Heroine Survival Vol 6 Chapter 3

Journey

Thurs Continent also had four seasons. Even when spring ended and  summer approached, at Melun Confederation at the north the short spring  would have only just arrived. But at Claydale Kingdom that was located  at the south, the weather would be sunny even at the territory of Baron  Seylace at the north that people would get sweaty.

Deep inside a forest in such region, a single woman wearing a  well-worn simple robe was plucking vegetables and herbs that were  planted in the garden and put them into her basket. Then she stood up  and lifted up both her arms to stretch her body that was stiff from  crouching for a long time.

「Nn~~……」

Her flowing silver hair twinkled from the sunlight when she stretched  up her body like that. That woman who looked like she was still in her  late thirty had skin that was glossy black like obsidian.

.

Dark elf. A race that lived at the far west of this Thurs continent.  They had long lifespan like forest elf. A beautiful demihuman race that  could even be called fairy.

They were few in number, but it was said that they had existed in  this continent before even Crus people who were the indigenous people of  human race. They had some interaction with Cruz people and other races.  But……the “holy church” of Melsenia people that migrated to this  continent a thousand years ago debased the dark elves as messenger of  the evil god to make a common enemy in order to avoid a conflict with  Cruz people. All the races ended up persecuting them and from that  grudge, they ended up calling themselves as [Evil Race], the enemy of  mankind.

But, even the reason to fight would change after a thousand years  passed. At the beginning they fought in order to clear up their grudge  against all the races that were their enemy, but now their hostility was  directed more toward the holy church rather than mankind on the whole.  In order to whittle down the holy church’s power, the evil race  sometimes went into war with human nations in their attempt to collapse  the framework called nation.

Serjura became feared and called [War Demon] in such war not only by  human but also by evil race. She became fed up by her life, and more  than that she didn’t want her young little sister to end up like her, so  she faked her death, left the evil race army, and hid herself in this  land.

Serjura returned from her garden and added the leaf vegetable she had  just harvested into the stew that she had prepared. She took her meal  and then she created potion in order to sell to a peddler who was one of  her few acquaintances.

In the middle of such routine that was the same everyday, recently  there were more things that she had to do. When night came and she  judged that she wouldn’t need to use a lot of mana anymore for the rest  of the day, Serjura performed the “experiment” that had become her new  daily routine.

「──Iron Rose──」

Along with that “activation word”, Serjura’s silver hair fluttered up as though there was wind blowing.

.

▼Serjura   Race：Dark Elf♀・Rank 5

【Magic Power：387／425】【Stamina：215／250】

【Overall Combat Strength：2006（With special body strengthening:3786）】

【Battle Skill：Iron Rose/ Limit 38 Second】

.

「……kuh」

Her magic power was decreasing rapidly. Serjura deactivated Iron Rose and let out a tired sigh. Then she unconsciously grumbled.

「I can’t believe that surly disciple can use something like this properly……」

Her beloved disciple Aria once returned here one year ago. She heard  from her the fundamental of [Iron Rose], the Battle Skill that got its  name from a dungeon spirit.

It was a Battle Skill so anyone could use it as long as they  fulfilled the condition. In fact Serjura too could activate it though it  took her time.

But, the condition was to convert the magic particle inside one’s  body into pure mana without any element in it. It was a troublesome  condition. Even Serjura only became able to purify the mana to a certain  degree using her level 5 magic power control, and she was still forced  to consume more than ten times of mana than Aria when using the skill.

She couldn’t use it properly like that. She hypothesized that the  cause was the mana’s purity, but most likely that wasn’t all. She  considered that her hair color not changing like with Aria was also one  of the factors, so Serjura wrote the experiment result on a paper for  the sake of her disciple who was always reckless all the time.

Just like how Serjura passed down the magic that she composed to her  surly disciple, Aria also taught the magic that she created to her  master.

There was no danger when using the dark magic [Feel] and [Pain], but  magic that used the shadow inside the body like [Storage] didn’t exist  before this, so the difficulty of learning it was high and it was  unknown what kind of effect it would have to human body. So Serjura also  used Storage with her own body to research it.

It was then──

「……Someone’s here.」

Serjura who was doing sorcery research on the living room’s table suddenly lifted up her face.

She erased the [Light] inside the room with [Dark] and took out a hatchet from her own Storage while standing up.

There was someone outside. But, it wasn’t a human’s presence. Serjura  realized that she couldn’t feel any hostility from that presence and  rested her hatchet on her shoulder while heading to the entrance. There  she whipped open the door.

「As expected from a mythical beast, so courteous. ……Are you alone?」

.

<──Right──>

.

The feeler shaped whiskers growing from the ears sparked. It made the  owner’s silhouette that was lurking in the darkness flashed for an  instant.

There a huge mythical beast Coeurl was standing quietly. It had jet  black fur that was blending with the forest’s darkness and a figure that  looked like a black panther.

The mythical beast Coeurl──Nero who was accompanying Aria everywhere.  It had come to this place just once together with Aria, but at that  time Serjura was wary toward the mythical beast, while Nero too wouldn’t  approach near her.

The mythical beast Coeurl was an existence that was superior to human  and wouldn’t open its heart to one. Why was it here? This Coeurl opened  its heart to only one person, Aria who gave it the name Nero. Serjura  thought it strange that she didn’t see Aria together with it, even so  she got a bad premonition and attempted to open communication with Nero  while keeping some distance open between them.

「And? What’s your business here? What happened with my surly disciple?」

Sparks lit up in the darkness as though to answer Serjura’s questioning words.

