Chapter 109: Yes, Miss
“Rex Holden, you brainless country idiot with mush for brains!” Lillian was so furious that her voice jumped up an entire octave. Her fair cheeks were flushed bright red with agitation and anger. “Who told you Senior Eleanor was defeated?! Th-That was only because he used despicable tricks! Senior Eleanor was careless for a mont, that’s all! Senior Eleanor is the strongest genius in the Interdiate Departnt—no, in this entire generation of the academy! She’s the heir to the Sword Duke! And you’re comparing Ryan Velt to her?! You… you’re simply… simply impossible!”
Her chest rose and fell violently. She was so angry she nearly could not catch her breath, as though Rex was not comparing the strength of two people, but blaspheming the faith in her heart.
Rex was startled by the sudden outburst and shrank his neck a little, but he still could not help muttering softly, his gray eyes full of confusion, “But… but that guy just now was really strong… Is Senior Eleanor… that strong too?”
“Of course she is!!” Lillian practically shouted it.
But the mont she shouted it, even she froze.
What Ryan had displayed just now, especially the pressure that had burst forth when that sword left its sheath at the end… She suddenly realized that she could no longer clearly compare, in her own mind, who was stronger: Senior Eleanor fighting with her full strength, or the Ryan Velt from monts ago. After all, the last ti Eleanor had truly gone all out had been at the beginning of last year. Recently, she had hardly ever used her own sword in public with full force.
That realization filled Lillian with a strange sense of panic and irritation.
To cover up those emotions, she imdiately turned her attack back toward Rex—and toward the backpack in his arms, the true source of all evil.
“And another thing! Soone casually throws away a few unwanted things to you, and you act all grateful, as though you want to place him on a pedestal! How spineless! Not a shred of noble… of… of dignity!”
She had originally wanted to say noble bearing, but the thought that she herself had also been overwheld by that display of strength made her swallow the words halfway through. In the end, she could only glare at Rex even more fiercely.
Rex was beginning to wilt under the force of that glare. He scratched the back of his head and muttered in a small voice, “I-I didn’t think that far ahead… I just felt that he really was strong, and… well, he really did give us the things…”
“You—!” Lillian was so angry at his utter imperviousness that she stamped her foot. Yet her gaze could not help sticking once again to that backpack.
She drew in a deep breath and tried to steady her tone, but there was still a gritted, almost savage edge to it, as if every word were being forced out between her teeth.
“…Wh-What are you still standing there for?! Open it and look, idiot! Let’s see exactly what kind of ‘charity’ he tossed to us!”
“Oh! Right!” Rex seed as though he had been pardoned. He imdiately crouched down and carefully set the backpack on a relatively clean patch of ground, treating it as though it were so fragile treasure. With utmost care, he undid the buckles.
The items inside were arranged with surprising neatness, revealing the owner’s ticulous habits: several unopened packs of hard flatbread and jerky, two waterskins, a short coil of rope, and a few simple tools.
And then…
In the very innermost layer of the pack, separated and protected by soft lining cloth, there lay a small pile of crystals, quietly resting together and giving off subtle glimrs of different colors.
Runes.
A quick count showed at least eight or nine of them.
Rex’s eyes went wide, and he forgot even to breathe.
His trembling hand reached out and picked up one rune that flowed with a pale-cyan glow, so light in the hand it almost seed weightless. He examined it carefully, his voice stamring with excitent and disbelief.
“Th-This… this is wind-attributed! We spent half the day looking for this! We nearly turned that entire eastern stretch of forest upside down and still couldn’t find one!”
Lillian could not help stepping closer as well. In her ice-blue eyes, the soft but undeniable radiance of those runes was reflected clearly—crimson fire leaping and dancing, deep blue water flowing and shifting, heavy and steady earth, glittering and keen tal…
Different attributes, dazzling in variety. And among them were several of the exact pieces their own collection had been missing all along—the most crucial pieces they had never managed to find.
Her lips parted slightly. Every trace of her earlier anger, condemnation, and disdain was shattered by the impact of the very real treasure before her. For a long while, she could not manage to say even a single word.
Shock, confusion, and a faint stirring that even she herself did not want to acknowledge all mixed together, battering the entire image she had always held of Ryan Velt.
That Velt—the sinister, isolated, ruthless one from the rumors—had actually left behind runes this precious, runes he had worked so hard to gather, in such an offhanded way for them?
As though he were truly nothing more than throwing away useless excess baggage?
“…Could it be that he really did gather every single type of rune?” Lillian murmured, so softly it was barely audible. “So these duplicates… to us, they’re treasures. But to him… they really were just excess trash?”
That thought made a complex feeling rise in her heart. There was frustration in it, and unwillingness, but even more than that, there was a shock that was difficult to describe.
Under that calm, almost gloomy exterior, just how much strength and initiative was that man hiding?
“He’s actually kind of nice!” Rex’s conclusions remained as simple and direct as always.
He was already happily counting the rune types, his face blossoming with delight. “At this rate, we might really be able to collect a whole lot of different kinds! Our final assessnt should definitely improve!”
“N-Nice? Nice how?!” Lillian jumped as though she had been burned by the word. A faint flush imdiately rose to her cheeks again, and to hide it, she shoved Rex hard in the shoulder. “D-Don’t just stand there grinning like an idiot! Put them away already! We still have to find the rest of the runes ourselves! Do you intend to rely entirely on… on soone else’s charity?!”
“Oh! Right! We still have to work for it ourselves!” Rex snapped back to attention after the shove. He quickly packed the runes away into the inner layer of his own backpack with an unprecedented seriousness. Then he gripped his broad greatsword again, straightened his chest, and the fighting spirit on his face rekindled. “Miss, where are we going next?”
Lillian cast one final glance toward the deep woods where Ryan and the instructors had vanished. She drew in a long breath of air mixed with the scents of scorched earth and frost, as though trying to force down every turbulent emotion in her chest.
Then she straightened her back once more. The sharpness returned to her ice-blue eyes, and with a decisive motion, her pale fingers pointed toward the denser side of the forest.
“That way! The fluctuations feel clearer there. Stop dawdling, idiot, and stay close to !”
“Yes, Miss!”
Their bickering figures soon disappeared into the Whispering Forest as well, swallowed by the layered green shade that seed to stretch on without end, as they continued the assessnt journey that had not yet reached its destination.
The clearing returned completely to silence.
Only the few scorched marks left by fire, the scattered fragnts of ice crystal, and the lingering residue of frost and fla in the air remained to silently testify to, and recount, the brief, intense battle and encounter that had completely overturned the understanding of at least three people.
Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves and fell in dappled patches across that small battlefield, gently covering every trace, as though nothing had ever happened there at all.
Only the wind passed through the forest, releasing a long sigh.
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