Rebuilding the Foundation
Have you ever pulled a harpoon out of your own body?
It was no different from that.
Without hesitation, in an unexpected moment.
You have to yank it out with all your might.
"Ugh..."
Of course, unspeakable pain follows.
You might even die from the blood pouring out of the gaping hole.
The only saving grace was that this wasn't a real harpoon, and there was no need to worry about a wound tearing open.
The energy, which had roughly doubled in size, was yanked out in an instant and began to run wild inside my body.
The massive energy shuddered as if refreshed, and its swelling, explosive state subsided as if it had all been a lie.
For now, the immediate crisis was averted.
The problem was the aftermath.
The extracted energy was thrashing around, mercilessly battering my already ruined body.
...Stay still.
I forced myself to concentrate, straining with all my might to hold the wild energy in check.
Even so, it was barely a handful of energy.
After seizing the violently pulsing power, I began to wrap it around my entire body.
Exactly half of the energy was absorbed, and the pain finally subsided.
I had no idea how many times I had repeated this process.
In my past life, I rarely used the energy I absorbed because it felt like a waste, but now, I was burning through it the moment my physical condition deteriorated even slightly.
I grimaced, biting my lip.
It wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
Wasn't being in peak condition at all times something everyone craved?
As long as I possessed this unfathomably vast energy, I could face the beasts in top form whenever I needed to.
The problem was that I couldn't even begin to think I was in control.
Instead of wielding the energy at my whim, it felt like I was the one being dragged around by it.
This couldn't go on.
My feet, which had been dangling in the air, touched the ground, and my vision wavered.
The man who had been supporting me had let go.
His gaze wasn't on me.
He was merely looking around at the beast corpses scattered about, as if admiring the scenery.
"How old did you say you were?" the man asked in a dry, skeptical tone.
For a split second, a curse almost slipped past my lips.
If not for the overwhelming display of power he had just shown, I might have unleashed a torrent of abuse and kicked him.
This bastard hadn't expected anything from me at all.
Logically speaking, of course.
Handing a razor-sharp sword to a child who hadn't even lost his baby fat, or throwing him into a pack of wild dogs, was not the act of a sane mind.
He had done it knowingly, deliberately leaving the beasts for me to handle.
This was different from my past, where I had to take up arms just to survive.
This was no different from tossing someone off a cliff just to see if they would fly.
Yet, it wasn't entirely incomprehensible.
The reason he made such a mad choice was likely...
"Is it because of that energy?" the man muttered.
The mysterious, massive energy slumbering inside my body.
He was curious about the true nature of that power—and the identity of the boy harboring it.
Spitting out blood-flecked phlegm, I channeled the remaining energy back into my heart.
The massive energy sucked the returned power back in as if it belonged there.
I worried it might run wild again, but fortunately, nothing happened.
"I don't know either," I replied, choosing my words carefully.
As I spoke, I examined the energy that had quieted down inside my heart once more.
Why had the amount of energy I could control suddenly increased?
I retraced the events of the battle.
I had slaughtered several beasts, drawing and exhausting my energy dozens of times.
I had thrust my sword in a trance, wielding that power, and the moment I regained my senses, I drew upon it again to heal my fresh wounds.
And then, the energy in my heart had run wild.
Thinking back to the previous incident, it seemed the energy only ran wild when healing injuries past a certain threshold.
Or perhaps the amount of energy I could draw out had increased through the act of slaying beasts.
The important thing was that every time it happened, the massive energy threw my body into chaos.
Like a child throwing a tantrum over having their toy taken away.
While I was on the verge of grasping the answer but failing to reach a conclusion, the man strolled around, pulling the hearts out of the dead beasts.
He looked completely nonchalant, as if he were merely gathering fallen fruit.
I watched his familiar, indifferent movements until my eyes fell upon the carcass of the red beast lying in the middle of the village.
"Are you going to leave that one as it is?"
"I already took its heart. The scavengers will eat the rest, or the locals will clean it up."
I looked down at the ruined sword lying on the ground and asked, "Then, can I use it?"
The man, who was extracting the heart of the final beast, looked up and furrowed his brow.
His expression made it clear he had no idea what I meant by "using" it.
"If it's food you want, there is plenty of other meat. I'm not so stingy that I wouldn't share that much, so don't worry about it. Well... if you have that kind of taste, I suppose it doesn't matter."
The man gave a slight nod of permission, then bent down again to finish his work.
It seemed there was a misunderstanding, but it didn't really matter.
I picked up the broken sword and walked toward the carcass of the red beast.
The red beast was the alpha of the wolf-like creatures.
Wherever those wolf-beasts gathered, a red beast was always leading the pack.
Its carcass was in a wretched state, its shoulder split wide open as if it had exploded.
Actually, this made things easier. I began to carve away the charred, blackened flesh. Having finished his task, the man approached silently and watched me with an indifferent gaze.
