Chapter 317: Legendary Adventure Team, The Same Consensus

CRASH!

SHATTER!

A sharp crack echoed through the air.

The bottle exploded over Felix’s head.

Strong, amber-colored liquor, mixed with shards of glass, rained down on Felix.

Fortunately, as a Close Combat Professional, Felix’s body was incredibly tough.

A physical blow of this level couldn’t hurt him in the slightest.

But.

The crude, direct “headshot” had well and truly stunned him.

He sat there dazedly, letting the pungent alcohol run down his cheeks.

Just moments ago, he had been mired in self-reproach and inner turmoil.

But the sudden, heavy blow, combined with the sharp sting of alcohol, forcibly snapped him out of it.

“Are you insane?! Viters?”

Julius shot up from his chair, shouting the question.

‘Who in the world comforts someone by hitting them? Isn’t this just asking for a fight?!’

“There. Feeling a little better now?”

Viters completely ignored Julius’s question.

He casually tossed away the jagged bottleneck still in his hand.

Then he plopped down brazenly on a wooden crate across from Felix.

He grabbed another intact bottle of strong liquor, bit the cork out with his teeth, and took a long swig. GULP, GULP.

Then, he took out another new bottle and tossed it to Julius, who was still standing there in a daze.

Julius fumbled to catch it.

“Where’s Lance?”

Viters asked, wiping the liquor from the corner of his mouth.

“He should have a way to solve this mess.”

There was no panic in Viters’s voice, only a strange and unwavering certainty.

Clutching the bottle, Julius answered truthfully, “After Lance heard the news, he went off alone to get revenge on the Crimson Bell of Death. He’s not back yet.”

“However…”

Julius paused, recalling the moment.

“Before he left camp, he ran into me at the gate and told me this himself.”

“He told me to tell you all to leave everything to him from here on out.”

Hearing this, Viters held out a bottle of liquor to Felix, then tapped him hard on the shoulder with the bottle in his own hand.

“You heard him, right?”

Viters said, looking at Felix’s eyes, which were slowly regaining their light.

“Things aren’t at their most desperate yet. If that kid dares to say something like that, he must have his reasons.”

Felix roughly wiped the liquor and glass shards from his face.

It was strange.

The suffocating weight that had been crushing him just moments before had miraculously dissipated after Viters’s “headshot.”

He took the bottle of liquor from Viters but didn’t drink it.

Instead, he looked at Viters and listened as he continued.

“He’s… very special.”

“The more I’m around him, the more I sense that unique quality he has.”

Viters looked at the others.

“He gives me the feeling… like he’s the protagonist of some epic tale, chosen by fate.”

Viters paused, his eyes fixed on Felix.

“But you should also know that people like him are like a giant whirlpool.”

“The closer you get, the more dangerous it is. Isn’t that right?”

At these words, it was Felix’s turn to be surprised.

‘Viters knows?’

That last rhetorical question was clearly aimed directly at him.

“If you really want to follow a protagonist destined to write epics…”

The smile vanished from Viters’s face, and his tone grew serious.

“Then the crises you’ll face in the future will only be more numerous than today’s, never fewer.”

“If a single setback like this is enough to completely crush you…”

Viters took a swig of liquor and mocked him mercilessly.

“Then I suggest that if you make it out of this alive, you go back to the Royal Capital and be a well-behaved young noble. This path isn’t for you.”

Listening to Viters’s taunts, Felix didn’t argue.

But Viters wasn’t finished.

“However,”

Viters turned his head, gazing at the camp bathed in the dim, yellow light of the distance.

“Faced with a dead end like this…”

“I really can’t think of any way to get all ten thousand of us out of here safely.”

“There’s no way a Space Item that could instantly transport ten thousand people exists in this world.”

Viters’s grip on the bottle tightened slightly.

“If… he can actually pull something like that off this time…”

For some reason,

just imagining that incredible scene made Viters’s own heart pound wildly in his chest.

After all.

As a Warrior who yearned for glory,

who wouldn’t look forward to personally taking part in and writing their own epic in a magnificent, sweeping era?

“…If that’s the case, then please, save a spot for me in the future Red Dragon United Strategy Group. Always.”

Viters’s voice suddenly rang out beside him.

Felix turned his head in surprise, looking at Viters, who was now staring blankly down from their vantage point.

‘Well, I’ll be damned.’

‘Now people are fighting over the chance to be a subordinate?’

Still, Viters had a point.

The only thing they could do now was trust Lance completely.

Felix’s mind suddenly recalled the many strange legends about Emperor Clovis’s rise from humble beginnings.

Maybe that young man really could turn the impossible into reality once again?

Just thinking about that possibility was enough to completely sweep away the gloom that had been hanging over Felix’s heart.

“Alright.”

Felix finally shook out his long, golden hair, now sticky with liquor, and looked at Viters with a helpless expression.

“Viters. Next time you want to comfort someone, can you please try a more normal method?”

“Just using your words would be fine. This… now I stink of alcohol. It’s embarrassing.”

Hearing Felix’s complaint, Viters roared with laughter and spat out a single word: “Pretentious.”

In truth,

although the two seemed to have reached a subtle consensus,

when it came to specific plans for the future, Felix and Viters’s ideas were more than a little different.

As someone born a Great Noble, Felix was thinking in terms of kingmaking—the glory of helping a new king ascend the throne.

But Viters, a pragmatist from a military background, had a much simpler and purer idea.

He believed that with the Command and terrifying power Lance had shown, he was more than qualified to establish a brand new “Legendary Adventure Team” once they got out.

Within the Kingdom’s system,

an officially recognized Legendary Adventure Team held a transcendent status.

To win over these top-tier fighting forces, the Royal Family would even go so far as to directly grant them vast, fertile territories as their exclusive bases.

The social standing of its members within the Kingdom was not only on par with most hereditary nobles, but they also enjoyed greater freedom, unburdened by the Kingdom’s tedious formalities and etiquette.

They could rely on their formidable strength to leave behind even more tales of Legend in the continent’s history.

Moreover,

the actual military deterrent possessed by such a Legendary Adventure Team was in no way inferior to that of a powerful Duke commanding his own army.

Viters clearly remembered the historical records.

During the brutal royal conflict back then, the losing branch of the royal bloodline was facing complete liquidation—a fate of being utterly wiped out.

It was only because the Legendary Adventure Team of that era, [Star Cross], forcefully intervened and offered them sanctuary.

That was the only reason that branch of the Royal Family survived to this day.

Even now, from time to time, a Royal Dragon Descendant from that very bloodline will join the ranks of [Star Cross] incognito to gain experience.

That was the true strength and Energy of a Legendary Adventure Team!