Chapter 140: Rumble Pt.1
Lake was silently sitting at his table reading the book on the fire element. With Fire being a more complex element that had more principles than Wind the book was taking longer than he had expected. Each principle had its own method of training so it was taking him time to memorize each of them well enough that he wasn't going to have to reread the book.
At the moment he was trying to wrap his mind around the method to train the heat principle. It seemed like how the Wind element was set to a certain speed naturally Fire was set to a certain temperature. There was a difference though depending on what the fire was burning that set temperature could change but that happened after you used it to cast the spell.
Also the heat and burning principles were different things and there was also the spreading principle that let the fire find new things to burn. These three principles made up the basic structure of fire and they were also the main three you had to train to make your fire spells stronger.
He also found that there was an extreme version of the spreading principle that a lot of people seemed to be naturally inclined towards that made their spells more explosive than normal and it seemed he was one of these people because he had unlocked the second tier of fire attack spell before he had ever trained with fire.
He had found the fact he had unlocked Fire Blast odd at the time but had never given it any thought because he had been trying to level up as quickly as possible at the time but reading this he still found it interesting when he had read it because it made him realize there were already two principles he seemed to have some affinity with: The solid principle and the explosive principle.
As he was trying to refocus on the method you were supposed to use to gain better control of the heat principle, Lake heard a voice from the balcony. "Sir, it seems to be starting." All three of his servants were currently out there and it seemed what they had eagerly been waiting for was finally here. Putting his book down, Lake rushed outside and looked out towards the city.
...
Tiff was silently sitting in the corner of the training room watching the other members of the 23 train in the use of the Holy weapons they had all been chosen to wield. Usually she would have been part of this as well but there was a difference compared to how they used to train and what they were doing now that they had the actual holy weapons they had all been trained to use.
With her not actually having hers she had been told to sit out by their handlers so that was what she was doing. She was fine with this because this gave her more time to plan what she was going to do once the expected giant actually showed up.
Someone in her situation would usually just hide here during the battle but she didn't trust the temple enough and wanted to make sure nothing happened to her while the other 23 were out fighting because them being here was the only thing keeping her safe.
Her plan was to sneak out during the commotion that would happen during the beginning of the fight when everyone was scrambling around and then she was going to stay in an empty building until the fight was over. This plan made her feel useless because her friends would be out risking their lives and she would be doing nothing but she had confidence they could win this one.
They had kept the actual number of how many of them there were secret well enough that the Demon Lord seemed to think he could win this battle with just one giant so her friends should be able to kill it and still not reveal how many of them there actually were here. So far they had only revealed three of the members of the 23 and none of them had shown how strong they actually were so the Demon Lord had underestimated them heavily and they hoped they could use this as a strategy to draw out how long it took them to send a force they wouldn't be able to beat.
The newest number the Temple had for the amount of giants the Demon Lord had in his army was 56 so if they made it obvious that the Temple had trained a force of elite Holy mages that numbered 23 the Demon Lord would send like 40 of the giants to just wipe them out. It would be a strain on the Demon Lord's army to have that many giants in one place but she was sure the Demon Lord would still see it as the best move.
Looking at what time it was, Tiff saw the sun would be going down soon which meant they would switch from training to preparing for the fight soon and she needed to make sure she got to go with the others to the prep room even if she wasn't going to be getting equipped with their armor. She was sure the handler would try to say she should stay out of the way but Tiff was going to pretend like she wanted to spend as much time with the others that she could.
Tiff had found out a long time ago if all of them stuck together about something the Temple would fold so they wouldn't upset the 23. A few minutes later the handler gave the exact orders Tiff had expected and all of them moved towards the door to head towards the armory. Just like she expected, the handler tried to stop her from following them by saying. "The Higher ups want to see you."
This was such an obvious lie but Tiff didn't even try to point out why because the others trusted the Temple so much they would never see it so instead she said. "It can wait till later. I don't want to miss seeing them off because I'm in a meeting."
