ESL Chapter 3

“Shall we rest here for today?”

Lea looked up at the round moon rising and searched for a suitable place to camp for the night. It had already been two days since she left the Kingdom of Hamel. Lark must have departed for the Kingdom of Kravia by now. She had deliberately left without seeing his face, so she couldn’t know for certain.

“Walking makes things like this inconvenient…”

Finding a flat place suitable for making a fire, Lea grumbled as she gathered dry branches and piled them in one spot. Though it was spring, the temperature difference was significant, making the nights quite chilly, so a campfire was necessary. If only the weather weren’t cold, she could simply pick a large tree and fall asleep.

“Fireball.”

Having piled up a considerable amount of branches, she raised one finger and murmured quietly. Then, amazingly, a small flame appeared above her finger and flew to the piled branches, clinging to them.

“They’re dry and crispy, so they burn well.”

Watching the campfire quickly blaze up, Lea raised the corners of her mouth in satisfaction. Without magic, she would have to start a fire using flint. She had learned magic precisely because she hated doing that, so the usefulness of Fireball was highly satisfying. Learning it had been difficult, but in return, by learning magic she could read and dispel mana arrays to a certain level, which was truly a great help in life.

“Should I properly learn magic from Abel when I meet him this time…?”

As she pondered seriously, her face stiffened slightly. Her widely spread qi-sense detected something approaching her direction. As she cautiously assessed the other party, the corners of her mouth rose slightly and her red eyes rippled with pleasure.

‘What an impressive expert. Seems to be beyond Sword Master level… No killing intent, so a traveler? Should arrive here in about 10 seconds.’

She pulled out a robe from her bag and put it on over her head. Then she quietly threw additional branches into the burning campfire.

Shortly after, as she expected, the form of a robed person entered her field of vision. With a tall height clearly exceeding 180cm and a physique that was just right, it was obviously a man. A sword hung at his waist and a simple travel bundle that appeared to be luggage was slung over his shoulder. The man, also using qi-sense to know the number of people, showed no surprise at all despite her being alone and spoke up.

“…Pardon me for the intrusion upon first meeting, but may I rest here briefly?”

Oh~ Nice voice…

Lea thought the man’s slightly husky and attractive low-pitched voice was pleasant to hear and nodded slightly to show her consent.

“Thank you.”

The man set down his luggage and sat in a spot facing her. Then, as if finding it stuffy, he pulled back the robe covering his face. As the robe came off, the man’s face revealed under the moonlight was handsome enough to make any woman stare in a daze. With hair as blue as frost, intense golden eyes reminiscent of the sun, and features as if carved from a sculpture, there was not a single flaw.

‘A noble…’

Though he was pretending to be a traveler, what flowed from the man was clearly what she had learned in etiquette classes. Dignity and nobility. Especially this man seemed to have it ingrained from birth, impossible to hide even if he tried. As Lea observed the man for a moment, her eyes sparkled briefly as if remembering something, but she quickly turned her gaze back to the campfire. However, she didn’t know this: unlike her who had lost interest in the man, the man was looking at her with interested eyes.

‘No matter how I look at it, she seems like an ordinary traveler…’

When he realized there was a campfire and people nearby, lighting a fire was bothersome, but he hadn’t planned to join them. Rather, being with them could be dangerous for them. However, he soon changed his mind. Looking with his qi-sense, there was only one person, and the fact that they were an ordinary person with hardly any detectable mana piqued his interest. Wasn’t it strange? This place where he stood was the Krauzen Mountains, famous for many monsters and bandit appearances. For an ordinary person who couldn’t use mana to be crossing such mountains alone could only be seen as suicidal. He approached wondering if this was a new method to make him lower his guard since ambush and assassination hadn’t worked, but after observing for quite a while, they just seemed to be a traveler. Seeing how they threw branches into the campfire at regular intervals, they didn’t seem to be someone trying to commit suicide either.

‘How did they survive to get here? How curious.’

Kaid glanced at the traveler sitting across from him. His full name was Kaid Rosellin Dimand Hayazen, and he held the status of Third Prince of the Yurasen Empire. For a prince who should be in the imperial palace to be in the Krauzen Mountains without a single guard knight was itself an impossible situation, but it was possible for him. He was one of the continent’s finest swordsmen and had already reached the level of Sword Master. Who would be crazy enough to attack him to take his life, he had thought, but he had misjudged. While climbing the Krauzen Mountains, he had faced two assassination attempts and three ambushes. The annoying thing was that the assassins’ skills were gradually increasing.

