System's POV
chapter-573

"Don't get too close to their leader," the Sage of the Hero party, Joshua, shouted. "All of you focus on the small fries. Roland will handle the rest!"

Screams, roars, and shouts reverberated in the surroundings as the group of Wanderers fought against a pack of Monsters that had tried to raid their camp in the middle of the night.

A shining white banner illuminated the surroundings, allowing the Wanderers to keep their calm and see the monsters that had encircled their camp.

"Shana, focus on supporting just Roland and Derek," Joshua stated, briefly glancing in the direction where Shana was looking. "That girl can handle things on her own."

Shana nodded, but still glanced one last time at the young lady with long blue hair, who seemed to be enjoying her solo battle against the Three-Eyed Wolf, which was a Rank 5 Sovereign.

'Is she still human?' Shana thought before shifting her gaze at her party members who were fighting another Three-Eyed Wolf of the same Rank.

Their group of Wanderers consisted of a hundred people, and most of them were First Time Wanderers, who hadn't even stepped into the Rookie Rank.

However, there was one teenage girl who was simply an abnormality.

Unlike the rest, she was already a Rookie, but the strength she showed surpassed what an ordinary Rookie could do.

'Unlike Zion, this girl is more brutal in her way of fighting,' the Archer of the Hero Party, Mildred, was helping Derek to protect the First Timers who didn't have a lot of combat experience.

'Damn!' Derek cursed internally as he killed a Rank 2 Wolf, who had almost sank its jaws on the teenage boy who had come to help protect his comrades as a Vanguard. 'If only Erica or Diana were here, controlling these small fries would be easier.'

Derek was quite familiar with fighting in the front lines, but his main role was an offensive fighter.

But right now, he was also acting as a defender, preventing the lower-ranked Three-Eyed Wolves from attacking the helpless Wanderers.

Of course, there were some Wanderers who had been trained as warriors from a young age, helping Derek kill the weaker monsters with everything they had.

If not for Shana's support, things would have ended badly for the group of Wanderers.

The White Banner, Clemence, had the ability to help people recover their fatigue and stamina. It also has a healing effect, allowing minor injuries like shallow wounds, and bruises to recover over time.

Lastly, if Shana channeled her Aether on the flag, it could create a barrier, protecting people inside a dome of light.

However, Shana couldn't keep the barrier up for a long time, so all combatants were doing their best to finish the battle as fast as they could.

Half an hour later, Roland finally killed the Rank 5 Sovereign that he was fighting.

It had been a very difficult battle because his opponent was very agile, and its bodyguards would also join the battle, preventing Roland from gaining the upper hand.

Things only settled down when the young lady with blue hair killed her opponent, and helped Roland eliminate the Alpha Monsters that protected their Sovereign.

"Thank you, Siri," Roland said to the blue-haired girl. "The battle ended faster because of you."

"Well, you're not half bad for an Initiate," Siri replied as her long blue hair changed color into blonde hair. "But you could have done better."

Roland wanted to say that she should be a bit more respectful to those who were older than her, but since he didn't want to make a big deal out of it, he only nodded before going back to their group to see if anyone had suffered serious injuries.

After fighting against Thirteen, Roland had been humbled, so although he was upset that Siri was acting very arrogant for her age, he simply thought of her as a female version of Zion.

Similar to Thirteen, Siri was also thirteen years old. But unlike the rest of the Wanderers of the same age, she was already a Rookie.

Roland and his team met the teenage girl while leading a group of sixty Wanderers, who treated him as their leader.

He could still remember her first words when he introduced himself to her.

"I'm not interested in a Hero wannabe. Have you seen Zion Leventis? I want to meet him."

At first, they thought that she was just one of the spoiled children who belonged to the Ten Prestigious Families or the Monarch Clans.

However, when he saw her fighting prowess, he had to admit that she had every reason to be arrogant.

Siri was strong.

Exceptionally so.

But unlike Thirteen, her spar with Roland always ended in a draw.

The Wanderers were very impressed that someone like her had managed to fight against the "Hero" on equal footing, so her prestige among them shot up even more.

Still, instead of being happy, Siri looked annoyed that she wasn't able to have the upper hand in fighting against Roland.

The reason?

It was because out of spite, Derek said that she had no reason to be arrogant because Zion Leventis could beat Roland with one hand tied behind his back.

Roland wanted to slap the Swordsman silly, but since what he said had really happened, he couldn't refute his words.

Before leaving to see his parents after their training ended, he requested a sparring match against Thirteen to see how much he had improved.

Thirteen agreed on the condition that he would only fight Roland using one hand.

But even with that handicap, Thirteen still won, which made Roland feel that he needed to train more in order to surpass the teenage boy, who was younger than him by a few years.

"I wonder, how long do we need to travel to reach that Temple of Courage?" Derek said as Shana healed his injuries. "It's been two months since we finished our second mission and entered Absolute Heaven.

"The farther we go, the stronger the monsters are. Right now, we're only fighting packs of monsters. But if we happen to meet a horde, all of us can only run away if we want to survive."

"Stop complaining," Shana replied after she finished healing Derek's injury. "If Zion is here, he will probably say something along the lines of… 'You're only fighting against small fries, and you're getting injured? Why don't you just bang your head to the wall you useless piece of sh*t!'"

Derek shuddered because Shana had perfectly imitated Thirteen's scolding to a certain extent, making him relieve his past traumas.

"I-If Master is here, I will definitely be treated as a slave," Derek stuttered. "Please don't raise a death flag, Shana."

The Saintess smiled faintly, having achieved the intended effect that she wanted.

Derek only snapped into attention whenever Zion's name was mentioned as if he was programmed to do it.

Siri always mocked Derek and doubted that he was Zion's disciple.

The arrogant girl would even say, "Why would Zion Leventis choose to have a stupid disciple like you?"

Naturally, Derek didn't let it pass, so he challenged Siri.

Unfortunately, he was defeated in less than five minutes, making him regret his decision.

But Derek was a spiteful person, so he started calling Siri Little Miss Zion.

Because six out of ten words that came out from her lips always had Zion in it.

The Hero Party could tell that Siri seemed to treat Zion as her rival.

However, all of them were certain that if the two really fought, the one who would win was none other than the teenage boy, who had made them go through a hellish training back in his residence, making them stronger than their former selves.

And the funny thing was that he only trained them for a short period of time.

If Thirteen had trained them longer, Roland had a feeling that he would be able to defeat Siri easily and no longer have to settle for a draw each time the two of them crossed blades with each other.