A Knight Seeks to Grow (4)

He actually endured that pain. He really did.

Derek had felt it himself while he worked the drug. The heart of the Ghost King carried a medicinal virulence of an entirely different order from any ordinary medicine—not merely poisonous.

Ranked as a toxin, it would outstrip even the venom of the zhen bird.

The zhen was a bird of legend, said to bear the ultimate poison. That venom was reputed to be so powerful, and so hideous, that no method of curing it even existed. In his original world it had been nothing but a poison written down in the histories. In this world the zhen was real, and he even knew where it nested. Knowing the ground had never given Derek the nerve to try and take one.

Nine times out of ten, the attempt would kill you. How was anyone supposed to acquire it? And the Ghost King's heart matched that venom—or else surpassed it. Swallowing the thing raw was simply not done. He had been working out a way to take it while blunting the potency as far as it would go, and he had never dreamed, not even once, that the man would eat the drug the instant he fainted, without waiting at all. Derek had all but asked him to wait.

…And yet.

Still. If he endured it, that alone means a great deal….

Derek knew. Merely ingesting an elixir of Unmeasurable grade in full, with no shortcut, was enough for a new Trait to be born.

He fought that vicious potency and won. Absorbing all of it in an hour or two is the proof. If that's so, then it's certain.

He had meant to feed it to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠him by a safer road, anesthetics among the rest. Instead the man had, somehow, met that pain with his whole body and absorbed the potency to the end. It was a result one could proudly call an achievement, and still fall short of the word.

Perhaps his hopes were running too high. Then again, one could just as easily say the opposite: surviving the agony of the elixir was that extraordinary a thing. Guessing how steeply the man's growth must have shot straight up, Derek found himself trembling without meaning to. It was a shiver of anticipation.

L-level 7 Traits won't have risen. From level 8 on, the gap ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is a different order entirely…. But a new Trait appearing, and the others climbing—that alone is an enormous result!

Adding a Trait was not the same as simply gaining a skill. It meant the slope of a person's growth—his potential—had deepened without limit. In the instructor's own way of speaking, the man had as good as undergone Shedding the Hair and Washing the Marrow.

"…If things go well, he might reach level 8 within the year……."

An Aura User, a wielder of the Magic Sword, a Successor of the Black King. Those who had reached Lv. 9 and Lv. 10 were monsters from beyond the heavens. They scarcely moved, as if living in seclusion, and one might well call them immortals who only watched the mortal world from the mountains and the sky—living, breathing strategic weapons, the sort that did not stir unless the situation truly demanded it.

A warrior of Lv. 8, by contrast, was nothing like those monsters. Such a one strode actively through the world of men and reigned as both terror and the very symbol of power: a tiger, lord of the mountain!

Their strength isn't absolute. But they're the kind who can fight a thousand knights alone, and win.

One against a thousand. An absurd, uppermost Hero Class existence, able to turn the shape of a battlefield alone and even flip a defeat into a victory. It would not be too much to put it that way. And the weakened Ghost King he had seen only yesterday had been level 8.

…In a normal state it would have been level 9. Or 9.5.

Even so, level 8 or not, there was no denying the thing sat at the very top of its tier. That was why he hoped. A single level of difference was absolute—and yet here, before his eyes, was a knight who had climbed that gap and met a top-tier Lv. 8 boss monster blow for blow.

He's already this much. If that man truly reaches level 8…?

If things went well….

A level 8 who could take a death match against level 9… a level 8 who could actually fight one, player against player, might be born.

Cradling his hopes for a future that had not yet come, Derek looked at the instructor, wanting to know just how far the man would grow.

—Light?

His body was light. Not simply light: light as if he had gone back to childhood. There are years like that, aren't there? Years when the body is so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠light you can run and run and your knees never ache, only stay fresh—when you can thrash yourself however you please and wake the next morning perfectly fine. His body was like that now.

Whoosh! Lee Han lofted himself lightly into the air and startled. He had only tapped the ground, and he must have risen a good foot and a half. If he jumped with everything he had, how high could he go?

Shhk! A casually thrown kick cut the empty air. Not as a turn of phrase—the sound was truly a blade scoring the void as it parted the air. An edge so keen, he suspected he could now split a sheet of paper cleanly in half with his foot alone. It was a trick he had never been able to manage.

I've always been hopeless on the delicate side….

Whether it was thin talent or a lacking temperament, he had never had any confidence in fine technique. He tended to throw his arts on feel alone, so the delicate part—the theory—was lacking, and his techniques ran rather simple. Now, though, the technical capacity that had always fallen short had risen all at once, and precise, refined movement was possible. A technique the old him would have landed once in a hundred tries, he had taken in a single attempt.

Well, I'll be damned. What is this?

