Main Character Hides His Strength

Chapter 216 – Former Subordinate (1)

Though Sungchul had invoked the Emperor’s name, Imperial Commander Colonel Brev was not in a position where he could allow Sungchul to act freely. After a long deliberation, the Imperial Commander reluctantly lent him a single soldier.

“G…Greetings!”

It was a greenhorn Wyvern Knight. She gave off the image of a naive young girl from the countryside visiting the capital for the first time.

She gave a trembling introduction to the infamous Enemy of the World.

“I am an Imperial Wyvern Knight. My name is Stew!”

Sungchul who was particularly sensitive to topics surrounding food reacted to this name and spoke out the words as if testing them.

“Stew?”

“W…what you think is probably correct, it’s the food Stew! But it’s my real name!”

Naming their children after food was a common practice among the poor in the Empire. It was a combination of a wish that their children will be able to eat plenty of the food of their namesake, as well as having far too many children to care too much about it.

‘How strange. For a Wyvern Knight to be someone not of the noble birth.’

It was not unexpected for Sungchul to find this strange. Wyvern Knights were the type of soldiers that were typically sponsored by wealthy and influential aristocratic families, and were usually sons of the family. The reason was that Wyverns, affectionately called the Prince of the Skies, were very highly sought after, and it was no easy task obtaining an egg of the Wyvern.

There was no possibility that this Stew Wyvern Knight trainee was an ordinary person. And the reason why she became a Wyvern Knight was just as ridiculous.

She just happened to come across a large egg while tilling the field, and while she was storing it in her room to eat later, it happened to hatch and see her. Baby Wyvern has an instinct to recognize the first person they see as their parent.

This unmarried girl from the remote countryside who unwittingly became a mother to a Wyvern hastily informed the village elder, who then sent her over to the military.

Because Wyverns were so rare, it wasn’t a resource they could give up easily, so the Imperial enlistment officer had no choice but to register this country bumpkin as a knight.

But unlike children of the Aristocrats who received considerable backing from their family to complete a variety of quests to raise their stats from a young age, this Stew girl was just an inexperienced maiden who happened to know how to ride a Wyvern. From the start she was thought as a nuisance who couldn’t do anything but the most basic of trainings and was sent from place to place until she finally ended up all the way here at the Tower of Recluse.

‘And here I was wondering why they were assigning a Wyvern Knight.’

Not 10 minutes passed since Sungchul met Stew until he came to the conclusion that she was a hopelessly useless person.

“So, um. There over there!”

“Where is there?”

“There is… well, there… Ooh… I know exactly where it is from the sky!”

Sungchul listened to Stew and used Fly to follow alongside her, but the winds were particularly strong today and stew was unable to properly find the way. In the end it was just a waste of mana.

Because the Wyvern flies at such a high speed, Sungchul had to raise his mana output into Fly spell to maximum to keep up. And in part because of this, his fatigue became worse.

“There! Please go over there!”

The instruction from Stew in the midst of this served only to fan Sungchul’s irritation.

“I already asked you, where is ‘there’?!”

“There! Over there! Next to that tree.”

“Do you think there is only one or two trees in that direction? Go down first and wait for me. I’ll be right behind you.”

“T…that’s difficult! I can get killed if I go alone.”

She was very fearful. Of course this was not difficult to understand considering all the other knights she had witnessed being killed, but this was already after Sungchul was past his limit for patience.

“…”

Sungchul couldn’t stand it anymore and decided to use his trump card. He immediately returned to the village and headed to Tangrit’s residence. Baron was still quietly hanging around Tangrit’s grave.

“It might hurt, but bear with it.”

Sungchul stroked Baron’s sizable neck for a moment before placing his hand over the crippled left wing.

“What are you trying to do?”

Sungchul increased the strength of his grip on Baron’s wings.

C-Crack

A bone larger than the human thigh snapped. Therefore the sound that it made was loud and unmistakable.

Baron flinched in pain slightly once the bone broke, but it did not scream out loud. He must have understood that Sungchul had broken his wing not out of malice but to help.

‘As I thought, he’s very intelligent.’

Sungchul realigned the Griffon’s wings to its correct position before securing it firmly with simple bandage and splint. A typical care would likely finish with a potion or the line, but Sungchul had no time to waste.

‘It would have been ideal to wait for the bone to reattach naturally with time, but I don’t have any to spare.’

He needed an emergency solution. So he opened his Soul Storage to retrieve the precious Elixir.

The curative potion of incredible rarity that not even humans can get an access to went into Baron’s mouth.

“What? Such a valuable thing!”

Stew’s eyes grew wide. Sungchul glanced at the stunned Stew indifferently before taking out another Elixir to feed Baron.

‘He’s so large that the wound isn’t healing very well.’

Sungchul continued to feed Baron more Elixirs so that the broken wings could be made whole again. But there would be no effect after the fourth vial, because the potions suffered from a penalty known as Potion Overlap.

Luckily, Baron was restored to full health after the third elixir.

“Kuuu!”

Baron felt his wings restored, so he pushed off the ground mightily and began to flap his wings vigorously. Though unable to speak as he may be, his large eagle eyes were full of great joy. Sungchul stroked Baron’s body and consoled him.

“You’ve endured it well. Now you are able to fly once more.”

Bertelgia also approached Baron to stroke his white feathers with the corners of her cover.

“Good job, cutie!”

But there was one among Sungchul’s group that didn’t like Baron all that much.

“Mmm… You can’t be suggesting that we ride this thing?”

Marakia was still having a strong aversion to Gryphons.

Sungchul wasn’t having any of it and stuffed Marakia into his pocket before mounting Baron.

Baron permitted Sungchul to ride on his back without any resistance.

The flight began shortly after.

Although fierce winds blew at high altitudes, winged creatures intimate with the winds glided through the air comfortably as if riding on a wave.

It was incomparably comfortable from flying by using Fly spell.

Sungchul was able to look down at the lands spread out before him much more leisurely than before.

Stew’s Wyvern that was leading the way turned around.

“It’s that way. That direction.”

She lifted up her Wyvern Rider lance towards the direction of a heavily wooded forest.

“I’ll say this again. Where is ‘that direction’?”

“It’s straight ahead that way.”

The fact that he was now riding Baron wasn’t magically going to make Stew any brighter, but it did make it a much more comfortable and relaxed environment to be having a conversation with her in the air.

After a very long time struggling to communicate with her, he descended alone towards the location where the Order of Extinction was allegedly hiding. Stew’s Wyvern was flying in a 8 formation in the sky to indicate he was going the right way.

“Wow… How can anyone be that dumb?”

Even Bertelgia, who showed amicable attitude towards most women they met, seemed to have been exhausted by Stew’s idiocy.

Marakia made things even worse.

“That human, I don’t even want as a slave. She might make all the livestock stupid.”

Though Sungchul had many things to say, he was an adult so he buried his words deep in his heart and turned his eyes towards the problem at hand.