Future Knight

Prologue

As the round metal object that flew in from space pierced through the stratosphere and entered the atmosphere, it heated up to a fiery red as if it were melting, plummeting toward the ground at an incredible speed.

The round object, accelerating further as it fell toward the earth, deployed three massive parachutes and began to free-fall slowly.

After some time, the round object safely landed on the ground, detached the parachutes from its body, and slowly started to unfold itself.

From within the unfolded object, a spider-like exploration robot slowly revealed itself.

– Beep! Beep beep beep!

The exploration robot, which emerged from the sphere, extended a large antenna that was folded in a fan shape on its back.

Then it began its exploration activities, moving around the area.

The robot conducted various investigations, such as collecting soil samples to analyze their composition and examining the atmosphere.

The data obtained from these investigations were transmitted to deep space via the large antenna on its back.

While the exploration robot was engrossed in its assigned tasks…

There was a gigantic black shadow quietly watching the exploration robot from the forest…

Despite its enormous size, the shadow was unbelievably stealthy and agile.

However, no matter how stealthy and agile it was, it could not escape the detection of the infrared sensor.

A warning sound erupted from the robot that detected the approaching monstrous creature.

But in the blink of an eye, the exploration robot was struck by a giant rock and smashed, ceasing to function.

As the exploration robot fell silent, sparking, the monstrous creature that threw the rock began to roar.

“Kuwooo!”

The creature, entirely green, was almost 5 meters tall.

The roar from its massive body echoed throughout the forest.

After the rough roar, the monstrous creature, seemingly pleased with its successful hunt, shook its shoulders and approached the destroyed exploration robot.

It then licked its lips and forcefully tore off one of the legs.

However…

“Krurk?”

The creature, seemingly perplexed by the metal leg of the robot, began to examine its prey closely.

Moments later, the creature’s breathing grew heavier, and suddenly, it started yelling and frantically smashing the robot’s body with the rock.

Thinking it had caught its favorite giant spider, the prey turned out to be entirely made of inedible metal.

The creature’s fiery rage, driven by extreme hunger, was entirely directed at the exploration robot. Soon, the robot was reduced to an unrecognizable heap of metal, battered by the countless blows from the rock.

—

Chapter 1 The Human Who Came From the Sky

On a full moon night, in the endlessly sprawling dense forest.

The quiet stillness of the forest was broken as the sky began to turn red.

Under the night sky, countless glowing eyes sensed the anomaly and looked up simultaneously.

The eyes, staring at the reddening sky, began to tremble with fear due to the rapidly changing sky.

The red light that terrified them grew brighter and soon a colossal roar, as if the entire sky was exploding, echoed.

The tremendous roar echoed throughout the forest.

Startled birds flew into the dark night sky, and small animals hiding underground emerged from their burrows and started fleeing in all directions.

Just as the red light grew brighter, the clouds suddenly parted at a terrifying speed, revealing the source of the red light in its massive form.

The monstrous object plunging from the sky resembled a giant meteor.

However, it seemed as though the object was desperately trying to prove it was not a meteor, refusing to plunge straight into the ground.

The monstrous object tried to slow down by spewing fire from its front, but it was in vain.

The gigantic, blazing object entrusted its massive body to the vast ground with a tremendous roar. The impact struck the forest with great force.

Crash! Boom boom boom!

A towering cloud of dust rose into the sky, and the forest burst into massive flames. Nothing was left where the giant object had swept through.

After leaving a trail of destruction spanning several thousand meters, the monstrous object finally leaned against a huge cliff and fell silent.

The body of the fallen object stretched for hundreds of meters, and it was so heated by the extreme heat it endured while passing through the atmosphere that molten metal was flowing from it.

The forest, thanks to this uninvited guest, had become an unseasonal sea of fire, illuminating the dark night sky.

It wasn’t until the next day that living creatures approached the subdued flames.

Those who gathered around the cause of all this chaos were beings with human-like appearances but notably pointed ears, possessing unique features.

They were a species known as “Elves,” who lived in this forest.

These elves cautiously approached the giant object that had suddenly fallen from the sky during the night, inspecting it while remaining alert.

“Our forest has ended up like this….”

A young man’s voice, filled with deep anger, watched helplessly at the devastation of the forest.

“Elradian, this isn’t a meteor….”

“I can see that too.”

Elradian, the elf who cut off the young elf’s words, was lost in deep thought with a serious expression.

‘How could such a massive thing fall from the sky? From its shape, it closely resembles the arks of the gods described in the ancient texts. Could this really be an ark created by the gods?’

Despite the passage of time, the heat around the object remained intense, making it impossible to approach any closer.

At that moment, elves wielding staffs stepped forward.

“Everyone! Let’s combine our efforts to cool down this object.”

“Understood. Ice Field!”

“Ice Field!”

As the same words were repeated from the mouths of the other elves, a wide frost settled around the object, rapidly cooling the area where heat waves had been rising.

Before long, a considerable amount of time had passed, and the body of the once-hot object was now covered in a layer of white frost.

