Just Barely Out of Reach...
If he could pin down the enlightenment that kept hovering just within reach—seize it for certain—then perhaps, once he found the key in the event dungeon and made it back, he might climb one step further still.
The thought left him too stirred to sleep. The moment Xylitol, lying in the spot beside him, drifted off, Yujun burst out of the barracks.
The night air was past cool and well into cold, as if it meant to seep into his very bones. Whether in the Tower of Infinity or here in this barbarian world, the crispness of the air put Earth to shame.
He dropped onto the dirt and sank into thought. He had no feel for how he was supposed to find the key, which left him only one path: to do his utmost with the situation he'd been given.
He didn't feel that lingering here was a waste of time. If he could wring even a single insight out of it, then no matter how often people said time was money, this was no losing trade. It was a profitable one.
I wonder what's become of Manuela and Yenil.
If they had been dropped into the same barbarian world, it would be nothing short of an ordeal for mages like them. He could set the unsanitary conditions aside, but he doubted a mage would adapt easily among barbarians.
This isn't the time to worry about other people.
Yujun did not consider himself the strongest person here. Compared with before, he was impossibly weak now, and he could not afford to grow complacent.
He shot to his feet and took up his sword. From the instant he settled into his stance, a river of knowledge bound to Swordsmanship seemed to flood his mind.
It was no illusion. If it had been, he never would have beaten the chieftain. That he had felled the most skilled fighter in the tribe with ease was owed entirely to Swordsmanship. Technique had perfectly filled in for his lacking physique and speed. Frankly, he could have beaten the man with a wooden stick. That was the level of it. Swordsmanship.
Which only made him feel the need to hone it all the more. Precisely because he was weakened now, he thought the effects of practice—of training—might be magnified.
Replaying his bout with the chieftain, Yujun began to swing. Couldn't he have moved more efficiently in that moment? Could he have ended it in a single opening strike? Or if he hadn't dodged at all, but deflected, countered, and taken the man's head? If he had aimed for the head, the neck, or the heart instead of piercing the shoulder, the duel might have ended even sooner.
He had already run the image training, and no matter how the fight played out, the chieftain could not last more than five moves against him. Yujun had been reading several moves ahead. The difference between seeing a step ahead and seeing nothing at all was enormous.
Once the image training had nothing left to give him, a good idea struck, and his eyes went wide. He glanced around. It was an hour when everyone ought to have been asleep, but a few barbarians were standing the night watch.
Dodging their eyes, Yujun pretended to head into the barracks, then slipped around behind them. Luckily, he made it out of the village without being caught.
To the forest.
The forest lay a fair distance off, but he set out without hesitation. Thirty minutes of running brought him there. He stepped in, claimed a suitable spot, and summoned Paranet.
"Master!"
"You know how things stand, don't you?"
"But of course. What in the world has happened? How has my master become so... insignificant?"
"You're dead."
"......My apologies. But why did you not summon me sooner?"
"Look at yourself. If I'd summoned you, do you think I could have stayed there?"
"There is no need to mingle with the barbarians any longer, is there?"
"No. I have to follow the situation as it unfolds. That might be a condition for clearing the event dungeon."
"......Hmm. Then why did you summon me? Ah—shall I go out to the tribal contest and sweep them all away myself?"
"That's not your role."
"Pardon?"
"Pick up your sword."
Paranet's equipment remained exactly as it had been.
I'd take it with me if I could.
His level was too low to snatch any of it and put it to use on the spot. All that would remain was regret.
"Come at me."
"R-right now? Master, you mustn't."
"Why not?"
"You will be badly hurt."
Paranet's level was over 700. The gap in physical specs was absurd, so his concern was only natural.
"Just don't use your abilities. Fight with the sword alone."
"Even so, it will be dange—"
"Good grief. You talk too much. Do it."
"Understood!"
"I'll go first."
Yujun attacked without warning, a strike meant to draw out carelessness. He was curious how Paranet would receive it. Paranet caught the blade in a sloppy stance.
Kang—!
The sword in Yujun's hand wore slightly.
"You were going easy on me, weren't you? Fight properly. Even if I die, it won't stick."
"Y-yes, sir!"
As a summon, Paranet had no choice but to obey Yujun's command. He swung with everything he had, and terrifying power rode the blade—enough that, in Yujun's drastically lowered state, meeting it head-on would have meant instant death.
Yujun did not block. He let the blow glance off and slide past. Even that sent a faint shock through his wrist, but it was only faint—nowhere near enough to strain it.
Shwik—!
Yujun's sword was already lancing toward the space between Paranet's eyes. There was nearly a ten-foot difference in height, and yet he had aimed for the brow, because he had leapt. The moment Paranet dodged that attack, Yujun would be left wide open. With his skills and traits gone, he would not be able to use Fly.
