The Time Has Come

It took me less than five days to reach the border region again on my own. I'd already fully recovered, and with no frail companions in tow, there was no need to moderate my pace. I'd told the party I'd only return once every month or two, so time was more than plentiful.

When I arrived at the border, nearly twenty days had already passed — and the fighting was still in full swing.

Flags of the black gnolls were visible as well. The Crouching Black Gnoll Tribe. That was the name they'd gone by in my first cycle.

The central tribes are clashing head-on.

That worked in my favor.

I watched the battle for a while. For ten days straight, the black gnolls and the golden gnolls tore into each other several times a day without a single pause. Localized skirmishes were constant, and there was even one engagement where nearly a thousand gnolls came flooding in and died in droves.

Watching it all unfold, I waited for my opening.

I slipped into the black gnoll camp in the quiet of dawn. I couldn't go deep — just a camp near the outer edge. I hit it alone. It was a garrison for a minor tribe, a hundred gnolls at most. I slaughtered them at speed, even drawing on Sword Qi. Then, as I'd done before, I tore the bodies apart and wrecked the place so it would look like the work of a Golden Gnoll tribe, stashing some of the corpses in my inventory as if they'd been hauled off for meat.

The sowing of discord had begun.

I couldn't speak the gnolls' language, so there was no other way to stoke their rage. But this would be enough. If small raids kept coming, I could snuff out any chance of a tacit ceasefire entirely.

Even with limited intelligence, they had emotions — and gnolls possessed a fair degree of intelligence besides. Creatures like that, whipped into a frenzy on a battlefield, would not find it easy to take a final beating and simply walk away. On top of that, the central tribes that served as their leaders were themselves locked in combat at the border. The chieftains with the authority to halt the fighting were in no position to withdraw. And so the battle ground on.

I picked out several locations and kept the night raids coming. Every three to five days, I switched between their camps, feeding them hatred for one another so they could never call a ceasefire, so the fighting would never stop.

At the same time, it was training. My body grew steadily more accustomed to Sword Qi. I repaired my damaged mana circuits, and on rest days I used skills to heal whatever minor wounds I'd picked up. Resting was easy enough — I had a Labyrinth Fragment.

I kept the discord-sowing going for nearly a month and a half, pulled off one last big raid, and returned to base camp. The party's skill had improved by leaps and bounds.

Na Seoyun could now use water magic in addition to fire, which at least let them supplement their water supply a little. Joo Ha-yeon had grown far more fluent with her own skills. Nam Eun-ju had her enhanced body fully under control, and she was finally using her specs the way they were meant to be used.

I briefed them on the situation at the border, and the next day I left base camp again.

They looked sorry to see me go so soon, and guilty about it besides. Even so, I could feel their eyes waver.

I told them I'd be back in a month. When I returned, the border had only grown more savage. Whether my interference with the ceasefire had paid off or not, the fighting was still escalating.

Neither side would yield. Meanwhile, I could see Golden Gnoll scouting parties being dispatched farther and farther up. Their impatience was palpable.

I started slaughtering those upward-bound scouts — partly to let them know we still hadn't broken out of their territory. My body had grown used to Sword Qi before I knew it. I could now face a scouting party of nearly three hundred gnolls head-on, and I could inflict meaningful damage on a force of nearly five hundred and still make it out alive. Considering this was Area 29, my skill had risen fast.

Of course, I couldn't kill them all. Most of them fled while I was engaged, and I didn't bother chasing them to the end. Thanks to that, the Worshipping Golden Gnoll Tribe couldn't abandon the front. They couldn't send a large force upward either. Too many, and I simply ran; commit that many troops, and a hole opened in the line. They were stuck, wringing their hands, and I could see it as plain as day.

When I reached base camp, Na Seoyun was handling wind as well — a third of the four primary elements — and Nam Eun-ju was using her skills with easy familiarity, shutting down every one of Na Seoyun's attacks. They seemed to be sharpening themselves through sparring.

Joo Ha-yeon was no exception. She was deep in the work of measuring her skills against real conditions — how much power they packed, how long they lasted, how many times she could fire them off — and learning to regulate them accordingly.

The party was visibly glad to see me. Their eyes trembled with anxiety, as if they were afraid I'd leave again within a day.

I laid out the current situation, and this time I had no choice but to stay at base camp for about three days.

