Chapter 776 – 776. The Scream of the Hounds (1)
A forest with dense trees and bushes.
This forest, filled with the magic of the World Tree, was a mountain near the village where the elves lived.
‘I never thought I’d come here again…’
Cha Han-seong, who had previously camped in these mountains for training with Riod, was soaked in a strange feeling.
At that time, I stared at the figures of those who were running to live and die in the mountains where I really thought that I could die if I continued like this.
“Ugh, aaaaa!”
They were the members of Heilangdan who are currently training in this mountain.
The reason why the Heilang members are scared and screaming and running away is because there is a ferocious pursuer who is fiercely pursuing them.
Aaaaang!
A gigantic beast roaring with sharp fangs.
It was Ash, the phantom beast of Erinn.
Ash, who abandoned his usual wolf cub appearance and inflated his body to the size of a wild boar, chased the Heilang members like a beast hunting prey.
“Huh!?”
“Hey, damn it… !”
Feeling the pressure of the ferocious beast chasing them from behind, the Heilang members ran and ran again and again.
Every time they jump off the ground, the ground shakes and a harsh roar hits their ears as they ride the bloody air.
The feeling of pressure, as if my limbs would be bitten off if I slowed down and relaxed even for a moment.
They ran and ran to escape from the pressure, but the Heilang members felt the thrill of Ash’s pursuit as they gradually closed the distance.
“How many hours has this been?”
The whole body in the training suit is soaked in sweat like rain, and the moisture in the mouth is dry, so it seems that the throat of the screaming is severely cracked.
That hellish time was not going on for a few minutes, but for more than a few hours.
“Jen… Oh my gosh… !”
One Heilang member nervously gnashed his teeth, and in his head he remembered the culprit who drove them into this predicament.
A bloody hide-and-seek game with a fox phantom beast presented by the man with silver-white hair and bright red eyes.
That was the reason why the Heilang members and Ash were currently engaged in a bloody chase.
All members of Heilang are fugitives who have to run away.
And Ash is an extremely simple game in which he chases down all those fugitives.
However, tagging in this situation was not the kind of trivial game that young children play.
Kreung!
“Quaaaaa! Arm! Arms!”
One of the Heilang members who was running away from the back row was finally caught by Ash.
Ash, who has tireless stamina and nearly infinite stamina, eventually succeeded in catching the prey and bit the arm of the Heilang member he caught.
Ash’s sharp teeth crush and pierce the flesh of Heilang members, turning them into chunks of his meat.
Eventually, when the screams of the captured comrades were heard, the other Heilang members stood tall and looked back.
“It’s over… All…”
The condition for this beggarly chasing to end is that one of the Heilang members is caught by the tagger, Ash, and bites off part of his body.
When the so-called tagger catches a fugitive, the game of tag ends.
“Ha…”
One of the Heilang members, relaxed, sat down on the floor as if collapsing.
“Ah, it’s really hard…”
I try to get myself up somehow, but not only my legs, but my whole body just doesn’t listen.
The muscles that were overworked to the limit seemed to be screaming in pain and complaining of pain, and perhaps because I couldn’t breathe properly, I felt dizzy because my head didn’t have enough oxygen.
Rather than being furious that his comrade had been caught and wounded, he was breathing heavily in relief that the beggarly chase was over.
“Psycho bastard…”
Speaking of training, she was really blown away by how she thought of it this way.
At first she thought it was simple.
‘I just need to run away.’
There was only one thing Eun-hyeon explained about the contents of the training.
However, the Heilang members were frightened when they saw Ash absorbing Erin’s magic and inflating her size.
In fact, some even peed when they saw Ash grabbing a mountain beast in the elven forest and subduing him by biting his neck.
It’s a natural result since he implanted the imagination that the future of that mountain beast could be himself.
It was the fourth day since the Heilang members ran away from playing hide and seek with Ash.
