Chapter 157: Monsters In The Middle Of Dinner [III]
Klaus didn’t pull the blade out.
With his left hand firmly gripping her hip, he violently yanked her torso back, kicking his right boot into the side of the pinned beast’s corpse, using the dead monster as leverage to pivot her around.
Tasha gasped as her body was spun smoothly across the ice.
The momentum carried the broadsword out of the dead beast, swinging around in a sweeping low arc that caught the final Frost-Stalker right across its hind legs.
SQUELCH!
The final monster let out an agonized high-pitched shriek as its legs were severed.
It tumbled helplessly across the snowpack, sliding to a halt at Mirela’s boots, where the demi-human maid casually raised her moon-crystal staff and smashed its head in with a single heavy pulse of purple Moon Magic.
PAH!
Silence returned to the valley. The wind whistled softly through the high cliffs, carrying away the last traces of dark blood mist.
The fight was over.
The moment the threat was gone, Klaus released his grip on her hands and stepped back, unclenching his left hand from her hip.
Without his massive frame anchoring her upright, Tasha’s legs completely gave out.
"Ah... h-haah..."
Tasha collapsed forward with her knees slamming heavily into the cold snowpack.
Her hands slipped from the hilt and the colossal Soul Broadsword fell to the side, embedding its heavy tip into the ice with a dull sound.
She was panting so violently her entire upper body was shaking.
Sweat was pouring down her face, instantly freezing into tiny ice crystals against her pale skin.
Her arms felt like they were on fire with her muscles twitching uncontrollably from the extreme lactic acid buildup, and her Spirit Mana reserves were entirely bone-dry.
She sat there in the snow, clutching her trembling arms to her chest with her light blue hair falling messy around her flushed face.
Klaus stood over her.
He didn’t offer a hand, nor did he offer a warm blanket.
He simply stood at his full, towering height with his broad shoulders squared against the moonlight, looking down at her with cold silver eyes.
Internally, Klaus was running a rapid detailed sweep.
’She’s a complete mess,’ Klaus evaluated, his mind comparing her current pathetic state to the canonical lore of Artemis Online.
In the original game timeline, Tasha Morningstar was a formidable top-tier Heroine.
She was a Spirit Mage... a rare and highly versatile archetype built around the concept of Spirit Embodiment.
Unlike standard mages who just cast elemental spells, a Spirit Mage could bond with multiple elemental entities, allowing those spirits to merge with their physical body or weapons to grant completely different elemental forms, physical stat multipliers, and specialized abilities.
In the game’s future, after graduating from the Royal Academy, Tasha was a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.
She wasn’t a walking natural disaster like the Saintess who could literally flatten entire mountain ranges with divine light but she was an extremely versatile combatant capable of adapting to any enemy type.
And yet, looking at her right now... gasping for air, trembling on her knees in the snow, unable to even lift his sword without his hands holding hers, it was almost absurdly comical.
’She would learn elite, high-grade swordsmanship at the Royal Academy,’ Klaus thought, his silver eyes narrowing as he analyzed her flawed breathing. ’Her family’s style is built on speed and thrusts, not heavy swings. But her real growth... her actual power... came entirely from her spirit contracts.’
Without a contracted spirit to act as a core engine, her Spirit Mana was just raw unchanneled fuel leaking into the wind.
She was like a high-performance sports car trying to run without an engine block.
’At this rate,’ Klaus mused with a dry smirk pulling at his mind, ’she wouldn’t even survive the Academy Entrance Exams this month.’
The irony of that thought hit him like a slap, making him inwardly chuckle.
Just a month or so ago, Klaus was sweating blood over whether he would even survive those exact same entrance exams as a nameless mob.
Now, here he was, standing in the middle of a frozen wasteland as a divinely reconstructed Soul King, evaluating a canonical main Heroine’s combat readiness like a grizzled drill sergeant.
Life in this world was a sick joke.
"Your stance is a complete disaster," Klaus’s deep voice broke the silence, cutting through her heavy breathing.
