Like Swallowing Sand, Part 3
In the middle of the wide-open plains stood a dilapidated shack.
Whenever the wind blew, it creaked and groaned in painful protest. It greedily swallowed the falling rain, causing blooms of mold to fester inside its rotting, warped frame.
Though the shack had harbored death for a very long time,
it had still served as a humble shelter where the poor, the homeless, and the vagrants could lay their weary bodies.
But now, even they had all departed.
Peering through half-lidded eyes at the stained ceiling, I was faintly reminded of that shack.
A place so ancient it wouldn't have been surprising if it collapsed at any moment.
As I inhaled the stale, dusty air, a violent cough forced its way out of me.
"...Kh-cough!"
A searing pain shot through me, as if someone were mercilessly striking my lungs with a hammer.
Instinctively, I tried to roll over, but I couldn't even manage that, so I simply spat it out.
A dark, clotted mass drenched the front of my shirt.
After my lungs, my throat, ribs, and shoulders began to ache with a twisting agony.
At this point, it was harder to find a part of my body that didn't hurt.
Lacking the strength to even keep my eyes open, I went limp, drawing shallow breaths until my mind cleared.
Only after a long while was I finally able to slowly push myself up.
I was a total wreck. My insides were so horribly knotted that I couldn't even swallow my own saliva properly.
Worst of all was my left arm.
I couldn't even twitch a single finger.
To assess the damage, I slowly turned my head.
Through a deep, gaping laceration, a flash of white caught my eye.
Whether it was bone or cartilage, it didn't really matter.
Struggling to steady my posture, I tried to sense the energy within my heart.
The massive, mysterious energy was still coiled deep inside my heart.
It lay perfectly still, as if fast asleep.
For some reason, a sense of unease began to creep over me.
It felt like staring at a cup filled so high with water that it was on the verge of overflowing.
Faced with this unfamiliar sensation, I hesitated for a moment. But since I was going to die either way, I resolved to try and harness this energy somehow.
Recalling my past experiences, I immediately began to draw out a thread of the energy that had fully become mine.
Even as I tried to extract the energy filling my heart, I could barely budge a strand no thicker than a single hair. Fortunately, the massive reservoir of energy remained completely unresponsive.
A normal human body could never stand against a beast.
Even if one managed to defeat the weakest of them, it meant nothing, for they never traveled alone.
In my case, it could only be described as pure luck.
There had happened to be only a single beast separated from its pack,
and the torrential rain and roaring thunder had drowned out the sounds of our struggle.
Otherwise, it was the kind of creature that humans could only hope to face by matching its numbers and attacking together.
Beasts always possessed abilities that far surpassed human strength,
and that gap only widened exponentially with the higher-tier entities.
Therefore, for humans to defeat beasts, they had to swallow more of their hearts and temper their bodies accordingly.
A power that allowed them to exert greater strength and move with superior speed.
While it enhanced physical capabilities and enabled various other feats, there was a more fundamental reason why those who swallowed hearts could stand against the beasts.
'First, the injured arm.'
Using the extracted energy, I pierced through the thin membrane I felt inside my body and channeled it all the way to my fingertips.
Instantly, a familiar ache throbbed through my stiffened arm, and my swollen hand began to regain its color.
A little later, the wound on my shoulder was mostly healed, and I circulated the last remnants of the energy throughout my body to realign my twisted bones and organs.
It was an extremely inefficient method that completely exhausted all the energy stored within my body.
Yet, it was a miraculous ability that could mend almost any wound.
Only after expending every drop of usable energy did I finally catch my breath.
I would need more rest, but that didn't matter much.
I was back to square one.
Naturally, my attention turned back to the massive energy slumbering inside my heart.
'What on earth is this?'
Even with a clear head, the sheer scale of this energy was overwhelming—something I had never witnessed before.
In my past life, despite swallowing the hearts of countless beasts, I hadn't managed to cultivate even half of the energy I possessed now. I couldn't comprehend how someone raised in a backwater village could harbor such a colossal force.
Even the hearts of the mighty beasts I had slain time and again had never held this level of power.
The only thing comparable to this would be the power of the Evil Dragon.
"……That's impossible."
A mighty power that could tear the heavens apart and crush armies of beasts and humans alike as if they were mere insects.
It was a force so immense that it was hard to imagine a mere human body could even contain it.
And yet, a body that hadn't even fully matured was holding such power?
It was unbelievable even as I witnessed it firsthand, but there was simply no other explanation for this power.
With that thought, I tried to draw out more energy, but once again, I could only extract a single hair-thin strand. No matter how hard I strained, nothing more would budge.
What if I could use all of that power?
The image of the Evil Dragon roaring savagely atop a mountain of corpses flashed through my mind.
If I could wield that kind of strength, wouldn't I be able to easily wipe out any horde of beasts I might encounter in the future?
If so, then this time, I might actually get to live out the peaceful days that followed.
"My path is set, then."
To make this colossal energy inside my body entirely my own.
And to find the way to do it.
The moment I made that resolve, the fog in my mind cleared.
Stepping outside, the warm, bright sunlight stung my eyes.