“Are you human? A real X foot…”
A Heilang member who was lying on the floor breathing heavily muttered and cursed Eunhyeon.
It is only natural to feel annoyance and anger toward Eun-hyeon for devising such a damn training method.
But it is absolutely impossible to disobey him.
Heilangdan was already like a hunting dog with a leash of absolute obedience to Eunhyeon and the Duke of Armitas, so he couldn’t openly express his dissatisfaction and irritation.
The feelings they now have toward Eun-hyeon are the same as those of a demon instructor in the army who viciously drives them.
He has dissatisfaction, but to Heilangdan, Eun-hyeon is an absolute being who cannot express that dissatisfaction.
Even so, it couldn’t be helped that I couldn’t have a good idea in my heart.
“Hey again. Really…”
“Are you swearing at Hyun?”
“Huh!?”
Hearing the cold voice, the Heilang member screamed and jumped up.
The reaction of his upper body, which he thought would not be able to move anymore, was the result of the reaction of the fear deeply embedded in his heart.
Following that, the Heilang members who stood up one by one saw Erin smiling with a straight face.
“I can’t… She tried to bring me back, but…”
“Oh no! I’m out of words… !”
“So you’re saying you really thought about it?”
“…”
She is usually a really simple and easy-going Erin, but there is one thing she just can’t tolerate.
Gossiping about her family, including her husband, Eun-hyeon.
“Shall we do one more set?”
Erin’s wide-smiling words fell like thunder from the sky, staining their minds with fear.
“Oh no! Sorry!”
Erin sighed lightly as she looked squarely at the earnest gazes of the Heilang members who were terrified and apologetic.
“Whoa. Good.”
Erin immediately asked Ash to check the condition of the Heilang member who had bitten her arm, and sprinkled her potion on the torn off flesh.
The potion was made by Eunhyun and contained Eleanor’s divine power.
It far exceeds the performance of the top-notch potions on the market sold by the adventurer’s guild.
In terms of price, this one potion was expensive enough to buy a mansion where nobles lived, but dozens of bottles of this potion could be used in training, and only Eunhyun could use it.
“Keugh…”
The wound itself was healing cleanly, but the process itself did not feel very good from the point of view of her party member, Heilang.
It was like experiencing the pain once more.
“That’s all for today. Everyone go back to the tent and prepare for a break. In two hours, we will have dinner.”
“… Yes.”
The Heilang members nodded with tired faces, trudged up, and moved their heavy legs to return to the base.
While leading them back, Erin ran into Cha Han-seong, who was watching the training process from a distance.
“Oh, are you here?”
“Yes. That…”
Cha Hanseong slightly turned his gaze to the side and observed the expressions of the Heilang members who were wearing bamboo statues that were all dying as if they were going to collapse at any moment.
“… I’m not kidding. Are you okay?”
“Are you okay?”
In Cha Han-seong’s eyes, honestly, I couldn’t erase the thought of ‘serious.’
Eunhyeon’s method of giving her advice during her training with Riod was extremely efficient and efficient enough to convince Cha Hanseong, who was listening to her standardly, at once.
However, the current method is too ignorant and radical.
It is unavoidable that pain and wounds occur during the training process, but the fact that it ends when one member is caught and bitten by Ash in the first place means that someone has to see blood.
Training based on the premise of getting hurt inevitably leads to complaints.
“If you do it this way, it will eventually explode someday…”
“Lol. Are you okay.”
But Erin smiled and waved her hand.
“Why are you so sure?”
“Because these people accepted it. Hyun’s proposal.”
The training Heilang members are receiving now is to take responsibility for their own actions.
A case in which Runan was kidnapped by a trap set by the Bartel family’s intelligence organization.
The member asked Eun-hyeon for help in solving the case that could have harmed not only Eun-hyeon but also the duke’s family if they went wrong.
This is the price and responsibility for it.
Because I was foolish enough to fall into a trap.
Because he was so weak that he couldn’t properly deal with the battle he had been facing and could not subdue it.
