(Oct 15)

“By the way, I asked Briggs, since he’s the king’s son and has a lot of authority, if I could put more priority into taking down The Grinch and he agreed. In one week, we’re going to take down The Grinch once and for all.”

William just casually said something so important, where if I didn’t know the context, I would’ve assumed he was just mentioning a simple thing.

But no, he was talking about eliminating The Grinch.

“Wait, what?”

“I’m going to gather hundreds of soldiers to participate, we are not holding back with taking The Grinch down. The king has realized the severity of the situation.”

The first thing I felt was… excitement… or anticipation? I’m not sure, but my heart was beating like crazy.

We’re going to… end The Grinch once and for all?

End this nightmare?

Finally bring down that murdering sonuvabitch?

“So we’re gonna do it? Like for real? Once and for all?”

William nods.

“Once and for all. Since we don’t know the full extent of The Grinch’s strength, we’re going to immobilize everything we can. We can only hope that The Grinch is not an S rank… there are only 2 S ranks in this entire country, so the chances of The Grinch being an S rank is very unlikely…”

But then William silently mumbled under his breath, “…but not impossible…”

“What if The Grinch was an S rank? Would we be screwed? Shouldn’t we be able to defeat The Grinch if all the A ranked worked together?”

“It depends… an average S rank has enough power to rival an entire kingdom… you know that as you go up in the ranks, the bigger the gap between the ranks are. It takes on average, 2 – 5 F ranks to defeat a single average E rank. 5 – 10 E ranks to defeat a single average D rank. 10 – 20 D rank to defeat a single average C rank. 20 – 50 C rank to defeat a single average B rank. 50 – 100 B ranks to defeat a single average A rank. Now, based on the pattern so far… how many A ranks would it take to defeat a single average S rank…? Over 100.”

“O-over a 100 A ranks?!?!”

That’s absurd… actually fucking crazy…

“Of course, this is only a very very very rough comparison. As you know, real life combat isn’t determined by numerical value, so this example is nearly worthless. Like an C ranked wizard vs D ranked warrior, in a one on one would likely result in the warrior’s victory. Or it’s possible that a strong D rank could defeat a weaker C rank. So take what I said with a grain of salt… however it does help us estimate a bit…”

Holy shit, even if that’s just a rough estimate, it’s expected for 100 A ranks to beat a single S rank…

“So yeah, we’re going to need your help in our plan. Until the day the operation to subjugate The Grinch begins, continue training and improving your new dragon abilities and skills.”

With that, William gave me some training instructions and sent me off.

One week.

I have one week to train until the operation to take down The Grinch.

How strong will The Grinch be?

Will I be useful?

Will this finally end?

Such question ran through my mind the entire rest of the day, causing me to be distracted from my training.

Sometimes, I just tend to overthink things.

I need a break.

I swear that when The Grinch problem gets resolved… I’m taking another long break. This shit is stressful.

.

After getting home from training, I did a bit of my own training with my dragon powers.

I showed Gabi and my wife my dragon missiles (of course, I didn’t detonate them in the house) flying around and Gabi was super excited.

Gabi started chasing my flying dragon missiles around the house and I would manipulate the dragon missiles so they would fly away from her.

Gabi was having fun chasing my dragon missiles, but at the same time I was practicing and training my precision with moving the dragon missiles around.

Now, I can make my dragon missiles do sharp turns in the air more accurately and I was able to manipulate them to dodge Gabi’s attempt to catch them.

We did this for an hour or so until Gabi finally gave up.

In the end, she couldn’t catch my dragon missiles and started pouting in the corner.

She was sad because she couldn’t catch my dragon missiles, which was kind of cute to watch… but I headpatted her with my floating dragon missiles and let her grab it.

She immediately cheered up. How adorable.

(Oct 16)

Day four of training.

Today, Alisha announced The Grinch operation to all the soldiers.