After taking a slow breath of the fresh air, I headed to a nearby stream. I washed away the dried blood, pus, and bits of flesh clinging to my skin, then drank my fill of the water.
My reflection in the water looked incredibly pitiful.
"You're awake."
A man who had appeared without a sound and had been watching me spoke up.
Without showing any surprise, I bowed deeply to him.
"Thank you for saving me."
My voice sounded rather ridiculous, hoarse and strained from my raw throat.
The man's expression didn't change.
Instead, he reached into the damp pouch he held in one hand and pulled out an object to show me.
"Did you eat this?"
It was smaller, but it was undoubtedly a beast's heart.
When I nodded, the man stared intently into my eyes before shifting his gaze to my shoulder.
The torn flesh had knit back together as if it had never been injured, leaving only a faint scar.
"You know how to use it."
Because of his flat, emotionless tone, I couldn't tell if it was a question or a statement to himself.
So, without replying, I simply stared at the beast's heart in his hand.
The pouch he held looked stuffed to the brim.
Unless he had a gruesome hobby of collecting butchered beast parts, the contents of that pouch were likely other beasts' hearts.
'If I swallow more hearts, will I be able to wield more power?'
The image of the beast tearing at my father's belly flashed through my mind.
If I absorbed any more of a beast's power right now, my body would surely burst.
Suddenly, the man reached out and grabbed my shoulder.
I flinched from an instinctive aversion, but a foreign energy began to flow into me through his firm grip.
An all-too-familiar pain flared up instantly. His energy, searing like hot iron, began to scour every nook and cranny of my body as if searching for something. The sudden, forced expansion of my pathways made me scream in agony.
As if a fuse had been lit, the energy inside my body began to thrash violently, on the verge of exploding.
I coughed up a mouthful of dark blood. Realizing the danger, the man quickly withdrew his energy.
His face was painted with sheer shock.
Then, after falling into deep thought for a moment, he finally spoke.
"Follow me."
Soothing the energy that had settled back down as if nothing had happened, I glared at the man who had just ordered me around without so much as an apology.
A man who knew of the beasts, hunted them,
and understood their power. What could someone like him possibly want from me?
As if expecting me to comply, the man gathered his remaining gear and began to walk away from the shack.
I stared at his retreating back for a moment, then looked toward the faint grey fortress walls visible in the far distance before calling out to him.
"……I still have something to do."
"Will it take long?"
"No. It won't take long."
The man nodded without a word.
He didn't ask what I had to do, nor how long it would take.
Just as he had always done, he would simply appear when the time was right and lead the way without a fuss. Certain of this, I dragged my heavy feet forward.
Under the clear sky, the ruined village lay exposed in all its grim reality.
The hunter's house, which had been ablaze, was now reduced to black charcoal, and most of the village buildings behind it were either collapsed or stained with soot.
The rotting corpses of humans and livestock floated in deep puddles of stagnant water, giving off a sickening stench.
But what drew my attention even more were the headless carcasses of the beasts.
Gaping holes were gouged out where their throats should have been.
I knew instantly that this was the man's doing.
Naturally, there was no sign of any survivors. There were only corpses—some with jaws barely hanging from shredded cheeks, others with their bellies completely ripped open and hollowed out.
As I kept walking, a familiar sight came into view through my suffocating surroundings.
It was a shop that looked relatively intact from the outside.
Only the half-open front door was dented and cracked.
Taking a shallow breath, I slowly stepped inside.
Immediately, a heavy, putrid stench—distinctly different from the air outside—assailed my nostrils.
My father's decaying corpse lay bathed in the sunlight filtering through the window.
My head grew hot, and my lungs felt as if they were about to burst.
After staring at him for a moment, I headed toward the storeroom.
The storeroom, barely illuminated by a few stray beams of light, was drenched in blood.
My mother's head, already blackened with decay, hung there.
A few fat flies buzzed in and out of her agape mouth.
Fighting off the wave of dizziness, I dragged over some crates from the storeroom and untied the rope suspending my mother.
With a dull thud, her body fell limply to the floor.
The rest was simple.
I carried my parents' bodies up to the hill, beneath a massive, solitary tree.
Finding the cleanest cloth I could, I gathered my father's remains, then lifted my mother in my arms and laid them both down on the grass.
Kneeling before them, I began to dig the earth with my bare hands.
My fingernails peeled back, and blood seeped from my fingertips.
I dug until the sun began to set, finally burying my mother and father in the pit.
After covering them with soil, I took a white stone salvaged from the ruins of a collapsed building and placed it at their heads as a tombstone.
Then, I gathered herbs until darkness fully enveloped the land.
I stopped by the house of the old herbalist—where this entire tragedy had begun—and picked an armful of the finest herbs to lay upon their grave.
'...With this much, they would have easily made it through the summer.'
Breathing in the fragrant scent of the colorful herbs, I collapsed into a deep, exhausted sleep.
I didn't dream. My parents didn't even show their faces.
When I opened my eyes again, I saw the man's face, quietly looking down at me.
I stared at my parents' grave for a moment, then turned and began to walk behind him.