The Last Place Hero’s Return - Chapter 11

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 11. First Lesson (3)
“Ugh….”
After the brief commotion subsided.
The lead in tracking the magical beast shifted from Camilla Bediche to me.
Camilla, seemingly disheartened at losing the lead to me, followed behind with a dejected expression.
Drooping shoulders and listless footsteps.
That sight was utterly unfamiliar—something I had never witnessed from the Camilla Bediche I knew so well.
“Isn’t she adorable?”
Iris, walking beside me, glanced back at Camilla trailing far behind, her hand covering her mouth as she let out soft, stifled laughter.
“She’s so competitive that whenever she loses and comes back defeated, she mopes like that for a while.”
“I never knew the next candidate for the Sword of Holy Nation could make such an expression.”
“It just means your tracking skills are that exceptional, Dale.”
Iris gazed at me with sparkling eyes and asked.
“But how do you manage to pinpoint the magical beast’s movement path so accurately at a glance?”
“That’s….”
I wanted to say that after hunting magical beasts thousands upon thousands of times, one naturally comes to understand their patterns whether you wish to or not.
But I couldn’t speak to her about my past life now.
“Just lucky, I suppose.”
“Hmm. It didn’t look like luck to me at all.”
Iris seemed uninterested in pressing further, and with that, she quietly fell into step behind me.
After following the magical beast’s trail for another ten minutes or so.
“Found it.”
Between the dense undergrowth, a dark silhouette crept forward with its body hunched low.
It was roughly two meters in size.
Its overall shape resembled a feline, but its mouth was pointed like a bird’s beak, and between its two eyes, a third eye gleamed with an ominous crimson light.
‘A three-eyed magical beast, then.’
Magical beasts grew more deformed and powerful the more eyes they possessed.
In that sense, three eyes meant only the body size or certain body parts had undergone transformation—an early-stage variant magical beast.
‘Perfect for training purposes.’
Of course, even a three-eyed magical beast was still a magical beast.
Its movements were incomparably faster than ordinary wild animals, it possessed strength enough to tear a person apart with ease, and weapons without magical enchantment could barely leave a scratch on it.
‘Especially feline-type magical beasts—their speed often surpasses even those with more eyes.’
They had likely prepared a feline-type magical beast deliberately to match the training theme of “tracking and capture.”
‘Before it notices me, approach as quickly as possible and seize it.’
I was timing my charge when.
“I’ll go.”
Camilla stepped forward, apparently intent on redeeming herself from her earlier failure.
“A feline-type magical beast will be quite fast—are you sure?”
“Hmph. Don’t worry. My legs aren’t so slow that I’d let a beast like that slip away right before my eyes.”
The confidence in her response suggested she wasn’t merely bluffing.
“Alright. I’ll cut off its escape route, so you grab it, Camilla.”
“Got it.”
I moved toward the beast’s escape route, muffling my footsteps.
“Wait a moment. Let me cast a blessing on you first.”
Iris pressed her hands together in prayer.
A pristine radiance flowed from her stigma and enveloped us.
The exhaustion drained away as if I’d woken from a deep sleep, and vitality surged through my entire body.
‘It’s been so long.’
How many years had it been since I last received Iris’s blessing?
Of course, compared to the blessings I’d received in my past life, this one was incomparably weaker in both potency and effect.
Yet the mere fact that I could receive her blessing again made my heart swell so intensely that my eyes grew hot.
“Dale? Is something wrong?”
“Ah, sorry.”
I had no time for sentimentality.
I carefully muffled my footsteps and moved toward the beast’s escape route.
When I reached the route and turned to look at Camilla, she was watching me, ready to charge forward at my signal.
‘Unexpected.’
I thought that if Camilla disliked me, she wouldn’t wait for my signal and would just charge ahead.
‘So she’s not foolish enough to let her emotions cloud her judgment.’
Good.
If she’s taken it upon herself to protect Iris, she should act accordingly.
“….”
I hid in the escape route and observed the beast’s movements.
Just as I’d confirmed from its droppings, the beast’s condition looked far from good.
When it irritably twisted its body, clearly bothered by the restraining magical artifacts fastened around its legs and mouth.
“Now.”
Thud-thud-thud!
