Growth Period (4)
At first, I was skeptical.
Could I really develop my martial arts any further in a place like this?
Looking at those identical shaved-head trainees, blank-faced and repeating the same single motion over and over, it was hard not to think that way.
But what kept circling through my mind was Jagan's overwhelming power.
A man like that was only a 3rd Class Warrior.
Then how strong were the 1st Class Warriors — and beyond them, the Special Class?
In the end, I held onto the strength I had witnessed firsthand and adapted to the communal life here.
And among a hundred shaved heads, with my own head shaved just like theirs, throwing the same punches they did, a thought took hold.
…This might actually be an incredible martial art.
On the surface, the movements looked simple.
But I could sense, instinctively, a profound principle at work — the kind of refined, high-level technique that only comes from experience layered upon experience, stripping away everything unnecessary until only the pure essence remains.
From that moment on, my doubts vanished.
The martial art taught here was almost stupidly simple.
Strong. Medium. Weak.
Strike hard.
Strike at medium force.
Strike lightly.
That was it — three categories, nothing more.
Do they just hate thinking?
Even the martial system I had built for myself before coming here had more than five classifications of attack.
So it felt strange that a martial art far more complex and sophisticated than mine would be divided into only three.
Once the period of blindly following instructions had passed and I began to grasp the essence of this art, I understood why they had divided it that way.
This martial art had already been compressed, then compressed again, then compressed once more.
Extreme practicality.
Truth is simple by nature. What seems complex ultimately converges into a single path.
Once you accumulate enough experience in life-or-death combat, you come to realize that nothing beyond those three classifications is necessary.
From that, I gained an unexpected insight.
I took that insight and fused it with the understanding I already possessed.
Even so, it's still too simple.
It wasn't an easy attempt. It might well have been the lifelong ambition of my entire martial path.
After all, I hadn't even fully grasped those three classifications yet.
As I slowly advanced along a path of my own making, I naturally rose to the top of my cohort.
I was the only one among us who had broken through two walls.
The top student was granted a privilege.
He could choose which unit he would join.
The way warriors were divided here was straightforward.
3rd Class, Unit Seven. That was Jagan's unit. They mostly moved between cities, handling public order.
On the day of selection, Jagan came to me and tried to persuade me.
Come under me, he said.
I felt grateful to him, but Unit Seven held no place in my heart.
Real combat. I needed to face genuine, life-or-death combat.
That was the new goal I had set for myself after my breakthrough in understanding.
So I chose Unit One. To my surprise, Jagan respected that choice. He said he was the one who had found me, after all — so it was fine.
Unit One was tasked with exploring the Forest of Monsters to the north.
A forest of monsters, named by the monsters themselves. I couldn't even begin to imagine how nightmarish a place it must be.
According to what we had been taught, it was a land where contaminated beasts proliferated with unnatural strength.
Naturally, it was far too dangerous a mission for 3rd Class Warriors to handle alone, so they typically operated under the lower units of 2nd or 1st Class Warriors.
A place where I could experience real combat and witness the martial prowess of 1st Class Warriors firsthand.
There was no better environment for growing stronger.
I was assigned to Unit One, just as I had wanted.
The captain there was a man named Charon.
He was even more taciturn than Jagan. But when it came to skill, he was a cut above.
Where Jagan had broken the second wall and then stagnated for a long time, Charon was a man standing right before the third.
If he broke through the third wall, he would be promoted to 2nd Class.
And so I spent six months adapting to that place.
The Forest of Monsters was a truly goddamn place.
The sodden ground swallowed your feet no matter where you stepped, and on rainy days even taking a single stride was exhausting.
The colossal trees stretching overhead blotted out the sky, denying even a sliver of sunlight — and yet, strangely, the air inside the forest was so stiflingly humid it choked the breath from your lungs.
Even warriors who could shatter mountains with a single punch couldn't fell the trees here.
The trees were contaminated too. Contaminated by what, I had no idea.
Even the first beast we encountered at the outermost edge was easily more than twice my size.
And it wasn't just their bulk. They were intelligent predators who knew how to control their strength.
We had to explore and clear that place.
2nd and 1st Class Warriors led the charge, pioneering the Forest of Monsters from the front.
But the rear wasn't safe either.
On days we ran into a pack of beasts, the fighting turned into a desperate, life-or-death struggle.
They say the ones who survive are the strong ones.
Survive there long enough, and you had no choice but to grow stronger.
Within six months, I found myself standing before the third wall.
I had already surpassed Jagan's level.
