The Monster Lady and the Holy Knight - Chapter 1

The world is coming to an end.

Veronica thought so as she watched her father’s death.

Crunch, crack.

The Bahamut that had attacked the city was twice the size of even a large man. Its body, though humanoid in shape, had a neck that looked as if it had been torn away. Its hunched frame protruded with bones jutting out at every joint, like a massive skeleton with only skin stretched over it.

Oh, the red eye set near its heart was turning this way. She knew. She was next. She would be the next victim to be devoured by that fanged maw.

Her body froze, and a shiver ran down her spine from the crown of her head to her toes.

Run. You have to run. Please move. Please.

With each step the Bahamut took, thick, sticky liquid dripped onto the floor. It was getting closer. Closer still.

But why am I standing here like an idiot?

“Veronica!”

Just then, a hand suddenly shot out, grabbing her arm and pulling her aside. Dragged through the open door, she recognized the back of the head belonging to her rescuer.

“Benjamin…?”

It was Benjamin, the blacksmith apprentice. He was well-known for following Veronica around like a stalker.

But to show up at a time like this? What about his family?

“I ran over as soon as I heard the church bell. Let’s hide somewhere safe, and then we can escape the city together.”

Her mind was completely blank, her body limp as a doll, and she let herself be dragged along. Moving her legs by reflex, Veronica finally managed to ask a meaningless question.

“Benjamin… What about your siblings…?”

“The church will send the knights soon. Just hold on a little longer. Bayern is a big city, right? It’s impossible that it will be completely destroyed.”

The talk of knights arriving wasn’t an answer about his family’s fate.

Veronica hazarded a guess. Benjamin didn’t know either. He had probably left his family behind and come straight here.

“Let’s hide here for a while.”

When they finally reached the shelter of some crumbled ruins, Benjamin forcefully pulled her into cover. Veronica stumbled along like a person whose screws had come loose. Her throat filled with a metallic taste, but she felt no pain.

Maybe it wasn’t just one or two screws—maybe dozens of them had come undone. She was broken. Her family was dead, and she was broken. That realization brought some clarity to her vision.

“Here, take this.”

The cool touch of metal against her hand made Veronica glance down. It was a dagger case, engraved with a beautiful camellia branch. She had always wanted it, unable to take her eyes off it whenever she visited the blacksmith’s shop.

“Why are you…?”

“Happy belated birthday.”

“…Birthday?” Veronica echoed, unable to believe what she was hearing.

“Yeah. I really like you. I know you don’t like me. But I saved you, so give me a chance. Now that you don’t have any family left, it’s just the two of us. Let’s leave Bayern and get married.”

His words entered one ear and left the other.

What did he just say? Marriage?

What on earth are we?

Her hazy mind lifted its head more in horror than romance.

The city was in ruins, her family’s fate was unknown, and love was the least of her concerns.

She couldn’t quite explain the odd feeling that swept over her. Being loved was supposed to be a good thing, wasn’t it? But for some reason, she felt a nauseating surge rising in her throat. It was disgusting.

Without realizing it, Veronica took a step back.

“I’m thinking of heading to Kart and getting help from my uncle who sells warhorses. Once we settle there…”

“Ben.”

Veronica, pale as a sheet, interrupted his unrolling plans. Her voice was clear as she muttered, “Thank you. Truly, thank you for saving me. I’ll repay this debt for the rest of my life. But I won’t do it by following you. So please… leave me alone. Even if I die here, it won’t be your responsibility. Go to your family. Your siblings must be worried about you.”

She didn’t know what her tone sounded like, and she had no mental energy left to care.

With all her sincerity spoken, she rushed out from behind the wall where they had hidden. As soon as she stepped into the open street, she was met with a hellish scene of black and red.

A building collapsed just a few steps ahead of her with a thunderous crash, startling her.

She looked around in a daze, her feet moving as if under a spell. The city was in chaos, yet she had a destination in mind.

Her broken mind decided she needed to go to the church on the outskirts of the city. To the place protected by God. The holy place that Bahamut wouldn’t dare approach.

The city was engulfed in flames wherever she looked. Screams and cries echoed between the ruins. Desperate calls for missing family members were now lost in the deafened city.

