The parchment wasn’t an elaborate or complex system at all. Every time Leonidas used his blood to draw a magic circle, it tethered a small piece of himself and his Vital Mana to it. It was similar to his blood giving life to a new creation. After a few months of personal study, he found a unique use for this truth. So long as he was within a certain distance of this magic circle, once it was broken, he would be able to sense it.

The earth suddenly trembled.

‘So heavy? Lower Ogres?’

The tremor was slight, but as focused as he was, Leonidas wouldn’t miss it.

‘It’s not impossible for Lower Ogres to be here. Missions given to us by Yves and missions given to them by their God often overlap. I picked this mission as soon as it appeared to mitigate the risk of other Apostles noticing it and using deductive reasoning to conclude it had been picked out by me. I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about Lower Ogres catching up because I acted so quickly, but this location is closer to their town than it is to ours…’

Leonidas understood many things before the second tremor even reached him. The question was whether he should run away or not.

‘No. Judging by the direction of their movement and the fact Anabel noticed them before I did, they’ve either already spotted her or will do so soon. I’m not ready to abandon her just yet, she is very useful to me.’

Leonidas had only just finished the thought when Anabel came rushing into the clearing, her face a mix of panic, anticipation and worry. She didn’t fear Lower Ogres, she had fought them before and could hold her own. The problem was that any Lower Ogre coming here was an Apostle, no matter how confident she was in her skill, she stood no chance against such a person. To make matters worse, if they ran now, they would be pursued and considering Leonidas’ current standing, they couldn’t expect help either.

Anabel opened her mouth to explain, but when she saw the corpse of the Level 2 Metal Blessed Wolf, the words were caught in her throat. When her gaze shifted to Leonidas and she saw all the blood covering him, she thought it was his at first, but when she understood he was unharmed, she was even more baffled.

‘What…?’

“Take the paws. Drag the corpse to the side, skin it and pluck its teeth as well. As for the rest, leave it out in the open.”

Anabel’s expressions went through several shades.

“Hurry up.”

Leonidas’ tone didn’t change, but Anabel still shivered, hurriedly springing to action. Dragging 400 kilograms was a bit beyond her means, but it was better than being forced to take the carcass all the way back to the horses. In the end, she was still a knight. She had benefited from her fair share of Strength Blessing Potions in her youth. Though she couldn’t compare to a Paladin or a Fighter, she was leagues beyond what a normal human could compare to.

The earth trembled once again, but this time far closer. Leonidas had already stood to his full height. Through the outline of the trees, a large silhouette continued forward. Its head alone was three meters above ground, the width of its body almost two meters. An enormous blade the length of a human male rested on its shoulder, the blade so jagged it looked more like a saw than a sword.

When it walked out from the darkness, its pale green skin shimmered beneath Leonidas’ gaze. Despite its color, it didn’t look sickly. Rather, its pale skin accentuated the individual muscle fibers beneath its skin, displaying veins as thick as snakes rushing violet blood to all parts of its body.

The Lower Ogre didn’t seem shocked when it saw Leonidas and Anabel. The latter, though, froze, unable to continue her task immediately. There was something about the aura of this Lower Ogre that made all the others she had met look like pitiful children.

It only took a look for the Lower Ogre to notice the small hole Leonidas had made digging the flower that was the target of his mission out. There were many things that Leonidas had filled himself in on by reading as many books as he could get his hands on, but there were always some things you could only come to understand with time, experience and socialization. The popularity of Blessed Herb retrieval missions was one of these matters.

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The weak might avoid these missions, but if you were confident in your strength, it often became a two-for-one deal. Not only would you get the herb, but you would also gain the benefits of whatever beast was left behind as well. On the lower end this could double the profits of Blessings on a single outing. On the higher end, it could increase them as much as fivefold.

The Lower Ogre didn’t feel the need to panic at the fact that Leonidas had gotten here first. In fact, after scanning the situation before him, he began to grin wildly. That was because this situation was even better than a fivefold return.

There was no better return on Blessings than the head of an Apostle of an enemy God. Even a Level 1 Apostle was worth anywhere between 100 and 400 Blessing Units depending on how important their chosen path was to their God and what level of talent they had. This was precisely why the spirit lowballing Leonidas was such an oddity on the surface… until you realized it was this exorbitant price that allowed Leonidas to exchange for the chalice that allowed him to become an Apostle in the first place.

