A woman was stomping her foot angrily. The sounds could be heard clearly in the entire forest. She lost count on how many days she had entered the forest. She didn’t have much arrows left on her back and she couldn’t find the exit. Sometimes, she felt that she’s only circling around the same place and she’s tired of seeing animals and monsters.
She wanted to immediately have a warm bath and sleep on the comfortable bed. If only she knew a teleportation spell, she would’ve gotten out from this damned forest long time ago. Even though she had an angry expression right now, one could still see her stunning figure. Her face was truly gorgeous with a pair of clear black eyes. She had a silver braided hair, flowed until her slender waist. Her distinct figure was too much out of place!
Looking up, she could see that soon a downpour would fall. So, she fastened her pace in order to quickly find a place to rest. Out of the blue, she could hear a shriek from her right side. It was definitely a young boy’s voice, she thought. Instead of running towards the source, she crossed her arms and stand still. Judging by the sounds, the young boy probably met a creature similar to rhino.
She could hear it charging at the trees and stones, “So noisy,” she muttered. After standing still for some minutes, she lazily grabbed her bow and load an arrow. She decided to analyse the situation first before she took actions, after all her arrows were really precious. Stealthy, she circled around the sounds and found a place to hide. With a glimpse, she could see it clear; the situation was truly pathetic.
The young boy was probably around 14 years old; his body was small and thin. Even if the rhino ate him, it won’t be satisfied at all. Its height was around 2 meter and its weigh was probably around 800 kilograms. Any human being who got attacked by it directly would definitely be greeted in the underworld.
Looking from afar, the young boy just looked like a small ant, he’s so pitiful! Right now, the young boy was only dodging it. This type of rhinos was slow when turning its body around, but super-fast when charging at enemy. In the end, the young boy was stuck between boulders, having no way out, he boldly loaded his arrow and shot the rhino hastily. One, two, three… Countless arrow was shot uselessly, each one of them was bounced off or broken into half. Not even one arrow could leave a mark on its thick skin. When seeing its pray tried to ‘tickle’ it, the rhino gave a loud snort, lowered its head, and finally gave a full charged at him!!
Gray was looking helplessly at the giant creature that was coming closer to him in super speed. Am I going to die here? He thought panickily. Since there’s no way out, he closed in eyes and screamed, “AHHHHHHHHH-“ In order to find the herbs for the butcher, Gray travelled to the deep part of the forest. What a back luck, he never thought that a monster like this would exist here!
At that crucial moment, he thought of his friend, Leon. Wouldn’t he feel sad if Gray didn’t come back? Abruptly, with a big boom, Gray felt his surrounding trembling. He opened his eyes quickly and tried to balance himself. Without a warning, the giant creature was sliding down and landed not far from his feet. Out of nowhere, its entire body was filled with smoke. Then, the rhino delivered its last breath with a low groan and died. Just like that. Overwhelmed by the circumstances, Gray legs finally gave up.
“Did- did my master send his help from the underworld?” He said hoarsely and couldn’t hold back his tears. It was so terrifying! He’d never gotten himself in a situation like this before. Gray couldn’t help, but calling his master’s name while wailing, “Master, turns out you still care about me even when you’re in the underworld!! This disciple won’t forget this, every day I promise to bring your favourite fruits-”
“What nonsense are you talking about?” A cold voice cut through his words.
“Waaah!! Who- who’s there?!”
Then a figure leisurely appeared from behind the dead rhino. Never in his life did he ever see a person this beautiful! Gray stuttered foolishly, “Are- are you- a- fa- fairy?” Of course, for him, it did make a perfect sense! Fairy tales always described the beings as the most beautiful and flawless persons in the world.
She looked down at the young boy who had tears flowing down and snapped, “I’m not! Get a grip on yourself, you moron!” She truly had bad moods right now, she wished to get out of here quickly, but instead got stuck with a useless boy. Okay- with a temper like that, she’s definitely not a fairy! Gray thought. Rapidly, big drops started to fall down mercilessly.
“Oh, wow just great,” she mumbled hatefully towards the sky. With much difficulties to calm himself, Gray stand up and said hoarsely while wiping his face, “There’s probably a storm coming later at night. I- I know a place to rest. Um- Miss, would you-“ Since she’s already drenched out by the rain, she was totally pissed off, “Show. Me. The. Way. Now!” Thus, Gray led the way. Since it’s raining, he was afraid his saviour would slip down, so he didn’t dare to quicken his pace. However, to his surprise, she was really nimble and also impatiently command him to be faster.
When they finally entered the dark cave, she could see that the boy had prepared this place nicely. The campfire was ready and even the woods were already stacked neatly. Gray finally couldn’t hold it anymore and asked her by squeaking, “Um, Miss, my name is Gray. May- I know who are you?” She glanced over her shoulder briefly and said, “Call me Sierra.”
She continued to look at the small campfire and without any warning, it burned up by itself. Gray couldn’t help but exclaimed in surprised, “WOW!! So cool!!” She must be a fire type magic user, he thought excitedly. She pretended not to hear him and sat down to dry her body. Gray decided to sit in front of her and didn’t hide his admiration at all. Ugh- she could feel the twinkles from his eyes and speak with annoyance, “Stop it, kid or I’m going to burn yourself,”
Gray shyly muttered, “I’m sorry, it’s my first time to see magic, so I couldn’t help myself,” Hearing his answered, Sierra just let out a snort and didn’t intend to continue the conversation. Nevertheless, Gray continued with a serious manner, “Miss Sierra, thank you so much for saving my life. If it wasn’t because of you, I wouldn’t be here right now,” he bowed down deeply until his head touched the ground.
