After leaving the holy city of Rabona and parting ways with Annie and Elena to travel separately, barely half a day had passed before the sky began to darken. Since Clare's injuries hadn't fully healed, Laki had no choice but to find a ruined house in the wilderness nearby and camp there for the night, planning to continue their journey the next morning.
"By the way!"
After dinner, Laki looked at the ruined house they were staying in, which had clearly once been built with fine materials. He wondered whether it had been destroyed by war or by monsters. With nothing else to do, he suddenly remembered something and asked curiously:
"Clare, you and Elena were both trainees in the Organization's 150th generation, right?"
"And..."
"I remember you said Elena entered battle six months after you?"
"But her rank is 46, while yours is 47. Why is your rank even lower than hers?"
"Weren't you supposed to be stronger than her?"
Actually, Laki had wanted to ask about this for a long time. But the two of them hadn't been so close before, and he'd been afraid she might kick him out, so he'd held his tongue until now.
"..."
Clare raised her head without expression and glanced at Laki. After hesitating for a moment, her eyes dimmed. She thought it over, then finally began to speak slowly:
"In theory, that's true."
"But..."
"I'm a special Warrior with only one-quarter Yoma flesh in my body. The Organization mainly ranks its Warriors by the amount of their Yoki, so even though Elena entered battle half a year later than I did, she's still stronger than me."
Yes, in the Organization, a Warrior's rank represented her strength. The smaller the number, the stronger she was.
The Organization usually assigned its Warriors to