Chapter 48:

Franklin grit his teeth harder as the minutes flew by. Rationally, he knew that time was on his side; the longer it takes for Fox to draw the talisman up, the closer she would be to getting caught.

Yes, he did not know what the talisman was but judging by the amount of effort it took for her to draw it up, he guessed it was her trump card. However, no matter how powerful the talisman was, it was useless if he managed to prevent its activation. It was for that reason that he desperately thrashed his Aura about in hopes of expediting the restraints talisman’s destruction.

Furthermore, by now, his other troop members must have noticed that something was wrong and so they were probably in the process of advancing to his location; backup was coming.

‘And even if they don’t…’ He thought to himself as he channeled his Aura; he could feel the restraints talisman loosening, it wouldn’t be long before it completely gave out.

‘Just a couple of minutes more,’ He thought desperately.

And so it came to be that the ticking clock looked unfavorably toward Fox. Pressure was surely building on all sides and within the next few minutes, her fate would be sealed.

So why was it then that she remained steadfast, unmoving in the face of what seemed like a certain defeat? Was it confidence, arrogance, bravery, or a mix of the three that allowed her to do so?

Franklin once more began to intensify his escape attempts as a feeling of unease began to creep up on him.

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Perhaps the only other person experiencing more anxiety than Franklin was the unlikely Lucy who, despite her inner turmoil, managed to maintain a calm facade as she continued to stick exploding talismans onto the mercenaries.

Finally done with her job, she once again nervously peeked toward the steady Rain who was busy writing up the teleportation talisman. Lucy knew that this plan of hers was half-baked at best as it hinged almost entirely on her friend’s ability in talisman making, but she did not hesitate in the slightest to implement it when the moment called for her to do so as she had confidence in her friend’s strength.

Talisman making was often seen as a hobby that was inherently trivial in nature. Its relatively weak firepower made it the laughingstock of Magicians and warriors alike. There were many things that held talismans back, like the insane cost it took to practice it as every piece of talisman paper and every drop of ink was so expensive, only nobles would be able to catch a whiff of them in their lifetimes.

Another con was the insane amounts of concentration and precision it took to draw them up as talismans were essentially another form of inscriptions which in themselves took immense amounts of time and focus.

However, like all things in life, Talismans had their allure as well. In comparison to inscriptions, talismans required far less Origin to do the same task, allowing even those who had a poor affinity with Origin to practice talisman making.

The pros and cons were numerous, to say the least, and to this very moment, experts all around the world still debate over whether talismans were truly their own field or simply a subsection of inscriptions in general.

Whatever the case, it was commonly known that talisman experts were rare. From the ludicrous amount of resources required to practice it, to the endless patience one needed to become proficient in it, indeed the path of talismans was long and arduous.

Lucy still remembered the day Rain told her she wanted to become a talisman expert. She had laughed at her friend back then as the Rain she knew was short-tempered and willful, nothing at all like the traits needed to become proficient in the field. Yet when she saw Rain’s complete stillness and concentration during her practice, Lucy began to believe.

It was this belief that assured her all would be well.

She picked up their sleeping hostage and drew closer to Rain. Time was growing scarcer as in the distance, she felt the presence of multiple mercenaries drawing in on them.

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‘Shit!’ Rain cursed to herself as she frantically laid symbol after symbol down, it did not help that she was acutely aware of the dangers closing in on her. Yet she persevered on, stubborn to what could be her very last breath. Thankfully, she had found her groove and was nearing completion, but just as she was about to write her final set of symbols, a sudden question stumped her.

The final set represented coordinates of sorts. Here, a choice was presented to her; one of the restrictions related to teleportation talismans was the fact that the user had to be familiar with the place they wanted to go to. In her case, there were many locations to choose from but the crux of the matter was whether she wanted to continue hunting the map pieces down, or whether she should retreat.

Hesitation stilled her hands despite knowing that now was definitely not the time.

‘What should I do?’ She thought to herself.

She had been too selfish this time around, she needed to retreat. Lucy wanted to go home, plus Sophia would probably be losing her mind over worry right about now.

On the other hand, she could feel something special from this map matter. An adventure…

The mysterious map, the old language it was written in, the mere fact it had multiple pieces; it was all just so exciting, could she really stop here?

She bit her lip in frustration. She knew what the right choice was, yet she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

It was during her contemplation that she felt a warmness envelop her hand.

Looking over, she saw that Lucy had come close to her and she was now holding her hand.

“Lucy?” Rain asked, bewildered.