Tasha flinched slightly with her light blue eyes snapping up to look at him. She opened her mouth to defend herself, but Klaus didn’t give her the chance.
"You’re relying on raw arm strength instead of your core," Klaus continued, his tone was matter-of-fact and completely lacking pity. "Your wrists are weak, your footwork on ice is embarrassing, and you’re leaking half your mana reserves because you don’t know how to condense your focus before casting... If you fight like that again, a Tier 2 dire wolf is going to tear your throat out while you’re still trying to lift the blade."
Tasha’s cheeks flushed a deeper red, a mixture of mortification and intense frustration burning in her chest.
She bit her lip, staring down at the snow.
She knew he was right.
If he hadn’t stepped in and grabbed her hands, those Frost-Stalkers would have ripped her in half.
"Starting tomorrow," Klaus declared, reaching down and casually snatching his two-hundred-pound Soul Broadsword out of the ice with one hand, resting it effortlessly over his shoulder. "I’m training you."
Tasha froze. She lifted her head, her light blue eyes wide with stunning surprise.
"You... you’re going to train me?" she whispered, her raspy voice trembling.
A sudden overwhelming wave of genuine joy and hope flared in her chest.
To be trained by a man who could effortlessly wield a two-hundred-pound slab of iron, slaughter high-tier monsters in seconds, and change the laws of magic... it was an opportunity any noble knight would kill for.
"Yes," Klaus grunted. "Unless you prefer being monster bait."
"I don’t!" Tasha blurted out hurriedly, scrambling to her feet despite her aching legs.
She bowed her head deeply toward him, her voice filled with intense, burning gratitude. "Thank you! Thank you, Klaus! I promise I will work hard! I won’t complain, I won’t slack off, I will—"
She paused mid-sentence. Her enthusiastic speech abruptly stalled as reality slammed back into her mind.
Her shoulders slumped, her expression instantly darkening into a anxious, flustered grimace. She looked up at him nervously, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her torn leather tunic.
"I... I just realized..." Tasha stammered, her voice dropping into an embarrassed, hesitant whisper. "I... I have nothing to give you in return. My family is bankrupted, my father is dead, I don’t have any gold, items, or land... How can I ask you to train me when I can’t even pay for my own meals?"
Klaus stared at her for a long second. His face remained locked in a mask of total deadpan indifference.
He didn’t offer a polite heroic speech about charity.
’I can’t believe I’m doing this...’
Instead, Klaus simply stepped forward, reached out his right hand, grabbed Tasha by the front of her torn leather tunic, and casually hoisted her off the ground.
"Eek?!" Tasha squeaked in utter shock.
Her boots dangled uselessly six inches above the snowpack.
She was lifted at eye level with him, forced to look directly into his piercing glowing silver eyes.
Klaus’s expression was cold and completely unimpressed by her sob story.
"Stop with that pathetic line," Klaus commanded. "I don’t give a damn about your bankrupted family or your empty pockets right now."
He leaned in slightly, his sharp handsome features looming close to her flushed face.
"If you have nothing to give me now," Klaus stated plainly, "then you’ll just owe me. You’re going to get stronger, you’re going to survive, and when the time comes where I need something from you later... you’re going to pay up. Understand?"
Tasha stared into his glowing silver eyes with her breath catching hard in her throat.
His words weren’t soft, nor were they kind, but they carried a terrifying certainty that made her heart race.
He wasn’t pitying her...
He was investing in her future value!
She swallowed hard, her light blue eyes shining with a fierce unbreakable resolve as she nodded fervently in his grip.
"I... I understand!" Tasha promised with her voice firm. "I agree! Whatever you ask of me in the future, I will give it!"
"Good," Klaus grunted.
He opened his hand, letting her drop back onto her feet.
Tasha stumbled slightly as her boots hit the snow, but she quickly caught her balance, smoothing down her tunic.
Klaus turned away, rolling his broad shoulders as he looked at his massive Soul Broadsword.
