Book 1 Chapter 678
678.
“Ah, I hate one-on-one duels like this,” Kal muttered, looking ahead.
Before him, a beastkin girl, slightly shorter than him, was warming up.
Her eyes burned with competitive spirit.
As they looked at each other, Kal felt something.
‘This is intense.’
He had seen many aggressive students at Lumern.
Not just at Lumern.
During his three years at Lumern, he had interacted with Azonia students multiple times.
And the aura emanating from the beastkin girl before him was different from that of the Azonia students.
‘Much rougher.’
It was far from just a personality trait.
‘More primal.’
Kal assessed his opponent.
At Kal’s gaze, the beastkin girl scrunched her nose.
She could feel Kal observing her closely.
“That’s unpleasant.”
“Ah, if it was unpleasant, I apologize,” Kal said with a grin, raising both hands.
“I was just looking for any weaknesses.”
“Do you think you can find them without fighting?”
“Usually, it’s difficult. But I’m not very good at fighting,” Kal said, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly.
“Wouldn’t my chances of winning increase if I observed my opponent a little?”
“You are clearly weaker than me.”
“I know.”
“And you still intend to win?”
“Of course.”
Seeing Kal grin, the beastkin girl stared at him intently, then spoke.
“You’re erratic and frivolous.”
“I get told that a lot.”
“But I think I might have misunderstood you based on that. My name is Kanea. Yours?”
“Kal.”
As Kanea revealed her name, Kal smiled and introduced himself.
Watching Kal, Kanea’s lips curved upwards.
“Are you ready, Kal?”
“Yes.”
With that, Kanea lunged straight at Kal.
Seeing Kanea charge, Kal put his hands in and out of his pockets.
A long, thin potion bottle was held between the knuckles of his fingers.
*Whoosh!*
Kal threw the potion bottle towards Kanea.
“Looks like an alchemy bomb,” Eliza said indifferently, sitting on a fluffy-looking summon.
Driana, who had settled down, crossed her arms and shook her head.
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh?”
Kanea dodged the potion bottle.
*Crash! Hiss!*
As the potion bottle shattered on the floor, smoke rose.
Seeing that, Kanea scoffed.
“Poison?”
“That’s right.”
Kal smiled evilly, took the cork out of another potion bottle with his teeth, and downed it.
It was an antidote.
“Ugh… what are you guys doing gathered here?”
“Huh? What? Why is Kal fighting?”
Arwa and Illiana appeared with almost dying voices.
Then they were surprised to see the duel before them.
“This looks fun,” Dweno, who had come with them, said, stroking his beard and laughing.
“Did that friend use poison?”
“Poison?”
“It seems a bit cowardly.”
“Very cowardly,” Luke, Haviden, and Aina said, shaking their heads.
“Hmph. That’s a tactic befitting Kal,” Eliza, Chelsea, and Duran praised.
The second-year students looked flustered.
They looked at their seniors with bewildered expressions.
“Isn’t that a bit cheap?” Haviden asked.
Driana replied, “Isn’t it the fault of the one who was hit?”
“Right, right.” Arwa nodded in agreement.
At their reactions, the second-year students looked in the other direction.
“I’ve never seen that poison before.”
“Even though it was a sudden duel, he prepared an antidote. That’s being well-prepared!”
“An enemy, but still impressive!”
From the Ibaldi warrior candidates, praise for Kal could be seen.
Finally, Dweno said to Ennoha, “It seems his specialty is trickery.”
Ennoha narrowed her eyes.
‘Ah, as expected, adults evaluate it negatively…’
“Brilliant.”
“Yes, brilliant.”
Dweno’s words were agreed upon by Ennoha, causing the second-year students to flinch.
‘Are we the ones who are strange?’
“It’s not that you’re strange,” Leo said with a laugh.
“You’ll all become the same as your seniors when you reach your third year.”
The academic life of a second-year student is by no means easy.
‘Being a hero isn’t as romantic as you might think.’
The image of a hero defeating enemies fair and square is a fairy tale.
In reality, you do whatever it takes to survive.
Great deeds are only given to those who overcome trials.
“Leo Flob.”
“What is it, Duran?”
“You said that beastkin has something we don’t, and that she’s prepared to die at any moment.”
“That’s right.”
“I find that difficult to accept.”
Duran squinted his eyes, looking at Kal and Kanea.
“As long as we attend Lumern, or rather, aim to be heroes, life-threatening crises will surely come again and again. Of course, I have no intention of dying. I’ll fight tooth and nail even in a crisis.”
“I’m sure you will.”
“But that doesn’t mean I’m not prepared to die.”
