“Brain.
A warrior never underestimates any enemy.”
A faint smile crossed Gazef’s resolute face.
“The Wise King of the Forest is unquestionably a Hero-tier powerhouse, and with its racial traits as a monster on top of that, it won’t be an easy fight.”
“Even going by the Theocracy’s own level-assessment method, my level might sit higher than the Wise King’s, but its raw power would still outstrip mine.”
“Having you along for this one puts my mind considerably more at ease.”
Brain waved a hand quickly:
“Don’t say something that sickening.
I’m not here to help you.”
“A worthy opponent’s just hard to come by.”
“If I kill this Wise King of the Forest myself, I’m coming after you next.”
“With two Hero-tier fighters on this mission, it’s practically a guaranteed win.”
Brain’s fighting spirit burned bright, without a trace of the despondency he’d shown in the original story.
Because he too had broken into the Hero tier.
Once, Brain had lost to Gazef in the tournament before the King, and turned down the King’s attempt to recruit him because of it.
Instead, Ramposa III had simply cleared his throat and said:
“Brain.
Would you like to know how the Theocracy trains its Hero-tier fighters?”
“You have every qualification needed to break into the Hero tier.”
“Gazef will be training alongside you.”
Just those three sentences, and Brain’s aching back, his sore legs, and his despondency all vanished at once.
He accepted on the spot:
“Yes!
I would!”
“I’ll serve His Majesty.”
The single most consequential effect Roy had had on humanity came down to one thing: giving the Six Great Gods a long enough lifespan.
That alone had reshaped the world dramatically.
Over their long years of exploration, including detailed research into every class-change path available, the Six Great Gods had eventually pieced together a fairly complete training system for New World natives.
Rough around the edges, but it worked.
It wasn’t fair, much of the time, to blame the Theocracy’s foolishness, the Kingdom’s corruption, or the world’s underdeveloped political maturity too harshly.
Under the dragons’ rule, humans had been little more than food for whatever powerful being wanted them.
The continent’s central regions held six major powers, and three of them fed on humans outright.
Under conditions like that, for humanity to climb, over six hundred years, from something lower than a primitive tribal slave up to a full feudal civilization, calling them chosen by the gods wouldn’t be an exaggeration.
Surshana’s later years had been a lonely stretch.
He’d lived a full three hundred years longer than in the original story, entirely alone, pouring every one of those years into the great cause of humanity’s development.
Which was exactly why the human class system here had grown far more sophisticated than anything in the original story.
Class-change methods, build theory, level-training regimens, all of it now had a fully developed framework behind it.
To keep demi-humans and beastmen from ever getting their hands on these secret techniques, the Theocracy restricted them to royal bloodlines alone.
The Theocracy itself was never that generous, but a single word from Surshana had settled the matter outright.
“Are the Kingdom’s prodigies somehow not humanity’s prodigies too?”
“We split ourselves across multiple human nations precisely to test out different paths of development.”
If something goes wrong, it’ll be an irrecoverable disaster.”
Nobody dared oppose a living god, not given his prestige, his accomplishments, or his sheer capability.
If Surshana had ordered the High Priests to die on the spot, they’d have slit their own throats without hesitation, rather than tarnish their loyalty to a god.
The Re-Estize Kingdom, though founded only two hundred years ago, had inherited the legacy of an earlier empire, and with it, the relevant secret techniques.
The royal family could use those techniques to draw in talented people.
Gazef didn’t have the raw talent to reach Aberration-tier, but he’d fully realized his Hero-tier potential, becoming one of the Kingdom’s most seasoned Hero-tier fighters.
Level 35 unequipped, that was strong enough to earn a place in the Black Scripture even somewhere like the Theocracy, where Hero-tier fighters were practically common.
Fully equipped with the Kingdom’s treasured heirlooms, his combat power could reach the level-42 mark.
The absolute ceiling of human combat strength.
Two years earlier, when conflict broke out between the Empire and the Kingdom, the Warrior Captain had donned the Kingdom’s heirloom gear and led his men to crush the Empire’s own Imperial Knights.
Even surrounded by the Empire’s famed Four Knights, he hadn’t been able to deal the Imperial Knights any truly crippling blow.
But by then, the Warrior Captain’s name had already spread across the entire human world.
Worth noting, the Empire’s Four Knights, in this current version of events, actually numbered eight in total, every one of them Adamantite-caliber.
Eight Adamantite-rank fighters couldn’t bring down the Warrior Captain alone, and lost two of their own in the process.
That was probably exactly why the Theocracy had never made a serious plan to eliminate the Warrior Captain.
It would take either a living god personally stepping in, or a full assault from the Black Scripture.
They wouldn’t dare gamble something like that on the Sunlight Scripture.
Emperor Jircniv of the Empire seethed with resentment:
“Ramposa III really is lucky.”
All it took was a single royal tournament, and he’d stumbled onto talent like that.
Why hadn’t he had the same luck?
