Chapter 49
“I’m asking what this is.”
Kain’s voice grew increasingly cold.
Jeong Yushin’s brain spun rapidly.
If I let on, I’ll die.
It was Jeong Yushin’s intuition, honed from surviving countless brushes with death.
Kain still didn’t know what had happened between Yushin and Mion.
He calmed his trembling heart.
Jeong Yushin opened his mouth.
“Isn’t that Mion’s hair?”
“Then why is it on your shoulder?”
“A few strands must have fallen while she was helping me keep up with the lesson during class.”
“Mion got that close to you?”
Kain asked, his voice full of disbelief.
“Isn’t she allowed to get close while teaching? She teaches the other children up close too.”
Jeong Yushin sighed and continued.
“And, Captain, no matter how I think about it, this is a bit much. I understand that you care about your sister, but it’s hard to understand you making such a fuss over a single hair. Would I really lay a hand on Teacher Mion? During class, no less?”
The two men met each other’s eyes.
Jeong Yushin opened his eyes wide and stared at Kain.
A brief silence swept through the orphanage yard.
Kain sighed and scratched his head.
“···I overreacted. I’m sorry. I haven’t seen my sister in a long time, so I’ve been a little on edge.”
“It’s all right. Then.”
Jeong Yushin parted from Kain and left the orphanage yard.
He walked calmly for a while, then glanced back.
Kain was nowhere to be seen. Jeong Yushin ran like mad toward the Swordsmanship Guild.
If he were found to possess the Virgin Female Corruption Imprint.
And if it came to light that he had kneaded Mion’s soft, chewy mochi-like belly as well?
It wouldn’t end with merely being beaten up.
Sweat beaded on Jeong Yushin’s forehead as he ran through the streets.
The early-summer sun and breeze brushed past his cheeks.
Several people shouted something and backed away from Jeong Yushin.
After running for quite some time, he arrived at the Swordsmanship Guild.
Clatter!!!
He threw the door open with all his strength.
“Lord Ashur!”
Ashur, who had been sprawled in the chair behind the counter, raised his head.
“Ska, the guild door isn’t your own front door. Be careful.”
“That’s not important.”
“Then what is?”
“Do you know Kain, the captain of the Labyrinth City Knights?”
“Of course. He learned the sword from me. Why?”
“How strong is he?”
“Strong enough to send a rookie Barbaroi to the afterlife with a single stroke.”
“Fuck.”
“You’re swearing too? Is this your house?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why do you apologize for something you’re going to do? Anyway.”
Ashur saw Jeong Yushin fidgeting and leaned back leisurely in his chair.
“Someone came looking for you.”
“Who?”
“A Barbaroi.”
“What?!”
Jeong Yushin let out a cry of astonishment.
As if things weren’t bad enough.
Why on earth?
“···Who is that guy, and why is he looking for me?”
“I don’t know either. He just strolled in and asked me whether a mixed-blood Barbaroi was training here.”
“And?”
At Jeong Yushin’s urgent question, Ashur shrugged.
“I told him there was one.”
“Why would you tell him that?! Is it acceptable to blab a trainee’s personal information like that?”
“He seemed to have a pretty good idea already.”
The matter of Kain vanished completely from Jeong Yushin’s mind.
Even more terrifying bastards were circling around him.
“···Where on earth are they?”
“The brothel district in the Eastern District.”
Smack!!!
Jeong Yushin slapped his own forehead.
It was darkest beneath the lamp.
Why hadn’t he realized it?
Earthworms lived in dark, damp places.
And devils belonged in the pits of hell.
Why had it taken him until now to realize that the mating-outlaw Barbaroi gathered in the brothel district?
‘So they were the cock masters of the red-light district?’
Jeong Yushin clutched his throbbing head.
Wait.
Something was strange.
“The Eastern District? I went there last time, but I didn’t see them.”
He had entered the Eastern District when he went to deal with the slave hunters.
“Wasn’t it nighttime then? Why would a Barbaroi be wandering the streets at night?”
Ashur asked back with an incredulous expression.
“What do you mean?”
“At night, you’re supposed to mate in bed. How do you know less about Barbaroi than I do?”
“...”
“You can feel your chastity coming under threat, can’t you? You need to get stronger, right? Let’s go.”
Jeong Yushin followed Ashur to the training grounds.
Despite it being early summer, the training grounds were crowded.
