The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 25

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 25

And Gid also watched over her combat training.

“No matter how I look at it, that weapon and fighting style don’t suit you. You should try something else.”

“Would that be possible?”

“There are kids who have backup weapons. I’ll borrow one for you.”

Rita tried borrowing various backup weapons from other children and became captivated by the magic gun.

And in the training room, having barely learned basic shooting techniques, she killed her first demon beast.

The overwhelming sense of achievement she felt in that moment was still vivid to her.

Afterward, Rita requested Pascal to change her weapon. Pascal looked at her as if it was highly unusual, but eventually issued her a magic gun. From that day on, the knowledge injected during sleep time also changed to things related to magic gunmanship.

Rita, wielding the magic gun, transformed from a failing student into an overwhelmingly excellent one. Gid, who switched to holding his sword with his left hand, also achieved much better results than before.

And so, two years later.

Pascal said.

“Now it’s time for the graduation exam.”

He took the children to some ruins. It was a basin surrounded by steep cliffs.

“There’s a blue mushroom colony in the center of the ruins. Bring back one mushroom each. The first five to arrive and bring one back graduate.”

She learned later that the place was outside the Last Line of Defense. A place where ordinary people couldn’t even breathe with their bare bodies due to mana contamination. A place where only Oathbinders who used Od could survive.

Strangely, the children could already resist contaminated mana using Od. Everyone had that method stuffed into their heads through ‘sleep time.’

Only Rita didn’t know. Among the information crammed into her head, there was no method for resisting mana contamination.

Rita was poisoned by contaminated mana as soon as she entered the ruins. Having convulsions, she instinctively hid in a corner to avoid being spotted by demon beasts, then collapsed.

Gid managed to find her in that state.

When she lifted her head while groaning in pain, the boy was looking down at her with an urgent expression.

“Rita, gather Od in your hands. Then cover your mouth and nose with those hands. Yes, like that… once you get used to it, you can remove your hands.”

With his help, Rita successfully resisted the mana contamination and asked while taking deep breaths.

“He said the first five to arrive, but aren’t you going to be late because of me?”

“So what if I’m late? It’s not like I’ll die if I don’t graduate this time.”

Unlike the children who immediately ran after the blue mushrooms, the delayed boy and girl reached the center of the ruins one step behind.

And there they encountered a horde of demon beasts living in the blue mushroom colony that had devoured all their comrades except for them.

They fought desperately.

When they somehow barely survived and escaped, emerging from the ruins each clutching a blue mushroom, Pascal greeted them.

He wasn’t surprised at all to see Gid. He wasn’t surprised that none of the other children had survived. However, he was slightly surprised to see Rita.

After a moment of silence, he said.

“You have graduated.”

Pascal sent them to the Last Line of Defense and made them recite a maxim.

“Do not fear death. Your death shall become the seed of hope.”

“Remember this. Someday these words will save you.”

Age 12.

Rita and Gid, who finished their training and became recruits at the Last Line of Defense, were assigned to the same squad.

It was their first time meeting people who weren’t Pascal or their comrades.

“Pascal’s Children came to our squad?”

“Aren’t those monster brats?”

It was an unfamiliar and hostile environment.

Still, they weren’t alone. After dinner, until bedtime, the two of them always shared many conversations.

“Even if they seem to dislike us, they’re not all bad people. You’ll understand if you talk to them separately. They’re just unfamiliar with us, they don’t truly hate us.”

The girl naturally grew close to the squad members. All of them being adults, they began to regard Rita not as a ‘Pascal’s Child’ but as an ordinary kid in a friendly manner.

The boy quickly won the squad leader’s favor.

“Pascal didn’t interfere with us or evaluate us, but the squad leader here is different.”

He acted like a tongue in the mouth, cleverly running errands and showing excellent skills. It didn’t take long for the squad leader to judge him useful.

But that squad leader was an incompetent and greedy man.

When Rita and Gid achieved remarkable military exploits and received commendations from Command, he wanted more Pascal’s Children. Thus, two more Pascals were added to the squad.

One was a combatant, but the other was a rear support type Pascal that Rita and Gid were seeing for the first time.

A mage girl with short hair and glasses. Oli Pascal.

“You’re really using a piece of trash gun. Let me see it.”

