《Riviera Chronicles》


 Chapter 01 - Lucca Bright

    Chapter 01 - Lucca Bright


    In a certain plain, there was a group running for their lives, what chased them could be simple described as a horde of innumerable monsters. One of those people, a young man who was at the peak of his life, was already running for hours, yet, the amount of pursuers just grew. His body was already worn out, but he could only keep running.


    After sometime his legs finally yielded to exhaustion and he, and much others, became the monster dinner for that day.


    This was a common event in this world, after all people and monsters existences were like fire and water, enemies since as long as they know, engaging in daily battles for their own survival, this is the rule of the world.


    A beautiful girl, that possessed black hair and eyes, with a milky white skin clad in nun clothes, showed a gentle smile. She stood up and looked at the slightly terrified children, which listened to her history.


    They were the little kids who lived in this orphanage and had daily lessons to learn about the world and his perils. Considering the place where they lived, it wouldn¡¯t be surprising to say that some of the deceased parents of those children had the same fate as the man from the history.


    The nun looked back to the children and told them to eat their meal and stay inside the house, since it was dangerous. With unison the children answered ¡°Yes!¡± and started making havoc as kids in this age always do. The nun couldn¡¯t help but letting a short sight while getting out of the house.


    At the shade of the building nearby, she heard sounds of something hitting the wall. As soon as the young nun gazed there, she saw a boy hurriedly hiding his hands.


    The boy had a jet black hair like the sisters and white skin, he looked like a normal boy you could see everywhere going through some rebellious phase, as it was dubbed the sister, the only exception being his pure golden eyes.


    ¡°Lucca, how many times did I say to you stop skipping the lessons, huh? Just because you¡¯re a little older than most of them, do you think you don¡¯t need to know?¡± ¨C Said the sister while gazing at his face.


    ¡°Ann, I¡¯ve already told you that I know all of that! Just how many times are you going to preach me about this?¡±


    Sensing her gaze, he looked away while slight blushing, after all he reached that age and no matter how you look like, Ann was certainly beautiful.


    ¡°Well, it is true that I already told you countless time about how dangerous is the outside world¡­¡±


    Her gaze switched from him to the road and the big gate of the city that could be seen from the orphanage.


    ¡°Haa¡­ This time I will let you off, since I have work to do. Don¡¯t go around causing trouble when I¡¯m gone, make sure to watch your little brother and sisters. Bye.¡±


    You don¡¯t have to tell me that, so thought Lucca, while staring at her back.


    He moved away from the shade and stared at the building where she just exited. That was the orphanage Holy Wings. Lucca lived there since as long as he knows and now he was had completed his 14 anniversary.


    From the Ann lesons he learned about the world, about the monsters, about society, about family. He doesn¡¯t remember ever seeing the faces of his parents, but that didn¡¯t bother him, since he had Ann taking care of him and all the other little children were like his little sisters and brothers.


    He could say that because he was one of oldest members of the orphanage and didn¡¯t have any memory of his biological family, therefore he completely entered the role of being the older brother of the orphanage.


    ¡°Hey, hey, how many times did Ann or Lucia told you guys to not get away from the house?¡± ¨C Said Lucca while grabbing two children who just rushed out of the door.


    ¡°Thanks for keeping an eye on them¡±


    Said a girl while taking the two kids from Lucca arms, she looked like 12~13 years old who was one of the other older members of the orphanage.


    She looked at him with a down cast face and muttered.


    ¡°Are you going to work again today?¡±


    ¡°Of course, Ann and the others sisters are busy healing the adventurer parties that come from the desert today.¡±


    ¡°Ann and the others already warned you not do such a dangerous thing¡­¡±


    ¡°Of course I know. Ann makes sure to drill that in my head every time, how could I forget?¡±


    Said Lucca while grabbing his tattered backpack and exiting the building.


    Within the whole kingdom of Arzllot, it wouldn¡¯t be wrong to call Marlok the worst city to live. The residents had to endure the scorching sun and arid air every day.


    Outside the wall, threatening existences lived nearby, be it monster and people alike. There was lack of food and sometimes even water, it would be impossible to even imagine that this desert could host a city if it wasn¡¯t by the invention of mana portals years ago.


    Despite all these shortcomings, Marlok desert city was essential point of trade between the north and south of the kingdom, while keeping watch in the rampant monsters that lived in the desert.


    Lucca run through the streets and rapidly arrived at his destination, the plaza of Marlok. Inside a big building right in the center, he paid the fee and entered the portal towards his usual workplace, the capital of the kingdom.


    Exiting the capital building, which was size bigger than the one from desert city, he saw the vast grey of Retford, the capital and biggest city of Arllot kingdom, which was the complete opposite of the usual orangish color of Murlok he grew.


    After minutes walking towards the south gate, he calmly exited the city, there he saw hundreds upon hundreds of people waiting, that was the usual place where people who go hunting wait for the gathering of their members.


    After going for the usual spot, Lucca spotted a familiar brawny man, with his trademark purple tomahawk hair, and a slender androgynous looking guy, which had a cute face that could easily deceive some people if they had drunk a few cups of alcohol.


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    ¡°Took your sweet time Bright¡±


    Said the brawny man who looked fed up with waiting and was already stretching.


    ¡°My bad, my bad¡± ¨C Answered Lucca while looking for something and having a puzzled a look continued ¨C ¡°though it seems I¡¯m not the last one this time.¡±


    ¡°No, you are. This time it will be just us, Marlene and Rubi won¡¯t be coming today.¡±


    ¡°Is that so?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, this time it¡¯s just us guys.¡±


    Lucca and his companions walked together towards the south of the capital, while pulling a cart. The same type of scene could be seen within the whole plains, adventurers going everywhere to complete their missions.


    After a few hours walking, they were welcomed by the mountains, their objective for today.


    Lucca et al stopped to catch their breath and gazed the mountain. After some minutes to rest, the trio moved to the thrill and started climbing.


    Their objective for today was to hunt down condors, a big vulture like bird that could easily reach 6m when fully opened their wings.


    They had received a quest to hunt five of those and bring back their bodies.


    The brawny man grabbed some stones and used them to hit a distracted condor who was dazing in a branch of a tree nearby, invoking the hostility of the beast, which started flying while aiming at him.


    The brawny man, who was an experienced warrior, waited with his guard down until the condor decided to attack, when he received the signal for the other party members, he quickly turned and lifted his shield, blocking the condor claws while moving the axe in his dominant hand to attack it.


    The condor saw the attack coming and easily stopped with its great beak, what he didn¡¯t expect was that the other two members of the party, which were hiding, where waiting for this moment and launched two sneak attacks from his back.


    At the same time an arrow and a dagger pierced the back of the unaware condor. He started agonizing and fell down, seeing the chance, the experienced brawny man used his whole weight and swung the axe again downwards, easily chopping off the defenseless condor head.


    ¡°This was easier than I thought.¡±


    Said the androgynous man while getting out of his hiding place.


    ¡°That¡¯s because we got a sneak attack on him. They are just normal beasts, aside the flying, they are easy to hunt.


    But don¡¯t get cocky, even if they weren¡¯t monsters, those claws and beaks could kill us easily if we don¡¯t pay attention.¡±


    ¡°Well, we are lucky that this time we only have to hunt normal beast.¡±


    Lucca said while picking his dagger off the condor back.


    As the experienced brawny man predicted, the rest of the hunt wasn¡¯t as easy as the slender looking man thought, but it wasn¡¯t anything out of their abilities, after stopping the condor attacks, it was an easy prey.


    The brawny man provided a solid vanguard, while the slender man provided ranged support through arrows, Lucca could use both his daggers to fight at close combat or use throw daggers to sneak ranged attacks, like the ones before.


    They were a well-balanced party that wouldn¡¯t have any problems taking normal beasts.


    In this world, the different type of species of ¡®animals¡¯ (beings devoid of intellect) could be divided into four groups:


    Beast, as the name implies, normal animals that could vary between tiny hamster or rabbits to lions and rhinos;


    Magical Beasts, animals that could wield magical power, mana, and had slighter higher intelligence. They weren¡¯t completely guided by their instincts like the normal beasts;


    Monsters, aberrations of nature born from the mana themselves or extreme mutations from normal living beings, such as plants, animals or even people, the greatest enemy of mankind. The mutations were born thanks to the distorted equilibrium between their body and magic, turning simple animals in blood seeking fiends, making them into being who could only live by their primal instinct, contrary to normal magical beasts.


    The monsters born from mana themselves are aberrations that were existences born out of only magic, making them extreme volatile existences that seek only the echoes of despair of their birth.


    Lastly, Perfect Monsters, the highest threat for the people since ancient times, those are monster that became strong enough to acquire intellect and kept the outrageous power of their monster nature, those were the most rare type of monster in the nature, since it was abnormality within monster too acquire intelligence to being with.


    But each and every one of them was treated as calamity that could at raze a small town by itself, not mentioning the fact that usually they commanded their familiars, monsters of the same type, due to them being their evolved forms. They were often described as Demon Lords or Demon Kings.


    Arzllot Kingdom is so concerned with each of those, that they made the desert city in one of the most desolate places of the kingdom, just to keep an eye on the six well know perfect monsters that inhabit the Marllok desert.


    After finishing the hunt of five condors, they packed the corpses on the cart and were ready to go back to the capital, when Lucca stopped the two men.


    ¡°Since we finished the hunt earlier than we expected, maybe we can hunt one or two more so we could have those for ourselves?¡±


    ¡°Huh, you want to take one for the orphanage, Bright?¡±


    ¡°Yeah¡­¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t mind eating bird for dinner today¡±


    ¡°Then let¡¯s continue, we still have plenty of time until sunset¡±


    And so they turned to the mountain once again to hunt more condors.


    Little did they know that this decision would save their lives to the disaster that was about to befall in the outskirts of the capital.

 Chapter 02 - Mana

    Chapter 2 ¨C Mana


    ¡°It seems like we¡¯re done here¡± ¨C Said Lucca while carrying the last Condor hunted today to the cart where his companions were waiting.


    It was already half hour past four and soon the sun would set, the place where they are right now, the vast Retford Plains, weren¡¯t particularly dangerous since no monsters inhabited the area, only normal beasts, but that wasn¡¯t the problem, at night the world got closer to the realm of Niflheim, the realm of death, making it possible for certain abnormal existences interfere within this world in places where there¡¯s low concentration of mana, which was one of the reasons why there weren¡¯t villages in this worlds, since they were both prone to extermination thanks to the monsters and the possibility of being spirited away to Niflheim, the exception being those places with high concentration of mana that acted as a barrier to the invitation, therefore making the ideal place to build cities and towns.


    Lucca et al despite moving at fast pace were still slower than earlier because their prey were heavy and they only got near Retford almost at sunset. What they didn¡¯t expect was the horrifying scene they were close to witness.


    Just one or two kilometer away of the city the trio started noticing a lot of people dashing like crazy in every direction away from Retford, at the beginning they didn¡¯t minded them since could be someone rushing for an encounter here and there, but after a couple of minutes they couldn¡¯t ignore the vast amount of people repeating the same actions.


    ¡°This is strange¡± ¨C Said the brawny veteran, he has been working near Retford for years, yet this is the first time he encountered such an event of people running away from the city in the night. It was almost like saying that they would prefer to have the chance to receive death¡¯s calling from Niflheim than being near the safe place of the capital.


    ¡°Definitely strange, let us climb that hill up there and I will get on the top that tree to check what¡¯s happening in the capital¡± ¨C Said Lucca while leaving the cart with the two and dashing to the hill, he rapidly climbed the tree and focused his inner mana to move into his eyes.


    Mana was the essence of everything, since men started being able to wield mana they were able to drive the monsters away and survive, were able to escape the invite of death, were able to strength themselves to the most and reach the peak of humanity, Riviera.


    Lucca with the mana moving to his eye enhanced his eyesight three or four times the normal amount and stared in the south gate of the capital, at the exact moment he couldn¡¯t help but close his eyes and rubbing his own eyes and pinch himself to make sure he wasn¡¯t dreaming.


    ¡°What¡¯s happening Bright?¡± (Brawny)


    ¡°Is there something wrong with the capital?¡± (Androgynous)


    Lucca was speechless, this reaction was abnormal to the normally cheeky brat, while both of them thought that they felt a strange ominous sensation on their spine that made them dash to the top of the hill and imitate Lucca behavior. The scene that welcomed their eyes was like an invitation to a party if Niflheim and their world were to be connected together, the previous green plains right next of the south gate of the capital were dyed red in blood, countless corpses that could easily reach a thousand people were battered on the ground and this part was just talking about what looked like people, there were a lot of parts that it was just horrible bloody that looked like mincemeat one would buy on the butcher shop.


    The trio was paralyzed by the atrocious scene in their front and only come back to life when they heard the sound of cannons being shot at the monsters. When they looked back they understood that at least the inside of city were safe somehow, since the sound of the cannon being fired meant people were still alive inside the capital, the gate was also closed, so the monsters probably weren¡¯t inside the city, otherwise they would be trapped with them.


    ¡°What do we do?¡± (Androgynous)


    ¡°What can we do? Nothing, look at that pile of corpses and that lake of blood¡­ We have been away for a couple of hours and when we come back it¡¯s like Niflheim themselves come to greet us¡± ¨C Said the brawny warrior while sighting and showing a slight fearful face that didn¡¯t matched his normal imposing style.


    ¡°What could have caused this, do you have any idea?¡± (Androgynous)


    At this moment Lucca still gazed near the south gate and looked for what could have happened, even if a huge breakdown of monsters were to reach the capital of the city, they should have been seen from far and usually the people who stay near the outskirts of the city were men who lived through fighting those type of monsters every day, what could have caused such a tragedy in such a short time? Lucca increased his mana usage by forcing more and more of his mana into the eyes making them shine in the darkness, finally then he saw what looked like a black curtain made of fog and at its right side a monster that looked like if you were to fuse a five meter tall barbarian with a goat head, two hairy legs with giant hooves and a great hands wielding a scythe almost as tall as that aberration.


    ¡°Baphomet¡­¡± ¨C Muttered Lucca while recalling the story Ann said about the devil that lived in a maze near the ex-headquarters of the church, which was destroyed years ago by Baphomet, commander of demons, and a giant dark wraith, that commanded the animated souls of the dead, because they didn¡¯t like the church.


    The duo who was near Lucca could hear his mumbling and were shock pale when they heard the name of Baphomet, after all what could such a powerful monster that inhabited the demon maze in the northwest of the kingdom be doing here right in the capital, what¡¯s more he commanded demons that attacked the biggest human city in broad daylight.


    ¡°Guys thinking about it won¡¯t do us any good¡± ¨C Said Lucca while dropping from the tree ¨C ¡°Although we don¡¯t know what those damn monster are thinking, one thing is certain, we can¡¯t enter the capital for now¡± ¨C then he turned to the brawny man and continued ¨C ¡°since we can¡¯t enter the capital and can¡¯t stick here any longer, since they could spot us, what do we do, Robert?¡±


    Robert, the brawny man, was the most experienced of the trio, leader of this party and the first one to accept Lucca in a party while he was still a ten-year old kid, despite most of the other people looking down on him. He wasn¡¯t the smartest, but he always made sound decisions that made them not meet danger in those years of association as adventurers and had respect of everybody, including the other two girls not present in today event.


    ¡°You¡¯re right, thinking about the situation we have three options here. The first one being lying low near the capital and wait to the monsters being repelled. The second going south past the mountains and enter the great desert of Marllok, towards your hometown Lucca. The last option being going towards southeast to the town of Azlud, the last one is probably the safest bet, since it¡¯s the closer and we could reach before midnight, what do you guys think?¡±


    ¡°I agree¡± (Androgynous)


    Lucca kept quiet, he agreed going towards Azlud would be wisest choice, since it was the closest, but something was off to him. The same way Azlud was the closest, if the monsters erupted here it wouldn¡¯t be strange to they have appeared there too, or at least some part of the demons could have moved there while following the desperate people they had seen earlier.


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    I hope it¡¯s me being pessimistic, so thought Lucca while started running at moderate pace while keeping his mana on the eyes to check their surroundings for monsters. After thirty minutes of running the fears of Lucca started growing as he saw some bodies on the road along the way, which made the trio become more nervous.


    ¡°Robert, I think it¡¯s better if we abandon the cart and start moving through the forest instead of the road¡± ¨C As he said that he pointed four bodies in their front and rushed to them, they were torn apart by what looked like a giant sword which cut them apart like pieces of paper being torn by a mischievous child ¨C ¡°Look at this equipment, those guys weren¡¯t amateurs¡± ¨C Said Lucca while holding a short silver sword.


    Agreeing with Lucca opinion both of them released the cart and started moving near the forest. Lucca decided to kept the silver sword since it¡¯s strong against demons, but he hoped that he didn¡¯t have to confirm it if was possible. While thinking such thoughts they kept advancing for more and hour and Lucca kept seeing corpses here and there near the road, finally to the moment he saw some hundreds of meters ahead what seemed to be a fight.


    ¡°Hey, just ahead on the road there seems to be a fight between adventurers and demons, what do we do?¡± ¨C Asked Lucca while keeping focus on his surroundings.


    ¡°Tell me the state of the adventurers and demons fighting¡± ¨C Said Robert with a heavy tone, if the adventurers were pushed in the brink of death he wouldn¡¯t jump in just to help them and risk their own death instead, if it seemed hopeless, they would just run.


    ¡°They are in a slight disadvantage due to the numbers of goat demons, but I think we can kill those demons if we go there¡± (Lucca)


    ¡°Then we go, we¡¯ll do as usual, I¡¯m the vanguard, Lui is the rearguard and Lucca the go between supporting us both, let¡¯s go!¡± ¨C While saying that he pulled his axe and shield and started running while concentrating mana in his legs. Robert reached the defending group in a matter of few seconds and shout loudly while concentrating mana in his voice. ¨C ¡°Come bite me, you fucking monsters!¡±


    Robert was a warrior and had to hold the frontlines, by focusing mana in his voice he made all the monsters focus their attention on him while leaving a time to breath to the defending party, right after he plowed his axe into the body of the little baphomet, which were identical to the perfect monster except being much shorter about the size of a human kid.


    The Baphomet used his black scythe to intercept the axe and jumped back getting out of range of Robert. Tsk, those monsters seems to have some intellect, or so Robert thought while preparing to intercept the attack of the other little baphomets ready to attack him, at that time an arrow flew from his back which made one of little baphomets stop his attack while the other was defended with easy by Roberto who can concentrating his mana on his limbs.


    At the same time, on the other side of the battle, Lucca got near the back of the other group and started assisting their vanguard stop the three little baphomets that were on them.


    ¡°We are here to help¡± ¨C Said Lucca while stabbing from the side of a little baphomet and making one of them stop the attack against the muscular man who served of vanguard of this party ¨C ¡°My party and yours have them surrounded, focus the power in a single one and try to take them out!¡± ¨C Lucca finished saying that and already moved away from the vanguard and got nearby a mage looking girl who looked frightened.


    ¡°Common! We don¡¯t have time to be scared, this is a situation of life or death. I will help you, so start doing them like you trained!¡± ¨C Before he knew Lucca was taking care of the girl whom reminded him of the little sisters he had on the orphanage and made him talk like an older brother on impulse.


    But somehow after a few sparks fly near the girl, thanks to Lucca et all parrying the advance of the little baphomets the girl awakened and started chanting, after a few more seconds a barrier of fire extended through 5 meters between two little baphomets and the muscular man of the little mage party.


    ¡°Good!¡± ¨C Not missing the opportunity Lucca took two daggers and threw them on the backside of the monsters attacking Robert to distract them and rapidly took the silver sword and embedded with its mana, making the silver blade glow golden, which he used to attack the flank of the little baphomet being held by the muscular man of the other party.