People were training with spears and shields, not just swords.
Ashur brought an iron longsword from a corner of the training grounds and tossed it.
Jeong Yushin raised a hand and caught the longsword.
It was a weighty sword unlike the wooden sword he had used until now.
Since it was a training sword, its edge was blunt.
“Use this from now on.”
“Am I not using the wooden sword anymore?”
“That’s right. You leveled up, didn’t you?”
“How did you know?”
“Just a feeling. The wooden sword won’t have enough weight, so use an iron sword from now on.”
His eye for things was sharp, perhaps because he was a Sword Master.
Jeong Yushin wanted to ask more about the Barbaroi and Kain, but forcibly held himself back.
This was training time. It was proper to ask questions related to training.
Once he arrived at the training grounds and saw the people practicing, one more thing came to mind.
The weakness revealed during his battle with the slave hunter leader.
It was the duration of Sacred Weapon.
A summoned weapon disappeared after three seconds.
That meant if he locked swords with an opponent using Sacred Weapon and three seconds passed while they struggled for leverage, he would be left completely defenseless.
Jeong Yushin racked his brain over the problem and found an answer.
Jeong Yushin scratched his head before speaking.
“How do I knock away an opponent’s sword?”
“Are you talking about parrying?”
“Yes.”
Ashur shook his head.
“Cut the bullshit. You’re not at that level yet.”
“Can’t I do it?”
Ashur pointed at Jeong Yushin with a finger.
“I was going to let it slide, but I can’t. We need to go over your fight with those slave hunters in the Eastern District.”
“What is there to go over? You already know everything, don’t you? There were a lot of pieces of trash, so I got into a little sword fight.”
At Jeong Yushin’s answer, Ashur crossed his arms. His face was full of irritation.
“I’m not criticizing you for killing them. The problem is the way you fight. You rely on your Imprint, throw your body in, and just trade blows through sheer stubbornness. You swing around with the sloppy swordsmanship you’ve barely learned. One hit taken, one hit given back. What was this, a drinking party? And you bite people’s throats? Are you a beast?!”
Ashur’s voice grew louder and louder.
Apparently furious, Ashur stopped speaking mid-sentence and shouted.
“Hey!!! Someone bring me some water!”
Several people training in the grounds ran into the guild building.
Jeong Yushin scratched his head.
“That’s just how it happened.”
“What do you mean, that’s just how it happened?! Now that I think about it, I’m getting angry again! You bit someone’s throat?!”
Ashur clawed at his hair.
Just then, a man with a Mohawk came running up breathlessly. He was holding a water bottle.
The elf snatched the bottle and gulped down the water.
“Phew. This won’t do. Bring ‘that’.”
“A... are you sure?”
“Bring it before I pluck out every hair on your head.”
“Understood.”
The Mohawk hurried back into the Swordsmanship Guild.
The Mohawk was holding a strangely shaped leather pouch.
“What is this?”
Jeong Yushin asked.
“It’s a set of sandbags. The sand is special, but you don’t need to know about that. Just think of them as magical tools that overload the wearer’s body.”
Ashur continued as he watched Jeong Yushin stand there blankly.
“Wear them around your waist, ankles, and wrists.”
Jeong Yushin accepted the pouches from the Mohawk.
They were heavy, as though they contained iron filings.
“They’re not very heavy.”
At Jeong Yushin’s words, Ashur raised the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t come whining and begging me to save you later.”
“Why would they be that bad?”
“Run. With your sword.”
At Ashur’s command, Jeong Yushin strapped on the sandbags and began running laps around the training grounds.
The people watching Jeong Yushin clicked their tongues.
“There it is. That hellish training.”
“Tsk, tsk. The new guy’s having a rough time.”
Jeong Yushin heard them with one ear and let their words pass. It wasn’t that difficult.
Three hours later.
“Hrrrgh. Kheeegh.”
Jeong Yushin crawled across the training-ground floor, his body limp.
Ashur shouted at him.
“Get up!!! You beastly bastard!”
‘Crazy.’
He had thought it wouldn’t be much since the sandbags weren’t heavy, but he had been wrong.
As time passed, his stamina drained away and the strain on his muscles grew increasingly severe.
Unable to take even a single step, he dragged himself along on all fours.
Hot sunlight poured down on Jeong Yushin from the sky.
