Chapter 15
It was definitely something that happened in my childhood.
Around the time I was in kindergarten, the hero who captured the hearts of little children was Vector Man.
By now, I can't even tell whether it was a rerun or Season 2─ but the heroes who adorned my childhood dreams were definitely those three Earth Warriors.
Like all kindergarteners, my friends and I believed the heroes on TV existed somewhere in the world. It was only natural that we became absorbed in playing pretend and imitating them.
But the truth of the world was cruel.
Every child wanted to be Vector Man Tiger, but there was only one Tiger spot. Someone had to be Vector Man Eagle, and someone else absolutely had to be Vector Man Bear.
So, in order to become Vector Man Tiger, we used to start punching each other before even transforming.
─Kids. Don't fight. Settle it with rock-paper-scissors.
And the one who resolved the pure disputes of little children was our kindergarten teacher noona.
With her tiny fists, she gently mediated between the children bickering over who had thrown their spirit bombs first, and before long we learned a way to duel without drawing each other's blood.
─Rock, paper, scissors!
Thus, my rival and I always played rock-paper-scissors for the throne of Tiger, like cowboys dueling in a Western.
─Waaah! I lost again!
One friend who had been brilliant since childhood always chose Eagle as the reliably decent second-best option, but I could never beat the rival who was always Tiger.
These days, all I have left is the vague suspicion that the problem may have been that I always threw scissors first─.
Anyway, that was how four-year-old me was always Vector Man Bear.
I felt sad that I was the black, frightening-looking Vector Man. In the simplistic color theory of childhood, black was the villain's color.
But after growing up, I understood.
Just as Swordmaster Go Gil-dong, who had seemed like a villain as a child, looked like a true hero after I became an adult, I came to understand what Vector Man Bear had fought for back then.
Bear surely knew that children didn't particularly love him.
Even so, he never complained or grew sad, and fought for the children's smiles.
─The true hero was Vector Man Bear.
Even while Tiger played the leader and monopolized the children's love, and Eagle carved out his own niche with his eagle swagger.
Bear received no reward whatsoever, nor did he expect any.
If he wasn't called a hero, then who in this world could be called one?
Above all else─ we're all descendants of Ungnyeo.
The tiger was merely a coward who lacked patience, fled to the mountains because he couldn't endure the mugwort-and-garlic ordeal, and even chose to become a scourge like tiger attacks and smallpox, tormenting the descendants of Ungnyeo chosen in his place.
So in a way, it was only natural.
That I gained the strength of a bear by using the sorcery that granted me the power of a beast.
“You fucking goblin brats!! Get over here and line up in a single file!!”
Kuaaaagh!!
I shouted, my entire body coated in flashing green mana. The goblins, green as the filthy algae blooms of Korea's Four Major Rivers, trembled as if they sensed the gap between us.
“Kkyak? (Dangerous?)”
“Kkyak? (Dangerous?)”
“Kkyak ku! (Dangerous no!)”
“Kkyak ku! (Dangerous no!)”
But in that regard, they were still green brats. After a consultation conducted in truly primitive sign language, they launched a reckless charge at our party.
“Kyak!! (Kill!!)”
“Kyak!! (Kill!!)”
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
Goblins charged without formation or discipline! Yet those nineteen brats were savage creatures capable of achieving their goal through nothing but merciless, disorderly bloodlust.
“Heh heh.”
I didn't feel the slightest bit of fear at their pathetic charge.
Even if those things had been bodybuilders instead of brats, defeating me, now an Earth Warrior, would have been utterly impossible.
Secretly, I was embarrassed to start putting on airs the moment I gained power, but I, Nord, had already decided to live as an otherworldly macho warrior.
Gauging the difference between oneself and one's enemy, then changing one's response accordingly, was an obvious survival skill for any living creature.
And those green brats─ were completely lacking that ability.
“Kyak!! (Kill!!)”
“Heh. No chance.”
I swung my sword at the goblin charging first. My enhanced strength made its speed incomparable to what it had been moments ago.
Whoosh!!!
Slash!!!
“Gyak!!”
The sword I swung with enough force to whip up a whirlwind split the goblin's body in half and killed it. Fuck, did I really just do that? I was so dumbfounded that my mouth fell open.
“Kek! Kkyak!! (This is bad! Dangerous!!)”
“Kek! Kkyak!! (This is bad! Dangerous!!)”
Having seen the same result twice, even the stupid goblins finally grasped reality. When the green brats froze in place, I seized the opening and swung my sword wildly.
Slash! Chop!
“Gyak!!”
“Gyak!!”
The sensation left in my hands didn't feel like cutting a living creature. Maybe thanks to the beast's strength dwelling in me, cutting goblin flesh felt more like obliterating a snowman made by children with a shovel.
“I am your Kumon teacher!”
