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Though rather than smelling of trash, it was more blood and sweat.

“...Charon.”

“So you were here, Zeros.”

Zeros Silver, who had always stuck with Charon.

The young hero was the core of Charon’s points operation, the one who had sold all sorts of outside goods by smuggling them in.

“Where is Sinbar?”

“I don’t know, but he’s probably not dead. He’s a tough one.”

“I see.”

While the two talked, Evan checked on Karis’s injury.

“...Evan?”

“Yeah. It’s me.”

“...What a stupid hallucination. Shouldn’t I see a beauty right before I die...”

From the way he was speaking, I could tell that—while he wasn’t going to die immediately—it would be dangerous to leave him be.

Evan seemed to realize this as well as he looked up at me.

I gave a slight nod and handed him the potion I had gotten from Sharyl.

“Thank you.”

Hector was also talking to a young hero.

He was probably one of the nobles who was a member of Hector’s faction.

As I looked over, he approached me with the noble and introduced him.

“This is Eddy. He’s the son of House Piscol.”

“I have heard a lot about you, Sir Luan.”

“Just call me Luan, and don’t use that cringy polite speech toward me.”

At that, Eddy turned to look at Hector.

When Hector nodded, Eddy turned back toward me.

“Got it.”

“How is Sellen?”

“She’s just unconscious.”

Two of the young heroes were tending to Sellen, who was laid out on the ground.

Hector said, “If she had such a powerful ability, why didn’t she use it before?”

I looked around as I replied, “Who knows... It’s probably restricted in some way. I think it’s a high-risk blessing of some sort.”

“Should we talk later? I don’t think we’re safe here.”

“Yeah. Let’s move to the area our group found and bunker down first.”

We picked up the unconscious Sellen and the injured Karis and moved off.

***

The area that Eddy’s team had found was behind a huge rock.

The surrounding area had been dug up a little to disguise it. The disguise looked pretty solid with the brush and trees nearby.

We also had a light meal with the food Eddy’s team gave us.

“There’s quite a bit of food here.”

“We invested a lot of points into food.”

Even though it was just water and jerky, it was still precious in moments like this.

“...Fuu. We somehow survived,” Eddy mumbled with a hint of sadness.

It seemed he was starting to finally understand the situation now that his hunger had been somewhat sated.

“Sir Hector, what’s going on here?”

“We’re trying to figure that out. One thing we’re sure of is that now’s not the time to be worrying about the test.”

Before the mood could become any heavier, I jumped in.

“By the way, how did you guys end up in that state? Seeing how there were seven of you, it looked to me like you were all together before you were attacked.”

“...You’re right. Zeros was the only one who joined up in the middle. We originally had twelve people.”

“Three different teams were moving together?”

It was a strange situation.

Hector also seemed to have no idea how this had happened.

Eddy apologetically replied, “I’m sorry, Sir Hector. It was the team captain’s order, so there wasn’t much I could do...”

“It’s fine. I was the one who said we shouldn’t try and team up during the special test. Who’s the team captain?”

Eddy’s gaze turned to the unconscious Sellen.

“Sellen Goodspring?”

“Yes.”

“Then why did she make this plan?”

“She said she knew a lot about the Forest of the Butterfly. She said there was a monster called the Queen Butterfly in the forest, and we would need more help to kill it.”

“Queen Butterfly? Do butterflies have queens as well? Like ants?”

“It’s a monster.”

As I turned to Hector, he gave a general explanation.

“There is such a being in the forest. It is said that most of the butterflies in the forest come from the Queen Butterfly. The house knows that there is such a being, but even they don’t know its exact location.”

“...That’s right. Although the story was absurd, since I had heard from you that something like that existed, I believed Lady Sellen’s words.”

“And believing those words, three teams joined together?”

Eddy let out a sigh.

“There were a lot of young heroes who were looking to make a comeback in this special test. Although I didn’t completely trust her words, Sellen is still a Goodspring. She wasn’t going to spout complete lies. Though... a lot of odd things happened afterward.”

“Odd things?”

“Before that, I have something to ask the two Bednickers. This is the first time Sellen Goodspring has come to this forest, right?”

Hector nodded.

“Of course. If not for the Blessing Ceremony, a Goodspring wouldn’t have had any reason to come to our main house. Even when talks of marriage between her and Luan were ongoing, we only spoke through letters.”

“But why ask that question?”

“When she first entered the forest, she seemed familiar with it.”

Other people backed up his words.

“She knew a lot about the monsters found in the forest.”

“Ms. Sellen was the first to find the river as well.”

“She found some weird hidden altar as well.”

That last sentence caught my attention.

“Altar?”

“She then mumbled something in a language I’d never heard before, and it became like this. And also...”

“There’s more?”

“...Right before the test began, Ms. Sellen was the one who told us to purchase as much food as possible. I was honestly a little displeased because of how inefficient it seemed.”

“But given the current situation, we’re relieved we did.”

Sellen certainly seemed to have known this was going to happen.

But how?

Did she overhear someone’s plan?

My gut told me that wasn’t the case.

