102. The Result of Surpassing Limits
102. The Result of Surpassing Limits
"I'm Woo Hyosung, Silver-grade adventurer."
An uninvited guest. No one had expected him.
Through the wariness hanging in the air, the man who had retrieved his spear—leaving a group of soldiers behind him—gave his name, facing the convulsing corpse golem.
To prove, at the very least, that he was an ally.
"Woo Hyosung...?"
"Woo Hyosung? You mean the Hero Hunter?"
The moment the scouts heard the name, recognition flickered across their faces, and they exchanged glances.
But for Marcus, the figure before him registered in an entirely different way.
That man was the disciple of his old comrade—a comrade he now considered an enemy.
The reason he had allowed his nemesis to come here was to confirm what that man had spent his entire life trying to achieve.
"Why are you here...?"
"I was training nearby and came when I heard the commotion. Looks like I was too late for one of them, though..."
The result of that life's work stayed fixed in place, still sizing up the being before him, as if he meant to sear every last detail into memory.
The golem—a mass of hundreds of tangled corpses—had already withstood the thrown spear from earlier, and now it was regenerating.
When the colossal thing pulled itself upright once more, it looked like a monster that would require a battalion of soldiers to swarm it just to carve out a chance of victory, special operation or not.
Engaging it head-on would inevitably cost lives.
Only those called Heroes could face a being like this unscathed.
"Stand back. I'll handle this myself—use it to test what I've been training."
Yet as he stepped toward the monster, there was no hesitation in his stride.
Watching that confident advance, Marcus felt an inexplicable sense of déjà vu.
As if he had seen this same back long ago.
'Stay back, mister knight. I'll handle this.'
The back of a young boy-soldier who had stepped forward in his homeland's moment of crisis.
For an instant, that silhouette seemed to overlap with his.
-Ooooh... Oooooooh...!
But right now, there was no leisure to sink into nostalgia.
The golem, having risen to its full height, began fixing every last one of the hundreds of eyes covering its body on him.
A gargantuan corpse golem, created by a lich that had sensed its own annihilation and wrung out the last dregs of its power.
The guiding principle of a monster whose body—and even its ego—had been stitched together like rags should have been simple instinct, something born from its patchwork nature.
But at this moment, what remained of a fractured ego had focused itself entirely on the existence before it.
With countless tangled fragments all fixating at once, the only possible outcome was a rampage.
-Grruuuumble.
Even exposed to that murderous intent, he didn't flinch.
He simply channeled more power into the armor he wore, attempting to draw out still more from it.
-Gruuumble. Ruuuumble.
From the start, its output was on a completely different plane compared to ordinary equipment.
Gear crafted from the corpses of high-ranking demons could exert its own magical power, but ultimately that was only a supplementary layer, borrowing the output of a mana core.
That was supposed to be common sense. Yet the magical power radiating from him now struck so forcefully that it felt like the pressure of a high-ranking demon itself, warping the surrounding air.
Strong enough, in fact, to make an onlooker fear that the wielder might collapse under the sheer weight of it.
-Bzzzzzt.
But then, as if to overturn those worries, the output began to subside at some point.
The phenomenon was so abrupt that, to the eye, it looked as though the mana had simply evaporated in an instant.
'No. It hasn't evaporated.'
Marcus and the soldiers watching from behind could clearly sense the anomaly taking shape inside his body.
'His mana... it's clinging to his body...!'
The thought surfaced—and they nearly shook their heads in denial.
To wield mana was to draw the flow of power toward oneself.
Handling a current of power that was both invisible and formless, guided by nothing but raw sensation... Naturally, control was difficult. Using mana meant, by its very nature, enduring massive power bleed.
That rule held even when generating a "circle," the phenomenon created by concentrated power.
'But that's different. He isn't just gathering power into a circle. He's making the fully gathered mana cling to his body like a film.'
As if wrapping his entire frame in a membrane impermeable to mana, he wielded it while preventing any waste whatsoever.
If such a thing could actually be done, the unavoidable loss of power could be brought close to zero.
