The Retired Hero is an Extra

Jash had weighed his words throughout the dinner before speaking his mind, as they were his true innermost thoughts.

'If not for all the crap in this world, I'd much rather spend my time enjoying life lazily,' he thought delusionally.

In essence, he was still the same lazy guy but with knowledge he'd much rather not have.

'As the famous quote goes: there is nothing more accursed than knowledge in this accursed world,' he reiterated to himself.

"Jash, what do you mean? Not raiding dungeons will stagnate your progress!!" Carcel chided, bitter at Jash's lack of conviction.

"Mom said no. And honestly, I don't like this whole concept of raiding. It feels too barbaric," Jash refuted with a distant look.

His expression seemed to resemble that of a person looking back at their past to reflect on their actions over the course of their life.

"Ugh. Fine! You can go into dungeons," Sera said, unable to let the father-son pair gaslight her any longer.

Before they could rejoice, however, she quickly added, "But only after Caera reaches the Orange Mana Core. Also, you need to take more guards with you."

Her verdict left both Carcel and Jash helpless as they really couldn't be happy, but it was still a step forward.

As if recalling something, Carcel said, "Honey, not many hunters can enter dungeons of low ranks, won't it be difficult?"

"Yes, Mom! Kesha and Emma are enough!" Jash remarked, interrupting Sera before she could even disagree.

"...Alright." She finally relented with a hesitant expression, but not before shooting her husband a sharp glare.

Being the recipient, he stiffened involuntarily as he had sided with Jash, misunderstanding him as a battle lover just like he was.

In fact, he was far from that.

'Finally, I got what I wanted. Now time to leave,' Jash smiled to himself, feeling glad that it all worked out in the end.

Unfortunately, he had a bad premonition in the next instant as he felt his mother's eyes turn to him.

"By the way, I heard that you used some different form of movements inside the dungeon all of a sudden?"

'Damn! Why now!?' Jash cursed his bad luck as his smile froze in response to her words.

She seemed to be simply curious, while Carcel was far too intrigued by it and had been wanting to see it in training himself.

"Uhm, it's nothing Mom," Jash said, trying to get away with it, but how could it be so easy?

"What do you mean nothing? You fought E-Rank leeches using it!" Carcel butted into the conversation.

"Although they are one of the weakest and can even be defeated by many F-Rank hunters, you faced a bunch of them."

'Ugh. Just what do I say?' Jash felt muddleheaded at the situation, unable to formulate a plausible excuse for his technique.

"I don't know, it just happened. I really don't know, okay?" He blurted out in the heat of the moment under their stares.

However, his random blabbering had far-reaching effects, something he didn't think possible.

Sera had her eyes widened for a split second but she instantly composed herself, unlike Carcel who had his eyes and jaws wide open.

"Just... j-just what did you say!?" he stuttered and exclaimed at the same time, excited at the prospect of it.

"Ah, w-what? I just-"

"No, no, no, what did you say!?"

"That I don't know!"

Hearing the same words again reaffirmed Carcel as he turned to face Sera and muttered, "Could it be...?"

His excitement was palpable as he had a proud expression, and the smile on his face was almost infectious, even affecting the dumbfounded Caera.

She had refrained from participating in any of the conversations, whether they involved her or not.

But even she felt interested at her father's actions, prompting her to mumble in a low tone, "Just what could it be...?"

Sera, sitting next to Caera, naturally heard it with her extreme senses and a small smile appeared on her face as she nodded.

"Yes, it is most likely an enlightenment," she explained for the clueless twins, who only grew more puzzled at the new term.

"Ahahahahahahah," Carcel laughed boastfully. "He sure is my son!"

Sadly, no one gave him any attention at the moment as the twins were waiting for an explanation from Sera.

'Enlightenment? Isn't that from those cultivation novels?' Jash wondered in intrigue, the concept foreign yet familiar.

"Well, as the word itself suggests it is the process of becoming more aware about a particular aspect of life," she began, taking note of their unawareness.

"Specifically in Jash's case, it refers to him gaining a sudden understanding of his weapon art or path itself and manifesting it in an unconscious state."

Though clear, her words only complicated things and raised more questions.

"Hmm. Let's take an example," she suggested. "Jash was fighting using his sword and daggers initially, right?"

Jash nodded, recalling the moment, 'I sure was using them at the time.'

"Well, then what happened? He switched to using only a sword and decimated those leeches easily, right?" Sera asked with a smile.

Seeing their serious expressions, she continued, "Caera, tell me, did it feel strange and unnatural to watch?"

"What about you Jash? How did it feel to you?"

"Hmm. It felt strange at first, but more natural and smoother the moment I changed as if that was how it was supposed to be since the beginning."

Jash explained his feelings of that time with a contemplative expression.

"That's exactly it! That's what enlightenment is!" Carcel jumped in between their conversation out of nowhere, startling the twins.

"Eh? Just that?" Jash blurted out, disappointed after knowing about it.

The atmosphere in the room suddenly became cold as Carcel stared at Jash, repeating his words, "Just that?"

"You call that 'Just that?'! Do you know countless hunters spend their entire lives without ever getting one?"

"And even the ones who get it are either on the verge of death, making it useless for them," Carcel scolded sternly.

"Some who get it don't even have the time to understand its essence, wasting such an important opportunity for petty gains!"

Jash had a strange expression on his face as he listened to his father's rambles, 'Why is he talking about it so fervently?'

As if struck by lightning, he had a wild guess and thought, 'No way! There's just no way!'

To check if his guess hit the mark, he asked, "Dad, could it be that you wasted your opportunity?"

At his words, Carcel's expression froze and morphed into a downcast look, prompting Sera to sigh and take charge.

"Alright, that's enough," she said. "Jash, take Caera to her room and get back to yours, you both should rest for a day before training again."

She didn't wait and left with the downtrodden Carcel in the next second.

'So something like that indeed happened,' Jash mused in intrigue as he looked at Caera and asked, "Let's go?"

She silently nodded and followed his lead until reaching her room before enveloping him in a hug and rushing into her room, closing the door.

—Bang!

"Haa... Why even act like that?" Jash muttered with a wry smile and quickly made his way to his room.

At the moment, only one thought coursed through his mind as he couldn't really be sure. 'This enlightenment... Did it happen or not?'

In a way, it could be said that Jash had such a fortuitous encounter since it wasn't just his past life's memories guiding him.

It was his own technique improving and changing in fundamentals with a prior base and idea that he had.

Also, he wasn't entirely present in the moment of the fight; it was his body's trained reflexes and movements doing the most part.

Hence, his muscles and mana got strained to an extreme, tiring him out to the point of fainting.

Carcel wasn't wrong with his words. It was extremely difficult to make use of an enlightenment.

Although Jash seemed oblivious to it, he just so happened to be one of the few lucky ones to get the most out of an enlightenment.