CH 73.2

“Yeah, it could be.”

“What do you two mean? You two are cooking something, tell me too.”

Sylas turned his body completely towards Cloud.

“You. Would you want to learn swordsmanship from me?”

“…swordsmanship?”

Cloud tilted his head at the rather ludicrous statement.

“There are many things I can teach you other than swords. Even though we can’t show you magic in our current state, we can give you a theory.”

“I can teach you bed techniques if you want!”

“You bastard, read the mood!”

Eredna slapped Drake on the back.

Drake, who was laughing, changed his gaze to dead seriousness in an instant. Not only his, but also the eyes of all the other heroes looking at Cloud changed.

Even the hero who was drawing circles in the corner after being chided by Eredna and Drake.

Cloud also erased his smile.

“What do you want from me?”

“Nothing great. We just hope that you will learn what we will teach and pass it on to the next generation in some way.”

“It’s not a difficult request, but… Wasn’t that something you could have done yourself, even if it wasn’t through me? Like nurturing a successor.”

“Ummm… shamefully, I didn’t think of it when I was still alive. I don’t know why, but everyone here also didn’t. I also left a few pieces of my used equipment…”

“Hah…”

Does it make sense to not remember something like that?

There must have been third party intervention.

And it goes without saying who the third party was.

Cloud smiled and nodded his head.

It was a good thing for him to increase the number of skills that he could use in this world.

To be honest, using only basic skills such as [Strike], [Parring], and [Bash] was a bit tedious.

“How long will it take to learn?”

“One year, more or less.”

“One week.”

Cloud stood up and declared.

“If it gets late, let’s finish it within a month.”

Drake smirked at that.

“This hero is pretty cocky. Good, good. Only someone of such mindset is qualified to inherit my swordsmanship!”

* * *

“…do I really have to teach my bed techniques too?”

Drake muttered gibberish as usual, but his voice was weak. He couldn’t put finesse in his words, so was for Eredna and other heroes.

“I really couldn’t have fathom you would learn it all in a week.”

Sylas chuckled and shook his head. Cloud learned their skills in a week, as he initially declared.

It was a happy mistake.

The hero of this generation was far more capable than them.

However, someone was able to imitate the skills he had honed throughout his life in just a similar way, if not the same, at once, so he couldn’t help but feel somewhat frustrated as a swordsman.

“I didn’t know that the time for parting would come so quickly, but I’m glad that we part with fewer regrets.”

“…as I said before, you don’t have to do it like this. The coaching is enough.”

“Now that this secret has been revealed to the demons, the soul stone must be destroyed anyway. You stopped it this time, but no one knows whether future heroes will be able to do the same.”

“I mean, come’on, you guys can free yourself from your duties as heroes.”

“The past hundreds of years have become meaningless. Please make our sacrifices meaningful.”

“Yeah, Cloud. Don’t try to hog all the cool experiences to yourself, let’s share some.”

“Been locked up in this little jewel for hundreds of years. Gotta make it worth it.”

Cloud sighed at the generosity of the heroes. It’s even more rude to say no now.

‘Anyway, old people are always stubborn.’

How did they even know about glyphs?

“Don’t complain later.”

Cloud held the soul stone and used the glyph.

Next moment, the spirits of the heroes were sucked into the Soul Stone. A strong sense of resistance was felt on the hand holding the soul stone.

It wasn’t because the souls of the heroes refused to.

This was because Cloud’s vessel was too small for all the souls to enter. No, it was wrong to blame Cloud’s vessel in the first place.

‘The presence of each one is no joke.’

The heroes compressed their souls as much as possible to make it easier for Cloud to accept.

However, each of them was a hero who had represented the Kingdom of Prona for an era. Both the quality and size of the soul could not be compared to a mere Ogre or Behemoth.

‘It’s like holding the ocean with a funnel.’

The arm that was connecting the souls of the heroes and Cloud’s vessel was in pain as if torn asunder. The veins sprung up and the muscles wriggled like worms.

The souls, that had barely crossed over by overusing the arm, tried to take a seat in Cloud’s vessel.

The vessel reaction was justified.

The tiny veins in his eyes bursted, tears of blood flowing down.

Blood was dripping from his ears as well as from his nose as he began to hear his tinnitus beeping.

– Grrp!

One fistful of blood ran up his throat.

‘I can’t. If I just accepted it, the body would collapse.’

He was suppressing his instincts from pressuring the souls, but the situation wasn’t allowing.

Cloud compressed the souls of the heroes.

However, unlike when he compressed the soul of the Ogre or the Behemoth, he used his imaginary hands very carefully so as not to affect the originality of the souls.

Because of which, it was only after two full days that Cloud was able to stabilize the souls of the heroes.

Cloud took a deep breath and sat down. His blood vessels were twisted, his organs were injured, and his muscles were torn. In that state, he stayed up for two days straight.

He was literally a walking miracle to be still alive.

“…that’s why I said I didn’t want to receive it.”

Next time they met, he was surely going to jab them on this one.

Cloud spit the blood from his mouth on the floor and stood up, leaning against the wall as he pushed his body up.

He staggered and took a step forward.

* * *

[Passive]

– Damage from demons is reduced by 20%.

– Damage to demons is increased by 20%.

– Damage from black magic is reduced by 20%.

– Damage from undead is reduced by 20%.

– Damage to undead increases by 20%.

[Active]

(Blooming)

– Unleash the full potential within a short period of time. At the end of ‘blooming’, the user will lose consciousness.

(Abloom)

– Can be used in the ‘blooming’ state.

Unleash more than what your inherent potential allows. When ‘blooming’ ends, all stats are permanently reduced by 10%.