The Cogs Begin to Turn

Alex reflectively drops his sword as his entire body is thrown into terror when seeing the girl that he challenged bleeds from his sword art attack.

"ORIA!" Katze, Rosine, and Tili hurries to the limped Oria. The priestess orders her sister, "Hurry, Tili, use healing on her!" her sister nods and they chant the healing spell together to heal Oria. Katze too uses healing magic on her.

Alex murmurs to himself. He realized he had done a terrible deed. "What have… I done…?"

His trainer, the blacksmith Marcus emerges wrathful, grabbing his collar and screams at his face, "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!? I told you to NOT harm anyone, didn't I!? Have your ears gone deaf!?"

"…rry… I'm so sorry…" Alex couldn't gaze at his eyes. He keeps his head down while continuously apologizing to the blacksmith.

Ayako and Kon could not believe the terrible sight in front of them. "This… can't be… right?" the former said, her eyes still shudder from seeing Oria's head wound. Kon holds his head tightly while gritting his teeth, "Alex… man…"

Oria doesn't respond to all voices around her. She feels eerily shocked from Alex's final blow, but what's more surprising is that she does not feel any pain.

"(It's… not painful…)" she then looks upwards. The wound on her head has closed, thanks to Rosine, Katze, and Tili's quick aid to heal her. Slowly, she can receive sounds from all around her. Then…

<Conditions are met. Resistance Skill: Pain Alleviation Lv.2 is achieved!>

The voice of the system suddenly gave an update of one of her skills.

"(Oh, yeah… I have that skill that can reduce pain…)"

Meanwhile, Alex suffers from the blacksmith's harsh lecture.

"Imagine if what you've USED is a real sword! You'll outright kill her! Do you understand now why I refused to make a sword for you!?"

"Y-Yes…" Alex's nodded. He's on the verge of breaking down. Everyone looks at him sharply, discouraging what he just did. He regrets his actions; he wants to go back in time and fix his misdeed, but the milk has been spilt and there's no way of resetting the past. He feels his future slipping through his hands. He feels like he's falling into the deepest part of the abyss.

And when all seems lost… Oria suddenly calls him.

"I'm okay, Alex!"

The depressed Alex slowly looks at Oria, whom he doesn't expect to say something like that. "Huh…?" he's even more surprised. Despite the blood flowing like a nerve system on her face, she's smiling at him, gritting her teeth in fact.

"I have a skill called [Pain Alleviation]! So, your art attack just now was painless, haha. No worries, I'm fine!"

Everyone around her is thrown into a major confusion and incomprehensible shock.

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?"

Katze and Rosine disbelieves what she just said, "O-Oria! What are you saying? Your head just now was badly wounded!" Rosine nods, "Miss Katze's right. You were stunned, not moving at all when Alex hit you! There's no way you didn't feel aching coursing in your head!"

"Eh? But I'm seriously fine, you know?" Oria replied casually. She then discloses why she's stunned when Alex's sword hits her head, "Actually, I'm trying to process what's happening. I don't expect his attack to change pattern midway like that, and then, and then I hardly feel hurt when his sword hits me. That's when I realized like, 'oh, yeah! I have [Pain Alleviation]!' like that."

"Oria… didn't feel pain… that's… not possible, right…?" Ayako asked herself, but everyone around her could provide no answers as they are all stunned by this revelation.

No matter how they look at Oria, she's obviously badly wounded on the head. Her once beautiful white-silvery hair now soaked in blood. Even her face is bloodied, too. Her hands are injured as well, but even she can hardly feel pain. She then stands up and comes to Alex.

"Don't worry, Alex. I'm really, really fine! See?" the little girl smiled before him, displaying herself to be in good health.

The blacksmith could not utter a word as he can hardly believe her words earlier, "(She said she has [Pain Alleviation]!? How… how did she get it? The only way to obtain it is either by purchasing a skill in the Grand System or getting it from being hurt badly! Just… just who are you exactly, Oria?)"

"I'm… I'm sorry… I didn't…"

"It's okay, it's okay!" Oria just naturally grabs his powerless hands. "I'm all fine! Moreover, that sword attack was an art, right? It's so cool!"

That once blackening vision of the tall boy who aspires to be a knight now regains light. The world around him feels lighter, calmer, and most importantly, he feels all flowery in his heart. The little girl in front of him reopens his depressed heart to welcome the kindness of the world. Unprecedentedly, the boy's tears fall. He silently weeps as Oria carefreely looks at him.

But…

What Oria was doing was only her attempt to avoid making further trouble that she believed was caused by her. She remembered how Hilda, the woman she adored so much back when she was a slave, cheers depressed fellow slaves. The little girl was once affected by her influential smile and carefree attitude. And now, she wanted to act like her and did the same to the depressed boy.