“Well, now that it has cooled down, let’s go inside. Cast a protection spell, please.”

“Understood. Protect Shield!”

When the elf wielding the staff cast the protection spell, Elradian’s body glowed with a blue light.

Elradian then darted into a giant crack in the monstrous object.

His movements were so swift that he disappeared in an instant.

“Let’s hurry and follow Elradian inside.”

Fifteen elves followed Elradian in turn, entering through the cracks of the object.

Then, they were met with an astonishing sight.

They couldn’t close their mouths in surprise.

The inside was entirely made of metal, just like the outside.

Thanks to the light emanating from the ceiling, though some parts were dark, the inside of the object was as bright as day.

The elf mages could instantly tell that the light was not glowing due to magical power.

One of the mages spoke to Elradian.

“Although I can feel a faint trace of mana from that light, it is not activated by magic. Moreover, this metal structure is so sophisticated that even dwarves could not have created it.”

“This is truly remarkable. How could this be joined together like this?”

Elradian was amazed and uttered an exclamation as he saw that the metal parts were seamlessly connected, as if they had always been one.

“Elradian! There is a person collapsed over there!”

“I will check it.”

The elf called Elradian ran over in a single bound to examine the fallen person.

However, the person was already dead.

Judging by the degree of decomposition, it seemed they had been dead for about a month.

The rough scars engraved on the surrounding walls suggested that the person had fiercely resisted something before dying.

“Hmm, a human.”

The corpse before his eyes was unmistakably human.

However, the clothing was unlike anything Elradian had seen in his hundreds of years of life.

“The clothing is really peculiar. In all my years, I’ve never seen a human dressed in such bizarre attire. A man in a full-body tights… And I can’t identify the material of these clothes, it’s neither leather nor fabric, something entirely unfamiliar.”

When Elradian pulled on the dead person’s clothes, they were astonishingly stretchy, very thin, and soft.

“It’s a fabric I’ve neither heard of nor seen. There is nothing in this monstrous object that smells of our world.”

“I also dislike the strange and alien aura I feel inside this place. Could this giant ark be from another world?”

“Everything will be resolved once we find a living person.”

“Understood. Everyone, let’s move.”

As the investigation team rose to move to another location, an elf mage, who had been observing the green and red buttons on the wall with curiosity, pressed the green button.

Then, with a ‘beep!’ sound, the door in the wall opened swiftly.

Wheeeeeeeing.

“Ah!”

As the wall suddenly turned into a door and opened, the startled elves stepped back like flying squirrels, drew their rapiers, and assumed an attack stance.

The rapiers of the elf swordsmen, who were scanning the front with tense eyes, glowed bluish.

However, unfortunately, there was no one beyond the door, and after some time, the door automatically closed, reverting to a wall.

The elves’ gazes naturally turned to the elf mage, who was standing awkwardly.

“What did you press?”

“I, I just pressed the red button.”

Approaching the door, Elradian touched the button again, and the wall once again automatically opened like before.

Some of the nervous elves flinched, but Elradian, who inspected the room, reassured them.

“There is nothing inside. It seems to be a door used by them.”

“You’re saying this is a door?”

They had seen doors using magic circles, but it was their first time encountering a door that opened by itself, so they all stared at the automatic door with curious eyes.

“This is very fascinating.”

“We have no more time to delay. Let’s move.”

“Yes, Elradian.”

Although they were initially quite flustered by the automatic doors, they gradually became accustomed to them as they continued encountering them.

After that, they confidently opened doors and roamed the inside of the monstrous object in search of survivors.

After wandering around inside for a long time, they discovered a few more humans, but they too were all dead.

They had all been brutally torn apart by something.

“It’s so difficult to find a living person… Sylvia, did you find anything through Undine?”

“Yes, Elradian. She senses a faint life force in this direction.”

“Lead the way.”

Due to the presence of an otherworldly entity, Undine’s power had weakened significantly, but they were able to sense the life force with her guidance.

Following the small droplet-shaped Undine, they entered a section with green walls.

There, instead of one or two, they found dozens of humans who had died together in one place.

They, too, had fought fiercely against something until their deaths, as the surrounding area was devastated.

The strange sticks clutched in their hands appeared to be their weapons.

However, all of them had their arms and sticks severed by something incredibly sharp.

Judging by the large, scattered barricades, it seemed they had made their last stand here.

“Everyone, stay on high alert! It seems there is something extremely dangerous lurking here.”

“Yes!”

They concentrated all their senses on the potential threats that could emerge from anywhere.

As they passed through the corridor and entered the broken green door with red lights flashing wildly, they were met with a severe stench and an astonishing sight.

People were submerged in liquid with tubes in their mouths.

However, they didn’t seem to be alive.

The glass tubes were thoroughly destroyed.

The liquid had turned red with their blood, and their organs, which should have been intact inside their bodies, were floating on the surface.

The cause of their condition was right before their eyes.

A horrific metal doll with multiple spider-like legs had one of its legs impaled in the torso of the ninth person in the glass tube and was standing still.