Chapter 85

We grouped up with the surviving young heroes.

It might be obvious, but they were not in good condition. They looked like they’d been living in a trash heap for the last three days.

Though rather than smelling of trash, it was more blood and sweat.

“...Charon.”

“So you were here, Zeros.”

Zeros Silver, who had always stuck with Charon.

The young hero was the core of Charon’s points operation, the one who had sold all sorts of outside goods by smuggling them in.

“Where is Sinbar?”

“I don’t know, but he’s probably not dead. He’s a tough one.”

“I see.”

While the two talked, Evan checked on Karis’s injury.

“...Evan?”

“Yeah. It’s me.”

“...What a stupid hallucination. Shouldn’t I see a beauty right before I die...”

From the way he was speaking, I could tell that—while he wasn’t going to die immediately—it would be dangerous to leave him be.

Evan seemed to realize this as well as he looked up at me.

I gave a slight nod and handed him the potion I had gotten from Sharyl.

“Thank you.”

Hector was also talking to a young hero.

He was probably one of the nobles who was a member of Hector’s faction.

As I looked over, he approached me with the noble and introduced him.

“This is Eddy. He’s the son of House Piscol.”

“I have heard a lot about you, Sir Luan.”

“Just call me Luan, and don’t use that cringy polite speech toward me.”

At that, Eddy turned to look at Hector.

When Hector nodded, Eddy turned back toward me.

“Got it.”

“How is Sellen?”

“She’s just unconscious.”

Two of the young heroes were tending to Sellen, who was laid out on the ground.

Hector said, “If she had such a powerful ability, why didn’t she use it before?”

I looked around as I replied, “Who knows... It’s probably restricted in some way. I think it’s a high-risk blessing of some sort.”

“Should we talk later? I don’t think we’re safe here.”

“Yeah. Let’s move to the area our group found and bunker down first.”

We picked up the unconscious Sellen and the injured Karis and moved off.

***

The area that Eddy’s team had found was behind a huge rock.

The surrounding area had been dug up a little to disguise it. The disguise looked pretty solid with the brush and trees nearby.

We also had a light meal with the food Eddy’s team gave us.

“There’s quite a bit of food here.”

“We invested a lot of points into food.”

Even though it was just water and jerky, it was still precious in moments like this.

“...Fuu. We somehow survived,” Eddy mumbled with a hint of sadness.

It seemed he was starting to finally understand the situation now that his hunger had been somewhat sated.

“Sir Hector, what’s going on here?”

“We’re trying to figure that out. One thing we’re sure of is that now’s not the time to be worrying about the test.”

Before the mood could become any heavier, I jumped in.

“By the way, how did you guys end up in that state? Seeing how there were seven of you, it looked to me like you were all together before you were attacked.”

“...You’re right. Zeros was the only one who joined up in the middle. We originally had twelve people.”

“Three different teams were moving together?”

It was a strange situation.

Hector also seemed to have no idea how this had happened.

Eddy apologetically replied, “I’m sorry, Sir Hector. It was the team captain’s order, so there wasn’t much I could do...”

“It’s fine. I was the one who said we shouldn’t try and team up during the special test. Who’s the team captain?”

Eddy’s gaze turned to the unconscious Sellen.

“Sellen Goodspring?”

“Yes.”

“Then why did she make this plan?”

“She said she knew a lot about the Forest of the Butterfly. She said there was a monster called the Queen Butterfly in the forest, and we would need more help to kill it.”

“Queen Butterfly? Do butterflies have queens as well? Like ants?”

“It’s a monster.”

“Got it. There’s not much we can do for her anyway...”

“We’ll leave her to you.”

“Right. You guys should hold on to these.”

Before they left, Eddy’s group handed us food and potions.

Six bags of jerky, a water bottle, and five potions.

“Oh, thanks.”

“Be careful.”

Eddy’s group left, and I turned to talk to those who remained.

“I’m going to focus, so please guard the area.”

“How long will you take?”

“Hmm... At least 30 minutes, an hour at most?”

“Sure.”

With that settled, I put my hand on Sellen’s upper core, her forehead, and closed my eyes.

Sharp cold ki pierced my hand.

It was fiercer than I’d expected and nearly made me clench the ends of my fingers... but of course, I couldn’t let that happen.

I forcibly inserted my fire ki to drive out the cold ki.

Although traversing someone else’s ki network was difficult, Sellen was unconscious, so she didn’t offer any resistance.

I need to find the origin.

Since there was no way a normal human’s body could be like this, the cold ki had to have originated from somewhere.

She’d already be dead if it was coming from her central inner core, so I suspected it was somewhere around her lower core.

Because I’d started with the head, it would be a long way down, but since this entry method would only work where the cold ki was weakest, I just had to push through.

I continued to flood fire ki into her body and steadily moved downward, but I ended up getting stuck in the middle.

There, the force of the cold ki became multiple times greater.

It was like an intense snowstorm, so my fire ki had no chance of getting through.

What do I do?

If I had more time, I could find a different path, but I didn’t have that luxury.

As I was considering exerting myself...

Fwoosh!

I felt an unexpected burst of heat.

The mystic bead?

I suddenly felt the presence of the mystic bead I had been keeping on my body since the start of the training camp.

I was a little surprised since this was the first time this had happened. Instantly, the heat of the mystic bead entered my body as if it was rampaging, and it roughly mixed in with my fire ki.

Did it react to Sellen’s cold ki?

Even though I was surprised, I controlled the new fire ki.

Although this was unexpected, it wasn’t bad for me.

As a result, the strength of my fire ki increased multiple times, and with this empowered energy, I pierced through the extreme cold in her body and reached the origin of her cold ki.

However, I noticed something odd there as well.

Huh...

Inside Sellen’s body, the power that was twisting in her deepest point wasn’t yin ki but yang ki.

“...”

Even though it was causing such a strong storm of cold ki, its true nature was yang ki.

It was peculiar.

Fwoosh!

In any case, I melted the core made of cold ki.

...That’s done for now.

I’d gained something unexpected.

With what had just happened, my mystic bead had melted quite a bit.

It seemed to have decreased by about 10 percent, and the parts that had melted had added to my strength.

And perhaps because it had mixed with Sellen’s cold ki as well, it felt like I’d gained double the amount of internal energy...

I’d ended up obtaining several times more internal energy than when I’d consumed the sacred herb.

It was an unexpected miracle.

I guess being nice has its merits.

Sellen’s life was no longer in danger.

Though when she would wake up was entirely up to her...

“Ugh...”

At that moment, Sellen groaned while shifting where she lay.

Afterward, she forced her eyes open and I saw those glass-like eyes underneath.

“You...”

“Hello. Are you alive?”

“...Seems like it.”

Sellen sat up while shaking her head.