Sola, who was furiously making holes, was about to penetrate as deep as his hand into the creature's mouth, aiming for its brain. A second later, he succeeded.
His hand went straight into the troll's smooth brain.
[You have slain a Tier III Dread-fiend Hard-scale Troll]
[You have gained soul essence]
The monster swayed and dropped to the ground, facing the rest of them. Everyone was silent for a moment, with only Gruin's heavy breathing breaking the stillness.
But then they saw a figure crawling out of the troll's open mouth, completely covered in blood.
The smile on the short man's face was indescribably wide as he sprinted toward Sola and helped him up. The others approached as well, and then Lona pointed her staff at Sola, shooting a huge water bubble at him, rinsing his body and clothes of blood. She then said to them,
" You all did great today. I didn't expect three of you to awaken your marks, it's usually hard for starters."
Freide and Sola, who were arguing over who did better in the fight, suddenly stopped and pointed their fingers behind Lona.
There was another troll, about the same size as the first one. Lona didn't even look back—she threw the three of them back with a gust of wind.
Gruin was already charging toward the enemy, but before he could make his first strike, a small, red, shiny ball shot from Lona's staff. It moved so fast that Sola barely saw it.
Upon hitting the creature, the ball exploded, tearing a huge chunk from the monster. Meanwhile, Gruin slashed both of its legs, causing it to collapse headfirst to the ground.
The three of them watched the fight in amazement as Lona picked up a rock with her staff, shaped it into a cone, and hurled it with incredible speed.
It went straight into the skull and killed the monster instantly. Then she looked at them with an expressionless face and said,
"Let's head back until more of them come."
They returned to the camp without encountering anything thanks to Lona.
The whole cohort was sitting around the campfire, so they joined them, and Gruin started talking about what had happened
"You should have seen it, this girl threw her sword and plucked the monster's eye like it was nothing."
He then looked at Edric.
" Oh, and this nice-looking fella, you might think he's soft and weak, but he threw that heavy monster away with one simple boom."
Everybody was listening to him, they all wanted to know what the new members of the cohort were capable of.
At last, Groin looked at Sola and grinned.
" Now this guy… he's the devil. Don't get me wrong, I know how to swing an axe, and I do whatever I must to survive. But this guy? Let me tell you what this man did."
He inhaled deeply and continued.
"He was swallowed by the monster, and he ate the thing from the inside out! He was like a beast. Moon God? What were the gods thinking? You should be the heir of the God of War. Hell… if I didn't know you had a moon mark, I'd even say you were the child of Ba—"
Captain looked at Gruin dead in the eyes, signaling him to stop.
"I am sorry, should we eat?"
They then proceeded to eat the soup, which was filled with some kind of strange but delicious meat.
While Sola was enjoying himself, Freide and Gruin were competing on who would eat more bowls.
Those two went really well with each other. In the end, Freide won, but just barely. There was a limit on how much food a little man like Gruin could eat.
While talking, Sola learned that those with the Moon God's mark were stealthy assassins, always calm and collected. Their abilities were key factors that shaped them into such individuals.
He also learned what everyone's mark was. Gruin had a War God's mark, which was already clear to him from the way he and Freide got along with each other.
Lona had a Nature God's mark on her, while the twins had marks of the Moon and Ocean gods.
The captain assigned the three of them to the twins this time.
Lola would teach them how to activate their marks on command, while Kel would teach them sorcery and how to imbue it into weapons.
Until they started the training, Sola had a little free time, so he decided to check the system.
Name: Sola
Rank: Ashen
Tier: I
Soul: 10/100
Remnants: [Madman's Cleaver]
Curse: [Lilly]
Marks: [Banished] [Solace] [???]
Essence: [Dauntless] [Swift] [Drained]
He had gained four souls for killing the troll and two for killing Jean. The change in his body was not huge, but it was noticeable.
He felt a little stronger after killing the Dread-fiend, and while he would normally be feeling dizzy from the lack of life force, that wasn't a problem since he hadn't used the mark for nothing.
Sola not only injured a creature of a higher rank than himself, but he also killed it.
But summoning Lily was out of the question right now as the mark on his forehead would return.
Lola, who had an ocean mark, was teaching them how to activate the mark on command.
They first had to feel the god's strength through the mark, the next step was to establish a connection with that god and ask for power.
they all were making good progress but it went downhill for sola when they started learning sorcery with Kel, while Edric and Freide were mastering the simple spells Sola couldn't even form a fireball.
Kel was trying to help him by giving him more attention than he gave to the others.
"Give me your hand, Sola."
Said the young man with silver hair.
Kel then put Sola's hand above his and told him to send his mana out.
"I don't feel any connection to any god. It's weird. You have a moon mark, and even the shadows and the darkness are rejecting you."
Kel then released his hand and patted him on the shoulder.
"Don't worry, not everyone is cut out to be a sorcerer, you will be good at something else."
Sola looked disappointed in himself.
'Curse these stupid gods. I just need to figure out which element I am connected to.'
Come to think of it, Gruin had almost said its name, so now he knew that the name of the deity that chose Sola started with "Ba." It was bad enough that even mentioning its name changed their mood.