The Ashen Expanse.
A na so edgy it sounded like it belonged on the cover of a tal album.
It was once considered the most dangerous region in all four kingdoms, where corrupt mana choked the air and beasts mutated into nightmare fuel—now it served a new purpose.
It was Raven’s unofficial romantic boot camp.
However, it was safe only because it was the outer region.
If they were to go deeper, then things would be dangerous.
But since they didn’t, it wasn’t sothing they had to worry about.
Right now, deep inside a moss-covered cave, lit by soft blue because of the mana stones kept in the surroundings, the group sat comfortably on conjured stone benches as distant howls echoed through the corrupted forest.
The cave entrance lay littered with twitching wolf-like beast corpses, all in various states of very-much-dead.
Clara sipped her tea calmly as another corrupted beast attempted a surprise leap through the cave mouth, only to explode mid-air from a vibration pulse that made it disintegrate like overcooked lasagna.
"Another one?" She asked without looking back.
Selena sighed, her shadow stretching out like a yawning cat. A demonic, fanged, soul-eating cat. "Twelve this hour."
They were coming from the outside and the inside, as this was their cave, and so of them had gone out to hunt.
It was then that Graye clanked in from the side of the cave, dragging three more mangled wolf corpses. "These puppies aren’t even trying anymore!"
"They were terrifying two years ago," Rufus muttered while tuning his black-and-red nano gauntlet, "and now they feel like low-level tutorial mobs."
Yes, these were the sa beasts that they had faced during their final trial of the cradle.
These beasts had co rushing at them with their big daddy, the stage five corrupt beast.
When Damien had killed their big daddy, they had all run away.
The others hadn’t chased them because they weren’t great threats.
Above all, Raven had asked Crisaius to let them be left behind so his group could slay them later.
Now, they were doing it.
It was their revenge.
"Ding ding ding!" Alex announced while throwing up a peace sign, Nibbles perched on his shoulder, holding up a sign that read, "CONGRATS! You are now OP!"
Raven leaned against a smooth stone wall, bare-chested because Clara, Selena, and Siris had asked him to stay like that.
They wanted to see how long he could stay without his shirt—or at least that’s what they said.
Now, his coat hung beside him, and his sword, Omni, rested in his hand in tattoo form, currently gossiping like a chatty old man.
"Ey, Raven, ya know I respect ya, but you’re makin’ it real hard for the other fellas out here, showin’ off them pecs while surrounded by three girlfriends. Gim a break, bro."
Raven chuckled. "Bla the girls. They said that they wanted this as a reward for all the things they had been through for so ti."
At that mont, Clara slid over beside him and leaned in, giggling.
"What’s the problem with this?" she asked, her eyes warm and calm. "No one’s saying they hate it."
Before Raven could respond, she kissed him softly, sweetly, confidently, and just long enough to send static into the air.
"Again?" Siris said from the other side, perched on a boulder, sharpening one of her twelve daggers.
Her blue eyes narrowed. "It’s my turn now."
She appeared behind him like an antimagic ninja and pulled his face toward hers in a kiss far more aggressive.
Raven nearly lost his balance.
Selena watched both kisses with regal amusent.
"My turn," she said, walking forward like a shadowy queen.
She cupped Raven’s face, pulled him close, and kissed him gently but possessively as her shadow curled around his waist like a jealous octopus.
Jake raised an eyebrow but didn’t say a word.
Jessy stared straight ahead with laser focus on her magnetic training ball—absolutely, definitely not sneaking glances.
Graye stomped forward, her armor clanking like a codic death march. She raised a gauntleted hand. "My turn."
Raven looked up slowly.
"Graye..."
"Just one kiss!" She cried. "I almost died twice today!"
"That’s because you tripped on your own sword."
"I almost died, Raven!"
He held up a hand. "We’re not at that level yet."
Graye let out the saddest tallic sigh in history and flopped to the ground, armor and all. "Denied by plot developnt..."
Lia sat near the back, quietly watching the flas flicker on the cave walls, her cheeks flushed.