A year and a half earlier, Jagan had been an overwhelming presence I couldn't even begin to comprehend.
But now, my understanding of the principles of force distribution and concentration had outstripped his.
Only then could I finally agree with what Ger had said.
That I had talent.
If I didn't have talent, there would be no reason for me to already stand on equal footing with the captain of Unit One.
Or maybe it's just because I think a little deeper than most.
And then, in less than another six months, I broke through the third wall.
Watching the movements of 2nd and 1st Class Warriors every single day made insight come easily.
From that point on, I could imbue my attacks with will.
When I poured killing intent into a strike, it gained devastating destructive power.
And so I became a 2nd Class Warrior.
The gap between 2nd Class and 1st Class wasn't large. Both, after all, were stuck at the stage of having broken the third wall.
But the number of 1st Class Warriors was limited. Meaning you had to take someone down to claim a seat.
From then on, I challenged 1st Class Warriors whenever I had spare time.
Around that time, I heard that Ger and Tol had entered the training caves.
I went to find them and simply smiled, the way Jagan once had.
"What? Happy to see me after so long?"
"Yeah. Really happy."
Ger and Tol stared at me with bewildered faces, but even that didn't last long.
They were soon dragged off by the warrior in charge of training.
I became a 1st Class Warrior before they even left the training caves.
It was the year I turned eighteen. The year I officially became an adult.
The youngest 1st Class Warrior on record.
That didn't mean I had broken the fourth wall.
A Special Class Warrior had to break the fourth.
Around then, the Forest of Monsters began to feel familiar.
Even the smell of rotting leaves carried on the wind. Even the wet squelch of mud underfoot.
The fights with the monsters were the same.
The beasts I encountered in the Forest of Monsters had started to feel almost like old friends.
But the other 1st Class Warriors said that was when you were in the most danger.
Because you never knew when or where you might run into a beast that had mutated into something truly severe.
And I entered a bit of a plateau.
Comrades with whom I had shared life and death, bonds forged in blood. There was no one left with skill high enough for me to learn from, and I couldn't find a reason I particularly needed to become a Special Class Warrior.
A year passed like that.
While I was absorbed in organizing the martial system I had been building on my own, I ran headlong into the most dangerous moment my comrades had always warned about.
It was a beast I hadn't seen once in two years. Its height easily exceeded ten meters, and its bulk was so massive that five men of my build standing side by side still wouldn't have been enough to match it.
Every time it drew breath, the surrounding air warped as if being sucked inward.
"…That's the kind of thing that only shows up in the Forbidden Zone."
Someone muttered in a trembling voice.
But we were already past the point of retreat.
"Get your heads on straight! We can take this!"
"Don't freeze up! Anyone who chickens out today gets buried in the dirt when we get back. Hope you like sleeping in a hole."
The 3rd Class Warriors fell back to the rear and left to alert the other units of the creature's presence. 1st Class Unit Three — my unit — took on the beast.
And after a fierce battle, Unit Three was wiped out.
Everyone except me.
Calling it a fierce battle was almost embarrassing, honestly.
It was an overwhelming strength — the kind that felt like a light press of a finger would crush us flat and burst us open.
No matter how hard we hit it, the thing didn't so much as flinch.
Attacks laced with killing intent made it twitch for a moment, nothing more. Killing us posed it no difficulty at all.
The captain held out against its attacks to the very end and told me to run.
"You're our greatest talent. You, at least, have to live."
I couldn't make my feet move. It was the first sense of belonging I had ever felt.
They were such good comrades that the decision I had made — not to walk my path alone — felt, for the first time, like something to be proud of.
While I hesitated, the captain was crushed beneath the beast's fist and died.
So thoroughly that there wasn't even a body left to find.
Blood sprayed in every direction. Standing closest, I was drenched in it from head to toe.
It was a kind of despair I had never felt before. Different from loneliness.
But it was agony enough.
In that moment.
Accompanied by a noise like the sky itself being torn open, five warriors appeared.
Special Class Warriors, who had come running after receiving the 3rd Class Warriors' call for support.
Without a single word, they walked calmly toward the beast.
And they toyed with the creature we hadn't been able to leave so much as a scratch on.
What was the difference? What existed beyond the fourth wall that could create such an overwhelming gap?
Watching them move, I understood.
I still had a long way to go. I was still far too weak.
From that moment on, my goal was set once more.
To break the fourth wall. To become a Special Class Warrior.
And to kill every last one of these beasts.
The Forbidden Zone.
Setting foot there became my new objective.