Just Die
Somewhere far from the Fire Dragon Lea's nest.
The plains of the Central Continent.
A vast stretch of land lying south of the northern territories where the remnants of the Demon King's army still held out — and the place where the majority of the top-ranked players were currently running raids.
The first raid boss monster ever to appear: the Corrupted Ogre Lord.
It was so powerful that players genuinely wondered whether it had even been designed to be beaten. They died. They died a lot. But players were immortal. Blessed with the gift of rising again no matter how many times they fell, they hunted monsters, grew stronger, and at last wiped out the Ogre Lord's entire legion. Only the final raid remained.
Once they took the Ogre Lord's head, the main story's next great branch would open.
Heurisk — currently ranked seventh, and commander of one of the five raid parties — sat cross-legged with his eyes quietly closed. Behind him, his vice-commander approached: a sharp-edged warrior carrying twin blades.
"We're almost at the end of this raid, Commander."
"What about the others?"
"Munchkin and Cheonsang already have the altar keys. Beastkin Joa still doesn't. Oh — and Hajin's done too."
"Hajin… is he streaming again?"
"Says he is."
"Tch. Once he streams the clear, every latecomer will just watch and copy."
"Nothing we can do about it. Without that guy, we can't even take the Ogre."
This Ogre raid was difficult enough that all five parties had to work together for any real chance of success. If even one side dropped out or half-assed it, failure was almost certain. And among them, Hajin's party — fighting for second or third place in both ranking and raw power — was indispensable.
The vice-commander shrugged it off.
"It's not like Hajin's the only one streaming anyway. Why get worked up? We've got one in our own party right now. That… uh, what's-his-name."
"Rebun?"
"Yeah. Rebun."
A streamer who'd originally been in Hajin's party, gotten himself kicked, and then joined Heurisk's. He'd made a few mistakes, sure, but gear and levels didn't just vanish — so Heurisk hadn't turned him away.
"His skill's garbage, but his specs are decent enough. And his viewership's tiny, so barely anyone's watching."
"Rebun would lose it if he heard you say that."
"It's just facts."
If he didn't like it, he could go find another party. Whether anyone would take a guy who'd already been kicked twice was another question entirely.
Heurisk smirked behind the skull mask that covered half his face.
"Fair enough. But maybe look this way when you talk? Kind of awkward for the rest of us."
"Sorry."
Hajin — no, Heurisk — offered an awkward smile at his vice-commander's words and returned his focus to cultivation. Even while talking, he'd kept his eyes closed and his legs crossed for a reason.
The Deorun-style Mana Cultivation Method.
A mana cultivation technique he'd stumbled into through a stroke of fortune — the personal method of a reasonably well-known high-tier mercenary named Deorun. Six hours a day, every day, for a full month without rest, and he'd finally mastered it. Running the technique permanently raised both maximum mana capacity and mana regeneration rate.
Heurisk practiced it whenever he had free time, steadily growing his mana. He still hadn't gathered enough to form a core… but three more months of investment and the possibility would open up.
Deorun said this method was excellent. Not quite on the level of a noble house's technique, but more than enough on its own.
Other rankers had each acquired their own mana cultivation methods, but Heurisk's didn't fall short of any of them. Hajin had gotten his from a retired knight. The Cheonsang Guild had networked with a noble house and come away with a half-broken technique. Setting those aside, Heurisk's was genuinely the best.
Among the players, I'm the strongest.
"I heard the dragon's players are learning some kind of mana cultivation method, though. We've got time — maybe we should go check it out?"
"You know Rebun went over there and came back beaten half to death, right? Judging by that personality, whatever she's teaching is bound to be trash."
"…Yeah, fair point."
Dragons were arrogant, greedy creatures. There was no way one would hand out a precious cultivation method. And according to the rumors, she'd brutally slaughtered players who'd tried to raid her treasure vault. All of which pointed to one conclusion: whatever she was teaching was almost certainly garbage.
And even if it wasn't…
The Deorun-style method is strong enough.
"The Ogre's last hit is mine."
"Maybe this cultivation method just doesn't suit me?"
"Not even close. For a hero, this is the best there is."
I cracked Haring over the head with my stick for spouting nonsense. She clutched her skull and rolled across the ground — still going hoo-ha, hoo-ha with her breathing the whole time, which was pretty hilarious. The other heroes ignored her racket entirely and kept concentrating.
I sat on a rock with a contented little smile, swinging my legs up and down.
"This is the mana cultivation method best suited to you heroes. Master it properly and you won't just pull your own weight — you'll pull ten people's."
"Urgh…"
"Focus. Focus. If you don't focus, you all die."
"Are you going to kill us, Master Lea?"
"No. The mana will."
Guh!
I thumped Nya-nya on the back as she once again tried to devour an absurd amount of mana. She'd nearly died again. She toppled face-first into the dirt, brushed herself off, and looked up with teary eyes.
"Master Lea, a little gentler, pleeease…"
"You eat a little less mana."
