Roy and his companions picked up their speed.
There were many beasts in the jungle, but they only felt a gust of wind as they went past them.
Delilah could tell that Roy already had a destination in his mind, and he was heading there with a determined gaze as if he was out to get something.
'Where is it? Where does he want to go? And what does he want to do once he reaches there?' she wondered and held on to the demon dog tightly so as not to fall off its back.
A few strands of her hair were set loose and fluttered in the wind like her clock.
Raising her neck like a swan, she caught a clear view of her surroundings.
Instead of getting close to the Holy Barrier, they were goning away from it.
Her bewildered gaze turned to the back of the man in front of her.
He was like a blurry picture to her as he was moving so fast that her eyes couldn't keep up with him.
What was he up to?
'I have to get it. The blessed fruit that strengthened the mind control ability of the Armored Knight, allowing him to enslave hundreds of people and monsters at a time, must fall in my hand.' Roy thought as a sharp glint flashed in his eyes.
It was written in the book that there was an edible fruit in the summer land that was extremely beneficial to weapon masters and level 1 mages.
It could bring about a massive change in them and directly upgrade their class weapons.
Once a class weapon was upgraded, its special effect would be strengthened, or it would unlock a new skill.
In both scenarios, the user would benefit.
Its name was the seven stars and the three blessings magic fruit.
This unique fruit, mentioned only once in the novel, garnered incredible attention from the readers as it was hypothesized to be a key factor behind the intense change in the Armored Knight.
The Armored Knight stumbled upon it while roaming the wilderness of the summer land. His fiance was the precious daughter of the village chief, his father's sworn brother. They were not related by blood, and their relationship was established through a promise.
To turn their brotherhood into an even closer relationship, the village chief engaged his newborn daughter to the newborn son of his sworn brother.
It's just that his sworn brother died when the armored knight was 12.
Seeing that the Armored Knight had nowhere to go, the village chief took him home, raising the son of his sworn brother as his own.
The village chief and his daughter were mere commoners, having neither mana nor aura gates in their bodies, and his wife died during childbirth, but it was discovered that the armored knight was a gifted child, possessing the capabilities to become a mage.
This was great news for the entire village.
Even they could say that a mage came from their village!
Using whatever he had saved over the years, the village chief funded his travel to the capital.
The Armored Knight didn't let him down. He passed the trials of the awakening ceremony, becoming one of the awakened of that year, but one of the powers he awakened was too terrifying to be left unattended, so he was monitored by a fierce-looking lieutenant. Hoping to make a name for himself, the armored knight followed his supervisor to the northern frontier, where geniuses were as common as cabbages. He quickly realized that he wasn't anything special and that it would take years to climb out of the rank of cannon fodders.
He felt devasted as he came to terms with his reality. He wanted to return home, marry his childhood sweetheart, pick up a few good-looking concubines and settle down. But the reality was like a harsh slap that shook him awake. He couldn't leave the northern frontier for three years. Once enlisted, that was the minimum time you had to serve before you could leave.
In those three years, it was a struggle to stay alive.
No one knew if they would be the next to die in the occasional clash with the undead.
Whoring and drinking, he spent whatever he earned during his time in the military and returned to the village empty-handed. At that time, he wasn't too bad of a soldier. There had been no reports of him using magic to control other people. His comrades trusted him, and his supervisor was satisfied with his attitude. The only thing bad about him was that he liked to sleep around and get around. But that's what most men in the army did. Facing death every day was quite torturous. They needed to vent. Some did it by getting drunk and embracing a woman, while others trained and honed their minds. The latter weren't geniuses. They were simply not on the same level as geniuses. They were better than them, no matter how you look at it. The Armored Knight envied such people but also cursed them as fools.
They only had one life. If they died tomorrow, wouldn't it all end? So why not enjoy it?
Anyway, his supervisor didn't find any fault with him and even befriended him.
As a result, he was allowed to return home by himself.
The Armored Knight felt incredibly happy.
For the first time in three years, there was no one to supervise him!
The Armored Knight was penniless, but the village chief's daughter was madly in love with him.
She only wanted to marry him.
She had been saving her first time for him for 20 years now. They were childhood sweethearts, and she had considered him as her man before she understood what marriage even was.
As for the village chief, he was a man of his word. He had never forgotten what he had promised his sworn brother and was willing to see this union happen.
It's not like it was a bad deal.
