Yarra's Adventure Notes-Chapter 1396 - 182: The Reserved Trump Card

"At that time, my mind had already become very restless," Pannis tried to recapture his mindset, chuckling bitterly as he said, "Attempting over and over to lessen the injuries my friends suffered, but each time harvesting failure after failure, I could only watch as the friends who trusted me got hurt time and again. And yet, they still smiled, maintaining their grins even as new wounds kept appearing on their bodies. Hah, but seeing their bloodied smiles felt like a blade cutting through my heart. Had I not believed that our attacks and containment were having even a slight effect, I really might not have been able to carry on. The hope that kept me fighting alongside everyone was that seemingly insignificant results, which I always believed meant the enemy was not invincible. If we persisted, even the weakest effects, accumulating to a certain point, could have a decisive impact. This belief sustained me, kept me minimally calm as I directed everyone’s attacks on Danacus, including my own, in a cycle."

Thinking of the ending Pannis had briefly mentioned before, a chill swept over the girls, and as they accompanied his narrative, they felt as though they had been transported back over a hundred years, facing a formidable enemy in an illusory space. The girls seemed to stand from Pannis’s perspective, with comrades fully trusting in them, fighting shoulder to shoulder with no regard for life or death behind them—and in front, an enemy so powerful it seemed almost unsolvable. Facing the enemy, the girls found themselves lost in a thick fog, unable to find the road or direction, with only the faintest glimmer of hope, like a faint light in dense fog, the only foundation sustaining their will. The light was elusive, flickering in and out of existence, and no one knew where it really was, if they could endure until it was found, whether it truly was the light of hope or a trap hidden behind the light, or even if that glimpse of brightness truly existed and was not just a figment of their imagination. No one knew, but the once-perfect leader, Kyle, had to lead everyone towards that dim light because, against such a dreadful enemy, it was their only hope.

As the leader of Nellie’s adventure team, Catherine could best understand the enormous pressure Pannis must have felt at that time—all of his teammates’ fates weighed heavily on his shoulders, each decision, even every thought, could determine whether a teammate lived or died, and any person with emotions would likely be shaken under such pressure.

"I really admire you, Pannis, and I admire your teammates too, the heroes," the princess had put aside her usual façade of gentle shyness. In her expression at the time, one could almost see traces of Odin or even Flare at work. Freya, with a solemn demeanor like a queen issuing commands, said steadily, "There are many reasons I admire you, but the most important is that even in a situation where there seemed to be no hope, you still held back your strongest trump card. Your teammates, even knowing you had this trump card, did not attempt to ask you to use it, willing to risk their lives to go along with your plan, which you had not explained to them, refusing to reveal to Danacus that you still had an ace up your sleeve. As for you, you seemed not to worry at all about them exposing your trump card in your carefully planned out strategy, fully trusting that they would go along with your actions. It must be said, this mutual trust is incredibly rare, especially amongst those of great strength."

"Oh right, I remember now," Lina tapped her short, silver-haired covered head, and the priestess girl, like a child engrossed in knight novels, even knowing the final outcome, still clung to hope as if wishing the ending would suddenly change, expectantly said, "You still had that arrow, the Arrow of the Hunting Goddess. The legends say it’s a weapon that can even kill deities."

"Heh, yes, we still had the Hunting Arrow," Pannis rubbed his nose, his laugh tinged with bitterness as he sighed, "That could be said to be the most powerful weapon in existence, naturally to be used as the final trump card. At that time, Flare always carried it with her, I hadn’t forgotten, no one had forgotten. Everyone just completely trusted me to use it at the most appropriate moment, and that’s why they were willing to risk their lives without revealing the trump card."

"You were hesitant too, weren’t you, Pannis?" Catherine said softly, "I feel, based on your usual behavior, that by that point you must have had a premonition that your attacks wouldn’t yield satisfying results."

"How should I put it, I wasn’t certain at the time; I don’t have the ability to foresee the future, so I couldn’t come to a definitive conclusion in advance. However, I don’t like to put all hope on one thing, so once I wasn’t sure our attacks would have an effect, I consciously kept the Hunting Arrow as a reserved trump card," Pannis sighed, "If there was still a bit of hope, then I would hold on to the trump card until the most critical moment to use it."

"That’s indeed like you," Catherine nodded, then shook her head and whispered, "But was there really hope? Even just a little?"

"At that time, I believed there was," Pannis said in a low voice, despondently, "Yes, at that time I believed in hope, faint as it was, but not despair. That’s why I called a halt to our futile attacks and slightly changed our tactics."

"Oh?" Catherine asked, "How did you change them?"

"Nellie replaced Mina, becoming the most frequent attacker," Pannis recalling, said, "Dillie also took Mina’s place, but not as a frequent attacker, rather in the role of a primary attacker."

"That’s right, Mr. Dillie," Catherine realized, "He was special."

"Yes, and an idiot," Pannis curled his lip, saying irritably, "He wasn’t troubled by Divine Punishment at all, but he had no idea we were struggling under the pressure of Divine Punishment; he thought we were unaffected just like him from the start, so he never said anything. And his attacks didn’t suffer from backlash, but he was too timid—seeing how badly we all got backlashed, he always used the smallest energy attacks, never reaching the threshold to trigger backlash. We all knew his weakness in combat awareness, so we didn’t blame him or pressure him into attacking full force. The result was that we only discovered his special trait shortly before I changed the tactics."