All but to avoid raising problems, as Faruk had told her to not cause any while he's not around. However, Oria isn't aware that she's revealing more and more of her secrets. The kids who barely knew the system thought Oria was having a miracle and they praised her for it. But the adults—Katze, Rosine, and Marcus, who understood the system and the skills to a certain extent, sees Oria differently.

Because of that incident, Oria is quickly taken to the church by Katze and Rosine while the rest of the kid, too, are told to end their training for the day. They are strictly forbidden from talking what happened to other children and villagers. Alexander has mixed feelings right now. One, he feels regretful for what he had done to Oria, while also feeling grateful that the little girl doesn't get hurt as much as he thought. He remains silent as he trudges back home and locks himself in his room.

…

..

.

Meanwhile, somewhere on the road heading to the direction of Raskiel mountains…

There's a large convoy of carts and wagons. Some of them carries adventurers while the rest are troops from the closest city to Raskiel. In the middle of the moving convoy, one wagon stands out differently. It has a white paint and gold ornaments. There's a stallion symbol by the door.

The ones who command the twin horses of that wagon are two young men with muscular built wearing full armors but without helmet. They, too, have a stallion symbol engraved on their breastplates.

"We're about to reach Raskiel mountains in about a day, hopefully less," one of the men stated, to which his colleague replies, "Yeah. But I dare say we're going to take longer than that. The road here is frickin' nasty, all rocks and dirt! I can't handle young master's nagging every time we hit a bump."

"Don't say that, Joseph. This is a mission directly from the duke." the knight reminded him to which his colleague sighs, "Ah, I know, Roland. I only complain about the road here. As far as the eye can see, it seems that there's nobody living around here."

The knight named Roland chuckles, "Hah! I agree. In a monster-infested region like this, I can hardly imagine anyone would live here, let alone living a peaceful time. Let's just finish this mission and try to find that 'person'," his colleague named Joseph replies, "Yo, bro. You think he really lives here?"

Roland shrugs, "Who knows? Van informed us that. It is our job as his oldest brothers to go look for that 'guy'. Heck, it's because of him we're chosen to lead this mission."

"Yeah. At one point, we wanted to get promoted. At another point, we wanted to look for a long-lost person. Because of his plea to the duke, we're chosen. After we finish this mission, we'll surely be promoted and will be given a land, and not only that… we can also locate that 'guy'. It's a win-win situation for us three, eh?"

Roland chuckles again, "Hah-hah. I agree. That's why I'm proud and glad to have Van as our brother. Let us focus on the task at hand for now: investigate Raskiel mountains."

Joseph sighingly complains again, "Geez… 'investigate Raskiel' the duke said, it will be easy he said. And here we are being stormed by countless unknown monsters the moment we passed that river. I doubt that there's anything worth investigating around here if monsters are ravaging the land. Not to mention the mountain is insanely spacious."

Roland frowns, "Not a second later and you're complaining again? You never change, Joseph. The migrating monsters that have assaulted our borders several times are from Raskiel. Duke Johan ordered us to investigate to see what's going on in there and report back to him. It's for the good of our people, too."

"Yeah? Bringing a whole load of army along, too? Heh. He's too paranoid, don't you think? As if a dragon lord would come out and burn us to crisps if we don't bring this large forces."

"Enough already, Joseph. More of this, your words will insult young Master Derea. We don't want to incur his wrath or his father's."

"O-Oh… r-right. My bad."

Roland and Joseph look back on the road. Meanwhile, the former feels an eerie sensation when thinking about duke's child. "(Young Master Derea… he was tasked by the duke to join us. But he was barely armed, heck, he's not even given anything to protect himself. It's as if he has a different goal rather than leading the troops.)"

He closes his eyes, thinking deeply about it. "(There's also that letter that shows coordinates of an encampment along with an invitation letter. Looking at the symbol of the sender, and knowing the situation in the Derea Household, I truly do not like the looks of this…)"

Meanwhile, Joseph thinks about their younger brother, Van, "(I wonder if that 'person' is really in Raskiel. Don't know where Van got that info, but if there's a chance of us getting close to him, then it's a risk we must take. Thanks to him, we are chosen to lead the duke's forces that coincidentally headed to Raskiel, though it's going to snow soon. I just hope it doesn't turn bad anytime soon.)"

As the convoy passes through one of the tallest trees, they don't know that there are brown magistones scattered all over the area. Every time a human-like presence passes them, they will alert the magistone owner. With the convoy passing through, thousands of alarms are relayed to the owner like rainstorm.

"Hm? Ho-ho… so, they've come this far already…"

That owner is the Arcane mage, Sqidral Dux.