Repairing the Danjeon (6)
I had to finish this in twenty minutes. Exactly twenty minutes. That single thought consumed me as I advanced toward the gryphon.
“Hey! Run away! A plump guy like you can’t possibly face a monster like that!”
I ignored the girl shouting behind me. My body burned like a living inferno from the herb’s effects, yet I kept it under control as I slowly raised my sword toward the gryphon.
“Kirrururu—!”
The gryphon swung its foreleg with a horrifying sound that seemed to tear the very air apart.
Swiiiish!
“Ugh—! No—!!”
In that instant, I moved my explosively enhanced body and nimbly stepped aside. The gryphon’s paw, meant to rip me to shreds, sliced through empty space.
“Huh…? No way…?”
“Kirrururu—?!”
Both Aria and the gryphon froze in disbelief at the impossible sight. The Gangryeon Herb’s effect lasted thirty minutes. I had far exceeded the safe dosage and crammed every last scrap of it into my mouth, so the backlash would be catastrophic.
I needed to end the fight in twenty minutes and escape within the remaining ten.
“Kirrururu!”
The gryphon leaped slightly into the air and beat its wings like a madman in my direction.
Whooooosh!
“……!”
“Ugh…!”
The fierce gale forced even Aria, crouched behind me, to squeeze her eyes shut and shield her face with her arms. It was the gryphon’s tactic—to blind us before striking.
I won’t play along so easily…!
I charged straight into the oncoming wind, straight at the gryphon.
“Kirrurururu!”
The creature stopped flapping, landed, and lowered its head toward me. It clearly meant to impale me with its horn.
Thunder Sword Technique, Second Form… Spinning Slash!
Thunder Sword Technique - Second Form: Spinning Slash
The sword art I had learned from Iris. It was the second form of the Thunder Sword Technique—dodge the opponent’s straightforward attack once, then spin like lightning to deliver a spectacular vertical cut that would sever their limb.
Swiiiish!
Thanks to the Gangryeon Herb, my body reacted with astonishing speed as it explosively drew out my latent potential. I avoided the horn charge by a hair’s breadth and spun in the direction of my dodge.
Whirl!
The follow-up came instantly. I unleashed the second form’s slash, now amplified with rotational force, straight at the gryphon’s horn.
Clang!
…! As expected, it doesn’t work!
Without coating the blade in mana, I really couldn’t pierce a high-ranking monster’s hide. My trump-card strike bounced uselessly off the horn’s incredible hardness.
Whirrr!
The full recoil of the swing slammed back into my wrist.
Fuck… that hurts like hell.
Even though I knew the gryphon’s weakness, this pathetic possessed body couldn’t exploit it. The horn was its vital point—all its nerves converged there. Damage it, and the gryphon would lose its sense of direction for a moment. That was the opening needed to defeat a quasi-boss like this, but…
With my current body, I couldn’t even scratch its main form. My plan had been to damage the horn, wait for it to lose its bearings and go berserk, then run. But I couldn’t even manage that much.
“Kirrurururu!”
Failing to inflict even a scratch on the horn was a critical mistake.
“How the hell do I handle this…?”
“Hey! You, the nameless swordsman over there!”
Aria called out to me while I muttered to myself.
“Its right leg! Look at the gryphon’s right leg!”
The right leg? I glanced at the enraged creature’s right hind leg as it continued flapping its wings.
…!
Bleeding? A faint trickle of blood seeped from the joint.
Aria spoke again the moment I noticed.
“I struck it aiming for the nerves! That gryphon definitely took damage to the joint nerves—its right leg should be hindered!”
Bingo. My mind began racing. Dozens of ways to turn the situation around flooded my thoughts at once.
But one question remained. I shouted back to Aria.
“I understand! But can you actually damage its body?!”
“I can! If I focus with everything I have, just once…!”
“Then I’ll create the opening! Recover quickly and stand ready! I’ll give you the signal!”
“…! Understood!”
Aria struggled to her feet and began concentrating. She was drawing up the mana in her danjeon.
“Let’s have a little date, shall we, Mr. Gryphon?”
“Kirrururururu—!”
The furious gryphon charged at me with another horn attack. Once again, I hurled my body to the right with all my strength.
Boom!
Crack!
Its horn lodged deep into an innocent tree.
“Kirrurururu?!”
The confused gryphon’s movements halted for a brief moment.
Now!
I dove straight into its lower body. Just as I’d seen, blood was flowing from the muscle of its right leg. If the skin was already torn open there…
I can damage it too!
Thunder Sword Technique - Third Form: One Blade, Two Halves
Thunder Sword Technique, Third Form. One Blade, Two Halves. The first form was a thrust, the second a vertical slash, and the third a horizontal cut. As a fundamental sword art, the Thunder Sword Technique was built upon the basic ‘Three Talents Sword Technique.’ I executed it exactly as Iris had taught me.
Normally the third form required mana from the danjeon to enhance physical ability before it could be performed perfectly, but…
Having strengthened my body through the Gangryeon Herb’s trick, I could at least imitate the motion, however crudely.
“Uraaaaaaaaah!”
The ten thousand repetitions I had drilled into the Three Talents Sword Technique created perfect synergy, refining the movement into something far more precise.
I spun brilliantly, using that momentum to carve a horizontal gash across the gryphon’s massive leg muscle.
Whirrrrrl!
Slaaaaaash!
“Kyuu?! Kirrurururu!”
“……!”
The result was a resounding success. Aria stared at me in open astonishment after watching me execute the third form without releasing any mana. I couldn’t blame her. This was the first time I had ever succeeded with it myself.