He compressed the armor's vast output back into itself until it reached an absolute limit.
And around his hands—where mana's motion was most active—it took the form not of a leaking circle, but of gauntlets.
-Wiiiiing.
Even the resulting noise surpassed vibration altogether, edging close to an ultrasonic shriek. The condensed density of physical force packed into his body was unimaginable.
In truth, this was a level of control that should have been impossible without a literal blessing from mana. Yet the moment Marcus saw that absurd sight, what struck him was something else altogether: familiarity.
The déjà vu he had felt earlier, watching the man's back.
Now, seeing him exert his power, it grew even sharper.
-GRROOOOAAAAAH!!
And at that instant, the corpse golem roared and swung its fist.
The destructive power of a giant's punch—a body composed of hundreds of humans—measured on par with a siege engine aimed at a fortress wall.
But the man didn't let his concentration waver. He planted the butt of his spear, steadied himself, and calmly prepared to meet the blow.
-Faang!
The vicious strike was turned aside by a single sweep of the spear shaft, and the golem's stance began to buckle. The follow-up from its other arm, thrown from an already crumbling base, was knocked away just as effortlessly.
-Faang! Faang!
He simply brought his spear into the path of each attack, swinging again and again to parry.
The flow of power, conducted without any sign of strain, soon collapsed the giant's balance entirely, and an enormous opening yawned wide.
That gap was the perfect moment to strike.
Without missing it, the man sank his weight into his lower body and clenched his spear with everything he had.
And then—a throw.
-KWAAAANG!
Magical power detonated inside the giant's abdomen, and the impact blew its body apart, scattering it in fragments.
No—the area nearest the explosion hadn't even reached the stage of fragments. It was powder.
The only section that still retained any semblance of function was the remains of the lich that had served as the golem's core—the one piece he never took his eyes off.
-Krrgh... uurghk. I... I...
Crunch—! The spear came around and crushed its head.
Even then, still on high alert, he turned back toward the scouts and shouted.
"Everyone—can you help me clean up here?"
"H-huh?"
"They're undead. If we don't destroy the vital points, they'll just keep regenerating, right?"
"Ah—right. That... makes sense."
After exchanging glances, the scouts nodded and readied their respective weapons to dismantle the scattered undead corpses. A thoroughness that had been absent from the Hero before—confirming the kill, not skipping a single step.
As the scouts gradually felt safety being secured thanks to him, a sense of relief began spreading among them.
Yes. As long as no enemy reinforcements came, things would be fine for now.
It was at that moment that Marcus sensed a presence behind him.
"Well now. What do you think? Rather impressive, isn't he?"
Jang Cleo.
His detestable old comrade-in-arms—and the master of the man who had just single-handedly disposed of a corpse golem forged from hundreds of bodies.
"...So it was you after all."
As soon as he faced him, Marcus let his displeasure show openly. Jang calmly stroked his chin beard and offered his reply.
"I initially thought it would take him several months at minimum. Even I never imagined he would reach this level in just one. That young man's innate ability pairs unexpectedly well with handling spirits."
In a sense, the outcome was obvious.
Whenever communion occurred, a spirit cluster repeated cycles of birth and death, and from those cycles the only thing left to the caster was the faint residue of the contact.
To produce results from such residue normally required decades of training.
That was because the time itself was, in essence, spent making the spirits learn—and the ability to interfere with their memories also influenced that learning process.
Even if it was a power that amounted to nothing more than inscribing a name.
For an act that desperately requires building up from the smallest memories, it could exert an efficiency surpassing anything else.
"Imperials are so lazy. They assess a subject's ability solely by their own narrow common sense and leave overlooked talents to rot."
A situation where such a talent—inheriting a dignity drawn from a dragon—had found a master who understood spirits, and had at last begun to bloom.
Now, witnessing the result, the master who had guided him felt a sense of reward beyond compare.
He was still a little rough, but Jang no longer doubted that, before long, he would possess power befitting a being like her.
"But you, Marcus—you seem rather dissatisfied with this outcome."
