As Frida stepped away from the dead stone mammoth, the four adventurers crowded around her, gushing over her one-shot kill of the Gold Rank monster.

  “You’re quite strong for such a small girl,” Bran whistled, evidently impressed. “Thanks for the help, we really appreciate it.”

  “That’s amazing, how did you do that?” Elise asked, staring at the [Nun] with wide eyes.

  Jerome crossed his arms as he nodded approvingly. “I didn’t realize [Nuns] were capable of even hurting a fly…”

  “You really saved us there,” Mark said gratefully, before looking towards the wagons stopped to the side of the road. “We could’ve brought down the stone mammoth, but not before it destroyed the caravan. So you have our thanks.”

  Sister Frida simply nodded back at them, not saying a word in response. Instead, she held up her giant hammer, and with a flash of light, it vanished.

  Seeing that, Richard ran up to her with round eyes as he exclaimed. “Wait, is that a Dimensional Storage Unit? How do you have that—”

  The [Trader] began to bombard the [Nun] with questions as I walked past them. Frida gave Richard short, snippy answers, so it was hardly a conversation worth paying attention too. Instead, I inspected the corpse of the stone mammoth with narrowed eyes, running a hand over its underbelly.

  And there, I saw a chunk of its flesh was missing. The blood there was already dry, but it looked like it had been slashed across the underside of its body. Stepping around the back of the dead monster, I saw that its hind legs had also been slashed open by various cuts that were at least a day old.

  These were not the wounds it suffered from either Frida or the adventurers. It was quite obvious, they were from someone else.

  Bran walked up to me as I stepped away from the stone mammoth.

  “What’s wrong, kid?” he asked, raising a brow.

  I shook my head as I gestured at the dead monster. “The stone mammoth was already injured. That’s why it attacked us.”

  “Wait, what do you mean by that?” the adventurer asked with a frown.

  “Take a look at it yourself,” I said as I stepped to the side. “I was wondering why the stone mammoth was attacking us— they are ordinarily docile creatures. They are herbivores, and they would stay away from groups of people unless they were attacked first.”

  Bran inspected the wounds on the back of the stone mammoth’s legs, before nodding. “That’s a fair assessment. Some glory-seeking adventurers probably wanted to kill it to hang its tusks in their room. Seriously, what’s wrong with some people?”

  Shaking his head, the adventurer started away from the dead monster. But I just pursed my lips as I stared at his back.

  I don’t think so, I thought as I took in a deep breath. After all, stone mammoths often stay within a herd. If this one was alone, that means its herd is dead.

  And judging by the attacks that the stone mammoth had sustained, its herd hadn’t been attacked by a few teams of Gold Ranks or a handful of Platinum Ranks. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have suffered such small wounds, unless they were from Bronze or Silvers.

  Which meant… that it had likely been a concerted effort from a group of people to take down the stone mammoth for whatever reason. There could be various explanations for it— one of them being that they were bandits in the area hunting for game or food.

  And the fact that it was even a possibility was concerning to me.

  I eyed Sister Frida from a distance as Richard continued to pester her, asking where she acquired her Dimensional Storage Unit. And she tried to brush him off, heading to the back of the caravan. And I took this opportunity to cast a quick protection spell on myself.

  It was nothing complex. Not even comparable to the spell I used when I was trapped in the hideout of the Blood Swords. There were no reflective capabilities to it— it simply protected me from any potential fatal attacks.

  I didn’t want to accidentally be discovered by Sister Frida as the Death God. After all, since she already didn’t quite care for me, she was very likely not going to respond nearly as positively to that revelation as either Hannah or Mary. And then, I was going to have to kill her.

  While I wasn’t too attached to her, I didn’t want to be responsible for any innocent deaths either. So if I had to get a little bit injured to avoid that outcome, I wouldn’t mind.

  And with that, I returned to the caravan, before we continued, setting off down the road as the sun made its way across the blue dome overhead.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  ***

  Richard continued to bombard Frida with questions even as she continued to ignore him for the rest of the day. There was nothing she had to say to him— he was simply their transport to get to Albus. That was why she cared not to bother obliging his questions.

  Reverend Donovan had not given her any orders to be congenial to anybody on this journey. Not Richard. Not Bran. Not even Eli. The [Priest] had simply told her to ensure the boy safely arrived at Lux. And that was what she did.

  Every command or order that he gave her, she would adhere to the very word. But everything beyond the scope of what she was told to do was up to her own discretion, and while she listened to him, she did not have to respect him or his opinions.

  That was why she held contempt for this trip she was sent on, even if she did as she was told to do. After all, she knew the reason why Reverend Donovan was doing this.

  While the [Priest] disguised his true intentions of sending Eli to the Holy Academy as simply not wanting to squander the boy’s talents in a city like Velmond, there was more to it.

  Frida knew that it was because Donovan thought that Eli was the next [Hero] ordained by the Goddess of Life. And she… didn’t see it.