    One must know that mana is pure energy that exists in this world and one can use to wield any phenomenon as long as there is enough mana. Usually humans have colorless mana, in other words, they had mana in its formless state and could mold it as one desired, for example, as the little girl used the flame barrier she would take 10 portions of her formless mana and transform that into 8 fire mana, to them use it to create a wall of flames to stop the attack of the two monsters, usually 20% of mana were lost on the process of exchanging one type of mana to the another. But this waste of mana doesn¡¯t occur when one own mana is already of said element, while it was rare for humans to have one own element of mana, elves usually are born with natural wind mana element, dwarves with natural earth element, dragonewt as natural flame element and so on.


    Lucca is one of those rare existences within humans, his natural mana has an element, pure life force, mostly know as holy mana, this could be seen from his pure golden eyes which was a side effect of being born with it. Pure life force was the bane of demons, which were monsters that had natural dark mana.


    The little baphomet clearly knew that, or maybe it was his natural instinct, which made him try to move away of the blade, but that was too late, with his back open the blade pieced the demon and the foreign mana entered his body, the pure force was like the deadliest of the poisons and rapidly consumed his insides to the moments it stopped moving and Lucca finally took the blade away from the demon body.


    Robert seeing that used his mana and used a moved his whole body to slam against one of those monsters being occupied by him. Lucca and Lui eyes flashed as they knew Robert aim, the other monster seeing Robert open started swinging his scythe, but he stopped midway as he was flinched by the arrow hitting his shoulder-blade and right after two dagger hitting his arm. Lucca at this moment was already on the side of the baphomet and used a diagonal slash against it, without options the litte baphomet start moving to intercept the attack while another arrow pieces his ribcage.


    The little baphomets have indeed more intelligence than the average demon, mostly due being the minions of the perfect monster Baphomet, but they still didn¡¯t had intelligence equivalent to a grown man, and on the other side, Lucca¡¯s party had fought numerous battles together, therefore each member knew the other abilities and worked well like a fine machine. After the fall of the first little baphomet, the second was felled right after by the combination of arrows and slashes until it slowed its movement for a heavy swing of Robert. From there on the little mage party joined the fray and they easily finished the remaining three little baphomets with their superior numbers by a piercing attack.


    ¡°That was better than I expected¡± ¨C Said Lucca while walking towards his own party and used his mana into his eyes again and looked at the direction of Azlud town, in the dark horizon he could clearly see fire ahead ¨C ¡°though this only make me more worried¡­¡±

 Chapter 03 – Resolve

    Chapter 3 ¨C Resolve


    Lucca et al took the horns of the little baphomets, the most prized spoil, and soon after talked with the little girl party. He reported them about the fire towards Azlud and everybody grew alarmed, though they their party where being chased and they ran with all their might until the point of the previous fight, probably another herd of monsters already got into the town since long before.


    After a short break they sprinted towards Azlud. The road had traces of blood here and there along the way but they didn¡¯t saw as many corpses as before, it seems that the previous victims were the most unlucky ones.


    Within the hour after that the group found two more groups of little baphomets, but since they held two to three times more people they were easily dispatched. Little baphomets by themselves aren¡¯t really strong, the ones from before probably received demonic strength from their demon lord, but unless they had a special name they would lose this influence (blessing) since they were far from their lord.


    At the end of this hour, they finally arrived at the town, while the gate was still standing, that didn¡¯t mean much since there was a large hole at the side and monsters could easily go through.


    With his fist clenched Lucca again utilized his mana and sprinted towards the hole, the other rapidly followed. What welcomed them was a massacre, there were dozens of corpses, the floor was dyed red with blood, scent of death assaulted their noses and houses burned.


    ¡°It seems they already assaulted the city¡±


    ¡°I wonder if there are still people alive¡±


    ¡°Look at the houses¡± ¨C Robert pointed ¨C ¡°Despite the large volume of the fire, they still aren¡¯t completely burned, it seems they fought here not long ago, while this town isn¡¯t big, it can¡¯t be simple wiped out within an hour or two¡±


    Right at this moment, an explosion could be heard and everyone looked at that, it was only some distance away. Lucca rapidly dashed and climbed a big house that wasn¡¯t burning and reported after looking at a bridge ahead.


    ¡°There¡¯s a lot of demons ahead, they could easily outnumber 7 to 8 for each of us, although it¡¯s not so bad since they are fighting on the bridge and the demons can¡¯t use their superior numbers to attack them, it¡¯s clearly they won¡¯t last longer¡­¡±


    Yes, although it wasn¡¯t the worst situation it didn¡¯t changed the fact that what Lucca saw was clearly the demons overpowering the humans and it was just a question of time until they fall and advance their rampage through the rest of the town.


    *If we go to there we will easily be circled and die, if we don¡¯t go they will rampage the rest of the town and this city will be pretty much history. Tsk! Those damn monsters¡­ A surprise attack out of the blue, while Baphomet himself stayed in the gates of the capital, send such a force for this town¡­ yet how come those simple monsters destroy the walls so easily and carnage this much within hours?* ¨C Thought Lucca while checking his surroundings again, the dead could already be counted in the hundreds and that¡¯s only the outskirt of the city.


    Lucca looked again to his group and could see their hesitation. While Lucca wasn¡¯t a rash person, he understood that he was always a ¡®little¡¯ more reckless than his peers, which could be attributed to his upbringing in the desert city and the point that he started going through adventuring (danger) when he was barely ten years old.


    ¡°Robert, lead them out of city and go south towards forest city¡±


    ¡°What about you, Lucca? Are you going there?¡±


    ¡°Hahaha, of course not. I¡¯m not crazy enough to think I can just rush into a herd of monsters and kill them all by myself¡± ¨C Shrugged Lucca while seeing Robert sigh while already moving towards the whole in the wall.


    *Yet, looking again, what monster blasted the wall?* ¨C Lucca pondered while switched his focus to the bridge again ¨C *If they have a monster that strong, why are they still struggling to get past the bridge? * ¨C The sounds of the bridge grow more frantic, Lucca could see the human side getting overpowered and being exhausted as the time went on, this stale mate would end soon.


    *More importantly why there are so many different type of monsters together? They still haven¡¯t totally overpowered humans yet, so they definitely don¡¯t have high intellect, why are they together?*


    Demons are monsters with dark mana, that¡¯s the only difference to normal monsters, just because they are demons didn¡¯t mean they were stronger than normal monsters. The strange thing is that were acting together against humans. This is something shouldn¡¯t be happening, if the monsters were to be united under one command humanity would have been wiped ages ago. There are many perfect monsters (Monster/Demon Lords), yet they command only their kindred type monster and never got anywhere close of the downfall of the humans since they awakened mana.


    While sighing on this rare event that shouldn¡¯t exist, Lucca thought again what Ann said to him earlier, if he kept put in desert city his day wouldn¡¯t be so frantic. He had been running and fighting since the beginning of the day, despite having breaks here and there the fatigue was accumulating. While he had good control with his Mana and didn¡¯t easily waste, he was but a child and didn¡¯t have a large mana pool, that was something would get with daily consuming their mana or consuming food that had great source of mana and take a part to its own.


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    *It seems that I can fight at best for half hour if I were to keep balance and five minutes if I go out* ¨C Clenching his fist he thought about the earlier fights with the little baphomets ¨C *Even If I were to fight only against baphomets I could kill at maximum ten without the influence of their boss and that¡¯s fighting one at time¡­*


    Yet, despite the clearly disadvantage, he couldn¡¯t just run away. Lucca was abandoned by his parents at early age and his family (orphanage) all had the same fate, he stood since young to help raise his family, he couldn¡¯t bear to abandon the innocent people just to save himself.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry Ann¡­¡± ¨C At this moment he stored his short swords and took a gray mace and a red potion. While grabbing the mace tightly with his left hand he drunk in one gulp the red potion.


    Seconds after gulping the point, Lucca felt his blood boiling, his blood veins started popping a little and his eyes got a reddish color added. Those were the effects of the potion he just took, the Berserk Potion, with her one could easily keep fighting at maximum power.


    This potion dulled the pain of the user, partially disabled the natural limiter humans have to not hurt their own body and cleared the user mind, despite the first two effects having enormous after effects, the third one was the most terrifying thing about this potion, it kept the user in a state of semi-awareness that made his unable to properly judge his surrounding and just fought based on the true nature of the user. All humans had monsters as their enemies, so almost everyone who drunk this potion would fight endlessly against them, but the problem was that some people had darkness within them and would lose their reason and act based on their darkest desires. This happened countless times and this potion came to be known as true nature potion, where one would lay bare his desires.


    Lucca rushed through the left flank of the monsters and put all his weight down smashing the head or a nearby globin and there started his battle against countless monsters.


    ~~At the same time, somewhere else within Azlud~~


    Explosions could be heard and bodies of monsters everywhere. There was a man who had a black hair and eyes, also a grey beard, which was proof of his age, he wore a white shirt with a black jacket and pants. One could easily found this type of guy anywhere near the kingdom, but there were three differences, the first, he was tall, easily surpassing two meters and had a well-toned body, contrary to his age, while yielding a giant hammer as big as hid body and an enormous kite shield, the second one was that he was fighting with an almost three stores tall Minotaur and the third being the most noteworthy, he had mana flying near him, like mini starts orbiting the old man (sun).


    His movements were fast and precise, he was already battling for hours and had drawn the main force of the monsters away from the bridge, while wiping the great majority of those and keeping in check their leader, the perfect monster Minotaur. If he weren¡¯t here the town would have been erased long ago.


    ¡°Minotaur, it seems our playtime is over¡± ¨C Said the man while taking out his kite shield and started using his two hands to support the great hammer ¨C ¡°It seems that there was another person here to fight you demons, haha!¡±


    ¡°Shut up, human!¡± ¨C The Minotaur waved his great axe towards the man


    ¡°You know this is useless and now I don¡¯t have to worry about the town anymore, I can use all my energy to exterminate you!¡± ¨C The man shouted and went dashing to meet the Minotaur axe.


    A great wave of energy was sent from both weapons and the axe of the minotaur was deflected greatly making him open his whole right side, but the man had lost the great hammer which was blown away.


    ¡°What are you going to do now?! Die fucking human!¡±


    The Minotaur was preparing to follow up while swinging his axe back, but at this time he saw the face of the short (from his perspective) human grinning. He had a bad feeling from that and rapidly moved his left arm to protect his chest, but it was too late.


    The man had concentrated all his mana towards his right arm and it shined blue, red, yellow, green and so on, rapidly changing all the colors until it became silver and golden colored coating his whole arm, the silver part coating his whole arm and the golden part only his fist, like a spear the man raised his arm and swung it straight to the Minotaur chest, he moved rapidly and put his arm on the front, but that didn¡¯t mean anything to the man fist.


    The fist easily went through his arm and went to his chest, easily pierced that too, the minotaur and the man flew a few dozens of meters away thanks to that and the Minotaur fell lifeless on the ground, yet the hand didn¡¯t stop until it met the ground. At that moment, within kilometers, one could feel the earth trembling wildly, which lasted for a few seconds.


    The man stood up and looked his surroundings, the houses within hundreds of meters were destroyed, the bodies of the monsters were partially buried by the earth waves generated by the attack, it was nothing but destruction.


    ¡°That¡¯s why I don¡¯t like using the conduit, the supreme fist is too much, ha¡­¡± ¨C Said the man while looking his surroundings and checking the mince that was supposed to be the Minotaur ¨C ¡°Still, I didn¡¯t thought that there was a martyr in this little town.¡± ¨C Wisped the man while looking towards the bridge where Lucca was fighting.

 Chapter 04 – Berserk

    Chapter 4 ¨C Berserk


    ¡°That¡¯s why I don¡¯t like using the conduit, the supreme fist is too much, ha¡­¡± ¨C Said the man while looking his surroundings and checking the mince that was supposed to be the Minotaur ¨C ¡°Still, I didn¡¯t thought that there was a martyr in this little town.¡± ¨C Wisped the man while looking towards the bridge where Lucca was fighting.


    Lucca, under the effects of the Berserk Potion, promptly dashed to the flank of the monster force. His weapon of choice wasn¡¯t his typical short blades anymore, but the grey mace, in that battle lust state he couldn¡¯t keep his reasoning and aim for vital strikes anymore, so he choose to just smash it through.


    While he dashed his whole mana was running in his body and that¡¯s all, he couldn¡¯t keep his calm control anymore and use prudently, he truly became a berserker while using his mana only to strengthen his body. This caused his body to emit a faint golden aura that was detected by the stronger demons, since it was their archenemy.


    He stopped only when he was at the side of a goblin and swung his mace, the goblin couldn¡¯t react at all and didn¡¯t understand that what happened was death embracing him while half his head was smashed and then his body kicked to the other monsters side.


    The same thing happened three more times and bodies of weaker monster were flying towards the middle of the group, despite not being who had intellect nor had the feeling of having their archenemy on the present, most monsters understand that what downed them there was like the previous giant human who was fighting the boss Minotaur.


    Lucca kept attacking the monsters, every time he swung his mace or his right fist, one monster was sent flying away or died right after, this made the weaker monster started fearing this beast like human. The weaker monsters started running from the side and middle ranked ones come through to block Lucca¡¯s path, while the strongest, and somewhat wiser, watched the battle.


    There they saw a tiny human, golden clad in mana, which was moving like a wounded magic beast rampage, every swing of the mace searched made monsters staggers and demons felt as the reaper had personally come to kill them. If one where to tell them that was a ten meters tall ogre using illusion magic disguised as human that would make more sense that the current scene.


    The petit boy in one or two blows killed a middle ranked demon or heavily injured a normal monster, despite being surrounded, every time something approached it, he would welcome those with reckless savage attacks only beasts protecting their children would do, at this moment even the somewhat intelligent monsters and demons alike thought that this boy was in fact a fiend coming for their lives.


    Lucca continued battling disregarding everything else, his only thoughts at the moment whispered from his mouth while his body moved alone through the battlefield.


    ¡°Monster¡­ Exterminate¡­ Town¡­ Save¡­¡±


    But, the monsters outnumbered him heavily, while he had to gone all out and disregard his own defense to use those heavy blown that easily crushed them, he had to accept the other monsters attack. His raging mana protected him, but within some minutes his body was already swollen and bloody, yet he didn¡¯t felt this pain and kept fighting.


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    At this a huge noise attacked everybody¡¯s ears, the sound looked like if one where to drop a huge rock from the top of the tallest tower of the royal castle, right after the huge noise, while still having their ears tingling, the earth started trembling wildly.


    This happened only for a few seconds, but everything into disarray while looking for what was happening, not missing this opportunity, Lucca jumped swung his mace to a nearby Kobold and jumped through him, escaping their circling. At this time he restarted his goal and kept crushing the weaker monsters and demons.


    His carnage resumed and he already killed seven more monsters, finally the monsters regained their composure, but this time they didn¡¯t encircle him again. The monster also seemed weaker, and Orc need 3 to 4 hits to fall, this time died with just two.


    If Lucca was in his normal state he would also notice that the monsters stopped working like a team altogether, the weaker monster and demons started running away from him and the town, while the stronger ones started fighting between themselves and hunting the weaker one themselves, their normal behavior.


    At this time it would be the best if Lucca retreated and let them fight between themselves, but he couldn¡¯t reason in this berserk state and kept fighting. At this moment all the weaker monsters had already died or run, and there was only middle or stronger monster there.


    Lucca kept going, his mace met the axe of a nearby Minotaur, and both started clashing. Lucca was overpowered by him and it went flying a few meters back, while spitting blood out of his mouth he came back, repeated the same move, but this time he let go of his mace and moved his hands to grab the Minotaur arm.


    He kept clinging to it and using his whole body and mana force to break it, the Minotaur sensing the violent pain in his arm tried to shake him out without effect, then moving his other arm wildly to strike the puny human, what he didn¡¯t expected was the human letting go of the arm right at that moment and his left hand, which was like an eagle claw, strike his face.


    Lucca ripped off the Minotaur his eye and left which was crushed in his fist, seeing that the Minotaur went raging against the boy. Lucca grabbed a nearby crude axe that left by an Orc was using and resumed the fight against the Minotaur. He was in berserk state, but that didn¡¯t change one¡¯s nature, seeing how he robbed the Minotaur of the vision from one of the sides of the monster, he started attacking from the blind spot and easily chipped away the monster life until he died.


    Lucca kept felling the monsters, but his body started to get sluggish, he was indeed in the berserk state, but the damage and exhaustion kept accumulating and he was nearly without mana left, right at this moment Lucca noticed that he was being surrounded by four strong monsters of the Minotaur class, he tried to run, but felt a strong pain in his left side and was sent flying back to the middle. This time he was gasping for air while spitting blood, he vision was hazy and at his limit, it seems that he wouldn¡¯t be able to keep his promise with Ann, or so he thought while having a self-depreciating laugher which looked like screams of a dying beast to the monsters.


    They knew this boy shouldn¡¯t be underestimated, since he killed seventy monsters by himself, therefore they swung their bodies and weapon to dealt the finishing blown on Lucca.

 Chapter 05 – Vartre

    Chapter 5 ¨C Vartre


    In the next moment, all the weapons of the monsters assaulted the space were Lucca was, a loud sound could be heard, the sound of metal clashing. The monsters were surprised when they sensed their weapons being deflected back, a second before only the boy was there, in the blink of an eye a large men that could easily be mistaken as a bear stopped their attacks.


    Just from that attack they could feel from their instincts that this guy was bad news for them. Yet, they couldn¡¯t just stop there, they were right in the middle of a human city under the orders of their Lord, they couldn¡¯t possible run. So, they once more swung their weapons towards the human who blocked their path. If only they had known that their lord was no more in the hands of the bear-like man, they probably would have run for their lives.


    Their attacks once more were deflected by the man, what¡¯s more, it was with his bare hands, he just punched the monster weapons away, one of those weapons was sent flying while the others Minotaurs barely held their weapons despite their whole bodies being sent back a few meters.


    ¡°Now that the big guy is dead you guys got pretty weak, huh?¡± ¨C Said he while lifting a nearby High Orc and crushing his neck ¨C ¡°Well, it doesn¡¯t matter, you guys will die anyway¡±


    The monsters couldn¡¯t comprehend the man words, but they could feel a chill in their spines. Each of those were born in the jungle and were used to continuous battles for survival, that¡¯s why they could clearly see that this guy had the eyes and presence of the absolute beast (predator), the very top of the food chain (power).


    The man disappeared from their vision and flew towards a nearby Minotaur, then he swung his fist right in the middle of his stomach, it looked like a light blown without much power, but right in the moment the Minotaur felt the impact it was like he lost half his life and felt down to his knees, right after his eyes saw a boot going towards his face, which half crushed his head and made the Minotaur face flat.


    The other monsters seeing two of their strongest peers dying within less than 10 seconds abandoned their loyalty and started running towards the hole, like their instincts screamed.


    ¡°Running, huh?¡± ¨C At this moment the mana around the man started surging, the colorless mana started raging like mini-eruptions in the surface of his skin. The man put his two hands towards his front of his chest and in the next moment all the mana started moving towards the middle of his hands, forming a sphere that looked like a mini sun ¨C ¡°[Energy Blast]¡±


    The sphere exploded and right after a beam of heat exploded towards the running monsters. In the blink of an eye dozens upon dozens of monsters were decimated by the blast, the houses in the vicinity of the beam started burning anew and there was an even bigger hole in the walls.


    ¡°I went a little too far¡­¡± ¨C The man sighed while seeing the destruction of his last attack ¨C ¡°Still, I didn¡¯t thought the martyr would be this boya.¡±


    The man picked the collapsed Lucca which had a pale face despite his whole body being swollen from the incessant fights and drenched in blood, he also had difficulty to breathe and looked in pain.


    (He used everything he had to stop their march and gave me enough time to deal with the Perfect Minotaur, still he¡¯s just a kid)


    He put a liquid on Lucca¡¯s face and made him drink, right after one could see that his face become calmer and color was coming back from his face. The man took of water from his pack and threw on Lucca to wash some of the blood away.


