Otome Game no Heroine de Saikyou Survival-Chapter 86

Nostalgic Place

“Aria… you left your master here all on his own and left by yourself. But then, a scout came back on a fast horse with some information. I thought it’s something fishy, so I ran away since I don’t understand what happened, but you’d better not show your face too much in the guilds for a while. Oh, and I got you the money from the Magic Stone.”

“Yeah, sorry and thanks.”

I knew it was going to be troublesome. But the scouts in that town were excellent, and they came to inform the Guild of the destruction of the orcs right away.

“It’s going to be tough for the lords and guilds from now on, isn’t it?”

“It’s someone else’s problem, hey. But, well, I guess it’s better than being attacked.”

Viro returned with me, who had been waiting in Galbas’s workshop, and we adjusted our plans for now.

I was not in the ideal shape, and Viro said he’s going to pick up another member of the group, so we decided to meet up at the Duke of Hilton’s estate, west of the Kingdom of Cleydale, in three months’ time.

With that much time, there was a possibility that Grave would move on, but in that case, Viro said he would leave a message addressed to me at the adventurer’s guild in Dandol or some other large city.

This would give me time to stop by my master’s place, but…

“Is this request from that organization?”

Viro crossed his arms and his face became unusually serious.

“You still suspect that organization? I don’t know why Grave betrayed us, but at least the organization didn’t order your elimination. They don’t even have a reason to, I mean, it doesn’t make sense why Grave attacked you in the first place.”

“Grave said at that time that it was because the nobles were interested in me. He also said I was too close to the royal family. What does that mean?”

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The royal family thing was surely because I got too close to Elena. As for the nobles… were there any blood relatives still looking for me?

“I don’t know… maybe Sera can tell you.”

“No, I don’t need to know. I’m going to stay away from the Dark Side for a while, and I’ll keep my guard up. Will that be alright?”

“I’m not a member of the Dark Side, so I’m neutral. But will it be fine if I let Sera and her son know you’re alive?”

“Well… okay.”

“And also, If you planned to get involved with the princess, be prepared to be involved with that organization as well. I’m telling you now, that organization is the Dark Side of this country. Even if you plan to live your life as an adventurer without intending to get involved in anyone’s business, if your progress is as good as it is now, then at some point you won’t have a choice but to choose a side and fight.”

“Understood.”

I had heard about this from Elena, the Dark Side organization was the country’s intelligence agency. With a nationwide intelligence network and the ability to even exercise power on the surface, Dark Side would be more troublesome than the Assassin’s Guild if I were to antagonize them. At that point, the only way out for me could be to flee from this country.

…I guessed it’s time to make up my mind.

I’d run away before, but I had decided not to run anymore and stand firmly. If they were people involved in the Otome Game or family members looking for me, I would use my strength to get rid of them.

If I was not strong enough…then I would be prepared to give up my life rather than live as a doll and follow destiny.

By then, I needed to become as strong as I could.

My destiny was mine alone to decide.

After receiving a black dagger and a sharpened throwing knife from Galbas, I parted ways with Viro, promising to meet in three months.

The member Viro was going to pick up seemed to be a former party member who had retired.

I heard that a magician had retired and Viro was looking for a replacement for that person. If Viro was going to pick up that person, then their party probably did not find a new magician yet. But still… didn’t that person retire because of old age… would they be okay?

There were two major reasons for me to go back to my master’s place, although my body was not in the best shape, I still pushed myself and continued my journey.

I had made the threads for the pendulums two years ago, but after using them in various battles, I only had two more remaining that were now tied to the pendulums. Now that I had four new pendulums, I needed twice as many, or maybe more if I were to include the spare.

I also wanted to hear about the last technique that defeated Gorgeol – the Primordial Combat Skill. Normally, I would have risked my life to use it again and then observe, but I thought my master might know something about it.

It would take more than a month to get from this barony to the master’s place via Count Tolas and Dandol, no matter how fast I went, and from master’s place to the Duke of Hilton, where Viro and I had promised to meet again, it would take at least a month and a half.

The place where Viro was going to pick up his companion was at Marquis Wagner’s territory, around two weeks away from the royal capital, so it was unlikely that they would be late for the rendezvous, and I could not be late either.

…I still needed a means of transportation, didn’t I?

With this itinerary, I would only be at the master’s place for about a week. So, I decided to go through the forest in the danger zone to shorten the itinerary.

The straight line from Barony of Horace to Barony of Seires, where my master was located, was a deep forest where demons usually roamed.

The area to the North was a monster habitat, but it was not part of the territory managed by Cleydale Kingdom. However, the fact that the borders of the kingdom reached towards that forest, so it had intentionally or rather unintentionally became part of its territory. That also meant that there must have been someone who explored that area and applied a magic border that was deployed by countries to declare their border.

It was not unexplored territory because of the borders. I thought that if someone had gone that far, at the very least there should be a road along the border that people could pass through.

I bought more salt, sugar, and a spare cloak at the town, and since Viro had accepted the payment for the Magic Stone on my behalf, it saved me from being stranded in the middle of nowhere.

