Alexander fell down to his knees and he was panting hard after a hard-fought battle against the ogre.
"Alex! Leif!"
Helena and the others worriedly rushed towards Alexander and the unconscious Leif to check on their condition.
Fortunately, although Leif is unconscious and heavily injured, his life is not in jeopardy.
After consuming a strong health potion, Leif's facial expression visibly eased up. As long as they let him rest for a while, he should be able to wake up and continue on the expedition with them.
"Alex! How are you feeling?"
Helena asked worriedly.
"Oh…General! I'm fine. After I drink a strong health potion I should be back in tiptop shape."
"Phew…That's great…You guys had me worried there! I thought you guys were going to die!"
"Apologies…General Helena…We didn't expect that ogre to get so lucky and be able to land a wild swing like that."
"Yeah…I agree that big fat oaf was pretty lucky there…Well never mind that anymore! Congratulations "Swordmaster" Alex!"
Helena smiled widely as she congratulated and teased Alex.
"Thank you general! If you didn't give us this chance I wouldn't have been able to break through. If only Leif didn't get unlucky he would've also…"
Alex looked a bit down even after breaking through. Leif was unfortunately struck by a wild blow and was unable to break through to Swordmaster.
"Hey! Why are you so down?! It's ok, Leif will get another chance to break through! We're all still so young. We got plenty of chances!"
Helena tried to cheer Alexander up.
Although it was indeed a pity that Leif wasn't able to break through, at least he was alive. He will get a lot of chances to break through in the future as long as he keeps training hard.
After hearing what Helena said, Alexander visibly cheered up a little. Indeed, Leif was only unlucky. He'll get more chances.
A little while later, Helena decided to camp for the night here in order to give time for Leif and Alex to recover.
They set up a huge campfire in the marked safe zone and Helena hunted mutated boars and bears for dinner.
She wanted to celebrate Alexander's breakthrough so she hunted lots of mutated animals and roasted them on the huge campfire for everyone.
This night was especially lively for Helena and her men as they enjoyed the early rest and fantastic dinner.
To top it all off, Leif finally woke up and was able to join the celebration.
If only they had liquor, everything would be perfect.
Leif couldn't fully enjoy the night though. He was a bit depressed that he got left behind by Alex again.
Every time they sparred, he would only lose by a very small margin but all the losses kept piling up and it was very frustrating for Leif.
Tonight as well, he got left behind again so he couldn't help but feel a bit depressed.
However, Although Alexander was his rival, he was also his brother-in-arms so the celebration was quite bittersweet for Leif.
After a few more hours of harmonious laughter and chat, Helena ordered the men to rest.
They couldn't celebrate too happily since they were still inside the Forest of Echoes. Anyone could die at any time so they had to properly rest their bodies.
Nighttime quickly passed and morning came.
Helena and her men took a few minutes to prepare themselves before continuing on their expedition.
While walking, Helena thought of the ogre yesterday and she couldn't help but feel annoyed.
Yesterday, she tried to butcher the ogre but there was nothing valuable in its body.
In addition, she also tried to check the ruins of the ogre's house however, she also found nothing.
The ogre was worthless as fuck!
Good thing it helped Alexander break through to Swordmaster or they would've gained nothing from that encounter.
Days passed as Helena and her men kept marching deeper and deeper into the Forest of Echoes
As usual, different sorts of predators kept attacking them but they weren't a threat to Helena and her men.
This time, they even found a large goblin village with around 2,500 goblins and one goblin chief.
Needless to say, they destroyed the goblins easily since they were weaker than the kobolds.
Unfortunately, the goblins were dirt poor so they didn't get anything from them.
Finally, after a few more hours of marching, they found something.
It seems to be an old architecture.
The entrance was wide, moss was growing around it and it seemed to be enticing Helena and the others to enter it.
The winding pathways inside were branching out to many different directions and it seemed to be going deeper and deeper underground.
As per their usual protocol, Helena told the men to guard the entrance while she and the battalion commanders were the ones to go inside to check.
After a few minutes of preparation, Helena and the battalion commanders entered the labyrinth to look for opportunities inside.
Helena made sure to consistently set up various markers to make sure that they would be able to safely return.
They encountered a lot of dead ends so they had to frequently go back and choose another path.
Fortunately for them, this labyrinth seemed like it wasn't so big.
They felt that it was weird though because different creatures such as goblins and kobolds kept on showing up.
However, they were only in small groups and they were patrolling the area like they were guarding something.
Usually, goblins and kobolds live in settlements together with the rest of its kin so encountering small groups of them like this is quite weird.
As they explored deeper into the labyrinth, Helena made sure to draw a crude map every time they explored a new area so that it would be easier in the future if ever they needed to return here.
After a few hours of exploring, they finally arrived at a large hall where they saw a large treasure chest.
Gemstones?!
Helena and the others were shocked upon seeing that the treasure chest contained lots of gemstones that could be embedded into armor and weapons to create enchanted equipment.
They struck it huge this time!
Blanc spent a lot of silver coins just to procure one ignition ruby for Helena.
But this treasure chest contained a lot of different gemstones on the same tier as the ignition ruby.
Heck, It even contained a few ignition rubies!
Unbeknownst to them, a creature who seemed to be the owner of the treasure was lurking on the other far end of the hall.
It was angrily staring at them with its pitch-black eyes as they walked towards the treasure chest.
First chapter of the day ~ Chapter 67 is out! Enjoyy guyss :)
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