Chapter 235: The God of Thunder
I followed Justine to a corner farther away from the others, and when I say I followed Justine, I mean she grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the other Valkyries, out of their sight.
"Hey, calm down a bit, Justine," I said to her, but the young woman didn’t seem to hear me, stopping only when we were far enough away to have a private conversation.
"What’s gotten into you, Justine? You’re acting strange."
"Are you sure I’m the one acting strange?" she retorted.
"Well, aside from you, all the girls seem to be acting like their usual selves..." I said, but soon after, I noticed something different about the way they were behaving. "Though they did seem a lot quieter after we defeated the King Boar. Maybe they’re just tired, so it’s nothing serious, right?"
"Indeed, our fight was quite exhausting, but I have to disagree with you," she said, crossing her arms as she stared at me with her dark eyes.
"Justine, could you get straight to the point?"
Her eyes sharpened, as if she thought I was a real piece of work.
"All right. Then I’ll be as direct as possible, Rick," she replied.
Justine stepped closer to me until the distance between our faces had shrunk to only a few inches. I stared into her dark, intimidating eyes as if I were staring into a black hole about to swallow me whole.
"What’s wrong with you?"
"W-What do you mean by that? I thought you were going to try to be more direct."
"For a while now, as we’ve been making our way to Backwater, you’ve seemed tense," she said.
I stared into Justine’s dark eyes, which didn’t seem willing to back down even a millimeter until she got the answer she wanted so badly.
"Was I that obvious?" I asked in resignation.
"Of course. All the others noticed, even Camula," Justine said, finally giving me a little space. "Her request was probably meant to give you a moment to relax."
I sighed. "Then it looks like I’m a terrible actor."
"When emotions bubble up inside you, it’s written all over your face, as if I could see right through you," Justine said with a small smile.
"Well, there are a bunch of things that come to mind, and because of that, I can’t stop thinking about Backwater City. The first is getting the dumbest wannabe hero back from our enemies."
Justine nodded at me. As someone who had been a member of the army until recently, she knew very well how difficult the task ahead would be.
"It’s going to be a dangerous mission. We’ll have to infiltrate the battalion, enter the dormitory, and get Leo out of there. Preferably without being seen. That alone is already dangerous, but..."
"There’s also that guy," I said, already knowing the problem we would have to face. "Laios."
I could see Justine tremble slightly upon hearing his name.
"Laios, the God of Thunder," she said in a disheartened tone. "The current leader of the Backwater battalion, also known as the fastest swordsman in the Silver Fang."
That was only what he was known for, but Justine probably already knew the story of how he had taken command of the battalion. She probably wasn’t telling me because she didn’t want to scare me at such a delicate moment.
As Justine said, Laios was around the same age as her and Erina, but he had managed to rise through the ranks of the Silver Fang with ease, not through years of service or a recommendation, but through sheer strength.
The former leader of the battalion was a longtime soldier of the Silver Fang, strong enough to have already fought under Gerard’s direct command. Stories of his feats had already spread throughout Ashia, highlighting both his strength and his speed. Those feats had earned him the title of Thunder.
His fatal flaw was that his pride had gone to his head.
"I’ll hand command of the battalion over to any man who defeats me!" he would say, but since he was a veteran famous for his strength, few dared to try their luck.
Needless to say, most of those who challenged him only suffered humiliating defeats within a few seconds of fighting.
Until the day Laios arrived. On his very first day at the post, he challenged the boss.
The entire battalion gathered in the training yard with smiles on their faces, just waiting to see their leader wipe the floor with the new recruit.
"Ready... Fight!" the referee said.
The other soldiers’ laughter lasted only a second. In half a second, Laios had already flashed past Thunder, positioning himself behind him and sheathing his sword as if the fight were already over.
In the next half second, the battalion leader’s body finally gave way to the slash and split horizontally in half. His body fell lifelessly to the ground, spraying blood across the white floor.
The soldiers’ laughter was replaced by looks of horror at the grotesque scene. But ignoring all of that, the victor simply turned to the crowd with an irreverent smile on his face.
"I’m the leader of this battalion now!" Laios bellowed for all to hear. "Anyone who wants to fight me for the position is welcome to try, but I’m not as nice as the old boss. I won’t let you walk out of the ring in one piece! You guys can call me Mr. God of Thunder! Hahahahaha!"
That was the man guarding the place we would soon infiltrate. Even if we went there at night, there was still a good chance we could end up running into him. A fight would be inevitable.
My hand was trembling, and anyone who saw me could tell.
"Are you scared, Rick?" Justine asked in a neutral tone.
"Are you worried about me?"
"Of course I am. After all, if you’re not confident that you can beat a guy like that, you’ll lose, and everything we’ve done up until now will have been for nothing."
"I see."
"And besides," Justine said, avoiding my gaze as the area around her beauty mark flushed, "I’m one of your Valkyries, so it’s only natural for me to worry about you, isn’t it?"
"Hmm, well, I’m a little tense. No matter how I look at it, tomorrow we’ll have to face someone strong from the Silver Fang. Even someone from the Night Apostles could show up in the middle of it all. At least, it’s a possibility."
"Then..."
"But I’m not scared." A smile crept onto my face. "I’m excited."
"Excited?" Justine seemed a little surprised by my words.
"Yeah. Facing a powerful enemy like Vulcan—no, someone even stronger than him—gets me really motivated. Not to mention that now that I don’t have to deal with the limitations of Ero Boost, I can fight to my heart’s content."
Justine’s eyes were wide open as she listened closely to every word that came out of my mouth.
"Of course I’m a little nervous. After all, he’s an enemy who doesn’t leave me much room for error, and this fight won’t be anywhere near as friendly as the one I had back in Vulcan’s hideout. But even so, I can’t suppress this urge to fight welling up inside my chest."
"I see." Justine closed her eyes, and her usually serious lips curled into a small smile. "I think I understand you a little better now."
"Even so, you’re still a mystery to me," I said in a light tone.
"Really?"
"Yeah. Sometimes you’re extremely strict, other times empathetic. Not to mention the times when you’re really hungry."
"Are you implying that I only operate in those three modes?" She crossed her arms. "I have other feelings too, you know?"
"I know that very well," I said in a smooth tone. "At the end of the day, there’s one thing I know very well about you."
"And what’s that?"
"You have a good heart, Justine."
If the young woman’s pale face was already red, she somehow managed to outdo herself, turning tomato-red all over.
"Well, I’m surprised," I said playfully. "When you told me that you wanted to talk to me in private, I thought for a second that you were going to try to make a move on me."
"I wasn’t thinking of doing that," Justine said, moving closer to me once again. This time, there was no restrained anger in her gestures, but rather a lightness that radiated femininity. "But I can’t deny that the idea of doing it behind the others’ backs turns me on."
"Eh? Really? I honestly didn’t expect to hear that from you."
"But we don’t get much time alone together. I bet the other girls would also enjoy some time alone with you, without having to share you."
Justine then wrapped her hands around the back of my neck and rose onto her tiptoes to bring her face closer to mine.
"Too bad we’ll have to do this quickly, or the others might get suspicious."
Comments