She didn’t say anything.
She just stared at Raven, her eyes trailing down to his lips for a mont... then quickly away. Then back again.
In her head, the fantasy played: A kiss under the moonlight. Windswept hair. Raven calling her "my tsundere princess" while soft violins played in the background.
In reality, she just pulled her hood tighter and muttered, "Stupid main character aura..."
"Soone say sothing?" Raven asked.
"No!" Lia snapped a little too fast. "Go be romantic over there!"
They all relaxed again as another beast tried to enter, only to be eaten whole by Selena’s shadow mouth with a wet chomp.
"So..." Rufus began, stretching out on the floor with a contented grunt. "What do you guys think about the news that’s been going around?"
The first one to speak was surprisingly Jake. "..We’re dead for the public."
Jessy conjured a magnetic screen—or, more like, iron particles stuck together—and made the front page of the front page of a capital newspaper: "VAISE HEROES FALL IN BATTLE—SACRIFICE SAVES PATRIARCH."
Underneath was an exaggerated painting of Raven standing on a mountain of demon corpses, arms spread as if he were yelling, "I AM THE LAW."
Selena humd, observing the image closely. "That’s actually a good portrait."
Raven leaned forward, scanning the headlines. "So... the king’s going through with this?"
Clara nodded. "It’s not bad, though. With us ’dead,’ our enemies will stop hunting us for a while, and since we are going to train, we will grow without anyone realizing."
Raven nodded. "By the ti we return to the outside world—"
"We’ll be literal living legends," Siris finished, hugging him from behind before she raised her bone dagger. "And I get to stab anyone who questions it."
"Don’t forget the free food," Graye added hopefully.
"You think we’ll get parades?" Rufus asked.
"I want a statue," Alex declared. "A heroic pose of and Nibbles. It would be better if we were shirtless."
Nibbles raised his sign, "Make Buff."
Jessy snorted. "I’ll take free rent."
"I just want Raven," Siris mumbled.
Clara patted her shoulder. "We all do."
Lia stared at the dancing shadows. "We should still be careful. If word gets out we’re alive..."
Raven nodded. "It won’t. I talked with Father about it. And believe , he’s good at his job."
Just outside the cave, another beast howled in the distance and was imdiately slamd into the ground by a flying Graye, who yelled, "DEAD THING GET SMASHED!"
THUD.
"She’s getting stronger," Jake noted calmly.
"Well, she levels up through violence," Selena muttered. "Though her buff would run out in a while."
Suddenly, a scroll popped out of Nibbles’ tiny ssenger pouch. He unrolled it dramatically.
The sign read, "Training Arc Escalation Romantic Side Quests, when?"
Raven glanced around at his chaotic, semi-romantic party of overpowered misfits and sighed.
"As soon as we finish all this," he said. "The training arc begins in a few hours tops. As for romance, it has already begun."
Omni’s voice rumbled from his palm. "Just rember, my boy... when the romance starts flowing, keep one eye open. Yanderes are cute until your shirt’s missing and your sword’s wearing lingerie."
Raven blinked. "...Omni, what—?"
But he paused as his eyes caught sight of Siris smiling way too innocently from the shadows.
Raven quickly made a note to sleep with one eye open.
While he was doing that, he didn’t forget his main objective.
He did co here to train.
This ti, Crisaius won’t be here with them. That old man had also gone into seclusion.
Even Argon wanted to do the sa, but he couldn’t because he had responsibilities.
Argon is the patriarch of the family.
He can’t abandon his position.
Not unless there was soone capable of handling things in his absence.
In Argon’s eyes, there were only two people who could do it. One was Crisaius, and the other was Raven, but both of them were going into seclusion.
Raven, however, planned on giving Argon the Soul Kiln Purification Art the next ti they t, which would be soon because Argon had said that he would be coming here to check up on them once every week.
Soon, with his objective in mind, Raven opened his system interface and opened the trade channel.
There were a few things he had to do before the training arc began.
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