The explosion was so violent that Avery's body was thrown far beyond the borders of the Kingdom of Azzaroth on the Dark Continent.

Mark was limply paralyzed, his left hand severely injured, and his mana drained after withstanding the Jommon's blast.

He fell to his knees, breathing heavily with blurry eyes looking ahead. He deactivated the protective light magic as the smoke and wind of the explosion began to subside.

Mark looked to the side, taking a clear look at Beatrice, who still lay unconscious on the red ground, the fatal wounds on her body from Jommon's fire bursts leaving her paralyzed.

"Is there a rescue team coming?" Mark looked back, hoping that there was a human army coming to the place to help them.

Mark's both eyes could visibly see flags with white backgrounds and eagle emblems approaching from the direction of the hill. Mark could breathe a sigh of relief; it was a convoy of troops from Lancaster.

"Save Avery!" Mark shouted.

"Cough!"

Just as Mark was about to shout again and walk towards them, his body collapsed on the ground. He was finding it difficult to move his body, and even Mark's eyes were closed with his breathing ragged.

Some soldiers who noticed there were two injured people immediately galloped their horses to meet the two persons. They arrived and could see Mark and Beatrice in an alarming condition.

"Medical team! Come at once," ordered the captain of the troop.

They immediately rushed to the two persons, treating them with their healing magic. Mark tried to open both eyes slowly, looking up at one of the medics healing him.

Mark's right hand pulled hard on the woman's armor, startling the soldier, but the woman was immediately calmed down by their captain.

"Find Avery. He was blown away by the explosion," stated Mark.

"We'll do it. You don't have to worry, Master Mark," declared the troop captain, trying to calm the agitated Mark.

Hearing the captain was going to search for Avery calmed Mark's heart. Mark closed his eyes and allowed the medic to treat his body more intensely.

The captain of the rescue forces started to stand up, turning his head towards the side where the cavalry was waiting to receive orders.

"Do as he said," the man ordered.

The three cavalrymen nodded, agreeing to carry out the orders given by their leader.

The three cavalrymen rode away, heading south to find Avery. If he had indeed been affected by the blast, it was likely that Avery had bounced not far from the explosion's center.

They continued to search for Avery's whereabouts relentlessly in every single direction they went. However, the cavalrymen couldn't find Avery.

Several hours of searching showed no good results. They thought if Avery couldn't be found, the worst-case scenario was his body being torn apart by the explosion.

Disappointed, the three returned on horseback and told their captain about the result.

The captain nodded. Despite the failure, the man still insisted on ordering them to find Avery's body, either in an unidentified or recognizable state.

"Keep searching. Don't let up on your watch!" insisted the troop captain.

"Alright."

***

The next day.

Waterside Village

A small family in a corner of Waterside Village worked as corn farmers with a land area of 1 ha. The farm size was pretty small for a corn farmer in the village.

The three ate breakfast together in the morning: corn soup with a mix of potatoes and other vegetables.

"Enlistment as a town soldier has been opened; I have to get ready," explained Joyce Geste, a skinny, muscular 17-year-old, the only child of Sigor and Hilda Geste.

Sigor, a 45-year-old middle-aged man with a bulky build and a bald head, sat eating his corn soup while listening to his son say, "Did Randall tell you about it?"

"Yeah. He was planning to—"

"Stop it. There's no need for you to join them," Sigor insisted, rudely interrupting Joyce's speech.

Joyce's eyes squinted intensely, looking at his father, who was eating on the left side of his body. "Why are you forbidding me?"

"The city soldiers are blackmailers. They don't hesitate to blackmail the poor like us," Sigor revealed.

"You will be told to pay some gold to enter. In the end, you will still fail even after paying," Sigor continued.

Sigor took a sip of corn soup and finished all the contents of the wooden bowl. "Forget your soldier dreams. The fate of poor people like us is to be farmers."

"What a wretch!" growled Joyce.

The young man slammed the dining table with force, causing his wooden bowl of soup to spill all over the table. Sigor glanced sharply to the side, trying to intimidate his son.

"Do you remember the man named Hamo? He died by suicide because of madness. The madness that came after he sacrificed his belongings to join the city's soldiers," Sigor insisted.

Sigor's rough hands gripped the collar of Joyce's clothes, pulling his son closer. Instantly, Joyce's confidence crumbled as his father stared angrily at him.

"I don't want to see you turn into a coward like those city soldiers. We are farmers; we give them food. We're more honored than those bloody soldiers!" Sigor snarled.

"You say that because you've failed. You're taking your failure personally on me!" insisted Joyce.

BUGH!

Sigor landed a heavy punch in Joyce's stomach, leaving the young man curled up on the floor, groaning in pain. Hilda could do nothing; Sigor was so dominant in the house that no one could stand up against him.

"Go to the fields; we need to pick the corn. Lord Jacob will need it soon!" Sigor commanded.

Holding back the pain and the heart burning with resentment, Joyce strode out of the house by kicking the door, swearing harshly at Sigor, his father.

"What a bastard," Joyce complained as he walked forward, picking up the wooden bucket and carrying it on his back, where he would put the corn ready for harvest.

When Joyce looked ahead, he surprisingly found black smoke wafting from the center of the Geste family's cornfield.

"Damn, they burned it again!" Joyce growled.

"Father, they're doing it again to our field!" Joyce shouted.

Hearing Joyce screaming and telling him what happened to their cornfield made Sigor rush away.

He picked up the rusty iron sword he possessed because of his previous obsession with being a soldier, then stepped together with Joyce, who seemed to be holding a pitchfork.

The two men stepped into the cornfield quickly, trying to approach the source of the black smoke rising faintly from the center of the field.

When they got there, they were shocked to see that instead of burning, a man was lying on top of their cornfield.

He lay naked, with black hair and an athletic body. Sigor, who had lived in Waterside for many years, had never seen the man's face; it looked strange.

"What the—"

Joyce and Sigor's attention was caught by the veins all over the body of the naked young man before them, sticking out in maroon color as if the veins were about to explode and spurt all their blood over this cornfield.

"Hurry up and get him out of my field. I don't want his filthy blood dirtying my corn," Sigor ordered.

Joyce nodded. He immediately wrapped the young man's arms around his neck, dragging him away from the center of the field.

Sigor could only shake his head to find the corn in the center area destroyed and unsellable. He still stood with his waist ruffled, looking at the cornfield.

"Who is he exactly? I'll ask for compensation after he wakes up."

After complaining, Sigor decided to return to the house to check and ask the mysterious man many questions.

But before he reached the house, a rather small explosion was heard inside. The bald-headed corn farmer rushed away by dashing into the house.

"What's going on?" asked Sigor, opening the door to the house and seeing his wife, Hilda Geste, groaning in pain from being knocked off her feet by the force of the mysterious man's body.

Joyce helped his mother to stand up. Hilda was sent flying for no reason. She knew a bit of healing magic. She was initially about to heal the mysterious man with her magic, but something blocked the healing magic and caused a small explosion.

The explosion only affected Hilda, while the man didn't. That made Sigor's confusion even more puzzling.

"Throw him out of my house," Sigor declared.

"If you kick him out, you won't be able to get any compensation for the fields," argued Joyce.

"He's probably from the noble class and stuff. We can put him on the slave market; the price will be high," added Joyce.

Sigor was always tempted by money, whatever the amount. Hearing Joyce's plan made Sigor soften. The bald-headed old man decided to let the mysterious man be cared for now.

"Alright. After he wakes up, we'll take him to the slave market."