It wasn't that they were slacking off or skipping training. But even in the middle of practice, their eyes never stopped shaking with unease. They had no real conviction. I stayed with them, giving them time to lean on me mentally.

By the time three days had passed, they were noticeably more settled.

Joo Ha-yeon came to me with words of thanks, and of apology. She said she felt her own inadequacy. That they couldn't do this without me, after all.

I just smiled and headed back to the border.

The fighting there had grown truly vicious. Neither side ever gave an inch. Even so, I started sowing discord all over again, and when I returned to base camp the following month, the party was already heading out in teams to hunt Sand Worms.

Their hunting was stable. Unshaken. Na Seoyun was now handling all four primary elements, and the party had a perfect grasp of their own limits and how to apply them in combat. I could confirm they'd claimed every scrap of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠power available to them at this stage.

Nam Eun-ju was using her holy power to put on a textbook display of what a Keeper should be, planting herself so that no harm ever reached the rear, no matter the situation. Na Seoyun sometimes filled the role I'd usually taken, and sometimes left Nam Eun-ju fully in the vanguard while she used earth magic to deal with the Sand Worms.

They were drilling every viable formation and every one of their roles until the work was second nature. They understood each other's parts completely, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the moment one of them started to struggle, the others stepped in with uncanny timing. They were covering one another's weaknesses exactly as they should.

Another month passed. Five months into our isolation, I led the party toward the border.

The border region, which the party hadn't seen in months, was a shambles.

The Golden Gnoll tribe's numbers had been cut by nearly half, and the black gnolls had taken staggering losses of their own. Neither side seemed to be thinking about their rear.

Monsters, through and through. Even with intelligence, when the wildness exploded, the wildness came first. They had been completely swallowed by the savage air of the battlefield. They'd taken this much damage and still refused to pull back. At this rate, there was every chance their own territories would shrink once the fighting finally ended.

I told the party, in detail, everything I had been doing. They were stunned — and impressed.

Joo Ha-yeon clutched her head at the thought of me pulling more stunts that dangerous, but I was in one piece, so she didn't press it any further.

"So we're going to sow discord together, then?"

Ha Yoo-jin looked at us with clear, eager eyes.

Besides the three who had received their inheritances, Ha Yoo-jin and Na-yeon had grown considerably as well. Objectively, they were living up to their talent — but the other three had come so far that comparing them felt almost unfair.

The three inheritors hadn't gained all that much in raw stats. What had grown was enormous in a different way: their mastery over the power they already held, their skill usage, their command of their own strength.

Sowing discord… well. Wasn't it closer to revenge?

Revenge. Revenge against the Golden Gnolls who had isolated us. It was almost funny, in a way. We were the ones who had snuck into the gnolls' holy land and half-ruined the Gnoll Hero succession they'd so desperately longed for. Then again, they had been the ones to kidnap humans first — and if you traced it back far enough, it was humans who had sealed the Gnoll Hero's succession in the first place. Gnolls and humans had been at war even then.

A tangled, knotted relationship. I didn't think the word revenge quite fit. Just… taking it out on them? That was closer to the truth.

The party, though, seemed rather taken with the word.

"…They really did put us through a lot, didn't they?"

Joo Ha-yeon said it as if she found the whole thing a little amusing. She knew, of course. She knew as well as I did that revenge wasn't quite the right word for this.

"…Even so, I feel like I've finally made this power truly my own. …I still haven't managed to unseal any more of my skills, though."

There was still a long way to go. But coming from Nam Eun-ju, that was a fair amount of confidence. She used to shrink into herself at every turn. Now she carried herself with something close to pride.

The party's growth. I felt thoroughly satisfied. They had fought for this with everything they had.

The environment shifted from day to night and back again. Sand Worms had raided the base camp. Their one mental anchor had been someone they could see once ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a month, if they were lucky — and at one point the anxiety had grown so bad I'd had to stay with them for three days. Food could run out and force them onto monster meat. Trainees might emerge from the Labyrinth at any time and threaten the ground we stood on.

They had endured all of that. They had lasted five months. I almost wanted to praise them for it.

The enemy's strength had dwindled. Ours had grown. We would not be easy prey anymore.

The time had come.

I decided to break the balance between those two forces.

I struck the Golden Gnoll tribe that had been hunting us so desperately.

My repeated raids had pushed the smaller settlements into traveling together, which had limited how often I could hit them. Not anymore.

