Chapter 11
I turned on the Swordsmanship Gallery and hurriedly made a post.
[Title: Being chased by a Lesser Griffin in real time]
Author: WokeUpAsATSGirl
(Photo of the Lesser Griffin’s corpse with its head blown off)
Just kidding. I already killed it lol
-What the fuck?
-…?
-GreatswordFan) What? How’d you do that?
-GeniusSwordMaiden) Are you okay, newbie? You aren’t hurt, are you?!
-DaggerTechniquePro) What the hell happened?
-But why isn’t the newbie saying anything?
└Maybe they just posted and ran?
└No, fuck, at least tell us what happened before you leave.
-PureAndLovely*) If you’re going to drop a teaser, hurry up and tell us the story!!!!
-This bastard dropped another teaser and ran off, f@ck
I turned off the gallery with a satisfied smile.
I’d tossed out some juicy bait, so the Swordsmanship Gallery would stay lively for a while.
‘I’ll check the gallery later.’
I walked over to the Lesser Griffin’s corpse.
Its entire head was gone.
‘Did something tear it off?’
Thinking that, I looked around.
I spotted bits of flesh scattered everywhere.
“…Ugh.”
Had the arrow hit it square in the head and made it explode?
Cleaning this up was beyond me.
‘Let’s just run.’
I ran straight home.
After running at full speed for several minutes, I arrived home.
“Phew…”
I sank down by the front door with a relieved sigh.
I nearly died for real this time.
‘Still, I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do.’
I turned on the Swordsmanship Gallery.
Just imagining the gallery ablaze with activity was already making me happy, when—
-Thump.
My heart suddenly started pounding like crazy.
“U-uh…?”
My head was spinning so badly it felt like it might split open.
My insides twisted, and all the muscles in my body contracted as if they were about to snap.
Could this be because I’d used my aura too recklessly?
“Ghaa…!”
In the end, pain engulfed my entire body.
I lost consciousness.
***
Warm sunlight struck my eyes.
What a refreshing morning.
“Mmm.”
It hurt so much I wanted to close my eyes again, but my eyelids wouldn’t obey me.
It felt like someone was poking them with a toothpick.
Should I reinforce my eyes with aura first?
‘Aura.’
I drew a little aura out of my heart, and—
“Kuhk! Cough—!”
Blood burst from my mouth, and agonizing pain shot through me.
‘Shit…!’
Wondering what on earth was going on, I recalled what had happened yesterday.
I’d taken down the Lesser Griffin after twisting every which way in a desperate struggle.
‘…Did I use too much aura back then?’
This was probably the side effect.
‘Can’t be helped.’
Enduring the sunlight still stabbing at my eyes, I opened the gallery.
Most of the posts were people cursing me, though.
‘What’s with Daggercel?’
DaggerTechniquePro.
For twenty hours, they’d been steadily posting insults about me every five minutes or so.
‘They’ve made over two hundred posts in that time?’
Are they actually insane?
Most of them were shitposts, so they quickly got buried.
But because they posted so much, some of them occasionally resurfaced near the top.
[Title: Where the fuck did the newbie go]
Author: DaggerTechniquePro
I seriously want to spar with them and beat them senseless.
Why do they always drop a teaser and then fucking disappear!!!
-PureAndLovely*) Honestly, I kinda wanna IP-ban them.
└Should we just kill them once and for all?
└PureAndLovely*) But if we ban them, we won’t get to hear that awesome Lesser Griffin story, damn it.
└Upvote lol
└The story is serious business, yeah.
-GreatswordFan) It really is annoying how they only ever bait people.
└Actually, didn’t you kidnap the newbie? You even sparred with them.
└DaggerTechniquePro) Seems possible? Blue-tag mod, Greatsword’s acting suspicious. Let’s cut them up and see, yeah?
└Daggercel just hates Greatsword lol
-GeniusSwordMaiden) I wonder if the newbie is okay… I’m worried.
“As expected, Sword Maiden’s the only one.”
Everyone in the gallery could curse me, but Sword Maiden never betrayed me.