With my brief signal, Camilla burst forward.
I was prepared to cover her back if she somehow let the beast slip away.
‘But that won’t be necessary.’
Proving that her claim about her speed wasn’t mere bravado, Camilla charged forward with explosive velocity and savagely kicked the beast’s belly.
“Kyaaagh!”
Splurt!
With a dull sound, black blood gushed from the beast’s mouth as it was caught off guard.
Even as it coughed up blood, the beast desperately tried to turn and flee.
“Not so fast!”
Camilla swung her sword—still in its scabbard—and struck the beast’s back of the head.
The beast, hit squarely on the head, staggered and collapsed without putting up much of a fight.
“Well done, Camilla!”
Seeing the beast fall, Iris emerged from the brush and approached Camilla.
“Hmm, this is nothing at all.”
“That was so cool!”
“Hehe.”
“I love you!”
“Oh my~ Why are you saying such things, Saint? I’m not really happy just because you’re praising me for something so trivial.”
She was clearly delighted, though.
“Mm~ Isn’t she adorable? Our Camilla Bediche.”
Iris turned to look at Camilla Bediche with a beaming smile on her face.
‘The way she’s talking, it’s like she’s bragging about a pet dog.’
Come to think of it, Iris used to treat me like some cute pet animal before too.
‘Yeah. Especially in bed….’
I cleared my throat.
I pushed away the thoughts flooding my mind and approached the fallen magical beast.
“Now that we’ve caught it, let’s get the report done first.”
I brought the Hero Watch on my left wrist to the magical artifact fitted around the beast’s mouth.
Ding.
A clear alarm sounded, and a holographic window appeared on the screen.
[Capture confirmed for the Party of ‘Iris, Camilla Bediche, Dale Han’.]
Good.
One down.
‘Should I head out to find the next one right away?’
If I moved diligently, I was confident I could capture all three in a single day.
“Thank you. Without you, Dale, we wouldn’t have been able to capture the magical beast so quickly.”
Looking at Iris with her eyes curved into melting crescents, my heart wavered.
Those beautiful eyes, holding the blue of the sky—something I could never see in her in my past life.
Just gazing into those eyes made my heart race wildly.
‘That plan to capture all three in a single day… I should probably shelve it for now.’
Yeah.
In my past life, the Candidates barely managed to catch all three over three days of grueling work. If I caught them all in one day, the other Candidates wouldn’t get proper training, would they?
The bonus points are tempting, but I can’t throw away the other Candidates’ precious growth opportunities just for a few extra points, can I?
“By the way, if we can’t catch all three by today… would we have to camp in the Forest?”
“We’ll have to. They said we don’t stop until we’ve caught all three, no matter how many days it takes.”
Not because I absolutely want to spend a night with my ex-lover or anything.
* * *
After that, I spent several more hours searching the Mountain for magical beasts, but unfortunately found neither the beasts nor any trace of them.
I clicked my tongue as I looked up at the darkening sky.
“Well~ looks like we’ll have to camp after all? I really wanted to catch them all and rest in a day, but that’s too bad.”
“…You seem oddly pleased about this?”
“What? How could you say such a thing?”
“Hmph. If you’re harboring any suspicious thoughts about camping, I won’t let you off easy.”
Camilla fixed me with a fierce glare and issued a warning.
I chuckled softly and kicked at the dirt beneath my feet.
“Once you’re sleeping on hard-packed earth with the cold wind cutting through you, you won’t have the luxury of entertaining such thoughts. Don’t worry.”
“Ugh.”
We’d conducted outdoor bivouac training several times before.
But this was Camilla’s first experience camping directly on bare ground, and she swallowed hard as she stared down at the earth.
“The dirt is unavoidable, but if I place my blessing on the cold wind, it should be bearable to some degree.”
“Is that so? I didn’t know blessings had that kind of effect.”
Though I already knew this to be true.
I feigned surprise with an exaggerated expression.
“Ahem. Still, aren’t I quite the ‘saint’?”
Iris puffed out her chest playfully with a smug expression.
Creak.
The moment I straightened my posture and thrust my chest forward, the athletic wear she was wearing began to cry out as if it might burst.
‘Huh.’
It was a chest I’d seen countless times in my previous life—so vividly etched in memory that I’d even touched it.
