BXBX NOVEL Chapter 145 A Sense Of Crisis
The constant pressure of losing a comrade had been making Anelete feel restless and despair. There was nothing she could do.
As a precaution, Anelete had passed on the enchanted items to all her demihuman subordinates. Through these items, she and her subordinates were able to regroup to a degree. Though most of them were still missing, which made their battle strength fall, they had Jerg with them.
With Jerg in the group, Anelete started looking for others but a problem presented itself in front of them.
Some unlucky demihumans were directly teleported near people infected with Revelner disease. In their unconscious state, they were infected easily, not being able to resist at all.
For this, Anelete had to come in contact with the people in this unknown land. She learned the language of this continent with some effort and started collecting information about the Revelner disease quickly.
Not only Anelete, but the other demihuman also looked for a way to cure their comrade.
They were stumped shortly, finding that there was actually no cure for Revelner disease.
There were only different ways to extend a person's life to a degree using external means.
The best method to slow the Revelner disease encroach was to let a person be soaked in water made of many materials. This method was found after the joint effort of many alchemists.
But only a few people can use it.
Why? Because it costs an astronomical amount to buy all the ingredients!
The amount could even plunge counts family into the depth of despair.
The ingredient also needed mana crystal, the higher the quality, the longer can the person live soaked in it.
Mana crystals were very rare and costly, the city Anelete was in ran out of mana crystals in no time. This made her start heading to the other city past the Wuirsec region.
That was when they came across Zick.
Zick on the other hand found the reason she needed mana crystal almost immediately.
If he could, he would have liked to extort Anelete, but currently, he was the weaker party. The other party had Jerg, a mid-rank master.
Yesterday night, Zick took in six drops of snow essence, so his strength had another boost in strength. But it would take a while for him to become a mid-peak rank knight or mage high rank.
Passing on a piece of mana crystal to Anelete, Zick got 200 platinum coins from her. The left out amount would be passed on in the future is what Anelete promised.
'What a waste of money, showing compassion to someone who is going to die anyway is such a waste. She is doing it anyway, I thought her to be a smart person but she turned out to be stupid in the end.' Zick looked down at Anelete who spoke after checking the mana crystal again.
"Are you going to Chertel city?" Anelete was grateful to Zick, for the fact that he agreed on making a deal with her though she was low on money made her look at him in a different light.
She wasn't aware that Zick was forced to, the other party had Jerg and he had already exposed the mana crystals to Seveleen and Varine, wouldn't it be weird if he didn't help?
"Yes, that is my destination," Zick spoke coldly.
"Then, we can go together, there are many monsters in this region but my subordinate can take care of them."
Zick agreed, seeing there was no reason to reject.
As Zick told Varine and Seveleen about what happened, Jerg walked up to him. He was internally confused feeling Zick to be a peak-rank knight. In the middle continent, he was sure that he was a master swordsman, so this bewildered him.
Seeing Jerg, Zick knew the reason he came without telling.
"Hey there, Thank you for helping us again. My name is Jerg, I am the captain of the Mendert merchant team." He knew that self-instruction was important after staying beside Anelete for so long.
Looking at Jerg deeply, Zick opened his mount: "Nice to meet you, my name is Zick, priorly an heir to the Melvix family, but currently just a wandering mercenary." That was the identity Zick made for himself.
The Everlor organization had many connections with the mercenary group, so making an identity wasn't hard.
There were no specific ranks for mercenaries, all that mattered were their fame and strength. In other words, the mercenary had to make a name for themselves if they wanted people to hire them more.
"So what exactly happened to you?" Here spoke bluntly with interest.
Zick could only tell the same story he told Seveleen to Jerg. Encountering a strong monster, Zick had to use a forbidden technique to kill it.
"I see, that's unfortunate. But it doesn't seem like you are demotivated at all." This made Jerg smile, exposing his sharp teeth.
Varine within the carriage had a stiff expression looking at Jerg.
"Hmph, so what if my strength dropped? I still have all my potential, I can rise back to my peak in no time." Zick appeared extremely arrogant, looking at Jerg with no change in expression. But his eyes were as resolute as ever.
"Haha, that's something to take pride in I guess. It seems like you lost some lifespan by using this forbidden technique but you are still young, you still have a lot of time."
Thinking about lifespan, Zick felt desolate: 'I have less than 50 years to live, I have to find a way to live longer later on. My lifespan should increase after becoming a master swordsman so I can rest easy for now.'
Zick was confident in reaching master swordsman within a year as long as he had enough snow essence.
After a few minutes, Zick and Anelete's carriage started moving to their destination.
Sitting in the carriage, Varine read the book which she got from Zick. For now, he only instructed her to read it and not learn to write.
Zick himself was multitasking too, he was reading a book along with training in mana. His potential had increased, only a step away from the peak of peak rank.
'It would have taken me 10 years in the least to reach master rank if I trained ordinarily. But with snow essence, less than one year is sufficient.'
The only problem was that Zick didn't have unlimited snow essence, he would have to gather more from the Lectic mountain region again.
Seveleen sat like a dead body as always, lost in thought. Zick's plan in reality had many flaws and jumps in logic but it was still the best.
As...there was no other lead that they could follow!
So no one could complain about this plan at all.
By seeing Zick's behavior and talking with Varine, Seveleen knew that they had a close relationship but kept their distance for some reason.
In reality, it was just Varine who kept her distance from him and Zick responded to it.
'Varine speaks in our continent's language so she must be from the same country. But her knowledge is very shallow and superficial.' Seveleen thought with nothing else to do.
The feeling of being able to do nothing but hear made her be in a depressive mood the whole time. Talking to Varine had improved her mood instead. Zick didn't seem like a guy who talks much to her.
Sitting on the couch, Zick started training to harmonize with the mana around him. The mana under his control now extended to 10 meters from his body, letting him sense almost all the small details. This was a new experience for him so he was still getting used to it.
Hours passed by with only the sound of the carriage moving on the barren ground.
Anelete would have invited Zick to travel in her carriage normally, but now, there was no place in it with the two infected people in it.
This showed that Anelete's funds were running quite low, she could only buy a single carriage with her limited money. She needed it to buy mana crystals after all.
As the sun was reaching the middle of the sky, suddenly Zick frowned. A bad feeling rose within his heart.
SCREECH!! NEIGH!
The demihumans also stopped, looking restless. Both the carriage stopped without a word.
In the dead silence, suddenly...
Boom!!!
Something landed in front of the two carriages like a meteor. A deep crater formed and dust rose, obscuring everyone's view.
SWISH~
With a single wave of the hand by the unknown person, the cloud of dust dispersed.
There a beutiful girl looking to be 20 years old stood emotionlessly, she had extremely pale skin, almost like snow. Her white hair fluttered in the hot winds and her crimson eyes stared at the people in front of her, more Specifically, Zick.
Feeling her eyes on himself, Zick felt his blood running cold. Sweat started forming in his body feeling something amiss.
'Who is she? I feel a sense of crisis for some reason...' Zick's eyes turned to Jerg who walked in front of the group.
It was apparent that, right now, Jerg was terrified. He could sense the difference between himself and the girl in front of him. He was like an ant, no dust when compared to the white-haired girl.
Jerg's hair stood to its end and his teeth clattered. His whole body shook in terror. An experienced fighter, who was not scared of anything and was willing to sacrifice himself for Anelete was right now terrified.
"...How might we help you?" He spat out somehow while gritting his teeth.
"I have no business with you, get lost. Only you, you will remain." The white-haired girl pointed at Zick.
Silence descended on the barren land.