With its experience, the Lower Ogre could tell that Leonidas was only a Level 1 Missionary. It took into account that the tandem of Leonidas and his knight had taken down a Level 2 Blessed Beast, but it also could have done so with ease and it wasn’t as easily tricked as a beast was.

“Fresh meat, the head of a Level 1 Apostle, and even a beauty to warm my bed tonight. It seems The Mighty Atticus has smiled down upon me this day!”

The words were spoken in a language Anabel didn’t understand, but there was no mistaking the overflowing lust in the Lower Ogre’s gaze. Leonidas might have been able to, but Anabel posed a fatal attraction most couldn’t ignore.

Leonidas didn’t need to play guessing games, though. He would have never spent the last half year with Scholar’s Eye in his toolbox and not grasp the language of the most imminent enemy Violet Waters faced. That said, he didn’t respond, reaching toward his back to once again reveal his saber’s blade. It was dented and chipped in some places, but it wasn’t exaggerated enough to ruin its performance by too much.

‘A Level 2 Missionary wielding a Level 2 saw-like sword, my sabers probably wouldn’t last a single slash against it under normal conditions… But, the biggest worry isn’t that… What kind of Technique Blessings has this Lower Ogre accumulated?’

The Lower Ogre looked at Leonidas' blade and released a deep rumbling chuckle. It was clear that it realized how inferior Leonidas’ blade was.

In the next moment, it was like a switch had been flicked. The Lower Ogre went from joking and laughing to pervading a menacing air. This race wasn’t known for its speed, but Leonidas couldn’t tell this by the swing of its blade. In one moment, it rested on its shoulder, in the next, it appeared just above Leonidas’ own, prepared to cut him diagonally through his hip.

‘He purposely didn’t aim for my head?’

This was Leonidas' first thought. Even in this situation, he felt that the Lower Ogre’s choice of strike was too inefficient. This might not have been a race of intellectuals, but they were battle-worn veterans. They instinctively knew things Leonidas would have to calculate and deduce. This meant that the Lower Ogre wanted to preserve Leonidas’ head.

Leonidas made a silent note of this as Anabel’s horrified gasp sounded to his back. It would seem to anyone watching that he would be bisected in the next instant. However, it was then that Leonidas took a strong step forward, his saber sweeping upward.

A strong clash suffocated the wind of the surroundings as the guard of both blades trembled against one another.

Leonidas’ knees bent, veins popping along his arms and forehead as his blood rushed about his body to support him. The weight of the Lower Ogre’s strike was far beyond anything he had ever experienced. If he didn’t have his tail to brace himself alongside his legs, he would have been forced into the ground.

‘I’ve missed the timing.’

Leonidas’ initial plan was to guard and then snake around the Lower Ogre’s saw blade to attack its wrists and fingers. But the strength behind the strike didn’t allow him to shift his blade that quickly.

‘It seems I have no choice.’

Leonidas slipped to the side, holding onto his saber with both hands as he allowed its blade tip to angle downward.

The strength of the Lower Ogre was diverted, a strong tremble quaking the ground as Leonidas was forced to take several steps back.

With a tap, Leonidas retreated another step, sliding his blade to his left and using his free hand to reach for his second saber.

The Lower Ogre rose its saw blade from the ground. It had penetrated so deeply that had the Ogre not pulled up, it would have sunk down to its hilt. But, that action caused the rest of the force to disperse, making it feel as though the ground itself had been uplifted by an entire inch.

Licking its lips, the Lower Ogre turned back to Leonidas.

“You’re pretty heavy, boy. You don’t look like a normal Half-Beast either. One of them would have never taken my strike head-on, even though you played your little tricks. You can avoid the sharp edge of my blade once, but how long do you think you can last?”

The Lower Ogre spoke believing Leonidas couldn’t understand it, but it didn’t seem to care. It was obvious that Leonidas managing to block one of its blows hadn’t fazed it in the slightest. Though, when it noticed Leonidas take out a second saber, it couldn’t help but narrow its gaze.

“Finally stopped playing around? Then I’ll show you what a true Apostle looks like. That way, you can die in peace.”

The fiendish grin of the Lower Ogre turned dark as it held its blade out toward Leonidas.

“Strengthen.”