Damien didn't even glance fully at it. His expression remained calm, his gaze still flicking across the chaos as if looking for something else entirely.

'I can't display too much,' he thought coldly, his grip firm but relaxed on his sword.

The memory of his earlier attack flashed briefly in his mind — the three wolves he had sliced apart in a single flaming swing.

'I may have a unique class, he reminded himself, but if I show too much power, it would certainly cause suspicion.'

The beast bellowed again, saliva flying from its fanged mouth as it charged at him.

Its right claw swung downward like a blade, the air whistling from the force behind it.

Damien's eyes flickered faintly, but his stance didn't shift.

As the enormous claw descended toward him, his arm snapped upward in a smooth arc, his sword slicing across the bear's forearm in one clean stroke.

A line of blood exploded across the air, followed by the sizzling sound of burning flesh as the heated blade cut deep.

The bear howled, its voice shaking the ground.

The pain didn't stop it — it only made it madder. Its roars grew wilder, its movements even more violent as it lunged again.

Damien ducked under its next swing with effortless precision, the motion so fluid that it almost looked like a dance.

As the beast's arm passed over his head, he twisted his body, propelling himself upward with a burst of mana from his legs.

In that instant, he was above the creature's massive head.

The bear raised its face, eyes widening — but it was already too late.

Damien's blade plunged down, stabbing straight through its skull with brutal force.

The sound was a mix of sizzling flesh and crunching bone, and the flames on his blade flared, searing deep into the creature's brain.

The beast convulsed once — then went still.

Its body fell with a thunderous thud, shaking the ground beneath them. Dust and ash rose from the impact, swirling faintly in the heated air.

Damien landed softly, pulling the blade out in one swift, clean motion. The blood that splattered across him was instantly vaporized by the heat of his sword.

For a brief moment, the world around him seemed to still.

The villagers — those who hadn't fled yet, those frozen in shock nearby — were staring at him with wide, disbelieving eyes.

Their faces were pale, their mouths half-open as if trying to comprehend what they had just witnessed.

A single person had killed that monster so easily…

A bear that could crush three men with one paw, slain with two effortless strikes.

The silence was heavy, broken only by the distant roars of beasts elsewhere and the crackling of fires consuming the village.

Damien slowly turned toward where Claire and Nora stood a few meters away.

The two women looked shaken — not out of fear of him, but out of everything happening around them.

The faint glimmer of tears lingered in Nora's eyes, and Claire's hands were trembling faintly, even as she tried to hide it.

Damien's expression softened ever so slightly as he approached them, lowering his sword just a bit.

The fiery glow dimmed, the metal returning to its normal silver sheen.

He stopped in front of them and gave a faint, reassuring smile — small, but steady enough to reach his eyes.

"Don't panic," he said, his tone low but filled with confidence. "As long as I'm alive, nothing will harm a single hair on you two."

The blush that had lingered on Claire and Nora's faces deepened slightly as they glanced at each other, quickly realizing the weight behind Damien's words.

For a brief moment, their hands instinctively clutched one another's arms tighter, a mixture of relief and disbelief flickering in their expressions.

Even though Damien had said it out of nowhere, there was no reason for them not to believe him.

Every move he had made since appearing in the chaos — the precision, the speed, the absolute lethality with which he handled the monsters — proved that he could back up every word he spoke.

If it had been anyone else, if it had been someone from the village claiming the same, they would have brushed it off, perhaps laughed nervously or questioned the audacity.

But now, with Damien standing before them, every word carried a weight that could not be denied.

'He's grown… so much…' they thought at the same time, their hearts beating rapidly.

Around them, murmurs began to spread among the villagers who had paused mid-escape, their fear and astonishment mingling into a low hum of whispers.

"Isn't that… Damien?" one muttered, his eyes widening as he clutched at a friend's arm. "The son of that… that family?"

At that moment, Damien's eyes flicked toward the villager who had spoken.

The man froze, the words stuck halfway in his throat, as if his body suddenly remembered that the boy he had once mocked — the same boy he had perhaps scorned for being ordinary — was now standing in front of him, radiating power.

Damien's cold, unblinking stare met his, and the villager's knees buckled.

He stumbled backward, mouth opening and closing as if trying to form a response, before swallowing hard and collapsing to the ground in fear.

More murmurs began to ripple through the crowd. "He's… he's strong now."

"I heard he awakened a unique class," another whispered, eyes wide as they followed Damien's movements.

"Could it be… is he really the same Damien who went off to the academy?"

The whispers multiplied, overlapping and blending into a frantic buzz of speculation.

Some questioned how a boy with a reputation for being a trash could possess such overwhelming skill. Others speculated about what kind of training, or forbidden techniques, he might have acquired.

Yet amidst all the curiosity and awe, there was a thread of confusion: why was he still here, in the village, at the heart of a beast horde, when he was supposed to be at the academy?

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