episode_0033

‘Jeanne must have had a solid reason for accepting the Black Rock scale mercenary group’s quest, even knowing what it was. It goes beyond tactical reasons.’

When it was determined that the elf archer Priscilla’s awakened ability was at the Expert level,

Eugene clicked his tongue in surprise.

Expert level, one level above the user level of awakened ability,

but the actual perceived difference is not just one level.

For many ordinary mana awakeners, it ends at the Walker level.

One reason for this is that they simply don’t put in the effort.

If I were to make some excuses for them,

a major reason is that a systematic training method has not been disseminated.

Anyway, theoretically, if mana awakening has occurred,

reaching the User level is an area that can be reached with so-called effort.

However, there is a considerable difference in the duration of reaching it.

On the other hand, Expert is not a section that can be broken through with effort.

The breakthrough of the Expert limit is an ability achieved by those chosen among mana awakeners.

Therefore, breaking through the Expert section is also expressed as achieving a 2nd awakening.

In other words, the elf archer Priscilla,

she has achieved a 2nd awakening.

‘She’s an archer who isn’t specialized in one-on-one combat, but that’s even more impressive in quests.’

Even if the steps of classification are similar,

the aspect of combat influence differs due to the difference in class characteristics.

Archers, whose main ability is ranged support,

maximize their synergy in battles against multiple enemies rather than one-on-one duels.

Especially in situations like now where they have to fight with a forest nearby,

it can be seen as the elf archer Priscilla’s main battlefield.

‘I thought that the rare elf race wandering around the Pedon Continent alone must be strong, but to think she was above Expert level. It wasn’t just because she was an elf that she was so chic from the first impression.’

Eugene clicked his tongue slightly as he looked at Priscilla’s crown, which barely reached his chest.

Even if not specialized in one-on-one combat, an Expert level archer is untouchable at the general mercenary level.

Therefore, Eugene now clearly understood Priscilla’s attitude, which always felt beyond just aloofness, even relaxed.

“Okay, let’s go to sleep for tomorrow’s decisive battle! I hope the comrades on night watch will work hard for the safety of their colleagues!”

“Good night, Ivan!”

“Please take care of us tomorrow too!”

Night fell and it became midnight.

Then, before entering the tent, Ivan greeted his Red Fox mercenary group colleagues loudly.

It’s something he does like a routine the day before a battle.

Pat…! Pat…! Pat…!

The Red Fox mercenary group’s base camp was soon filled with silence as most of the mercenaries began to go to sleep.

And the faint crackling sound of the bonfire filled the silence.

“…..”

Eugene, who volunteered for night watch, stuck his greatsword next to him,

sat down, spread out his bedroll, and silently stared at the quiet flames of the bonfire.

“I told you it’s good to get plenty of sleep the day before your first quest. Even if you’re nervous, just lie down and sleep.”

From behind him, he heard a voice with a nonchalant feeling.

It was none other than the voice of his sister, Jeanne, the leader of the Red Fox mercenary group.

“I’m not keeping watch because I’m nervous?”

“You’re funny.”

Eugene, who had already noticed Jeanne approaching from the footsteps he had heard in advance, responded with a cool voice.

Then Jeanne also showed off the vibe of an older sister by one year.

“I think I was more nervous last night. I’m not that nervous the day before, though.”

Smiling…!

Eugene gave a slight smile,

the feeling of that smile was a nuance that he roughly knew the reason why Jeanne, who hadn’t spoken to him since their first face-to-face meeting that day, was approaching him like a snake slithering over a wall.

“Then, are you unable to sleep because of the Sophists that were talked about during the day?”

Chaak!

“Haha! I can’t say that’s not the case at all.”

Jeanne, who had already come right next to Eugene,

sat on the wooden box next to him.

While doing so, she mentioned the mystique cult Sophists, the subject that Jeanne herself had brought up first during the final briefing,

and then Ivan and Thomas had a deep conversation about.

Jeanne asked Eugene as if worried if he couldn’t sleep because he was thinking about the Sophists,

but in fact, she was the one who was concerned about it, and even temporarily put aside the aftereffects of the frenzy in the tavern a few days ago and approached Eugene.

Jeanne wants to be with Eugene, who must be in a troubled state of mind.

“Listening to Ivan and Thomas’s stories, I remembered my childhood. Memories from before I entered Orléans.”

Eugene slowly brought out his current state of mind that Jeanne would want to hear, with a calm expression and tone.

When a person is placed in a situation that is difficult to handle, a defense mechanism is activated.

Some people rationalize, and others distort or delete memories as if sealing them.

Eugene was in that position, having experienced chaos at the age of nine, such as his father becoming a murderer,

and being killed because of it.

At the age of nine, when no defense logic could be used,

Eugene Schneider’s subconscious mind had no choice but to endure by erasing memories of his father.

But has his mental state improved for sure compared to those days as time passed?

Through the story of the Sophists that he heard again today,

rather than activating a defense mechanism in Eugene’s mind to avoid hearing it,

it made him recall memories that he had forgotten for a long time.

“It was when I was eight years old. I told my father. I wanted to learn the sword too. I thought my father, who was respected by the Sophist uncles and walked the path of the sword, looked really cool.”

Soon, Eugene told Jeanne the fragments of regained memories as they were.

“But unlike when my father was usually friendly and playfully sparred with wooden swords, he firmly dissuaded me when he heard my words that I wanted to become a formal swordsman. I think it was the first time I saw my father with such an expression.”

“The following year after that incident, my father lost his life, being called a sword demon and a murderer by people.”

An existence who was revered as a Sword Saint, a philosophical realm, beyond Sword Master, a technical realm of the sword.

So, Eugene Schneider also respected and wanted to resemble his father, Ulysses Schneider, so much.

