=====Vol 2 Chapter 3=====

“Ha..ha… This training, is really spartan..”

“Yeah, but you seem to be doing well, Rain.”

“Shut up, Archie, you know very well that I don’t have unlimited stamina like you.”

“Heh.”

Never have I thought that what the king meant by ‘Train’ is such a torturous thing, but luckily, my body seems to remember such exercises, giving me a somewhat easier time than Archillies, unless we are adding his class’ bonus to the equation..

Nevertheless, Fira is a really good person, with a sadly tragic backstory, but I can’t relate, since I haven’t lost anything except my memories..

Anyhow, about two-ish weeks till Archillies is leaving, and he thinks that there is a chance one of his class evolutions can fix our problem, but currently, we are busy training Ki.

Sooner or later, we will finish our training, and we did, but that same day an unfortunate event occurred..

Master Fira has encountered the incurable disease known as old age.

At that time, her request was very peculiar.

“Kill me.” She said, with a confident tone.

At that time, we were all confused, but soon regained our bearings with her next words.

“You know… I was born as a fighter, lived as one, and wish to die as one, so would you satisfy this old woman’s last request?”

“”...””

Both Archillies and I looked at her with a solemn expression before glancing at each other.

In this short moment, his eyes conveyed everything.

He will do it.

“Master Fira, I shall.. Accept your request.”

“Hehe, show me what the fruits of your training are.”

“Yes.”

Helping her stand and using healing magic on her to help her be at the best condition possible, we moved towards the training yard that she made.

While I helped her towards the left part of the yard, Archillies moved towards the right, and I stood away.

With the best of my abilities, I observed them as they fought a battle to death where Fira did not spare any of her strength.

Mixed emotions were stirring inside me to stop them, or to fight her myself, however, I did not let it take control over me, as I knew that either of them was incorrect, so as to acknowledge her wish for Archillies, and to give her the last battle of her life, which any warrior longs for.

“By the way, Archillies, if you win, look in my room, a book that I wrote in there, I hope it will help you in your travels.”

“Thank you, Master.”

Even while fighting, they talked like normal, making me feel a little melancholic, but I stood and calmly observed them to the best of my abilities.

Fira, having her eyes closed, dodged every magical attack that Archillies made, and quickly decreasing the distance between them, but that was just a bait, as he used earth manipulation to create a wall behind her, closing off the distance even more.

Normally, a magician would try to keep someone away rather than close, but that doesn’t count to mages such as our team, where magic, while it is a part of our style, it isn’t essential.

Just when Fira reached nearly 1 meter from Archillies, his eyes widened from something.

It wasn’t from Fira, since his expression wasn’t that of nervousness or confusion, it was of vigilance.

Even though Fira noticed it, she didn’t care, and continued on her onslaught, using her hand to pierce the part where Archillies was, while he dodged and parried it with his.

Then, activating both of their Ki strengthening, Archillies used his advantage, stat-wise, to overwhelm her with speed and feints, scoring hits here and there, but she didn’t falter, then she suddenly burst out her Ki, causing a shockwave that stunned Archillies for a moment, and she didn’t let that chance go, doing a roundhouse kick on his head, blowing him away.

Even though he was flying from the attack, once he woke up from his trance, he used magic to slow down his acceleration, then teleported behind Fira.

Fortunately, since he had himself always covered with Corromium, the attack was negated, but he was trained to dodge on instinct, and the same was done to me.

Due to the mana fluctuation showing that he teleported behind her, Fira quickly prepared to attack, but he retreated backwards before starting the teleportation many times around her.

Normally, teleportation takes a large amount of mana, but it can teleport anything as long as it fits in a 2 meter length and a meter wide space, but he instead uses it to move sand and rocks to mask where he will teleport.

Stone appears here, pebble there, and suddenly, something appeared on top of her…

Another pebble.

She most likely thought that he will use this chance to attack her from above, however, he didn’t teleport, instead, he dashed in front of her and finally landed a punch on her stomach.

BOOM!

Unable to protect against a punch that surpasses her speed and defense, she was…

Killed from the inside.

Her face had a smile on her face, while blood slipped from her mouth, with eyes closed in a relaxed way while her body started shaking and fell down on the ground with her back.

“Goodnight, Master Fira.” Said Archillies, as he moved towards the tree that Fira told him she liked the most.

Using earth manipulation, he opened a part in the ground and then put her into it, and finally covered it once again.

While we stayed with Fira for not so long, we knew she was a good woman, and that made us nearly tear, but we knew better than that.

“Shouldn’t we start tidying up the place before we leave?”

“M-mhm..” Replied Archillies with a shaking voice.