    ¡°I¡¯m not good with this, but it¡¯s better than nothing¡± ¨C The man stood up and made a praying gesture with his hands, right after his colorless mana transformed into a blue golden color, then he concentered this mana in his fingertips and touched Lucca¡¯s forehead and muttered and chest ¨C ¡°[Heal][Mana Transfer]¡±


    In the next moment the man mana surged towards Lucca and quickly started repairing his wounded and tired body. After a few seconds the mana dissipated and Lucca body was good as new, the only difference between now and a normal day where he is sleeping soundly in his bad was his tattered clothes drenched in blood.


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    Looking Lucca condition was a lot better than a minute before the man took his sleeping body and moved towards the other part of the town after the bridge.


    ~ Some time later ~


    Lucca suddenly felt his conscious coming back and tried to open his eyes, he felt the light under his vision and tried to moving his arm to block, and then he felt a soreness he didn¡¯t felt since a long time when he started using his body every day, in the next moment he remembered what happened before he collapsed.


    (I¡¯m still alive?)


    Lucca moved his body sluggish towards the edge of the bed and stood up, then he checked the room and saw that it was a pretty big room, he moved towards the window and checked his surroundings. There he recognized the town of Azlud, although he wasn¡¯t particular about the town, he could see the destruction in the outskirts of the town and the large hole where he entered previously.


    ¡°Have you awoken dear guest?¡±


    ¡°Ah¡­¡± ¨C Lucca turned and looked the room once more, he was alone there, at least he was supposed to be, when his vision scanned the room one more time he saw a young woman sitting in a chair near a table a few meters away from the bed he was in just now, looking his surroundings once more and checking this time for sure they were the only ones in the room, he answered ¨C ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Then that¡¯s good¡± ¨C The woman stood while giggling and continued ¨C ¡°Excuse me for the late introduction, but I¡¯m Vera¡±


    ¡°Lucca¡±


    ¡°Lucca-sama? What a good name¡± ¨C She looked her eyesight on Lucca body, which had his top naked and was wearing just shorts ¨C ¡°Lucca-sama please put those clothes that we prepared for you?¡±


    Only at this time Lucca realized he was almost naked, he normally didn¡¯t get shy with those interactions since he was used living in the orphanage, but he couldn¡¯t help but be a little bashful with the gaze of a pretty young woman like Vera.


    ¡°Thank you¡± ¨C Said he while quickly pulled the nearby shirt and put on.


    ¡°You¡¯re welcome Lucca-sama.¡±


    ¡°Why I¡¯m here?¡± ¨C Asked Lucca while finished putting a pants and met Vera¡¯s gaze again.


    ¡°You don¡¯t remember?¡± ¨C asked the puzzled Vera.


    ¡°I remember fighting a bunch of monsters, then collapsing¡±


    ¡°Ahh¡­ then let me told you.¡±


    Vera explained what she saw on the other side the bridge. The man who felled the remaining monsters in minutes, while helping the exhausted Lucca and bringing him to Vera to let him rest. Lucca eyes shined while she told him about how he killed monsters with his bare hands easily, or how he one-sided vanquished the remaining with one attack.


    ¡°By the way, that isn¡¯t all, do you remember the large earthquake before you collapsed?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°That was him too¡± ¨C Vera paused and stared Lucca¡¯s eyes ¨C ¡°while he finished a perfect monster, the lord of those guys who attacked our town and their main force¡±


    Lucca was alarmed and moved to the window again, there he saw the opposite side of the town outskirts, and he concentrated mana in his eyes and saw countless corpses of monsters, which would easily outnumber the monsters on the bridge 4 to 5 times.


    ¡°Where is this man now?¡±


    ¡°Vartre-sama thought you would ask that, therefore he left me with something for you before leaving¡±


    (Vartre? I fell like I have heard this name somewhere before¡­)


    ¡°Here¡± ¨C She then took a little box and gave to Lucca.


    Lucca opened the box and saw a golden emblem of a woman clad in shining armor with four angel wings on her back, while wielding lance and a shield, in the moment he touched that emblem Lucca felt a certain familiarity for a moment, but right after the sensation stopped and he was left wondering who was Vartre, why he had left his emblem and why he had felt this was familiar for a moment.

 Chapter 06 – Reward and Homecoming

    Chapter 6 ¨C Reward and Homecoming


    ¡°There you have it, Lucca-sama.¡±


    ¡°Ah, yes¡± ¨C Answered while putting the emblem on his pants pocket and remembering he was having a conversation with the young woman ¨C ¡°Thanks for letting me know, Vera-san.¡±


    ¡°No, that much is nothing, after all you helped defeating the monsters too!¡±


    ¡°I did nothing compared to Vartre¡±


    ¡°That may be true¡­¡± ¨C Said Vera with a puzzled face ¨C ¡°but, if it wasn¡¯t for you holding the monsters and shifting their attention from the bridge, who knows how much people would have died before Vartre-sama arrived¡±


    Then she come closer to Lucca, she was a young woman while Lucca was just a 14 y/o boy, despite he being taller than most people at this age, he had the same stature as her, making booth of them match their eyes, at this moment she clasped his hands and stared deeply at his eyes, then took a step back and bowed towards him.


    ¡°Lucca-sama, no matter what you think, you saved the lives of numerous people, including my family, for this you have my¡­ no, our town gratitude.¡±


    ¡°I understand, I understand, please lift your head!¡± ¨C Lucca clearly didn¡¯t expect such a reason and was embarrassed.


    After the air of room got a little awkward, Vera continued ¨C ¡°I¡¯m thankful¡± ¨C She lifted her head and moved towards the door ¨C ¡°I¡¯m sure that after sleeping for a day you should be hungry, let¡¯s move to the dining room and have breakfast?¡±


    Lucca accepted the proposal and followed her. In the house he saw plenty of other people, each of those thanked him for protecting their town, their families and so on. Lucca was depended by his younger family in the orphanage and was kind used to this, but he couldn¡¯t help but be shy when everybody was thanking him like that.


    He ate the breakfast together with the others and then both of them moved to Vera¡¯s study.


    ¡°Here are your backpack Lucca¡± ¨C Said Vera while giving him his bag back ¨C ¡°Also there are those too¡± ¨C Continued Vera while delivering three more bags to Lucca.


    ¡°Those aren¡¯t mine¡±


    ¡°Yes, I know¡± ¨C Said while pressing those bags on him and continued ¨C ¡°But you helped our town, right? Vartre said he didn¡¯t want anything. Therefore you should take the rewards for helping us.¡±


    Lucca accepted and looked inside the bags, there he saw ores that could be sold at high prices in the capital and some sacks of gold coins. Lucca frowned, it¡¯s true that he helped the town, but most of the work wasn¡¯t made by him, furthermore great part of the outskirts of the town were destroyed and there was a large hole in walls. This town, Azllud, was close to the capital, but they weren¡¯t particularly rich as far as Lucca knew.


    Lucca took one sack of gold from the backpacks and put them back on the nearby sofa ¨C ¡°This is enough for me¡± ¨C Said while beaming ¨C ¡°After all I did all of that for self-satisfaction!¡±


    ¡°If you say so, Lucca-sama¡± ¨C Vera understood that Lucca was somewhat worried at the town state, yet he just picked a sack of gold, that could barely count as anything near the lives he saved. Seeing his smiling mien, Vera couldn¡¯t help but chuckle a little and continued ¨C ¡°Once more thank you for your assistance Lucca-sama, I will always remember your self-satisfaction.¡±


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    Lucca took his things and exited the large house. Then he moved towards the center of the city and used the teleportation system to his hometown, the desert city. Lucca scanned his surroundings as if checking if there was an attack from monsters in the desert town too, but he saw people doing their business normally and quickly dispelled his fears.


    He moved towards the northern part of the city, where his home, the orphanage, was located and while focusing mana in his legs rapidly arrived ¨C ¡°Ahhh, I wonder what Ann will do to me when she sees me¡­¡± ¨C After murmuring those words he opened the door to his home and saw Ann, the beautiful blond sister who always taken care of him, she had a tired expression and marks on her face, one could easily understand that she cried for quite some time.


    ¡°Lucca!¡± ¨C Hearing her voice Lucca clenched his teeth and expected for her usual learning chops, but he was assaulted by her arms that clung his body ¨C ¡°Lucca you¡¯re finally back¡­¡± ¨C Her voice was trembling in the end and she started crying again.


    When Ann heard that Lucca had sneaked again she wasn¡¯t particularly worried, since the little devil used to do this quite a few times, but when she heard from the monster attack in the capital and how he didn¡¯t came back, she couldn¡¯t help but worry and had passed the whole day crying, Lucca couldn¡¯t help but feel guilty.


    ¡°I¡¯m back¡± ¨C He hugged her back, at this moment a lot of children started popping up in the room and jumped towards both while embracing them while saying that their Big brother was back.


    Sometime after the confusion, things settled and Lucca and Ann moved to a private room, there he told her what happened in the last day and finally took the sack of gold and gave to her ¨C ¡°Ann, here it¡¯s the reward for this time.¡±


    Right when he was taking the reward he felt his left cheek being struck by Ann¡¯s hand ¨C ¡°Who would money that came from you almost losing your life?!¡± ¨C Ann couldn¡¯t help but cry again when she heard the stories of how Lucca almost died over and over again until the point he collapsed in front of the monsters ¨C ¡°Promise me, promise me that will never to something so stupid again! What would we do if you abandoned us Lucca?¡±


    Lucca felt his heart torn by Ann words and his guilty only augmented ¨C ¡°I¡¯m sorry Ann, I¡¯m sorry¡­¡±


    Sometime later both settled down again, Lucca passed the money to Ann, with this the orphanage could go on for a couple of years without worrying about food. After the whole exhausting day he had yesterday and the whole emotional distress today, he felt tired and moved to his room, there he laid down in the bed.


    ¡°I thought I was somewhat stronger after those years, but compared to Vartre I am weak¡± ¨C Then he took the emblem from his pocket and stared at the emblem.


    Moments later he felt asleep. That night he had a dream, in this dream he felt like he was in the clouds and had a chat with the beautiful winged woman carved in the golden emblem. He tried remembering what he talked with her, but he couldn¡¯t remember anything.

 Chapter 07 – Departure

    Chapter 7 ¨C Departure


    (Huh?!) ¨C Lucca suddenly awoke when he was dreaming ¨C (That woman, I know her¡­) ¨C Clenching his hands he noticed he was still holding the emblem and bought it near his eyes ¨C (More like, isn¡¯t that woman the same as the symbol carved here?)


    Lucca once more analyzed the golden emblem of the armor clad winged woman, who wielded a lance and a shield, this woman was clearly not something that he ever saw or heard, she was more like an avatar of a legend taken form, still he couldn¡¯t deny the sensation of familiarity he had when first touched the emblem nor the fact he had just dreamed about a woman who had uncanny resemblance with this emblem.


    Lucca stood up and checked the window, the sky was still dark, it seems he awoke too soon, there were barely any people aside in guard duty. He opened the window and with a quick move jumped through it, while concentrating mana on his legs and landed safely despite his room being on the third floor.


    He moved to his usual spot near the sides of the orphanage, then took a short sword and a dagger from his backpack and started his (almost) daily practice. He remembered the whole chain of battles he had to go through in the last day and used this image to fight the demons inside his mind, he would go this process over and over again until he deemed that he could beat the demons the best way in the shortest time.


    Although one couldn¡¯t predict how the battles would turn if some of the variables were to change, Lucca constant mental training to find the most efficient to end his enemies were one of the reasons he could be considered strong within adventurers. He piled experience and trained thoroughly, thanks to that he could act in battle almost always in an optimal way as long as he had faced one of the monsters before was one of his strengths.


    Sometime has passed and it the sky was already clear, Lucca was still training without minding his surroundings, when he was assaulted by the warm sensation of the embrace.


    ¡°Lucca, why do you train so hard?¡± ¨C Said Ann while clinging to his back and resting her chin his shoulder ¨C ¡°You train so hard every day and the moment I have to go to work you vanish and only come back tattered in the evening¡­¡±


    Lucca was enjoying the warm sensation, but then he remembered he was drenched in sweat thanks to his training and rapidly moved away from her embrace, while saying ¨C ¡°Why? Isn¡¯t obvious that it¡¯s to help our family?¡±


    Ann while sighing chopped Lucca forehead ¨C ¡°Ahh¡­ you never learns, I thought I could leave you alone to learn on your own, but the last day was just too dangerous and I know you wouldn¡¯t listen to anyone since you¡¯re still a brat¡± ¨C Ann sighed once more and continued ¨C ¡°Lucca, try to remember, have you ever saw someone else who was near your age while you¡¯re adventuring?¡±


    Lucca squinted his eyes, he couldn¡¯t refute her brat and reckless remarks, so he kept listening while massaging his swollen forehead. Then he heard the rest of the talk and despite he having a great memory he couldn¡¯t remember meeting anyone near his age. Lastly he remembered the little mage, but he knew that from the talk he had with that party they were already traveling together for years, so it was likely she was already in her twenties.


    ¡°Now that you mention, although I remember some young kids having jobs in the cities, I don¡¯t remember seeing anyone near my age in hunting quests¡­¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s a reason for that¡± ¨C Ann then took one of the books she usually read for the young children and gave to Lucca ¨C ¡°Do you remember this story?¡±


    Taking the book and seeing the cover, showed a puzzled expression ¨C ¡°It¡¯s the book of mana, it¡¯s about how we awoke the ability called mana and then had enough strength to oppose the monsters, how could I not known?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, it¡¯s about mana. Since you won¡¯t listen unless I teach you, I guess it¡¯s time, otherwise you gonna continue your reckless hunting, despite knowing nothing¡±


    ¡°The reason why you couldn¡¯t remember seeing anyone near your age is pretty simple actually, up until sixteen years our race is still on its infancy period, therefore the body hasn¡¯t fully developed and went through the process to being able to wield large amounts of mana¡±


    Ann pointed to the orphanage and continued ¨C ¡°Look at your brothers and sisters, can any of them use enough mana to embody in some part of the world to create a phenomenon or strengthen their body to fight like you?¡±


    ¡°They can¡¯t¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, until being 16 y/o and going through the mana blessing ritual one body couldn¡¯t held the mana necessary to use and [skill], therefore you won¡¯t see children adventuring, since they can¡¯t use mana, that would be the same as sending them to their deaths¡± ¨C Ann paused and stared at Lucca ¨C ¡°That¡¯s the reason that why when you were eleven and I discovered you were going on those hunting I beaten you so bad, because that would be the same as seeking its own death!¡±


    Lucca remembered the incident and couldn¡¯t help but show a wry smile.


    ¡°Ahh¡­ Of course for every rule there¡¯s a exception¡± ¨C Said Ann while letting go of Lucca and concentrating mana on her eyes, she could clearly see that Lucca¡¯s body housed large quantity of mana that was simple impossible to see in anyone who didn¡¯t went thought the ritual of mana blessing ¨C ¡°I don¡¯t know the reason why you have so much mana, but thanks to that you could live to this day despite being such a reckless brat.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to repeat that¡­¡±


    ¡°If you know I¡¯m repeating myself, why don¡¯t you listen to my words?¡± ¨C Ann could hear a faint ¡®sorry¡¯ leaking from Lucca¡¯s lips and continued ¨C ¡°Therefore kids shouldn¡¯t go through this dangers without mana or a job¡­¡±


    ¡°Job?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, job. That¡¯s the second part of the explanation. Kohon¡­¡± ¨C Ann adjusted her throat and continued ¨C ¡°Are you aware that by using mana we can interfere with the laws of the word and use things like magic or strength or bodies to exceed the human capacity, right?¡±


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    ¡°Yes, I don¡¯t know about magic, but I daily use mana to strength my body so I could fight.¡±


    ¡°The common name for using strengthening one¡¯s own body or weapon is called skill, when creating an independent phenomenon like this¡± ¨C Ann moved away from Lucca and moved her right hand in praying form and shouted ¨C ¡°[Restore] ¡­ is called magic¡±


    Lucca once again saw Ann ability, her magic permeated his body and he felt his fatigue going away. He had some knowledge about her work as healer, since she had to help the people who fought in the desert almost daily, but he never went to saw the process since he was busy doing his own things and felt a little jealously when he saw Ann working hard to help other people.


    ¡°In this case I can use skills too!¡± ¨C Lucca showed a confident smile while using the mana in his own body to strength his legs and jumped a height that a normal human couldn¡¯t dream.


    ¡°You¡¯re wrong, that¡¯s not a skill¡±


    ¡°How come? Didn¡¯t I used my mana to strength my body and did something one usually couldn¡¯t?¡±


    ¡°Ahh¡­ Lucca¡± ¨C Ann sighed once more ¨C ¡°Indeed you used your mana to strength and could display such a feat, but this isn¡¯t a skill¡± ¨C Ann moved near Lucca once more and hugged him ¨C ¡°I¡¯m glad you at least obeyed me about this.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¨C Answered bashfully.


    ¡°I¡¯m saying that, I¡¯m glad you didn¡¯t disobeyed me and went to the desert or any place far away of the capital¡± ¨C Ann moved away from the embraced and placed her head a few centimeters away from Lucca¡¯s ¨C ¡°otherwise you would die for sure.¡±


    Lucca saw Ann serious eyes, those were the first time she showed him those. He felt a chill in his spine and rapidly moved away his own eyes, dodging her stare.


    ¡°Lucca, are you aware where we live?¡± ¨C Without giving time for him to answer, she continued ¨C ¡°We live in the desert city of Marlok, the very first line of defense against countless monsters for this kingdom¡± ¨C She moved away her gaze and stared at the orphanage ¨C ¡°The majority of the children living here are probably orphans of people dying in the desert. Despite this city having such a poor security and having bandits and assassins does as they please, the kingdom still let them live here, do you know why?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t¡± ¨C Lucca always had thought about this, why the kingdom let such hoodlums do as they please in a city that was supposed to protect them.


    ¡°Because they have power. They may be trash, but as long as this trash kills enough monsters they let them go. That¡¯s the state of our kingdom.¡±


    Ann took a letter from her bag together with a sack of gold he previously gave to her ¨C ¡°Lucca, despite the appearances, since I¡¯ve come to this desert city, I used all of my power and make the orphanage and kept him going for quite some time, right? Although I won¡¯t deny that I couldn¡¯t give everything that the little guys deserved, I did my utmost for you guys.¡±


    ¡°No, you always gave us everything! I only do these things for my own self-satisfaction, Ann¡± ¨C Lucca didn¡¯t know why, but he could feel his chest hurting.


    ¡°I¡¯m glad to hear¡± ¨C Ann beamed a smile that always had helped them once more to Lucca and continued ¨C ¡°Therefore take these and go to the capital.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Lucca you can¡¯t keep living like that, one day you will die, for that reason I prepared this letter and this is the money you gave me that almost cost your own life¡± ¨C She pressed those on Lucca¡¯s chest until he took them ¨C ¡°You will go to the cathedral in capital and deliver this letter to one of the priests there, then they will teach you about skills and magic, then you can get a job and finally become a full-fledged adventurer.¡±


    ¡°Are you telling me to go?¡± ¨C Answered Lucca while shedding some tears and grasping both items.


    ¡°No Lucca. I wanted to live with you at least until you got sixteen¡± ¨C She once more hugged him and continued while talking near his ear ¨C ¡°Lucca, not always having strength is a good thing, all this time you lived dangerously and almost died countless times, I can¡¯t count how many times I saw you all beaten over and just last night if wasn¡¯t by the man you mentioned you would have died.


    I tried to stop you countless times, yet you never listen to me, you have this self-satisfaction thing you always mention and you jump in the claws of danger despite barely knowing anything. I can¡¯t go on working while worrying when you gonna disappear. Therefore please go to the capital and learn real strength so you can back those actions.¡±


    Lucca couldn¡¯t answer her. He always was selfish and put worry on her head, so he kept quite while hugging Ann.


