*Murmur murmur...*
In the city of Raven, a bustling hub relatively close to Pre's small, quiet Crown Village, a minor commotion arose as a strange outsider set foot there. His appearance was anything but ordinary, drawing the intense gaze of several passersby.
His body was covered in large and small wounds, and red blood heavily stained his clothes, making him look as if he were clad in crimson armor. As if he had just emerged from a fierce battle, he leaned heavily on a massive, bloodstained sword slung over his shoulder. The sword was grotesquely curved like a sharp fang, yet simultaneously emitted a subtle blue light, instantly conveying to onlookers that it was no ordinary object.
"That man looks incredibly strong."
Among the crowd, a one-eyed man muttered. Beside him, a woman with her face obscured by a hood, and a bow slung over her back, tilted her head and asked, "That man is strong?"
"Yes. And impossibly strong, at that."
The man, who appeared to be a formidable warrior, had clothes torn to rags by deep gashes, revealing glimpses of his solidly trained muscles beneath.
"That's an extremely disciplined body. I can't even imagine how much he's pushed himself. But even more striking is the greatsword he's carrying. It gleams like a priceless treasure to anyone who sees it. Someone who carries such a precious item openly like that possesses overwhelming confidence, enough to ensure no one could snatch it from him."
The woman, having listened to the one-eyed man's explanation, still looked unconvinced.
"There are no threatening monsters in the direction that man came from. To be that injured, frankly, makes it hard to see him as strong. Or are you perhaps too easily convinced?"
At the woman's cold gaze, the one-eyed man fell silent for a moment, then, with a glint in his eye, he spoke as if realizing something.
"No way... that's impossible..."
"Don't beat around the bush."
"The direction he came from is where the Sword Saint went."
"The Sword Saint?"
"Yes, the Sword Saint. A being who has mastered the way of the sword and become one with it. There must have been an incredibly fierce battle, on a different dimension."
"But why would that lead to a fight with the Sword Saint? Everything you've heard is just speculation. Are you making assumptions about someone based on that? You didn't just casually gloss over it without even confirming, did you?"
As the woman retorted, the man slowly lifted the eyelid of his badly injured eye. It was a completely lifeless, discolored white eye, but it seemed to pierce straight through something, containing an indescribable, intense power.
"Though I have only one eye left, having gone through countless hardships, my judgment of people is never wrong."
"..."
"You asked me to find the strongest person in this city, didn't you? There was someone I originally planned to introduce, but he seems weaker than this man. And honestly, no one here would take on the request you have for a strong person."
"Hah... I'll pray that your remaining eye is at least normal."
The woman sighed softly in resignation and handed the one-eyed man some money.
As the one-eyed man disappeared into the crowd, the woman, left alone, took a slight deep breath and cautiously approached the bloodied man. With a worried expression, she opened her mouth.
"Excuse me, are you alright?"
As the woman spoke and carefully placed a hand on the man's shoulder, he, like someone whose strength had completely drained, crumbled from the touched shoulder and fell prone to the ground. Reflected in the woman's eyes was the faint smile on the fallen man's face.
"Yes, I'm fine."
"Has something good happened?"
At the woman's cautious question, the man, as if waiting for a cue, began to gush excitedly.
"Yes! I was swinging my sword for a few days, and then, *poof*! A tremendous inspiration just came to me! So I started creating new sword techniques I hadn't even thought of before. I guess people really do need new stimulation sometimes."
His eccentric words made the woman think he was younger than she expected, and odd, but at the same time, she surmised that with such passion, he couldn't be weak.
"You should probably go to the hospital first for treatment. I'll lend you my shoulder. Please take my hand."
Despite it being their first meeting, the woman's strangely kind and gentle offer made the man feel an odd premonition, and he raised his hand to politely decline.
"I truly appreciate the offer, but I can stand up by myself. And before that, I still have something to take care of, so it was good to meet you."
"Ah... I see."
The man struggled to stand up, but his body didn't seem to be in good shape, as he walked with a limp. The woman, as if it were the most natural thing, followed closely behind him.
"...?"
As he increased his pace, the clear sound of footsteps still following him made the man uneasy, and he quickly turned towards the city's bustling streets.
Then he spotted a narrow alleyway between two buildings and, without hesitation, dashed into it.
The alley was quite narrow, and he felt the rough walls on either side brush past him in an instant.
The man ran at full speed towards the faint light emanating from the end of the alley.
Finally, he reached the end of the alley and emerged, feeling the pouring sunlight sting his cheeks as it brightly illuminated them from side to side.
Just then, a sharp scraping sound, *gah-gah-gak!*, struck his ears. He instinctively turned his head towards the sound.
"Ah! Oh!"
Before he could even dodge, the man's vision suddenly darkened as he collided hard with someone walking down the path. The person, who had been walking on the wide road, quickly stopped their feet upon seeing the man suddenly dash out from the alley, but the collision was already unavoidable.
*Thump!*
"I-I'm sorry!"
"No, it's alright. I'm the one who suddenly burst out from the alley... Ugh!"
The man couldn't even finish his sentence. He jumped in surprise, placed his palms on the ground, and recoiled. The woman he had just parted ways with stood right before his eyes.
"Why on earth did you follow me!?"
At the man's somewhat agitated outburst, the woman began to feel a sense of unease.
Those typically considered strong naturally tend to keep a distance from minor dangers. An aura of reverence and caution usually surrounds them, so threatening presences don't easily approach without them even needing to be vigilant.