If he were to name exactly what had happened to his body, it came down to two things. First, a body grown light, as if an old man had been restored to boyhood. Not merely light—a vitality pulsed in him that had to be ten times what he had carried as a teenager. This had to far surpass even the condition he had been in before he was injured. And the second was precision. Where he had once used his body by simply throwing it at things, precision now existed. It was only a guess, but he suspected that as the body's potential rose, the problem of finesse had solved itself.

The body's gotten so ridiculously healthy that I don't have to waste my head on it anymore?

Once, it would have taken endless trial and error, the sweating work of sorting out theory. Now a body that had already been healthy was healthier still and overflowing with strength, and he possessed a technical delicacy that ignored theory altogether. It was luck. And yet.

Ah. This is no good.

The more this went on, the worse his brute ignorance seemed to get.

…I'm screwed.

Hadn't the elixir alone nearly sent him to his grave, putting on a one-man show? Lee Han would gladly pass on any more experiences like that. He wanted to use his head, too. But the better his body became, the less he would need his head at all. Damn it.

"Tsk. Should I start studying or something?"

He fretted that reading a book or two might at least bump his wits. He did not want to be called ignorant, or a lout who had never learned a thing.

"Aigoo. My luck."

Even a body that was too good was a problem. Lee Han let out the sigh of a man with a full belly.

And even if it improves….

…he still couldn't put it to use. What was the point.

Checking the part of him that still gave no answer at all, Lee Han wore a bleak smile, nothing like the one from a moment before. Even the Ghost King, it seemed, could not cure an incurable illness laid down by a curse.

Even a monk wouldn't be this quiet down there.

A melancholy bleak enough to look pitiful gathered in his eyes.

"…I-Instructor. Do you feel anything different?"

The boy had waited in silence for some time while Lee Han took stock of his body, and now he asked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what state he was in. Lee Han nodded.

"Couldn't be better."

"…You mean?"

"Hmm. To put it specifically—no. To show you. Now—"

Shhk.

"I've gotten well enough that even this is possible."

"……?"

An alchemist's curiosity, perhaps. Timid was desperately eager to know what change had come over that body, and Lee Han gladly answered the hopes of his prospective Assistant Instructor (?), demonstrating in the flesh. There was lumber that looked like leftover stock from fitting out the workshop. He lightly cut one piece of it, and the boy's eyes went perfectly round. Cutting wood was not, on its own, so difficult a thing….

"D-did you just cut that with your hand?"

"Thumb and forefinger, to be exact. And it's less a cut than a gouge. You know how you hollow wood out with a carving knife? Same principle."

"…So how does that work?"

"……Well?"

"……."

It sounded like teasing, but there was no other way to explain it. All he could really offer was that the fine movements and control he had never managed before were about five times keener now, and leave it at that.

"And this works, too."

As if to say he could not explain it but could demonstrate it all day, Lee Han threw a light fist into empty air. Light as the punch had been, the result was not.

Bang!

"…??"

Timid went blank again. Just now….

"Y-you struck something thirty paces away? …With fist-force alone?!"

"That's right. I used to only be able to hit things about ten paces out. Now thirty paces works, too."

"…Why does that work?"

"Beats me."

The Hundred-Pace Divine Fist. When he had first shown it on Vulcan, it had been a fist art that could strike only what lay within about ten paces. Now it was different. Thirty paces. He could hit what lay beyond thirty paces, and he could break it. For the moment he swung lightly, since too much around him would shatter if he did not. Swung properly, he could swat even an assassin aiming at him from far off with a shock of fist-force. And it would not be the Hundred-Pace Divine Fist alone. Countless techniques must have risen the same way.

At this rate I could chain Piercing-One Spear three times in a row, and unfold the Plum Blossom Sword twice.

That was what technical finesse was. You stopped leaking useless strength, and it became possible to spend force efficiently—cunningly. And so he thought it. In his present condition, he could take the Ghost King alone. Even without the help of others, as he had needed the day before.

Ironic.

To eat the Ghost King's heart, and come to match the Ghost King…. Ironic, and yet wasn't this the law of the strong devouring the weak? The winner takes all. The victor possesses everything. So long as you lived, you were the winner.

It isn't the strong one who wins. It's the one who laughs last.

And now Lee Han felt he could shake off, entire, the helplessness he had known in yesterday's monster hunt. The thing was dead. It had vanished into nourishment for him. Wearing a satisfied smile, he offered up one little performance of delight.

"Watch closely. I don't even know if I can do it. I'm only giving it a try."

"Yes?"

"…Here goes."

Tap.

"…Oh. It works."

"……."

"Well? Quite a sight, if I say so myself. Heh heh."

"……."

Bright and innocent as the question was, Derek could not bring himself to answer. He only stared, blank. Or rather, he was no longer sure the thing he had just seen was real.

A-Air Walk?!

Watching Lee Han climb empty nothing as if it were a flight of stairs, Derek's soul left him at last. What in the….

Wait. He isn't a countryman of mine at all. Did an actual master of the murim reincarnate?

A former abbot of Shaolin, perhaps. That would be the more reasonable explanation. For a moment, Derek was simply gone.