episode_0109

“Haah…. Hoo….”

A sigh mixed with pain seeped through the gaps. I struggled to rise, leaving behind the hilt of the sword stuck in the ground.

My head was spinning. Was it due to the dizziness from Kangwan’s repeated attacks? Or was it because of the arrow that precisely pierced through the torn crevice of my armor?

“Ugh, kkuet…!”

Gritting my teeth, I pulled out the arrow lodged in my left arm. The sharp arrowhead scraped against bone and muscle, protruding with veins.

…Ah, it really hurts.

I threw the extracted arrow to the ground and ground my teeth.

Though I had become somewhat accustomed to pain through my life as an adventurer and a fugitive, becoming accustomed didn’t mean becoming numb.

Becoming accustomed to suffering simply meant enduring the pain and being able to continue fighting. Being stabbed, slashed, and burned still hurt terribly.

The second characteristic of the Brünhilde’s mark, “Ice Heart,” contained the function of dulling pain, but it was meaningless since I couldn’t utilize it.

Activating Ice Heart was far more difficult than Kangwan’s mark, so consciously trying to activate it resulted in nine failures out of ten attempts.

During my time as a fugitive, it only properly activated twice. All other injuries had to be endured solely by my patience.

It’s frustrating.

– Kwajik!

Infused with anger, I raised my foot and stomped down. As I did, the bandit lying beneath me coughed up blood.

“Kuhuk….”

What was his name again? ‘Intruder’ Jason, was it?

A patroller who ambushed me while I briefly left Prider for the village.

Although he now lay with his legs severed and his heart pierced, he wasn’t just a strong opponent typical of an adventurer with intact limbs.

He might even belong to the top tier among the Silver-ranked adventurers.

If it weren’t for the antidote I had captured earlier, I might have been poisoned and defeated by his first strike.

Even in terms of swordsmanship, he surpassed most knights. It was only after my armor was completely shredded that I managed to subdue him.

Are these guys chasing me now, too? What’s next, will the Goldleaf Adventurers or the Kingdom Knights come after me?

It was a gloomy affair.

Most of them are busy blocking off the deep dungeons, so they probably won’t have the leisure to track down a fugitive like me… But that’s just a story for now.

As my notoriety continues to rise like this, eventually even they will start coming after me.

◆◆

A few hours later. By the time the intruder Jason, who had returned, had worn himself out with his rampage, he was starting to resemble the subdued Jason.

“…This can’t go on like this.”

I murmured with a voice mixed with sighs as I wrapped bandages around the wounds scattered all over my body.

“You…? I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.”

Freida turned to me and asked. Perhaps she was too engrossed in dismantling Jason to even hear my voice.

“Um, well….”

I exhaled lightly, stood up, approached Freida, and spoke again.

“It seems like we can’t keep running like this.”

Wiping the bloodstains off Freida’s face with the edge of my sleeve.

“That’s… ”

“The pursuers are getting stronger and stronger, how long can we keep this up? There will be a limit at some point. For both you and me.”

The future was so obvious that it hardly needed to be mentioned. There was no hope in continuing like this.

At the beginning, the hero and his party were not much different from ordinary kingdom knights.

Now, we’ve become stronger than we were then, so we might be able to handle a few kingdom knights, but…

“In other words, it means that even if only ten of them gather, we’ll be overwhelmed.”

The fact that we are still alive is almost entirely due to good luck.

Perhaps it’s because it’s easy to hide in the undeveloped areas spread across the country, or perhaps it’s because the kingdom has far more urgent problems than me.

Either way, there were reasons why this couldn’t last long.

“…So what do we do?”

Freida looked at the bandages wrapped around my entire body and asked. It was a despondent voice, as if she thought all these wounds were her fault.

It’s hard to say if this should be considered kind or foolish. Ultimately, all these wounds are entirely my own doing.

Ah, except for the marks on my neck, shoulders, and thighs.

That was Freide’s fault.

No matter how much I asked for more, I wouldn’t bite hard enough to draw blood.

Of course, it was provocative… but that was just in the moment; once the heat subsided, it was just a sting, like a vein being pricked.

Anyway.

“If we’re only going to get caught eventually when we run away, then… rather than that, let’s break through head-on before we get caught. Just the two of us, somehow.”

“Head-on?”

Freide tilted her head slightly. It was a look of not understanding the meaning of “breaking through head-on.”