Every time I swung my sword, one goblin went down. As I slaughtered the enemies with nearly unstoppable momentum, even the green brats caught on to the difference in fighting power.
The green brats gradually took on utterly demoralized expressions. Their attacking momentum visibly weakened.
But I didn't stop.
“─The only good brat is a dead brat.”
Riding the momentum, I swung the sword in one hand this way and that. Thanks to my tremendous strength, I didn't even need to hold it with both hands.
Thwack!
But maybe because I'd swung it too wildly, the sword, slick with fat, got stuck in the goblin's torso.
“Oh, fuck.”
“Kyak!! (Kill!!)”
The instant I tried to pull my sword free, one goblin swung a stone axe at me. Fuck! There was no old man Gentric, human shield, here to save me in the nick of time!
“Mr. Paragon! I'm counting on your healing!”
I held out my left hand to block the incoming stone axe.
It was an extremely irrational action. The hand was a part of the human body with some of its weakest bones and joints. It was not suited to blocking a stone axe.
I should have blocked it with the metal bracer on my arm! I'd chosen the wrong response because I was too focused on getting healed!
─Thunk!
But somehow, it blocked it.
“Gyak?”
“Ddet?”
Honestly, right after raising my hand to block it, even I regretted it. I thought getting hit by the axe would increase the number of bones in my hand by 1.5 times.
But the goblin's stone axe was futilely stopped by the green mana coating my hand.
There wasn't the slightest pain or damage in the hand that had blocked the attack.
“…Ah, I see. So it boosts defense too.”
There is an Aesop's fable called ‘The Donkey in the Lion's Skin.’
In that story, the protagonist donkey pretended to be a lion using a lion skin he happened to acquire. He fooled others by imitating a lion and gained a psychological advantage, but he couldn't hide his voice; when he brayed, his identity was exposed.
I was something like the practical superior version of that donkey. I hadn't merely imitated one; I'd actually gained defensive and offensive power surpassing a bear's hide.
Bears have far greater defense than humans thanks to their hide and muscles. In a foreign country, they say a martial-arts master once punched a bear, but the bear thought the man was playing with it.
By the same logic, a stone tool made by a brat couldn't pierce my mana hide.
“Gyaak!!”
Just then, the goblin whose weapon was being held hostage in my hand kicked at me. Once again, it did no damage at all, but the fact that this thing could kick was impressive in itself.
“Amazing. I never expected a goblin to know how to kick.”
Perhaps that was why I blurted out an exclamation with a killer rhyme.
Kicking is humanity's exclusive technique. Even the apes closest to humans don't kick. Monkeys and gorillas are capable of bipedal walking, but normally move around on all fours.
Creatures for whom walking on four legs is passive have no reason to kick. Their ‘hand’ and ‘foot’ strength are nearly equal.
Therefore, true kicking is the sole province of creatures that have lived their entire lives walking on two legs.
The power humanity gained in exchange for beginning to use ‘hands’ instead of ‘front paws’!
The essence of a technique delivered with the ‘two legs’ that had to grow strong while supporting one's body weight─ that is kicking.
But─ this goblin didn't have that ‘technique.’
“Kyak!! (Kill!!)”
Its feeble kicks continued pounding against my mana hide.
The goblin's kicks were truly the very definition of a brat. Like the white-belt little kids entrusted to the taekwondo gym─ that brat-only kindergarten every Korean boy is said to have attended at least once in childhood.
“How pathetic.”
I found the goblin's shabby imitation of a human kick deeply unpleasant. I could feel its petty kicks boiling the blood of the taekwondo boy flowing through me.
If these had really been human brats, then as the post-Vector Man I should have gently talked sense into them, but goblins were ultimately nothing more than monsters.
Therefore, I said:
“Green brat. That isn't what a true kick is.”
─Whoosh!
I grabbed it and threw it into the air, then took a high-kick stance with my sword still in hand.
“I'll show you a demonstration.”
Look up in awe.
“This─.”
True.
“─‘kicking.’”
─The ultimate technique, unleashed.
Crack-crack-crack!!!!
“Gyaaaagh!!”
The high roundhouse kick, powered by centrifugal force, landed. The goblin's spine bent sideways, and it flew several meters in that state.
Its body didn't split in two because its skin was still holding it together. But its spine had already folded in half. It was a fatal injury with no hope of revival even if Hua Tuo stopped time and operated on it.
“That's too gruesome a sight for someone claiming to be an Earth Warrior.”
Raw splatter, with no CG processing whatsoever!
It was a cruel sight that made my heart ache, but I showed no mercy. If we'd left these brats alone, we would have become the cast of a snuff film instead.
Not a trace of guilt in my righteous heart!
“Die, every last one of you! This is the law of nature, the survival of the fittest!!”
“What a truly excellent opinion!”
