Insect Tamer's Ascension

Everyone stood together as a group, facing the two individuals opposite them.

Lysara wore a casual expression, while Garrick sat awkwardly, clearly out of place.

"Are you sure you don’t want to train in any of the extraction processes, Miss Lysara and Sir Garrick? It would help the group," Theo spoke out loud, his tone a little blunt this time, letting his true feelings show.

He could already tell that the others found it unfair too, that these two were doing nothing while everyone else had prepared themselves to contribute at least one thing.

"We don’t need any freeloaders," Merek added with a click of his tongue, drawing even more stares.

Garrick’s panic seemed to have doubled under the pressure.

Lysara, on the other hand, looked at everyone with a plain expression. She rose casually from her seat and walked toward Theo, stopping just a short distance away.

Theo looked down at the girl, waiting for an answer, but instead saw her slowly raise her hand toward his.

He noticed it coming slowly with enough time to dodge. He wasn’t sure whether she was simply that slow to begin with or if it was because of his own heightened senses.

She took a hold of his hand and made him spread his fingers, revealing the fresh claw marks and hardened calluses.

"Do you need these marks, young master Theo?" she asked, her voice unnervingly calm.

Theo glanced at her hands and couldn’t help but feel how smaller and delicate they were, almost fragile, as if they weren’t meant for dangerous situations like this.

"No," Theo replied, making her look into his eyes and give a small nod.

From the side, Clara watched closely and couldn’t help but feel that the girl was a little too close to her young master. She was like a mother trying her best to keep the bad apples away from her son, but lately, according to her, everyone seemed like a bad apple.

Lysara then raised her other hand. Theo sensed the energy coming out of it before she could even fully manifest it. His instincts screamed at him to push her away and create distance, but something told him she meant no harm.

Not with so many eyes on her.

"By the heavenly artifact itself..." Corven, one of the instructors, murmured, pressing his palm against his chest as if he were being religious.

Theo then saw the energy wrap around his hand. Almost instantly, a soothing sensation spread through it, as though his hand were being carefully massaged from within.

A few seconds later, she let go of his hand and looked straight into his eyes.

Theo held her gaze for a moment before instinctively looking away, back at his hand. There was something in her gaze that was making him feel uneasy.

’Damn this teenage hormonal body.’ Theo didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Just a brief interaction with a beautiful girl was enough to throw him off.

How was he supposed to survive in the royal capital?

But once he looked at his hands and saw the changes, he couldn’t help but stare at her in awe.

"All the calluses are gone... some of my old cuts from the sword’s hilt are gone too," Theo muttered.

"Thank you, Miss Lysara."

"Please, just call me Lysara. I am not that old," she replied casually before returning to her seat.

Clara stepped forward and asked in a low voice, "Was that the real deal, young master?"

Theo nodded. His hand felt completely rejuvenated too, and more than that in some way... It was as if her ability had gone far beyond just a normal healing.

"The emperor truly is magnificent! To assign a healer to support this investigation team... truly a blessing!" Oric went on with his ramblings, though almost everyone seemed to have already started ignoring him, especially Lysasa.

Her eyes were fixed on Theo, and his briefly met hers before he turned to the next person.

"Do you have something to show us as well, Sir Garrick?"

Garrick just looked at Theo, panic evident on his face.

"I-I am supposed to be a scout, young master. Doing these sorts of things... it simply isn’t a part of my duties..." he said and averted his gaze.

Theo looked at him and hummed thoughtfully, which only made the guy feel like he was done for.

"Well, we will see how good your scouting skills are compared to my attendant’s. If they’re good, we will let you scout the whole way. If not... you will have to perform whatever tasks we need you for... without any training," Theo said, deliberately putting more pressure on the guy.

Theo didn’t feel bad about it in the slightest; the guy had been sitting idly on his seat for two days now.

"I-I am okay with that..."

"Huh?"

Most looked at him with surprise; the guy didn’t have an ounce of confidence oozing out of him, yet with that single sentence, he had just locked himself in the corner.

"I see..." Theo nodded, then turned toward the instructors and asked. "Do you think we are ready?"

The instructors didn’t even need to decide among themselves. Each of them simply raised a hand in a gesture similar to a thumbs-up.

"You all are more than ready and can leave immediately. And since the time inside the gate always behaves differently, you can enter in the morning, but you could end up in a world that is shrouded in pitch-black darkness." Mae explained with a smile.

"But you will first need to collect your equipment from the workers. They will assist you based on your build and needs," she added.

A worker stepped forward, guiding them forward.

Theo nodded and bowed slightly toward them before moving back to his group.

"Should we leave right away? I don’t think we have done anything too exhausting yet," Theo asked.

"I need a night’s rest," Merek replied.

A vein throbbed on Theo’s head, his annoyance clear this time.

"Fine. Then at least let’s get our equipment today."

To that, everyone nodded in agreement. After witnessing Theo’s strength, Merek didn’t feel inclined to argue that much.

The gate was a lawless zone. The only law ever added there was when the empire’s top military personnel were present and had given those laws, not for this small one.

Anyone could die at any moment, and they needed to be prepared to do anything for survival.