After she said this she tried to move past the handler but felt them grab her arm but she wasn't the only one who stopped when this happened. All 23 of them looked at the handler like he should know better at this point and after a moment she was let go and they all went to the armory.
Tiff had expected it to go like this because they all had promised to always stick together after the first time the Temple had tried to replace her and this was the only time any of them ever showed anything other than 100% loyalty to the Temple and it was the thing that gave her any hope that she could talk them into leaving with her.
It made her think some of them might choose her over the temple and the war once she had what she needed to keep them safe while they were on the run. It was still unlikely though because the same thing that made them so loyal to her was what she would have to fight against to make them leave.
That was the thing with good people like them; they didn't just do what was good for them like everyone else and they would always risk their life for others even though they were worth more than the people they saved. "Do you think the attack will actually happen tonight?" Tiff looked up to see two of the three swords were talking about the same exact thing they had been all of last night.
"I don't know at this point there's no way to know if it's even true to begin with. The source of the information was unreliable and now that it turned out to be wrong I'm starting to wonder if the demon worshipers spread it themselves just to cover their retreat." When Greg said this it really bothered her because with all the time she had spent thinking about why the giant had never shown yesterday like it was supposed to she had never even thought of this possibility.
The fact Greg was saying this clearly having not even put that much thought into it really just highlighted how much better he was at warfare and why the temple had chosen him to be one of the three swords.
Of course she knew she was being silly to be mad at him for being smarter than her but it was just how she felt and you couldn't really control that. The only thing you could control was your actions and she never treated him badly just because she was jealous of him even if he made it hard sometimes.
Greg was one of the few in the 23 that didn't really seem to care about the bond between them and she was pretty sure it was the same reason he was such a good general, he was cold and calculating and unlike the others he saw them as a military group which was what the Temple wanted them to be so Greg was obviously the Temples golden boy.
She used Golden Boy because she had heard a lot of the Temple higher ups calling him this and with an obvious reason, he was perfect and the best at using Holy magic which was golden. A pretty lame nickname but she still wished it was hers, she had mostly grown out of the part of her life where all she wanted was the approval the other members got from the temple but you never really got over the problems you had when you were a kid, even if you could fool yourself into thinking you were over it.
Sitting down to watch the others be fitted into their armors. Like usual Dawn got done first and walked over to her. They both wore light armor so they always got done first and they always talked while they waited for the others to finish and it seemed Dawn wanted to continue the tradition.
"What do you think the higher ups wanted from you?" Tiff was pretty sure all they wanted was for her to be away from the others so they could get rid of her and make it seem she had run away later when the others returned but Tiff knew better to say this so she said. "They probably want to know why I didn't go and look for the dagger today."
Dawn seemed to agree and asked. "Do you have a reason?" Tiff could tell Dawn didn't mean anything by this question and was just curious so she said. "I ran out of leads, I plan to go out again after the battle to see if there's any more thieves kicking around when the dust settles."
Tiff hated lying to the others but sadly she had done it so often at this point that she didn't even have to think to say something believable. It had started after the first time she had told the others they needed to leave and she had seen how much the others didn't like what she was saying. That had also been when she had gotten the reputation of being a runner that she was sure the Temple planned to use when she disappeared.
"Maybe the temple will have more people to spare to help you look after the battle." Tiff nodded but didn't say anything because she knew that wouldn't be happening. She knew the temple had other people looking for it already and they had her doing it by herself because they wanted her to be as valuable as possible.
Right when she was going to try and change the subject Tiff heard the activity in the hallway outside start to increase and a second later someone came into the room. Knowing what they were about to say, Tiff pulled Dawn into a hug and said. "Goodluck tonight." Right after she said this Tiff rushed out of the room. As soon as she was in the hallway Tiff disappeared and headed to where the soldiers would be getting ready.
The person who had walked into the room was one of the higher ups she didn't trust so she couldn't afford to actually listen to what they were going to say to the other 23 members before they went out to fight. She needed to leave now while the others were still here. It would be easy to slip out with one of the scouting groups.
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