68 Aizu Awakens (1/2)

The group started to walk again because they had the intention of leaving the volcanic zone as soon as possible.

Yale was again carrying Aizu on his back because everyone had accepted that she joined them as part of the group.

The main reason was that Yale wasn't willing to leave her alone and the nobles didn't want to separate from Yale.

That time the change of area wasn't as abrupt as before, from a volcano they reached a mountain range.

There, the terrain was still tricky, but at least the heat issues disappeared, so all of them felt better than before.

On the second day after starting walking, when the group had just reached the mountain range, Aizu finally awakened.

”Where I am?”

Aizu asked that while being half sleep as she didn't recognize the surroundings and didn't remember what had happened to her.

”You finally woke up.”

Yale looked at Aizu when he heard her voice. At that moment the group was resting, and Aizu wasn't on Yale's back.

”I was starting to think that you will remain sleeping until we left the realm.”

Yale felt relieved as Aizu awakened, the special realm was dangerous and carrying an unconscious person the whole time wasn't a great idea.

”We are actually in a different zone from before; you were heavy injured when I found you in the volcanic area.”

Yale knew that Aizu was still confused as she had just awakened, she should remember all after he mentioned it to her.

Aizu reacted at Yale's voice even if she was still confused.

Then, as Yale expected, she remembered what had happened before.

Aizu also remembered that when she was about to lose her consciousness, she thought that she had a hallucination in which Yale saved her.

However, after hearing Yale and noticing that he was really there with her, Aizu understood that it wasn't a hallucination, Yale had indeed saved her when she was almost dead.

”You saved me again, thank you.”

Aizu said that with a shy voice, Yale was always helping her, but she felt that she wasn't able to help him enough in exchange.

”You are welcome; you are my friend and my disciple. If someone dares to attack you, I will step on your behalf.”

After Swordmad always protected Yale as his master, Yale felt that he should also protect his disciples.

Even if Yale didn't want to be treated as a master by Aizu, he wouldn't let other harm her if he could avoid it.

Furthermore, in front of the nobles, the master-disciple relationship was the best way the others would accept her.

Aizu blushed at Yale's words even if he only spoke of her as a disciple and a friend.

Nurvey as staring at Aizu, but as Yale didn't say anything ambiguous and his words were something reasonable to say as a master, she stopped staring her after a while.

After some silence, Aizu asked again.

”Is the guy who attacked me dead?”

She remembered how the bulky guy attacked her when she was exhausted after learning the legacy and how Yale attacked him when had jumped out of the magma pool.

”I killed him, and his corpse disappeared in the magma. You don't need to worry about him.”

Yale said it with a calm voice; he wasn't affected by the fact he killed someone.

That fact shocked Aizu as she ended in that state partially due to lack of resolution to kill the opponent. Even if she was attacked by surprise and was exhausted, she had been still able to use her recently learned Fire Shield once.

If she had used it, the battle would have been very different as the Fire Shield would have severely damaged the other party.