"And for the record... this sword was way too heavy for you anyway. Tomorrow, we start with a wooden stick."
Tasha flushed slightly, but a small determined smile touched her lips. "Yes, Master Klaus!"
"Don’t call me Master," Klaus grumbled, walking toward the battle site. "Mirela already owns that title."
In the background, Mirela’s goat ears perked up, a smug deeply satisfied smile spreading across her face as she puffed her chest out proudly.
"Alright, team," Klaus called out, gesturing toward the field of dead Frost-Stalkers and dire wolves scattered across the snowpack. "Let me show you how we pack the fat."
For the next half-hour, the clearing became a busy efficient butcher shop.
Mirela stepped forward, raising her moon-crystal staff.
With incredible, microscopic precision, the demi-human maid channeled her refined Moon Magic.
She didn’t use explosive force... she shaped the magic into dozens of razor-thin, glowing silver energy blades that flew across the dead monsters.
SWISH. SWISH. SWISH.
In a matter of minutes, Mirela cleanly skinned, shaved, and butchered the fifteen Frost-Stalkers and dire wolves, separating the tough hides, the razor-sharp saber-teeth, and the choice high-protein cuts of monster meat without wasting a single drop.
Tasha watched in absolute awe as Mirela and Klaus hauled the heavy slabs of meat toward the rear of the carriage.
They loaded the meat directly into the large iron-bound supply crates stored in the rear compartment.
These weren’t standard wooden boxes... they were high-tier elite magical containers salvaged from Lord Varhem’s original camp that automatically preserved whatever was placed inside, keeping the meat perfectly fresh indefinitely.
Once the supplies were securely packed and locked away, the group gathered the rest of their grilled King-Trout steaks and headed back inside the carriage, leaving the blood-stained clearing behind.
The interior of the main cabin was warm, cozy, and thick with the comforting scent of wood smoke and food.
They finished their late-night meal around the small wooden table.
Tasha, thoroughly exhausted from the physical strain of the fight, ate two more fish steaks before her eyelids began to droop heavily.
"I’m going to head to the front control room to get us moving again," Klaus announced, standing up from the table and wiping his hands on a rag. He looked at the three girls. "Get some sleep. We have a long drive ahead."
"Goodnight, Master," Mirela said softly, offering him a sweet affectionate smile.
"Operational rest protocols engaged. Goodnight, Father," Anya murmured deadpan, already crawling onto the large fur mattress in the corner.
"Goodnight... and thank you, Klaus," Tasha added, her voice thick with exhaustion as she wrapped herself in a heavy fur blanket beside Anya.
"Night," Klaus grumbled smoothly.
He turned and stepped through the reinforced iron door leading into the front control cabin, closing it firmly behind him.
Once inside, Klaus didn’t sit down immediately. He tapped into his divine core, pushing a steady stream of white Soul Mana into the dashboard.
VWOOM!
The carriage hummed to life.
Outside, the four heavy magical reins locked onto the armored bone-plated mountain bear flared with power.
The giant beast let out a low eager growl with its muscular legs churning through the deep snowpack as it hauled the heavy oak carriage forward, setting a steady rapid pace through the frozen night landscape.
The protective spiked dome of Soul Mana snapped back into existence, spinning smoothly around the moving vehicle to puree any wandering monsters that dared cross their path.
Satisfied that the carriage was stable and on course, Klaus leaned back against the iron door, closing his eyes to rest his mind.
Four hours passed in quiet steady motion.
The moon had reached its zenith, casting a pale ethereal silver glow over the endless, frozen expanses of the northern continent.
Outside the carriage, the wind was a low steady whisper with the temperature dropping to brain-numbing levels.
Inside the control room, Klaus opened his glowing silver eyes.
He turned around, silently unlatching the iron door, and peeked his head into the main cabin.
The room was completely quiet, illuminated only by the faint, dying amber glow of the alchemical lantern hanging from the ceiling.
On the massive, fur-lined mattress in the corner, all three girls were fast asleep.
’It’s time...’