That makes sense. I haven’t even started explaining properly yet.

“Think about it. Why do you think we’re running around looking like beggars right now?”

“Uh… because… Gunter is targeting Miss Hilde, isn’t he…?”

The moment the name Gunter was mentioned, an intense hatred flashed in Freide’s eyes. It was reminiscent of the enraged eyes of a dragon.

…She seems to hate him more than I do.

I just want to kill him, but Freide seems to want to tear his body into pieces and feed it to dogs.

“No, that’s superficial… I mean, it’s just a surface reason. It’s not the essence of the problem.”

“The essence…?”

Right. The true reason we’re running from pursuers like this isn’t because Gunter or Hilde are targeting me.

The more fundamental reason, the true reason, is none other than-

“The real reason is that we – no, I am weak. That’s the mistake.”

Being weak.

That was the fundamental reason why we had become fugitives.

If I had been as strong as Emilia and Irina, or even Gunter, there would have been no need for us to be chased like this.

Still, we had to be careful with Hilde, but that was only if we met alone in a place where no one else could see.

Why are they the only ones? If I were that strong, I could have easily made the false accusation disappear from the beginning.

When a party member, a warrior stronger than the warriors of other countries, takes the departed warrior back to the line, even the fact that the warrior party deserted will subtly turn into some kind of rumor.

Perhaps the king will personally come forward and package me as a secret agent within the party to expose the betrayer.

If one demonstrates such ability at the age of twenty, upon entering a deep dungeon and truly growing, they will become the core force of the kingdom in just a few years.

That was the essence of the warrior party from the start.

One of the representative functions of the warrior’s seal is to rapidly accelerate the growth rate of the warrior himself and the party members.

In terms of novels or games, it meant that when you form a party and hunt together, the experience gained increases by 5 to 10 times.

As the number of party members increases, the effectiveness becomes weaker, so it was most efficient to recruit roughly 3 to 4 comrades to fight together.

Therefore, among young people with boundless potential for growth, the most talented ones were chosen to be placed next to the warrior.

Thanks to the protection of the seal, they would grow rapidly and acquire skills comparable to the core forces of various countries at a young age.

Wouldn’t it be more efficient to attach existing strong individuals instead of young people?

That was not the case.

Even if the growth rate is accelerated, it is meaningless for those who have no room left for growth.

Just consider human height; once you pass the age of twenty, no matter how well you eat, it’s hard to expect further growth, isn’t it the same with strength?

Even if one generously sets the age at which they can benefit from the warrior’s seal, it’s a limit around the early thirties.

For those older, forming a party with a warrior will only make them slightly stronger, and that’s the end of it.

It’s as if the potential for growth was already half closed from the beginning.

Rather than throwing away the opportunity of the “warrior’s seal” in that way, it’s a hundred or a thousand times better to nurture a young person whose potential for growth is wide open, even if they are initially weak.

The efficiency level is incomparable. If raised well, it’s to the extent that even a dragon or a demon king could be brought down.

So if I were to prove my overwhelming, incomparable qualities, the king of the line would have to accept me again.

In such a situation, what meaning does the authority and dignity of the king, or national disgrace, hold?

It’s as if a talent who seems capable of bringing down even a dragon is rolling back in on their own feet. If welcomed, they should be welcomed without punishment.

Of course, at my current level, it was impossible.

My abilities were far from being able to defeat a military gunter, let alone confront an opponent.

“Because you’re weak, you can’t stand tall… Because you’re weak, you should run away.”

“Hmph, it’s wrong to say Hilde is weak… No, no, that’s not it!”

Freid, who was trying to defend herself, quickly corrected her words, realizing that pointing out her weakness was like pointing out mine.

“N-no, Hilde isn’t weak…! She was my idol!”

A rather embarrassing compliment.

“Uh… Yeah, thanks.”

An idol, what awkward thing is she saying now.

When Freid said ‘Hilde isn’t weak’, she meant the original Brünhilde, not me, but still, the embarrassment was mine.

Honestly, the current Freid already had power surpassing me. Should she be called a hero?

There wasn’t an overwhelming difference, but at least in ten battles, she would win seven times. Someone stronger than me declaring that I’m not weak and establishing herself as an idol. It’s only natural that it would be embarrassing.

I couldn’t help but blush and slightly lower my head in embarrassment.