A gathering of over a thousand gnolls. The largest force in the area. That was my target.

It was a dark night, and this was a raid, so fire-element magic was forbidden as much as possible.

The first strike came from Na Seoyun.

A wet, grinding crunch tore through the dark. Spears of earth erupted from the ground, scattering across a wide swath of the camp and skewering ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gnoll after gnoll. They'd never expected an attack from below. Most of the sleeping gnolls never even had a chance to resist.

I charged into their midst in a single burst.

Barking erupted — frantic, belated. The gnolls had finally registered the raid. But the moment they realized their attackers were human, panic rippled through their ranks.

Hardly surprising. Aside from the times I'd slaughtered their upward-bound scouts, I'd never once been spotted. During the discord-sowing raids, I had thoroughly ensured that not a single gnoll survived — and I'd only ever struck camps small enough to make that possible.

I carved through them with Sword Qi that had long since become second nature.

Their shock lasted only a moment. Then they took in our party of six and came pouring toward us in a howling tide. This was the first time we'd raided a force a thousand strong. Perhaps that was why they thought they had a chance.

Some of them bypassed me entirely, angling for the rear.

Na Seoyun began tearing open the earth in rapid succession, steadily shrinking the ground the gnolls could actually traverse. With their paths cut down, they started to panic. Some tumbled into the pits. Others gathered themselves to leap across.

Na-yeon checked those ones.

A sharp, slicing hiss cut the air, followed by a choked bark. The gnolls that had leapt skyward had no way to dodge Wind Cutter. Their bodies were carved open in midair, and they were dead before they hit the ground.

There were limits, of course. The gnolls that had fallen into the pits started trying to crawl back out. Na Seoyun had another gift waiting for them.

Sharp spears sprouted inside the pits. Agonized shrieks tore up from below. But there were too many gnolls, and not all of them could be stopped.

Nam Eun-ju stepped forward and used a skill.

A Super Rare skill that layered a defense correction over the user and hurled out a wide-area taunt in the same breath. The gnolls' eyes snapped off the Na sisters and locked onto Nam Eun-ju in an instant.

The gaze she turned on the charging horde was impossibly calm.

Joo Ha-yeon's Goddess's Protection settled over Nam Eun-ju. A barrier sheathed her, and the gnolls that struck it began destroying themselves on their own reflected blows.

Nam Eun-ju didn't simply stand there and take it. She crushed the ones charging her with her shield and carved them apart with her sword. Gnoll corpses piled up around her. Her martial skill had improved so brilliantly it was almost embarrassing to compare it to what she'd been. Efficient. Almost no wasted motion.

And the gnolls that slipped past her taunt never even reached the rear. They died to Ha Yoo-jin's ambush without ever knowing he was there.

A massacre. Gnoll corpses began stacking up at a staggering pace.

Then Na Seoyun burst out from beside Na-yeon and Joo Ha-yeon, a sword in each hand, and started cutting the gnolls down in swathes. Her aura-enhanced body moved at a speed that didn't yield to mine, and when it came to slaughter, her martial skill even outstripped Nam Eun-ju's.

Tens of gnolls, then hundreds, turned into chunks of meat. I kept cutting, watching the rear with deep satisfaction.

Before long, most of the gnolls were dead. The ones still standing began to slink away, seized by fear. I didn't chase them with any real desperation. It no longer mattered if they escaped.

Sowing discord was unnecessary now. The hatred they held for each other had piled up beyond anything I'd imagined. If a gap opened at a moment like this, they would not let it pass.

When the fighting ended, the party's faces as they felt — truly felt — how far they had come were all different. They'd gotten a sense of it fighting Sand Worms and sparring among themselves, but confirming it against the gnolls who had isolated us here was another feeling entirely.

Na Seoyun looked as if it were only natural. Joo Ha-yeon wore an expression of quiet satisfaction. Na-yeon was biting her lip. Ha Yoo-jin came running toward me as if the rest of the world didn't exist.

Nam Eun-ju was crying, just a little. I could guess, at least in part, what she was feeling.

She'd thought she'd gotten a little stronger — and then they'd been trapped. Even with power that had been granted to her, she'd believed she was nothing special. And now she had swept aside the ones who had driven her to despair, and still had strength to spare. She must have felt, even a little, that the effort of these past months had been repaid.

We could escape now.

I looked at my party and smiled, thoroughly satisfied.