C204 - Vanessa Olsen (4)

'A reward.'

She thought to herself with satisfaction. She had anticipated some of it, but hearing it directly with her own ears was different.

"First, bring back the horses we released. At this age, I don't want to walk through the desert for several days."

"Understood."

Jin set out in search of the horses. The desert was filled with tracks, so it wasn't difficult to follow them.

Fortunately, the horses were docile and hadn't strayed far, and Jin soon found them quenching their thirst in a semi-dry puddle of water.

When he returned with the horses, it was already nightfall.

"You did well. Sit here."

Tadak, tadak.......

A well-made campfire burned in front of Vanessa. The fat from the dried meat crackled on the wooden skewers, and there were a few fish, clean wherever they were caught.

And there were three barrels of liquor. Vanessa opened one of them and poured it into two iron cups.

'The wagon was loaded with something before departure, was it alcohol? You made it seem like you wouldn't pass the test, but you were prepared for this.'

Jin chuckled to himself.

"You're also very thoughtful, Lady Vanessa. I didn't know you would be preparing such an elegant feast."

"It's because I was treated very well in Tikan."

Clink, clink. The metal cups clinked as the liquor poured.

The liquor they were drinking was strong, but unlike ordinary people, their hardened bodies didn't easily get drunk even with modest amounts of alcohol.

In that sense, the liquor Vanessa had brought was so strong that it would elicit a reaction even from the strong bodies of warriors, so it seemed that even ordinary warriors wouldn't be able to handle it.

'It's stronger than that liquor I drank before obtaining the Light Heart.'

Vanessa looked impressive as she drank this unmatched beverage without the slightest hint of intoxication.

She silently emptied a whole bottle and, realizing that Jin was trying to keep up with her pace, she patiently waited while lost in her own thoughts.

In the light of the campfire, the sorrow in her wrinkled eyes could be seen.

"Do you remember when I said that our pleasant stroll through Tikan reminded me of old times?"

"Yes, I remember."

"It was because I thought of my brother. I'm so old, and he remains a child like you in my memory, that sometimes I forget my age."

Her voice was soft.

The sadness Vanessa displayed was only visible to Jin's eyes. Her brother's death was already an ancient fact to her, and what she felt was not sadness but loneliness.

"You must be wondering why I'm telling you this all of a sudden."

"Is it because I resemble your brother?"

"Not at all. He wasn't as handsome as you, nor as strong. He was special to me, but objectively, he was an ordinary guy you could find anywhere. We were orphans, not nobles."

Click.

Vanessa downed her drink in one gulp and lit a cigarette. Then she set fire to the cigarette and inhaled it all at once. The thick smoke covered her face for a moment.

"On the other hand, ever since I was young, I've always had great potential like you Runcandels. I was preparing to become a knight of the Kingdom of Shucheron, but at seventeen, I got into a minor fight in a tavern. I thought he was just a beggar, so I beat him up, but it turned out he was a Knight of the Kingdom."

"That knight must have been surprised."

"He was probably speechless. He came back to his hometown on vacation and ended up getting beaten up and thrown out of a tavern. I didn't know he was a knight until he left the tavern while crying over his broken nose. The owner, who was the only witness, told me he was a Knight of the Kingdom of Shucheron."

"Lady must have been shocked to find out."

"It was a huge surprise. I didn't think a knight would make a scene because a common girl was drinking alone, let alone tell her to pay for her drinks or leave."

Vanessa took out another cigarette and took a puff.

"The next day, the knight killed the owner instead of me. Then he started killing or capturing the few neighbors he knew. The lord himself set a trap for me and sent troops because he wanted to impress the Knight of the Kingdom."

Vanessa wasn't as overwhelmingly strong back then as she is now. She was just a seventeen-year-old girl with a lot of potential.

"So I tried to escape. But damn it, I made the decision too late. My brother was captured by the lord's troops, and I was forced to go to the lord's castle without a sword."

Vanessa's brother was brutally beaten and tied up in the front yard of the lord's castle.

And the knight ordered Vanessa to strip naked and crawl to the front of the lord's castle. When Jin heard that passage, his fist trembled, and Vanessa clasped his hand.

"Fortunately, I didn't have to undergo that humiliation. While I was trying to undress, I heard a deafening roar, and flames suddenly started falling from the sky... turns out, a dragon had attacked the lord's castle. It was a fire dragon."

In one strike, the dragon destroyed the lord's castle, killed the lord and his soldiers, and killed the Knight.

Paradoxically, the only one who survived the confrontation with the dragon was Vanessa.