Oli repaired and modified Rita’s magic gun. Through this, they gradually grew closer. They also learned that Pascal separately gathered and trained children who would become mages, healers, and such like Oli.

The other was Max, a boy with quick movements who was two years older than them. Rita and Gid quickly became friends with that child too.

Through him, they learned that Pascal had several places where he trained children. They also learned that it was rare for all comrades to be wiped out like theirs.

“We all graduated without anyone dying. That’s usually how it goes… Only you two survived among your comrades? That must have been hard.”

They became friends with Max as well.

And the squad leader became overambitious.

He tried to achieve even better results with his new weapons. The result was an encounter with an unknown Named demon beast.

Age 14.

Rita encountered the Mimic.

All the other squad members who went with them died. Max Pascal, who had become a friend, also died. It was the worst battlefield. Only Rita returned alive.

Oli, who had been waiting in the rear, and Gid, who had been on another mission, gasped when they saw Rita’s condition upon her return.

Having witnessed her friend’s horrible death right before her eyes and survived alone, she was not in her right mind. Her severe injuries were miraculous enough that she had returned alive at all.

She even suffered from the backlash of her oath. Because she had seen the Mimic but let it escape, it was considered a violation of her oath to ‘eliminate all demon beasts that catch my eye,’ and she was receiving ‘Od’s punishment.’

The Od in her body went out of control and attacked her entire body. Until the punishment ended, she couldn’t use Od, of course, and had to suffer from high fever and convulsions.

She didn’t properly remember what she was like during that period. She only remembered that Oli and Gid took turns staying by her side.

As time passed, her injuries gradually healed and Od’s punishment ended, but the psychological trauma didn’t recover easily. She just sat in the infirmary in a dazed state.

The squad leader was displeased with her condition. When he stopped by the infirmary, he looked at her as if she were a broken machine.

A few nights after the squad leader’s visit.

Oli came running to her, pale with fear.

“Gid talked back to the squad leader! The squad leader is going crazy right now and the atmosphere is ominous!”

Why would he, who was skilled at getting along? What happened? When Rita looked up in surprise, Oli hesitated before saying.

“It seems like that squad leader bastard said some bullshit about your treatment…”

Rita urgently headed to the Squad Leader’s Quarters. And she witnessed a horrifying scene.

The squad leader was holding something like an awl and had stabbed Gid’s right eye. The boy let out a pained groan and clutched his bleeding eye area.

The squad leader raised the blood-stained awl again. As if he would pierce the boy’s remaining eye as well.

I have to stop this. I have to save Gid. That was the only thought she had.

She shot a person for the first time. It wasn’t with the intention to kill, but…

“The monster brats are killing people!”

The dying squad leader used his last strength to shout and pressed something. A bomb exploded. Squad members came rushing.

They trusted the squad leader who had always led them more than Pascal’s Children. Because while he treated the Pascals as weapons, he treated his own squad members as people.

As soon as they saw the scene, all those who had become somewhat close to them turned into enemies. Everyone tried to kill them.

Rita moved her gun barrel.

Grenades exploded and explosions occurred in a chain reaction. In the terrible roar, Rita and Gid escaped, battered and broken. Oli came running out and joined them on their escape route.

“Take me with you!”

After barely escaping, Oli took care of them as they hovered between life and death from injuries and convulsions.

Rita didn’t ask Gid why he had talked back to the squad leader. Gid also didn’t ask Rita why she had killed the squad leader.

Without asking, they already knew. That they were each other’s reason.

The three surviving children wandered the ruins beyond the Last Line of Defense, searching for food and medicine since Command’s support was cut off.

In the process, they sometimes had their supplies stolen after rescuing survivors, and sometimes met and fought and killed raiders.

One day while wandering like this, they encountered an autonomous squad called ‘Fair.’

“You kids have amazing skills? You’re Pascals, right? If you don’t have an affiliation, come under us. We already have many Pascal’s Children among us, so don’t worry.”

“You shot your squad leader and deserted from your previous squad? That squad leader must have been quite trash, huh? It’s okay, we don’t care about origins or circumstances as long as you have skills.”

That was when they were 15.

They learned for the first time about the existence of autonomous squads that belonged to the Last Line of Defense but were free enough to be almost like mercenaries.

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