First, the hide.
An intact red beast's hide was too tough for me to cut through in my current state, but since it was already torn, I could manage if I sliced along the existing gashes. Thanks to the energy that had nearly doubled, I was able to cut through it somehow, though it was still no easy feat.
After some time, I wiped the sweat from my brow and severed the final joint.
With a heavy thud, the red beast's left leg fell away.
As I took a moment to catch my breath, the man, who was leaning against a barely standing wall with his arms crossed, asked, "What do you plan to do with that?"
I had no reason to answer, so I kept quiet.
He would find out soon enough anyway.
Sighing softly to soothe my exhausted body, I drove the sword in and began slicing away the muscle and flesh clinging to the bone.
This was much easier than cutting the hide.
As the foreleg bone of the red beast gradually came into view, I pried it loose and detached the remaining joints. A surprisingly plausible blade revealed itself.
It was harder than steel, with an edge sharp enough to rival any decent sword.
A pale white blade, tinged with a faint red hue, now rested in my hand.
"You're going to wield that?"
"Why not?"
I quickly hid the bone sword behind my back, watching his reaction.
He's not going to demand I hand it over, is he?
Fortunately, the man only looked at me with mild curiosity before quickly losing interest.
I had worried he would press the issue, but for the first time, I actually appreciated his indifferent attitude.
A sword fashioned from a beast's bone was heavier than a metal one.
Unless it was a spear, swords and axes were much better off being heavy.
The weight alone made attacks devastatingly threatening, and it provided a significant advantage when parrying.
I tore off a strip of my clothing to wrap around the hilt, then searched the village for a rope to strap it to my back.
While wearing it at my waist would have been ideal, given its size, this was the better option.
"So, what now?"
"First, you should wash up."
Imagining what I must look like, I had no choice but to nod in agreement.
"This is your share."
The man handed me a pouch he had been carrying at his waist.
It was filled with the hearts of the beasts I had slain.
I stared at the dripping, blood-soaked pouch of hearts before handing it back to him.
"Keep them."
"You should consume them while you can. Don't let pride get in the way of your growth."
I would have if I could.
But if I swallowed those now, the energy I had barely managed to suppress would undoubtedly run wild again.
No, it was a certainty.
I didn't even know if consuming them would allow me to use more energy, and besides, I wasn't lacking in power.
Since I could draw out as much energy as I needed, there was no point in taking unnecessary risks.
"Then, I'll just take one."
"If you insist on being stubborn, I won't stop you."
Just in case, I pulled out the heart that looked to be in the best condition and handed the pouch back to him.
It would be worth trying later when I had some breathing room. I wiped the piece of heart surrounding the Core and stuffed it into my pocket.
Following the man to a nearby river, I stripped off my clothes and began to wash.
Crimson blood and bits of shredded flesh washed away down the river. My clothes were in such a state that it would have been cleaner to walk around naked.
The man only washed his hands and face before tending to his sword.
Perhaps due to the flames that had enveloped it, there wasn't a single blemish to be found on the blade.
"First, we head to the capital. There is someone you must meet there."
"Who?"
I asked, wringing out my clothes, which I had scrubbed until they no longer bled red.
I couldn't exactly walk around stark naked, after all.
"The Prophet of the Magic Tower."
"What?"
What on earth was a Magic Tower, and what did a Prophet do?
As I stood there blankly waiting for an answer, the man blinked a few times before continuing his explanation.
"The Magic Tower is where those who wield magic gather, and the Prophet is the one among them who receives divine revelations."
I knew of magic.
It had appeared in every fairy tale I read as a child. I had hated it because those bizarre abilities always brought a bloody, tense battle to a boring, abrupt end.
I remembered my father's flustered, awkward laugh when I had asked him what kind of bastards showed up late just to ruin the climax.
"They shoot fire, control the weather, and can defeat an entire army barehanded. Isn't that amazing? I heard that in war, they blocked countless arrows with a gale. If it were up to me, I'd make the protagonist a mage too."
"Is all of that actually true?"
"That's what they say. You know the miller's second son, Dec, who ran away recently? He followed a mage who visited for the Lord's birthday."
Back then, I thought they were nothing but swindlers.
So I sold off every single fairy tale book in the house.
Shooting fire and controlling the weather was utter nonsense. Even in my past life, where any random bastard could wield the power of beasts, I had never heard of anyone awakening such abilities.
Yet here I was, hearing about it again, and from this man's mouth of all people.
Even if it was a joke, I didn't find it amusing.
"Why do I have to meet someone so grand?"
"A divine revelation was handed down. It said that the ancient phantoms are resurrecting, and a child who swallowed that power has been born in the south."
The man pointed toward my solar plexus as he spoke.
"You're not going to tell me that a boy of your age hunted and consumed a beast with such a massive amount of power, are you?"