"It was madness. There was chaos, prisoners escaped, soldiers fled, the lord and the knight died as soon as the dragon appeared, and my brother, who was tied to a stake, was lucky enough to escape the dragon's breath. So we had to fight."

In that fight, Vanessa awakened.

Her potential, which she didn't even know herself, blossomed, and her incredible strength was unleashed.

"I used the sword of the dead knight to protect my brother. The knight's sword that captured my brother, and this scene must have seemed very amusing to the fire dragon, as I desperately clung to my brother and fought against his flames."

Although she awakened, she was no match for the power of a dragon.

The dragon swiftly snatched her brother away from her and deliberately chose to spare her life.

"It burned down the entire castle and village, and told me that if I wanted to find my brother, I should go to Ante Mountain. So I went there and encountered the dragon in a cave."

Her brother was already dead.

"And the dragon didn't fight me. It simply flew away and left me there. It just wanted to see me in despair. It realized that it was much more entertaining than trampling a rural village."

"...And you've been in the Ante Mountains ever since."

"Yes, since that day, I haven't left the Ante Mountains. I couldn't bring myself to go searching for him. I was exhausted."

Jin, like Vanessa, was quickly emptying his liquor glass.

After that, Vanessa didn't leave there until she encountered Cyron.

When dragons came, she killed them, and when people came, she killed them too. She didn't kill many humans, but among them were also skilled warriors like Vanessa.

All of them held grudges against the fire dragon or came to challenge it.

"I was going mad. No, I was already mad. I killed over a hundred dragons, but that dragon never appeared, and more than fifteen years had passed. And then, your father, Lord Cyron, came looking for me."

Cyron was the first human to defeat Vanessa.

"The day after defeating me, he captured the dragon and all its offspring. It turned out he was related to Kadun, the Guardian Dragon of Kelliark Zipple. So Kadun also came to protect its bloodline. Do you know what happened then?"

"I think my father killed them all. Kadun must have been injured and fled."

"Lord Cyron only helped me to keep Kadun from interfering in the fight. He let me deal with the fire dragon and its offspring completely."

The revenge was Vanessa's.

She finally managed to kill the fire dragon and asked it several times before doing so why it had done it.

"As I said before, it did it because it found it amusing to kill my brother. And it did it because it found it amusing to see me in despair... Whether the fire dragon was scared or simply wanted to annoy me until the end, it said it was just a game."

"Hmm."

"Naturally, I became a knight of Cyron. After putting on the black helmet, the difficult days continued, and I couldn't remember anything from the past moments. After a while, I got used to it and realized that my speech and actions had become quite convincing, like those of a knight."

Jin didn't respond but refilled his glass.

"Even if you're stronger than before, just like your father, you must give your subordinates the chance to seek vengeance for themselves. It's a virtue you must possess if you want to become a great warrior."

"I will deeply remember that."

"Also, try not to give your heart to common people like my brother. They are too easily killed and often crumble for no reason simply by being by our side. If you ever find yourself in despair, it will be because of that reason and not because you've been struck by a stronger person's sword. Both your father and I have been hurt by it. Now I don't even feel sadness for the fact that my brother won't return."

As the bonfire burned, there was a long silence. Finally, Vanessa opened the last bottle of alcohol.

"Listen to your father when you have the opportunity to do so."

"Yes."

She wondered if becoming a transcendent figure was a process of castrating the natural emotions of human beings, and while she pondered on it, she recalled the colleagues she had in Tikan.

"I think this is enough advice... Take this."

Vanessa pulled out a folded paper from her chest.

It was a map. However, it was very different from a common map and depicted an image that was completely detached from the approximate appearance of the continent Jin knew. Furthermore, much of it was empty, indicating that it hadn't been fully completed yet, and there were intentionally concealed areas that were difficult to identify at a glance.

"This is a map of the Black Sea. Head to the area marked in red. You can take your companions with you, but once you reach the marked area, you won't be able to withstand the poison unless you take a very potent antidote." (*: It seems that by antidote, she refers to the Thousand-Poison Antidote that Jin obtained from Yona.)

"Is this the reward you mentioned?"

This was the first time Jin learned that a map of the Black Sea existed.

The previous Black Knights had spent almost their entire lives mapping the Black Sea, and it was still a work in progress.

"After making that map, Lord Cyron immediately handed it over to me. Then he asked me to choose one of his sons who seemed decent in my eyes and deliver it to him. Therefore, this is my reward. Additionally, it is a new trial."

"If I ask what's in the area marked in red, will you tell me?"

Vanessa shook her head.

"Of course, why do you ask such an obvious question? In the area marked in red, there is a demonic creature. Defeat that creature. It is said that thing used to be raised by the Witch Heluram long ago."

Jin's pupils dilated.