Vekar stared at him in pure disbelief. He looked at Adrian, then looked at the tent flap where Claire stood guard. Past her, he saw the entire group of night and realized that Adrian had wiped out a five hundred man vanguard with only sixty troops and took zero casualties.

"You have served the empire well." Vekar said, his voice full of respect. "Your unit is clearly an elite force."

Vekar walked around the table and pointed at a spot deep inside the Kingdom of Avarice’s borders.

"I have a special mission for you, Baron." Vekar said. "Since your knights are so capable, I need a small elite unit to infiltrate enemy territory and burn their main food storage."

Adrian stared at the map as he felt a massive headache coming on.

’I don’t like this guy.’ Adrian thought. He did not want to risk his kids or his knights on a suicide stealth mission behind enemy lines.

But looking at the General’s serious expression, Adrian knew he had no choice in this matter.

"I accept the mission." Adrian looked at the scarred general standing across the table. "But I need to give my troops some rest. Give us a single day to recover and then we will move out."

"Alright, you can rest for a day or two and if you need any specific supplies for the infiltration, you can come to me." Vekar said.

Adrian chewed on that for a second. Because with his dungeon, he already had everything he could ever want. He definitely did not need their stale military rations or those brittle iron swords they handed out to everyone.

"I will think about it." Adrian said. "I will let you know if I need anything."

And he just turned around and walked out of the command tent.

He headed back to his own isolated camp and found his sixty knights sitting in the dirt. They were scrubbing down their heavy shields and dragging whetstones across their sword edges.

"We got another task but I got permission to rest for a while." Adrian said.

He looked over the group.

"So just rest for the day. Meditate and do your knight training, but sparring is not allowed."

The knights nodded and then they went right back to maintaining their gear.

Adrian walked over to the five kids.

Octavia, Vance, Tessa, Hugo, and Milo were all huddled up against a wooden supply cart, looking completely dead on their feet. He stared at them, not knowing what to even say right now. He always had high expectations because of their insane mana veins and crazy blessings, but what they pulled off in the forest blew past all of that.

Five teenagers butchered a massive vanguard of five hundred grown men.

It was an absolute miracle, but it was also deeply terrifying.

"You five do the same." Adrian said. "Focus on your training and rest up." 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

He caught a good look at Octavia. She sat there with her knees pulled tight against her chest and just stared blankly down at her own empty hands. Her mental state was clearly falling apart. Because the adrenaline of the battle had finally worn off, dragging in the brutal, sickening reality of slaughtering dozens of humans.

But Adrian had no clue how to fix a broken kid. He was just a keyboard warrior who scraped by with a tiny bit of random internet knowledge. He was not a therapist.

He was a decent listener, sure.

Or maybe he just completely sucked at giving actual life advice. So he just reached out and placed his hand gently on top of her head.

"You did a good job, do not feel guilty." Adrian said softly. "If you did not kill them, they would have killed us instead."

With that out of the way, he left the group and headed straight for Claire’s tent.

He needed to fix his own glaring problems. Because right now, he felt like the absolute weakest link holding this entire group down. He had the raw physical stats of an E rank knight, but his stupid Pacifist’s Shackles curse literally paralyzed him the second he tried to pick up a weapon.

Everyone else had the extended reach and killing power of swords and spears.

He just had his bare knuckles.

If he actually wanted to survive on a battlefield crawling with armored monsters, he had to be overwhelmingly better at close quarters combat than anyone else alive. He needed flawless evasion and brutal strikes just to stand on an equal playing field.

Adrian walked up to Claire’s tent.

She was sitting outside on a wooden crate, running an oiled rag down the length of her steel sword.

"Fight me." Adrian said. "Right now."

Claire looked up.

"And do not hold back." Adrian added.

Claire let out a wry chuckle. She stood up and sheathed her blade, stretching her shoulders.

"I have not been holding back for the past few days." Claire said flatly. "You are a monster. I will continue not holding back because if I do, I will be the one getting hit."

Adrian was genuinely shocked. She was a C rank knight and he was an E rank. And she was going all out just because if she didn’t, he’d be winning against her. And that was a result she didn’t like.

But that information also gave him a weird boost of confidence.

"Good." Adrian raised his fists. "Let’s start training then."

Claire dashed forward, her speed extremely high but wasn’t that great if he compared it to Octavia’s performance a week ago.

Though, even this was too much for him.

She closed the distance in a fraction of a second, throwing a heavy straight punch aimed right at his face.

Adrian saw her shoulder twitch and predicted the trajectory, shifting his weight and ducking under her arm.

But he was still too slow.

Claire instantly adjusted her momentum. She spun her hips and drove her elbow straight into his jaw.

Adrian flew backward and hit the dirt. He rolled back to his feet, spat blood onto the grass and raised his fists back up.

’I really should be thankful to Pain Tolerance...’ he thought as he took a step forward, only to get beat up again.

[A/N: Unfortunately, I could only write one Chapter today due to long powercuts here. Luckily, i had a stockpile of 3 Chapters so I can only do 4 today.]