“What are you thinking so hard for? That’s unlike you,” Lucy replied with a calm smile.

“It’s just that, I-i…”

Rain looked into Lucy’s eyes as a million thoughts fluttered through her mind.

At first, Lucy seemed not to understand, but soon enough she caught on.

Sinking into contemplation herself, Lucy furrowed her brows.

The two friends sat next to each other sporting similar expressions of contemplation.

Rain closed her eyes as she heard the rapid footsteps of approaching mercenaries, she sighed as she moved to write down the final symbols, hoping to send them back to Phentar.

“Wait,” Lucy stopped her before she could get far. “Let’s finish what we started,’ Lucy expressed before sighing in exasperation.

Suddenly a beaming smile appeared on Rain’s face as she drew the final symbols.

Finally done she looked over to Franklin.

“See you soon, back to square one,” She said calmly, staring into his eyes.

Franklin’s eyes widened and suddenly his Aura burst forth with far more vigor, at last, the restraints talisman broke and with momentum rivaling that of a beast’s, he sent a slash toward Fox.

Alas, he was too late.

A flash of light exploded out from where the girls once stood.

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“Dammit!” Franklin growled as he kicked the earth below him.

‘So close!’ He thought angrily to himself as he watched his remaining mercenaries arrive at his location.

Had Fox been seconds late, they would have caught her.

In his frustration, he failed to remember a certain Talisman glued to his clothes and as his troop grouped together, he was rudely reminded of its presence.

The second explosion of the night was punctuated by the frustrated howl of a certain mercenary leader.

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Cort squeezed the mop of its filthy water before going back to mopping a certain section of Sirocco.

It was the day after he was detained for the trouble with Amelia and their punishment was finally decided on. They would be placed on cleaning duty alongside their training.

Looking over to his side, he saw a tired out Amelia leaning against her mop ready to fall asleep despite standing up.

Immediately after breakfast, they were placed under a strict training regiment. The training mostly consisted of familiarizing themselves with the patrol routes of Sirocco and learning battle commands. Apparently, their main objective was similar to that of guards, but in the case of this war, they would also be the backup unit for the vanguard in case things went south. That is to say, their main job was to protect Sirocco in the case of a sudden ambush.

The training itself was rather straightforward, splitting the adventurers into groups before placing them through various mock battle scenarios. Sometimes, they would be pinned against each other in a kind of contest.

It was during these that Cort learned of many interesting things.

An example being the fact that the soldiers from the wind palace did not participate in the training; as expected, discontent began building within some of the adventurers, and tensions soon rose.

Unexpectedly, most of the agitated adventurers were on the younger side. In fact, all the veterans seemed to accept the situation as if natural, some even began to berate the riled-up juniors.

From this several things piqued Cort’s interest. The veteran adventurers wanted to be in this war.

At first, Cort did not understand why but soon the answer came to him. It happened when his team lost a match against another team. At first, everything was normal, but soon he noticed a flash of light coming from his badge.

Curious he checked it, only to find that the number on it decreased in value.

Suddenly things clicked into place.

A loud yawn interrupted his thoughts.

Looking over to where Amelia was, he saw a sleepy young woman wiping the dust from her eyes.

“Cort? Why didn’t you wake me? I could have helped with the work.”

“It’s fine, I’m nearly done anyways!” Cort replied with a pleasant tone.

The two began to talk about trivial matters for a while before a sudden voice interrupted them.

“You two are relieved of your duties, for the time being, return to your sleeping quarters,” A strict-looking soldier said mildly before turning to leave.

Heaving sighs of relief, the two placed their cleaning tools back where they got them and headed toward their respective quarters.

Interestingly enough, the sleeping area was split into two based on gender and not occupation.

“See you tomorrow Cort!”

“Yes, see you.”

Upon his resting area, he was offered bread and juice as dinner. The bread was bland and the juice was watered down.

Finished with his eating he retired to his bed where he fell into slumber.

Hours later, at the darkest part of the night, Cort was wide awake. Carefully, he snuck out of bed and headed for the window.

He wasn’t the only one to do this, as made evident by the fact that the last one to leave did not close the window up all the way.

Minutes into his stroll, he arrived at his destination, the training field. Around him, several other adventurers were also practicing their skills, but as if agreeing beforehand, no one initiated any conversations.

As he stepped foot onto the field, he studied his badge which began glowing again.

‘My number is increasing now…’ He thought to himself as he took out a bow from his storage ring.

He was tired of practicing the sword, so he decided on training something else.

Pulling the bow all the way back he shot toward a target.

Bullseye.

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