Duran looked at Leo.
“How is my resolve different from that woman’s resolve?”
To Duran’s question, Leo looked at Kanea, Diet, and the other warrior candidates.
“Because we were born in different eras.”
“Different eras?”
“I don’t think the fighting spirit and resolve one has when facing a battle are the same for everyone.”
Leo looked at Kanea.
“But people born in a bright world and those born in a dark world are fundamentally different.”
“Fundamentally different?”
“Yes. Duran, what is your goal?”
“You already know.”
“Yes.”
Leo burst into laughter and said, “They don’t have that goal.”
“……”
“They probably have few experiences of feeling the sense of accomplishment from achieving something, or even the joy of being extremely happy, or even happy memories.”
From the moment they were born, it was an era where such things had already disappeared.
“Failure is simply not allowed.”
Unlike the hero candidates of today, who can try again and again.
Death was as natural as breathing.
A generation that could be destroyed at any moment.
‘It’s not just the children.’
The adults were the same.
They simply lived day by day in debauchery.
Because it was an era where tomorrow could disappear at any time.
It was an era of disaster, where such things could not be called wrong.
“Duran, could you keep striving if the result of your efforts was failure?”
“We just have to make sure it doesn’t fail.”
“What if you can’t do that? What if the outcome is already decided?”
“……”
Duran could not answer.
“This is the era we live in now.”
An era that those born into a bright world could never understand.
“But yet, there are always people. Fools who struggle even when the outcome is visible.”
moths rushing into a flame with an obvious future.
Those who struggle to just survive day by day.
Those who were called heroes in an era where their names were not recorded by later generations.
‘I was like that too, Luna was too, and so were Arion and Dweno.’
All the heroes in the world at that time knew the end.
‘No, I thought they knew.’
Except for one person.
There was only one person who truly shouted that they would save the world.
Even Luna hadn't thought that way until she met that one person.
‘That’s why he’s special.’
“Watch that kid, Kinea,” Leo said.
He wasn’t talking to Duran.
He was speaking to all the hero candidates.
“That kid is trying even though they’ve already been sentenced to a future of destruction.”
“Are you saying you know what that feels like?”
“I don’t. I wasn’t born in this era either.”
He wasn’t lying.
Leo was born in an era of peace.
It was similar to, yet different from, the era of disaster.
However.
“I’ve seen more people like them than you have, so I know.”
He had witnessed it while living through the era of disaster.
But everyone except Chelsea remembered that Leo had conquered the world of great heroes multiple times.
While everyone harbored doubts, they nodded.
Leo looked at Kinea.
A meaningless struggle.
But that’s what made it special.
Even though she was weaker than any hero candidate here.
Kinea represented the warriors, no, the hero candidates of the current era.
‘Those kinds of people grow up to become Arion, and then Berkia and Bihhar.’
Unsprouted seeds.
Lives that would disappear without leaving anything behind.
But their will is faithfully passed on to later generations.
Leo looked at Dweno.
‘Failed?’
Dweno, who blamed himself as a failed leader.
‘Where did you fail?’
Leo looked at the warrior candidates, including Kinea.
You can tell by looking at these children.
‘You can tell just by looking at the warriors who fought against the Giant King’s army yesterday.’
Leo exhaled.
‘There wasn’t a single one broken in Ibaldi.’
Of the fortresses that survived when Ibaldi existed, Ibaldi was by far the most desperate.
Fortresses like Gardsron and Leisar could communicate with each other.
The elven resistance forces were the same.
But Ibaldi was isolated in the middle of the Tartarus forces.
Help could not even be expected.
It was almost a miracle that Lisinas’s Archi party could even reach Ibaldi.
Even in such desperate situations, the warriors of Ibaldi burned with fighting spirit.
Even Gardsron, which had a better situation and stronger forces than Ibaldi, had many who had lost the will to fight.
It was truly difficult for Lisinas to instill hope in Gardsron.
There was only despair and lamentation.
Yet, in Ibaldi, there was no such sign.
Because they saw the starlight?
‘If they weren’t prepared in the first place, it would have been impossible to stop yesterday’s invasion.’
Certainly, Leo’s Archi party was a great help.
But in the end, it was the inherent strength of the Ibaldi warriors that stopped yesterday’s invasion.
In the end, they will all die.
The outcome may be predetermined as failure.
But…
‘Are the leaders of warriors who can fight even in this despair considered failed leaders? Then what am I, you damned old man?’
Recalling his pathetic past self, who only cared about surviving day by day, Leo clicked his tongue.
‘You didn’t fail, Dweno.’