"Huff... Huff..."
Early in the morning, Shirou was wearing the set of armor the Sword God had given him, training in the snow.
Although it was just some basic training exercises, like running, squats, push-ups, and so on, because he was wearing this overly large armor, even these ordinary exercises made him feel obviously tired, and his stamina increased.
The speed of improvement was certainly slow, but it was steady.
As long as he kept going like this, Shirou believed that he would be able to swing the Longsword of Light while wearing this armor one day.
After finishing his daily morning training, Shirou returned to the vicinity of the merchant caravan's wagons.
After a journey of more than two months, the merchant caravan finally left the Basherant Duchy and arrived at the closer northern Neris Duchy. As long as he passed through the Nellis Duchy, Shirou would be able to reach his destination, the Ranoa Kingdom where Ranoa Magic Academy was located.
Unlike Shirou's destination, the destination of the merchant caravan and Suzanne's adventurer team was the Nellis Duchy. After passing through one or two more towns, they would reach their goal.
At that time, Shirou would undoubtedly have to part ways with them.
Of course, all of this was based on the condition that they could safely reach their destination town.
Although they were almost at their goal, the more severe wind, snow, and environment meant that this final stretch was the most difficult part of the journey.
In this northern continent, no one knew when the danger in the shadows would appear...
Just as Shirou was gazing at the snow-covered earth and felt a strange pang in his heart, a figure happened to walk over from a distance.
It was Sara.
"Um..."
The moment she saw Shirou, Sara tensed up instinctively, not giving him any kind of good look.
Shirou was a little helpless about this, but he was already used to it.
"What are you looking at?"
To Shirou's surprise, Sara actually brought up a topic on her own.
"Just looking at the scenery."
Shirou replied calmly.
Sara showed doubt about Shirou's words, because in the few days of practicing archery with Shirou, Sara had deeply realized what kind of person Shirou was.
His grasp of the environment and crises was beyond imagination. Rather than a genius, he was more like a born hunter, able to judge the movements of enemies in any environment.
Sara originally thought that his archery accuracy was just very high, but now, she had completely admitted that he was far superior to her as an archer.
In all ways, Sara was far inferior to Shirou.
After realizing this, Sara was not as resistant to Shirou as before.
Because she could realize that the reason why Shirou could have such exaggerated experience and coping abilities was that he was definitely not a pampered noble young master, but like her, had grown up in the forest since childhood and grown up in real combat.
This made Sara inexplicably curious about Shirou's past, wanting to know why he had the Greyrat family name, yet lived like a commoner.
Because of this, Sara had recently started to tentatively chat with Shirou from time to time.
But because of her prideful personality, she was too embarrassed to ask directly, so Shirou thought that she still hated him.
"Suzanne said that after we reach our destination, there will be a celebration party and she wants to invite you to participate."
Sara relayed Suzanne's words to Shirou.
"Okay, I'll go."
Shirou nodded. His impression of the adventurer team [Counter Arrow] was not bad, so he was naturally willing to participate in such a celebratory ceremony.
Sara saw him nod, but didn't leave. Instead, she silently stood beside him and said, "Shirou, you're an adventurer, right?"
"That's right, a C-rank adventurer."
"..."
Regarding Shirou's claim that he was a C-rank adventurer, Sara had a speechless expression, not knowing what to say.
After these days of contact, she felt that Shirou, not to mention anything else, was worthy of being an A-rank or even an S-rank adventurer just based on his archery skills alone.
Sara's skills as a B-rank adventurer were like a child's acrobatics in front of Shirou.
She felt very uncomfortable about this, but still continued, "Since you're an adventurer, why don't you join an adventurer team?"
Sara's words were subtle and direct.
It was just that she was embarrassed to write "I want to invite you to join" plainly on her face.
Even Shirou could hear her words, and for a moment showed a slightly surprised expression, then silently replied, "I am indeed an adventurer, but I still have a goal to achieve."
"Goal?"
"Do you know about the teleportation incident in the Fitoa region?"
"I've heard of it."
The teleportation incident in the Fitoa region was very famous throughout the Asura Kingdom. Sara and her adventurer companions had come from the Asura Kingdom, so they naturally had heard of it.
"The place I used to live was in the Fitoa region."
Shirou said quietly, "The teleportation at that time affected many people, and I lost important family members because of it. I've been looking for them all these years, and my purpose in becoming an adventurer is only for that."
"..."
Shirou's words silenced Sara.
She finally understood why Shirou, as a noble with the Greyrat family name, acted like her, an ordinary commoner.