I praised her again today and made a post.
[Title: Newbie’s here]
Author: WokeUpAsATSGirl
I got home and was going to tell the story,
but my aura suddenly went wild and I passed out.
Sorry lol
-The newbie’s here!!!
-We’ve been waiting for you
-PureAndLovely*) What? Why is it actually you?
└WokeUpAsATSGirl) ?
└PureAndLovely*) That Daggercel bastard keeps pretending to be you and posting bait, so I thought it was another one of those;;
└DaggerTechniquePro) Hehe
-GreatswordFan) Anyway, what happened? And what’s this about a Lesser Griffin?
I explained what I’d been through.
From sensing killing intent on the way home to rushing into a building and fighting a desperate battle.
└WokeUpAsATSGirl) It might sound funny to you guys, but it was really hard for me;;
Once I’d told them everything, the comments went quiet all at once.
I wondered if I’d said something wrong, but—
└So… you killed a Lesser Griffin by yourself? The person who learned swordsmanship two weeks ago?
└WokeUpAsATSGirl) Yeah. Why? It’s no big deal.
└PureAndLovely*) ?? What the fuck are you talking about?
└PureAndLovely*) Just one Lesser Griffin is enough to paralyze an entire city. You’re saying you killed it alone.
└WokeUpAsATSGirl) I guess so.
└PureAndLovely*) Are you insane?
└Newbie, I didn’t want you to get strong this quickly…
└GreatswordFan) But the judgment to infuse your Stigma with aura? That’s incredible…
└Seriously. Talent aside, your judgment has been completely absurd since last time.
└I’ve been saying the newbie doesn’t seem like an ordinary person.
With those comments, the gallery started buzzing about a different topic.
[Title: Things the newbie has done since joining the gallery]
1. Stabbed a knife into their own stomach without hesitation
2. Awakened aura right away, was born with a color, and figured out how to infuse aura on their own after just a few fights
3. Escaped the Forest Without an Exit—the cause of death for one of the Swordsmanship Gallery’s strongest, GreatswordFan—in just a few minutes
4. Used a technique they’d just learned to take down a Lesser Griffin
Would you believe all of this happened in roughly two weeks?
-Holy shit lol
-When you lay it all out, they really are on another level of insane.
-At this point, didn’t the newbie get professional training from childhood?
└That’s plausible. An ordinary person couldn’t be that bold fighting monsters.
-PureAndLovely*) Newbie, seriously, what are you really?
└WokeUpAsATSGirl) I’m just an ordinary orphan.
└PureAndLovely*) No, fuck;; What were you doing as a kid to turn into such a freak?
└WokeUpAsATSGirl) Hmm. Honestly, I don’t think there was anything special.
I explained the environment I’d grown up in.
└WokeUpAsATSGirl) Like, goblins or orcs would pop up while I was eating, wyverns would kidnap me if I stood outside, and all kinds of monsters would attack me while I slept?
└WokeUpAsATSGirl) Oh, and there was other stuff too…
Remembering my childhood made me strangely excited, so I went on explaining everything.
After I’d happily finished telling them all about it—
-What the fuck, did you grow up in a dungeon?
-How the hell are you still alive? lol
-The way you describe it, it sounds like the world already ended. What the hell?
-UsedToBeAHero) What kind of world is yours? Are there, like, eighty Demon Kings?
└That actually seems possible.
-PureAndLovely*) Upvote if you suddenly understand why the newbie is so talented.
└Upvote lol
└GreatswordFan) It all makes perfect sense now, doesn’t it, Swordcel? lol
“Hmm. Is it that bad?”
I was being serious.
No matter how messed up Hwaseong City was, wasn’t this kind of thing normal?
‘They said it was like this in the Hunter Gallery, too.’
Of course, even there, I often heard things like, ‘But you’re not serious, are you?’
Anyway.
└WokeUpAsATSGirl) I’m tired. Can I go to sleep now?
└Yeah, absolutely. Get some good rest.
└PureAndLovely*) It’s a real miracle you survived pushing your body to its limit only two weeks after awakening aura.