I hadn’t severed the nerve, but the damage was clearly enough to impair its movement. The gryphon thrashed about, groaning in obvious agony.
“Kirrurururu!”
“Now! Hit its horn with a sword strike!”
“…! Understood!!”
Aria gripped her sword and came running, struggling to steady her body.
…Is that mana?
A blue aura exactly the same shade as her eyes rose from her fair skin and black hair like shimmering heat haze. She wrapped that energy around her blade, closed the distance in an instant, and raised her sword high overhead.
“Hiyaaaaaaaaaa!”
“Kirruru?!”
The gryphon noticed and tried to flee by forcing its injured right leg to move. But it was too late.
Kwaaaaaang!
Slice!
Aria mercilessly swung her mana-clad sword. The gryphon’s horn—which I couldn’t even scratch—split apart like tofu.
“Ki… Kirrururururu!”
“Done. Hey! We’re running now!”
“What? Wait… Kyaa!”
The instant the gryphon lost its sense of direction and its vision blurred, I scooped up the panting Aria in a princess carry and sprinted away from the spot.
“Wh-what are you doing?! Where do you think you’re putting your hands?!”
“Stay still! The gryphon’s defenseless state won’t last long! Once it regains its senses, it’ll come after us again!”
“……!”
Aria, who had been pounding my chest with her fists, suddenly froze in surprise and stopped resisting. As I ran back toward where I had first encountered the gryphon, I grabbed the headless corpse of the young great eagle I had killed earlier with my free hand. The blood was still usable. Since I had killed it recently, it would remain viable for another day.
This is why I came here in the first place. I absolutely cannot lose it!
Aria gave me a puzzled look, clearly wondering why I was picking up a corpse, but I had no time to explain. The Gangryeon Herb’s effects were about to wear off. It already felt like twenty minutes had passed.
That was when it hit.
“Urgh—?!”
While running, every muscle and bone in my body suddenly screamed in protest. The pain was so intense it felt like nothing I had ever experienced before.
“Ughhh! No way. Has it already been thirty minutes?!”
“…?! What’s wrong?! What’s happening…! Kyaa!”
Once we had put some distance between ourselves and the gryphon’s territory, I quickly hurled both Aria and the young great eagle’s corpse onto the thick grass. Shocked by the sudden throw, Aria sprang up in anger.
“Wh-what the hell was that for?!”
“Hey! I can’t run anymore! You go on ahead to the village!”
“What…? What are you saying?! If you stay here alone, the surrounding monsters will swarm you! Do you want to die?!”
“The monsters nearby were scared off by the fight with the gryphon earlier. They won’t approach for a while! So go to the village and bring help!”
With those final words, I sat down in a proper meditative posture, steeling my mind against the rising agony. If I fainted now, I would be unconscious for at least two full days. All my effort and the reason I had come here would be wasted.
I stabbed my sword into the headless corpse of the young great eagle and coated the blade with its blood.
Splat!
“Urk—!”
Then, with the blood-smeared sword, I made a shallow cut in the muscles surrounding my danjeon. The great eagle’s blood immediately began seeping into the small wound.
“Wh-what are you doing?! Are you trying to destroy your own danjeon?! A great eagle’s blood is extremely toxic to it!”
“I know that already! So hurry up and go get help!”
“What…!”
There was no time to waste. Ignoring Aria’s frantic chatter, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a mid-grade elixir glowing with a soft pink hue. A Lotus Pill.
I had secretly taken eight high-quality ones from the ducal elixir vault. One or two a day would strengthen the danjeon, but taking more than five at once could cause a dangerous reversal and threaten one’s life.
I tossed all eight into my mouth and swallowed them whole.
Gulp.
“Kyaaaaah! This guy’s gone completely insane! He clearly wants to die!”
I ignored the hysterical Aria and focused my mind, entering deep meditation.
Whoooosh!
I felt the atmospheric mana being drawn in while the great eagle’s deadly poison rapidly seeped into my danjeon. At the same time, the energy from the eight Lotus Pills swirled violently inside me.
“Ughhh…!”
Now I had to make these two opposing forces collide.
Have you ever heard of using poison to counter poison? One poison can be lethal, but when two opposing toxins meet, they can transform into medicine. It was a common technique in Eastern medicine, and it existed in the world of Ariel as well. The foreign story developer must have been a fan of Eastern dramas or something.
One of those methods was the exact ‘Danjeon Reconstruction Method’ I was using now. Melt the defective danjeon with extreme poison, induce a reversal with the elixir, then repeat the process to strengthen and rebuild it into a proper one. It was a well-known technique among veteran players.
Judging from Aria’s reaction, the people of this world mostly didn’t know about it. She had already made a huge fuss, grown exhausted, and fled toward the village long ago.
I endured the overwhelming backlash from the Gangryeon Herb for roughly an hour, maintaining my meditation the entire time.
“Ughhh…! Grrrrk…”
The pain was beyond description. Veterans had always warned that this method already inflicted terrible agony while lowering character condition, yet now it was compounded by the Gangryeon Herb’s side effects on top of that…
Still, I could not lose consciousness. This was the only way to become stronger in a short period of time. I refused to accept that the same person who had once crushed a wyvern with one hand was now struggling against a mere gryphon!
…I would definitely become stronger. Living like this was simply too unfair.
Swallowing my stubborn resolve, I continued enduring the violent reversal happening inside my danjeon. Eventually, as the turmoil began to calm, I sensed a presence approaching from the bushes.
“Kirrurururururu—!”
It was the hornless gryphon, consumed by rage and charging straight toward me.