14 Chapter 14: Ogres and Dwarves

"Haa.. Haa.. Haa"

In a river inside a forest outside the boundaries of the Ainsworth empire, surfaced Grey from the river, who was fiercely gasping for air.

Grey has been swimming upstream in the river for 3 days straight without any sleep or food.

"Jean you bastard, you made me do this after increasing the weight of my bracelets from 50 kilograms to a 100 kilograms each." said Grey weakly as he slumped to the ground

Jean who was laying down on the grass under a tree lazily opened his eyes "huh? It's been 4 days already?" said Jean before yawning.

Lumiere opened her eyes before standing up from a lotus position and dashing over to Grey.

"Are you okay? Eat first" said Lumiere before handing Grey an already cooked piece of meat they got from Brad at the guild.

"Not yet Lumiere, wait for a moment." said Jean before standing up and walking towards Grey.

It has already been 3 months since Jean, Grey, and Lumiere left the Clear sky kingdom.

Before Jean started his training, he asked for both Lumiere and Grey's skills. When Jean knew that Grey had the skills Growth and Limit Break, he immediately put Grey to some strenuous prolonged training.

When Jean fought Grey and Lumiere, he felt that Lumiere's mana foundation was extremely unstable and told her to solidify her foundation through meditation. Meditation is one of the ways someone can slowly but surely increase and solidify their mana.

The most common reason one's foundation of mana is unstable is due to the abrupt increase or intake of mana into the body causing one's mana channels to overload or be damaged.

Mana channels are channels throughout the body in which mana flows. These are called meridians in Grey's past life.

When Jean was already close to Grey, Lumiere distanced herself from them and looked at Grey worriedly but with a calm face, knowing what was about to happen.

Grey then shakily stood up and looked at Jean seriously while his guard and concentration were at their peak.

The two then stared at each other…

After about an hour of staring at each other, Grey's guard suddenly relaxed due to exhaustion, it was at this moment that

Swoosh~

An extremely fast jab came from Jean straight to Grey's face. Grey then tilted his head from the side, barely dodging Jean's fast jab.

"Hooh, you purposely let your guard down for me to attack you. If your timing was a tiny bit wrong you would've gotten hit." said Jean.

"Since I dodged it I still get to eat." said Grey tiredly.

Jean just stretched out his left hand before many foods and drinks appeared out of thin air. Grey drooled before suddenly gobbling up the food without a care in the world.

"You can slow down, no one's going to take it away from you" said Lumiere as she moved to Grey's side.

Jean and Grey had been doing this training for about a month now. Jean made Grey do this training to take advantage of Grey's Growth and Limit Break skills, but this is not the only purpose Jean made Grey do this.

"He's training me for peak state." Grey thought to himself as he recalled how Jean trained him.

When Jean saw that the sun was setting, he yawned and said "that's it for today, you 2 should rest for tomorrow." before going inside a cave near them to sleep.

After Grey finished eating, he too went inside the cave with Lumiere to rest. After about a few hours, snow slowly started falling.

Grey had his eyes closed with his back on the ground and was just about to sleep before he felt something slowly getting close to him. Grey didn't react and just let it get closer to him. After a short while, it slowly laid itself beside Grey.

"Why are you here again Lumiere?" asked Grey with his eyes still closed. After their fight with Jean, Lumiere would always lie beside Grey when he sleeps. At first, Grey could not sleep whenever he thinks about how such a beautiful woman was beside him when he was sleeping, but as time goes on, he got used to it and didn't mind it too much.

"Just sleep." Lumiere replied as she too closed her eyes to sleep.

Jean, Grey, and Lumiere woke up early the next day.

"Alrighty! Let's go." said Jean after he finished stretching. "Go where?" asked Grey.

"It's time for actual combat." said Jean as he dashed off to the distance while snowing.

Grey and Lumiere looked at each other before following Jean through the snow with Grey using his Tyrannical Heaven Mortal steps and Lumiere using Wind magic to lighten her weight and accelerate herself. Jean made sure to travel at a speed that both Lumiere and Grey could keep up with.

The Tyrannical Heaven Mortal steps is a movement technique Grey found together with the Tyrannical Heaven art mana circulation, the Tyrannical Heaven fist, and one more technique.

Along with their travel, the three had came across many different monsters but Jean didn't made Grey or Lumiere fight them "We're specifically looking for a demon." said Jean while they were traveling.

"I want the both of you to know the difference between fighting a monster and a demon. A demon has intelligence like the normal human being so they are not classified as monsters, they're a race." Jean explained.

Grey and Lumiere remained indifferent as they knew of this beforehand.

Jean, Grey, and Lumiere were already traveling for 20 days without a single demon in sight. As they were resting from their travel in a large cave in order to avoid the snow, Lumiere suddenly stood up and looked in the direction of left and right outside the cave with a serious glint in her beautiful eyes.

Grey was puzzled as to why Lumiere did this, but after a short while he too stood up with a serious look on his face and scanned the outside of the cave from the left to the right with sharp eyes.

"50..100… over 200 from both sides!" thought Grey as he sensed many people slowly coming closer to their cave before suddenly looking at Jean.

"What? You 2 only sensed it just now? I felt them coming closer to us over 4 hours ago." said Jean nonchalantly as he yawned.

Lumiere had an 'as expected' look on her face while Grey thought "No wonder this fucker didn't move after resting for such a long time, and over 4 hours ago? With this snow? How much fucking land does his senses cover!?"

"Let's get out of here." Grey said to Lumiere. "Hey! Don't you wanna see why so many people have gathered here?" asked Jean before Grey could leave the cave as he stood up and stretched his body. "follow me." he said.

Grey and Lumiere looked at each other before, once again, following Jean.

The three of them hid in the snow and concealed their presence near the cave to see and hear why many people have gathered here. From the direction and speed they were going at, they judged that both groups will arrive exactly at the front of the cave they were resting previously.

After about 5 minutes, both groups arrived in front of the cave. Grey was surprised by what he saw in front of him.

One side of people had an average height that was around 8 feet tall, while the other had a height of around 5 feet.

All of them were thin and looked fatigued while shivering in the snow. Both of their women looked like they would pass out at any second while the children from both sides were already unconscious and looked extremely thin that it was not possible to tell if they were even alive.

Lumiere bit her lower lip with pity as she saw them and immediately said "Let's help them!" as she looked at Jean and Grey with firm eyes.

Lumiere was puzzled when she saw Grey, who was still in a state of surprise with wide-opened eyes and mouth. "Are Ogres and Dwarves really that rare? Or is it his first time seeing them?" Lumiere thought.

Jean just looked at Grey's surprised expression as he smiled lightly, as if he knew what Grey was so surprised about.

"Impossible! There's just no way!" Grey thought as he saw the group of Ogres and Dwarves.

After a while of double-checking, Grey clenched his fists and suddenly smiled maniacally.