the starting point of a disaster. Yuder thought it a fitting name for the crack that had just left his lips. There was only one thing he could speculate about the nature of the crevice. An event from the future he never thought he would see again in this 'present' timeline. It was a phenomenon related to disaster.

"It sounds quite poetic."

Kishiar let out a small chuckle, seemingly amused by the abstract metaphor that was quite different from his usual blandness, but Yuder didn't return the smile. It was not a poetic metaphor, he was speaking the literal truth.

That ominous crack was, in a manner of speaking, a signal.

In his past life, among the disasters that struck the entire continent, phenomena resembling natural calamities often started after such a crack was discovered. Yuder had personally met those who witnessed similar cracks at the starting point of the first recorded earthquake in the soYudern part of the Empire, in the skies above regions that caused abnormal weather, and on the ground just before a massive swarm of monsters poured out. He had even seen one himself.

The image of the crack from that memory and the one he was seeing now was astonishingly identical.

"..."

Memories from the past swirled ominously within Yuder. All the things that had descended from the start of that, the times when he was alone searching for answers, and the moment when he was finally standing under the gallows, briefly brushed past his mind.

Just as Yuder's eyes darkened, Kishiar opened his mouth as if he had been waiting for that moment.

"But it seems to be a fitting name. The starting point of a disaster... Maybe that strange crack has some connection with the excessively fast occurrence of monster incidents in the western region these days."

In that instant, the dark memories flooding Yuder's mind abruptly stopped.

"Do you think so?"

"It doesn't look like a good phenomenon since even you felt it as ominous, and it's a decent hypothesis, isn't it?"

Every time he heard his argument, Yuder recalled the nobles who ignored their own circumstances, those who held power, and the rulers.

'Aren't you just overthinking everything? You're not about to spout some doomsday theory, are you?'

'We've heard this talk before. Do the research yourself. You made noise that the continent might be in danger, and now that you're being touted as the best Awakener on the continent, are you trying to become a prophet?'

'You're really insane. At such an important time, you're shirking your crucial mission of suppressing rebels against His Imperial Majesty and leaving? Are you sane, Commander Yudrain? So what about those signs and disasters? What's so important about that? That's just a phenomenon that occurs right before the monsters come out!'

Even when ordinary monsters appeared, they usually tore through similar cracks, but that was, according to the mages, a temporary phenomenon. Only the ones that existed in space for a long time without anything happening were found just before a disaster struck.

Many considered Yuder Aile's desire to unravel that secret as madness. Some whispered behind his back that he was acting as a prophet and challenging the authority of the Emperor.

Except for one man. He was already dead and in his grave at that time, but now he was strangely watching Yuder with a warm expression.

"You look somewhat off. What's the matter this time? Do you sense something strange again?"

"No..."

Yuder turned his head to avoid Kishiar's gaze. He didn't want to reveal his current feelings at all. After several deep breaths, he finally managed to calm down.

'Let's think about the crack.'

Of course, he had never met anyone who had seen such a crack when he had come to the monster subjugation mission to the West in his previous life. The few subjugation events he was involved in were not inside this dense forest but involved killing the large-scale monsters that had already infiltrated the Empire.

But even then, if such a phenomenon had already appeared, the start of the catastrophe on this continent might have been much earlier than Yuder had guessed.

'No. Perhaps, as Kishiar said, the abnormal occurrence of monsters in the west itself was already the first disaster.'

Kishiar had said it was just a hypothesis, but to Yuder, it sounded completely different. A certain certainty seized him in his shiver.

He blinked his eyes and looked straight up at Kishiar.

"The hypothesis you mentioned just now."

"Hmm?"

"I also think it's possible, so it would be better to investigate it in detail."

"Really? Should I call Kanna?"

"No. It might be dangerous, so I will..."

"And you're not in danger?"

Kishiar's voice fell a little when suddenly a thud sound came from not far away. The mages who were still discussing and the Cavalry members who were observing the atmosphere of this place from a distance all looked in one direction.

"There's no doubt this time, a real monster."

As Kishiar mumbled, trees on the opposite side of the crack shook and made a creaking sound as they broke. The forest as a whole screamed as the trees collided with each other, broke, and fell one after another.

"It's a monster! Be careful!"

With a sound like tens of thousands of birds taking flight at once, a being of unknown shape that hadn't been there just a moment ago revealed itself through the gap. It had a grotesque appearance, staggering on two feet with a height that seemed to be about twice that of a human. Each time the scale-like things attached to its entire body vibrated, a terrifying sound like a scream echoed.

This creature was alive and moving, but it clearly had a different appearance from any animal or plant in this world. It was, without a doubt, a monster.

"Huge, its huge. It looks like the ones I saw in the field guide... What was its name?"

'Maraedon.'

Yuder answered in his heart to a mage who was fumbling and retreating near him and looked around. He could see Kishiar casually reaching for the hilt of his sword revealed from his cloak.

"Do you intend to deal with it using that?"

"That's why I brought it."

"We'll support you."

As they exchanged these words, Lorna yelled, perhaps frustrated by their stillness and refusal to avoid the threat.

"Move back a bit! We will handle the monster with the tool we brought...!"

"It's okay, it's you who should move further back."

"What did you say?"

"It'll be over soon."

The mages pulled out the defensive magic tools they had prepared in advance from their bags, their hearts anxiously burning. However, they never got a chance to use them.

As the monster's enormous mouth, located near its belly, opened wide, Yuder used the power of the wind and earth to move the shattered trees that were scattered nearby and pulled them together.

In the brief moment when it hesitated, about to spit out its body fluids in reaction to the suddenly obstructing trees, a Swordmaster, whose existence nobody had known until now, unsheathed his sword for the first time in front of everyone and sent out an aura.