‘At this rate, I wonder if a mage will show up next…’

As Kaid clicked his tongue invisibly, his golden eyes sank coldly. Four… no, five? Judging by their movement of surrounding him in a circle and slowly closing in, they appeared to be quite skilled assassins. Rising with an annoyed air, he quietly drew his sword from its sheath at his waist. Then he kicked the campfire to scatter it and extinguish the fire, and whispered lowly to the traveler still sitting unaware of anything.

“If you don’t want to die, come here and stay close.”

Though he held a sword and expected the traveler not to come, after looking at him briefly, the traveler quietly rose and approached his side. He hadn’t noticed while they were sitting, but seeing their standing figure, he momentarily wondered if this was a woman. Their height barely exceeded his shoulder, so one could think of them as a short man, but the slender build definitely wasn’t that of a man no matter how he looked.

Had he seemed to let his guard down for a moment? Suddenly a black shadow-like figure burst from the bushes with lightning speed, aiming for Kaid’s heart. However, the assassin soon fell to the ground spurting blood, their chest split in half. Red blood from the assassin freshly cut down by Kaid’s sword, which had moved even faster than the assassin’s movement, flowed like beads and fell to the ground.

Silence fell again. The assassins were hiding their presence, waiting for him to show an opening. Though he could already sense where they were hiding with his qi-sense, unlike before, Kaid couldn’t move first. If he left his position to attack first, the traveler beside him would become a corpse. It was annoying but unavoidable. That’s when it happened. Instinctively sensing danger, Kaid grabbed the traveler’s arm and hurriedly retreated from where they stood. At the same moment, with a bang, a fireball fell where they had just been standing. Simultaneously, two assassins rushed at Kaid and the traveler.

“A Fireball, is it… They say speaking of the devil…”

Kaid regretted his earlier joking words, let go of the traveler’s arm he’d been holding, and swung his sword at the rushing assassins. The assassins charging at him had somehow increased to four. Moreover, when he tried to cut down an assassin in one stroke, he had to withdraw his sword because of a fireball flying from somewhere. The situation was gradually becoming unfavorable for him. He had to deal with both assassins and a mage, and on top of that, he had baggage to protect.

He deflected the assassin’s sword aiming for his heart and turned his sword to block another assassin’s sword stabbing at his side. Then, just as he was about to cut down the chest of the assassin left defenseless from attacking, sure enough, a fireball flew in at the perfect timing, and he had to grab the traveler and leap to avoid it. He was extremely irritated but had no other choice but to focus solely on defense. But he couldn’t just ignore a person in danger because of him, could he? As he was pondering how to break through this situation, suddenly the traveler standing behind him bent down and pulled a sword from the hand of a dead assassin, coming into his view.

“Do you know how to use a sword? Don’t throw your life away by acting rashly…”

Before Kaid’s worried words could finish, two assassins rushed at him simultaneously. They were naturally blocked by Kaid’s sword, but only one assassin was pushed back by his sword. The other assassin’s sword was aimed at the traveler standing behind him holding a sword. It was a calculated move to attack the moment Kaid turned to save the traveler. However, before the assassin could even reach the traveler, they widened their eyes in shock at the fountain of blood spurting from their own chest. The traveler’s sword had cut straight through the assassin’s chest. A moment of silence fell at the traveler’s completely unexpected counterattack.

“…You know how to use a sword… quite well, too…”

Though it was just a moment, Kaid didn’t miss the movement of the sword the traveler had shown. That sword that cut through the assassin’s chest was sharp yet smooth, tracing an utterly clean trajectory without a single unnecessary element. It was a level of swordsmanship that couldn’t be produced without considerable skill. As he looked at her in apparent surprise, Lea raised the corners of her mouth slightly. In fact, if it weren’t for the mage, she hadn’t planned to step in. The man before her had enough skill to handle about four assassins while protecting her. However, as the fight dragged on because of the fireball from the mage of insignificant skill hiding somewhere, she began to feel irritated. Eventually she drew her sword and cut down the assassin targeting her in one stroke, but her stress still remained.

Swoosh… Lea naturally let her sword hang down and began to extend her qi-sense. At the flow of mana gathering with a rustling sound, she saw the man’s expression of surprise but ignored it. And at a certain moment, her eyes flashed with light.

TL/N:

기 (氣) in Korean basically means the same as qi (氣) in Chinese:

Korean: 기 (gi)

Chinese: qì (qi)

Japanese: ki (気)

In all three, it refers to:

=Life energy, vital force, or spiritual energy that flows through living beings.

In martial arts, fantasy, and wuxia/xianxia contexts, it’s the energy that can be sensed, cultivated, or manipulated.