Karlovan, the vice-captain, asked Hasyath,
“What would you like to do? If you ask us to go and kill them, we will do it.”
“Oh. I want to join in too!”
“I was wondering what the opponents would be like. Please take me too!”
“Me too!”
Hearing Karlovan’s words saying he would take down the enemies, his subordinates raised their hands in excitement and shouted.
It was like they were asking to come along for a game.
Sarah looked around bewildered. They were all saying this because they were confident in their skills.
Hasyath rejected their request.
“No.”
He looked at Mero, who had scouted the land.
“We do not know what preparations they made. There is no need to take a risk.”
“But we will have to collide with them. And if we have to, let us do it now when they are defenseless.”
“They are not defenseless. Do you still not understand what humans are capable of? What did you even learn at the last fight?”
Everyone went silent at those words.
As he said, with the countless fights happening everywhere since the world was divided, the Ran warriors had suffered so much damage.
Of course, it was just a small amount of damage compared to the other races, but considering the status of the Ran race, it was a huge deal.
It was because they lived without the thought of being defeated unless the enemy was from one of the three major races.
Hasyath thought a lot.
The humans were cunning and strong.
“I trained in hell for the things I didn’t learn then in order to return now.”
Everyone flinched at the words ‘hell’ and ‘training.’
Sarah gulped at their reactions.
If the Ran warriors, who didn’t even look tired on the way here, flinched, then how bad was the training?
She had never experienced it, yet her body trembled.
“Mero, did you find the place where the traces might be?”
“At 2 o’clock from here, there is a place with strong waves. There is a huge whirlpool swirling around there, but the flow of mana is quite odd. The lower part is a little suspicious.”
The Rotomos Strait was rated as more dangerous than the other Bans, so not much was known about it. There were records from a hundred years ago, but nothing was mentioned about venturing into its center.
It was a completely unknown land. The terrain that Mero had scouted was suspicious, and there could be other places too.
In other words, he had to lead them to unknown grounds.
“Let’s do it.”
The bizarre nature and the monsters here couldn’t harm them.
Except for Sarah, their group was made up of Masters or even higher-level individuals, so no one could stop them.
Kwaaaaa!!!
Sarah saw a whirlpool of enormous size right under the cliff.
A whirlpool of such a scale that it appeared to suck everything in, making one wonder if it was the center of the world.
As if even the sky was affected, the dark clouds kept pouring heavy rain. Periodically, lightning struck, and the thunderous sounds didn’t make it any better.
“We die if we fall.”
Sarah couldn’t stay silent as she watched this with her eyes, which lacked their usual coldness. Then she looked to the side, and several Ran warriors were warming up while taking their armor off.
They were stretching in preparation for entering the vortex.
“Is everyone in their right mind?”
“About what?”
Isis cocked her head, looking as though she didn’t understand what was wrong. Sarah stopped asking questions after realizing Isis was also a Ran warrior.
To them, such terrible chaos didn’t seem like anything more than a normal waterfall in front of them.
“Be ready.”
The warrior in charge of the vortex search team stood on the cliff. And when he saw the men lined next to him, he shouted,
“Now!”
The Ran warriors jumped down at his shout, and Sarah’s mouth fell open at this sight.
They were being sucked into the jaws of a huge monster. The figures of the warriors were swept away by the whirlpool and vanished like a lie in an instant.
“Mero, Gen, both of you move to 11 o’clock. Paribo, Xian, and Yon, you guys go straight ahead and find out if there are any more abnormal areas, and when you meet the enemies, you can fire a signal flare right away if you feel that the situation is too much for you.”
Hasyath had no intentions of letting his troops play around, so he sent them to do other work.
“For the rest, be on alert, so we can be ready to fight at any moment.”
The enemies might come from anywhere. They didn’t have a magician with them, but the enemy must have one. The existence of a magician that could carry out surprise attacks would change the flow of the fight.
Especially if they were brought to this place, the magician must have significant power. Whatever the situation was, it wouldn’t be odd.
Anyway, silence fell.
Sarah quietly studied the atmosphere. There was nothing for her to do.
She could serve as a guard, but it wouldn’t make a difference because she was nothing here.
Isis told Sarah,
“We will do our part.”
“What do we do?”
Was there even anything she could do?
Looking at Isis with a smile on her face, she said,
“Training.”
The smile began to turn evil.
“Ughhhh!”
“Come! Come!”
Sarah’s face was red, like it would explode at any moment. She was standing on her hands as she was doing push-ups.