    ¡°It¡¯s not like it¡¯s the last time we will see each other, though it usually take some time until you can learn all the basic skills to have a job, you can always come back with the teleport, right?¡±


    Ann let go of Lucca and moved to the orphanage ¨C ¡°Lucca, become strong and then come back¡± ¨C When she was near the door, she turned one last time to see him and shower her usual smile that Lucca always loved to see, while having tears falling from her eyes ¨C ¡°See you soon¡±


    Lucca stood there without knowing how to react. He thought that was just a normal day and went training as usual, but now he had a letter and a sack of gold coins while being totally overpowered by his lovely sister. It was already near noon and he kept there just thinking about all the experiences and everything she told him.


    He began to move towards the center of the city so he could teleport to the capital, where he would start learning a job and become de facto a real adventurer.

 Chapter 08 – Mana, Skill and Job

    Chapter 8 ¨C Mana, Skill and Job


    Lucca arrived at the capital short after thanks to the teleport system. He looked around and saw the capital was bustling with people as usual, it seemed that the monsters that caused the massacre outside was already an event of the past.


    Lucca walked calmly towards the direction of the cathedral and after an hour he could see the big structure that was the base of the church. He moved inside and saw numerous people praying, waiting for healing, confessing and so on. He moved towards a nearby clergyman about info of the church.


    The clergyman instructed him to move to the reception in a corridor nearby. After going through he saw a large queue, he went there and started waiting his turn. After a quarter of hour had passed he was greeted by a nun and he asked where he could learn a job in the church while delivering Ann¡¯s letter.


    When the nun saw the seal on the letter she had a surprised face and said something to another sister while passing the letter and saying to Lucca follow her.


    Lucca followed the sister towards the inner parts of the building until a big room, there was an aged man who accepted the letter and opened. After a few minutes he finished reading and looked at Lucca, his gaze fell on Lucca and after some time he muttered lightly ¡°I see¡±.


    Lucca kept quiet, he did not know why he was asked to come here because of the letter. This man clearly had some power within the church, since he had such a large room within the cathedral and he was the one who read the letter after the sisters panicked.


    ¡°Lucca Bright, hmm¡­ By this letter I can see that you want to learn a job, despite still not being sixteen, is that right?¡±


    ¡°Yes¡±


    ¡°The letter explained me your situation, but you still have to pass our test if you want to learn the job, is this fine with you?¡±


    ¡°Yes¡­ but, I don¡¯t know which job I will be taking¡­¡±


    ¡°Haha, guess that young lady didn¡¯t told ya¡± ¨C Laughed the old man, after a few seconds he continued ¨C ¡°We are in the church, so obviously the job learned for young people is [acolyte]¡±


    ¡°[acolyte] is it¡­¡± ¨C Lucca had a dejected face, he was a fighter type, he didn¡¯t understood why Ann would make him learn this job.


    The man saw Lucca¡¯s worries and continued ¨C ¡°It seems you don¡¯t have a good grasp of what a job is, nor an acolyte, guess I should explain since the young girl didn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°First of all, the mana, it¡¯s the power (tool) that granted us strength. From the world view-point mana should be called its own blood. For us, living beings, mana could be interpreted as air and food. The same way living beings need air to breath and food to live, mana has become a vital function within oneself. Are you aware of monster crystals?¡±


    ¡°Yes¡±


    ¡°Without the crystal monsters would have their mana go wildly and they would die due to internal injuries. Although humans don¡¯t have crystal like organs like the monsters, our heart and lungs were modified to be able to ¡®breathe¡¯ the mana from the world and supply our system with it, and this mana is used to produce those type of phenomenon.¡±


    Said the old man while waving his hand and a beam or energy was shoot to the ceiling.


    ¡°This is the aspect that I called as food (energy). Now why do you think monsters attack cities or seclude themselves in isolated places?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know¡±


    ¡°Monsters are aberrations generated thanks to mana, while some of them are mutations from normal beasts, such as wolves, condors and so on. The most normal type of monster is the type who is born from mana itself. Such as the undead or demons, those are corrupted souls born from places with volatile mana. Of course, sometimes there are monsters born from only mana itself, though those are close to beasts and don¡¯t possess any intelligence from the soul.


    Now comes my second point about Mana, do you happen to know what would happen if a take one of those monsters born from mana and leave them in a place with low concentration of mana?¡±


    ¡°They become weaker?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, for those monsters, they need places with plenty of mana to live, if they abandon their habitats, they must move to another place with abundant mana, that¡¯s the reason when territorial fights break between the monsters, the losers have to move out and usually those target the places such as our cities, that¡¯s why I saw mana is also like air, they need to live.


    By the way, although it¡¯s not necessary for you now, but when one has large capacities of mana, the same things happen to us, therefore if you have to go to a place with low concentration of mana, you have to prepare items to replenish it. I¡¯m sure you already have gone through mana starvation, now imagine this effect multiplied, that¡¯s how bad it is.¡±


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    (Although I always had used mana, I never knew such things, no wonder Ann was always worried with me)


    ¡°Now that mana is out of the way, it¡¯s about skills or magic. From the letter I¡¯m aware that you have good mana manipulation and used it to battle, but as the young girl said, those aren¡¯t skills, look¡±


    The old man stood up for the first time, despite being an old man with long hair, he was considerable tall and had a body that didn¡¯t match his rugged face. He waved his hand and a beam of light was shot to the ceiling once more.


    ¡°This is similar to what you have been doing all this time, utilizing mana to create phenomenon that interfere with the laws of the world, such as the ray of light just now or concentrating mana in my eyes to strengthen the vision and so on¡± ¨C The old man coughed and sit once more ¨C ¡°While those are certainly useful and help people, since it¡¯s easy to learn and have good effect, still they aren¡¯t skills nor magic. Skill is the act of creating phenomenon within oneself.


    With the former being the type of utilizing mana to interfere with the laws of the world to create a phenomenon, while the later creates laws within oneself to execute it. Look¡±


    The old man once more extended his hands towards the sky ¨C ¡°[Holy Cross]¡± ¨C A beam of light on the shape of a cross was formed and irradiated a divine feeling ¨C ¡°Comparing this and the beam of light previously, which one do you think it was the stronger?¡±


    ¡°The one just now is clearly stronger¡± ¨C Said the amazed Lucca while staring the cross that stood firmly in the air.


    ¡°Haha, that¡¯s right. Also, I used almost the same amount of mana to execute both¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s so much more powerful and consumes almost the same amount of mana?¡± ¨C Lucca was shocked, he couldn¡¯t believe that despite being such a power gap between the two types, the mana necessary was almost the same ¨C ¡°Now I see why said all those things¡­¡± ¨C Muttered Lucca while admiring the skills.


    ¡°Yes, in fact it used a little more mana because I maintained the effect, otherwise it would be the same¡± ¨C The man stared at Lucca¡¯s golden eyes and continued ¨C ¡°Then, continuing the conversation, about jobs, it¡¯s nothing special actually, job is just the common name for those who learned all the basic skills of a specified type, for example, to have the job (certification) of mage, one would need to know the basic magic of fire, ice, thunder and earth.


    In our case, the most basic job (certification) that can be learned in the church would be acolyte, which is given to someone who knows [Heal], [Cure], [Protection] and [Blessing].¡±


    ¡°I see, so jobs are just names given to a person who has mastery of a specified set of skills¡± ¨C Muttered Lucca while agreeing with the Old Man ¨C ¡°But I don¡¯t understand why Ann would send me here to become an acolyte despite I never using magic once before¡±


    The old man took two items from his drawer and put in front of Lucca, the first one was a portrait of a young Ann with other sister and the old man, the second one being a crystal ball.


    ¡°There¡¯s probably two reasons, the first one is that Ann learned her job here, after all¡± ¨C The old man pressed the crystal ball on Lucca and continued ¨C ¡°Put your mana in this crystal¡±


    Lucca didn¡¯t understood why he was asked that, but he charged his mana inside, then the crystal shined a bright golden color with blue and green colors on the sides of the spectrum.


    ¡°It¡¯s as her said¡± ¨C Muttered the old man while looking the mana ¨C ¡°Your natural mana is of golden color, the holy type¡± ¨C The man stopped and gazed his golden eyes once again ¨C ¡°Usually our race don¡¯t have aptitude for a specific job (skills) like other races, such as elves or dwarves, but you have innate holy mana, that¡¯s the best aptitude possible for learning and using skills of the holy class. That¡¯s the second reason you was sent here¡±


    The old man averted his gaze and looked to the window. Right on the opposite side of the capital there was another imposing building.


    ¡°Of course that doesn¡¯t mean you have to abandon your own style to become a healer or something along these lines, as I said, job is just a title bestowed upon having the basic set of skills. You can always learn any skill or job later, but having innate Holy type it would be a waste to not learn any Holy skills, don¡¯t you agree?¡±


    Convinced by the man lecture, Lucca also looked in the window toward the other imposing building. He had finally understood why he was sent here, he was determined to learn the acolyte skills and then the fighting skills in the other building, the fort where the knights of the kingdom were stationed.

 Chapter 09 – Saint

    Chapter 9 ¨C Saint


    (That¡¯s right, for now I should just focus on learning those skills like Ann said, then I could go to other place to learn other skills freely) ¨C Thought Lucca while looking the city scenery through the window.


    The old man saw the change on Lucca mien and understood that he agreed.


    ¡°Lucca Bright, do you wish to learn the holy skills and become an [acolyte]?¡±


    Lucca turned and replied without thinking ¨C ¡°Yes!¡±


    ¡°Good!¡± ¨C The old man extended his hand and grabbed the crystal ball ¨C ¡°But to enter the church as a student one need to pass two tests¡± ¨C He charged his mana inside and the crystal ball shined strongly ¨C ¡°The first one you already passed, it¡¯s a measurement to know if you have enough to learn skills without burdening your body, although it¡¯s not a little lower than the average, to think you have this much while still being a brat that didn¡¯t go through the ritual of blessing¡­ Perhaps one day you will possess an outrageous amount of mana.¡±


    ¡°Ritual? Blessing of Mana? I have heard this a lot those days, but what exactly is this?¡± ¨C Lucca said while scratching his head and remembering his normal hunting days ¨C ¡°I¡¯ve been hunting and doing some quests for a time, but I never heard about this.¡±


    ¡°From the letter, it seems the little girl have told you to not go outside the outskirts of the capital, right?¡± ¨C Then the old man moved his pocket and took the sack of coins Lucca had given to the sister attendant earlier ¨C ¡°Do you think we charge this much money to teach our children skills to save other humans?¡±


    ¡°Now that mention, that¡¯s weird, why the church would charge people this much to learn skills necessary for our survival? Although I didn¡¯t (like to) watched Ann and the other sister and priests work, I know how dangerous is the desert and how many lives the saved¡± ¨C Lucca cut the volume of his voice and murmured the rest ¨C ¡°including myself.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. With much less money you would do fine, in fact most of the students use their own learned skill to work as payment for the lessons, lessening the constant burden of the church.


    Going back to the topic, this money is going to be used when you became sixteen and go through the ritual. The ritual itself is simple and can be done within some hours, the problem is that the materials necessary for the event, those are rare.


    Since you worked in the outskirts of the capital, you mostly hunted normal beasts and lesser monster, right? Although it¡¯s possible to someone with your amount of mana and experience being able to take down middle ranked monster or even stronger one, depending on the affinity, it usually ends with the death of our people.¡±


    Lucca smiled wryly at this part while remembering that even with the berserk potion he couldn¡¯t do much and almost died just a few nights ago.


    ¡°As you should understand by now, the plains outside the capital have one of the lowest concentrations of mana, therefore the monsters are weak and the people who actively go out of the way to hunt those usually don¡¯t possess much money, therefore they couldn¡¯t go to the ritual.


    Now if you were to go the seaside city in the south of the kingdom or your hometown, the desert of Marllok, it would be unthinkable to go there without going through the ritual, unless the person had a death wish.¡±


    (I see, in the end I was in the weakest place of all, didn¡¯t know anything and thought I could be a hero, no wonder Ann cried so much. I¡¯ve been just doing stupid things one after the other, I wonder how I didn¡¯t die yet) ¨C while self-depreciating Lucca felt pain in his chest and put his hand there, he felt a faint heat from the golden medallion for a moment, but in the next second it was nothing happened transmitting the usual cold sensation of the metal ¨C (Am I imagining things?)


    The old man kept and saw Lucca reaction and his deep thoughts, after some seconds of silence Lucca finally returned from his while blinking and the man continued.


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    ¡°It seems we have been talking for quite some time, let¡¯s finish this fast, after all you have yet to pass the second test¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the second test?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s nothing especial¡± ¨C Said the old man while rummaging thought the drawer and finally taking a map, which he put on the top of the desk ¨C ¡°The little girls from the reception would say it¡¯s a test of patience and endurance, but I¡¯m old, so I¡¯m a little more direct¡± ¨C Said while pointing to a building in the northwest of the capital ¨C ¡°There¡¯s no necessity for students to learn in the church (cathedral) if they don¡¯t know the basic skills [Heal], [Cure] or [Blessing], in fact they would only burden the priests working here, therefore you will go there and learn these skills there.


    The test is just to go there alone, well, in your case I doubt the little girl would have time to take you there.¡±


    ¡°I see¡­ So I just have to go there alone and that¡¯s it?¡±


    ¡°Yeah¡± ¨C The old man toke a little white bird statue and give to Lucca ¨C ¡°Just give them this and you¡¯re good.¡±


    At that time, for the first time through this long conversation, the nun who bought Lucca showed a reaction, her eyes squinted a little, although Lucca didn¡¯t noticed, the old man saw that and showed a smile. Right after Lucca thanked the old man and dashed off. After Lucca vanished from their sight, the nun said.


    ¡°It this fine, Lord Hale?¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Giving such outrageous thing for that boy¡­¡± ¨C Said the nun while remembering that little white bird, which was the symbol of the greatest influence within the church of this kingdom, Cardinal Hale.


    ¡°Haha, this much is nothing, look¡± ¨C Said Hale while showing the letter to the nun.


    While she understood that the boy was a rare talent for having such mana at this young age, this wasn¡¯t particularly abnormal, as such talents appeared every generation. She didn¡¯t understand why Cardinal Hale, despite being the busiest people in the church, would take so much time to teach a youth. At least that was what she was thinking until she started learning the letter.


    ¡°An-Angela?¡± ¨C She stopped reading while shaking and stuttering ¨C ¡°That Angela?¡±


    Hale just nodded and laughing as watching her panicked reaction was interesting, after a few time she calmed down and continued reading. The letter told the history of how Angela met Lucca, his innate holy mana, his adventures despite his age, his superb mana control and finally the protection of Azlud.


    ¡°I see¡­ He is the young kid from the rumors that helped defend Azlud, despite the attack on the capital, furthermore he is the [Saint] Angela prot¨¦g¨¦, no wonder, no wonder.¡±


    Muttered the nun admired. Lucca achievement was certainly great for someone as young as him who didn¡¯t even had his ritual, yet even if he didn¡¯t do anything, just being taken by the Saint Angela herself was proof of his talent.


    Angela Bright since young possessed great talent, she quickly became an acolyte before the age of the ritual. Due to her young age and ability she quickly gathered attention, thanks to that she would flock everywhere to help with request from the citizens, such as healing people, helping experienced parties of adventurers exterminate dangerous monsters or repel city attacks. With time she became a priest, her fame increased more and she was asked to help in pretty much every monster attack, until a few years ago there was a great invasion on the border city of the west, she worked for one week without rest and saved countless lives, this event awakened a special skill which granted her the title of [Saint].


    Those were legendary events within the whole kingdom, yet Lucca wouldn¡¯t know this until much later when he went to the border city himself.

 Chapter 10 – Flora

    Chapter 10 ¨C Flora


    Lucca left the cathedral, his objective for now is going to the church school, still he was hungry and soon it would be sunset, therefore he went for an Inn and spend the night in the capital. In the next day after completing his daily training and eating breakfast he moved towards the eastern gate.


    (Still, why would they bother in making a church so far in the capital right in the middle of nothing?)


    Despite being early the streets were already crowded with merchants selling fresh crops, alchemists selling potions, adventurers selling monster fur and so on, it was lively. Lucca bought food for a week, basic health and mana potions and antidotes. Every time before going on a request he did this, thanks to his experience he knew how hard it would be to be stranded outside the cities without the basic supplies.


    After buying everything he needed he moved went out of the big gate. It was Lucca¡¯s first time being in that part outside the city, yet the green and yellow plains hardly changed. Lucca let out a sight and started walking towards the east.


    Lucca quickly crossed the plains without much accidents, he didn¡¯t saw any monster on the road besides some few inoffensive slimes and normal rabbits, so he didn¡¯t bother slaying them and continued.


    After a few hours the vast plains ended and he got near the forest, which was the second part of his travel, it was still before noon, so he made a short break to eat and continued. Inside the forest there were beasts, such as wolves and monkeys, but those type of animals could be scared easily, so he had a smooth journey.


    ¡°This can be hardly called as test. I¡¯ve taken the shortest path to get there quickly, yet there¡¯s nothing more than slimes and normal beasts¡± ¨C Lucca muttered while wondering if this was really a test. Yet, as if hearing Lucca complains, in the next minutes he heard the sounds of battle. He quickly took out his dagger and started sneaking ahead ¨C ¡°Let¡¯s see what¡¯s going on there.¡±


    The scene right in front of him was two men fighting floras and goblins. There were already some corpses of monsters fallen in the vicinity, but the two showed signals of fatigue while bleeding here and there, also they were surrounded by the monsters which had six times their numbers.


    (Floras and Goblins aren¡¯t strong monster, the problem is the numbers and if they have reinforcements) ¨C Lucca sneaked closer of a goblin that had already taken some damage and waited in a nearby tree ¨C (First take the weaker guys and break the circle)


    Lucca waited his chance and when the monster launched their attack, he quickly moved out and stabbed the goblin in his back. Moments later the two men repelled the monsters attack, despite receiving some wounds in their blind spots, but they had killed a flora.


    When the monsters perceived his presence, he already had let go of that knife and drawn a short sword, which he used to slice the nearby flora, this didn¡¯t killed the flora, but made her retreat ¨C ¡°Get out of their circle!¡± ¨C The men were as confuse as the monsters, but they saw him creating this opportunity, so they did as Lucca said and exited their encirclement.


    Lucca quickly pulled back too, but when he turned, he saw the men running as fast as they could in the opposite direction ¨C ¡°Tsk! Those trash, I wonder why I even bother helping¡± ¨C This wasn¡¯t the first nor the second time Lucca had entered a fight to help some guys only to get them running and leaving him alone.


    In the next moment a flora tentacle assaulted Lucca¡¯s side and made him stagger ¨C ¡°Tsk, this is not the time for this¡± ¨C Said Lucca while looking his surroundings. The attack from the flora came again, while the other monsters were running to this position ¨C ¡°This is bad¡±


    Lucca used his short sword to deflect the flora attack. Right after he moved his unused hand and took his throwing knifes and attacked the flora with them. The flora saw the knifes and used her vine tentacles to intercept, not causing any damage, but that¡¯s what Lucca wanted, with this opening he started running towards a nearby tree and climbed it with a few jumps.


    (Floras can¡¯t leave the ground, but I¡¯m still) ¨C A vine whip came flying into his direction and he jumped towards another tree ¨C (¡­ in her range. I need to find a big tree while the other floras don¡¯t catch up)


    Floras are plant monsters, which used their vine tentacles to attack, they were bound to the ground thanks to their roots, therefore being slow. While it was easy to hunt them with a Mage or an Archer, it was a bad opponent for a melee combatant like Lucca.


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    He jumped another two trees until he saw a twenty meter tall tree. There he climbed enough until he was outside of the flora range. At that moment the other floras catched up and stopped at the trunk of the tree as if staring at Lucca.


    ¡°Disgusting¡± ¨C Lucca used his mana in the eyes and started scouting the vicinity ¨C ¡°Still, I only see green from here, it seems it will take some time before I leave this forest¡± ¨C Murmured while looking the vast green, after that he focused his vision on the ground searching for the monsters ¨C ¡°Although there are other floras within some hundreds of meters, I doubt they will bother coming here, considering their speed¡­ Still where are the goblins?¡±


    Lucca noticed that those goblins from before had vanished, only the corpses remained and those were already being wrapped up by nearby floras tentacles, it seems the goblin didn¡¯t cared much about their dead.