So, the members of Heilang had to become stronger than now in order to move as Eunhyeon’s hands and feet in the future.
A promise to never fail the assigned mission again and not to harm Eun-hyeon or the duke’s family, who are no different from their masters.
It is a process that Heilang members must go through in order to survive.
“…”
In fact, the Heilang members did not say anything.
It was because he left Runan and Heilangdan alive and was still properly feeding, sleeping, and giving them grace.
It wasn’t that people were so shameless that they didn’t know that.
The only thing they were dissatisfied with was the content of the training.
“What… Okay.”
Cha Hanseong nodded with a subtle expression.
‘Well, when I was in the army, I felt like a beggar to be trained.’
It would be such a level of dissatisfaction.
It’s not that I don’t like people, but the contents of the training he made are so vicious that it makes me sick.
It’s just that, while the Heilang members were dissatisfied, not a single defector occurred during these four days.
They have their own way and are enduring like tenacity.
“By the way, are you a little late?”
Erin made a puzzled expression when Cha Han-seong, who was originally scheduled to arrive yesterday, arrived today.
“Actually, I was going to come right after preparing, but the senior…”
“Are you Eira?”
“Yes. There was a takeover within the Knights, and I was dragged around shopping, saying that there were not just one or two items needed for camping or training. As a result, the day had to be delayed.”
“Aha.”
Erin smiled.
‘When I see her at times like this, she’s also very polarizing.’
She felt like a mother trying to give her son a penny or two to send away.
Mother and son might have gone a little far, or a sister and a younger brother might be a more appropriate metaphor.
“My older sister is Cha Han-seong. She really thinks a lot.”
“That, like that…”
Cha Hanseong was taken aback by the unexpected reaction and turned her head away from Erin.
I couldn’t see her face straight on, but it was clear that she was embarrassed by the fact that her ears were red.
“Hi-Hi.”
For some reason, it was fun for Erin to make fun of Cha Han-seong.
She led the dying Heilang members to return to her base as her stamina ran out while chatting about her nonchalantly.
“Come on. Erin. Great job.”
“Huh! Hug me… !”
Kreung!
She immediately shrunk her body and turned into a wolf cub, moving faster than she ran to Eun-hyeon and tried to hold her in her arms.
Eunhyun, who lightly jumped into her arms and hugged Ash, smiled and brushed the nape of Ash’s neck.
“Okay. Ash must have been running around a lot. Are you hungry?”
Erin gritted her teeth when she saw Ash purring and crying pleasantly.
“Hey, this is really… ! Hey! That’s my place!”
Seeing that she had her player robbed in awe, though her feverish Erin reached out her hand to Ash to force them away.
Kreureung!
Ash growled ferociously, as if biting Erin’s hand at any moment.
It was to the point where I couldn’t tell who was the owner and who was the phantom beast.
“Ash. I’ll cook you soon. I am resting for a while.”
Sniff!
As if understanding, Ash landed softly on the floor and moved away.
“Hey. Too bad. I was the first to be praised…”
“Hang in there. I’ll have it ready soon. And… You are here.”
“Ah yes. Sorry. It’s a bit late for some reason. It’s okay. Cha Han-sung’s training is going to start slowly. For now, can you help Lily prepare dinner?”
“Sure.”
Cha Hanseong helped Lily, who was preparing dinner for the Heilang members.
Before long, the dishes that had already been prepared were placed on a long table and a generous table was set.
Members of Heilang, who began to pick up spoons and forks one by one, pushed the food into their mouths as usual and began chewing.
“Hey, hehe…”
Tears flowed involuntarily as the tender meat and sweet taste, which you couldn’t think of eating in the field, spread in your mouth.
“Shit… Shit. It’s really delicious…”
“Hey…”
Looking at the Heilang members sobbing while eating one by one, Cha Han-seong understood the situation without even realizing it.
The reason why they are participating in this training without any exceptions.
