Chapter 275 Chapter 275 – Tiara's Secret 1/2
The training session was meant to be three months long, yet one day, trouble found them.
"ROAR!"
A deafening roar reverberated in the plain of ice, a result of a fight between two beasts. A male ape was chased out of his pack, and he was furious. The competitor had beaten him in front of the female he liked, and worse, even excluded him from the group.
"Tiara, don't move from here. He had picked up on your presence, and he seems angry and want to vent. I will go to play with him until he calms down, but don't get any closer, or else you'll die from the shockwaves. Don't worry, beasts of his rank are intelligent, and he won't fight with me to death."
Naomi gave her instructions to the young teenager and her body was shot toward the source of the roar. Soon, the ice beneath Tiara's legs began to shake, and she could see some small cracks form on it in the distance. Her hair fluttered behind her from the shockwaves and powerful wind threatened to push her from her seating spot.
'This is the power of the peak of the seventh stage. If I want freedom, I'll have to surpass that,' Tiara thought to herself with conviction. She could not see the battle of the two Supremacy phase beings, and yet it was still terrifying even at this distance.
She couldn't meditate in those conditions, so she chose to practice her saber techniques until the battle would be over. She swung her saber from side to side, thrust it, and dodged imaginary opponents.
While she was building up some sweat, a sudden *CRACK* noise was heard, and all the ice in her surroundings broke. Tiara reacted quickly, jumping from one ice platform to the other. The ice continued to break, forcing her to choose the opposite direction and run there if she did not want to drown in the freezing water.
"Grandmother!" She automatically shouted like she always did during her training when she believed she'd die otherwise. Sometimes it worked and made Naomi help her, while at others Naomi assessed the situation otherwise and did not intervene.
However, this time was one of the times when no help arrived. It was not because Naomi thought it wasn't dangerous, but because she was still busy with the ape; she even lured him away from Tiara so the battle wouldn't endanger the girl somehow. Yet it did not help, and the ice still broke.
Tiara did the only thing she could – she ran. She ran as fast as she could, jumping from piece to piece, hoping to get out of the danger zone. Despite her efforts, the ice cracks seemed to be chasing her; wherever she turned, the cracks would spread in that direction and force her into running even more.
After over 2 hours of running desperately, Tiara was in a completely foreign place, yet everything still seemed the same in Frostplain; there was ice everywhere.
The ice finally stopped breaking, and Tiara stopped running and collapsed on the ground, trying to catch her breath. She only managed to run so far thanks to her grandmother's relentless training regime.
'I need to somehow find a way to survive until Grandmother finds me,' Tiara did her best to keep a rational mind. She was only 14 at the time, and she was lost in one of the most dangerous places on the continent due to both residents and the environment. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't scared.
After a quick glance at her surroundings, a bit of despair permeated her mind. There was nothing to hunt at sight and nowhere to hide from the excruciating cold.
Just then, a mini frost palace rose from the ground. Its shape definitely belonged to a palace and it was made of ice, but it was somehow only as big as a large house, prompting Tiara to call it "mini frost palace" in her mind.
The door to the mini palace opened, and a man stepped outside with a large axe in his hands. Tiara had no idea where that palace came from or who that man was, but his intention to kill her was clear by the strong killing intent that he emanated.
'I will fight to death, I will struggle to live!' Tiara resolved herself to fight. However, she had a nagging feeling that this battle could not be won by force. She was certain she'd lose if she tried to fight.
'What should I do?' The young girl thought as fast as she could. There was a clue in her mind, her thoughts repeated the same word.
'Charm.'
'Do I need to somehow charm this man into letting me live?' Tiara pondered. She somehow knew her interpretation was correct even though she did not know where that confidence stemmed from.
"Hello… who are you?" She asked hesitantly.
The man somehow slowed down but did not answer yet. Tiara kept retreating from him while trying different approaches. She noticed that sometimes he'd rush forward, threatening to catch her, while at others he slowed down and allowed her to put some distance between them.
'I guess I win this weird game or whatever it is when I manage to make him stop moving then,' Tiara concluded.
"Did you do something with your hair? It looks good today!" She tried throwing compliments.
"I liked the axe, is it fifth-grade mithril?"
She soon noticed that the man slowed down the most when she gave him compliments related to strength and weapons, and she tried to stick to them. However, he still chased her without a break, and it was a cue that what she was doing was not enough.
"Um, if you could travel anywhere, where would it be?" She tried some open-ended questions. It somewhat helped, but the compliments achieved better results. She was forced to continue running so she wouldn't get caught.
'Is it just my imagination, or does he speed up when I run?' Tiara pondered when a theory came to her mind. She turned around and kept eye contact with the weirdly-white eyes of her assaulter. Indeed, the man slowed down as soon as they kept eye contact, and she learned it was an important part of the charming process.
"I'm really glad I got to meet you today," She forced an awkward smile to creep on her face. A real person might have easily noticed how fake it was, but the thing in front of her did not. He slowed down again, making her sigh in relief. She was getting too tired of sprinting around.
'What can I do now?' She mumbled to herself while she shouted random compliments and questions to the man while disengaging continuously. She was walking backward now because she did not want to break eye contact.
"Haha, if you keep chasing me after that, I might fall in love. I've never had a man so determined to get me," Tiara laughed, teasing the man.
'Argh, it's not enough! I'm missing something! Think, if I were a man and a girl approached me, what might seduce me?'
She soon lowered her gaze to the places all men sought. Her small chest was still in the growth process, her crotch seemed out of question, and her small butt was relatively plump when compared to her slender waist.
'Sway the hips!' The next few minutes were quite awkward. Tiara did her best to simultaneously walk with her back to the creepy man so he could watch her hips sway while also keeping eye contact with him.
To achieve those two goals at the same time she almost strained her neck while walking away from him, and she prayed that nobody saw her during those embarrassing moments. Encouraged by the way he slowed down, she continued in this endeavor, but the monster still did not stop completely.
'Why is he not stopping?!' Tiara thought in irritation. She was out of ideas, but something was still missing. Although he slowed enough to allow her to keep some distance by simply walking, she could not exactly run either in this posture.
'What else would a man want…' Tiara thought profusely, trying to come up with something.
'Wait, would a man really be okay with it if the girl he likes walked away?' Tiara paled at the thought of getting close to the menacing axe, but it was the last idea she had in mind. The man was developing "resistance" to her hips, making him slowly regain his quick pace from earlier.
'I must do it!'
Tiara turned around and walked decisively to the man. She gulped her saliva in anxiety, but she did not remove the forced smile from her face for a single moment, and her eyes were glued to his as if he were a masterpiece of unparalleled beauty.
Her steps were firm and confident, at least from the outside. Thanks to the harsh training she went through all the time, her mind and spirit were far more tenacious than normal teenagers'.
The closer she got to the man, the slower he walked, hinting at her she was going in the right direction. When she got close to him, in a moment of inspiration, she placed a hand on his arm and the other on his chest. She closed her eyes and stuck out her lips as if she was ready for a kiss.
Her heart was beating loudly and her mind was filled with disgust at the thought of kissing that thing, but she just had a feeling it was the best way to do it. What boy wouldn't be thrilled if the girl he liked did that?
She hoped she was right.
This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