    Looking at the surrounding once more, he saw in the corner of his vision the two men fighting again with goblins, they were surrounded and looked tired. Lucca just watched as they eventually died and were carried always by the goblins.


    ¡°Idiots, they choose to flee in the middle of the forest despite being so tired, it was obvious such a thing would happen¡± ¨C Lucca sighed and closed his eyes ¨C ¡°Still, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.¡±


    Lucca was used to death, but if helped he would do his utmost to prevent it. Yet this type of scene was common in his recollections. Lucca once more sighed and opened his eyes, he already moved past the previous matter. He looked downwards and saw the floras were still there.


    ¡°It seems they won¡¯t give up soon¡± ¨C Lucca then climbed a few more meter upside, almost reaching the top of the tree ¨C ¡°It seems I will have to pass the night here.¡±


    Lucca tied a rope between him and the trunk of the tree, pulled some hard bread and ate it rapidly. He kept observing the floras until it was night. They didn¡¯t show any movements, so he decided to sleep.


    In the middle of the night he suddenly awoke when he felt the tree shaking and almost fell down if it wasn¡¯t for the rope. When he looked down he saw there were three more floras than before and all of them were shaking the tree to make him fall.


    ¡°Damn monsters!¡± ¨C Shouted Lucca while regaining his balance ¨C ¡°Why are plant monsters so active now in the middle of the night?!¡±


    Usually plant monsters were weak on the night and stronger in the day. Yet they seemed much more wildly than before. Lucca kept looking and saw they didn¡¯t have any intention of stopping. After fixing his foothold he looked the other floras and saw they had the same abnormal behavior and were moving, contrary of their nature of waiting to ambush the prey.


    ¡°There are too many floras (mutations), they seem more active at the night despite being plants, furthermore actively moving without a pray¡­ What the hell is happening in this forest?¡±


    ~Hours earlier at another place~


    ¡°Captain, it is indeed as the report said, these monsters are clearly abnormal!¡± ¨C Reported a young woman who looked like just finished high school, she had red hair and blue eyes and was considered tall for a woman, reaching almost 175 cm.


    ¡°This is the worst.¡± ¨C The captain sighed while asserting the report. He was a 190 cm tall man who had a relative thin build for a knight, he had a ragged face from a long life of battles, which was masked by his long brown hair and full beard ¨C ¡°It can¡¯t be helped. Men we will camp today here outside the fog.¡±


    ¡°Fog?¡± ¨C Asked a soldier.


    ¡°Are your bloody eyes falling you?¡± ¨C Answered the captain as he was listening to his subordinates ignorance ¨C ¡°It¡¯s always the first rule when entering monster territory to use [Mana Vision]¡±


    The soldier rapidly gathered his mana and utilized the skill, what he saw was a huge fog of purple mana that covered as far as he could see.


    ¡°It is as the report said, there was a large outburst of violent mana in this forest. We will move out tomorrow to investigate the case. That¡¯s all!¡±

 Chapter 11 – Strong

    Chapter 11 ¨C Strong


    ¡°This shit floras won¡¯t give up?!¡± ¨C Complained while clicking his tongue.


    Lucca was already being shaken constantly for quite a few hours. Still, they didn¡¯t show any signs of giving up, he could only sigh and wait until they get tired, so he could escape.


    Lucca was tired of this abnormal behavior, plant monsters being surprisingly active in the middle of the night and doing as they pleased, completely ignoring their own nature was unsettling, but what really unnerved Lucca was the fact that since when he woke up in the middle of the night he was sensing a chilly sensation in his back, as if telling there was something wrong here.


    (I can only hope for them to become more quiet when the sun rise)


    When the sun rose, after a few minutes the plants started slowing down, until to the point that an hour later they totally stopped.


    (It¡¯s as if what happened earlier was just a dream) ¨C thought Lucca while looking down and saw the floras that were messing with him just moments ago were acting like normal plants, basking on the sun without moving any inch.


    Lucca scanned the surroundings and saw that the other floras stopped moving freely. Also he could finally see other type of monsters again, such as goblins or wolves ¨C (In the night I didn¡¯t saw any of those monsters, but just when the sun rose they came) ¨C Lucca looked towards the other monsters and saw that they kept a distance from the Floras even if was in broad daylight.


    (It seems that they are acting like that for quite some time, for even the wolves keep their distance and vanish in the middle of the night) ¨C Lucca was right, in the middle of the night the monsters knew that the floras run wild, so they stayed in their dens waiting for the daylight.


    After confirming for sure that the floras weren¡¯t acting wildly, Lucca climbed down the tree and used mana in his legs to jump to a nearby tree. He looked behind and saw that the floras didn¡¯t pursued.


    (If they are acting like this, I can do it) ¨C Lucca moved down from the trees and run through the direction where he encountered the two men before. There he saw two floras, those two were sucking dry the corpses of the goblins that died yesterday.


    Flora weren¡¯t a particularly strong monster per se, the problem was their tentacles, but if one were to burn or cut down their base stem, they would die quickly. Lucca could use fire to deal with them, but he was afraid of what could happen considering what happened last night.


    He pulled his short sword and started sneaking behind the flora. He was within meters from then and waited to see if they had any reactions, but they just casually continued sucking the goblins.


    Lucca started his move, he jumped from their back and within a second he was behind the flora, he did not swing his blade, but pushed forward and stabbed the steam. A shrilling scream could be heard from the flora as she used her tentacles to attack Lucca, but he was already jumping back and used the sword to intercept the attacks.


    He blocked two attacks, but the third assaulted his shoulder, which made him felt the pain. At this moment the other flora started reacting too and started using her tentacles, but Lucca was already outside their range.


    The Floras moved slowly towards him while he backed. Lucca noticed that the flora he stabbed was one step slower than the other and green ooze was leaking from the body.


    (I couldn¡¯t deal with that flora in one attack since I¡¯m alone, but it can¡¯t fight properly)


    Lucca kept moving in their range of vision, making them move to chase him. This kept going for minutes, until they started showing signs of giving up, but at that moment Lucca took a rock from the ground, coated his mana and threw them on the floras.


    The rocks didn¡¯t particularly do any damage to the floras, but kept they irritated and made them continue the chase. This kept going for a full hour until the floras started showing signs of fatigue, Lucca flashed a smile while he kept throwing rocks to annoy them.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    Another half hour later they fully stopped, even with countless rocks being thrown at them. Lucca them moved towards the bleeding Flora and approached her slowly. Earlier the flora would undoubtedly attack him, but she kept quiet, when Lucca was within only a few meters she moved her tentacles, yet that could be hardly called an attack, as Lucca simple dodged.


    When the last attack came, he simple dodged once more and caught the vine with his free hand, pushed her body using his mana and stabbed four more times her stem, killing the monster. Lucca had kept his guard since the other flora wasn¡¯t injured, but she didn¡¯t tried to stop him.


    Lucca threw some more rocks to check her reaction, but she didn¡¯t move, affirming her tiredness once more, Lucca moved out and easily killed the other flora too, that was too tired to properly defend herself. What Lucca had used was one of the earliest form of hunting know to men, where he would tire the prey slowly until the point of exhaustion and them kill them.


    Lucca moved to the bodies earlier and rummaged them, until he found the goblin he had killed before and he retrieved his black dagger ¨C (Although it was troublesome, I can¡¯t let this go) ¨C After all it was given to him by Ann.


    After retrieving the dagger, he used her to open the monster¡¯s body and collect their crystals. Although lower monster, such as goblins, weren¡¯t particularly valuable, the floras core could be found an earth core, which was several times pricier than the colorless core. From the two flora bodies and three goblins, he got 4 colorless core and 1 earth core. It was quite a hunt for him, especially since he didn¡¯t have to split the money with anyone.


    ¡°Still I wasted too much time here. I should better get out of this forest¡±


    Lucca started going back from where he came. He kept moving without major problems, although he encountered three goblins in the path, he killed them, thanks to his superior speed and use of mana.


    Past noon he stopped to eat, when he was packing his things ready to move again, he heard battle sounds with human voices nearby ¨C (More people¡­) ¨C Lucca started moving on the opposite direction, but he stopped a few meters in ¨C (Still, I should at least let them know about the state of this forest)


    Lucca turned and quickly dashed in the direction of the battling sounds, he was running until the top a hill, where he saw a large amount of people of people battling wolves. They are strong, that was the first thought crossed his mind when he saw the amount of bodies in the vicinity. It seemed that it was a large pack of wolf monsters, yet almost all of them were already killed.


    What was more surprising was that as he was looking, he saw a great wolf, which was at least two to three times larger than the other wolves ¨C (High Wolf! Why is such a strong monster he¡­)


    In the moment he was surprised, a woman jumping toward the wolf, as her hair flickered with the wind, she coated the sword with her energy, contrary to what one would expect from seeing her fierce red hair, she sword glowed a beautiful blue and yellow color, as if becoming a cloud right in the middle of the tempest, her mana raged until it couldn¡¯t be contained anymore in the sword.


    ¡°[Thunder Bolt]¡±


    As she calmly said, all the raging energy moved in a line, as if the skies punishing a sinner. The wolf tried dodging, but the thunder followed pursuit and he was smitten. He felt the attack and his legs give up, not overlooking the opportunity, the young woman, still in the air, used her mana to adjust her body and with one fierce move, she stabbed the wolf right into his left eye and made his way into his brain.


    Lucca was in awe, for the first time he saw such troublesome monster dealt so easily, furthermore she was alone, the other party had killed a whole wolf pack in minutes, since there wasn¡¯t much time since he heard the sound of the battle. What¡¯s more, on the side of the girl, there was a guy with long hair and full beard that exerted a pressure even greater than the girl.


    Lucca could only mutter ¨C ¡°Strong¡­¡±

 Chapter 12 – Cecil Syren

    Chapter 12 ¨C Cecil Syren


    Lucca watched the monsters being dealt easily by the corp. After that he felt the stare of the young woman and the bearded man ¨C (It seems they have noticed me) ¨C Without further ado, he jumped down the hill and approached them.


    ¡°What are you doing here, kid?¡± ¨C Asked the bearded man while looking at Lucca, he had felt his presence since he climbed the hill and saw his reaction, therefore he judged he was ¡®normal¡¯.


    ¡°Speaking with y¡­ No, I¡¯m traveling¡±


    ¡°Traveling, ho? In the middle of the forest?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I have to go to the church in the fort city north of here¡±


    ¡°Fort Muno? Church?¡± ¨C Since this squad was from the fort city themselves, he was aware that the church from Muno was known for two things, helping the people in the fort and training new apprentices ¨C ¡°So you¡¯re going there to become an acolyte?¡±


    Despite Lucca¡¯s young appearance, the man knew that from his observing the battle from a good point, his equipment and the fact he was just walking in the middle of a forest infested with monsters without any visible wounds was a certificate that he could handle himself.


    ¡°Yes, I was supposed to go to the fort to end my test, so I decided to go through the shortest path, this forest¡± ¨C At this moment the man raised his eyebrow slight and the young woman giggled ¨C ¡°but, it was a mistake.¡±


    ¡°That much is obvious, even if it¡¯s the shortest path, it¡¯s a den of monsters, you should know better¡± ¨C reprimanded the captain.


    ¡°Fufufu¡­ don¡¯t be so hard on him, captain. He¡¯s right, here is the shortest path to Muno from the capital, fufufu¡­¡± ¨C Interrupted the young woman while seeing she was enjoying the situation ¨C ¡°Well, it¡¯s another story if he can exit out of here alive though.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the problem! Ha¡­ who knows what would happen if he didn¡¯t meet us.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve only come here to warn you about the forest, but seeing such a large force it seems you guys are here to deal with the problem? Then I¡¯m going¡±


    After that Lucca turned and was ready to go, but he was stopped by the beautiful girl and asked about what was that warning. Lucca told them about what happened last night, the plant monsters acting wild, showing vitality unimaginable for plants, and how all the other monsters were hiding.


    ¡°Hmm, the golden boy gave us good information, captain¡±


    ¡°Plant monster showing abnormal behavior, no signal from other monster all night long and purple mana fog covering in the night¡­¡± ¨C The man remembered a similar case in this forest from decades ago ¨C ¡°This could be troubling¡±


    Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    ¡°Do you know what is happening, captain?¡±


    ¡°If what the boy told us is the truth, there were two similar events in this forest in the past, in both of them the cause was a mutation (evolution) of a dryad, called Moon Dryad.¡±


    Moon Dryad is a variation of the normal dryad, but instead of basking in the sun, like the normal plants, adored to stay under the moonlight, in a place with large quantities of mana, if a strong dryad lived for long enough while basking on the moon, would evolve into moon dryad, while the strength wasn¡¯t raised that much, the Moon Dryad was capable of ruling on the nearby plant monsters.


    But the greatest problem was that each night she would be fed, like a queen, from the nearby plant monsters until the point she would get strong enough to the point she would become a perfect monster.


    ¡°What are we going to do, captain?¡± ¨C Said the girl, even though she didn¡¯t know about this Moon Dryad, from seeing her captain reactions, she knew it was a troublesome opponent, therefore she showed a smile.


    The captain could only sigh, he was ordered to investigate the cause of the abnormality, but he was greeted by a serious case, furthermore he had to deal with this girl, who enjoyed annoying him as much as she enjoyed fighting.


    ¡°We are from Muno, we can¡¯t just sit by watching, although it¡¯s a troublesome opponent, the reports weren¡¯t from long ago¡± ¨C Paused lightly while looking the red-headed girl ¨C ¡°so we should be able to exterminate her¡±


    (Moon Dryad? Controlling over the plants? That¡¯s troublesome) ¨C thought Lucca, while he moved his line of sight to the girl, he saw her glowing smile ¨C (But, they said they will take that down, furthermore she¡¯s that happy)


    Lucca knew from the fight before that they weren¡¯t normal, the girl looked she could barely wait to fight the troublesome monster, while the captain, despite complaining, showed an air of confidence, so he decided.


    ¡°Since you guys are from Muno, I will accompany you guys as my guide as payment for the info!¡±


    One sided declared, when the captain was ready to retort, the girl jumped in the middle of them ¨C ¡°Hahaha! That¡¯s right golden boy¡± ¨C she extended her hand towards Lucca ¨C ¡°I¡¯m Cecil Syren and this old man behind me, its captain Windser¡±


    ¡°Lucca Bright from the desert city¡±


    ¡°Hahaha! That¡¯s good, that¡¯s how a boy should act!¡±


    Cecil continued laughing, it seems she enjoyed the clueless boy presence, the captain could only sigh. It seems he worries had just augmented this day.

 Chapter 13 – First Day in the Forest

    Chapter 13 ¨C First Day in the Forest


    After Lucca decided to join the corps group till Muno fort city, they steadily moved through the forest, they avoided normal monsters if they choose to retreat, but all the plant monsters in the path were fiercely hunted by the group.


    Lucca didn¡¯t participate in any battle, since he wasn¡¯t even an apprentice. He watched the team fighting and understood that individually, each of those could rank at least on the top part of the best adventurers he saw in those four years, furthermore when they fought as a group, it was several times better as any party of adventurers he ever saw.


    (Those guys are strong, even the worst of them could easily live as adventurer near the capital¡­ Once more I¡¯m forced to see why Ann said I knew nothing)


    Thought Lucca while seeing that within this group there were some existences that were on a whole another level. Most of these were wearing armor with different patterns, such as crosses, and the others were the magicians, who killed multiples monsters with one attack, but what he awed him the most was Cecil Syren.


    Lucca couldn¡¯t help but admire, she was such a beauty, with her flaming hair, possessing blue eyes clear as the skies and a delicate face, which was the contrary of what you would expect from her tall body with D cup bust. She had been friendly and joking with him before, but now she was completely concentrated on the hunt.


    Every battle she would take the vanguard and storm the monsters. Without thinking twice she would be in the middle of them and attract their attention, easily dodge their attack and create chances for the rest of the group to easily exterminate them, but that didn¡¯t happen, since she would finish the monsters by herself without breaking a sweat.


    (You don¡¯t need group work when you are that strong?)


    At this moment, while Cecil was holding six plant monsters, new monsters appeared. They were large ants and goblins who had weird pale flowers in their heads. A whole group of twelve, all of them rushed towards Cecil. Lucca saw that she was getting caught in this huge amount of monsters and started moving, but his arm was grabbed by Captain Windser.


    ¡°What are you going to do there?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m going to help her!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re only going to disturb her going there, just stay quiet and watch¡± ¨C reprimanded while releasing his arm.


    Lucca quietly watched Cecil, she easily dodged the attacks from the nearby floras, but when the ants and goblins attacked, she couldn¡¯t dodge. Therefore she moved her sword to intercept the attack, her blue eyes glistened as is she was having fun and a little smile showed on her face, moments before the collision her sword started shinning like the color of her hair, a colorful red.


    When the coated blade met the ant jaws, the jaws were hacked off, and the thrust continued until decapitated that ant. This scene repeated itself with every attack of those monsters with flowers in their heads. After cleaning the most nearby monsters, she lowered down, took down a goblin head and threw it to the captain.


    Lucca was puzzled why she would do that, but in the next moment the mana coating her blade started surging like crazy, she jumped backwards in the air, escaping the monster encirclement, and swung her sword in the air.


    ¡°[Fire Pillar]¡±


    The energy stored in her sword attacked violently the ground and formed a pillar of fire, right where she was moments ago. This pillar expanded a few meters and burned the monsters down in a compact form without touching the trees.


    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    When the fire vanished there was nothing there, aside the scorched ground. The captain was looking the flower on the top of the head when Lucca couldn¡¯t help but blurt.


    ¡°Incredible¡±


    ¡°Do you really think those little guys could even get her? They would need at least ten times more monsters to scratch her¡± ¨C Said the captain while looking at Cecil waving her hands and making a victory pose to them ¨C ¡°She¡¯s just messing around.¡±


    (This strong and she is just messing around?) ¨C Lucca was watching Cecil who already moved towards them and was talking with the captain about the flower ¨C (What¡¯s more, this guy didn¡¯t even move once)


    Lucca was astonished, Cecil was this strong and she was the subordinate of this guy, he couldn¡¯t even imagine how strong he should be.


    ¡°What do you think captain?¡±


    ¡°This is worse than I thought, the Moon Dryad already started using parasitic skill¡±


    ¡°Parasitic skill?¡±


    ¡°She captures other monsters and put a seed inside their brains, see?¡± ¨C Pointed to the flower ¨C ¡°It still looks lively despite being just a head, it¡¯s this thing that was controlling the body¡± ¨C Said the captain while releasing the head.


    After a few seconds on the grounds, the flower started moving slowly to the ground, but before she could bury her roots, she was mercilessly stomped by the captain.


    ¡°Monster Plants usually take some time before they could mature, after all they are mutations of normal plants and not inborn aberration, such as demons, but this dryad use the seed to easily grow new plants, even if you kill the host, they are already monsters at this point and could keep growing.¡±


    ¡°What a troublesome ability¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, the first time she appeared we lost multiples lives for not knowing she could keep increasing their number like that, therefore ever since we knew, it¡¯s the priority to root her before she raises an army of plant monsters.¡±


    The hunt of the plant monsters continued the whole day except for the breaks to eat. When the day was almost ending the captain found clearing and stopped there for camping and rest. He knew from Lucca information and stories that the monsters acting wildly when the moon was out, therefore he choose a wide place to see how they would react.


    There was barely any movement until midnight, but when the moon was at its peak, they started hearing weird noises.


    Minutes after they were attacked by a large group of plant monsters, there were floras, Venus flytraps, carnivorous plants and lots of normal monsters, such as goblins and wolves, who had weird flowers in their head, also there were some dryads here and there.


