Ch.4039. Party Members (3)

# 39. Party Member (3)

Rachel and I exchanged glances after hearing those words.

And I recalled what she had said earlier.

“If you break all ten of these walls within 10 minutes, I’ll buy each of you any item you want.”

Coming from none other than the Imperial Princess of the Kainis Empire, the promise of “any item you want” gave me the genuine belief that she would truly buy anything.

I looked at the walls she mentioned.

Though they flaunted a sturdiness that seemed impenetrable, with Rachel by my side, it was certainly possible.

And Rachel, who was like hope itself to me, said:

“I don’t particularly need anything, but you seem to.”

As expected, Rachel also boasted tremendous wealth, though not as much as the princess.

‘Don’t need anything…’

I envied the fact that she could say such things, but now wasn’t the time to worry about that.

Rachel raised her staff that she had lowered, and I also summoned [Black Sword], this time in the form of a massive greatsword.

Then I swung down hard on the wall with the sword, which felt considerably heavier than usual.

-Kachang!-

Of course, the wall didn’t break with that single strike, but it did crack.

Naturally unsatisfied with just that, I gripped the sword tightly again.

The sword in my hand was too heavy for me to wield properly, but it could deliver tremendous power.

I put all the strength I could muster into another powerful strike against the wall.

-Hwarak! Kang!-

Before my sword made contact, Rachel’s flames engulfed the wall.

And when my strike hit the burning wall…

-Jjeojeojeok! Jjinggurang!-

The wall shattered into pieces, scattering throughout the training ground.

As the first wall broke, a second wall appeared, but that was fine.

Now I was confident we could break through them, and we had plenty of leeway.

Rachel and I started with the already broken first wall and began tackling the remaining ones one by one.

It was only a matter of time before all the walls would break.

However, time itself was the real issue.

’10 minutes…’

This bet had a 10-minute time limit.

It took us 1 minute and 45 seconds to break the first wall.

The second took 1 minute and 30 seconds, and the third 1 minute and 21 seconds, gradually decreasing.

But even with the decreasing time, we were still cutting it close.

I hurried more and more to break these walls within the time limit, and Rachel, seeming to understand my urgency, matched my increasingly faster tempo.

-Kang! Kachang! Hwarak!-

Our wall-breaking speed increased, and by using all means available—Rachel’s [Blue Flame], my [Reinforcement], and everything else—we managed to break 9 walls with 40 seconds to spare.

Still, it was too early to let our guard down.

Seeing the final wall before us, I immediately used [Reinforcement] and swung my strengthened sword without looking back.

-Kang! Kwajjang!-

And those attacks, aided by [Blue Flame], struck the wall even hotter and stronger.

About 30 seconds passed…

During those 30 seconds, we attacked relentlessly without rest, but the wall still hadn’t broken.

‘Please!…’

I desperately wished for the wall to break, and while that wish didn’t reach the gods, my status window responded instead.

[Trait, Desperate Person is activating.]

The effect of Desperate Person was this:

[Provides substantial help in achieving something you (Albert Veros) desperately wish for.]

I quickly checked the status window that had just appeared.

[That strong desire makes you stronger; your strength increases by 50% for 10 seconds.]

I looked at my hands, which now felt overflowing with power unlike before.

Those hands contained a strength that was on a completely different level from usual.

The greatsword that had definitely been heavy until just now felt as light as a feather.

I discarded that light sword and activated [Black Sword] once more.

I gripped a sword so enormous that I wondered ‘Can I even lift this?’—incomparably larger than the previous one.

Then I raised it high.

It was heavy, but not impossible to lift.

With all my might, I brought that sword down on the last remaining wall.

-Kwakwakwakwakwang!-

That sword, which could hardly be called a sword anymore, shattered the tenth wall into pieces.

Not only the princess and Rachel, but even I who had swung the sword couldn’t help but marvel at its formidable destructive power.

With trembling hands, I looked at the princess who had finally revealed herself.

Her surprised expression with wide eyes was quite a sight to see.

As she stood there with her mouth open, I spoke to her first.

“We succeeded, right?”

