“How do you feel?”
“...Terrible.”
Sellen closed her eyes and placed a hand over her inner core. When she opened her eyes again, she turned to look at me.
“So you’re the one who saved me?”
“Something like that.”
“Thanks. I honestly thought I was going to die.”
I took a look around.
Charon, Evan, and Hector were standing guard along the perimeter of our hideout.
They didn’t seem to have noticed that Sellen was awake.
This was my only chance to talk to her about this, so I got straight to the point.
“You predicted this situation would happen, didn’t you?”
Sellen wasn’t surprised or caught off guard.
She just stared at the canopy-covered sky with a blank expression as she mumbled, “Predicted...”
“...?”
“I guess you could say that.”
It was a little vague, but it was basically a confession.
“How much do you know?”
“I at least knew that the demon lord’s summoning would happen.”
“Then—”
“Why didn’t I try and stop it from happening?” Sellen smirked. “Me, a Goodspring, going around talking about a demon lord being summoned in House Bednicker’s training camp? The biggest problem isn’t even that nobody would believe me—depending on the situation, it could lead to a war between our two houses.”
“...”
“You know, I’ve been trying to figure out how to stop this from happening for a long time now. In the end, though, there was only one decision I could make.”
“Joining the training camp yourself?”
By staying silent, Sellen confirmed my words.
“Did anyone you know join this training camp as well?”
“Who would that even be? All my people hate Bednicker.”
“Then did you join just to save these people?”
“...That was a factor. But there were also opportunities for me in this forest.”
For some reason, that sounded like an excuse to me.
Although I hadn’t known her for long, I knew that she had a tendency to not let herself claim her own good deeds.
“You won’t live long with that personality of yours.”
“Says you.”
“Then was that secret you were going to tell me the demon lord's summoning?”
Sellen paused for a moment before blurting out, “That was a part of it.”
“...”
“So what’s the situation now? I was knocked out for a while, so where are the others? Did they perhaps...”
“They didn’t die.”
Sellen didn’t seem to remember exactly what had happened.
I had noticed that her eyes had gone completely white when she’d used the wind blades.
“We were heading toward camp, but then we heard a scream, so we came to help. The people who were with you evacuated to a safer place, and it’s only been an hour since you fell unconscious.”
“Hmm...”
“Anyway, we were planning on continuing to the camp. What about you?”
“...Nothing else to do. I’ll have to go with you. By the way, are you alone?” Sellen asked.
“No.”
As I pointed to the others keeping the perimeter, Sellen nodded.
“You got all the ones who don’t like listening together.”
“Words didn’t work, but my fist worked quite well.”
“Aha.”
Just as I was about to call out to the others, Sellen suddenly asked me, “...Aren’t you going to ask me more?”
“About what?”
“A few things. You must have a lot of questions you want to ask me.”
I did have a lot.
However, after talking with her directly like this, I felt like it wasn’t that important right now.
“It’s pretty long, right?”
“What?”
“Your story.”
Sellen flinched for a second before letting out a bitter smile.
“...It’s unbelievably long. Enough to fill a few books.”
“Then I’ll hear it later.”
“Are you okay with that?”
“We don’t have time for me to sit down and hear everything out right now.”
“That’s true.”
“Ah, but I’ll ask this: what was that power you used against the demons? A blessing?”
Sellen answered me, “You could technically consider it a blessing, but at the same time, it’s not a blessing. It’s the blessing of a forgotten god.”
“A forgotten god...”
An unexpected phrase had appeared.
I touched my Sword of Seven Sins a little as I asked, “Then was that altar you visited the altar of a forgotten god?”
“Did you hear that from Eddy? That’s right.”
How Sellen knew the exact location of the altar, as well as which forgotten god she had interacted with...
Neither of those things was particularly important right now.
“Can you use it again?”
“...I think I’ll be able to use it one more time. It will be very risky, though.”
It might be obvious, but the power wasn’t something she could use at will.
It was a bit regretful.
If she could use that ability as she pleased, then it would be like having a powerful magician on our team.
In any case, since we didn’t have a lot of time left, we ended our conversation there.
I waved lightly to the others standing a fair distance away, and they all returned to me.
“So she’s awake.”
“Yeah.”
“...”
“...”
What was with this mood?
Problems like this arose because I gathered people only based on their strengths and not their relationships.
An aura of awkwardness surrounded us for a moment since everyone’s personalities were different.
In the end, it couldn’t be helped that I, as the team captain, took the initiative.
“To get to know each other better, how about we introduce—”
“Shut up,” everyone but Evan said simultaneously.
I guess they are lining up.
It was my misunderstanding.
* * * * *
* * * * *
Charon, Hector, Evan, and Sellen.