Ashur approached and squatted down in front of the crawling Jeong Yushin.
“Get up, you bastard.”
Jeong Yushin rose to his feet using every last ounce of strength he had.
His legs trembled like those of a newborn fawn.
“You still have to run the last three laps. Where do you think you’re crawling?”
Ashur stood up and continued.
“Parrying? Don’t bullshit me. Hurry up and run around the training grounds. After that, we’ll spar.”
Jeong Yushin gritted his teeth and staggered forward.
He circled the training grounds.
Ashur threw a training iron sword.
Thump!
The sword struck Jeong Yushin’s body and fell.
With trembling hands, he barely managed to pick up the sword.
“Here I come.”
Before Jeong Yushin could even take his stance, Ashur swung his sword.
Crack!!!
His right arm throbbed.
[Revenger]
The Imprint activated.
Blue ghostfire blazed in Jeong Yushin’s eyes.
Ashur gave a small laugh.
“Ska, you can’t make your way through the world with nothing but madness and malice. I’ll carve that fact into your body.”
Jeong Yushin charged without answering.
Kaaang!!!
The elf’s piercingly bright eyes met Jeong Yushin’s blazing gaze.
They fought at point-blank range.
They began a battle of tactics.
Kkagagagak.
The swords clashing against each other began to make a bizarre sound.
“Constant training is the royal road. Swinging the sword every day. Pushing against your limits every day. The discipline you practice without fail, whether in rain or snow, amid spring breezes or summer sunlight, is what gives you the strength to make your way through the world.”
“...”
Ashur kept rambling even while their swords were locked, but Jeong Yushin let it wash over him.
Continuing to listen made his head spin.
Jeong Yushin knocked Ashur’s sword aside with sheer force and thrust straight at him.
Ashur lightly twisted his body aside, evaded the thrust, and drove his sword toward Jeong Yushin’s neck.
Kwak!!!
“Kgh!”
Jeong Yushin clutched his throat and staggered backward.
His throat was constricted, making it difficult to breathe properly.
Swaaash!
Ashur’s sword swept toward his left shoulder.
He instinctively raised his sword to block it, but.
Kaaang!!!
The force of the blow was so strong that he eventually lost his grip on the sword.
Clatter.
The sword flying through the air fell to the training-ground floor.
“Pick it up. You still have a long way to go.”
Jeong Yushin staggered toward where the sword had fallen. The weight of the pouches made it difficult to move.
He barely picked up the sword and stood before Ashur.
“Here I come.”
Ashur spoke impassively and attacked again.
As Ashur beat him, Jeong Yushin etched every one of his sword blows into his body.
“Don’t lead with your body. Fight like that against the wrong person, and your head will fly off first.”
“Pull your left foot back. Watch your stance. We’ll have to start over from the beginning.”
“How many times do I have to tell you not to watch only the sword?”
“If you’re going to defend, do it properly. Don’t raise your sword halfway—block decisively. No one who relies on an Imprint and holds his sword loosely is any good.”
Ashur shouted and swung his sword.
Time passed.
The people in the training grounds left one or two at a time, until only Jeong Yushin and Ashur remained.
Night fell.
“You still have a long way to go. First, you need to learn the basic stance that unifies offense and defense. Parrying means successfully defending against or deflecting an opponent’s attack. The problem is that there are many different races. What does that mean? Their methods of attack all differ. Their strength and stances differ as well. They’re difficult to read. Is that all? No. Parrying is the foundation for preparing a counterattack (riposte). It requires a combination of various elements, including reaction speed to an attack, timing, and control of your body. Parrying is too early for you, who attacks recklessly.”
Ashur explained calmly. Unlike when he had yelled at Jeong Yushin not to talk nonsense at first, he went into detail and explained it thoroughly.
“Hrrrgh.”
Jeong Yushin was kneeling and gasping for breath.
His entire body was drenched in sweat. It was just like when he had first begun training.
It was too difficult.
The battle of tactics.
The battle of strength.
The variety of techniques.
Not one of them was easy.
He had thought he was making progress, but that had been an illusion.
He realized how lacking he was.
A bead of sweat running down his forehead fell to the training-ground floor.
Ashur watched Jeong Yushin staring at the floor and scratched his cheek.
“I don’t usually say things like this. Listen carefully.”
“...”
“You have talent.”
“...”