She staggered on, like a drunk person, for a long time until someone grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.

Ah, it was Benjamin again.

His wide eyes were filled with a twisted smile. “Veni. I understand the shock you must be in. Of course, I do. But you really need to fix that attitude of yours. It’s cute when you play hard to get, but only up to a point. Even I get hurt. In time, a man like me will just move on to a more obedient girl, you know.”

She could almost see the screws coming loose in Benjamin’s temples, one by one, rolling away.

Maybe she wasn’t the only one broken.

Benjamin was broken too.

Veronica parted her lips to speak. “Step back, Benjamin. You’re starting to creep me out.”

“Creep you out? Me? How could you say that? I risked my life to save you! Even while that huge monster was chewing through my father’s brains! I’m your savior!”

He shook her so violently that her shoulder screamed in pain. She struggled to break free, but the strength difference between her small frame and his blacksmith-trained body was too great.

With a pale face, she cried out, “Ah! Benjamin, let go, that hurts!”

It was in that moment, as they wrestled, that she pushed him away with all her strength.

“You little…!”

Benjamin raised his hand as if to strike her. Bracing for the blow, Veronica squeezed her eyes shut.

And then, splat—blood splattered across her cheek.

Blood?

Her eyes fluttered open in narrow slits, then closed, then shot wide open again.

Warm liquid dripped from her face like tears, running down her chin.

Veronica opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her eyes were stretched wide to the limit, but somehow they opened wider.

Her pupils dilated, and her legs trembled as she took a few shaky steps back from the scene before her. It was easy enough to retreat, with nothing left gripping her shoulders.

“Gurgk—!”

In the next instant, Benjamin was hoisted into the air, his mouth split open from the back of his head, unable to even finish his sentence. No scream followed, just the sickening sound of flesh tearing and ripping—Benjamin’s final words.

Veronica let out a shriek that seemed to tear her throat apart. As she staggered backward, her body tilted, and she fell to the ground.

“Ah!”

A searing pain shot through her arm as she braced her fall.

It hurt. It hurt so much. It must have been broken.

Without a second thought, she turned her body and began to crawl desperately. She didn’t know where she was going, and it didn’t matter. There had never been a safe place to begin with. Would she be safe if she reached the church? Would the holy ground really keep Bahamut out?

Her frantic movements tore her knees and hands, her nails breaking in the process. But she felt no more pain, nor cold. Like a worm, she crawled across the ground, through the snow.

She only stopped when her eyes caught sight of red letters scrawled like graffiti on a wall. The message was written in blood. It was in the language of the sacred texts, and Veronica unconsciously read the words:

Deus dereliquit hominem

“God has abandoned humanity…”

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Her vision expanded, taking in the scattered remains around her—now more like chunks of meat than corpses. A bell tower. A cross. Crows fluttering down to perch. The building in front of her was the church she had desperately been searching for, though those who had come seeking God’s mercy had been torn to shreds, sacrificed like lambs.

“Haha, hahahaha!”

Veronica burst into a hysterical fit of laughter.

The pope’s grand declaration that humanity’s light would never fade was wrong! The era where arrogant mankind sat at the top of the food chain and ruled the world was officially over. It had ended the moment the meteor fell into the southern sea, and Bahamut crawled up from the depths.

Bayern may not have been the capital, but it was a port city known far and wide. The odds were clear—it was the end of civilization.

“Ah… ugh…”

Just then, one of the bodies she thought was dead groaned, and Veronica snapped her head up, rushing forward on her knees. A woman, drenched in blood, was staring wide-eyed.

“Ma’am, are you okay? Can you hear—”

Veronica froze mid-sentence, her mouth hanging open. It wasn’t the terror in the woman’s eyes that stopped her, though they were soaked in a bottomless, black fear. It was simply that those eyes were looking… past her.

“Uh… hng…”

A shiver of cold dread coursed down Veronica’s spine. Her body trembled violently.

There are things in this world that one instinctively knows, without needing to see. The overwhelming fear, the anxiety, the despair—all of it filled her, suffocating her in a shroud of darkness. Slowly, with dread gripping her chest, she turned her head.

‘It’ was standing right behind her, hunched over, its head bowed low to the ground.