    That was the first time Lucca was seeing them, the upper part of their body looked like the beast race, which were human like body with animal traits, but with plant parts, the only major difference is that instead of legs, they had brown structures coming out of their waits that looked more like the trunk of a young tree.


    The monsters kept going and going, but neither of them attacked, they just kept starting at the corps, like they were waiting their companions came. Minutes after there was already a much larger quantity that could outnumber three to four times the number of members in the corps, yet the sound of monsters coming didn¡¯t stopped.

 Chapter 14 – Night Attack

    Chapter 14 ¨C Night Attack


    ¡°They get really wild in the night, just as you said Lucca¡± ¨C Said Cecil while looking the monsters act ¨C ¡°Still, I didn¡¯t thought they would encircle us while waiting for their whole gang to show, they seem considerably intelligent or should I say, properly enslaved?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right, the Moon Dryad is manipulating them. It¡¯s unimaginable to think monsters that eat each other like those work together, think them as MD parts¡± ¨C Answered the captain while pulling out his sword.


    ¡°Well¡­ we just have to defeat them, fufufu¡­¡± ¨C Cecil also took her silver sword while giggling, she focused her mana and coated her blade with fire mana, making it shine red, which stood out in the middle of the night ¨C ¡°Guess I¡¯ll have to go a little serious, otherwise captain would be sad if he lose his precious men, right?¡± ¨C She showed a smile towards where Lucca and Windser where, then she turned towards the monster who waited in front of them.


    ¡°Idiot¡± ¨C The captain showed a rare smile, he moved his sword downwards, making the handle stay right in front of his chest. This handle had a golden stone, a holy core, in the point, which shined brightly.


    ¡°??????? ?? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ?????? [Blessing],


    ??????? ?????? ?????? ???? ?????? ???????? [Protection]¡±


    As the captain finished his spell, from the holy core of his sword, two huge lights were cast towards the sky, seconds later Cecil, who was toward the enemies, was enveloped in a deep scarlet color brown color.


    ¡°What is that mana?!¡±


    Lucca was surprised, he many times strengthened his body using mana and saw this event happening daily, but the aura enveloping Cecil was different, it was certainly a type of force (energy) like Mana, but it was different somehow, that was what Lucca was feeling.


    Not minding the confused boy, Cecil jumped towards the monsters, in a velocity that Lucca couldn¡¯t follow with his eye, he could only saw flashes of red because she was shining in the middle of the dark.


    The captain seeing Lucca still entranced by Cecil could only sigh, how many times didn¡¯t he see that princess charm countless boys. He pulled Lucca¡¯s arm to grab his attention and shouted loudly.


    ¡°Move in formation with me in the center!¡± ¨C The soldiers acted swiftly, forming walls with the soldiers and Lucca, Windser and the mages in the middle, he once more moved his sheathed sword, the mana started shinning in the core once again, but this time it was shouted towards the ground, with the captain as base ¨C ¡°[Blessing]¡±


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    The mana shined in a circle form and golden energy bathed the whole corps, Lucca was no exception. He felt as if he was using mana to strength his body, but the effect was several times better.


    (He already had used skills the old man in the church told me were of acolyte job, yet I don¡¯t think even if I became an acolyte I could use such powerful skills, especially the first ones)


    Thought Lucca while glancing towards where Cecil was, the monsters in the part were already made into manure or ashes by her flaming blade, he couldn¡¯t see her anymore there, but he could still monsters grunting every so often.


    ¡°Are you a priest?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not wrong¡­¡± ¨C The captain finally unsheathed his sword ¨C ¡°But you¡¯re not right either.¡±


    Lucca was confused by his answer, but he didn¡¯t asked anymore since the captain started commanding his soldiers, he would watch the battle from the center of the formation, issuing order from the soldiers and offering support to soldiers in bad position directly.


    The MD was sending only the monsters with flowers in their heads first, which were easily being dealt with by the soldiers, this continued for a few minutes. Sensing that they couldn¡¯t deal with the intruders just sending the parasite type, the plant monsters started going all out. Every one of the monsters started moving towards the formation.


    ¡°They move totally different at night, it¡¯s disgusting.¡±


    Some soldiers muttered while they watched those plants charge in their direction and started attacking them with their vines. The plant attack was wild and from far, making that the soldier could only defend.


    Captain seeing this scene ordered his mages to attack the plant monsters with fire magic, but when the bolts of fire where about to hit some plant monsters, the nearby dryads used magic to form a wall of leaves, which stopped the fire.


    Right after stopping the fire, the dryads started using their magic again and grew roots from the ground which whipped some of the soldiers, making them flew backwards, but the captain used his hands to stop them and threw them back in the formation.


    Some of the nearby uninjured soldiers started using their mana themselves to use [heal] in their friends.


    ¡°This will be troublesome, they are much stronger the normal¡­¡± ¨C Windser used the mana in his eyes and looked the surroundings, there he saw the purple fog being drained by the dryads, which were already preparing to use another magic ¨C ¡°The purple smog is being absorbed by them, so they can keep casting those without stop. This will be troublesome.¡±

 Chapter 15 – Night Attack (2)

    Chapter 15 ¨C Night Attack (2)


    ~~ Cecil Point of View ~~


    I was called by the captain again to work, it seems this time our troops would just go to the nearby forest.


    Frankly the monsters there are weak, they hardly are worth my time, but Windser insists and I somewhat submit, it¡¯s not like I had nothing better do to anyway.


    We took a lot of time entering the forest from the other side in a roundabout way, which I didn¡¯t really understood why, but when seeing the purple fog irradiated at night by the forest, I finally got it.


    It¡¯s the mana burst effect.


    Usually the mana stays inside of the plane, and only emerges after being purified in specific crossings of leylines, where they make them into special spots where the mana flows to the surface.


    In this plane, most of the big cities were constructed in the top of those places, this way they could block the mana from leaving the city, therefore making the monsters outside the cities starve. It was a great idea, good job whoever thought about it.


    Well, moving on, mana burst is the phenomenon which the mana forcefully burst out of the plane, since it went out on its own, instead of the proper place in the crossings, this mana is wild and the principal case of the appearance of new mutations, like these plants, or monsters born out of the raging mana themselves after a wandering soul is sucked by this furious stream.


    By the way, every monster has a soul like a human, elf or a dwarf, but since they were born of the twisted mana, they can only act like mad animals, therefore monsters.


    Well, it seems that they can obtain intellect if they become strong enough, in this plane those guys are the so called perfect monsters, but those guys are equal to psychopaths that were twisted due to their ¡®extreme raising¡¯ conditions since as long as they remember, therefore it¡¯s not like I had any remorse while ending this cycle of their soul.


    Anyway,


    When we were in the forest waiting for the mana burst loses its effect, so we could investigate inside the forest, we saw a boy, he was younger and a little shorter than me, although he doesn¡¯t stand out, his pure golden eyes were particularly captivating.


    He said he was going to Muno from the capital and the forest was the shortest path with a straight face, what a little chap, was he trying to be a comedian?


    We talked a little and he told us about the monsters going wildly, capt looked worried remembering some past events.


    It seems the mana burst in this region isn¡¯t exactly news and Muno fort city was attacked several times by sudden outburst of monsters.


    Well, that¡¯s obvious, if you guys don¡¯t fix the mana burst problem, the monster will keep mutating.


    I didn¡¯t say that to capt though.


    Out of nowhere, the golden eyed boy declared he would follow us until Muno as payment for the info, is this little guy crazy? He is sticking with us who have to deal with this problem?


    Someone beat some sense on him!


    I wouldn¡¯t do it though.


    Well, since it¡¯s interesting I keep quiet. The capt looks at me and I pretend to not know anything. He has this incredible look of reprimanding me for not shooing him, but I kept quiet since the little chap is interesting.


    What¡¯s more, using my mana to check the fog, I saw that the boy has golden mana, like his eyes.


    It seems he was a martyr.


    Well, he got the blessing in the ending, so I guess that balance the things. Well, it¡¯s not like me to meddle in other people lives. He probably doesn¡¯t remember it too.


    While thinking such things we proceed to enter the forest, we were greeted right after by a wolf pack. They looked so thin, are you guys eating properly? They kept attacking our boys and dying easily, I could hardly get excited, until I saw a big wolf.


    This big guy looks like the boss. Guess I should kill him to let those poor puppies flee? Let¡¯s use a little power.


    I moved easily while dodging their attacks and putting those starved puppies out of their misery. When I got near the big wolf, I jumped and used my mana to attack him with a thunder.


    He got electrocuted by my magic and fell, hey hey hey, already? Uahhh, weak.


    Without wanting to waste much time, I simple stabbed him, at this time I felt a chill, when I turned out to see, the capt was looking at me with serious eyes, as if saying ¡®here you go again¡¯, sorry capt.


    On the other hand, the golden boy was staring in awe, it seemed like he couldn¡¯t believe I took this big puppy so fast, sorry boy, this is hardly worth the time. Well, it¡¯s not like I have anything better to do, so let¡¯s go with the victory pose for now.


    Moving through the forest we saw a lot of plant monsters, the capt said to dispose of them, so I did. The other boys and girls were working hard, so I showed my valor and started going a little more wild.


    After some groups I was suddenly ambushed! Well, you guys will need a hundred more to touch me though.


    I easily deal with them, but I saw some weird flowers on the head of the goblin, so I threw to the capt deal with it. Then I used a little of power and burned everyone.


    Talking with the capt, he said those monsters were being controlled like zombies by parasite plants inside their brains, uhhh, creepy. Let¡¯s kill those things fast.


    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.The afternoon was like that, just dealing with the plants, I don¡¯t know how much died at my hands, at least hundreds, probably.


    Yet I could hardly feel my mana surging, guess plants don¡¯t have souls, this was a total waste of time, really! Well, even if they did, I guess I would need to kill thousands to have some effect since they are so weak, boring.


    Night falls, capt tell us to wait, I spend some time chatting with the golden boy and the cap, but nothing happens really, so I slept a little.


    In the middle of the night I awake when I notice the earth trembling a little, what was that?


    Focusing my mana on the eyes, I saw hundreds upon hundreds of monsters coming.


    Hey, who let the plants out? Seriously.


    ¡°It can¡¯t be helped, guess it¡¯s time to be a little serious, after all capt will cry if he loses his men, right?¡±


    Then I focused my sight on capt and told him with my eyes ¡®do your work¡¯, he looked really displeased, so I showed my back to him and walked towards the monsters.


    Moments later I felt the surge of divine energy running through my body.


    Fufufufu, you can¡¯t win against me capt. But since we were in a pinch, I decided to not tease him anymore and do my job.


    But I have to say again, although he is still unpolished while fighting, his blessings are really strong, he¡¯s probably going to reach Riviera in this cycle, huh?


    Suddenly dozens of vines flashed towards me, whoa, guess it¡¯s not the time to be distracted thinking about such a silly things.


    I use my coated sword and cut the nearby zombie plant goblin, my attack was aimed toward his flower head. Without much trouble I make his head split in two, like I¡¯m using a knife to split butter.


    There¡¯s blood everywhere, disgusting. Let¡¯s turn up the heat so they become coal in the same instant.


    After that, every attack killed monsters and they didn¡¯t splashed blood, but simple turned into completely burned things, hahaha, success!


    I stop to make a victory pose, but when I look, there¡¯s no one viewing. Uhhh¡­ embarrassing, let¡¯s stop this for now and focus on the little guys.


    I use my sword without stop, when I notice, everything around me is dead, whoa, did I played too much?


    At that time I felt the earth trembling once more, when I look up, there¡¯s a really tall carnivorous plant, those things are normally a meter tall, but this guy easily reach a least three store tall building.


    I can¡¯t let this guy mess with the others, so let¡¯s burn him a little. I pull the sword back in the scabbard. When the sword is in sheathed my magic becomes stronger, because the inscriptions of the scabbard, it¡¯s basically like a 2 in 1 sword-wand.


    Let¡¯s use a little spin this time to be easier to pierce. The mana in the tip of the handle started rotating fast, then I separate then into ten parts, every of those transform into flame lances.


    ¡°[Fire Bolt]¡±


    The energy blasts from my sword handle like arrows and pierce the great body of this tall bastard. The arrows stuck in his insides and burn him. While I¡¯m still controlling my mana, he tries to use his mana to quench my fire, do you really think I would you do that?


    I make the lance energy go wild and explode inside the giant plant, making parts of him flew everywhere.


    Disgusting, let¡¯s flee from here. I move towards a place near the capt, there I saw he was being beaten badly by a few dryads.


    ¡°You guys are really helpless without me¡­¡±


    I can¡¯t let this opportunity pass, as I act smug and saw the captain pissed face, while he is enduring yelling at me.


    ¡°Hahaha! Calm down capt, it was just a joke¡±


    With a jump I moved towards the dryads that was messing with them, in a instant I was behind them, looking from close, they really look like people, I wonder if there¡¯s a soul inside this one.


    I unsheathed my sword and easily pierce their bodies, they didn¡¯t even knew I was here until they died, but knowing monsters have great vitality, I use the heat of my blade to burn them while at it.


    The guys from the formation look at me with astonished eyes.


    Uhh, guess I was a little too serious? I didn¡¯t do anything though, strange.


    I better stay low in the other fights.


    Still, I didn¡¯t feel anything after killing them, in the end their souls weren¡¯t here, it looks like each of those monsters were just a puppet without souls, even if plant monsters are aberrations, to not have even one with a soul, it seems suspicious, especially the normal monsters which had the parasites.


    I wonder if the Moon Dryad sucked their souls to control them.


    Looking at the surrounding and seeing there was still plenty of those weak monsters there, I couldn¡¯t help but sigh. Why do I have to kill those guys when they are only puppets?


    Well, at least the guys from the middle finally started moving to fight, guess I should take a break here.


    So I move towards the middle and look to capt and the boy, asking.


    ¡°The soldiers can handle them now, right? I¡¯m hungry¡±


    Seeing the captain ¡®I give up¡¯ face always makes me giggle, furthermore the boy is looking at me passionately, maybe he likes strong people? Well, he¡¯s kinda messed in the head, maybe that¡¯s it¡­ But if you¡¯re having a crush, sorry golden boy, you will need at least another cycle for that.

 Chapter 16 – Night Attack (3)

    Chapter 16 ¨C Night Attack (3)


    ~~ Lucca Point of View ~~


    While I was watching Captain Windser ordering his soldiers to defend against the dryads magic, I felt the earth tremble a little, like when this pack of monsters first appeared.


    Looking at that position I see a huge plant monster easily as tall as the walls of the desert city.


    If we¡¯re having the trouble against the dryads by themselves, I can¡¯t see us beating this thing.


    I¡¯ve move my hand towards my backpack and take a berserk potion, but I¡¯m stopped by Captain saying to not worry.


    At same time, as if listening to the captain words, Cecil appeared in our vision.


    Even without using mana in my eyes, I could feel that she¡¯s going to use magic, because the tip of her sword shined brightly and even from this distance I could feel the heat from there.


    Then that ball split into ten and started turning and stretching, becoming like ten fire lances.


    Those lances mercilessly assaulted the big plant and seconds later he exploded.


    The sound was so loud that startled almost every soldier, making them close their eyes and put the hands to cover the ears, I wasn¡¯t an exception.


    Seeing the opening in our defense, the plant monsters resumed their assault, led by the dryad magic vine whips assaulted the corps over and over again.


    ¡°This is bad, those things can keep going and going using their tentacles from afar while they have cover from the dryads.¡±


    ¡°They will slowly tire us out and then kill us!¡±


    Complaints from the soldiers could be heard here and there as they were lashed by the vines.


    Sometimes the dryads would throw root magic and make some of them go flying towards the middle, but Windser always got his flying soldiers.


    Though he wasn¡¯t exactly ¡®delicate¡¯ as he would just throw them back mercilessly.


    In half a minute the attack continued non stop and the formation was showing signs of breaking, when I heard the playful voice of Cecil.


    ¡°You guys are really helpless without me¡­¡±


    Cecil had this smug expression on her face while looking at the helplessly captain, from here I could heard his teeth clenching.


    ¡°Hahaha! Calm down capt, it was just a joke¡±


    Vanishing from my vision as fast as she appeared I heard the dryads scream, when I look Cecil was behind them and all of them fell dead.


    All this was within seconds, are you serious?


    How much of a monster are you?


    She moved faster than my eyes and in a second took out the main enemies. She was just too much!


    Cecil looked around and sighed and in an instant vanished again.


    ¡°The soldiers can handle them now, right? I¡¯m hungry¡±


    When I take notice she¡¯s sitting in a tree log right at our side.


    How? Is she capable of teleporting or something?


    I really can¡¯t take my eyes of her that she vanishes as if air. So I have to see what she does.


    Sensing my gaze, Cecil turns towards me while smiling and say something outrageous.


    ¡°Hey boya, are you trying to take a piece of me with your eyes?¡±


    ¡°Wha-wha-what are you talking a-about?!¡±


    ¡°Bfufufu¡­ Ever since we¡¯ve been battling you keep staring, it makes me shy!¡±


    Said her while holding her laugh, ah this woman, I see, she likes to mess with others. That¡¯s for sure since the captain keep making these faces and just now gave her a sandwich, then moved out with the other soldiers, as if he doesn¡¯t want to be bothered anymore.


    ¡°It¡¯s nothing like that! I just don¡¯t understand how you can vanish like that, so I was trying to see how you do it!¡±


    I have to get me point across or she would think I¡¯m some kinda of pervert.


    ¡°Oh, I see. Hahaha, you¡¯re the first type of messed in the head.¡±


    ¡°What?!¡±


    ¡°Hahaha, nothing, nothing. It¡¯s just my story, never mind, haha.¡±


    In the end she blurted something impolite anyway. Ah¡­ Ann, how I miss you.


    Let¡¯s stop wasting time with this troubling person.


    Looking outside the soldiers and Captain moved out and were systematically using the mages to attack the plant monsters, while the soldiers hold the frontline.


    Without the support of the dryads, the monsters were gunned easily by the fire magic and died without problems.


    What was a hard defensive battle until moments ago, become a slaughter, just because of the movements of this girl.


    ¡°I¡¯m bored¡± ¨C Said the beautiful girl who was already stretched in the log.


    ¡°Then go hunt some monsters!¡±


    And let me see how you battle.


    ¡°It¡¯s troublesome and not worth the time.¡±


    ¡°Then keep here and watch the others doing their work.¡±


    ¡°Nah, it¡¯s boring if capt doesn¡¯t have problems.¡±


    ¡°Haa¡­ Then why don¡¯t you go sleep?!¡±


    ¡°Good idea!¡±


    Replying my tired response while showing her usual smug face, she took a blanket and covered herself.


    Hey, where did you get that? When I was about to ask that, she pinched my hand and said.


    ¡°Shoo, shoo, shoo, I¡¯m gonna sleep. Go watch the battle, you nerd¡±


    This free girl, I understand your sentiments captain, I completely understand.


    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.But as she said, it would be better to watch the battle, so I could learn something.


    Looking around at least more than half of the monsters were already dead, but the remaining were spread towards the large clearance, so the formation was broken and pretty much became one or two soldiers group for every monster.


    Without having to worry about anything but the plant whips, one of the soldiers would hold the defense while the other would sneak behind them and finish the monster.


    If it was like this, even I could kill those plant monsters, probably.


    On the other hands, when there was a soldier with pattern on the armor or the mages, it become a one sided slaughter.


    Even if they were stronger in the night, there¡¯s no way they are faster than us people and fire was their greatest enemy, therefore it was a massacre.


    Captain Windser kept acting in the support role, but without the threat of the dryads and the monsters numbers decreasing steadily, he stopped acting altogether and just supervised his troops in case of an emergency, after all who know when more monsters would come?


    As if hearing my jinx, minutes later the earth started trembling again.


    Windser ordered his soldiers to retreat and reformed the ranks.


    Seconds later we could see another plant monster as big as the one Cecil took out.


    He was slow, but each step he made makes the earth tremble.


    Sensing the power of the enemy, Windser Captain ordered some of his tired and wounded troops to retreat.