Although there were undoubtedly many parts of her imagination that she made up, but basically it was mostly true.
After learning Shirou's purpose, Sara naturally couldn't shamelessly invite him to join the adventurer team again, and turned around and left silently.
Shirou thought that the reason why Sara came to invite him was likely at the suggestion of Suzanne and the others, so he didn't think too much about it.
After the sun completely came out, the merchant caravan began to move again.
Because Shirou had already shown his strength, the [Counter Arrow] team simply asked him to cooperate in eliminating the monsters that appeared on the road.
With Shirou's participation, the dangers encountered by the merchant caravan immediately decreased.
Because Shirou not only had rich experience in fighting monsters, but also had the Demon Eye of Clairvoyance, which could detect the movements of monsters from a great distance in advance.
For this, both the adventurer team and the merchant caravan boss Bruno were very grateful to Shirou.
Bruno even said that after they reached the town, he would give Shirou a generous reward to thank him.
Shirou didn't care about the reward, he simply wanted to help the adventurers.
He also taught Sara how to shoot arrows along the way, although Sara herself showed a very reluctant look, Shirou didn't care about it.
"I didn't expect that even the hard-to-deal-with Sara could be won over by you."
During a break in the merchant caravan's journey, Suzanne walked over and said with a face full of emotion.
"Not at all."
Shirou shook his head, "Sara should still hate me."
"Is that what you think?"
Hearing Shirou's words, Suzanne showed a surprised expression.
"Otherwise?"
Shirou asked back.
Suzanne couldn't help but show a strange smile, then patted Shirou on the shoulder hard, and silently said, "You really have no self-awareness, Shirou, but that may also be the charm of you young people."
"What charm..."
Shirou couldn't understand Suzanne's words.
Suzanne couldn't help but sigh, and bluntly said, "Okay, after all, Sara has that personality. If I don't help you point it out, she might not say it all the time. Actually, Sara she..."
"Suzanne!"
Suddenly, the blonde girl, carrying a bow and arrows, rushed over from a distance in a hurry.
She seemed to have heard the conversation between the two from a distance, and now, she couldn't wait to run over quickly.
"???"
Amid Shirou's confusion, Sara hurriedly stood between the two, and forced Suzanne with her eyes not to continue speaking.
"Okay, okay."
Seeing Sara's reaction, Suzanne could only shake her head silently.
But then she suddenly thought of something interesting and said to Shirou, "By the way, has Sara invited you to join our adventurer team these past few days?"
"This..."
Regarding Suzanne's words, Shirou nodded.
"That's Sara's own idea. We didn't actually expect that a real genius like Shirou could join our team."
Suzanne said, winking at Shirou, looking like "I've helped you get this far."
Suzanne said that they hadn't invited him, so everything was Sara's own idea?
Why?
Hearing Suzanne's words, Shirou was stunned on the spot.
He then instinctively looked at Sara, only to find that the girl's cheeks were already as red as rotten apples, and he could even see obvious smoke on top of her head, clearly on the verge of collapse because of being overly embarrassed.
At this time, even the slowpoke Shirou realized that he might have misunderstood Sara's opinion of him.
Sara might not hate him?
Shirou felt a strange sense of absurdity in his heart.
He wanted to confirm with Sara, but found that the girl flew away and ran away without looking back, as if escaping from him.
For the rest of the journey, Sara did not shuttle around the merchant caravan as she had in the past, exploring the monsters that might appear around, but instead walked alone at the rear of the merchant caravan, without making a single sound.
Shirou didn't understand what had happened to her, and there was no way to directly disturb her.
The adventurers all saw through this but didn't say anything, just smiling and paying attention to the progress of the young people.
While all of this was happening, traces of monsters suddenly appeared on the road ahead of the merchant caravan.
Because Shirou had Clairvoyance, he immediately judged that they were Rasta Bear packs.
Rasta Bears were ranked as B-rank in the monster.
In the northern lands, this was one of the most common monsters.
Shirou saw that there were only about twenty Rasta Bears, and that number was not dangerous, so he didn't pay much attention, but he notified Suzanne and the others in advance.
Suzanne and the others then prepared to start cleaning up the monsters.
What they never expected was that just as the merchant caravan was about to collide with the monsters, a group of pitch-black Rasta Bears suddenly climbed out of the mud.
The number was close to a hundred!
Shirou saw it at the first moment, but it was already too late.
Rasta Bears completely blended into the environment by relying on mud, and directly approached the merchant caravan by taking advantage of the terrain.
Suzanne and the others completely panicked, never expecting to encounter such a disaster at this final moment!
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