The ground shook twice more before they reached the clearing.

Not back to back — at forty-second intervals, just as the hunters’ report had described.

Kai counted them.

Serah felt them with her feet before they reached her ears.

Lira noticed them in the frequency the mount emitted, which her vampiric senses had been processing since morning.

The clearing was large — the size of the Valdris market plus the inn plus the space between them.

The northern sector trees ended at a clean edge, as if something had decided at some point that the trees went that far and no further, and the resulting space was packed earth and flat rock and three hundred Orcs...

The three stopped at the tree line.

They looked at the clearing.

"That’s a lot," Kai said.

"Three hundred," Serah said.

"And they’re fighting?"

"They’re training," Lira said.

---

It wasn’t training.

Or it was training in the sense that someone was learning something.

Two meters ten of SSS Ogre Warlord moving among her own warriors.

She didn’t crush them — she tested them. One exchange with each, enough to read the state of their training, enough for them to feel the difference between their level and hers.

The Orcs wore light armor — not the heavy armor of the southern kingdom armies, the version a warrior wears when they trust their body more than the metal covering it.

And the body it covered was substantial.

"Why do the SS and SSS seem so disadvantaged against them?" Kai said, watching two A-rank Orcs who had needed to work together to sustain the exchange with Mara before she discarded them and moved on to the next. "If rank measures power, how does an Orc without magic rival Serah?"

Lira looked at him.

"Seriously, you don’t get it?"

"No."

Lira looked at the clearing.

"Rank doesn’t measure power absolutely. It measures power in relation to what others can do." She nodded toward the Orcs.

"They don’t classify you S or higher just because, or because you’re a creature different from humans. It’s because of your strength level compared to others in your same threat category."

"And the threat category is defined by what?"

"What you can do and what you can’t." Lira kept watching the clearing.

"An S-rank mage has devastating magic. But if someone with enough physical strength reaches them before they activate anything, they crush them in seconds. Magic is useless if you don’t have time to use it." Pause.

"That’s why those who rely entirely on magic are S — devastating at range, vulnerable to direct contact. Those with more than one ability but with a weak point somewhere are SS. And those with everything at the same level of control are SSS."

"Like me," Serah said.

Kai gave her a pat on the backside without taking his eyes off the clearing.

"Don’t interrupt when Lira is explaining."

Serah’s markings pulsed with excitement.

Lira looked at the two of them.

"I wouldn’t mind receiving one either," she thought.

She said it very quietly.

No one answered.

Lira looked at the clearing.

’Luckily no one heard. What’s happening to me? Ever since I tasted his blood I can’t help feeling this way, and what I saw in the labyrinth only made it worse.’

---

[DraconicLegacy: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ KAI GAVE SERAH A PAT ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ]

[Chris_Murray: LIRA WHISPERED THAT SHE WOULDN’T MIND ONE EITHER (°ロ°)]

[Warwolf: "no one heard" — Lira convincing herself]

[Per_Sundin: Serah processing the pat. It excited her. The markings confirm it.]

[Kalgarth: Kai told Serah "don’t interrupt" like it was the most natural thing. Serah said nothing. That’s significant.]

[Drakeking: Lira explaining the rank system with eight hundred years of precision while processing Kai giving Serah a pat. Multitasking.]

[TheDeadDragón: "no one heard. or so she thinks." — The narrator knows more than Lira.]

---

Mara detected them before they finished processing what they had just seen.

She was facing away from the tree line when she raised her head.

Kai’s resonance Qi, which had been responding to the mount since the day before, had risen during the walk to a level Mara couldn’t ignore even if she wanted to.

She turned.

She looked at them.

Three hundred Orcs followed her gaze.

---

Mara walked toward them.

Each step with the weight of something that knows exactly how much it weighs and has no problem with it.

Two meters ten in height with the proportions of a warrior, turning every centimeter into an instrument — not the clumsy mass of something that just grew, and her figure looked different from what was expected of a creature focused on physical strength.

Black hair pulled back in thick braids that ended with something metallic at the tips.

Dark green skin with the marks of scars that combatants carry.

Light armor of the same type as her warriors but with modifications — reinforced points where Mara had decided she needed it and open points where she had decided speed mattered more.

A physical build not slender but not that of a bodybuilder either, and her chest and thighs were...

’Very large...’ Kai thought.