To her, who had been training for three years, this wasn’t a huge deal.
She could do a hundred or even a thousand if she wanted to.
If she was alone.
“More! Down! More!”
Isis was currently standing on the soles of Sarah’s feet.
And she wasn’t just standing there, she used aura to strengthen her body so her weight tripled.
In addition, she carried a greatsword with her.
“Eukkkk!”
“You can do it! Come up! More!”
Was Isis the devil?
Sarah felt the veins on her head would burst.
Beryl’s training was harsh, but he had a limit for how far he pushed her. Wasn’t she just a girl who had just turned thirteen?
No matter how much she decided to hold the sword, she never had to workout like this.
Actually, even the knights who reached the level of experts would not be able to do this.
“Only ten more.”
Isis was ruthless.
To the point where the other Rans felt bad for Sarah.
“That… Isis… isn’t that too harsh for a human child…”
“Shut up and do what you need to do.”
“Yes.”
There were several cases in which some warriors came to help Sarah but got told off even worse.
Anyway.
Throughout the training, Isis repeatedly pushed Sarah.
Maybe that was why, even though it had only been a few days, she gained a bit of muscle, and her stamina was much better than before.
“Eat.”
Actually, all of this was possible due to the special pills of the Rans.
“Ugh.”
Sarah could not lift a finger, so Isis gave her the pills. Her body recovered as if all of the exhaustion she felt was a lie.
This felt bad. Sarah sighed and looked at her body.
“Three more than before.”
Isis nodded, arms folded, looking happy. Then she mumbled as if she was a bit troubled,
“Should we add more weight?”
“It is enough now!”
When Sarah responded right away, Isis shook her head, saying no.
“Next time, we will increase it a bit more so you can improve your concentration. After all, you need the strength to swing your sword with precision.”
“I-Is that so?”
“This drill will continue until you reach Master class.”
“… Yes.”
Sarah had given up, and learning from such a strong person was a good thing.
To grumble would mean she was pathetic.
‘Come to think of it, I learned the sword myself.’
So far, she has only been trained in physical strength, and Isis hasn’t taught her how to use the sword yet.
It felt like she was letting go of her senses.
“Tired? To hold the sword.”
As Sarah sat down on the ground, Isis sat down next to her and asked.
Until now, someone had given her strength, and Sarah couldn’t say a thing.
So Isis continued,
“I know that feeling. I was like that until recently.”
“… Miss Isis too? You didn’t have to go through this kind of training, right?”
Sarah didn’t know Isis’s level of power, but in her eyes, she was beyond recognition. And since she was actually a Grand Master, it was impossible for Sarah to judge her at her current level.
Isis smiled awkwardly and said,
“There was a time when I lost strength too. A few years ago.”
She had to use Gram to its limit in order to defeat the Dragon God, one of the 12 Gods, and as a result, the sword made her body a mess.
She had used up all the energy and blood in her body, and she couldn’t even control her aura.
The biggest problem was that her lifespan was shortening to the point where she couldn’t even do minor tasks, and it was said she wouldn’t live past a month.
Then her father offered her a way to live.
“One hellish day.”
The vision that was passed down in the royal family of the Rans. It was a way to get her power back, but it has never been used by anyone.
Because only those on the verge of death were qualified to do it.
For about two years.
Isis had been through constant hell. No, it was more than just restoring her body to its prime state.
It felt difficult to regain what was lost. She felt like she was back to being a child again.
“But I didn’t give up.”
Had she done so, everything she did in her life would have been for nothing. And to be honest, she wanted to give up many times, but there was something she wanted to get.
She created Frontier, and she dedicated her entire life to it. She had the determination to live, but could she easily give up just because she found the training difficult?
“I have a lot of things I want to achieve. In order to do so, I need strength, and it doesn’t matter if the process is too hard, just like you.”
“…”
“The moment you give up, it is all over. So do not give up, even when it is hard. Trust me. Then I will guide you to where you want to go. Even if the path is hell.”
Isis saw herself in Sarah’s form.
At first glance, the two were alike. They must have had some goals they wanted to achieve.
And they were both determined to do anything to achieve them. Sarah nodded and said,
“I will hold on. I will be stubborn.”
“Of course, you should. You will be my disciple from now on. Call me Teacher, I will tell Beryl.”
“I-I can call you Teacher?”
“You will be the one carrying my vision for the future. Yes. And this is a request.”
“Request?”
Isis smiled and got up while Sarah’s mouth went wide.
Ping!
Pop!
A flare was fired.