    The only ones remaining were the elites of the group.


    Windser used his [blessing] skills again, this time I could feel that strange aura that Cecil had when he used the skill for the first time.


    Although it wasn¡¯t as strong as the time she had, all the twenty members had the protection, including Windser himself.


    The armored soldiers with patterns rushed towards the plant monsters and started attacking his root legs. Their attacks were shallow, not causing much damage, but it was enough to halt the plant movement and make him focus on them.


    At that time, the mages started chanting some words, this was the first time they did that in this battle.


    Contrary to their normal fireball or fire lance magic, this time each of the mages shoot a flame thrower towards the huge plant.


    Sensing the heat, the plant monster used one of his four huge tentacles to block the flames. The flames continued being shot for seconds.


    When it finally stopped, that vine whip was almost completely burned. The tall Flytrap monster was enraged and used other tentacle to attack the mages.


    When the attack was about to connect, Windser jumped in front of them and used his shield for the first time to block the whip.


    ¡°[Guard]¡±


    His shield shinned brightly in the middle of the night. He received the attack, but he didn¡¯t move an inch. He just stood there.


    ¡°What are you doing?! Keep attacking!¡±


    Windser voice roared and the mages regained their composure. After all they had a reliable wall to protect them.


    The mages this time didn¡¯t bother casting and just made fire balls and fire lances fly towards the tentacle.


    Each attack bombarded furiously on the plant whip, although they didn¡¯t burned it because of the sheer size of the monster, each attack started burning him slowly and kept accumulating until half his tentacles was completely burnt.


    The monster raged, he already had lost half his whips, he couldn¡¯t just stand down being slowly burned down by those people. So he decided to ignore the soldier, since they were just annoying and he curved his whole body down.


    His giant mouth opened, that thing could easily eat a rhino with one gulp. It aimed towards the magicians, his hated enemies.


    Windser showed a rare smile seeing the oversized monster going for them.


    He lifted his shield, which started shinning again, and dashed towards the mouth.


    His sword was sheathed in the same form Cecil had earlier. While grabbing his scabbard like a magic wand, it started to shine and he recited slowly.


    ¡°??????? ?????? ????? ?????? ???????? ???? ??? ?????? ????? ?????? [Holy Chains]!¡±


    When the monster was about to eat Windser, his shield shined even brighter and formed a wall off light, blocking its bite.


    Then he swung his left hand and golden chains started emerging from the sword.


    Those strings of chains rapidly enveloped the head of huge plant monster and bonded tightly his mouth.


    From the chains you could see a light smoke surging, as if burned the flesh of monster.


    ¡°What are you guys waiting?! Finish it!¡±


    The voice of the leader once more roared and every member of the corp joined the attack and slain the enemy.


    The battle was going for quite some time, since the sun just appeared in the east.


    The captain had a tired face of the fighting the whole night, but I suspect the most tiring event for him was dealing with the free girl, who was calmly sleeping while they were fighting for their lives.

 Chapter 17 – vs Full Moon Dryad (1)

    Chapter 17 ¨C vs Full Moon Dryad (1)


    As the sun rose, we saw the aftermath of the last night battle. There were hundreds of plants monsters defeated.


    The corps where tired from the fighting, therefore the captain gave some hours for them to rest, since it wasn¡¯t uncertain if they could find the dryad in the day, if they couldn¡¯t, when the night came they would be in a sorry state, which Windser wanted to avoid at any cost.


    The corps rested up till noon, then they started moving, when I asked about the dead bodies, Cecil butted in.


    ¡°We¡¯re leaving them here!¡±


    ¡°But wouldn¡¯t those serve as food to the other monsters?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right?¡±


    Why would she do that? Looking at the captain he just shrugged his shoulders, as if saying me to let Cecil have her way.


    Lately I¡¯ve been feeling that the boss is really this free girl.


    It¡¯s not like I don¡¯t understand, I mean, such troublesome monster like that giant flytrap needed two strong parties to take down, not mentioning the hard work of the captain that¡¯s clearly strong, at least the strongest person I have seen.


    Of course, if you ignore the free girl who took that thing down within seconds.


    Lately I feel that my definition of monster has been changing, that girl is certainly abnormal.


    I mean, by the story the girl from Izlad Town told me, Vartre was strong to held the attack, but I feel that if she was there, there wouldn¡¯t be any damage to the town.


    Suddenly a hand chop assaults my head.


    ¡°Ouch! What are you doing?!¡±


    ¡°Are you going to stay spacing out here? I mean, the capt guys were already moving. I¡¯ve come here just to warn you, but you can stay here if you want.¡±


    Said Cecil with her trademark smug, clearly not any feeling guilty of hitting me.


    ¡°I¡¯m thankful, but please don¡¯t hit me, it hurts, seriously. My hand is still red from that pinch from earlier¡­¡±


    ¡°What pinch?¡±


    When I blinked she already disappeared from my view, what a carefree person.


    But seriously, how does she do that?


    Our group was marching for a few hours, not surprisingly we barely encountered any monster, only some plants monsters here and there that didn¡¯t have much mobility to begin with.


    After reaching a river with a waterfall, Captain decided to let the man rest here and prepare for the battle over the night.


    ¡°It seems we won¡¯t find the Moon Dryad today too.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, at least not in the day¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Look here¡± ¨C Windser took out a map of the forest and pointed towards the middle of the forest ¨C ¡°We are here, right in the middle, as we can see by the river and the waterfall, considering the place where the fog was first found near Muno and the border we found entering from the opposite side¡± ¨C He then pointed a space a few kilometers north of the waterfall.


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.¡°This is probably the middle of the mana fog area, therefore the place where the mana runs the strongest. Therefore, since it¡¯s just a few kilometers away, we could easily reach it tomorrow. Do you guys really think the Moon Dryad would just sit quiet waiting while we raid her base at the point she¡¯s the weakest? I know I wouldn¡¯t.¡±


    While the captain was briefing his man, I was watching from the sidelines and Cecil was painting her nails, as if that didn¡¯t involve her.


    ¡°Are you okay not paying attention, Cecil?¡±


    ¡°What?¡± ¨C As she heard my voice she saw Captain et al talking about the enemy ¨C ¡°Yeah, isn¡¯t what he saying the obvious? I mean, she¡¯s already quite smart, if she wants to fight, she has to get us tonight or even if I don¡¯t move, capt can deal with her.


    If I was her, I would run though?¡±


    How confident are you?!


    Night felt and the same scene from last night repeated.


    A horde of monster appeared, this time there where only plant monsters, they were bigger than the normal ones before by at least one size, also, looking closely, there was moon marks on each of them.


    ¡°Like I thought¡±


    ¡°What do you mean Cecil?¡± ¨C Asked Windser, he was surprised seeing the unusual tone from Cecil.


    ¡°Did you remember the monstrous tall flytraps from yesterday? Those guys were just the beginning, look, each of those has mutated with the power of mana and the moon.¡±


    ¡°This time isn¡¯t just a dryad, but a whole army of aberrations¡­¡± ¨C Cecil stopped and pointed towards the top of the waterfall, there it was a pale woman with silver eyes, but she was dressed in green leaves and had vines wrapping her arms ¨C ¡°Not to mention her.¡±


    When the captain looked towards the woman, she started clapping while having a smiling mien.


    ¡°That¡¯s right human girl! You guys gave me trouble destroying a lot of my pawns, but getting your strong bodies to nurture more plants will be worth.¡±


    Said laughing while she pointed towards a group of people appearing behind her, all of them wearing armor or robes, like the soldier from the corp themselves. The distinguishing features were that the heads had flowers blooming on the top and they showed blank eyes and had droll rolling from their mouths.


    ¡°Disgusting¡± ¨C muttered Cecil, who was clearly irritated this time. She tapped Windser shoulder and gave him a serious stare ¨C ¡°Buy enough time for me.¡±


    ¡°??????? ?? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ?????? [Blessing]


    ??????? ?????? ?????? ???? ?????? ???????? [Protection]¡±


    Without any words, Windser trusted her words and used his protections on Cecil, in the next instant she vanished.


    ¡°Men, enter formation, we will hold them here!¡±


    Windser led his men and a wall was formed, he casted his blessings again on the soldiers and each one could see hundreds of aberration monsters coming at them.


    That was the beginning of the night that changed Lucca¡¯s life.

 Chapter 18 – vs Full Moon Dryad (2)

    Chapter 18 ¨C vs Full Moon Dryad (2)


    ~~ 3rd Person Point of View ~~


    After Cecil disappeared the whole corp entered formation. As the formation was complete and the blessings were cast we could hear the sound of the battle from the top of the waterfall.


    As that sound was the starting signal, the moon plant monsters started moving towards them.


    ¡°Mages, you have my permission. You don¡¯t need to economize anything, use your maximum power!¡±


    As Windser roar sounded, the mages started chanting, seconds later, from the tip of the mage staffs a red circle surged. As if becoming a volcano in eruption, flames flew in all the sides of formation, but in the direction towards the mountains of the waterfall.


    Following the upstream, Windser rushed in, acting as vanguard, while the elite patterned warriors followed his stride.


    His silver sword shined golden, like Lucca, but the color was much purer and brighter.


    Captain advanced his sword clashed against the moon plant monsters, although he couldn¡¯t use fire, the natural enemy of the plants. He was using holy element into his sword, the natural enemy of dark mana that imbued those mutations.


    With each swing of his sword, the monsters grunted as it leaved burn marks in their corrupted bodies.


    Windser attracted the hostility of the majority of the monsters, leaving the other elite soldier with easy battles as they could outnumber the enemies.


    The mages can¡¯t keep going for much longer, thought Windser as he saw that the firepower from the flames was decreasing.


    Hitting his shield with the sword he produced loud sounds which resonated through the night.


    ¡°Come get me you damned monster!¡±


    The moon plant monsters were much stronger than their normal counterparts and lived through the influence of the mysterious human, therefore they acquired some intelligence. They were aware that the biggest threat wasn¡¯t the mages, who kept their companions at bay to avoid the flames, but this reckless man who led the charge.


    Judging they had to take him down to break their spirits, all the monsters of the surroundings of the captain aimed for him.


    The eyes of Windser flashed as he saw the vines coming from everywhere.


    ¡°[Guard]!¡±


    His shield shined brightly as it formed a wall of light protecting his head and vitals, but he was mercilessly assaulted everywhere, making him puke blood.


    As the monster vines where retreating a smile flashed in his bloody face and he started chanting fast.


    ¡°??????? ?????? ????? ?????? ???????? ???? ??? ?????? ????? ?????? [Holy Chains]¡±


    From his other hand, countless chains emerged and tied all those monsters that attacked him in that instant, those golden chains were pulled by the sheer strength of Windser who bought all of them together while slowly burning their bodies.


    ¡°Suna do it!¡±


    Suna was the strongest mage of this corp, she was the only one who didn¡¯t attack before, preserving her strength, as Windser commanded.


    Yet she couldn¡¯t obey his captain order.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.¡°We don¡¯t have any other option, do it!¡±


    Seeing the resolute eye of Windser, she couldn¡¯t just disobey and started chanting, from the tip of her staff a red circle surged that Lucca already saw before.


    ¡°[Fire Pillar]¡±


    The fire magic flew towards Windser, which had his shield up to intercept the attack.


    When the fire ball touched his shield, it expanded forming a pillar of fire that burned everything in a way similar to what Cecil did before.


    That was Suna¡¯s strongest magic, she was clearly tired after the attack, despite this attack being a scale weaker than the one Cecil used, which made Lucca once more wonder how much strength she had.


    Nevertheless, it was such a great pillar of flames that covered the whole area, that wouldn¡¯t be strange to see everything dying away by the terrorist flames.


    Yet, after a few seconds, Windser emerged from the flames, the bleeding from before was covered in black marks all over his body with smoke surging from his body.


    ¡°Move on!¡±


    Despite the raging flames burning his flesh, he endured.


    ¡°Follow the captain!¡±


    Voices like that surged everywhere in the corps and the whole formation rushed towards their leader.


    After a few minutes they reached the mountain walls and the captain voice once more roared.


    ¡°Keep your back to the mountain wall. With the river at our side we won¡¯t be encircled. STAND YOUR GROUND!¡±


    Despite his tattered appearance, his magnificent aura infected his subordinates. He received some heal from the soldiers and once more moved on to the vanguard. The soldier seeing their brave captain, quickly obeyed his words, and entered formation with their morale soaring.


    ¡°Don¡¯t spare any resource mages, use everything!¡±


    Windser told them while seeing the monsters coming. The mages took some blue potions and drunk them with bitter faces.


    Those were potions that could quickly replenish their mana, although they tasted badly, they had great effect and were expensive.


    ¡°Men, hold their attacks until the mage regenerate their mana!¡±


    The monster finally closed to them.


    The floras maintained their distance attacking with their vine whips, churning the soldier gradually while being safe. The huge carnivorous plants, although not as tall as the ones from before, came close to try to bite them, since each would be at least two times greater than a normal human.


    Within few minutes since the battle started, there were already dozens of soldiers fallen (eaten) by those plants.


    Since they didn¡¯t had the support from the mages, they could only dodge or block, as those type of monster were the natural enemy of close combat warriors.


    Windser being the exception, as he already killed numerous of those. His golden sword causes great damage to the moon plant monsters and each stroke could chop a whip off from the floras or cut the whole stem of the huge carnivorous plants.


    Yet he couldn¡¯t defend all the sides by himself and his troops numbers were decreasing with time.


    ¡°Patterned squad take the vanguard! Other squads keep support from behind!¡±


    Although the patterned squad were elites, they were tired from the assault earlier and each of those were several times stronger than the normal soldiers, so losing them would be a huge loss.


    Windser couldn¡¯t just watch all his man being slaughtered.

 Chapter 19 – Meeting

    Chapter 19 ¨C Meeting


    ~~ Lucca Point of View ~~


    As I saw the captain fighting bravely, while his men kept dying, I felt my chest burning.


    Moving my hand towards the pocket, I took out the golden emblem Vartre left for me. It¡¯s hot, as it was taken from the middle of a vulcan, still I didn¡¯t feel my hand burning.


    But contrary to my hand, I kept feeling this weird sensation on my chest of hotness, as if my insides were in turmoil.


    Without being able to endure this feeling I fainted.


    As I open my eyes, I¡¯m greeted by a large blue sky without sun. It¡¯s just the blue and the vague white from the clouds.


    When I look around, it seems I¡¯m standing on the air, though I was laying down moments ago, what a weird feeling.


    ¡°Did I die? The last thing I could remember is that weird feeling inside me, furthermore right in the middle of the battle¡­¡±


    As if hearing my words, in the next moment, a bright light suddenly appears, blinding me.


    When I open my eyes, I¡¯m standing on a wide green plain, without anything on the horizon, just green on all sides, the only exception being a complete white structure at my back. Without anything else to do, I enter the large white door.


    The inside of the building is all white, much like the outside, the only exception was there was a beautiful woman inside sitting on the air. No, looking closely, she was sitting on a completely white chair too.


    She was a gorgeous blonde woman with green eyes, pale white skin, but if one were to choose the most authentic characteristic from her, despite her almost godly beauty, would be her pairs of white wings.


    She was almost exactly like the woman carved in the golden emblem.


    Sensing my gaze between her and the appearance carved on the emblem, she smiled.


    The emblem flew from my hands and landed on a complete white desk. She said some words I couldn¡¯t comprehend, but from the tone of her voice and her expression I could somehow understood that she was worried about me.


    Taking the emblem on her hands, it suddenly vanished. Then she waved her hands in the air and golden energy started to flow.


    It looked like mana, but it was different, it was more like the skill Windser used before, yet this was on a whole another level. If his skills before made me feel some type of majesty, this time made me remember Ann legends about angels.


    As her hands danced on the air, after some time, the golden energy started solidifying.


    One minute later the beautiful angel-alike woman stopped working and grabbed a golden coin formed from the energy.


    She pointed towards me and extended her hands with the coin.


    ¡°Are you asking me to accept this?¡±


    Seeing her earnest nodding face I couldn¡¯t help but show a smile.


    When I grabbed the coin, the weird feeling from my insides stopped. Not minding my astonished face, the woman touched my forehead and suddenly said.


    ¡°Can you understand me now?¡±


    ¡°Whoa¡­ Yes¡±


    You surprised me, suddenly speaking like this. While calming down, I can see her giggling light, what is it about my surprised face that lately everyone suddenly smiles when those things happen?!


    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.¡°I don¡¯t know about others, but yes, your reactions are interesting.¡±


    ¡°Haa¡­ lately I¡¯ve been feeling like a toy¡­¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t seen surprised¡±


    ¡°About?¡±


    ¡°The fact that I can read your mind¡±


    ¡°You could?!¡± ¨C I showed an exaggerated face. I mean, I¡¯ve heard stories from Ann. Angels, divine beings who pass judgment on corrupted souls are common knowledge.


    ¡°Ah, I see. Certainly that¡¯s also true.¡±


    ¡°So, am I facing judgment? Did I really die?¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t die¡± ¨C She pointed towards the golden coin in my hand and continued ¨C ¡°I showed up to retrieve the emblem you possessed and give you that one, your own emblem¡±


    Speaking about emblem, I was surprised when she touched me, so I couldn¡¯t see it throughly. Although the size is different, it¡¯s almost like the one Vartre had handed to me, the only difference being that this time the winged woman carved was exactly like the one standing right in front of me.


    Holding the emblem gave me a weird nostalgic feeling, as if I had been carrying it for years.


    ¡°Lucca Bright, when I called you, the flow of time outside was almost stopped. You are still on the middle of the battle, what are going to do?¡± ¨C Said the beautiful angel with a serious voice.


    ¡°What I¡¯m going to do? Isn¡¯t obvious? I¡¯m going to fight too!¡± ¨C After all, only captain could hurt them with holy mana and I¡¯m a innate user, therefore only I could help.


    ¡°As expected¡± ¨C From her hand a golden light flew towards my other hand ¨C ¡°I will give you this much this time as a reward...¡±


    I don¡¯t remember ever doing something to help her. I mean, could I even do anything for her to be grateful?


    ¡°Guess you wouldn¡¯t remember¡± ¨C She showed a wry smile ¨C ¡°Never mind¡­ Lucca Bright, if you can survive this fight, this trial, we¡¯re sure to meet again, until them.¡±


    As she waved her hands, in the next moment I suddenly feel my body once more. Opening my eyes I saw the dark of the night, while sounds of battle assaulted my ears.


    At that time the ball of energy suddenly merged with my skin, entering my body.


    I could felt this little ball energy from the angel running through my body. It blended with my mana and circulated through my blood.


    It gave me the same type of hot sensation from earlier, but this time, it was completely harmonious as that little ball of energy already became part of me.


    Finally standing and looking around, it seemed that the mages finally recovered their mana and thanks to their fire support, they could kept the monsters at bay, alleviating the burden of the captain and the elites. Yet each of those mages had a tired face.


    When the mages collapse we will die.


    Therefore I have to move.


    Lucca took out his beloved dagger and the silver sword he obtained earlier.


    The mana inside his body raged and he concentrated it on his sword. At that time it shined brightly, much brighter than ever before.


    Moving towards the vanguard, Lucca could felt his body was light, it moved easier than ever before, clearly the effect from the angel gift were bigger than he imagined.


    ¡°Thanks¡­¡± ¨C Muttering his gratefulness towards the angel, he stepped on the battle, for the first time.

 Chapter 20 – vs Full Moon Dryad (4)

    Chapter 20 ¨C vs Full Moon Dryad (4)


    The confidence Lucca had in those years was promptly washed away in those few nights. He understood how weak he was. Even the weakest soldier here could probably outclass him, as he didn¡¯t know even one skill.


    And this is not mentioning the valiant existences like Windser and Vartre, nor the abnormality of Cecil.


    ¡®I am weak¡¯, that was what Lucca thought as he could only watch the soldiers die from the relentless attack of the moon plant monsters.


    That ¡®strangely nostalgic¡¯, this feeling of helpless was the trigger.


