Chapter 130

Chapter 130: Sparring with Ria

Our first Kimjang since meeting Ria.

Ria looked at the mountain of kimchi containers stacked up and beamed with pride.

Then she wrapped a piece of fresh, crunchy kimchi around a slice of boiled pork and tasted it.

"This is so delicious......!"

She was in awe of the flavor.

After chewing and swallowing, she continued.

"The kimchi is incredibly delicious, and the pork is boiled to perfection. So this is what it tastes like to eat boiled pork right after making Kimjang. I saw it on TV and wanted to try it, and the taste is just as moving as I imagined."

"That is why you absolutely must eat boiled pork after Kimjang."

I took a bite as well.

As expected, the harmony of well-boiled pork and freshly made kimchi was exquisite.

How many dishes in the world could rival this flavor?

The kimchi in particular was packed with A-Rank vegetables, boasting a heavenly taste unavailable anywhere else.

Then Rin and Ruina, who had gone inside the house, came back out.

Rin walked over to us and said.

"Yeona feww asweep!"

"Did she? You did a great job looking after your sister. Let us have lunch too, Rin."

"Yesh!"

I could not give Rin spicy kimchi made with fermented seafood, nor could I give her meat.

So I let her try White Kimchi made without fermented seafood, along with a mock meat made from a blend of soybeans and Glace Mushroom.

Rin ate it happily.

Along with her staple diet of fruit, salad, and Health Juice.

The Adult Dryad ate the same meal beside Rin.

"Nutritious. Good. For child. Tasty. Too."

She was saying the meal was packed with nutrition and good for Rin.

And also that it tasted good.
***
The next day, I opened for the lunch service.

The combination of noodles, Kimjang kimchi, and boiled pork was received extremely well.

"The kimchi is a bit spicy, but it was still delicious."

"It was the best! I want to eat this again next time!"

"The combination of crunchy kimchi and the meat was wonderful."

The faces of the Hunter customers leaving after their meals were adorned with satisfied smiles.

By now, I could tell just from the expressions of departing customers whether they had been satisfied, dissatisfied, or somewhere in between.

It was impossible to satisfy every single customer.

But I always strived to satisfy as many as I could.

Meanwhile, at the bar counter seats, there were customers who were thoroughly enjoying their meal.

"Seon-u, this is insane!"

"I do not usually like the smell of garlic, but this is good."

Two beings were endlessly wrapping kimchi around pork and devouring it.

It was none other than Ashley and Fenrir.

I said to the two of them.

"Does it not taste even better because you worked up an appetite?"

The two had been helping with the moat work every day in exchange for free meals.

Thanks to them, the work was progressing very quickly.

Ashley swallowed her wrap and replied.

"That is probably part of it. Once the moat work is done, I have the Mage Tower construction next. The work never ends."

"You are working hard."

"Well, if I want to eat meat for free, I have no choice."

As Ashley said, once the moat work was done, they would immediately begin construction of the Mage Tower.

It was less a Mage Tower in the traditional sense and more of a Magical Engineering control tower.

Dr. Jack, Ashley, Ruina, and Maxim.

After the four of them had put their heads together and discussed the matter, they had decided to build a Mage Tower that would serve as a mana supply and control hub.

It would leverage Dr. Jack's Magic Stone Linking skill.

The Lightning-Attribute Transcendent-Grade Magic Stone would serve as the Mage Tower's core.

'The plan is to use the mana supplied by the Mage Tower not only for Magical Engineering devices used within the Outpost, but also as the power source for Magical Turrets that will ward off aerial monsters.'

Maxim had drawn an aerial view diagram of the Outpost township based on their discussions.

In the drawing, the Mage Tower stood tall at the center of the Outpost, with aerial defense Magical Turrets installed around the outer perimeter of the fortress wall.

The township was illuminated by Magical Engineering lights, and inside a semi-transparent rendering of the restaurant, various electronic devices were installed.

'The Outpost township has already developed considerably, so how much more advanced will it become?'

Currently, various facility buildings had been constructed within the Outpost.

An infirmary for the injured was also under construction.

Eventually, we might run out of space for new buildings and need to expand the Outpost.
***
With Yeona's birth, the number of precious family members I needed to protect had grown.

While outside the Rift was relatively safe, the Fourth Floor still carried latent dangers.

'That so-called Master said that when he awakens again, he would come to take Acresia from me in person.'

Whether that would be tomorrow, a year from now, ten years from now, or even later, no one knew.

Therefore, Ria and I needed to become even stronger.

So I had begun training under Ria once again.

And so, on the hilltop, I found myself sparring with Ria just like before.

"Seon-u, I think your reflexes have gotten dull!"

Ria attacked me with a storm-like intensity.

"You became a mother, so why have your attacks gotten even sharper......?!"

I was losing my mind trying to dodge and block Ria's attacks.

The thirty-eight-week gap from her pregnancy seemed utterly irrelevant. Ria's swordwork was as fierce as ever.

If anything, it felt even sharper and more ferocious than before her pregnancy.

"Well, even while carrying Yeona, I never stopped my mana training, and even without holding a sword, I constantly drilled through visualization training. While knitting."

So she had not just been knitting quietly......

I had wondered why she closed her eyes while knitting.

It turned out she had been training through mental imagery while her hands worked the yarn.

"I told you to rest! You really are impossible!"

"Hehe! Sitting still and resting is actually harder for me."

"Ugh!"

When I failed to deflect Ria's attack and had to block it head-on, a tingling numbness ran from my wrist to my shoulder.

In the distance, Yeona was in her stroller with Rin standing guard beside her, both watching us.

'I need to look cool for my daughters.'

I had been only dodging, blocking, and deflecting, but I now began my counterattack.