Unlike me, it seems that at the start of the fight, he sensed something wrong but had to ignore it, while I didn’t know what he had sensed.

“A ‘Traveller’ is coming, and it is most likely stronger than me.”

“What?”

I knew about the concept of other Travellers, and the fact that they can appear at any time, but I didn’t expect them to be stronger than Archillies.

Silently, he stood for a few seconds before switching his gaze from the grave to me.

“I already told the Bodies to stay away from this place, as such, I’d like to give you two choices.” He said, with determination in his eyes.

“First, escape, because no matter where I go, they will be able to detect me like how I do, you have the same aura as well, but I doubt they will try to attack a ‘Hero’, but that is just my assumption.” He paused for a moment.

“The second is.. To fight alongside me. The chance to die is extremely high, otherwise, why would they dash at us the moment they appear, but still, it is all assuming that they came for XP, in other words, to look for strong Travellers to allow them to evolve quicker.. So, what is your choice?”

“I’ll fight.” I replied assertively.

Biting his lip, he once again stood silent for a few seconds before choosing his next move.

“At their current speed and location, I estimate that they will take 6 hours to come here, alas, I cannot do anything in this current time.”

“This might seem out of place, but why don’t we check Fira’s book?”

“.. Let’s do it.”

Fira’s level was abnormally high, even compared to the beast king although they both went to war, so I suspect that the book has some kind of tips… Maybe?

With that in mind, we walk towards the house we stayed in for a week, imagining the time limit of less than 6 hours in our minds.

…

“Here it is.”

Holding out the book that I took out, I called for Archillies who was standing behind me.

Sitting on the bed which was on the other side of the table, I gestured with my hand for him to sit next to me, by which he complied wordlessly.

Quickly, I read through the 60 pages book before handing it to Archillies, but he didn’t even open it before nodding at me.

“You were right, Rain. She really did have a trick..”

“Obviously.” I replied, with a triumphant pose.

Cupping his hand and holding his chin, he closed his eyes before slowly opening them and taking my hand, soon after the location changed to somewhere in the forest we were in before in our travel.

“The dungeon is here… Never thought that I’d go inside it before next year, huh..”

“That doesn’t matter right now, let’s go in.”

Quickly, we rushed inside the dungeon and started massacring our way through, going down floor by floor till we reached the boss gate.

A dungeon is usually composed of floors that go downwards, however, there exists a tower in Howser Kingdom, piercing the skies, but that is a topic for another time.

Most dungeons have patterns in their floors, such as : Floors 1 to 4 are normal monster floors, with the 5th being a Mini-Boss floor, at 10, an actual Boss is present, being way stronger than the Mini-Boss, and the pattern repeats.. 15 is Mini-Boss, 20 is a Boss, etc..

For the dungeon we are in, it has 20 floors, but it is the only dungeon we know and visited, thus, we came to it and wasted 30 minutes to reach the outside of the 20th floor, but we aren’t going to battle the boss.

In the book, Fira said that by letting out large amounts of mana, the dungeon consumes it and respawns monsters quicker, depending on the quantity of mana. In our case, it is near instant, and very efficient considering that we are constantly defeating the monsters nonstop while emitting the mana.

Level after level, our leveling rate wasn’t decreasing, but increasing instead, given that as we level, we become stronger and faster, and our mana regeneration becomes quicker as well, thus giving more leeway with emitting it, increasing the respawn rate of monsters.

After nearly 5 hours of fighting, we had killed over 10 thousand monsters, with Archillies being level 1574, and me being 958, given that he can level up quicker and had a higher level than mine.

Glancing at him who sat on a nearby rock, he bit his lips with a frown, muttering under his breath.

“It is not enough..”

An idea that stuck to my head was present, but I didn’t want to say it up until now, however, I have decided to tell him.

“I have a suggestion.” I said, making him switch his gaze from the ground to me.

“You can escape right now, right?”

“I’m not leaving you.” He said after frowning again, while not separating his eyes from mine.

“But-”

“I. Am. Not. Leaving. You.” Cutting me off, he replied with a stern tone.

Raising my hands in defeat, I walked towards him after pulling out my shape shifting sword from the monster, I felt a large amount of pressure coming, undisguised by all means.

“So they have come, huh..” I muttered.

Sighing, he stood up and walked next to me then readied his stance.

“Ready?” He asked, with a daring face.

“If we die now, you should know that I love you.” I told him while readying my stance as well.

“Ha ha, as if it wasn’t clear enough, but I’ll say it. I love you too.” He laughed dryly.

Switching our gazes to the floor’s entrance, our eyes turned sharp for the encounter that could very well end our lives at this moment.

…

=====Vol 2 Chap 3 end=====