Beside me, Paragon swung his staff like a club.
Crack!!
The stone staff's power was murderous. The goblins rolled across the floor clutching the places struck by the stone staff.
“Gyaaaagh!!”
A scream of unsurpassed sorrow! It was painful enough to get hit with a switch, but having one's bones struck by a lump of stone must have left nothing intact.
“Hahaha! Paragon, you're damn good at fighting! Are you actually a priest of the Hunting God or the God of Strife?!”
Est also burst into mad laughter and raised a shield to block a charging goblin's attack.
─Thud!
Stab!
Block the weapon with the shield to obscure its vision, then stab with the short spear. It was a damn simple combo, but difficult to defend against. Without smashing the shield apart, there was nothing the opponent could do against this fighting style.
“Kkyak!! (Dangerous!!) Kkyak!! (Dangerous!!)”
“Yah!”
“K─ Gyaak?!”
Meanwhile, beside me, a goblin trying to find an opening to dodge was killed by Francesca's hammer.
Her weapon was a hammer with a rod the length of a backscratcher and a weight-shaped hammerhead attached to it.
At a glance, it looked practically like a claw hammer, but unlike its appearance, it had more than enough killing power. It was truly a weapon that looked exactly like its owner, Francesca.
Crack!
Adding in the strength inherited from her dwarven blood, she smashed the goblin's head as if it were tofu, spraying chunks of flesh. Oh shit. Francesca's attack looked like it hurt the most.
“See? I told you, dying by my hand is the least painful and the best option, didn't I?”
“Kya, kyaaaagh….”
A fleeing goblin. Thanks to my stellar performance and my party members' support, the numbers had long since turned in our favor.
There were only three brats left now. One of those three had just been killed by Francesca's claw hammer.
“Gyah….”
A green brat with a highway tunnel punched through its head, its brain-fluid dam in the process of being released!
Thump!
The goblin facing me collapsed when its legs gave out.
“Gyahk! Gyak! Gyak! Gyak! Gyak!”
Stab-stab-stab-stab-stab!!
While it was doing that, its remaining friend was sent to meet its maker after Est's repeated Go-to-Hawaii thrusts stabbed into its stomach. Est is fucking terrifying when she fights. I should never mess with her.
─Tremble-tremble-tremble-tremble.
Thus, the last goblin completely lost its will to fight. It screamed as if telling me not to come any closer.
“Gyaaaaaaaaaagh! Gyaaaaaaaaaagh!!”
It was a truly ridiculous sight, considering they had attacked first and tried to make us their food. I stood before it, holding a sword smeared with melon-colored grease.
“Gya, gyak, gyak…!”
“─Pathetic.”
I muttered quietly, casting a contemptuous look at it after it had even dropped its weapon.
“Kkyaku kyaaa! (You don't fight!) Krrk! (Pathetic!)”
“…Kkya! Kkyaruk kyararuk? (You! You speak our language?)”
When I voiced my words in goblin, it hung its mouth open.
It was a normal reaction. What lunatic in the world would study goblin language just to converse with them? This was practically an act only I could perform.
For the honor of brats, I deliberately provoked it. This was the mercy I was extending to them.
Though they were a different race, as long as they were members of the brat community, I couldn't cut them off as a hero of children.
“What are you doing? Don't tell me you're talking to the goblin?”
“No, what are you talking about? It isn't like that.”
I played dumb with utter firmness at my party member's words. If I were caught schmoozing with a monster, they might mistake me for a black mage, this world's equivalent of a red.
“I'm just making random noises. Heh heh. What meaning they take from them is none of my concern.”
“You're taunting them. That is cruel.”
“You might want to wipe the blue blood off your stone staff before saying that.”
“Ahem.”
In any case, I couldn't accept the way they attacked first, then surrendered whenever it suited them.
With that sentiment in mind, I threw it a line that meant:
“─Don't live on your knees. Die on your feet.”
Given the goblin language's limits on sophisticated expressions, there was no doubt it still understood my feelings.
“Kyarrrrr….”
Just then, the goblin muttered in a low voice. The moan it let out wasn't language.
It was a murmur filled with humiliation and rage. Rage toward us and an obsession with victory began to seep into its voice.
I watched it and nodded gravely.
“─Come. Goblin who knows the honor of the horde.”
“──Kyaaaaaaaaaagh!!”
The goblin hero, awakened to fury upon recognizing its honor, charged bravely toward me──
“Brat—cut.”
“Gyahk.”
Its skull went pa-kkin and shattered, killing it.
“How dare a lowly creature without human rights get uppity with a human.”
Drip….
The goblin collapsed dead instantly before my bear punch. I basked in the thrilling sensation of victory lingering in my fingertips as sunlight shone down from the cave ceiling.
“Victory.”
It was a truly honorable battle.