Chapter 182: A path different from every other knight

The moment the array began glowing, Raphael instantly teleported from there, and Hugo bolted towards the path leading to their camp.

A second later, Vlad realised why the two had suddenly made a run for their lives and why exactly Alisha and Seraphina were wearing masks.

A revolting stench suddenly erupted from the orc corpses, spreading in every direction. Vlad barely held himself back from puking out his breakfast, his hand flying to his face.

He didn’t waste more than a second there, bolting away as fast as he could. Before long, he reached Hugo’s side and muttered in a muffled voice, holding his breath, "You could have warned me."

"The spell they are using will spread the scent of orcs blood in every direction," Hugo explained with a smug smile, holding his breath as well. "It’s just that it smells worse than rotten corpses."

The reason he hadn’t warned him was because he wanted Vlad to experience this stench as well.

"Senior, you know how you fooled me back then when the Demonic Orchid attacked?" Vlad asked, keeping his expression unreadable as the two ran through the forest, the sound of their heavy boots echoing.

"Yes, what about it?" Hugo asked.

"This is the second time you’ve tricked me," Vlad replied, his tone suspiciously calm.

"So—"

Before Hugo could speak further, Vlad’s hand suddenly grabbed him by the back of his collar. Hugo only processed what Vlad intended to do when his body was already sent airborne, towards the direction of the orc corpses.

"Y-you brat! How could you do this to a senior!?" Hugo screamed in the air, almost on the verge of tears.

"Bye-bye, Senior," Vlad waved his hand, never looking back.

It was only then that Hugo realised an undeniable fact about Vlad.

Not that Vlad would ever admit it, but yes. He was very petty.

---

Even at their capsule camps, two kilometres away from the orc corpses, the stench was unbearable. Vlad only breathed in once he entered the lift of the mushroom house.

"Sera is really a true leader," he murmured, entering the small hall. He had already taken off his armour in the lift and placed it inside his storage ring. He didn’t want to wear the armour, which had drops of orc’s blood on it, inside the little mushroom house. "She could have easily defeated those orcs and given us the duty of spreading the stench of orc’s blood together with Alisha, yet she decided to take on the most difficult task herself."

The task wasn’t physically demanding. But staying so close to that revolting stench, which might even burn away the hairs inside one’s nose, was commendable in itself.

Vlad’s eyes shifted to his own body, a faint smile curling on his face. "Even after defeating an orc, a monster whose strikes possess the same lethality as a Sword Aura user, barely five percent of my mana was consumed."

The reason for his smile wasn’t because he was satisfied with his current strength. He knew his mana reserves were pathetic. What made him happy was that the method he had developed to overcome this limitation had proved to be a huge success.

Once a knight awakened Sword Aura, they only trained their body enough to barely keep it in shape, while some even neglected it altogether. All of their time and focus shifted towards honing the lethality of their Sword Aura and reaching the next level of Swordsmanship.

It was also the most natural thing to do. The higher the rank of the monsters, the greater their defence against physical attacks, making the whole point of training the body somewhat useless.

That was the thinking of most knights who had reached higher stars, or more accurately, those who possessed high-ranked talents and massive mana reserves.

However, for Vlad, who might as well be the only D-Ranked talent to actually become a Sentinel Knight, this theory was absolutely incorrect.

He didn’t possess massive mana reserves that could overcome the limitations of a weak body. Moreover, as a low-ranked Sentinel Knight, he discovered something that he might never have realised if he had awakened an A or S-Ranked talent.

A strong physique was the foundation of a knight’s strength. And today’s battle with the orc had proved his theory correct.

Well aware of his strong physique, Vlad decided to put it to practical use. If he were to use only a bare minimum of mana to coat his sword, enough to cut through an opponent’s physical defences, and use his muscles to swing the blade, he could fight opponents without constantly worrying about his mana reserves.

This thought first crossed his mind when he fought his way up to rank fifty in the arena tournament. Back then, he wasn’t proficient enough to reduce the wastage of mana. But after training for five years in the dungeon, where his whole focus was on compressing his mana to make it sharper and reducing its wastage so he could fight for a long time, he had mastered this method.

This very skill allowed him to pierce the thick skin of an orc with only a Mana Blade, which would otherwise have required Sword Aura to cut through its defences.

"If my rank were any higher and I didn’t have to worry about my mana reserves, I could easily defeat a Two-Star Knight with Sword Aura alone. I could even exchange a few moves with a Three-Star Knight," he muttered, clenching his fists, a hint of frustration flickering in his eyes.

He shook his head, pushing those thoughts away. There was no point beating himself up over something that wasn’t even in his hands.

Half an hour later, when the stench of orc’s blood had considerably reduced, he decided to visit Seraphina and Alisha at their location. Although Raphael had already scouted the area early in the morning, making sure there weren’t any monsters within a radius of ten kilometres, Vlad was still worried about an ambush from a monster.

The thought of Seraphina being unguarded while casting her spells made him feel restless. And, umm... yeah, Alisha’s as well. He definitely wasn’t only thinking about Seraphina and completely forgot about Alisha. Definitely not!