CHAPTER 835: 835: DIVINE GAME – CARD SWAP 84

"What were you just thinking about?"

"What do you mean, thinking about what?"

"When you woke up."

"If I say it, you might get mad."

"I won’t."

Rita didn’t believe that for a second, but she still told the truth.

"I was thinking about how you felt when you missed GodDraw77. I was thinking about that thing you once told me—’It won’t stop and wait for you.’" Only now did she fully understand how much unwillingness was hidden in that single line.

"Honestly... they’re not that important. Sure, it’s glorious, but life is long. When you’re older, you’ll realize there are many other honors in Kasilanar waiting for you to claim, plenty of legendary adventures worth singing about."

Lightchaser didn’t say exactly what "they" were, but out here on the glacier, the two—no, three—of them all understood.

"But I’m not grown up yet," Rita countered, her tone firm. "I’m not grown up. In my world, the Lightchaser Moment and GodDraw77 are the brightest legends there are. Just now, I wondered—if I gave up chasing them, would I never have to feel despair or pain?"

"Yes. It hasn’t started yet. You still have time." Lightchaser’s voice was softer than Rita had ever heard it. For a moment, she seemed to understand how Wail had felt all those years ago when she went after the Chernor Queen.

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in her apprentice. She was... maybe afraid.

When she had completed her own Lightchaser Moment, she hadn’t thought about opening GodDraw77 three years in a row. Her only goal had been GodDraw77.

But Rita? She wanted both the Lightchaser Moment and GodDraw77. The pressure was a hundred times greater.

She was the one who told her student not to take it slow, yet when that student charged forward with everything she had, she couldn’t help but feel reluctant.

Unlike those edge-of-death trainings, not even the best healing skill could mend wounds of the heart, and no resurrection skill could bring a dead dream back to life.

Her thoughts were broken by her apprentice’s answer.

"It’s already started, Teacher. The moment I first heard about the Lightchaser Moment, my dream began."

She stopped sneaking glances at Lightchaser and fixed her gaze on the massive Chernor Worm in front of her—98,723 HP left.

"Maybe even earlier. From the moment I bought myself back from you, I was destined to walk the road you walked."

"I don’t want to wait for later. The best story is right in front of me."

"I’m destined to be your apprentice."

...

With her mindset adjusted, Rita treated the giant Chernor Worm as the perfect training dummy for her skills.

Not just the Lightchaser techniques and the Wail technique, but every attack skill she had ever learned at Moonlight Marsh, from B-rank to S-rank.

It felt like going back to being a beginner, sorting through her entire arsenal from scratch.

Every hour, she allowed herself ten minutes of sleep—letting the worm heal 200 HP—so she could keep fighting longer.

She had her shadow from Another Me stand guard and wake her when time was up.

She even reserved thirty seconds to reply to her friends’ messages. Unfortunately, this was Wail’s private territory. Chat was fine, but to receive mail required Wail’s approval—so she couldn’t even have food sent in.

Fine. Without it, she just focused completely on her training.

She had unexpectedly learned something most young people never master—patience.

After waking from that dazed state, it took her another two months to finally complete the kill.

The moment the worm opened its eyes was the same moment it died.

Rita stared blankly at its corpse, hardly believing she’d done it.

She leveled up ten times in one go, straight to Level 27—the kind of level most fifth-years had—faster than any amount of grinding in school.

Still dazed, like someone who’d suddenly graduated, she opened her status panel, eager to see the permanent buff Wail had promised.

Under Unicorn’s Blessing, a new buff appeared.

\[I’m Just That Bored] (Permanent): Every consecutive hit you land increases your attack speed by 0.01. (If more than three seconds pass between hits, or if a hit fails to deal damage to any creature or entity, the combo is broken.)

It was 0.01 attack speed per hit.

Right now, Rita could land one full-power strike per second. If she didn’t go all-out, she could manage 1.5–1.8 strikes per second.

On her panel, that was an attack speed of 1.8.

No kill requirement—just keep the combo going and gain 0.1 attack speed for every ten hits. What did that mean?

A hundred hits for +1.

A thousand for +10.

Hmph. Forget Lightchaser or Wail—soon they’d be calling her Little Rita.

She threw her head back and laughed... until she collapsed mid-laugh.

A hand caught her bony back. Forty-plus days on worm meat and constant overexertion had burned off all the weight she’d worked so hard to put on—she looked like a dried-up little skeleton.

Her status bar showed three full rows of negative conditions, dragging down her HP.

Without Fallen Leaves, she couldn’t use Endless Autumn—she’d have to push through it herself.

Lightchaser’s hand lit up. One top-tier healing skill later, every debuff vanished.

She kicked aside the half-mangled giant Chernor Worm, picked up the dagger it had dropped, and then grabbed her apprentice by the collar. Without ceremony, she teleported straight to Wail’s castle gate and headed upstairs.

Wail watched as the little apprentice’s legs were dragged across the floor—Lightchaser didn’t even bother to lift her, just let her dangle from her grip as she walked.

Wail lifted her pinky as she sipped her tea and couldn’t help commenting. "...I thought you’d carry her on your back."

Lightchaser shot her a disgusted look.

But Wail didn’t let it go. She called after her, "What, what? I used to carry you all the time. Poor dwarf, hauling her beloved apprentice like a mule. Have you forgotten, you ungrateful brat?"

Lightchaser’s temper snapped. She stopped on the stairs and shot back, "Yeah, funny thing—every single time you ’carried’ me, it was pouring rain! I’ve never seen a mule use an elf as an umbrella!"

"...Is that my fault? Your passive skill made it impossible for me to move while holding you."

"Don’t want to talk to you anymore." The excuse did nothing to convince her, and her boots thumped hard against the stairs.

"If you break the floor, it’s going on your bill!"

The footsteps stopped instantly.