“Work hard. Etch the unified posture of offense and defense into your heart. If the tip of your sword wavers, it means your mind is wavering. You look quite stable now, but who knows? Only relentless training can protect your mind. I’m telling you not to bite people’s throats.”
“···Understood.”
Ashur did not show it, but he seemed to have been quite shocked by the news that Jeong Yushin had bitten someone’s throat.
Jeong Yushin barely managed to answer. He forced his sweat- and dust-caked body upright.
“And don’t trust Aldein too much.”
Ashur said this with a frown.
“Why shouldn’t I trust him?”
“You can tell just by looking, can’t you? His personality is lousy. He’s no good. Take my word for it.”
Jeong Yushin frowned at Ashur’s answer.
There seemed to be another reason he was criticizing Aldein, but Ashur appeared reluctant to talk about it.
Since he was thinking of it, there was one more thing he wanted to ask.
“What happened with the Mage Tower? Did they say they could cure my madness?”
“Tsk. They say they don’t really know either. They want to examine you, but I don’t trust those bastards at all.”
“Where is the Mage Tower?”
“There’s a city about three days north of Labyrinth City, and their headquarters is there. They have a branch in Labyrinth City too.”
“Did you go to the headquarters?”
“That’s right.”
“···Then.”
“Stop asking so many questions. It’s late, so go home.”
‘Why are you getting so irritable?’
“Yes.”
Jeong Yushin removed the sandbags from his body and stared blankly at Ashur.
“Aren’t you leaving?”
“You go first.”
“Yes. Thank you for your hard work.”
Jeong Yushin bowed and left the training grounds.
“Come out tomorrow too.”
Ashur spoke to Jeong Yushin’s retreating back.
“Yes.”
Jeong Yushin disappeared from the training grounds.
After staring up at the sky for a while, Ashur spoke.
“Come out.”
A person walked out from the building’s shadow.
Kain.
Mion’s older brother and the captain of the Labyrinth City Knights.
“What kind of man is that Barbaroi?”
Kain asked as he swept back his blond hair.
“Did you meet your sister?”
“I couldn’t. She said she wasn’t feeling well.”
Kain stared intently at Ashur.
He did not seem willing to leave before hearing the answer to his original question.
Ashur thought for a moment before opening his mouth.
“He’s a good kid. He isn’t someone who would harm others without reason. You don’t need to worry about your sister.”
“···If you say so, Lord Ashur, I’ll believe you. Also, the committee has summoned you. Please visit the inner city sometime.”
“I understand. I’ll go.”
“Take care.”
Kain turned and disappeared into the darkness.
Ashur stared at the place where Kain had stood and clicked his tongue.
“I’m not a babysitter. Tsk.”
* * *
“It’s really worth the money.”
Jeong Yushin staggered back to the inn.
The excessive training had left not a trace of strength in his body.
No matter how difficult things had been before, they had never been this bad.
He dreaded the thought of having days like this from now on.
Creeeeak.
He opened the door, entered, and looked around the dark inn hall.
Anne and Tarman had apparently finished work and returned to their rooms, leaving the place quiet. All the guests were asleep.
Something covered with a cloth lay on the counter.
He approached and removed the cloth.
It was a sandwich made with black bread, filled with ham, vegetables, and a fried egg. A note lay on top of the bread.
‘Lord Ska, since you didn’t come, I made dinner and left it for you.’
Jeong Yushin read the note once and tucked it into his clothes.
Damn.
He could read.
His head spun as he wondered how he would endure the training ahead.
Kain and the real Barbaroi had been grating on his nerves too.
It was difficult both mentally and physically, but.
The fact that he could read soothed his mind.
Of course, he still couldn’t read fluently.
But if he continued training relentlessly while learning to read, surely something good would come of it.
‘Phew.’
Jeong Yushin sat in the counter chair and chewed noisily on the sandwich.
The vegetables were still crisp, and the bread and meat were warm, as though they had not been made long ago.
His throat felt tight, so he took a bottle of liquor from the cabinet behind the counter, poured it into a glass, and drank.
With his glass in hand, Jeong Yushin stared blankly at the dark inn hall.
How was Darmong doing?
What had happened to Karin?
He thought about this and that, but no answer came to him immediately. He rose from his seat and went upstairs.
He returned to his room, wiped his body with a wet towel, changed his clothes, and lay down on the bed.
Darkness descended.