Year 4094 since the Great Assembly
Two hours before sunrise, the gates to the Swallowed Sun Castle were opened as a carriage with the Striken family crest came through it. The crest that attracted attention from quite a distance contained a crow whose eyes were carved out of blue diamond, holding a golden arming sword in its claws. The crow representing the sentries and the arming sword as a symbol of knights proudly showed off history’s strongest sentries of Archangel Pfanya and royal knights who came from House Striken.
However, the carriage itself was far less remarkable than what one would expect of a state coach from House Striken, so much so that passersby would think it belonged to a rich guild master or some sort rather than a noble house if not for hard to miss the family crest. Avah’s frequent requests to have the crest removed as its existence goes against his wish of remaining low-profile, however, of course, had been denied every time.
As the carriage went at a pace not too fast yet not too slow, the movement of its wheels and the steady galloping of the two well-groomed Cleveland Bays were the only noise sources. The coachman behind them, a bloke named Jax whose greatest passion was to talk, would babble on and on to anyone who breaths around him that even the two horses were not spared. But, at this moment, let alone talking, he makes little noise as he guides the horses towards Solasta, the largest city in Duke Striken Territory.
He had been working for House Striken for quite some time to know well enough to ensure that there would not be any other noises on the way especially when it was this early in the morning. Everyone at the Swallowed Sun Castle knew that young master Avah disliked dealing with things that were noisy, troublesome, or bitter. Waking up early today was troublesome and bitter for him and if any racket added up on top of it, the people around him would rather deal with the duke himself than the youngest master.
Inside the carriage were two men of very different figures and a gloom that hushed down even the breathing of the two men. Nad, the strapping man sitting on the left side of the carriage, was a knight who was hand-picked by Avah and had been serving as his personal knight for almost 15 years. The thing Avah valued most about him was that contrary to his name ‘Nad’ meaning ‘curious’ in the ancient language of Vanya, he was a man of very few words and had little to no curiosity about what Avah does. He never asks questions and simply does his duty of maintaining his lord’s safety. Even at this moment, when Avah looks like he’s half dead, Nad does not take a single glance at him knowing Avah won’t die from this.
Although Avah was not as fussy as the Avah of this world, he was feeling very grateful that this world Avah had chosen Nad because, at this moment, he really could not force himself to talk even if the God of Gods, the Singularity descended. Due to Wolffia’s sudden visit yesterday, a sense of panic was provoked in him, and after catching up with her for the entire day, he spent the entire night gathering his thoughts, recalling as much as he could about <
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Avah didn’t think that he had been transmigrated to save this world and even if someone did bring him here for that purpose, then it sucks to be them for they had made such a misjudgment.
With much self-respect, he swore he wouldn’t live the same way he would live for himself, unlike his ‘past’ life. Since the day rifts appeared on Earth on his 13th birthday, he had trained like hell with the awakening of an ability that everyone deemed sh*tty for not being a fighting type ability. It was with an unknown sense of responsibility for the way the world has become, he grew stronger and stronger every second. For every minute he was awake, he went around saving everyone and their grandmas raiding one rift after another until he became the strongest awakened at some point. It was to the point where he had gone years without being able to see his own parents face-to-face.
He was completely exhausted from such responsibility and his back ached from having carried the world for so long. It turned out playing hero is really not something he’d be able to do every single life. Moreover, this world already had its own set of heroes and heroines.
‘I’m pretty sure they can save the world on their own at the end even if a few side characters die along the way.’ Avah was certain the main characters would win at the end as that’s just the way novels are, right? ‘I just have to be strong enough to not be one of those plot devices of side characters and survive until the main characters get their happy ending.’
That’s why he mainly focused on how one can power up in this world the night before and came up with three openly accepted ways to gain strengths beyond human capacity. The first is the path Wolffia took. Be lucky enough to get chosen and become a sentry of one of the six Archangels allowing you to wield powers belonging to their respective domains. This comes with the price of having to serve the Archangels for the rest of your life and being chained to church. Once, the world faces a threat, those sentries would be the first to take action and this alone is a big ‘No thank you’ from him.
Then, the second option is to become a knight like Nad. The first step of which is to spend at least three years training your body before you can become a ‘transcendent’ breaking through the limit of the human body. Following that is more years of training until you successfully manifest your sword aura, become a low-tier knight, and continue working your way up. The shortest time taken from the transcendent state to sword aura manifestion is two years which is a record set by Arissa Striken who is known as the sword genius of the 4th Aeon. Excluding the Founding Age of the Empire, there’s only one person in history, their great-great-grandfather with a record of one year, who surpassed Arissa.
So, it would at the very least take 4 years and a great-great-grandfather of a genius to become a knight. If he followed this path, as an extra around the main characters, he would have died as their meat shield before he could achieve anything great.
So, he felt in a rush to visit Maswell where his last and only choice awaits. His thoughts finally slowed down when the carriage arrived at the gate of Solasta.
“Young master, where should we continue to head towards?”, asked Jax as he swallowed down the urge to make commentaries about how lively the city has already become even when the sun has just come out. After all, Solasta is one of the, if not the largest junction in the Duke Striken Territory.
However, this was not in Avah’s interest, “To the closest church of her faithful lady, Pfanya. You can leave after sending us off. I know it’s a lot to ask of you, Jax but try to keep your mouth shut for a few days about this. I’ll be back a week later before father and eldest sis are back.”
“Haha, I will do my best, young master.” Jax laughs as he makes his way towards Saint Marty Church. The young master was sneaking out again~ Jax wasn’t worried as this would happen every time Lady Arrisa was not around.
Saint Marty Church was on a smaller scale compared to the other larger churches in Solasta but like every church of Goddess Pfanya, Saint Marty Church with its minimalist white stone structures on the outside blends in the surroundings, was often overlooked by visitors from other regions, the same way one would fail to notice the passing of time on a lively day.