Mount Mogrian was behind the castle. It was unusual to see so many people milling around. All the soldiers and knights who hadn’t participated in the hunt were there. Together with the wife and daughter of the lord and the clan’s servants, they were praying for the safe return of the lord and his son.

Ian heard a female voice call him.

“Ian?” It was his mother. She had come out to join the others. “I’ve heard what happened. The lord in the forest...”

“I’m here to help find him.”

Ian’s words cast a shadow on Vanessa’s face. “Y-you...? It’s too dangerous! You’re still young and, well...”

“It’s all right. You couldn’t have already forgotten that I’m a mage now.”

“Well, still...” Her concerns were obvious. However talented he was, he was still a baby in her eyes.

“Don’t worry. I can do it. Okay?”

Having reassured his mother, Ian joined the knights and soldiers. The first search party had returned, tired from the large-scale search. Those who still had a bit of energy joined the second search party.

“Take me to the spot where you found traces of a struggle, and I’ll go from there.”

Hearing Ian’s order, a senior officer turned to him. “The first search party found no other traces leading from that area. You won’t find any clues other than the fact that the goblins had attacked them...”

“I have my ways, trust me.”

The voice of the child interrupting him made the senior knight freeze for a moment, but he quickly recovered and said, “Very well.”

This was a mage whom the crown prince was coming to escort to the capital. His age was irrelevant. Nobles had status, but mages had status and power—power that could swallow the whole world.

Let’s see just how great of a mage you are. The senior knight didn’t trust Ian. He didn’t doubt he was talented, which was why the crown prince was coming to take him to the capital. However, he had heard of the things the child had done on the training grounds, and he didn’t believe any of it, even if the old butler did.

“Let’s form a second search party.”

Yet he still had to obey because he was in the presence of a mage and had no defense against him. Since the first search party had found nothing, it was unlikely that the second one would succeed. But he had to do everything he could because the lord going missing was unprecedented.

“We’ll approach the mountain as per the mage’s order.”

The knights and soldiers lined up, and when they were about to begin their march, someone grabbed Ian’s wrist.

“E-excuse me!” It was the red-haired daughter of the lord, Margaret Mogrian, who looked about four years older than Ian. “Find my father... and my brother. Please!” Tears were streaming down her face as she cried, “Find them, and I’ll do anything, anything you want! I’ll ask Father for money, land, and even servants! Please...”

She was acting very differently than she had earlier that morning.

I often heard her say nonsense to my mother. The girl had been jealous of his mother’s looks back when she was a kitchen maid.

Hmm? Suddenly, he noticed something on Margaret’s right index finger. It was a ring that looked special.

The Mogrian ring? The low-class artifact looked exactly the way he remembered from his past life. Apparently, the daughter had received it instead of the son.

“I’ll find them.”

His words made her face light up. “R-really?”

“But I want you to keep that promise.”

“I will! Anything you want!”

“Now, start thinking.”

Confused, Margaret asked, “T-think?”

“Not about the things you offered.”

“T-then what...”

“That’s what I’m asking you to think about.” Ian moved his gaze past her, and Margaret’s eyes followed his to find Vanessa just standing there, looking worried. All of a sudden, the girl understood and looked away. She felt her insides churning.

“Also,” Ian continued. “That ring.”

A look of fear spread on Margaret’s face.

“R-ring?”

“Let me borrow it.”

Margaret hesitated. Much like the rest of her family, she didn’t know the ring was an artifact.

“Why?”

“There is mana in it.”

“Mana?”

“It’ll help me find them. So...”

Margaret was hard-pressed to make a decision. It wasn’t just any ring but a family heirloom that her father had given her. Yet, if it had mana, it could help find her father and brother.

“All right.”

She handed the ring to Ian, who put it on his thumb since his hand was comparably bigger than hers. As he did so, his mana heart’s beating deepened—a feeling that he liked.

“Let’s go.”

Leaving the young noble daughter behind him, Ian followed the search party and proceeded to Mount Mogrian. It wasn’t a tall mountain, so the road was wide open, which made it easy for hunters.

“Do we have to go much deeper?” Ian asked a knight after walking for a while.

“It’s not that far.”

“Is it where the hunt usually starts?”

“No. Normally, you have to go in much deeper to find goblins... which is unusual, now that I think about it,” the knight replied, worry showing on his face.

“I understand they hold hunts regularly.”

“That’s right. Every first moon of each month unless there is something else going on.”

“Then you must be familiar with what the hunters do,” Ian said, referring to the lord’s party.

Goblins couldn’t tell the lord apart from other people.

“You mean...”

“They could have planned an ambush.”

“You mean the goblins?”

The knight seemed skeptical. “There’s no way they could make such a decision...”

It was popular knowledge that goblins weren’t too bright, barely matching a three-year-old child in intelligence. He didn’t think they had the guts to plan an ambush or even attack first.

Impossible. Only the hobgoblins from the southern great plains could pull off something like that, not the goblins on their lands. Just as he reached his conclusion, the knight spoke.

“Here we are. These are the traces, as you can see...”

Around them, there were red stains of human blood and green stains of goblin blood. It was enough to tell a fight had taken place. However, there were no human bodies anywhere, only goblin corpses.

“Have you collected the human bodies that were here already?” Ian asked.

The knight shook his head in response. “We couldn’t find any. It seems like...”

This meant the goblins had taken them, either alive or dead.

There are too many suspicious things going on here. The battle scene was too large. Dozens of dead goblin bodies littered the area, leading Ian to infer the goblins that attacked the hunting party must have been in the hundreds.

They shouldn’t be able to act as a group. These creatures sometimes attacked small villages to hunt for animals or gather fruits. Hundreds of them shouldn’t unite to attack humans, however. The more he thought about this case, the more interesting it was.

Has something pivotal happened? He wondered if an intelligent higher species might have emerged, willful enough to unite goblins and take command.

“Do any other monsters live here?” Ian asked.

“I’m not sure. Not that I know of.”

“Hmm.” He wasn’t going to figure this one out by thinking about it. He had to make a decision.

“Summoning magic,” Ian muttered, lifting his index finger. He drew a silver magic circle in the air in front of him. “Wolf Spirit.”

The command went into the completed magic circle. In response, silver light spilled out of the magic circle, acting like a door for the light.

“A-woo-woo-woo!”

The search party couldn’t believe their ears. A weird sound came from the magic circle—the howling sound of wolves.

“What’s going on? Where’s it coming from?”

“Did he just say ‘spirit?’”

“The cries sound strange...”

As the murmurs receded, a small figure came out of the magic circle and fell to the forest floor.

“W-wolf?”

Just as the soldiers suspected, Ian had summoned a wolf. However, it wasn’t an ordinary one.

“Grrr... A-woo?”

It was the size of a puppy with a small, round snout. It started wagging its tail looking up at Ian.

“A baby wolf...?”

Yes, the soldier was somewhat correct. Before them stood a baby wolf spirit.