Although he, too, surely remembered her, Marcus's face, having grasped everything, was still filled with displeasure.
"...You ask the obvious."
If traces of her could already be glimpsed after a single month, then in a matter of years—no, perhaps even months—he might well command strength to rival her in her prime.
Summoned to this world as a Foreign Worker, he had, through meeting Jang, learned how to apply his innate ability.
In effect, from now on, he had to be classified alongside "other Heroes." No one could deny that the evaluation of the individual Woo Hyosung had risen.
"If the fruit of your life's investment is merely 'that one Hero,' isn't disappointment only natural?"
Even now, the Empire possessed hundreds of Heroes with might equal to hers—and was ceaselessly attempting more summons at this very moment.
No matter how strong, no matter how thorough, in the end, it was only the potential of a single Hero.
In a world where such Heroes had to be mass-produced as an army merely to stall calamity, what was the point of pouring an entire lifetime into creating a lone strong individual?
Wasn't that simply foolish?
****
Yes. Even Marcus acknowledged the potential within the man called Woo Hyosung.
But based on what he had just demonstrated, no matter how much that potential blossomed, he could not imagine it surpassing the other Heroes.
Even Sin Jiho—had he remained vigilant—could have easily incinerated a corpse golem of this caliber.
If they had only been more careful, bringing any other Hero to this spot would have produced the same result.
"Losing one Hero must sting quite a bit."
And now that it was clear even the Corpse Lord's forces were targeting this place, the death of a single Hero meant not only a loss of combat strength, but a blow to morale.
The blame for that would ultimately land on the commander who had issued the wrong orders, and a court-martial awaited. But enduring that judgment was a matter for after they returned to the Empire.
A commander, unless relieved by a superior, was bound to remain at their post no matter what happened—until the operation was over.
"I'm tolerating it for now, but after this incident, the way the Heroes and soldiers look at you may turn rather sour."
"...That's none of your concern, Jang Cleo."
Later that night, after everything had been wrapped up. Marcus returned to the garrison zone, then looked back at Jang, who had followed him into his quarters, and began to voice a threat.
His eyes, still sharply honed despite the years.
Even after witnessing the results his old comrade had achieved since arriving here, dissatisfaction still clung to them.
"Seeing as you've brought me here at this late hour, you must have quite a lot you'd like to say to me."
"This, too, is something I must endure," Jang thought, keeping his own manner composed.
Even that composure struck Marcus as contemptible, and he spat his threat at him.
"Jang Cleo. You bastard."
After her death, they had both felt that the paths they chose had started with the death of a single hero.
And through the outcome shaped here and now, he keenly realized they had reached a place where they could no longer understand each other at all.
"You... do you honestly believe that with just one hero—someone like her..."
Not by reinforcing the "army" as he himself was doing.
But merely by creating her successor—do you honestly believe that alone could annihilate every calamity in this world?
"Gah—!"
A fit of coughing erupted the moment he tried to voice the question.
Seeing his body stagger on the spot, Marcus's eyes flew wide.
"What...!"
Cough. Hack.
His frame shook violently as one cough after another tore out of his mouth.
Still, he forced his head up somehow, fought for air, and faced his old comrade.
Ignoring the blood he'd coughed up from his internal injuries. Ignoring the bloody tears running from burst capillaries in his eyes.
"Huff... huff..."
"Good heavens—I'll fetch a healer at once...!"
"Th-there's... no need."
Jang called out to Marcus, who was about to rush out of the quarters.
Grabbing his hand to stop him, forcing him to stay before him, he spoke while struggling for breath.
"You know as well, don't you? What happens... when mere humans like us try to surpass our inherent limits."
It was a body that had long ago faced the truth of its own condition.
He had been prepared to bury his bones here from the moment he arrived. There was nothing to be shocked about now.
"...Don't trouble yourself for nothing. This body doesn't have much time left in any case."
What he regretted was that he could not fulfill with his own hands the mission she had left unfinished.
What grieved him was simply that he would not live to witness with his own eyes the ending that her successor would one day reach.