Mara saw them and immediately looked them straight in the face.

And a smile reflected on her face.

This one was genuine, the kind someone has when something turns out more interesting than expected and they have no reason to hide it.

She stopped three meters from the three.

She looked at them sequentially — at Serah, at Lira, at Kai.

She stayed on Kai.

"Warlord," she said, as a full introduction. "This territory is mine."

"Kai Reno," Kai said. "I don’t have territory."

"I know." Mara looked at the point on Kai’s chest where the resonance Qi emanated most intensely. "What you have is more interesting than territory."

---

[DraconicLegacy: MARA (°ロ°) (°ロ°) (°ロ°)]

[Chris_Murray: TWO METERS TEN. TWO METERS TEN.]

[Warwolf: "what you have is more interesting than territory" — Mara detected the resonance Qi in the first second]

[Per_Sundin: Mara looked at Serah and Lira and stayed on Kai. Both noticed that.]

[Kalgarth: Serah’s markings. Lira’s sunglasses. Both noticed where Mara’s gaze went.]

[Drakeking: Mara has the genuine smile from the first second. She’s been searching for something for a while. She thinks she found it.]

[TheDeadDragón: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ]

---

Lira looked at Mara with the assessment she had for things that required being assessed.

"You’re very far from the original Orc territory."

Mara looked at her.

"Yes."

"The eastern sector is weeks away on foot."

"I know. I walked."

"Why?"

Mara looked at the clearing behind her — the three hundred Orcs who had gone back to training when they saw the situation wasn’t immediate combat.

"The ones from the original territory went soft." She said it without bitterness — like an administrative fact.

"Pacifists. They wanted to establish treaties with the southern kingdoms. Trade. Diplomacy." She looked back at the three. "I wanted to find someone who could rival me. You can’t find that negotiating treaties."

"And did you find it?" Kai said.

Mara looked at him.

The smile held.

"Not yet." Pause. "But it’s the first time the mount has responded to someone arriving."

Kai looked at the mount behind her.

"I noticed."

"Did it bother you?"

"No."

Mara looked at the three of them again — the full assessment.

"You can stay." She turned toward the clearing. "As long as you don’t interfere with the training."

"And if we want to train?" Kai said.

Mara stopped without turning around.

"Then train." A pause. "But there are rules here."

"How many?"

"Three." She kept walking toward the clearing. "I’ll explain them at the camp."

---

[DraconicLegacy: "the ones from the original territory went soft" — Mara and Kai have the same thing in common: both are where they are because the previous place wasn’t enough]

[Chris_Murray: "it’s the first time the mount has responded to someone arriving" — Mara’s been here a while. No one had made the mount respond before Kai.]

[Warwolf: "did it bother you?" "no" — Kai and Mara in two words establishing that both are interested in the same thing]

[Per_Sundin: Mara let them stay without conditions except three rules she still hasn’t explained. Kai asked if he could train. Mara said yes.]

[Kalgarth: Serah’s markings in the pulse of when she’s assessing something new. Not hostile — attentive.]

[Drakeking: Lira has her sunglasses on watching Mara’s back walking away. Neutral face. She’s calculating.]

[TheDeadDragón: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ the Mara arc begins ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ]

---

The three hundred Orcs watched them pass as the three followed Mara toward the camp.

Not with hostility — with assessment.

Kai looked back at them.

Serah looked at them with her primordial aura in reading mode — registering the level, the distribution of strength, the movement patterns of things that had spent the last few minutes training.

Lira looked at them with her sunglasses on.

"Three hundred," Kai said quietly.

"Three hundred and one Orcs," Serah said.

"The extra one is Mara?"

"Mara counts for a hundred."

Lira looked ahead.

"More," she said.

---

[System — notification]

[Passive resonance Qi: 78% — external mount influence active]

[The system notes that the entity on Mount Heiguers is Mara, SSS Ogre Warlord]

[The system notes that Mara detected Kai’s resonance Qi in the first second]

[The system notes that Kai asked if he could train]

[Current viewers: 5,200,000]

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Exxs’s Note: We’ve finally reached Chapter 100! Thank you to everyone who has been reading this novel, even though it still has a lot of room for improvement. Thank you so much for the support, both with Power Stones and Golden Tickets. I really didn’t think I’d make it to Chapter 100. I hope you’ll all be here even when we reach Chapter 200!