Paranet raised his sword and blocked. Then he drove a kick toward Yujun's fully exposed flank, that long leg shooting straight forward.
And then—
Krrk—!
Yujun split Paranet's body in two.
Paranet was unsummoned without ever understanding what had happened. From his perspective, it was pure injustice. Yujun's sword had clearly already passed him by. Changing its trajectory would have been awkward, and there had not been time to recover the blade—and yet the result was Paranet's body cut clean in half.
"Ah......"
Enlightenment seized him, and Yujun's whole body trembled. It was like a riverbank bursting, a flood of insight rushing in. Tremendous pleasure washed over him from head to toe.
This is it.
Paranet had been an opponent he could never have broken—not if his Swordsmanship had been even a little shallower. He had swung twice, and in that span he fully seized the enlightenment that had hovered just within reach and just beyond it.
It was not as if he had made some grand discovery. It felt more like recognizing something he had missed, something he had overlooked. But that alone changed a great deal.
Until now, it had felt like gripping a viciously sharp weapon that thrashed with mad power. Now it felt like a sage who had set everything down and grown detached—no. Beyond even that, as if he had stepped into the realm of an immortal. Not that he had truly become one. It was the realm of the sword that had reached that height.
From the instant he arrived there, every one of Paranet's moves lay bare. After that, he had used Super Concentration for a brief moment and finished it with a movement outside Paranet's perception.
Yujun did not return to the barracks. He sat where he was. He wanted another bout with Paranet, but the summon was still unsummoned, so all he could do was call the fight back up and review it—not to gain something new, but so he would not forget the enlightenment that had just come to him.
After sitting with his eyes closed for thirty minutes, Yujun rose, a satisfied smile spreading freely across his face.
Paranet still had not been summoned. That meant a great deal of damage had gone in. He had barely put any magic power into the strike, which only made it stranger.
Does the Swordsmanship trait raise damage more than I thought?
On that hunch, Yujun opened his status window to check.
More accurately, what had vanished had come back.
"......"
It was only a single entry, but that one line made the status window feel full.
Finally, Oh Taesik is... no. Swordsmanship is back.
Paranet being unsummoned in a single blow made sense, then. The trait must have settled into its slot midway through the fight. Swordsmanship increased a blade's power by its mere existence, and at GX Tier, that went without saying.
The level gap with Paranet was more than six hundred, and the difference in equipment was extreme. That he had overcome those factors and dealt Paranet heavy damage was the power of GX Tier.
He checked whether he could use magic as well, but that was a lost cause. His Magic stat had fallen to a pitiful level, and the efficiency was terrible. On top of that—perhaps because he had become a barbarian—his body seemed to reject magic. A fierce resistance, one might call it. In any case, unless he meant to stay here indefinitely, practicing magic was not a good choice.
Yujun slipped back into the barracks without the night watch noticing and sought sleep.
Early morning, with the sun climbing and skin beginning to sting under its burn. Every barbarian of the Ledordang Tribe had gathered in one place, most of them come to see off those departing for the tribal contest.
Five would be going, Yujun among them.
"Come back alive, no matter what! Yomoran!"
"Hang in there!"
"Bring glory to our village! We believe in you, young warriors!"
"Shin Yujun! Smash them all!"
"We're counting on you alone!"
They had selected the five young barbarians with the greatest potential, and the tribe's expectations ran high. Interest in Shin Yujun had swelled as well, and more than a few cheered for him.
Five had been chosen, but it was not only those five who would depart. To keep barbarians who had not even held their coming-of-age ceremony in line, three warriors from the very top of the tribe were attached to the group. A great many had gathered, but the send-off was hardly grand. Greetings, and that was all.
The stage for the tribal contest lay a full day's walk away. Considering how exceptional barbarian stamina was, that was a very long way—because the Ledordang Tribe sat on the frontier.
They were keeping formation and walking hard when a barbarian behind him spoke up.
"Shin Yujun."
Not one of the minors—Janiz, assigned to lead them.
"Yes."
"Is it true you dueled the chieftain?"
"Yes. That's right."
The story had already spread. He could not deny it.
"And that you won?"
"The chieftain went easy on me."
"Your modesty is excessive. I know you won in a rout."
"If you already knew, why did you ask..."
"Because I wanted to be certain. What's the secret?"
"......There isn't really a secret."
"Even a routine would do. I'd like you to tell me."
Janiz was a warrior of fierce pride. For a man like him to cling and plead like this was a first in his life.
"Hmm......"
"Please."
"It's really nothing."
"That's fine! Even if it's nothing, just tell me."
He could hardly say raise your Swordsmanship to GX Tier...... Cornered, Yujun said whatever came to mind.
"A hundred sit-ups. A hundred push-ups, a hundred squats, and a ten-kilometer run. That's the whole of my routine. Ah—and with proper form, of course."