The female-only adamantium rank adventurer team— Blue Rose.
They were two of its members, magic caster Evileye and warrior Gagaran.
Climb headed in their direction. The person whom he needed to speak to nodded her head and shouted in a husky voice.
“Yo, cherry boy!”
Once more, the stares focused on Climb, but there were no sounds of jeering. As if they had suddenly lost their interest, they turned away instead, with something akin to sympathy filling their eyes.
There was a reason for the cold treatment from the other adventurers. They knew that even for orichalcum or mithril rank adventurers, showing discourtesy to Gagaran’s guest wasn’t courage, only reckless bravado.
Even while he was being made fun of, Climb calmly walked forward. Since Gagaran wouldn’t change her nickname for him no matter how often he asked, the most effective method was to pretend that he gave up and no longer cared.
“It has been a long time, Gagaran-sam—san, Evileye-sama.”
He approached the two and bowed his head.
“Yeah, long time no see. What, did you come here because you wanted to be embraced by me?”
While motioning with her chin to take a seat, Gagaran asked him with a beast-like grin across her face. But Climb shook his head with a blank expression.
This was also part of Gagaran’s usual banter. Although it was a greeting, it did not mean that she was joking. If Climb ever replied in the affirmative, even in jest, Gagaran would immediately drag him to a room on the 2nd floor with overwhelming strength, without any chance for retaliation.
Gagaran, who would openly proclaim that plucking a ‘fresh cherry’ was her hobby, was that type of person.
Different from Gagaran, Evileye stared directly in front of her and showed no sign of turning her face. You could not even tell which direction the eyes beneath the mask were pointing.
“No. I’m here because of a request from Aindra-sama.”
“Huh? From the leader?”
“Yes. I will deliver her message.『It seems we’ll have to move soon. I will explain the details when I return. Be ready for battle immediately.』”
“I got it. Hmm, you’re sure going through a lot of trouble for something so trivial.”
Climb remembered that he had something else to say to Gagaran who wore a wide grin.
“I had the fortune of being instructed in the sword by Stronoff-sama today. He praised the high vertical strike that you taught me in the past.”
He had learned that move from her in this inn’s backyard. Gagaran smiled brightly.
“Oh, that! Not bad at all. But…”
“Yes. I will not be satisfied and train harder.”
“That’s good and all, but assume that move will be blocked and start working on a skill to come after it.”
Whether it was a coincidence or just common sense to first rate warriors, Gagaran’s advice was very similar to Gazef’s. Apparently misunderstanding Climb’s surprised face, Gagaran continued to speak with a chuckle.
“Obviously, that vertical slash is meant to be a one-hit-kill. Normally, the correct way to go about it is to choose from a wide repertoire of moves depending on the situation. But the thing is, that’s impossible for you.”
She was implying that it was because he had no talent.
“So work on a combination that consists of at least three attacks. Make it so that even if they’re blocked, your opponent can’t switch to the offensive.”
Climb nodded.
“Well, if you’re against monsters that have eight arms and such, it may not work. But it should be fine against humans. Even though having a pattern will be the end of you if it gets found out, it’s still pretty effective against opponents that you meet for the first time. Think of something that will let you push forward over and over and over.”
“I understand.”
Climb earnestly nodded his head.
This morning, only once could he push forward into Gazef like that. Everything else was blocked and countered.
But did that shake his confidence? No.
Did he fall into despair? No.
The opposite.
It was the opposite.
An ordinary person was able to get that close to the strongest warrior in the Kingdom, no, the surrounding countries. He also knew very well that his opponent had not been fighting seriously. But to Climb, who was walking a pitch black road completely devoid of light, it was more than enough of an encouragement.
It told him that that his efforts were not in vain.
When he remembered that, what Gagaran was trying to say touched his heart.
Even though he wasn’t confident about whether or not he could successfully come up with a combination of attacks, the burning urge to do it still rose up from the bottom of his stomach. The next time he fought the Warrior Captain, he wanted to be strong enough to make him a bit more serious.
“…Now that I remember, didn’t you ask Evileye for something awhile back? Was it magic training?”
“Yes.”
Climb glanced over at Evileye. Back then, it was turned down by a scoff from inside the mask. No doubt that bringing up the same topic when nothing has changed will have the same result.
However—
“Kid.”
He heard a voice that was difficult to read.
Even disregarding the fact that it was through a mask, it held a very mysterious tone. Even with a mask, as long as the sound was not too thick, it should be possible to somewhat make out the timber of the voice. However, you could make out neither the age nor emotion behind Evileye’s voice. It was barely enough to just recognize the voice as female. It sounded like both an old woman and a young girl, flat and emotionless.
It was because Evileye’s mask was a magic item, but why did she go that far in order to hide her voice?
“You don’t have the talent. Try something else.”
A crude remark, as if that was all that she needed to say.
Climb himself knew at least that much better than anyone.
He did not have any talent for magic. No, not only magic.
No matter how much he swung his sword, no matter how much he bled and hard his hands became from the blisters, he could not reach the level that he wanted. The wall that those with talent would easily overcome, even that became an absolute obstacle that he could not traverse.