Cloud's perceived failure at the awakening ceremony gave not just him a plausible reason to remain silent, but also Dina.
While he sat to one side, brutally analysing his class, the woman sat beside him, resting her back, eyes closed, and arms folded.
Her posture was telling, but looking down at her feet, which were pointed inward and subtly shifting, confirmed she was deep in thought.
Cloud considered a number of things that could be going through her mind, her recent interaction with the Duke's son coming to the forefront.
Having exchanged a few words, with more than half the day already gone, Cloud wondered whether to question Dina, but then again, despite being younger than him, she was more than able to take care of herself.
Cloud was brought out of his thoughts when he noticed the woman lean forward, pushing the curtain to the side and staring outside for several seconds.
A bit of anticipation built up in him as he waited for her verdict, and soon she delivered the bad news he had been expecting.
"We're about to be attacked—an ambush, most likely."
"Is it something to be worried about?"
"I'll have to check. Wait here for me. Don't step out."
Opening the door despite the carriage still moving, Dina seamlessly slipped out, more than five minutes passing before the convoy came to a stop and Cloud heard the soldiers disembarking.
Slightly shifting the curtain, he could see them pulling out their weapons, Gillian shouting out orders as they took guard around his carriage.
The identity of the attacker was now the question in the air, and in an instant, Cloud could think of a number of enemies.
Leonasia was among them, and it was not the only kingdom. Caragasca, a kingdom far to the north of Dakurt Village, which had been hoping to use the village as a branch into Leonasia, hated their guts almost as much as the former.
Excluding the kingdoms, several villages neighbored Dakurt, even those afar. These people were in some ways more dangerous than the kingdoms because they had the legal sanction to attack Dakurt whenever they wished.
Sinisa was a prime suspect to Cloud, given the short altercation that happened a month ago when the royal family visited, seeking to have their daughter marry him, viewing this as an act of kindness to the Outsborne family, which had been declining.
The chief had been a bit too confident and had been beaten up by his master, and Cloud wouldn't put it past them to retaliate; in fact, he expected them to. His short stay in this world had revealed the men in it to be extremely prideful.
The culture had its perks, but at the same time, very woeful cons.
Cloud adjusted in his seat as soon as the enemy showed themselves, watching as men with red animal masks over their faces rushed out of the trees on the side at his guards.
Most of them were warriors, a class common within villages. They were dressed in leather armor and carried square shields.
Cloud studied them carefully but could find no trace of their affiliation—from warriors to the mages who hung at the back, none of them used a distinctive weapon or spell.
Having awakened the knight class, Gillian stood at the front of the clash, another of his guards, whom Cloud knew to be a berserker, standing with him.
Behind them were several warriors, and behind the warriors, their own mages.
The berserker captain rushed towards the incoming enemy, but even before they could clash, explosions rang overhead, spells already colliding.
"They are many."
Cloud had an escort of just twenty men, but from the trees he had already counted up to thirty enemies. The enemy's choice of numbers couldn't just be a coincidence.
Several times spells were sent flying toward the carriage, but the mages stopped them.
Cloud watched the exchange happening around him, his vigilance raised and eyes searching for Dina.
A few minutes passed, and when he noticed two of his guards being dragged to the back, their injuries critical, he stepped out.
There were only two reasons for Dina not to be here vanquishing the grunts that had been sent for him.
Either she had met her match and was being kept busy, or she was letting the guards sharpen their blades—something she did quite often whenever she was back in the village and out with the soldiers.
Before today, unless things got critical, Cloud would have stayed put, but he had seen Dina's status. If she was truly facing an opponent able to match her, then he needed to end the fiasco happening around him and have the guards go help her.
"My Prince, go inside."
Gillian was good. Despite the opposition he was facing, three warriors gunning at him, he never took his eyes off the carriage, and the second Cloud was outside, he sighted him.
The man's words drew the attention of the enemy to Cloud, probably being his intention, wanting to force him back in, but for too long, the village underestimated what force he could be.
A katana with a blue hilt in his hand, he ran past the mages.
"Cover me."
The command to the mages rang out strong, and before they—or even the warriors ahead—could stop him, he was before the enemy.
The opponent was a warrior, one of those carrying a sword and shield. Wearing a bear mask, he had been about to stomp on one of Cloud's guards when Cloud arrived in front of him.
Seeing the opportunity to gain glory, the opponent forgot his initial target and focused on the prize. His sword lit up with a grey light, signaling a skill being used, and then he immediately swung it at him.
On the battlefield, horror and glee appeared on the faces of the combatants, but unfortunately for the enemy, Cloud deftly stepped out of the way of the swing, slashed his katana through the air, and immediately took off his opponent's head.
People who had awakened a class were immediately placed above those who had just mana to their reasons, but the foremost reason wasn't that they became stronger, it was because their potential was vastly increased and they automatically gained a skill.
If someone like Sky Leonard had trained and was the opponent before him, Cloud would have turned and fled, but for these low-level local rebels, people who only knew how to spam their skills and perform the most rudimentary moves until they attained victory, he was a predator.
Yes, they had deadly skills that could cripple him in a single blow, but he had spent the last seven years brutally training with a woman that seemed to predict the future and had been killing savage beasts.
[You have killed a level 6 warrior, you have earned 40 Kill points]
Cloud felt nothing as the head of the first man flew into the air. He was already on the move, his next target in sight.
The next opponent was also a warrior, and before he could even put up a defense, still shocked at the death of his comrade, his right arm fell from his shoulder, and a punch was sent sailing for his throat.
[You have killed a level 4 warrior, you have earned 20 kill points]
The third target was ready, his sword raised, but suddenly he found Cloud on his left, all of his blade disappearing into his side
When the useless boy they had been sent to kill had gotten there, the man did not know. He only found himself falling to the ground, a cold face the last thing he saw.
[You have killed a level 6 warrior you have earned 40 kill points.]