As a rule of thumb, monsters generally didn't attack cities; rocks didn't taste nice, humans weren't delicacies, and Emperor Grandis had made it a point to exterminate any monster who dared to attack a city with extreme prejudice. As a certain storyteller put it, only the Emperor or his authorised personnel had the authority to destroy entire cities. To infringe on that sole right was challenging the Emperor himself.

That last bit had left landmarks that many devotees of the Emperor paid homage to. As for what kind of landmarks they were…well, they usually took the form of an entirely smooth patch of land, which had turned into marble and glass from extreme heat. Marble lakes like these numbered in the hundreds through Grandis, which, according to rumour and Colidra, which were the aftereffects of the Emperor squashing any monster who dared to attack even the smallest of settlements.

Claud didn't like Emperor Grandis, but he could respect the fellow for keeping even tiny towns safe…even if the reasoning behind it was debatable.

Unfortunately, this protection didn't extend to intrepid travellers trekking through the wilderness. There, all sorts of things were possible. Meeting a random monster with one mana circuit? Three circuits? Five? Anything was possible. However, since human meat wasn't apparently a beloved staple dish of monsters, there were ways of surviving the encounter.

One of them was just flopping over and playing dead.

The second was to hide and play dead.

The third was to sleep in a nice place.

"Got all that?" Claud whispered to Lily, who was on the branch above his.

"Is that why we're trying to sleep now?" Lily whispered back.

"Exactly, genius."

Rain continued to fall in droves. Lightning tore through the sky every so often, and the clouds were whirling madly. In fact, if Claud didn't get it wrong, those clouds were congregating around the area in front of them, where the stupendous presence was. It was a pretty surreal sight, and for a moment, the master thief thought about the various novels he had read in his free time.

If there was any hint of truth in the novels he had read, these clouds, lightning and whatever other weird phenomena gathering around the area in front of us could only mean one thing: a treasure was being born.

Of course, Claud wasn't going to stick his nose into it. Even if he had Presence Nullification, stealing something that a tri-fold monster had its eyes on was simply volunteering to become the meat dish for the monster's next cooking recipe.

"I can't sleep," Lily stated matter-of-factly, breaking Claud's random thoughts.

"To be fair, nor can I." Claud frowned as raindrops continued to batter at the tree. Right now, the leaves and branches higher up were soaking up the raindrops, but it wouldn't be long before the two of them were drenched.

"Mm. How about you talk about yourself?" Lily asked. "You know quite a bit about me, so I think it's fair that I know something about you too."

"Me?" Claud asked.

"Yes, you. It'll be good to pass the time, so…"

"There's nothing much fun about me, though," Claud lied. "You know my personality; I'm a coward. In fact, I've spent hours hiding at home whenever some big-shot mana-user shows up in Licencia, so…"

"I know about that," said Lily. "But why are you so…cowardly to begin with? I mean, I understand that life is important and everything, but your sense of security is perverted. Extreme. That's unnatural, right?"

"Is it?" Claud found this conversation quite familiar.

"Isn't it?"

The master thief tapped his chin. "Can I ask you a few questions? It's about how you grew up, so they might cause you some distress."

Lily paused for a moment, and the branch above Claud shook as she nodded. "Go ahead."

"What were your living conditions like when you were growing up?"

"That's…quite broad."

"In terms of safety, then," Claud replied. "Did you have bodyguards? A walled-up fence that kidnappers wouldn't enter lightly? People whose explicit job is to protect you?"

"You're…trying to tell me that your actions are natural for someone in an underprivileged upbringing?" Lily asked.

Claud blinked. "That's about it. You're fast, eh? Not bad, not bad. But yes. What I do here is simply a heightened form of cautiousness most slumdwellers and lower-class people have at night. We cannot guarantee that our houses won't be broken into, nor do we have assurance that there will be people looking for us if we ever go missing. After all, the latter was a reason why the Julan barony was able to kidnap so many people, right?"

It was a cheap shot, bringing up the family that Lily wanted to tear herself away from, but Claud felt no shame in using it. As a fellow founding member of the Moon Lords, Claud had a vested interest in ensuring that Lily made adequate preparations for her security. Mana-user or not, there was never any harm in being overly-cautious.

It was good that she had been enlightened—

Claud nearly fell off his branch as ear-splitting roars shattered the silence of the night.

A moment later, a familiar, obnoxious voice said, "Monster, you deem yourself worthy to consume a mana herb of this quality? Such foolishness! I'll be taking it for myself. You, little worm, can have the roots."

In response to that voice, a stream of blue light shot up into the skies, lighting up the entire area. In that moment, Claud saw for himself what the huge presence was — it was a three-headed snake that was around twenty or so metres long. He didn't know what it was, or what it was capable of, but the master thief knew that it was bad news that was capable of slithering.

The problem wasn't the bad news in the form of a three-headed snake, however. The real problem was the arrogant-sounding fellow that had suddenly shown up at the scene. As a whole, humans were the apex predators of Grandis, and their food selection was so encompassing to the point that killing other people weren't ruled out from their menu.

...It was unlikely that they would eat human corpses, though.

Taking a deep breath, Claud shimmied up the tree trunk.

"Yes, I know," Lily whispered. "Really bad news. What suggestions do you have?"

"Play dead," Claud answered.

She nodded in reply, and the master thief returned to his branch.

Beams of blue light continued to shoot skywards, scattering the clouds that had gathered.

"How pathetic," the voice spoke. "Try harder next time, fool."

Cackling madly, an airborne figure, illuminated by the three-headed snake's attacks, shot towards the north. As he left, Claud felt an urge to beat the arrogant fellow up; for some reason, his every word and action made the master thief infuriated.

It was a rather odd urge, but since it wasn't like he could act on it to begin with, the master thief didn't do anything. On Lily's part, she was apparently more interested in playing dead or something, so the irrational antagonism Claud felt towards that fellow was probably a trick of his mind.

Letting out a few more roars, the three-headed snake slithered furiously after the guy who had robbed its mana herb, whatever that was. After waiting for fifteen minutes, Claud sat up.

"Lily?"

A gentle, rhythmic breathing entered his ears, and the master thief rolled his eyes. Who was the one who claimed that she couldn't sleep just now? Shaking his head, Claud was about to lie back down on the branch when some words echoed through his mind.

"Roots…" Claud swallowed.

What was the value of a mana herb? Claud had never heard of something like that before, which could only mean that it was probably something pretty darn expensive and rare. Even if the herb itself had been taken away, there were some roots left behind, according to the robber.

After spending three seconds to think about it, Claud slid down the tree and activated Presence Nullification. Right now, this was a prime opportunity to stake a claim on something both the monster and the robber probably didn't want. Just because they didn't find it valuable, however, didn't mean that Claud would do the same.

It was a matter of perspective. What one saw as trash could be treasure to another.

Navigating through the undergrowth, Claud soon found the place where that mana herb had grown. It wasn't too hard; enough lightning had struck the place to the point that there were still small fires burning. Furthermore, that three-headed snake had cleared out the trees and plants around the mana herb, creating a clearing with it at the centre.

The master thief felt disappointment well up as he approached the small plant. It wasn't just fruitless; it was leafless as well. From the looks of it, that earlier thief probably wasn't joking when he talked about leaving the roots behind.

Producing a small knife, he dug out the roots.

With his prize in hand, Claud returned to the giant tree, and began to climb back up to his branch. He was, for some reason, quite sleepy, and he really didn't feel like travelling overnight after that little heart-pounding encounter.

As for Lily, she was still sound asleep.