Therefore, a relaxed demeanor is naturally expected from them. Yet, the man sprawled on the ground showed no such composure. Instead, his unstable gaze revealed clear vigilance and even a faint underlying fear.
"Perhaps... are you weak?"
Meanwhile, the man couldn't help but sense an even more suspicious aura from her extremely blunt question.
"Why are you asking that? What do you plan to do if I'm weak? Are you a bandit!?"
The man struggled to conceal his poor physical condition and glared at the woman with a wary gaze. Her expensive-looking bow and her hands, seemingly calloused from drawing a bowstring, struck him as a considerable threat.
In the past few days, he had successively encountered two strong individuals who defied common sense. First, the overwhelmingly powerful Sword Saint Shar Iris, and now the strange sense of intimidation emanating from the woman before him.
For that very person, Pre, whose confidence had rapidly plummeted, this unfamiliar woman began to be perceived as an object of inexplicable terror.
Meanwhile, the woman, judging her question to be too direct, posed a more indirect one.
"No, I'm not a bandit. But how did you get so hurt?"
At the woman's gentle question, Pre fell silent, lost in thought.
Pre's nature was such that if he saw an injured person on the road, after a brief surprise, he'd feel an obsessive discomfort if he ignored them and would immediately rush to help. This inability to ignore the pain of others sometimes brought him fatigue and thankless tasks.
If it were his usual self, he would have felt a strange kinship with this stranger who showed similar warmth, let down his guard, and approached her amicably.
Nevertheless, Pre was so wary of this woman because he was deeply recalling the advice his fellow villagers from Crown, where he had grown up since childhood, had repeatedly impressed upon him.
'Pre, the people in this vast city are different from us villagers, with whom you've shared affection since childhood. When you go to the city, you must be wary of people and act cautiously.'
'Yes, I'll remember that.'
'After you leave the village, in your long life, there will come a time when you are at your weakest, when everything feels overwhelming and difficult. If someone approaches you at that desperate moment, they'll fall into two categories.'
'What are those two categories?'
'One will be an angelic person who genuinely tends to your wounds and offers warm comfort. But most will be...'
'Most?'
'Devils in angels' masks.'
'Devils...'
'By the time you realize they're devils, you'll have already crossed the point of no return. You must never show weakness! You have to be strong! In the ruthless city, unlike this backwater, if you're underestimated for even a moment... you might lose everything instantly! Understand!?'
Pre swallowed hard, making a firm resolve. He forced himself to hide his uneasy gaze, staring straight at the woman. He could feel his facial muscles subtly stiffen on his skin, but to him, at this moment, this was the best defense.
"The reason I'm this injured is... because I encountered an incredibly strong person."
'I absolutely can't tell her I just tripped while training my greatsword skills and cut myself with it.'
Meanwhile, Pre's choice of words, "incredibly strong person," made a fragment of the conversation with the one-eyed man earlier surface in the woman's mind.
"Really!? Did you, by any chance, meet the Sword Saint?"
The unexpected word Sword Saint startled Pre inwardly, but he quickly decided there wouldn't be a more perfect opportunity for such a bluff, given that he had indeed briefly encountered such a being.
"The Sword Saint... How did you know...? Yes, that's right. I had a brief scuffle with that individual, the Sword Saint."
"Adventurer, I know this is rude, but it's very important to me... can you prove it?"
'Prove?'
That word began to burn in Pre's brain like red letters.
'How am I supposed to prove something like that?'
"What if it's a lie?"
Suddenly, the air around him seemed to grow chillingly cold, and a low, cool voice, completely different from before, pierced his ears.
"I will... get very angry."
"It's true that I met the Sword Saint."
Pre carefully pulled out the money pouch he had kept in his pocket and took out the special silver coin he had received from the Sword Saint. At that moment, the silver coin, reflecting the bright sunlight, momentarily shone in Pre's eyes, and he instinctively furrowed his brow as he spoke.
"Look at the unique pattern engraved on this silver coin."
"Why this?"
"This silver coin is a rare one, seldom seen in this local area. In fact, this is a silver coin that the Sword Saint had. It seems the Sword Saint came from a distant region."
The woman's expression was one of disbelief and shock as she pressed Pre for confirmation.
"Are you saying you stole money from the Sword Saint!?"
"Hahaha, it wasn't anything that grand; she just offered it to me. I politely declined, saying it wasn't necessary, but she insisted so earnestly that I had no choice but to accept."
"What!? That's unbelievable...!"
"She even clapped for me with a pleased look, saying I was excellent!"
"That can't be..."
The woman's gaze was filled with strong disbelief, but then,
"This is absolutely, unequivocally not a lie."
When Pre stated this firmly and without wavering, the woman stopped questioning him further. She wasn't entirely convinced, but she had an intuition that pushing him further would somehow lead to an unpleasant outcome with Pre, who was now furrowing his brow.
"Alright."
The woman, taking a step back, offered her hand to Pre, who had been sitting on the ground, with a soft smile once more.
"This time, please take my hand."
'Is she not a bad person?'
At her warm smile and her easy display of goodwill, as if she were an old acquaintance, Pre unknowingly lowered his guard slightly and took her hand. As Pre took her hand, the woman firmly pulled his hand, helping him to his feet.
"My name is Serica."
Serica politely adjusted Pre's gripped hand, as if they were just exchanging introductions. In response, Pre awkwardly opened his mouth.
"I'm Pre."