The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'
Chapter 259 - The Successful Warrior Is The Average Heiress, With Qat-Like Focus

Chapter 259: Chapter 259 - The Successful Warrior Is The Average Heiress, With Qat-Like Focus

A dark haired teen girl’s head turned in the direction the brunette was looking. Her braid sloshed to the side and back again.

"Master, was that a snake?"

"My, how observant. Though you should be keeping your tracking lessons in mind right now, and watching for signs of humans traveling through this area. I would not trust that I know what I’m doing, Nohre."

The slight warning and reminder made the young cultivator nod before staring hard at the brush while keeping up with the other two. In a way, their roles were flipped - and now Fusand thought that her way of walking while looking at the ground looked a little foolish. A finger flicked him in the forehead and stole the smile on his face.

"The moment they announced the competition location, someone as studious as you could have requested a first copy at any of their branches if you were willing to pay for it. I took for granted that you would have known this."

The older map appeared next, the details mostly the same except the removal of the perimeter estimate of the event location. She also had the sketch they kept of the overall layout of the grounds stored away in the fragment designed to keep such convenient memories.

’If he makes it to Breacher, I can start to show him how to store information that way. For a knowledge lover like him, he’s sure to offer up anything to learn it. Should be a good test of his humanity in a century or two.’

Elua had no intention of speeding along their path to the higher realms, like she was her own. Not unless they asked specifically for it. It was one thing for her... with millennia of experience, to ’skip’ some steps in the growth process - but another for any of the ’children’ under a century of age.

Even Qatrand, though she gave her lots of advice so that the girl could train at a better pace, had never been advised to grow faster than was wise. Experience was everything for those that were not geniuses.

"If you had, then your visit would have been a chance to compare their map against reality. To check and note where the land might flood first, if torrential rainstorms occur. Where to take cover if a wind vortex tears across the land. As well as which spots stay dry enough to camp in if you had need to."

Nohre’s green eyes shook as she realized the implication.

To her, Elua was someone quite good at pretending to be a person that moves with the flow, so it was simple to overlook how much hard work must sit behind everything she did. A lot of people had been calling her a prodigy... and even the two disciples had let that get to them.

’But she explains things too well, unlike people who are just... *good* at something.’

Their master had been preparing for something like this - rather, trying to prepare for *anything* - long before the theft occurred. She hadn’t just explored wildly and come across her own campsite. She had prepared them clothes, taught them who to look out for from the attendees, and so much more.

"Speaking of finding camping spots - hop down and tell me what the marks on the ditch wall ahead tell you about recent water flow? Ah, and it did rain semi-heavily about two weeks ago."

The braided teen moved closer to examine where Elua pointed.

"It looks like the old waterline was once much higher than recent flows. This one stays relatively dry now."

"Good. Fusand, how does that fit with your theory about their route? Does this seem like the sort of place"

The boy traced the gully’s path with his eyes, mind clicking pieces together.

"It’s a little small to move quickly through without their heads being visible. They’d want to avoid the wetter branches if they’re carrying the cages, they’d need stable footing."

"Well, there is no guarantee they put them back in cages, but you’re still right that they’d want the most stable paths. And that old riverbed you mentioned earlier? Did you see one in either direction on the map?"

"Yes! It would be the perfect meeting point! The larger channels all seem to..."

His voice trailed off as his eyes followed the natural flow of the terrain towards its confluence. Even without the map in hand, the pattern of it all was becoming clear now that he was giving it such thought. So was that the girl leading them had already come to the same conclusions.

However, in her case... part of it was working backwards.

She did know in which directions to look because of her maps, but it was her ridiculously sensitive spirit - and the mass of energy behind it - that she knew how to spread more thinly and farther than anyone should... that allowed her to find the location and directions of the thieves.

’Practically the moment we started out from the event grounds. But they’d learn nothing except how scary I am to have as an enemy if I didn’t let them work some of the tracking out on their own.’

"Master, I think we’re getting close to where they might have been camped."

"Indeed. And what else should we notice about our surroundings in this situation?"