    As he was being consumed by it, he could only watch people keep dying in front of him, despite Windser brave efforts, he felt his chest burning.


    As his insides went in turmoil he was called by an angel-like existence. It seemed she knew Lucca from long before, yet he couldn¡¯t remember ever meeting her aside one time in a dream.


    She wasn¡¯t fazed by his forgetfulness as that was normal and gave Lucca a gift when she determined Lucca conviction to help, while saying they were bound to meet again.


    Lucca suddenly awoke, sometime had passed since them and the mages recovered, still the body amount raised and it was just a question of time until the mages were exhausted again, they didn¡¯t have much time.


    At that moment Lucca felt the gift from the angel-like woman enter his body.


    His body felt lighter than ever before and he felt his mana raising. It wasn¡¯t just a quantity problem, but the quality also improved.


    If before his mana was innate holy mana was already something rare, when he absorbed the little ball gave him by the angel-like woman, a ¡®foreign¡¯ type of energy stayed in his body, giving the same type of feeling as Windser when he used his skills.


    Lucca understood, the source of those type of foreign energy were the ethereal women. Those are their blessings, their protection.


    Although he didn¡¯t know what he did to warrant her gift, he didn¡¯t have the luxury to deny, he knew after seeing how weak he really was.


    ¡°I will accept the gift, but I will become strong by myself!¡±


    Lucca finally stepped in the battlefield for the first time with his new power.


    ~~ Lucca Point of View ~~


    With both weapons in my hand, I look around, the elite warriors are still holding the line tightly thanks to the support of the mages, but we¡¯re completely outnumbered by them.


    We have to avoid the big attack (bite) from the huge carnivorous plants at any costs, so we¡¯re left open to the vine whips from the floras from time to time.


    At this moment, four whips strike a warrior at my side, making he retreat a few meters away, breaking the line. A huge carnivorous plant tries to enter our formation.


    I have to stop this.


    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.Moving forward I stand at the front of huge plant, it¡¯s easily three times my size and his mouth was big enough to rip me in half with a bite.


    I¡¯ve heard a few voices screaming for me to back down, but seeing our sorry state, we don¡¯t have much of a choice, do we?


    I transmit my mana and the ¡®something¡¯ from the angel to my blades. They shine brightly. I can do it.


    The plant uses its big mouth to try to bite me, but I sidestep.


    Although their movements are unbeknownst for normal plants, especially from that size, surprisingly my body moved fast enough to avoid its big attack with ease.


    The side of the monsters is completely open, so I swing the silver sword I got from a fallen adventurer.


    The body of the monster was tougher than I thought, still the blade invaded its body and the holy mana burned it, leaving considerable damage.


    The plant reacted almost humanly as it screamed while feeling the pain.


    Quickly after he stood again and stayed there as if staring at me.


    While he was ¡®staring¡¯ at me, a ball of flames hit his side, making he wriggle in pain once more.


    Not letting go of this change I take my both weapons and stab deeply on its stem, this time releasing my mana directly in the monster insides instead of just coating the blades.


    The effect was great as I could felt the scent of burn smoke from the wound and smoke flowed constantly.


    The moon plant collapsed, but the attack didn¡¯t stop, as the vine whips, that knocked the elite soldier earlier, make its way to my sides.


    I have to block them!


    Without time to dodge, I concentrate my mana and that something inside me in my body, strengthening its functions.


    The energy felt in my limbs were numerous stronger than before the gift, almost like my body without restraints, while using the berserk potion. But this time I have full control.


    I use my sword and dagger and intercept the attack. My blades easily parry their assault, as just touching them caused the plants to hesitate, thanks to the burns from my mana. Looking back, the elite soldier seems to have recovered and the mages are still giving support. Good!


    Honestly, I¡¯m not good enough to kill the moon plants like the Captain, who can hold multiple of those alone, nor I have good coordination with the corps to stand here, then there¡¯s only one thing I ought to do.


    I ran through the huge carnivorous plants easily, thanks to their enormous size and I¡¯m greeted by a vision of dozens upon dozens of flora monsters, they were giving support to the big carnivorous plants, if I could kill them we will steadily win this battle.


    I think it¡¯s strange that there¡¯s no other type of monsters here besides those two types, especially the magic type dryads or the manipulated monster.


    I don¡¯t know why they aren¡¯t here, but that¡¯s better for us.


    I just have to cut them to live through this hell of a night.


    Gripping my weapons tightly I dash to them, while being welcomed by their whips.


    At the same time, somewhere else, a lone girl was ''fighting'' a horde.

 Chapter 21 - Night Attack (Conclusion)

    Chapter 21 ¨C Night Attack (Conclusion)


    ~~ Cecil Point of View ~~


    When I accepted this mission from the capt, I was thinking it was just a normal quest for hunting some troublesome monster, but this is getting more and more irritating.


    How come there¡¯s such a huge mana outburst effect in all those years and not even one of the men commanding this country noticed? This is strange.


    Well, it¡¯s not like I don¡¯t understand how they couldn¡¯t notice, since they are just hyumans in the first place, but still there¡¯s a limit for their incompetence.


    Normally that wouldn¡¯t matter for me at all. I¡¯m not the type of girl who would fuss over details, but this time it¡¯s troublesome.


    This dryad is strong, much stronger than a normal intelligent monster would be or a hyuman who achieved Riviera, how many years did she absorb this raging mana and controlling monsters and people alike until now?


    Still that wouldn¡¯t matter much for my strength.


    ¡°You impudent human girl!¡±


    The moon dryad shouted while glaring at me, as if seeing the reaper, what an impolite guy.


    The trouble is that after exchanging blows with me a few times she clearly understood she couldn¡¯t win and retreated towards the place with most mana, the center of the outburst while using almost a hundred possessed persons as shield.


    What about the other giant monsters?


    Frankly they were weak, well, not like I can expect any challenge here. With a few minutes I¡¯ve finished all of them.


    Usually I would use a big magic and destroy everything, but this time I don¡¯t what would happen if I were to burst this whole place open with all this volatile mana, furthermore I¡¯m pretty sure capt would be mad if I were to kill all the people possessed by the plants or hurt his precious men in the after effects.


    I¡¯m sure capt has some thoughts about releasing them and with the priests from the church it¡¯s probable to rescue their bodies, though I doubt it would be anything left from their spirit, after all this dryad is a mutation specialized in feeding from other people mana, the soul energy, after so many years messing with it.


    Well, if I can kill the dryad and release their control I can make the souls enter the Samsara (cycle of reincarnation) again, though they probably wouldn¡¯t be reborn as people.


    While thinking such stupid thing I had to maneuver my way towards the dryads while avoiding or knocking out the people without killing them.


    The problem is that these guys use the tentacles popping out of their heads to link their own bodies like some a giant human whip to hit me, are they even human at this point?


    While evading such attacks, despite their uttermost opposition I take it easy, since the dryad was cornered, or so I though.


    If I had rushed with everything I got, I could have finished her before this whole mess.


    The dryad dug herself into the earth right in the centermost part of the burst effect and ate like crazy the raging mana.


    She must be aware what would happen if she did that, since she lived for how many years while being nurtured by it.


    Yes, right in front of my eyes a tree sprouted from nowhere. It was huge, easily being bigger than the tallest tower from the royal castle of this country and having a width that could easily house dozens upon dozens of people.


    Right in the mid of that enormous trunk I saw what was supposed to be the dryad.


    A deformed face that lacked the beauty it had achieved when evolved, not it turned into a complete monster, throwing away its own reason to drink more power.


    In this universe there are infinite ways to get more powerful, yet the huge majority of those are about strengthening the soul, acquiring more mana.


    What the dryad did was the simplest way out of all the methods, consume mana, that¡¯s why when people kill their enemies they eat a little part of their soul to strengthen their own, the most primordial method known to people.


    Yet when taking huge amount of foreign mana into the body the bigger the side effects, for example when I call upon the ¡°conduit¡± to channel the power, I can excess superb power for some time, but I will be considerably weaker for the day after and won¡¯t go back to my peak for a week.


    Her own ability is using her own mana to intrude other bodies and command them from inside.


    She must be aware of the effect of having foreign mana that exceeds their limit. Yes, she had their own soul eroded by the huge amount of power surging to her body that wasn¡¯t made to house such a huge quantity of mana.


    Although the soul is the key part of the person, the body has the same importance, if not more, after all the body is the receptacle of the soul and no matter how strong the soul is, if they don¡¯t have a body capable of exercising their strength, it¡¯s just useless power.


    Now what would happen when the soul reach the limit of their own body? They enter the state called Riviera and can enter samsara to get a new body that¡¯s compatible with one own soul while leaving the old body as energy to the universe, their new body can be stronger than the one from before, making the people soar new heights.


    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.Well, it¡¯s another story if the new reincarnation wishes the same as the past one.


    Now, going back on topic, what would happen when one forcefully make the body break past the limit while feeding with such a volatile mana?


    They have their soul eroded and pulled out of the wheel of the souls, making it impossible to reincarnate. Now with a body not bound by the laws of the universe (Riviera) now having its own soul connected with the reincarnation cycle, they become an alien existence to the providence of the universe commonly known as calamity, renegades, true demons and the likes.


    From the entire universe, truly the most horrendous beings.


    Or so that¡¯s what I¡¯ve been told, but from what I could see she simple didn¡¯t know better and did it because she was cornered.


    Well, regardless of she is really a existence that go against the law of the world, like I was told, or just a cornered rat, she is an enemy.


    That is enough for me. I will let the hard thinking for the scholars.


    While drawing my sword a huge whip, that was large as the trunk of an old tree, came in my direction.


    ¡°Even if you got this big, you are still just a plant!¡±


    With a swing of my sword, already bathed in flames, I cut away the huge tentacle cleanly.


    ¡°RRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIRRIRIR!¡±


    The dryad-tree-thing screeched like feeling pain, but her whips came flying one after another. With consecutives cuts I severed her tentacles while hearing her soar voice in the background.


    Within half minute I¡¯ve already cut almost half hundred tentacles, still they kept coming without stop.


    As I was going to complain about her attack not working, a huge purple beam was shot from the distorted face of the dryad.


    ¡°Ah diversion, huh?¡± ¨C Lifting my sword in the air I shouted ¨C ¡°[Earth Wall]¡±


    A brown wall surged at my front and blocked the dryad attack completely.


    So I jumped towards the top of the wall and saw the dryad preparing another beam attack to me while their tentacles started assaulting me again despite I had cut them in half seconds ago. Looking at the surroundings of the aberration I could see the tentacles being healed or new ones popping out of the dryad body.


    This is going to be troublesome, so let¡¯s finish this thing quickly with a big attack.


    Moving my sword back at the scabbard, I pointed it to the dryad while dodging the countless swings.


    ¡°Let my will be heard. Wrathful ****, Lord of the Flames, take my mana as payment and my body as vessel, let thy anger consume the my enemies and thy power be known to the world¡±


    My body was wrapped in flames and I could feel the energy surging with each word, my mana being offered to it and he giving me its power to burn the world. Staring at the dryad, I finally released my attack.


    ¡°[Inferno]¡±


    The flame didn¡¯t stopped, they kept increasing, more and more. Seconds later my surroundings were all dyed red. Fire was everywhere and started moving with me in the center, the sound of it was unnatural and didn¡¯t sounded as fire, but as a higher voice of something that was singing the requiem for everything it was about to consume.


    When the ¡®music¡¯ stopped the giant walls of fire that encircled everything started to fall, as if a god hand coming to punish the foolish mortals.


    Moments later, all the flame abnormally vanished as if the events from before were just an illusion, but the place leveled into a desolate scenario was real.


    ¡°Everything is over?¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help but mutter, although it was troublesome keeping the damage at minimum at my back, so I wouldn¡¯t kill capt et al.


    Moving towards the center, I finally saw why I still have this weird feeling.


    ¡°So you still didn¡¯t died.¡±


    Looking at the earth, it seems ¡°it¡± sealed the problem while being summoned, since I couldn¡¯t feel the boundless mana of the world being released anymore.


    Without their source of power, the dryad couldn¡¯t regenerate and what¡¯s in my front was just what¡¯s left of her body, a human trunk without limbs and a head partially burnt.


    ¡°To live after all that¡­ I finally understand why they told me that you guys are calamities. Despite having such weak soul and body in the beginning, to think you could strengthen it so much to the point it could endure inferno.


    Still, I can¡¯t let you live, after all you¡¯re the worst type of vermin that uses his power to rob other people control while using them as puppets.¡±


    Ops, my real intention leaked a little, well, doesn¡¯t matter.


    With several stabs into its head and trunk with my flaming sword, the whole body turned into ashes quickly. She finally died, as I could sense part of her power being absorbed by me, after all this trouble, finally I get a reward.

 Chapter 22 – End of the Long Night

    Chapter 22 ¨C End of the Long Night


    Despite his utmost effort he is still a novice with regards in how to use mana, there was a limit of how much he could do it alone, yet he didn¡¯t give up.


    Lucca cut through, time and time again. The silver blade he got from the dead adventurer from earlier has cracks all over its body and is just a matter of time before being completely destroyed.


    ¡°Ah¡­ ah¡­ ah¡­ Finally it was destroyed?¡±


    With the last swing to intercept an incoming attack, the blade finally gave up and was completely broken. Lucca couldn¡¯t help but show a wry smile while he took the dagger given by his beloved Ann who didn¡¯t have a scratch on its surface.


    Bang, an attack comes. If he dodges the whip will come again, so he has to disturb their movement or cut out their vines once for all.


    Therefore, cut, slash and rip! That was the only way Lucca could make it through.


    He was tired, he already had slayed a few dozens of monsters alone, but when he lost the support of the magicians from Windser due to the lack of mana, he had to take the brunt of the attack alone.


    If he took of his clothes, they could all that purple marks and blood flowing because of the attacks, yet he didn¡¯t had any choice but to accept the attack.


    A big mouth comes and tries to bite away Lucca, he has no other option but dodge, while in the air, the vines thrust again. He is bombarded one more time by their combined offensive.


    ¡°Ah¡­ Ah¡­ This is bad¡­¡± ¨C Muttered while spitting out the blood in his mouth.


    Lucca moved his eyes and saw the scene on his surroundings. On his back there were countless bodies, on his side there was Windser et al fighting the huge flytraps and in his front a huge amount of floras preparing their offensive yet again ¨C ¡°Ah¡­ Ah¡­ Ah¡­ But the number of enemies certainly decreased.¡±


    (Their numbers decreased, but they are still two times the amount we originally had¡­ I can¡¯t keep up fighting like this, my body is already at its limit¡­)


    Breathing slowly Lucca accessed the situation of his tired body and understood he couldn¡¯t keep this reckless way of fighting, the plants certainly didn¡¯t give him a major wound yet, but it was just a matter of time before his body slowed enough for him to be eaten by huge carnivorous plants or being whipped to death by the floras.


    ¡°Ah¡­ Ah¡­ Angel¡­ I don¡¯t know why you gave me this power, but I will use it to make it through this night¡± ¨C He flashed a smile while raised his dagger ¨C ¡°So¡­ My body, don¡¯t give up on me¡­¡±


    While saying those words, as if they were a blessing to keep fighting, he started circulating what¡¯s left of his mana on his whole body. Earlier he understood that he didn¡¯t needed to force his body to the maximum to kill those plant monsters, but it became a battle of attrition he didn¡¯t have any other choice but to go full power and kill as many as he can.


    Golden light started shining brightly in the middle of the night. The plant monsters weren¡¯t intelligent, but their instinct made they hesitate, for the light was their natural enemy together with fire.


    The golden clad boy moved towards the monsters, his speed now was a level faster than before he started battling, the vines that came in his direction were easily dodged, if before he had to attack them to not suffer the next attack, now he was already in the face of the floras while stabbing her with his weapon.


    The flora didn¡¯t give up and swung the tentacle one last time to stop the boy onslaught, but with his other hand he easily stopped the attack.


    ¡°RIIIIIIIIIIIIII¡±


    What seemed to be the screams of pain of the floras that was being burned by the golden light could be heard louder than any sound on this battlefield, yet the boy didn¡¯t flinched and once more stabbed the monster.


    It died, the boy clearly knew as he sensed some little amount of energy flowing through his body when he delivered the last blow. Since the start of the battle, whenever he felled an enemy, he felt this sensation of confirming he indeed had slayed them.


    Nevertheless he did not have the time to ponder about what was that feeling, as another attacks made its way to him.


    This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.The boy kept moving while easily dodging those attacks, then a big mouth make his way towards him, he easily sidestepped avoiding the danger, but in the next moment he was greeted by another carnivorous plant ready to eat him.


    ¡°¡­¡±


    The silent boy seeing he didn¡¯t any other choice, swung his left fist. His golden clad punch dived into the ¡®flesh¡¯ of the carnivorous plant and made a huge hole, his other arm, that wasn¡¯t shining, moved.


    The mana from his arm was focused on the blade of the dagger as if becoming a sword made out of Holy Mana and he stabbed it through the plant open mouth.


    Forcing as the weight of his normal arm he skewed the plant brain and could feel the energy flowing through his body, the mark of the slay.


    Taking out his arm, now already clad golden again, he moved once more and intercepted the first carnivorous plant.


    If before he couldn¡¯t figure out the energy before, now bathed in holy mana, he could sense that the carnivorous plants were stronger than the floras, each swing of them could kill a man if they were unprepared. Therefore he decided to focus on those big monsters rather than the annoying floras.


    He kept battling, yet after killing the 15th huge carnivorous plant he felt his mana decreasing, even though there was little amount of energy being gain with every slay, it was a minor quantity compared to his full throttle.


    At that moment suddenly the forest started to feel the rise of the temperature, seconds later the red color started to rise. Flames, upon flames surged going towards the sky.


    Lucca et al could only watch, yet despite them not paying attention to the battlefield, the attacks stopped, as if the monsters too couldn¡¯t help but watch the wall of flames that climbed towards the skies.


    As they reached a size bigger than everything Lucca ever saw before, they started to fall. The flames, that seemed to consume anything, fell from the skies and when they finally touched the ground, a wave to heat surged in all directions.


    ¡°Amazing¡­¡±


    Lucca couldn¡¯t help but mutter as just the wave of the aftermath made him felt such heat, he couldn¡¯t possible fathom what felt like inside the world of fire.


    As if the messenger of the day, the flames simply vanished and the sun started rising in the east.


    At that moment Lucca finally recovered his senses, and remembered the battlefield, but the monsters still didn¡¯t attack. Wondering why they suddenly stopped he looked towards them and saw that the floras became extreme sluggish and the carnivorous plants seemed to shorten and didn¡¯t move as much.


    Finally the long night of fighting was over. The plants empowered by the moon were easily dealt in the light of the sun.


    When the shout of Captain Windser roared, everybody knew, the battle was over.


    In that moment a beautiful girl with red hair with the same color of the castle of flames and serene blue eyes showed up in the top of what used to be waterfall, but now was just a dried nascent.


    She beamed her usual style and with a jump she appeared in front of Lucca.


    ¡°You worked hard tonight, boy¡±


    She moved her hand in a speed Lucca¡¯s eyes simple couldn¡¯t follow and tapped his forehead. At this moment Lucca felt the exhaustion of the night in full brunt and finally let his body rest.


    ¡°Who would have thought that he could have done that much?¡± ¨C Muttered Cecil while looking the wake of the battlefield, the boy was alone in the middle of innumerous corpses.


    ¡°I can see why he already got the blessing¡­ Still to use conduit like this¡­¡±


    Cecil said while looking his fainted body, blood gushing everywhere and his flesh swollen purple all over. It was clear he wouldn¡¯t be able to move for a long time.


    ¡°Hahh¡­ How reckless for a brat¡­


    But I will give a little service this time, since I don¡¯t want to carry you.¡±


    Cecil waved her hand and her mana turned golden blue color and slowly permeated the tired body of the boy, regenerating him and moments later his pained breath was returned to normal together with his whole body that seemed perfectly fine, with the exception of his ragged clothes.