"Yeees…"
"O heavens, grant me strength…!"
"All mana flows begin at the heart and travel out to the tips of every joint in the body. You don't have a core yet, so circulate your mana with the heart as the center whenever you can."
"…You want us to gather it all in the heart?"
"Not gather — circulate. Hit the heart, then send it somewhere else."
Dump it all into the heart without thinking and it would burst and kill you. Better to think of the heart as a kind of station. Mana circulating through the body made a brief stop, then departed toward its destination.
Hearing that, the heroes one by one began slowly guiding their mana toward their hearts.
Not bad?
Three of them were standing out. Yong-ba, Ka-zen, and Nya-nya. Yong-ba was basically just brushing past and moving on, but Ka-zen and Nya-nya were completing full rotations around the heart, keeping the circulation going.
They've already grasped the principle of the stars.
They'd floundered at first, but with a little time they were starting to get the hang of it. Bahamart's cultivation method wasn't just efficient — it wasn't particularly hard to learn, either. There was a reason the strongest hero of all had used it.
At this rate, I could probably push mana core development a little earlier. The others were at least starting to sense mana, however faintly.
Haring, on the other hand, still hadn't awakened to mana at all. She just kept howling at the sky with zero progress to show for it.
"Can't feel it?"
"Hnnnnngh…"
"Come on, you can do it. You were the first one here."
"Hgh-hgh-hghgh… my life… my weapon…"
"Don't cry."
Crying just made things louder. I roughly scrubbed the tears off Haring's face with my hand.
"…!"
Then Yugi, who'd joined midway, started pinching his own thigh and crying. I just watched, wondering what the hell he was doing.
"Hic… hic…"
"What's your problem."
"Hic… it's just so sad…"
"Uh-huh. Sure."
Guess he was sad.
"…Could you wipe mine t—"
"Want me to make you roll some more?"
"No, ma'am."
Yugi shut his mouth.
I stayed on my rock, watching them cultivate. Whenever the surrounding mana flow turned unstable, I corrected it. Whenever someone looked about to die, I eased their condition. Over and over.
Three days into mana cultivation.
"Pwah…"
"Is this… mana?"
"Holy crap."
Most of the heroes had grasped the principle of mana cultivation. Pure mana energy, riding the mana pathways with every breath, circulating freely through the body without obstruction. From now on, simply breathing would make them stronger.
I propped my chin on my hand and watched the heroes clench and unclench their fists.
"Slow."
"Huh? But it only took three days."
"Yeah. I looked it up and people said three days is insanely fast…"
"When someone's spoon-feeding you, you should be way faster than that."
It was true that they'd been faster than ordinary knights or mercenaries — but when I was personally supervising a cultivation method this precious, three days was far too slow. They should have finished within half a day at least.
"Alright. Let's start forming cores."
"How long does a core take?"
"About a week?"
Judging by their condition, a week should be plenty to inscribe at least one star without much trouble.
Before diving into mana core creation, I put Nya-nya front and center for an efficient demonstration — she was the furthest along. The other heroes sat in a row while Nya-nya sat alone in the middle. I stood behind her.
"Nya-nya."
"Yes!"
"From now on, you're going to inscribe a star on your heart. Think of it as a kind of warehouse that helps store and circulate mana."
"A warehouse…"
"Mm-hm."
The more mana cores you had, the more dramatically the amount of mana you could handle increased. Casting speed and spell power also scaled with the number of cores. An ordinary hero inscribed seven stars; Bahamart had inscribed eleven on his heart.
I was teaching them Bahamart's method, but these were mass-produced heroes — I wasn't expecting much.
Five. Let's go with five.
Five should be enough for them to pass as proper heroes.
"Alright. Circulate your mana through the heart like usual, then condense it — peel it off, like this…"
I walked Nya-nya through the method of inscribing a mana core — a star.
About two hours later.
Guh!
Thud!
"?"
Nya-nya suddenly coughed up blood and collapsed. Checking her condition, I found that instead of rotating mana around her heart, she'd somehow rotated the heart itself. Her heart was tilted about thirty degrees off its original position.
"Seriously, every single one of you is a special case."
I'd seen mana oversaturation, mana backlash, mana imbalance — but twisting the actual heart was a first. I shook my head, pressed my hand to Nya-nya's chest, and twisted the mana back.
Crk…!
The mana that had been shoving her heart out of place returned to its proper seat, and color flooded back into Nya-nya's face.
"Guh! Guuuh!! Wh-what…"
"Be careful."
"Y-yes…"
"Don't stick too close to the heart. Inscribe it around the heart, like drawing a circle."
"…Got it. I'll keep that in mind."
Nya-nya nodded, cold sweat beading on her forehead, and settled back into a cross-legged position to focus on cultivation…
Guh!
Thud!
"?"
Out of nowhere, Yugi coughed up blood, clutched his heart, and went down. A quick look suggested his heart was just slightly twisted…
"Lea-chan… save me…"
"Just die."