By the way, the Orc’s Magic Stone was 2 silver coins. The magic stone of the Orc Soldier was 2 gold coins, and the magic stone of Gorgeol, the General, was 3 large gold coins.

After summing the whole amount, there were less than five large gold coins. That’s a lot of money, but if I had been able to recover the materials, it would have been twice this amount. The reason I left them behind instead of retrieving them was because I simply couldn’t carry them by myself, and I wanted to let adventurers who would clean it up keep the rewards, which was something I normally would not do.

My physical and magical strength had not yet fully recovered and was only around more than 70%. Still, it was enough for now. If I just wanted to go towards my destination instead of going into battle, I could manage even in my current state.

Finally, I bought some good quality dried fruits and nuts at a stall, put only the moldy ones in the sterile Shadow Storage, and left the town and headed straight east.

I started running at about 60% speed while using Concealment. If I adjusted the amount of magic power and used body enhancement moderately, I should be able to run more than 60 kilometers a day without overdoing it.

However, this was only on the premise that there was a flat road. Once in the deep forest, flat terrain was less likely to be available, and the speed of movement would become much slower.

Before that happened, I trained to strengthen my body by using magic control.

Just like when I had used the Primordial Combat Skill, I would remove the attributes from the magical element and suppress the magical element that was about to run amok with the power of my will.

As long as it did not go out of control, the body enhancement would only show its normal power, but the training in controlling magical power would not be in vain.

The current attempt was to increase the fluidity of magical elements to improve the efficiency of body enhancement using minimum magical elements.

But still…perhaps because I had become too accustomed to using magical elements in my body, my arms and legs had not become thicker and had remained as slender as before, even though I had grown taller.

It’s not that I didn’t have muscle power. I had muscles all over my body, but my legs were still thin, and my abs didn’t seem to be ripped.

Even if the musculature had been demonized to use magical elements, the orcs and Feld were so muscular…

When I left the road and entered the forest, I did not set foot on the leafy ground as I had done before, but moved by jumping over rocks and fallen trees.

I didn’t touch the goblins or demon wolves I found along the way. The demons did not even notice me using Concealment in the first place.

I disliked killing creatures for no reason.

I only killed animals to eat them.

I hunted demons not for Food but to Grow (Combat Power).

I killed people because it was the most rational way to solve problems.

Therefore, I did not have any feelings when I killed my enemies, I did not kill others out of emotion, and I had no reason to show mercy.

Therefore, I was not lost in philosophical ways of life.

I ran through the deep forests as a shadow, ate only fruits and preserves that I found, and when I felt tired, I took a short sleep on a tall and steady tree. I could not see the exact location of the borderline, but I could find traces of people on large rocks and cliffs as I moved through the forest.

It was a road. This road led to a place where people lived.

Even so, I saw several strong demons, perhaps because of the proximity to the demon habitat.

There was an ogre, which was a Rank 3 demon; a Rank 4 torrent; and Rank 5 Gryphon and Trolls.

I was able to avoid the Gryphon in particular because I found it first, but if I had not found it first, the probability of death would have been higher.

“I saw them.”

After ten days of going through such a dangerous forest with death lurking nearby, I could see a wide lake in a gap in the forest from the top of the rocky terrain.

It was a lake on the border between the Count and Baron Bash territories, which I had passed before, and it was the only large lake in the area, so I was sure it was the only one.

I headed straight for the lake from the rocky area and then north from there. After finally entering a human settlement, I spent a night in a nearby town and arrived at the Barony of Seires for the third time after four days of journey.

I wondered if that sister and brother of the Seires family were both in the Royal Capital, since they were old enough to be in the academy by now. Perhaps the older sister had returned as an adult, but either way, I had no plans to go see her.

The problem of the monsters attacking this place had been solved, so there was no reason for me to see them.

Still, this place left a deep impression on me, as it was the place where I fought and was defeated by Grave.

“…”

Grave…you tried to kill me for being a danger to the royal family. But this time, I would hunt you down as a threat to Elena.

Whatever your reasons may be, I would deal with you as my enemy.

It had been almost a year since I was away and had returned to report the destruction of the Assassin’s Guild to Master. When I arrived at the master’s hermitage with a large amount of salt and spices as a gift for her, I found that the herb garden had grown a bit larger again, which included wildflowers that I did not know.

“I’m back, Master.”

As I entered the nostalgic hermit house that smelled of medicine and unloaded my luggage, Master came out of the alchemy room from the back and grinned as she looked at me, while in response, I looked at her glossy dark-skinned face which were the characteristic of Dark Elf.

“You’re late, unsociable disciple. I had been preparing, expecting you to return just around this time. It looks like it was not all for nothing.”

“Preparations?”

As if she had foreseen my return, she put away the bottle of potion she was carrying in a box, and approached me to give a gentle hug.

“You’ve gotten a little bigger again. But haven’t you lost some weight? Welcome home, Aria.”

“Yes, I’m back, Master Celeshura.”

Thus, I had finally returned to my home to be with the only person in the world I could call family.