The ancient cultivator’s tone suggested this was no longer merely a teaching exercise. It had lost some of its lecturing quality and gained more of her strange monotone. Her dulling mint eyes remained fixed ahead up the riverbed where her spirit had already located their quarry.

Elua’s steps finally slowed as they approached signs of a hasty camp breakdown. Scuffed earth and flattened sections of river pebbles where people had sat and tents had lain. Scattered remnants of a half buried latrine pit. No obvious space for fire, because they were at least *that* smart to avoid being seen at night.

As she pretended to actually care about all of that so that the pair would also look around at the details, she laid her pole carefully on the ground between her and them.

"Stay behind this line. Watch very closely, but do not engage. Learn what you can."

The monotone voice spoke as she straightened up and turned around. A tall man emerged from behind an outcropping up ahead. His short blade was already drawn but the stance he held betrayed his bit of hesitance.

’It’s just some greenhorns. Half my size and... wait isn’t that-

Her advance didn’t slow even on the dry and smooth rock strewn path. His hands clenched tight around his hilt as he rushed to cut off the Goltbred heiress from moving past him. Her flowing movement seemed almost gentle as she caught his hasty sword arm. Then it looked effortless as she redirected his momentum...

And drove him bodily into the ground with an impact that launched the air from his lungs in a harsh wheeze. His weapon bounced once then launched away from his reach with a burst of ’Air’. He twitched a few times but didn’t get back up. The disciples watched it all with mouths much too open, but Elua didn’t even look back.

’Controlled aggression. I can show them the shift between soft and hard. Calm and vicious.’

As someone that had fought from the shadows of illusions for most of her past life, many underestimated her and thought she had nothing but petty tricks. They failed to understand that she had always had to *survive* before learning enough to make fighting even ’more efficient’ and ’less risky’.

And while she eventually added her Acid control into things, it was not as if it was an immediate surefire trump card in the early years. Turning that desperate, scrappy behavior into confident ways had been a journey of blood and sweat. One that the people of this era underestimated in their own way.

’When everyone is supposedly on roughly the same level, people get complacent in ways they don’t even notice.’

Two figures appeared in motion from different angles, launching from the plains above and attempting to surround her. The spiritualist turned with minimal movements to face the next ambushers... despite the blood thrumming hotly in her veins. Her Ogre Physique wasn’t being very polite about stopping the spurt adrenaline she’d let loose.

She stepped past the man trying to grab her with a single stride. The woman found that her quick and panicked short ’spear’ strikes met only empty space. Then the small cultivator maneuvered them into interfering with each other’s range of movements and risking overcommits that would strike the other.

After a few seconds she almost had the man elbowing the woman in the shoulder when a fourth man appeared on the ridge. He raised a crossbow toward where her disciples stood. Elua spun to snatch the bamboo pole with the knife tied to it the woman was using while a sphere of bright flashing light appeared in her face.

While she screamed and backed away without her weapon, the wooden shaft was chucked straight and true. The projectile struck the crossbow near its front with enough force to splinter the wood of both weapons and send the shot very wide.

"The next one goes through your chest."

The cold statement that entered his ears, like the brunette was right in front of him despite her distance, made the man freeze. The two closer opponents heard nothing of the dark threat. While the woman tried to blink and rub out phantom blindness from her eyes, her partner roared and tried to grab at Elua.

After a few attempts, he was almost surprised when his arms actually found something.

"Let go of me, you oaf!"

Followed by *actual* surprise when he heard the woman cursing at him. When he hurriedly let go, he felt his wrist being held by a small hand. The other member of the thieving group felt the same. They both turned towards the same direction to see Elua er Goltbred gripping their arms.

"It’s my experience that this is close to the point that you’ll think about running. I would not advise making me chase you. You’re already wasting my time. And as much as this is valuable for the two watching..."

While the monotone wasn’t clear, the spiritual pressure keeping them from even blinking couldn’t be more obvious.

"...Dealing with you is coming at the cost of missing my beloved ’fortress’ showing others why the Yecine at least have good sense in names."

The twinned pressure of ’apathy’ for their existence juxtaposed with ’displeasure’ at their very presence in front of her finally started to make them shake. They had *irritated* something they shouldn’t have - and what she’d already done would only be the beginning of their hardship.