[Mike POV]

 

As we arrived in the Swords’ sanctuary, Sauros yelled when he saw his granddaughter’s silhouette, “Eris!”

Hearing that she was being called, Eris looks back and sees her grandfather. Her eyes were glowing at that time, and she shouted back “Grandpa!” while running towards Sauros, opening her arms wide to hug the man.

Leaving the pair alone, I nodded at Ghislaine, who followed behind while I got closer to Isolte.

“Hey there!” I waved at her, as I received a small smile from Claude’s beloved.

“Hey Mike, what’s bringing you here?” She asked me, while still looking at Eris and Sauros. Following her, there is a deep blue-haired girl with her.

“I’m here to keep an eye on the lord there,” I said with my eyes swimming around.

“I see, you’re running away from all the paperwork in the office,” Isolte said, looking at me with a kind gaze.

Damn this girl. How can she be this perceptive? She looks at me like we’ve known each other for ages…

“Huh? How do you know about it? ” I questioned her.

I’ve heard a lot from Claude. He’s fond of you and always talks about you and the other companion he had in Arbalest. Hearing him recount all of your and the others’ traits, even habits, It’s kind of creepy hearing that actually, but he repeated it so much it stuck to my brain… ” Isolte complained while gazing fondly at me.

What the hell, you’re not even my big sister or mother.Don’t look at me with those kinds of eyes.

“Claude did? Hell, that man has already spilled our secret! Is this what they call ‘love makes you blind’? ” I complained: how could he spill the secret of his superior so nonchalantly? I can’t believe that this sword girl already knows my gesture.

“I can see that you’re being defensive towards me.” “Chilly Mike, I won’t cause harm to you,” Isolte said while smiling, while the girl beside her suddenly got mad.

“What kind of conversation is this?” I don’t understand how you can read all the underlying words and expressions out of this boy! ” The deep blue-haired girl suddenly yelled at me.

“Keep it Nina, he’s my man’s brother.” Don’t just suddenly yell, “Isolte said.

I leered at her and smirked at Isolte, “My man?”

She suddenly blushed heavily and hid her mouth in embarrassment.

Nina suddenly let out a raucous laugh and began copying her words. “My man,” she said, “ahahaha!” After laughing at seeing the embarrassed Isolte, she suddenly ran toward Eris and said, “Hey! “Eris, listen to what Isolte said about the most villainous man she ever saw! ”

“Wait, Nina! Stop it! I misspoke! ” Isolte ran hurriedly.

Claude, my man, your advance towards her all this time seems to be working…

Seeing Nina and Isolte running around, Eris looks towards them while introducing the girls to Sauros. Sauros was glad that Eris had friends her age, and he looked fondly at the girls.

“So that is the current Sword God’s daughter, Nina Farion, huh?” I muttered while looking at the blue-haired tomboy.

A man approached me from behind and said, “That’s right, she’s Lord Gal Farion’s daughter.” “May I know who I am speaking to?”

I smiled using my merchant smile and greeted the man, “Ah, please meet you.” I am Mike Arbalest. I am currently accompanying the lord of Fittoa, Sauros boreas Greyrat, and have to intrude the Sword Sanctuary for a week. ”

“Pardon my rudeness, Lord Arbalest. “I am Jino Britss, the one in charge of being your guide while staying in Sword Sanctuary,” he said politely.

I see, so this guy is Jino Britts, huh?

Based on the information Claude gave me, he has the potential of a Sword God. How could I get him to progress faster?

There are definitely several things that need to be done, and as we failed in procuring the Dragon God as our companion, having one more person as our back up will be good.

What’s happening inside the dungeon is something we don’t know, and having Claude regularly use his projection magic will damage him.

As good as it was, the projection magic was not an option one could make.

It is a magic that allows another person to enter your mindscape, allowing Orsted alone to create injuries in his emotions, making him more irritated than ever before for 4 months.

Well, it actually happened after he shared his memory with me, Somar, and Ash, though. Which means, something that gave him the power was allowing him to share the memory with Orsted. But, not with us.

Sharing them with us has the unintended consequence of filling him with volatile emotions.

Heck, he even unsheathed his blade when we got near him. If he loses his self-control, he might not stop beating us black and blue that day.

He might have been emotionally unstable for 4 months, but we got him hospitalized for 2 months.

I’m not exaggerating things; I have 2 broken rib bones, several fractures, and bleeding in several locations. Fortunately, we were in the HQ, or else we would have died from all the injuries we got.

At that time, we knew something was wrong. The fact that Claude unsheathed his blade but didn’t use it to cut us down was another way for him to hold himself back.

It’s my first time being beaten by Claude, and that’s so scary…

Anyway, coming back to the topic of how to let Jino Britts improve himself, I have several options which I scratch, and one of them is to trap him and make him do my bidding using villainous means. Of course, I rejected it because it’d ended up backfiring on us, with the reason that, rather than an ally, we’d just get another enemy.

At the end of the vacation, as we need to go back, I don’t know what to say. I just tell him what I know as it is…

“Jino Britts…” I called out to him in the middle of Isolte, Eris, and Nina Farion’s spar.

While calmly looking at the girls doing a battle royal, I casually sit beside Jino’s side. He might not realize it, but I can see infatuation in his eyes.

