Astarto Village.
Under the rays of the seemingly bleak-looking sun affixed at the peak of the clear blue sky, two men in the later stages of their twenties stood a few hundred meters away from the walls of the village, gazing out into the horizon as they felt a vast yet ominous aura radiating from afar.
"You think we're ready for the upcoming monster tide?" Tristan briefly squinted his eyes before letting out a sigh, turning his head to look at the man beside him before asking a question. "With how things are developing within the village, there's a chance that we'll be defending against a tide that's far worse than the previous one."
"Which is to be expected." Hearing Tristan's words, Damian briefly let out a sigh before shrugging his shoulders in response. "With Valyr removing the final obstacle that was hampering the village from expanding, the village has spared no effort to expand itself as quickly and as smoothly as possible."
"It's just a shame that even expanding villages are considered towns in the eyes of the monster tide." As these words came out of Damian's mouth, a bitter smile adorned his face.
"But we'd still be able to defend the place without a problem, no?" Tristan asked back, the expression on his face calm. "After all, ever since Valyr had given us knowledge regarding the Basic Reinforcement Elixir, the village's guards have grown stronger by leaps and bounds."
"And the same applies for us." Saying these words, Tristan recalled how much the knowledge regarding Basic Reinforcement Elixir affected the village after Valyr left to head to greener pastures.
For one, a greater portion of the village had made the decision to become part of the village's guard regiment, which fortunately worked in Damian's favor since most of them were truly willing to defend the village at all costs. In fact, these people told him that the only reason they didn't enlist as a guard earlier was because they feared they didn't have enough strength to do so.
However, with the existence of the Basic Reinforcement Elixir, which allowed one to have stats rivaling that of someone at Rank 1 while still being at Rank 0, such worries swiftly disappeared.
Of course, as someone who has interacted and met up with many people, Damian did not buy into their claims that easily, finding most of them skeptical since he had a feeling they were just in it for the Basic Reinforcement Elixir. Nevertheless, it still increased the number of guards within the regiment that were willing to fight for the village, even though the method to obtain Basic Reinforcement Elixir was still as difficult as it was ever since Valyr first introduced it to the two.
With how much time has passed since then, almost half of the guards within the regiment had been successful in getting their hands on a small amount of Basic Reinforcement Elixir through the system Damian put up in place, increasing their stats by one to two points at most.
On the other hand, around a third of the half had been successful in reaching the halfway mark, increasing their stats by five points, while only a couple dozen people within the regiment had been able to consume all the vials of Basic Reinforcement Elixir needed to unlock the corresponding skill.
Among those who were able to max out their consumption of Basic Reinforcement Elixir, a specific person eventually appeared in Tristan's mind, causing him to look at Damian before asking, "Myst said she was going to participate in the upcoming monster tide, right?"
"Yeah, she did." Damian nodded at Tristan before returning his gaze back at the wide horizon before them. "She said she'll arrive at the village before the tide starts."
"Really?" Tristan raised his eyebrow in interest before nodding back. "I thought those Experience Pit things would need you to take more time to really rake in a lot of XP."
"For someone like us, that might be the case." Saying these words, a wry smile appeared on Damian's face. "But remember what kind of subclass she has."
"How could I forget?" In response, Tristan let out a wry chuckle.
Myst Verielle, the one Alfaera had chosen after Valyr passed on the responsibility of finding its inheritor ever since he was given its scroll by Riekan.
At the very moment she had accepted the Perennial Blademaster subclass, her level of strength, which allowed her to become one of the guard captains of the regiment, swiftly increased to the point that even Damian was impressed with how much her strength had improved. In their eyes, Myst had become a scarier person to fight against, with all of her attacks flowing into one another like a tsunami that didn't dissipate.
Even Damian, who had already progressed a bit into the levels of Rank 2, was defeated by Myst a couple times, solely by the latter relying on the new nature of her attacks, as well as the fighting style that had only been improved further by accepting the subclass.
A style focused on pure speed.
With her relentless effort into improving her strength, she eventually took on the mantle of what Valyr was when he was still a part of the village, becoming the person everyone aspired to be when they grew up, inspiring the multiple generations of the village into sparing a bit more time into honing their strength. In essence, she had truly taken on the name as Astarto's Guardian.
Even though she told Damian and Tristan that there was still a long way to go before she could truly be called Astarto's Guardian, telling them that she had only made a bit of headway towards upgrading the subclass to Epic grade, the two of them that it was only a matter of time before they would be greeted by a future even they weren't expecting.
"Well, I think it's time to head back and tell Alfaera a bit more about the situation." Feeling as if they had gotten a rough idea of what kind of monster tide they were up against, Tristan suggested to Damian that they head back to the village, to which the latter nodded in response.
"From the looks of it, we'll be up against a medium-scale monster tide at the very least," said Damian as they made their way back. "But with how much the regiment has improved since then, we'll probably be able to weather the tide without much problem."
"Speaking of which, didn't Valyr promise us before he left that he'd return to the village before the monster tide erupts?" Tristan asked Damian not long after before letting out a faint chuckle. "You think he's already forgotten it?"
Ding!
As if the heavens had responded to the question, a notification sound resounded within Tristan's mind, prompting to stop in his tracks as he took a look at the message he had received. With his eyes gradually widening in surprise, it did not take long for Damian to put two and two together, letting out a bit of laughter soon after.
"I guess you got yourself your answer."