They were the young heroes who were thought to be the best in this training camp.
We’d gone through a lot of ups and downs, but now that we had everyone here together, I had a different feeling. It felt like we had created a dream team... or something like that?
Despite having practically come back from the dead, Sellen moved quite well.
And since no one was lagging behind, we were able to move at a much quicker pace.
Around the time the hourglass bottomed out... that is, about three days after the test had started, we managed to return to camp.
“What a dramatic return.”
“Yeah.”
Upon arriving at the camp, we noticed that it was eerily quiet.
It felt off because we couldn’t sense a single presence in the vicinity.
It probably wasn’t helped by the groans of the young heroes and the loud commands of the instructors that normally filled this place.
“...Something must have happened.”
“Yeah...”
“What do we do now?”
When Hector asked that, I quickly replied, “We obviously have to go in. But since it could be a trap, only two of us should go.”
“Which two?”
“Charon and I.”
Immediately, Charon’s expression soured, but he hadn’t had a choice to begin with.
“Then we’ll wait here.”
“Yeah. I’ll send a signal if something happens.”
“What signal?”
“I’ll shout really loud.”
“Hmm... Sure.”
With that, Charon and I entered the camp.
The first place we headed to was naturally the instructor's lodge.
Right before we entered the building, Charon quietly whispered, “...I can sense a presence inside.”
“Is it weird? A demon?”
“It feels human.”
“How many people?”
“I’m not sure, but I think there’s one.”
One person...
For some reason, this felt off.
In any case, if someone was inside, we had to hide our presence.
We didn’t enter through the front door. Instead, we tried to enter through the window... but all the doors and windows were locked.
“Do they not ventilate this building?”
Of course, we could break through the window, but then we wouldn’t be moving quietly.
“It can’t be helped. Let’s enter through the main door.”
Although it was dangerous, we concluded that it would be safer than breaking in through the windows.
I couldn’t tell if we were fortunate or not, but the main door was unlocked.
Step.
With that, we entered the instructor's lodge.
Upon entering the building that young heroes were forbidden to enter, we noticed that it was much more ordinary than we’d expected.
Only the outside was flashy. The inside wasn’t that different from our building.
“Hey.” “I know.”
As soon as we entered, the smell of blood pricked our noses.
It was odd.
With a stench this severe, we should’ve been able to smell it from outside... but the smell of blood seemed to be somehow restricted to the inside of the building.
Are there no instructors here?
Were they all dead?
Was that even possible?
The ones who had been inside the instructor's lodge were the knights of Bednicker, the grand masters... and the younger brother of the Lord of Blood and Iron, as I’d learned via Asad.
Even a high priest wouldn’t be able to kill all those people alone...
While tracking the scent of blood, we walked through the hallway on the first floor.
But we stopped in front of a certain room.
The door was relatively larger than the others, but that wasn’t the reason we’d stopped.
Blood was leaking out from below the door.
“...Are they inside here?”
“No, the presence I sensed is above us.”
Of course, I couldn’t just blindly trust his senses...
But I felt like we needed to check, so I grabbed the door handle...
And opened it.
Hmm...
The stench of blood that assaulted my nose was incomparably disgusting.
I furrowed my brow as I took a look around the room.
Was this their meeting room?
The wide room was covered in blood, but I couldn’t see any corpses or body parts.
No.
There was exactly one corpse, stuck to one of the walls.
It was a familiar face.
The instructor whom I had talked with the most during this training camp.
The Instructor of the Hunt, Tanko.
“Charon, check around to see if there is anything else. I’ll take a look at the corpse.”
“Don’t order me around,” Charon grumbled as he took a look around.
While he did that, I approached the Instructor of the Hunt’s body.
The cause of death was clearly the large hole in the middle of his chest.
It was the size of a fist, and seeing how smooth the edges were, it seemed that the Instructor of the Hunt hadn’t even realized he was dead the moment the hole was made in his body.
He died in a single hit? Someone as strong as Tanko?
I couldn’t understand it.
And there was too much blood here to have come from a single person.
“Hey.”
It was at this point that Charon returned.
...This guy, does he only know how to call others “Hey”?
Charon had no way of knowing what I was thinking as he pushed something toward me.
“I picked this up.”
“This is...”
It was a communication crystal.
These crystals had been installed in many spots in the buildings.
“This was in the room. It’s damaged, but it does activate.”
“So... this might have recorded what happened here? Good work.”
“...”
Charon frowned a little at my words.
So he didn’t even like me praising him?
In any case, I activated the communication crystal with my mana.
Vwoong.
The magic item began to display a slightly blurry video...
And it told us what had happened in this room.
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