Seeing his behaviour, Sierra messaged her temple and said, “You think I did it because of kindness? Of course, I want something from you in exchange,” His head went up so fast, it even made a crack sound; with a confused look, he asked, “What- what can I give to you?”
While Gray and Zed had their sudden meeting with the strategist, Sierra purposefully stood outside the castle to wait for Xion. She was embarrassed, but somehow, she felt that she was supposed to do this and comfort the man. And she didn’t regret it. The moment she saw Xion, the other’s face beamed with relief and happiness. They hugged and kissed for a short time as Sierra rubbed his back. “You thought I was dead?” She tried to lighten up the situation a little. Xion snorted, “Yeah…” He paused as he stared at Sierra’s face, “But I think I’m stupid to think about it. You’re probably the strongest being ever, you know that, right?” His expression was tired, definitely lack of sleep, but his smile was bright; his voice showed a clear proudness. Sierra didn’t want to imagine what happened with this man while she’s gone for a moment. They talked for a moment while holding hands. Xion cleared his throat, “Hey, Sierra. I need to talk to you.” She titled her head, confusion was appeared o
“Gray!” Sierra grabbed Gray’s shoulder and squeezed it gently. The soldiers already started scattered around and broke the formations; even the mages couldn’t protect them from the monsters below.“Argh!” Someone got sucked below, and Sierra knew that person had already gone. Amidst the chaos, Sierra could feel a familiar power around them; just like the last time when she felt Gray’s True Blessing on the underground. And she finally understood, why the barrier around, that was summoned almost perfectly didn’t work.“It’s a True Blessing!” Sierra yelled as she kicked her leg from monster’s grab. “What?” Gray was confused. “It’s an Earth True Blessing. That’s why the barrier won’t work. It could pierce anything! We have to fall back!”Gray quickly understood and he screamed, “Fall back to the north gate!” The soldiers were relying the message to each other. Those who cherished their lives quickly abandoned the formation and ran. The earth kept trembling and people started to sway and f
“That idiot!” Sierra snapped at the news. “I can’t believe he reject it. I wonder what his mother said to him!”Nevertheless, the next day, they marched to the gate to retake the capital. It wasn’t a hard fight because for the first time ever, they won by numbers. The enemy also lacked their leaders so it was pretty easy to break into their defence and controlled the castle. Many of the soldiers were surrendering as they wanted to trade it with their lives.Gray nodded appreciatively as they surrendered. “It’s nice not to kill someone,” He grinned to Sierra at the main room.From that day, the they took back State of Etherna’s freedom. People in the capital were cheering as they were freed from the oppressions. However, Gray’s liberation army still couldn’t relax at all. They still had the north area to retake and Kingdom of Bealaris to attack. The north gate was still shut tight.Then, Walter advised that they took a break after the long, continues fights. They also had to reunite wi
“How’s the kid?” Sierra crossed her arms impatiently in front Gray’s bedroom. A healer just came out, and he nodded his head in delight. “Lady Sierra, you don’t have to worry about anything. Thanks to his Blessing, the explosion didn’t do much damage to his body. Right now, he’s just sleeping.”Hearing the news, Sierra huffed a relief breath. Then, she decided to let the kid rest and find Xion. Frankly speaking, she didn’t do much at this fight because her main task was to defend the fortress. That’s why, she was in a good condition and everyone relied on her more because she was the only general who still alive and in perfect condition.As far as she knew, Keith was passed out from massive blood loss. That’s why, she moved to find the other one. Thankfully, Xion didn’t hurt that bad. He was wrapped in bandages, but he was practically fine.Seeing Sierra’s presence in the yard made his cold face cracked into a warm expression. He waved at her, and Sierra also smiled softly. “How’s you
Everyone became aware how dangerous the situation was. Gray frowned and cold sweats already dripped down from his forehead. Sierra quickly took control, “Okay, kid. Don’t force yourself. You still have to fight at the frontline. Let us handle it.”Gray bit his bottom lip; but then he nodded. The mages were ready as they chanted the spell. “On three, just let your power go.”“One…”“Two…”“Three!”Gray’s let go of his Blessing, but the lightnings were still under control. “See? We’re good at what we’re doing.” Sierra smiled. Since the first wall of protection had fell, Gray quickly moved to join his own troops.“Lady Sierra,” Walter appeared behind her, nodding appreciatively, “You really level up your troops abilities.”Sierra snorted at the words, and she grabbed her bow. This time, she didn’t bother to hide the exquisite design of it, making the archers stared with envy. “It’s family heirloom,” She added awkwardly.“Archers! Prepare your arrow!”Thousand of arrows were prepared, poi
It had been six months since Don departed from the fortress. The good news was he never failed to bring back victories. And the bad news? There’re so much things going on inside the fortress; refugees, soldiers, volunteers, travellers, even merchants, all came to them since Sierra had lifted her maze spell.Now, the fortress became really lively with crowds. Sierra could only shake her heads from the noise. “You really hate people, huh?” Xion chuckled as they stood at the third floor, staring at the yard.Both of them just got back from separate missions and now, they decided to rest together. Hearing the statement, Sierra couldn’t help, but smile softly, “No, it’s not like that. This view somehow reminds me the last time I’m here.”She paused and her eyes wondered longingly. Xion just stared at her, savouring the beauty. “This place used to be like this too. Buzzling with merchants, and people… I just hope this will last; now that we’ve made our location known.”Xion smiled too; thes