“Yes… of course.”

She still seemed unable to process what had just happened, and the same went for Rachel.

“What did you just do? How?”

“I don’t know either, honestly.”

Even I hadn’t known that trait would activate in this situation.

The princess, who seemed to have finally regained her senses, said:

“I was planning to give you the rewards even if you couldn’t break the last wall since I reinforced it to the maximum… but you broke it anyway…”

The feeling of achievement from breaking the strongest barrier she could create was indescribable.

While I was basking in that sense of achievement, Rachel, who had heard the princess’s words, said:

“I thought it was unusually difficult to break.”

“Good job, everyone. After we select all the party members, I’ll take you shopping then.”

“You’re buying for me too?”

“Of course.”

“So I can really get anything I want?”

She nodded with a smile.

Truly befitting of the Empire’s top diamond spoon.

The princess was watching me as I happily contemplated what to buy.

“What is it?”

“I just thought you were truly an amazing person. I guess I do have a good eye for people.”

“…”

I didn’t know how to react to such high praise, and I felt my face grow hot.

She watched my reaction with a pleased expression.

“You really are weak to compliments.”

It wasn’t just the compliment itself, but the fact that it came from ‘her.’

How could I not be happy?

“This feels really nice.”

“You’re so honest.”

Hearing Rachel’s comment, the princess said:

“He’s always like this.”

“You speak as if you know him very well.”

The princess answered Rachel’s remark with a smile:

“I think I’m starting to understand him now.”

***

After her speech, the Imperial Academy underwent a small but significant change.

The students began to ‘make an effort.’

Many major events had occurred until now.

The assassination attempt on the Empress, the war between Orion and Babylon Kingdom, the Eden Battle, and other significant events. Yet the students had maintained the complacent attitude that these weren’t their concern.

Because of this, they didn’t feel a sense of crisis despite these events, and consequently, they had forgotten their duty and neglected ‘effort’ while becoming too comfortable in peace.

Those large-scale events were too distant to resonate with the students.

However, her speech had reached them in a realistic way.

Her words:

‘You, the most outstanding talents in our Kainis Empire, must fulfill your roles.’

These words ignited their sense of duty.

That sense of duty motivated them to apply for her party recruitment.

And from what I heard, I had played a part in this too.

Though for the somewhat unpleasant reason of ‘if that guy can do it, why can’t we?’

“Well, whatever works.”

“What are you saying? Shut up and keep searching.”

I was in the now-crowded library with Elin, researching the trait called ‘Returner.’

Not only had I never seen it before, but it was also possible that I simply didn’t know about it.

“But why are we doing this now?” I asked.

Elin replied seriously:

“We have to do that thing soon, you know.”

“Ah~”

That ‘thing’ was obviously the survival test to select new party members.

But I was curious about why Elin suddenly became interested in the ‘Returner’ trait.

“Why are you suddenly looking into this?”

“Don’t ask.”

Despite her rude response, I persisted:

“Why?”

“By the way, when did you return to this time?”

“Right before death.”

“Right before death?”

“Yeah.”

Elin heard this and went back to reading her book intently.

“So why are you asking?”

“There are skills that activate right before death, and traits too.”

I decided to give up on getting a proper answer given Elin’s persistent attitude.

“Like what?”

“[Water Ghost], ‘One Who Overcame Death’, [Desperate Resistance], things like that.”

“Isn’t [Water Ghost] completely irrelevant?”

“True, but what was your skill called?”

“[???]”

Elin asked me back:

“Question marks?”

“Yeah, I don’t know if the name was hidden, or if I couldn’t see it, or if the name actually is ‘???’. But wouldn’t there just be a skill called return? The trait name is ‘Returner’ after all.”

Elin was checking if there was a [Return] skill or trait in those books.

“You search too.”

Elin threw a few books at me.

I had no choice but to open those books and search diligently.

Looking through them, I saw all kinds of skills and traits.

I had thought I knew quite a lot about skills and traits, but I realized that was just arrogance.

And in the process, I discovered that my current trait, ‘Desperate Person,’ wasn’t mentioned in any of the books.