I swung my spear, forcing Ria back a step, and then.

"Ria, I am going to use my abilities from here, so be careful not to get hurt!"

"I am fine, so come at me with everything!"

Acresia's absorption and release skills.

The advantage of the release skill was its ranged capability.

One of my most powerful abilities.

The absorption skill could pull an opponent toward me with a strong gravitational force, making them stagger.

On top of that, it could absorb the opponent's projectile attacks.

'A cheat-level Legendary-grade skill.'

It was an all-purpose skill capable of ranged, melee, offense, defense, and even crowd control.

When used effectively in close combat, it displayed tremendous power.

I released a Steel Ball at close range toward Ria, but she twisted her body and dodged it effortlessly.

I immediately thrust my spear in the direction she had dodged.

CLANG!

She deflected even that with ease.

Then she closed the distance, driving into my space.

I activated the absorption skill targeting Ria, and she aborted her approach, quickly cutting at a right angle to the right before the gravitational pull intensified, escaping the skill's range.

The absorption skill was canceled.

'Ria knows Acresia's skills better than anyone.'

Acresia's skills had a particular weakness against agility-type opponents.

In other words, Ria was my counter.

'Fighting the Behemoth would honestly be easier.'

The Behemoth was a power-and-defense type monster with a large target area and movements that were not particularly fast.

Its special abilities like lightning and earth tremors had been quite powerful, of course.

But it would still be easier to fight than Ria.

'Sparring with Ria always leaves my limbs in a tangle and my brain overloaded.'

It was difficult to even track Ria's movements with my eyes, let alone react.

Even so, I fought back with everything I had, utilizing both the release and absorption skills.

"My husband, you are not easy to take down!"

"Hah! I am barely hanging on by the skin of my teeth!"

Then.

SWISH!

Ria's blade nicked the back of my hand.

A scratch like this was nothing in sparring.

But the moment I was injured, Ria sheathed her sword.

I asked her.

"This is just a shallow cut from sparring. Why did you stop?"

"Well, the children are watching."

"Fair point."

It would not be good for the children's emotional well-being to see blood.

When the sparring ended, Rin came toddling over, pushing the stroller with her small body.

Yeona, seated in the stroller, studied the back of my hand intently, then waved her arm.

Then.

[The Reparatio skill partially heals the wound. Stamina and Mana recovery speed dramatically increases for 10 minutes.]

The wound on the back of my hand healed without a trace.

It was the first time Yeona had used the Reparatio skill.

Its effects were outstanding.

"Yeona, did you heal Daddy because he was hurt?"

Yeona smiled around her pacifier.

"Our Yeona is such a dutiful daughter."

"I know. She used her skill because Daddy got hurt. What a sweet girl."

After Ria's and my praise, Rin chimed in as well.

"Our Yeona is wike an angel! She is so adowable."

Rin was a true sister fanatic, as always.

I stroked Rin's hair.

"Our Rin is just as angelic."

"Hehe!"

Our family then went inside to prepare dinner.

The one menu item that appeared at every breakfast and dinner without fail was a salad made from graded vegetables.

The reason I always ate the graded vegetable salad was to raise my Mana stat.

My current Mana stat was 241.

That was thanks to eating salad made with S-Rank vegetables every day.

'Being able to obtain S-Rank vegetables is all thanks to Yeona's skill.'

Every other day, Yeona used her Competentia skill on Rin, and Rin used that buff to grow S-Rank vegetables.

Ria harvested those S-Rank vegetables and made sure only I ate them.

For the sake of my Mana stat growth.

When I made salad from them, my Mana stat rose by 0.3 each time.

By eating it twice a day, I was raising my Mana stat by 0.6 daily.

'I would rather feed them to Ria and Rin.'

After all, S-Rank vegetables tasted better than A-Rank ones.

But Ria would not allow it.

On top of that, I was eating the Royal Jelly Yogurt Ice Cream every other day to grow my training stats.

And I also ate Stat dishes from time to time to stack overlapping stats.

I was practically eating food fit for an emperor, raising my stats with ultra-premium cuisine.

'Do not feel bad about what goes into your mouth. When you eat well, everyone else benefits too.'

Those were the words Ria said whenever I felt guilty about eating the expensive food.

She was right. When I ate well, others benefited.

'Your stats need to go up for all of us to get stronger, Guild Master. So please do not worry about us and eat as much as you can!'

The Sword Saint elder's words.

'Seon-u, can you not just eat Stat dishes and graded salads three meals a day, every day? Stop selling them to customers and just eat them all yourself!'

Eriksson's words.

Santos said nothing.

'I am so happy your stats are going up lately, Guild Master! Please eat even more!'

Han Se-a's words.

'My stats? They are already plenty high. More than I deserve, honestly. I still cannot control my strength, so I keep breaking things. Two days ago, I was half-asleep and tried to turn off my phone alarm and ended up crushing it, so I had to buy a new one......'

Ji-young's words.

It seemed she was still having difficulty controlling her strength after becoming Awakened.

Then again, with stats at S-Rank level, controlling one's strength would understandably be difficult.

Ji-young's lack of control meant she would occasionally break a plate or bowl while doing dishes.

'Those are custom-ordered, expensive pieces of tableware......'

To prepare delicate dishes, she would absolutely need to fully adapt to her strength.

Well, she would adjust eventually.

In any case, Ria and the S-Rank companions all wanted my stats to rise.

'It is a pleasant kind of pressure.'

I watched as Rin picked up a fork with her tiny hand and speared a piece of salad.

And Yeona drinking pre-pumped breast milk from a baby bottle.

Watching my daughters eat warmed my heart.

I felt full even without eating.

'I am happy.'