From then on, Jircniv threw himself into building arenas all across the Empire, copying the Theocracy’s training system, digging deep for every scrap of talent the Empire had to offer.
Likewise, Brain’s own growth had far outpaced anything in the original story.
He’d broken into the Hero tier a year earlier, chasing after Gazef’s own footsteps.
Two Hero-tier fighters working together, and this hunt seemed like it should be no contest at all.
Short of running into something Legendary-tier, they could take on just about anything.
Instead, Gazef shook his head:
“The Wise King of the Forest is manageable enough on its own.
But this forest is also crawling with goblins, and there’s the Eastern Giant and the Western Serpent besides, both of them Hero-tier as well.”
The Eastern Giant, the Western Serpent, the Wise King of the Forest: this modest stretch of the Great Forest of Tob actually concealed three Hero-tier beings at once.
Even Brain was taken aback, and said:
“Normally, monsters wouldn’t band together like that.”
“Why would the Eastern Giant and Western Serpent have any reason to help the Wise King of the Forest?”
“Under normal circumstances, that’s exactly right.”
“What worries me is the circumstances that aren’t normal.”
“There’s another legend tied to this forest: something monstrously powerful, sealed away inside it.”
“The Theocracy calls it the Catastrophe Dragon Lord.
If that seal ever weakens, or something goes wrong, there’s no telling what could happen.”
Brain had been so singularly focused on training, on trying to surpass Gazef, that he knew next to nothing about any of this.
He couldn’t help but blurt out:
“That’s outrageous!”
“How could anyone think about developing a forest this dangerous? Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
How did His Majesty ever agree to it?”
The Warrior Captain let out a quiet sigh:
“It comes down to titles.
His Majesty intends to create new nobility, redistribute territory, and expand the royal family’s authority.”
Two years ago, after the Warrior Captain crushed the Imperial Knights, he’d more than earned the right to be granted a title.
With two Hero-tier fighters now under his command, Ramposa III’s attitude toward the nobility had grown noticeably firmer.
Ramposa III might have been a bit unremarkable as kings went, but he wasn’t without ambition or resolve.
Even without support from the rest of the nobility, he genuinely intended to push ahead with opening up the great forest this time.
If he could secure enough land, he’d grant titles to a new generation of nobles.
Ramposa III wasn’t willing to go the Bloody Emperor’s route of mass purges.
He preferred gentler means, lifting up new nobles while quietly sidelining the old ones, to complete the transition.
The Warrior Captain and Brain both breaking into the Hero tier, one after the other, had given him real confidence to work with.
Pull off this expedition, and the Kingdom stood a real chance of remaking itself entirely.
The Warrior Captain, Brain, and the Kingdom’s finest adventurers would all get their chance out of it.
The Great Forest of Tob was set to become the Kingdom’s new source of hope.
When the Theocracy learned of the plan, their only comment was:
“Let him try, then.”
“If he actually pulls off this reform, the strategy of letting the Kingdom and the Empire compete against each other for development can keep running as intended.”
With a single successful precedent in developing new territory, Ramposa III would have all the pull he needed to bring adventurers to his own banner.
The first step of the whole expedition was hunting down the Wise King of the Forest, and failure simply wasn’t an option.
If all three of the great monsters could be wiped out, humanity’s territory could expand even further.
“This is more complicated than it looks.”
Brain said, scratching his head:
“If the royal family didn’t hold the secret techniques for reaching Hero tier, I really shouldn’t have signed on for this.”
“Then again, a training ground like that, only the royal family could ever afford to build one.”
Brain was an absolute genius when it came to swordsmanship, but a complete idiot about pretty much everything else.
Otherwise, in the original story, he’d never have joined a bandit gang purely to sharpen his sword skills.
What a spectacularly dumb plan that had been.
Brain was a pure warrior through and through, someone who really needed a big brother figure to keep him on track before his talent could actually shine.
The two of them were rivals and fellow disciples both, having both trained under Vesture in swordsmanship, now drilling together at the royal training ground.
The royal training ground had been built according to the Theocracy’s own standard method for reaching the Hero tier.
It had cost an enormous sum, but it genuinely worked, letting New World natives gain real class experience through structured training.
It was the product of centuries of work by Surshana, studying every class individually and eventually working out exactly what kind of training would level each one up the fastest.
How far any given person actually rose still depended on their own talent and how hard they trained.
Both of them had ended up surpassing their teacher.
Once Gazef reached the peak of the Hero tier, it was actually him coaching Brain from that point on.
Gazef let out a relieved smile:
“Maybe this won’t turn out so badly after all.”
“As long as we scout out the Catastrophe Dragon Lord’s seal beforehand and mark off the area as forbidden ground, things should go a lot smoother.”
“Besides, a seal that dangerous is safer with someone checking in on it regularly anyway.”
Gazef had two jobs now: clear out the monsters, and confirm the state of the seal.
One thing Ramposa III genuinely appreciated about Gazef was just how thoroughly reliable he was.
With that, the Kingdom’s army set off, with no idea that a spellcaster was quietly watching their every move.