Chapter 625: Undying

In one of the many dungeons of Kera, a few hours before the invasion, a particular party was betting their lives against a giant tree monster. The veins were as hard as steel and as numerous as the stars. The party, consisting of five people, ran in opposite directions to confuse the monster.

"We need to strike its core!" shouted a figure that could barely be recognized because of its speed. "Make the branches attack in different directions to open a path. Fiery, strike it when you can."

"Don"t call me that!" replied a man in armor, which resulted in the tree targeting him. However, his blue mana exploded around his feet, and he dodged easily to the side.

"I will hold them back, darling," said an elegant woman who stepped in front of the man. "We need to finish it off in ten minutes, or your mom will scold us."

"Ah, right," nodded the man as he ran to the side. "Kody, help me out!"

"Ayo!" shouted a giant man as he struck his armor. "Three seconds tops, leader!"

"That is more than enough," grinned the man as he ran past Kody. "The rest of it can be handled by our great sniper!"

After deciding on their plan, the party moved as if they had rehea.r.s.ed this a thousand times. Kody and the woman stood on either side of the man, opening a path for him. As for the sniper standing behind them, he managed to strike down whatever branches attacked from above.

The man called Fiery rushed through the branches, trusting his teammates to fend them off for him. As he got closer to the tree, it tried to impale him with its iron branches. However, the man ran forward without a single branch managing to reach him. Then, he jumped at the trunk with his greatsword, white flames covering it.

The tree gave a dying screech as the white flames turned its trunk to ashes. Then, as the man landed in front of it, he returned his greatsword to its hilt.

"Phew," sighed the man, "I guess we"ll be home early."

"Watch out!" shouted a voice from behind them before a figure appeared in front of the man. Another monster jumped from the ashes, its claws reaching out to cut the man"s throat. However, it was stopped by a pair of white hands. "You are too careless, Fiery."

"Don"t call me that…."

"Gah," shouted the thin monster, looking like a tree spirit with long skinny arms and sharp claws.

"Gah, all you want," muttered the figure. "You are dead."

Then, the monster died without a sound and fell to the ground. The man shivered behind the thin woman, who turned toward him with a smile.

"Despite still being naïve, you are growing stronger, Oren."

"You"ve been training me all this time, Miss Melania," bowed Oren with a smile. "If I had no progress, it would be better to sit at home and do nothing."

"That would make "him" scold you, though," said Melania as the party began to regroup. "All of you have been doing great with this teamwork. This is the best method to fight out there: as one. I will leave, and the rest should return home as well."

"Yes, master!" saluted the other three toward Melania before the woman nodded and left the dungeon. Oren looked at the dying tree with a complex gaze when the woman from earlier hugged him from behind.

"Are you sad, darling?"

"It"s just the usual," smiled Oren as he turned toward her. "It would have been hard if I didn"t have you, Selena."

"You are getting a lot handier with your words," smiled Selena at him. "I miss the boy who was too shy to look at me or even believe my confession."

"I have Arthur to thank for that," smiled Oren as he hugged her back. "If not for him, I would have never had the strength to stand beside you."

"…do you miss him?" she asked, her hand caressing the back of his hair. "It has been more than a year, right?"

"Every day," replied Oren. "But, I"m alright. If not for him, I wouldn"t be here. In a way, he is always there," said Oren before breaking their embrace. "We need to go back before mom scolds us. You know how she feels about dungeons."

"Yeah, let"s go back," nodded Selena before turning toward her brother and their sharpshooter. Oren stared at her leaving, feeling a throbbing pain in his chest.

Arthur was not dead, as everyone a.s.sumed he was. Oren still remembers their last meeting before deciding it was too dangerous for him to revisit Kera. When Oren asked in private about the reason, Arthur mentioned the royal family monitoring him.

Therefore, despite not being dead, it has been long since Oren met his brother. He wanted to tell Arthur so many things, like how much he has grown, that he enrolled into Avalin Academy as he did, or just the fact that Oren found the one for him.

Selena was there for him ever since Arthur awakened. At first, he doubted her motives. Then, he questioned his worthiness. However, through all of that, Selena was sure about them. It was almost as if she knew the two of them were meant for each other and acted on it.

As Oren stared at her long fiery hair, he was suddenly filled with an unbearable fear. If something happened to her that would separate them, like what happened with Arthur, Oren wouldn"t know how to live.

"Young love booms hard," his mother would laugh when she saw them sleeping on the couch. "Even the walls are creaking in jealousy!"

Oren would laugh at that time before shyly inching away from his girlfriend. However, the realization that the two of them together sent a bolt of electricity in his body because he somehow has yet to accept it.

Oren didn"t think his mother"s words were true in retrospect. Instead, his love felt undying, as if it had grown a place in his heart and watered it until a garden bloomed.

"Are you asking to be punched, Oren?" shouted Kody from afar, making him snap out of his daze. "Stop looking at my sister, or I will punch you!"

"As if you can, idiot," muttered Selena before pushing him away and hooking her arm to Oren"s. "We are going now, idiot!" she struck out her tongue before pulling Oren away from them.

"I would tell dad!" shouted Kody behind them, and Selena giggled. Oren helplessly smiled as he was pulled out of the dungeon and into the giant foyer where the awakeners rested.

"Is there a reason Kody got jealous?"

"I think he was always jealous, but he feared it would scare you, and I would kill for it," laughed Selena as they walked toward the changing rooms, where they could wear their everyday attire. "You want to join me?" she seductively asked while glancing at him.

"A-as if, idiot!" said Oren before letting go of her arm and running into the changing room. He could hear Selena laugh at him, but it made him smile.

Oren can feel other people staring at them, acting intimate. After all, Selena was a beauty like no other, and Oriole was just acceptable. Many people tried to make a move on Selena, but she always turned them down politely.

While changing to his regular clothes, Oren thanked his good fortune for being loved by someone so amazing. After he walked out of the changing room, he found her leaning on the wall with black jeans and a white shirt neatly tucked into them.

"I can"t believe you take more time than me to change!"

"I was thinking about you and lost track of time," said Oren honestly, and her face blanked out before she blushed and walked out of the dungeon.

"L-let"s go back!" she stammered with fl.u.s.ter.

Oren smiled as he stared at her and then followed. Selena was always the bold one between them, but she was quicker to be fl.u.s.tered by his words. Therefore, he held her hand and walked back toward their house for dinner without saying anything. Selena smiled.

"Is there a specific reason that your mom decided to invite me?" asked Selena while the two of them walked through the streets of Kera. "The last time, I almost burned down the house."

"My mother is not afraid of fire, nor am I," said Oren. After all, Arthur gave them the ability to manipulate fire long ago. "I think she would warn us about that."

"You mean…"

"Yes," nodded Oren with a relaxed expression. "There has been recent news about dungeon breaks, and mom wants us to stop the training with Melania."

"Master Melania is why we are so strong for our age!"

"I think mother knows that strength and danger are sides of the same coin," sighed Oren. "We just need to rea.s.sure her that we would be alright even if a dungeon break happens."

Selena nodded at his words, feeling confident as well. As the two of them walked a few steps more, the ground began to shake, almost making them fall. Then, a monster roared.