└GeniusSwordMaiden) Newbie, I hope you recover soon…!
└DaggerTechniquePro) …But what does “recover” mean?
└GreatswordFan) Average Daggercel intelligence lol
└DaggerTechniquePro) You don’t know either.
└GreatswordFan) lol
I smiled contentedly and closed my eyes again.
…Though I was still lying on the floor by the front door, unable to move.
***
After resting for a few days, I was feeling better.
I could more or less control my aura, and my Stigma was working fine too.
‘Maybe I’ll climb the Tower now.’
Thinking that, I sat down in front of the computer first.
Before climbing the Tower, I should catch up on what’s going on in the world.
I went to the symbolic community that represented the world.
[Hunter Gallery.]
-I wanna awaken.
-Any B-Rank Awakened show up??!?
-Ah, c-c-c-c-c❗+❗+❗+❗+❗♿♿♿
-Central Government statement) I’m here to help the guilds lol
I should take back what I said about it representing the world.
A thick stench of trash you couldn’t get in the Swordsmanship Gallery.
‘A familiar flavor of shit.’
Among all the shitposts, I clicked the title that seemed to have the most substance.
[Title: Central Government statement) I’m here to help the guilds lol]
(Video of the president’s emergency statement announcing that, starting today, entry to the Towers in South Korea would be managed.)
You know how there are local guilds that manage each region?
Apparently, those guilds are now required to inspect everyone entering a Tower.
On top of that, the government plans to send ‘administrators’ to help them.
They say the goal is to stop unregistered Awakened from getting in, but…
You can pretty much see where this is going, right?
-They’re trying to catch the major guilds secretly raising a Sword Maiden lol
└Ahem, we’re sending people to ‘assist with management.’
-I’m here to help you (while glaring and trying to steal Sword Maiden)
└Aaaagh, sudden childhood PTSD!!!
└It’s the classic impersonating-an-admin template.
└The Central Government really is the actual administrator, though lol
The gallery had gone completely off the rails.
‘So, in short, it’s basically that.’
The Central Government seemed to think that Genius Sword Maiden, who kept taking over the top spot in the Tower rankings, was some kind of secret weapon belonging to a major guild.
So they planned to monitor Sword Maiden when they entered the Tower, figure out who they were, and then take them for themselves…
‘How shameless.’
They were using the ‘I’m here to help you’ template that had been popular in RPGs twenty years ago.
Naturally, the guilds would respond accordingly.
However.
‘This is a super-emergency.’
Even so, I was still in a crisis.
Clear times, increases in Tower points for each region, and so on…
If they compared all kinds of information, they’d figure out I was Sword Maiden.
I needed to find a way around the inspections.
“…I don’t know.”
Frankly, unless the Guild Master or an S-Rank Hunter helped me, bypassing the inspections seemed impossible.
I couldn’t think of a suitable solution.
“Hmm.”
No idea.
Maybe if I asked the gallery later, they’d come up with something.
‘For now, I’ll go to the Tower.’
Better to go while I still could.
Just as I pulled my hood over my head and stepped outside—
-Squish.
My face sank into something soft.
‘What?’
Startled, I took a few steps back.
“….”
I came face-to-face with the red-haired woman standing outside my house.
‘Why is she so huge?’
She was enormous in every way.
Especially her height. I was so small I could barely see her face.
‘She does look kind of familiar…’
I stared intently at her face, wondering if she was a wanted criminal.
‘Kwon Dohwa.’
I realized she was Hwaseong City’s last hope, the Hwasan Guild Master.
I wondered what on earth someone that incredible was doing at my house, when—
“You’re Genius Sword Maiden, right?”
“…!”
She said my name.
‘How did she find out…?’
I knew my identity would be discovered eventually, but I hadn’t expected it to happen this soon.
“No, I don’t know anyone like that…”
When I played dumb, pretending to be calm, she gave me a faint smile and said—
Words that trigger PTSD in young South Koreans.
“It’s okay. I’m here to help you, Sword Maiden.”
…She was incredibly suspicious.