But seeing it again after so long carried a visual impact unlike anything else.
“Y-you! Turn your eyes away already! Saint! Didn’t I tell you that posture is dangerous?!”
“Hmm, that’s strange. You didn’t react like this when Camilla did it earlier.”
“What nonsense are you— Ah. I-I’m terribly sorry!”
“Oh my, you’ve hurt my feelings.”
Iris wiped at her eyes with exaggerated dramatics.
Camilla bowed her head repeatedly, at a loss for what to do.
‘So Iris had quite the mischievous streak during her Candidate Program days.’
In my previous life, I’d never seen her display this kind of playful, teasing side.
‘A side of Iris I never knew.’
The fact that I could witness it now, right before my eyes, filled me with such emotion.
As I stood there lost in sentiment, watching Iris tease Camilla with that impish smile.
Grrrrowl.
The sound of a stomach alarm echoed through the quiet forest.
“Oh.”
Iris’s cheeks flushed a rosy red.
“A-ahem… I didn’t eat a proper breakfast this morning, so I’m feeling a bit hungry.”
Clearly embarrassed by the stomach sound, Iris hurried to make excuses with an awkward cough.
Watching her, Camilla’s expression grew troubled.
“I… I apologize. I didn’t anticipate we’d be camping, so I didn’t bring any extra provisions.”
“It’s fine. I didn’t expect we’d end up camping like this either.”
Iris smiled brightly as she said she could go a day without food, but her complexion had grown slightly darker—evidence that she hadn’t eaten a proper breakfast.
“I brought some food.”
“Oh…!”
“Really, truly?”
“Of course. I brought plenty for both of us, so don’t worry.”
I said this while pulling out the provisions I’d prepared in advance from my backpack.
“…What is that?”
Camilla Bediche tilted her head in confusion, staring at the vivid crimson packaging in my hands.
“Ramen.”
“Ramen? Ah, ramen… Isn’t that the food the poor in the Republic primarily eat?”
“What? You… Even in an emergency, you were planning to feed the Saint such a thing?”
“I’m not sure how I got that reputation, but trust me—the taste is absolutely incredible.”
Especially.
“It’ll be right up Iris’s alley.”
In my past life, whenever ramen came up, I’d eat it with unbridled enthusiasm.
“Hmph. What makes you think you know the Saint well enough to say such things?”
Camilla Bediche let out a scoffing laugh and continued.
“The Saint, you see, dines on carefully prepared meals made by professional chefs dispatched from the Holy Kingdom—dishes that boast perfect balance in flavor, freshness, and nutrition at every meal. There’s no way she’d enjoy something as inferior as this junk food!”
“You certainly have a lot to say for someone eating on someone else’s dime.”
“Kh… Th-that’s…”
“Will you eat it or not?”
“…I’ll eat it. Sorry for the unnecessary commentary.”
Camilla Bediche, apparently quite hungry herself, obediently lowered her head.
I gathered some dry twigs from nearby, started a fire, and boiled the ramen in the pot I’d brought.
‘It would’ve been even better with an egg.’
But there was no way I could justify bringing eggs on a field training exercise.
“It’s ready.”
“Wow…”
“Ahem… The aroma alone is certainly appealing.”
The two women swallowed hard, watching the ramen bubble away.
Holy Kingdom cuisine tends to be mild in seasoning and heavy on vegetables, so they likely hadn’t encountered many bold, stimulating flavors like this.
“Here, chopsticks… Oh, people from the Holy Kingdom aren’t good with chopsticks, right?”
“No, I learned how to use them before.”
“I can use them too.”
Iris took the chopsticks and slurped down the ramen from the bowl.
And then.
“Ohhhhhhh!”
Iris’s legs kicked excitedly as her expression lit up with pure delight.
It was the exact same reaction I’d witnessed in my past life.
“Holy crap! What is this?! It’s insanely delicious! Am I losing my mind?!”
“….”
“…Ah. Ahem. I only knew it as food the poor typically eat, but now that I’ve tasted it, it’s not bad at all.”
“Yeah, well. I’m glad it suited your palate.”
I’ll correct myself.
It was a far more intense reaction than what I’d witnessed in my previous life.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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