“You do know that Isolte was taken by the Cloud King, and Eris had already had her beloved, right?” I said, teasing him.

He looks flabbergasted and denies my statement, “No, no, no! I’m not eyeing any of them! ”

It’s kind of cute seeing this swordsman act so pure about romance; “Is that so? Then, you don’t mind it if Nina Farion comes to the isle holding another man’s hand. ”

I can see Jino having a bitter look and fondly gazing at Nina Farion, as he did so, “I don’t mind them, as long as she’s happy with her choice.”

“I see, so you’re a fainthearted bastard that didn’t want to choose the hard path and waited for the dish to be served” when I heard Jino’s words, I mocked him.

At what I said, Jino stared at me with a shocked look. As he continued that way, I added, “My Head Knight said, a man that can’t say what he feels to the woman is a coward. There’s no one more cowardly than a man that fears being rejected, and lets the one they love go away without any resistance. even if you’re rejected. If you like the girl, go and pursue her with all you can! ”

He dazedly stares at me and then back at Nina.

The hurdle of receiving Nina’s hand wasn’t something he could overcome.

The child of a Sword God. That alone is a hurdle harder than what others might expect. Thus, this fact put Jino down, as he had low self-esteem at this time.

“Then, what can I do? It’s not like I can defeat the Sword God. ” Jino said dejectedly.

“First, utter your feelings towards Nina. Then, train so hard you’d puke blood to improve! ” I declared to him, haughtily.

“It’s easy for you to say that…”

“Of course, I won’t deny that the words are easy to say. But, do you think you can do anything else? ”

“Okay, I understand,” Jino replied to me, definitely feeling unconvinced by what I said.

Then, I suddenly steered the conversation toward another point. “To tell you the truth, my Head Knight and leader of Arbalest can see the future.”

I don’t know why I suddenly said this, but because of the projection magic Claude shared with me. I have a fond feeling for Jino. It’s like he’s someone that I’ve known for a long time, my friend and comrade that accompanied me until the end.

Without waiting for his reply, I continued, “From the start, Arbalest was created to completely turn around the bad future he sees. although we can’t fully save everyone at the Mana Calamity accident. But, because of our preparation, We manage to save more people than what Claude sees…”

At first, Jino looks at me with suspicion. His skepticism was alleviated when he learned that Mana Calamity was something Claude had envisioned.

“All we thought was that the Mana Calamity was the end, and we’d start to live like always. Normally, and enjoying our time growing to become an adult.. BUT! We were wrong! ” My expression was heated up at this time. I can feel the tense vocals in my mouth.

“The tragedy won’t just end with the Mana calamity! After 1 year of peace and all the hectic work we did to save people from the Mana Calamity, Another thing that needed to be dealt with this time. It’s not just a region that will feel the effect! It’s the world! Fuck it! ” I said, while punching the ground. Ah, my face must look so bad as I said this.

“If Claude could just share what he sees with other people, it’d be easy to ask for their cooperation! But, why? Why was it so hard for us to create allies? ”

“At that time, the start would be in the Sword Sanctuary, with the death of all the practitioners. A group would be formed to guard the border between the Sword Sanctuary and the other side, but they would ultimately fail, allowing the mass of undead to escape from the Sword Sanctuary and wreak havoc on the Central Continent! That’s all we know from the future. We don’t even know what happened in the end. ”

I felt all my energy leave me, and I sat on the ground tiringly.

“Now, let’s leave the truth about this matter to another side, Jino.” I said, while staring at the flabbergasted Jino Britts and a puzzled spectator.

I think they heard what I said, but I don’t really care about it.

“Huh… what is it?” Jino still looks confused.

“Let’s just have an image of an apocalypse. At that time, you can save the woman you love, but you can’t because you lack training. What will you feel at that time? ” I said, tapping the ground and moving my body away.

As I stood up, I could see the blue sky and fluttering wind on the plain that I rarely feel when I sit at the office.

“Would you let your beloved woman die in your hands as a result of your lack of power? Wouldn’t you like to see that? ”

While saying that, I put the feeling of Claude’s 4^th incarnation that felt the regret while he was dying. I never felt something like that myself, but the projection magic Claude used wasn’t something that just showed us a movie. but also convey the feelings of the person.

The heart rending and confusion Claude had at the end was really heartbreaking. Neither me, Somar, or Ash could release ourselves from the clutch of grief even after a week.

I can’t really understand how Claude can stay sane if his 1^st through 3^rd incarnations had gruesome deaths in the unknown dungeon they once went to.

Oh well, as I said in the last sentence to Jino, I can see he clenched his fist tightly, so I wanted to say the last word and bid our farewell.

However, one of the Division I members of the Sword Sanctuary suddenly approached me with a hurried expression.

“Boss! It’s urgent! ” He said, with an unusual panic in his expression. It’s my first time seeing the members of Division I not maintaining their poker face.

“What, what is it? You can say it here” I said hurriedly.

“We need to come back to the HQ fast, and send the distilled Troll Blood to Millis HQ!” he said rapidly, while tugging me to follow him to Charizard, where Ash was already seated.

“Tell me what’s happening!”

“It’s Master Claude! He’s got a mortal injury. We need to give him the troll blood as soon as possible! ”

 

 

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