<──Moon──>

<──Dark──>

<──Fight──>

<──Magic──>

<──Move──>

「W-wait a second.」

Serjura stopped Nero who was barraging her with thoughts that tried  to convey something to her. She pressed her fingers on her forehead to  endure the pain.

Coeurl could generate weak electricity from its feelers to disturb  sorcery or conveyed its thought. But, it was said that Coeurl came from  another world. Its language system was too different that Serjura  couldn’t understand its meaning when it conveyed too much all at once.  She also felt headache because of the electric signal.

(That surly disciple, I can’t believe she can have “conversation” with this……)

The last time they came, it was also Aria who translated everything  that Nero thought. Serjura felt that it would be difficult to interact  with Nero without that Aria mediating between them, but she felt  something like “anxiety” from Nero. She sighed and glared at the huge  beast before her.

「……Tell me from the start.」

After that she listened to Nero’s hard to understand explanation  before she finally managed to understand what it wanted to say when the  morning sun was about to rise.

「……That surly disciple, fought evil race vampires, and got teleported with sorcery together with the princess?」

<──Right──>

When the situation was summarized shortly, that was all that she got.  Partly it was also because Nero wasn’t actually witnessing the scene in  person, but the mythical beast Nero explained the flow of mana that it  detected in that fight to Serjura, and she finally grasped the situation  after spending a tremendous effort.

「That surly disciple got caught in teleportation. But, your senses  felt something not right with the Teleport……. Most likely they slightly  shifted away from the evil race country. That girl too is a practitioner  who can use space type magic, so it’s likely that she resisted the  teleportation but……from the past incidents, the chance is high that  their teleport destination went off course.」

Serjura hypothesized the evil race’s action as a former evil race soldier herself.

She remembered that the treasure warehouse of evil race country  definitely had magic tool that could use Teleport. There was no rank 6  dark sorcerer even in Serjura’s memory, so most likely they used that  item.

It would be a different story if it was someone who excelled in space  sorcery, but anyone else would likely cause problem with the  teleportation if they couldn’t clearly imagine the destination even if  they used magic tool to invoke the sorcery.

「……They would either fall at the desert, or Carlfan Empire. And? What do you want by telling me this?」

<──On──>

「…………」

Nero showed its back to her and lowered its stance. Serjura turned speechless seeing that.

A mythical beast would never allow human to ride their back. Nero  accepted Aria alone as its comrade and allowed her to get on its back,  but even that should be something impossible usually. Subduing mythical  beast into submission was impossible.

Furthermore Nero was saying that in order to go save Aria……in order  to increase the chance to find Aria, it would allow even Serjura to get  on its back.

「…………」

『…………』

The two glared at each other silently. Why was Nero going this far  for Aria? But, Serjura noticed that she herself wouldn’t be able to  explain it with word if she applied that question to herself. Her  expression loosened into a self-depreciating smile.

Serjura was also concerned with Aria like Nero. She believed that if  it was Aria then she would return back safely while protecting the  princess, but at the same time she realized that a part of herself was  worrying for Aria like she was her daughter.

In that moment, it felt like there was something connecting together between Serjura and Nern.

Their reason differed. But their objective was the same.

「I get it. Let’s go.」

.

Like that the dark elf and the mythical beast Coeurl departed to the west region.

They followed their heart.

***

「Elena, can you still go on?」

「……Yes, I’m still alright, Aria.」

Elena and I rested until evening. Then we began moving when the temperature had lowered down enough.

The magic stone in Elena’s heart had became smaller and her body  became robust, even so her stamina was still below an ordinarily healthy  person. Right now rather than spending the time to make preparation  here for crossing the desert, we thought that we should head toward the  settlement while avoiding the ruins while we still had food and stamina  in reserve.

First we were heading toward the settlement that we predicted was  located at the south of Resvel. There was a good chance that there were  adventurers aiming to gather material and treasure in the ruins. This  was a gamble that we couldn’t avoid, but it would be better than running  around blindly.

In the geographical information that Elena remembered, there was  Carlfan Empire south of Resvel, but it should take a month to walk to  there, so we could only think that travelling directly there would be  reckless.

.

『GIIII!!』

A beetle monster that was one meter long suddenly appeared. Elena  stopped its movement with water magic, while I rushed and thrusted my  knife into the gap of its carapace, cutting off its head.

It was a rank 2 monster but we couldn’t let our guard down against an  enemy that we faced for the first time. Insect monster would still be  alive for a while even after its head was cut off, but the threat should  be gone for now with this.

Originally we should dismantle the body now to obtain material and  magic stone, but right now we were prioritizing to keep moving. We were  focusing only on going forward.

Elena had become optimistic after deciding our destination. She also  looked at me for direction when fighting, not simply standing around as  target to be protected. Even if this was just her acting tough…….

If I was alone I could survive even if I had to eat monster’s corpse.  But that wasn’t the case for Elena. Because she herself also understood  that she was starting to struggle desperately in order to survive.

「Let’s go.」

「Yes.」

I could see a bit of exhaustion in Elena’s face.

Elena was strong……but frail.

She must hated being weak and a burden who needed someone else to  offer their hand to her. I understood that even while I offered my hand  to her who was walking behind me. Elena too smiled slightly while  lifting her hand toward me. Then we started walking while holding hand  through the desert under the starry sky that didn’t have a single cloud  everywhere.

We moved throughout the night and rested in a rock’s shadow during  the day. Sometimes we hunted monster and ate their meat. We kept  travelling like that and four days after we started, we finally  discovered a small town from above a rocky place.

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