And—although it was a baseless suspicion—I suspected that Sellen’s secret was not something I could easily deduce.

I spoke to the female young hero tending to the unconscious Sellen.

“How is she?”

“Her body is as cold as ice. It’s as if...”

She was like a corpse.

That was what she’d wanted to say.

Although it was a common comparison in situations like this, the young heroes who had now seen real corpses would obviously have a hard time even saying the word.

* * * * *

* * * * *

I looked at Sellen.

She had been pale to begin with, but now she was completely white.

“Let’s see.”

I softly held Sellen’s wrist.

I felt a chill as if I had dipped my hand into a winter lake.

Her yin ki is going on a rampage.

From the outside, her condition didn’t seem that serious, but she was in a much more dire situation than Karis, who had coughed up cups of blood.

At this rate, Sellen would die in only a few hours.

I looked in the direction of Hector.

He seemed to be exchanging information with Eddy and Zeros.

“What do you plan to do? We intend to go back to the camp.”

Eddy let out a bitter smile.

“The camp... Although we want to help you... Honestly, I don’t think we will be of any help.”

“I see. Then we’ll tell you where our hideout is located, so go and meet up with the young heroes there. Staying together will be more beneficial.”

“Understood.”

Meanwhile, Karis was talking to Evan.

“Evan, don’t push yourself too hard.”

“Take care of yourself first.”

“I’m fine now. That potion was amazing. I might even be able to join your little group.”

Before their group left to join the others, I said to them, “Could you leave Sellen to us?”

“Hm?”

“I think I can help her.”

It was a relief that Sellen’s body was only being damaged by cold ki.

My fire ki should be able to neutralize it somewhat.

Also, if Sellen could be cured, she would be of great help to us.

I knew this better than anyone. We’d fought Hariba together.

“Got it. There’s not much we can do for her anyway...”

“We’ll leave her to you.”

“Right. You guys should hold on to these.”

Before they left, Eddy’s group handed us food and potions.

Six bags of jerky, a water bottle, and five potions.

“Oh, thanks.”

“Be careful.”

Eddy’s group left, and I turned to talk to those who remained.

“I’m going to focus, so please guard the area.”

“How long will you take?”

“Hmm... At least 30 minutes, an hour at most?”

“Sure.”

With that settled, I put my hand on Sellen’s upper core, her forehead, and closed my eyes.

Sharp cold ki pierced my hand.

It was fiercer than I’d expected and nearly made me clench the ends of my fingers... but of course, I couldn’t let that happen.

I forcibly inserted my fire ki to drive out the cold ki.

Although traversing someone else’s ki network was difficult, Sellen was unconscious, so she didn’t offer any resistance.

I need to find the origin.

Since there was no way a normal human’s body could be like this, the cold ki had to have originated from somewhere.

She’d already be dead if it was coming from her central inner core, so I suspected it was somewhere around her lower core.

Because I’d started with the head, it would be a long way down, but since this entry method would only work where the cold ki was weakest, I just had to push through.

I continued to flood fire ki into her body and steadily moved downward, but I ended up getting stuck in the middle.

There, the force of the cold ki became multiple times greater.

It was like an intense snowstorm, so my fire ki had no chance of getting through.

What do I do?

If I had more time, I could find a different path, but I didn’t have that luxury.

As I was considering exerting myself...

Fwoosh!

I felt an unexpected burst of heat.

The mystic bead?

I suddenly felt the presence of the mystic bead I had been keeping on my body since the start of the training camp.

I was a little surprised since this was the first time this had happened. Instantly, the heat of the mystic bead entered my body as if it was rampaging, and it roughly mixed in with my fire ki.

Did it react to Sellen’s cold ki?

Even though I was surprised, I controlled the new fire ki.

Although this was unexpected, it wasn’t bad for me.

As a result, the strength of my fire ki increased multiple times, and with this empowered energy, I pierced through the extreme cold in her body and reached the origin of her cold ki.

However, I noticed something odd there as well.

Huh...

Inside Sellen’s body, the power that was twisting in her deepest point wasn’t yin ki but yang ki.

“...”

Even though it was causing such a strong storm of cold ki, its true nature was yang ki.

It was peculiar.

Fwoosh!

In any case, I melted the core made of cold ki.

...That’s done for now.

I’d gained something unexpected.

With what had just happened, my mystic bead had melted quite a bit.

It seemed to have decreased by about 10 percent, and the parts that had melted had added to my strength.

And perhaps because it had mixed with Sellen’s cold ki as well, it felt like I’d gained double the amount of internal energy...

I’d ended up obtaining several times more internal energy than when I’d consumed the sacred herb.

It was an unexpected miracle.

I guess being nice has its merits.

Sellen’s life was no longer in danger.

Though when she would wake up was entirely up to her...

“Ugh...”

At that moment, Sellen groaned while shifting where she lay.

Afterward, she forced her eyes open and I saw those glass-like eyes underneath.

“You...”

“Hello. Are you alive?”

“...Seems like it.”

Sellen sat up while shaking her head.