“The king has decided that in one week’s time, we will take down The Grinch. We need soldiers to participate, all soldiers who participate will be heavily rewarded! We need as many soldiers as possible to sign up to help us capture The Grinch!”

This news caused all the soldiers to start talking among themselves.

“They’ve been investigating The Grinch or so long, and they haven’t made any progress. So now they’re going to make us, mere soldiers, to track down the Grinch?”

“I hear The Grinch is like, ya know, super powerful. What are we going to be able to do against a monster like that?”

“I mean, it’d be good if we could finally stop the murders though…”

“Should I sign up? If the reward is worth it… but I’m risking my life here…”

There was doubt, suspicion and fear spreading around, which is understandable considering how things have been going so far.

At this rate, only a few soldiers would sign up…

That was until Alisha suddenly released thunder from her body causing all the soldiers to look back at her in shock.

“You pathetic people call yourselves soldiers of this kingdom?! PATHETIC!! Shameless, each and everyone of you. The Grinch is powerful, whoever he is or whatever it is, has claimed numerous lives until now and I will admit, we have been unsuccessful in tracking it down. But you all have friends and families, and they are not safe as long as The Grinch is running loose.”

Alisha’s words put pressure on every single soldier listening.

“This is what your training from the past couple days been for! Are you telling me you’re not willing to risk your life for your kingdom, for your family, for your people…? Any one of you or your family members could become a victim of a Grinch attack. That’s why we need to take down The Grinch as soon as possible! We won’t force anyone one of you to participate, but take my words to heart, and think hard about your decision.”

Once Alisha’s booming voice stopped talking, there was an absolute silence.

I knew that she was probably bullshitting that speech on the spot, but damn that was inspirational.

Her confidence and charismatic voice. Damn. It definitely restored some confidence in me.

After a moment of silence, someone started clapping their hands.

Soon, another person started clapping his hands.

After a bit, everyone was clapping.

The soldiers also seemed to have been affected by her speech, confidence was restored, and people were more willing to join now.

“Alright soldiers, quiet down!” Alisha raised her hand and people stopped cheering and clapping.

A couple higher ranked officers came and set up a table with paperwork.

“Anyone who wants to participate can sign up here.”

Alisha sat down on a chair behind the table that was set up, and then a lineup of soldiers formed in front of it.

“Anyone who joins has to sign a magic contract, read it carefully.”

A magic contract…

These contracts are bounded and used with magic; you don’t sign it with a signature, but you sign it with your magic instead.

I picked up a magic contract and injected a bit of my magic into it.

Magic contracts contain information and details based on the agreement of both parties. It absorbs magic from the person signing it and store it within the contract.

The magic absorbed is connected to the user and if the magic contract detects that the user has violated the agreement, the magic contract will send off an alarm to alert the other party.

It’s a near perfect way to monitor if someone is keeping their promise (not perfect since it’s made using magic and there are ways to counter it).

They work the same way as paper contracts do, but with extra security.

I’m surprised they used magic contracts considering how expensive they are, magic contracts are usually used by nobles, high ranked authority, rich merchants, or other very rare cases.

I guess that just proves how important this was.

I also got to keep a paper copy of the magic contract and here’s a summary of it.

You must not be The Grinch You must not tell anyone of this event You must not hinder the operation You must be a legal soldier of this kingdom (D ranks and above only) You must be of legal age Those who participate will be rewarded according to their level of contribution You acknowledge and agree to your safety being at risk for the greater good (if anything happens, your family will be compensated) This contract takes effect until October 23, the day after the operation

There was a bunch of things I had to write on the contract, like my combat rank, what combat style I have, what weapons I use, who to send compensation money to in case I die… and basic information like that.

But there were some details on the contract that stood out to me.

“You must not be The Grinch.”

It seems like they suspect that The Grinch might be one of us.

I didn’t think of that…

The Grinch is very mysterious, we don’t know much about it… it could be a monster, it could be a person…

Or it could possibly be pretending to be one of us…