"What just… happened?" the muscular guy stammered.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Leol said. "What the hell was that?!"

Leol felt like he was dreaming. There was no way what just happened was real.

He gulped and stood up. Warily, he walked toward Nazel. Right beside them, the dead body of the six-legged tiger was still fresh, and its head was completely destroyed. Nothing remained.

He wasn't hallucinating. Nazel had really killed it with one punch.

Nazel looked at him and shrugged. "Well, don't blame me," he said. "You guys were hyping up that tiger so much, I thought it was super strong. So I put real effort into that punch. Who knew it would make the tiger's head explode?"

"That's not the point!" Leol said. "You never said you were this strong!"

Nazel raised his eyebrows.

"Isn't it normal to have some power if you want to cross the line?" he said, as if that was obvious. "Or else you’d be dead."

"Well, yeah, but I mean... not this strong!" Leol said. "Who are you really?"

"Stop that," Nazel sighed. "I'm nobody. And anyway, there are plenty of guys far stronger than I am."

"There's no way that's true!" Leol said. "I've never met someone as strong as you in my life!"

"You haven't met enough people then," Nazel said simply. "Anyway, I want to wash off this blood. It feels sticky and disgusting."

Not seeming to care, Nazel left them for the river nearby. He remembered they had passed it not long ago. He ignored Leol, Mar, and the muscular group, who stared at him in confusion as if it was none of his concerns.

Normally, Alexey would warn his clients not to go anywhere alone, but after that display of power, it was an unnecessary worry.

But something interested him, so he decided to follow Nazel.

After they left and the weird mood subsided, the only girl in the group, Mar, started wondering out loud.

"I'm not too familiar with how strong people on the surface are," Mar said. "But... he wasn't normal, right?"

"People on the surface?" Leol said, blinking in confusion. That was a weird way to refer to normal people. "Anyway, of course not!" The blue-haired guy decided to ignore her strange choice of words for now. "I don't know how it is where you come from, but where I live, I'm considered quite strong too. That's why I dared to try to cross the line in the first place. So what he just did was exceptional!"

Mar sighed in relief. "That's good," she said. "If someone that strong was common, I don't think I'd be confident enough to continue. Still, that was really surprising. I wonder what he just did?"

"...I know what he did," the muscular man said, looking devastated, making Mar and Leol look at him. "It was similar to what we're doing—he enhances his physical power with magic. But how can he create such dense mana?!"

"That was scary..." his friend said.

"And beautiful," another admitted.

"A form we hope to achieve someday," the last muscular guy said.

They were clearly overwhelmed, and losing confidence. Looking at their defeated faces, Leol finally made a decision.

Leaving the muscular group alone, he walked toward the corpse of the six-legged tiger. He put down his huge backpack beside it and started searching inside.

"What are you doing?" Mar asked, watching Leol pull out meat cleavers from his backpack.

"I'm planning to harvest this six-legged tiger's body parts," Leol said. "I'm sure they're quite expensive. When we arrive at town, we can sell them. We can decide how to split the money later."

"Oh, you're quite resourceful," Mar said.

Leol laughed. "Well, I want to show that I have some use," he said as he grabbed the dead body of the six-legged tiger. "Even if this is all I can do right now."

Mar looked at him with a confused expression.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

Leol laughed again. "This is a little embarrassing," he said. "But you saw how strong Nazel is, right?"

"Well, of course," Mar said.

"I'm planning to ask him to let me follow him," Leol admitted. "I'm planning to go as deep as I can, so having a powerful person like him beside me will help a lot."

Mar blinked. "Oh," she said.

"Of course, I'm being shameless, but that's exactly why I need to show him my worth," Leol said, starting to cut the six-legged tiger's body. "I want him to see that letting me become his companion will benefit him."

"I see," Mar said. "That makes sense."

"But don't get me wrong, it's not just because of his power," Leol added, trying to explain himself. "When I heard his goal, I already admired him. I know myself—forget saying it out loud, I can't even imagine having such an insane goal like that. I'd be too scared to even think about it."

"Is going to the edge of the world really that difficult?" Mar asked.

If it had been anyone else, Leol would have thought Mar was acting dumb. But for some reason, he could tell that she genuinely didn't know.

That made him curious about where this small girl came from.

"Of course it is," Leol said. "Across the line, there are six areas in total. Where we are right now is called Area Five, Green Bits. Meanwhile, his goal is the uncharted area called Area Zero, Aegist."

"Nobody knows what's inside that area," Leol continued. "Most mages can't even dream of reaching that place from the start."

"Some people think there's a paradise in it," Leol went on. "A place with everything you want. Unlimited resources, unbelievably magical items or creatures, maybe even mountains of treasure. But those rumors are mostly just fantasies of people who never even got close to that place. In reality, all we know is that it's pretty dangerous."

"How so?" Mar asked, getting more interested.

"In the last one hundred years, only one person has gone there and returned," Leol said. "At that time, he was known as the strongest mage in the world, Grimrock the Titan. And despite knowing what lies at the edge of the world, he refused to tell anyone what he saw."

"Why?" Mar asked. "He didn't want to share what he found?"

Leol shook his head.

"Grimrock didn't go alone," he said. "He went to the edge of the world with his whole group, his friends and family, yet he came back alone. Everyone else died. He was the only survivor."

Meanwhile on the other side of the forest, Alexey walked toward Nazel, who was washing his hands and face.

"Can I ask you something?" Alexey said, getting closer.

"Sure," Nazel said, turning his head toward him.

"I'm not going to beat around the bush. You've already crossed the line before, right?" Alexey asked. "I can tell a veteran when I see one."

"Calling me a veteran is too much," Nazel sighed. "But yeah, I crossed the line before, two years ago, from a different entrance."

"As I expected," Alexey said, nodding. "There's no way you had no experience whatsoever. How far did you go?"

Nazel looked far toward the horizon. Memories from two years ago filled his head, happy and sad memories.

"Just Area Three," he finally said, his expression hard to read. "Gray Door, Mages' Graveyard."

***