Raised From The Wild-Chapter 443: The Mystery Behind Her Disappearance

At the place where three countries’ borders intersected, Marx slammed his boot into the rusted door of an abandoned facility. The door groaned open, echoing through the hollow corridors. His chest tightened with frustration. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

He had rushed here alone, leaving his security detail behind, desperate to arrive first—but he was still too late. Amaya was gone. Not a trace remained. The rooms looked scrubbed clean, as though no one had ever been here at all.

He used his most advanced scanner but failed to detect any abnormality in the place. With gloom heavy on his face, Marx stepped out of the underground compound. His wristwatch beeped.

"Uncle Marx, you’re late," came Ren’s young but weary voice.

Marx exhaled sharply. "Can you trace her? I’ve checked Athena, but the system is spitting out conflicting coordinates. It’s maddening."

For the first time, he hated that he was asking a child for help. But Ren wasn’t an ordinary boy. He and his sister’s minds carried the weight of a century’s knowledge, the inheritance of a bloodline that had dared to tamper with human DNA, producing half-human, half-beast hybrids that once prowled the now-vanished forests of Paraiso.

"Uncle Marx, the signal was intermittent and very faint, and then I lost it totally. She seemed to be protected by a barrier that can’t be detected even by the most advanced spyware of your company."

Marx’s jaw tightened. "Where was she last seen?"

"She was in Ra-iya. She entered the palace, and then the signal disappeared. It reappeared for a brief moment, and the location was heading in the direction of the southwest of the capital—before it disappeared again."

Marx’s eyes narrowed on the coordinates Ren sent. Southwest led to Mount Paraiso. Once a towering, verdant peak, it had been obliterated two years ago—reduced to wasteland by volcanic fury.

Southwest of the capital was Mount Paraiso, before it was flattened and turned into a desert by the volcanic eruption two years ago.

When Vasquez and the guards arrived, Marx had no choice but to retreat with them to the Royal Chalet in Mount Latvana. They would regroup. And plan.

...

The Chalet’s grand entertainment hall had been converted into a command center, buzzing with Lireya and Albanya’s finest security team. Both nations carried the shame of Princess Amaya’s vanishing, stolen in plain sight of her protectors so a task force was formed.

Prince Ibrahim had dispatched his brother Sapiro in Lireya’s stead, while Crown Prince Raquim remained to shoulder the weight of failure on his own soil. He felt accountable for the disappearance of the princess.

Marx prowled through Amaya’s room, scanning again and again, but every sweep returned the same verdict: nothing. Exhaustion dragged at his body until, against his will, he collapsed onto her bed. The faint fragrance she had left behind clung to the sheets—soft, floral, haunting.

And then it struck him. Perhaps the absence of clues was itself the clue. The people who kidnapped Amaya did not use any electronics technology. No metals. Nothing for machines to detect.

Marx shot upright.

He checked under the bed, shoving against it, but it wouldn’t budge. The Chalet manager hurried in with blueprints, revealing the truth.

"Sir, to move the bed, it should be lifted." he directed some of the staff to lift the bed to the side. The room was spacious, so moving the bed was no problem at all.

Marx knelt low, his flashlight sweeping the polished wooden surface carefully. He tapped, pressed, even knocked with his knuckles, his sharp eyes narrowing at every hollow thud and solid ring. The seecurity team from Lireya and Albanya exchanged uneasy glances, unsure whether to intervene or simply watch this foreigner crawl about like a hound on a scent.

Even Vasquez, felt uneasy about what his boss was doing.

Marx’s jaw tightened. His instincts screamed that something lay beneath, yet the floor betrayed no secrets. Had he been wrong all along? Each fruitless test felt like a taunt.

Then, his steps carried him toward the headboard. He crouched, the beam of his light sliding into the thin seam where floor met wall—and there it was. His breath hitched. A tiny gap, but it was enough for him to spot the anomaly.

With sudden energy, Marx pressed down hard. A muted click sounded, and a square depression sank into the parquet.

Gasps rippled through the room.

He tested the adjacent boards, fingers brushing along their polished grain. "Grooves," he muttered. "Like puzzle blocks."

Another push, and one section shifted smoothly into place.

The once-ornamental parquet came alive under Marx’s hands, patterns aligning with hidden intent. The guards bent closer, but the elaborate geometric inlays only served to confuse their eyes. What had been mere artistry now revealed itself as camouflage.

Marx snapped quick photos, sending them to his team on Verde Island and to Athena and Ren in Maharlika Palace. He was worried that if he pushed wrongly the consequences would be unimaginable.

Minutes ticked by like hours—until Ren’s reply came with precise instructions. Marx followed the sequence.

With a heavy, groaning sound, half the area of the floor under the bed dissolved into motion. The floor retracted, folded, and reassembled—becoming a narrow wooden staircase leading into the unknown.

Every person in the room inhaled sharply.

Prince Raquim’s eyes blazed as he rounded on the trembling manager. "Explain."

The man collapsed to his knees, forehead nearly touching the ground. "Y-Your Highness, we swear—we knew nothing of this! We will summon the architect."

The mechanism is... pure wood. There were no hinges, no nails, no metal at all. No wonder, no scanners could ever reveal it!

The prince’s silence was more terrible than fury.

Marx moved toward the opening, but Vasquez raised a hand. "I’ll go in, Boss."

They watched his figure descend into shadow until only his voice returned. "Five steps visible from above. Ten more cut from the earth itself. Then... a tunnel. Wide enough for wheels." His tone sharpened. "Tire marks. Someone’s been using small vehicles down here. An e-trike, perhaps... or a bicycle."

The room hung on every word as Vasquez’s video feed jittered back to life on their screens. He pushed deeper, the air growing damper, the tunnel stretching like a vein beneath the Mount Latvana. Minutes stretched into half an hour. Then—

"Here. The exit." His camera swung down. "Two meters below is the river."

For a moment, there was only the sound of rushing water.

Far away, in an unknown location in Ra-Iya, a young man stood before the monitor, his eyes gleaming as he watched the screen. The bulky intruder in the tunnel was framed perfectly in his view.

A cold smile touched his lips. "So... they’ve finally discovered how their princess vanished."

He closed the device with a snap. And reached for the detonator.