However, his downfall was too tragic,

and as a result, an unspeakable shock came to his only son, Eugene.

“I heard this when the aftereffects of my father were severe. These were the words. It was a tragedy created by the cursed blood of this continent.”

The people who revered Ulysses

coldly turned their backs on him as if they had never done so, and began to devalue his past actions.

Among them, what was more essential that was engraved in Eugene’s ears and mind,

was the word that it was the blood of a cursed continent that disappeared after receiving the wrath of God.

“That’s nonsense. There’s no remaining basis that Jedi Ulysses was from Atlantis. It’s just that people connected him with the lost civilization that was considered mysterious since ancient times because he pioneered a different path from the existing one.”

Jeanne, who had been quietly listening to Eugene’s words,

immediately intervened when the story of the lost continent of Atlantis came out.

Jeanne’s appearance of listing the knowledge she knew with a confident tone,

she usually doesn’t talk about Ulysses in front of Eugene at all, but

she was very interested, so she studied to a considerable level from adolescence until preparing to become a mercenary.

It is said that the elf island of Symphonia, where the World Tree grew, is across the eastern sea.

However, until 250 years ago, there was also a mysterious continent called Atlantis in the southern sea.

The size of the continent was about the size of a part of the Pedon Continent, but

it is said that the state of civilization development was so outstanding that even the Elysium Empire could not compete with it.

Therefore, all the races of the Pedon Continent at the time called Atlantis a divine country or a holy country.

However, the end of such an advanced civilization of Atlantis was instantaneous.

It sank to the bottom of the sea overnight due to a massive natural disaster.

The people of Pedon described the greatest event in that civilization’s history as

the goddess Aphrodite, enraged by Atlantis’s arrogance in challenging the authority of God, cast an extreme curse and destroyed them.

“Even if Ulysses was still alive, he would be 54 years old. There’s a gap of nearly 200 years between the destruction of Atlantis. The hypothesis that he is a descendant of the Atlanteans who survived the disaster is no longer realistic at that point.”

Jeanne presented a very active logic.

It’s because she felt what Eugene was thinking.

Awakened ability is evaluated as a superhuman level, Sword Expert,

and there are brilliant levels that even surpass that, Sword Seeker,

and finally, the ultimate Sword Master.

But that mighty power never only contains bright light.

In the history of the Pedon Continent, there is an area of berserkers who have lost their balance of power and gone out of control.

The cause of the controversial berserker being created is still unclear.

This is because those who have been evaluated as berserkers historically are rarer than even Sword Masters.

There is no disagreement that Ulysses was a sword demon or a murderer in his later years, but

there was much controversy over whether he had entered the berserker realm.

However, those who claimed to be berserkers argued that it was a runaway situation created because he was a descendant of the cursed Atlantis people.

In other words, Eugene, who inherited half of Ulysses’s blood, thinks that he might also be on that extension line.

So perhaps his father, who felt something wrong with his own body from before the tragedy occurred,

firmly dissuaded his child’s hope of becoming a swordsman based on that.

“I’m telling you again, it’s too absurd. So don’t have such strange thoughts.”

However, Jeanne, who made passionate arguments saying that it made no sense, once again drove a wedge.

‘But I even have demon blood mixed in.’

In fact, it was Jeanne’s defense for Eugene.

And Eugene silently listened to Jeanne’s grateful words of defense.

However, Eugene’s current difficult mind

is not all that Jeanne is expecting.

Half of the blood other than his father Ulysses,

that is his mother’s blood, the blood of a demon.

But since Jeanne was talking so passionately,

Eugene couldn’t bring himself to tell her that.

“Yeah, Jeanne, you’re right~ It seems a bit too much to be thinking like this just based on that. It’s also funny that I think of myself as a special human being chosen in any negative sense. My father was already an Expert at seventeen.”

Thud!

Eugene joked and lay down on the grass floor.

He didn’t tell her about the demon blood, but

Jeanne’s efforts were a consolation to Eugene in their own way.

Perhaps that’s why the difference in his own talent, which is extremely different from his father’s, additionally came to mind.

During the Sword Order days, Jedi Ulysses, the head of the Sophists,

was the youngest official Sword Expert from the Imperium Empire.

After that, he broke all the youngest records for Sword Seeker and Sword Master.

“And if anything happens to you, this sister who dragged you into this path will take responsibility. No matter what it takes.”

Jeanne made a pretty serious expression and made a boastful statement.

Judging from her expression, it wasn’t just comforting Eugene or giving lip service, but

it felt like she was really determined to do so if that situation came.

“How? Are you thinking of giving your soul instead to a berserker who sold his soul to a demon god?”

Smirk!

Then Eugene responded with a playful smirk.

But he secretly feels good.

When the first ordeal of his life came,

there was no one to directly protect him.

But for 12 years, he has gained another family.

That family is determined not to let go of him in any crisis.

“A soul is a bit… well… I’ll consider it.”

“Pahahaha!”

Since Jeanne is a follower of the Brightness Goddess, she showed a troubled appearance regarding the soul.

Eugene looked up at that appearance while lying on the lawn and burst into laughter while holding his stomach.

**********

“As you all know, the goblins have made a maze of caves and are coiled up. And the Dark Forest has difficult terrain. Just because the goblins’ general combat ability is poor doesn’t mean going into the maze will cause more sacrifices than necessary.”

The day of the decisive battle dawned.

All 26 combat personnel of the Red Fox mercenary group had completed their arming and arrived right in front of the Dark Forest.

In front of them, Jeanne was checking the current situation and operation for the last time.

“According to Priscilla, it will rain in three days. So we will set fire to the entrances everywhere today, at the latest by tomorrow morning, to lure them out and finish them off.”

The core keyword for the Red Fox mercenary group’s battle against the goblins is fire attack.