Veronica clenched her teeth, her mind racing in terror. She could barely suppress the groan that threatened to escape her lips.

How… How does it have a face?

Her blurry vision wavered. It was the first time she had seen it so closely.

Bahamut.

Demon. Fiend. Monster.

God-sent judgment to crush human arrogance.

Its red irises shrank as its black pupils dilated, growing large enough to match the size of her head. Its grotesque, hairless face twisted into a grin, while gills flared where ears should have been, confirming that it had crawled out from the sea. It simply stared at her in silence.

Bahamut didn’t normally have a head. But she had heard the stories—one Bahamut that had devoured countless human heads eventually grew one that looked human.

The putrid stench of rotting flesh was overwhelming at such a close distance, as if a corpse were decaying right in front of her.

Don’t react. Don’t provoke it.

Veronica thought of the rats and cats she had seen in the alleys behind the market. The cat would just sit and watch until the rat moved. The hunt only began when there was movement. So, as long as she didn’t do anything to make it interesting…

She held her breath. Her pulse pounded in her ears, her heart racing as if it were about to burst out of her chest.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

She clawed at the ground with broken nails, trying to stifle any sound. Her mind was on the verge of shattering.

Thump. Thump. Thump. The red eyes of Bahamut seemed to beat like a heart. The edges of its pupil swelled and shrank, pulsing in rhythm. Veronica stared at it, almost in a trance.

Everything else in the world faded away. There was nothing left but the red eye and her heart.

Red. So red. The world was drenched in blood. Children born into this decaying world wailed at the stench of blood that permeated the air from their first breath, their vision filled with the crimson hue.

This world was doomed from the start. It was destined for destruction.

Her heartbeat slowed and finally stopped. A flicker of her life passed before her eyes.

The tiny hands of a baby. Her mother and father, smiling broadly. The first small snowman she built and the warmth of the fireplace. Lively dinner conversations and laughter. Her mother reading a fairy tale by her bedside. Her mother hugging her. Her mother.

Then, the mother who no longer read her stories lay in bed, offering a sad smile. Her weary father bowed his head in exhaustion. Approaching the bed, Veronica grasped her father’s hand, and he smiled weakly.

Under the clear sky, neighbors dressed in black gathered. Where is Motm? Little Veni asked, holding her father’s hand tightly. She looked up at him, but her father had no head.

Because humans, when faced with Bahamut—

They die.

They die.

They die.

And then they are reborn.

It was as if someone had splashed red paint across her vision.

Her father’s image made her limbs tremble, but Veronica didn’t scream. She simply smiled faintly. After all, this was Bahamut. I am…

I am Bahamut now.

“You’ve already been assimilated.”

At that moment, the vivid red memory shattered, and a man’s cold face intruded through the fragments.

Noise rushed back into her world as her heart began to beat again. The man, standing against the backdrop of the burning, smoke-filled world, grabbed Veronica by the hair, forcing her to look up at him. He had red hair and was clad in black armor. His fierce eyes glowed with a dark, bloodthirsty energy.

She struggled to free herself, but his grip on her hair was too strong, causing sharp pain as though her scalp was being torn apart. As she kicked and writhed, the man’s disdainful gaze bore into her.

He spoke in a low, menacing voice, “Do you want to live?”

“Ugh… hng…”

“Even if you have to crawl through the fires of hell, do you want to live?”

“Let me go…”

“Answer me. If you say you want to die, I will grant you a painless death.”

Die?

Veronica’s lips moved soundlessly.

She didn’t want to die. She had just been reborn.

“Then ask for my help.”

The man, as if reading her thoughts, muttered in a low voice. His burning gaze pierced straight through her.

“I want to live… Help me.”

The man’s handsome face twisted into a cruel smile in an instant. Cruelty came in different forms, and his was like a child pulling the wings off a fly. His expression turned amused as he loosened his painful grip on her hair.

“Congratulations on being reborn.”

The man drove his sword into the ground in front of her, the silver blade reflecting the red flames around them. In its gleaming surface, a pale face with short black hair and red eyes was mirrored back at her.

Red eyes—the same color as Bahamut’s.

The world is coming to an end. But humanity is evolving.

The world was falling apart. But humanity was evolving