  Sure, she had seen what Eli was capable of doing, but she wasn’t impressed. The [Nun] had studied the early life of not just Aria the Lady of Light, but every [Hero] that came before her. And what they all had in common was that they were not just capable of casting great spells that went beyond even the capabilities of their elders, they had also demonstrated great feats of strength.

  At the age of ten, Aria saved her village by bringing down a chimera with nothing else but a pebble. It was that feat which had drawn Archbishop Walden’s attention towards her. And before her, Devon the Bringer Of Life defeated Balbod the Bloody [Necromancer] who had been plaguing the southern regions of the Sanctus Empire— all at the young age of fourteen.

  Perhaps Eli was a prodigious child— Frida didn’t deny that. But beyond saving a few lives with his healing magic, he had accomplished nothing to lead the [Nun] to believe that he was the next [Hero].

  Even just earlier, she had waited to see if Eli would act: if he would do something to stop the stone mammoth’s approach. But he did nothing.

  And that was why Frida cared not for the boy. Because he was not the [Hero] that they were looking for. The [Nun] knew that for certain.

  The only reason why she even entertained doing this entire job was because that was what she was commanded to do by her Reverend Mother before she was sent to Velmond.

  Donovan had not known this about Frida, since she had made an oath to keep her background a secret no matter what. But she was a Sister of the Luna Gez Sect— one of the few factions within the Church of Life that deviated from the main teachings of Archbishop Walden.

  From a young age, she— alongside a hundred other orphans her age— were trained to be utterly obedient to the Reverend Mother of the Luna Gez Sect. Many of them died throughout their dangerous training process, but those who survived were utterly loyal.

  Just like her.

  However, even amongst the other Sisters of the Luna Gez Sect, Frida was fiercely loyal. So that was why their Reverend Mother had entrusted her with this simple job— to go to Velmond and pretend to be an ordinary [Nun], listening to everything the reverend of the city told her to do.

  But why was Frida entrusted with this seemingly innocuous task? It was because of a [Divination] that the Reverend Mother had made nearly ten years ago, when it was discovered by the upper echelons of the Church that Aria the Lady of Light had lost her Class as a [Hero].

  That towards the far northeast of the Sanctus Empire, the next [Hero] ordained by the Goddess of Life would be found.

  So Sister Frida was one of a dozen [Nuns] sent by the Reverend Mother to the towns and cities of the northeastern Sanctus Empire to lie in wait. Because it was the goal of the Sisters of the Luna Gez Sect to find the [Hero] before Archbishop Walden— to break his hold over the Church of Life.

  Unfortunately for Frida, instead of waiting in Velmond for this [Hero] to reveal themself, she had no choice but to follow along in this journey to Lux because of a fraud.

  Her eyes flickered towards Eli who was sitting across from her in their wagon. The caravan had resumed their journey now, ambling slowly down the dirt path as they left the dead stone mammoth far behind.

  It was not like the [Nun] held any true contempt for the boy. It was just that each passing day Frida spent wasting her time with this false [Hero], was a day the real [Hero] could show up in Velmond. If that happened, and Archbishop Walden got to the real [Hero] first, then Frida would have no choice but to face the consequences for her failures.

  And that was why she hoped to get this journey over as soon as possible. So that she could return to her duties back at Velmond, waiting for the real [Hero] to show up.

  ***

  The next day came, and we resumed our journey until we reached a fork in the road. Richard pulled up a map as he eyed the two paths, before shaking his head.

  “Normally, we’d make a stop by Avilos to sell off more of our wares. Unfortunately…” he trailed off as I raised a brow.

  I assumed that was the city that had been destroyed by the Avatar of Death. A part of me was curious and wanted to pay the ruins of Avilos a visit just to see what kind of destruction had been wrought to learn more about these strange creatures. But there was no point in going there, especially since Aria had already dealt with it.

  “Instead, we’ll be taking a detour to avoid the area,” Richard continued as he nodded at the [Wagon Master] leading the caravan. “It’ll take us longer to reach Albus, but we’ll likely be able to avoid any monsters like that stone mammoth that are lurking in the area.”

  “...I don’t think it’s monsters we should be worried about,” I murmured.

  But I knew that neither Richard nor Bran would heed my warnings. So I just kept an eye out as our caravan made our way down the left side of the road, taking us through a heavily forested area. Dense layers of trees flanked the road from both the left and right sides of the road grew bumpier and more unsteady.

  I sat up and narrowed my eyes as I eyed the shadows cast by the canopy of trees. The shadows were darker than they should be, and it almost looked like they were moving.

  That was when I knew I was right.

  “We need to turn—” I started as I tried to call out to the [Wagon Master] at the front of the caravan.

  But as I peered out of my wagon, I watched as the frontmost wagon ran into a thin thread of wire that had been set on the road. There was a loud click which everyone heard and took a moment to process for a brief moment.

  And a noxious green gas exploded all around the caravan, filling the road with its poison.