The Smug Faces of the Raccoons
The barbarians of the Raccoon Tribe wore thoroughly self-satisfied faces.
The one who had just brought a two-handed greatsword down on the ore looked especially drunk on his own pride, and to Yujun the sight was pure farce.
"..."
No. That wasn't fair. This was something he ought to understand. Their levels weren't particularly high, and the quality of their weapons was nothing exceptional either. Even so, he couldn't quite keep the laugh down.
Janiz, much like Yujun, had a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He wasn't looking down on the Raccoon Tribe's barbarians. He was simply waiting to see what kind of spectacle Yujun was about to put on.
The barbarians on the stage took their turns swinging at the ore, and each of them produced a result they could be reasonably pleased with.
"Figures. The Raccoons."
"Better than last year, right? This is why I love our Golden Lion Tribe. Every year we get to sit back and watch something this entertaining."
"Right? And don't the barbarians who show up for the tribal games seem to get stronger every year?"
"You're telling me. What's that about?"
The Retein began to regenerate, knitting itself back into its original shape, and next up—by an inconvenient coincidence—were the barbarians of the Poison Dagger Tribe. Among them, Remian and Corshas monopolized the attention of everyone in the arena. Word had spread far and wide that their Potential ranked at the very highest grade.
Cases of top-grade Potential were vanishingly rare. Three in a single year would already count as a bumper crop, and this time two of them had come out of the Poison Dagger Tribe alone. It would have been stranger if they weren't the talk of the grounds. Even the elite barbarians of the Golden Lion Tribe were watching the pair with careful eyes.
Remian and Corshas did not strike the Retein ore first. The other three barbarians attacked in turn and left behind middling results—nothing more than scratches. Under ordinary circumstances that would have earned decent marks, but the Raccoon Tribe had already posted meaningful scores ahead of them, so the scratches felt like nothing at all.
Then Remian stepped forward with his iron club. In truth, if one wanted so much as a nick in the Retein, a keen-edged blade was far more advantageous. In short, Remian's iron club came with a built-in penalty. The barbarians in the stands began to murmur. Under gazes mixed with worry and expectation, Remian swung the club in a horizontal arc.
KWAANG—!
It sounded like a bomb going off, and the massive Retein rocked as if it might topple. The club, harder and broader where it met the stone, shattered in a spray of fragments—but the Retein ore did not escape unscathed. A groove opened in it, incomparably larger than the one left by the first barbarian to gouge the ore. It was easily the size of a grown male barbarian's fist.
The crowd sucked in empty breaths.
"Monstrous strength."
"If we're talking raw power alone, isn't that talent for the ages?"
"He's smaller than that hulking Raccoon from earlier, but the strength is overwhelming."
"It isn't just strength, either. To withstand the rebound, his body's durability would have to be monstrous... and he looks perfectly fine. Which means the rigidity of his bones is extraordinary too."
Corshas was next. She used a greatsword, and a greatsword was one of the better weapons for scoring well against the Retein. The moment the ore finished restoring itself, she swung.
KAAANG—!
She had put so much into the blow that her face flushed a violent red, looking ready to burst, before the color drained back to normal. Her result was even better than Remian's. Remian had the greater strength, but Corshas had struck a part of the Retein that took a cut more readily, and her weapon had done her a small favor besides.
"They didn't receive top-grade Potential for nothing. Their baseline physical ability is on a level you can't even compare to underage barbarians."
"I knew their Potential was high, but they clearly haven't been slacking on the work either. The technical side looks pretty sharp."
"Right. One of them's as good as locked in for chieftain. I'm jealous."
Praise poured out from every direction. The talent of the Poison Dagger Tribe's two barbarians was exceptional.
"Ugh..."
Boromian glared at the pair, his face twisted with resentment.
"Why are you the one getting competitive?"
His friend Yodmen asked, looking baffled.
"They're on a completely different level from you. No point getting worked up."
"Hey. Even if you're right, soften it a little. That hurts."
"Hurts? That's muscle soreness. I just patched your muscle loss right up for you."
"You maniac."
After the Poison Dagger Tribe, no fewer than five more tribes took the stage, but none of them left an impression. The first two had simply been too strong. Then it was the Ledordang Tribe's turn.
Called up onto the stage, Yujun stepped onto it with his companions. He had climbed up once already, when the tribes were introduced, but the feeling now was different. Excitement and nerves sat side by side in him, the way they do in a high school senior waiting to walk into the college entrance exam.
A glance at the barbarians beside him showed the tension written plainly on their faces. The Ledordang Tribe was not especially large, so the pressure to raise their tribe's honor must have weighed on them. They did, however, have something to believe in—and that something was Yujun. They had watched him butcher six enormous tyragoses in an instant. No: erase them outright. Senior warrior Janiz had gone so far as to praise him as stronger than the chieftain of Ledordang itself, so there was no room for doubt. Their rival, the Poison Dagger Tribe, had posted a tremendous score, but they were convinced Shin Yujun could surpass it.
They were the only ones who thought so. The barbarians filling the grounds considered Ledordang hardly worth a glance, expecting the tribe to turn in the same unremarkable result as the five that had come before. It was only natural. Ledordang had shown them nothing so far, and rumors about Yujun circulated only inside the tribe. None of that information had reached the barbarians of the others.
"If you're ready, begin."
The host barbarian gave the word, and they struck the Retein in the prescribed order. With so little expected of the Ledordang barbarians, only two of them managed so much as a scratch on the ore.
Yujun was last. He took up the sword Chieftain Odzen had given him and stood before the Retein. Up close, the ore was even more enormous than he had thought.
The grain is visible, though.
Just as he'd expected. But cutting along that grain would annihilate the Retein. He didn't know the ore's exact value, but he knew well enough that a stone this hard—one that regenerated without end—could not be cheap. If he swung along the grain he could see, there was a high chance the Retein would never restore itself. And if that happened, he could be disqualified. Yujun's goal was to place in the top three and receive the trial. That was an outcome he absolutely did not want.
Using the grain is no different from hitting a cheat code. I'll do this with swordsmanship alone.
His Strength might fall short of Corshas or Remian, but he possessed technique from an entirely higher dimension. He activated Super Concentration. With his physical ability so greatly reduced, the skill would not last long. He had to finish it fast.
The instant Super Concentration took hold, time crawled, and every stray noise around him vanished. Perfect conditions for focus. Yujun aimed for the part of the Retein that looked most vulnerable. It was distinctly not the same as cutting the grain. He was only targeting a place that looked as if it might give.
The sword swung, and the world before his eyes flashed as if lightning had struck. Since becoming a barbarian, Yujun had gained one further insight into Swordsmanship—and with a clean shhk, he sheared through the Retein ore as easily as slicing silken tofu. A diagonal line scored the middle, and a few seconds later the severed upper half of the Retein slid down along that slant.
THUD.
"..."
For a moment the grounds fell silent, as if someone had thrown cold water over them. Even the barbarians who had been idly looking elsewhere noticed the sudden quiet, turned toward the stage, and grasped what had happened.
"He cut it in half...?"
"How? I didn't even see it."
"I saw it, and I still don't get it."
"What are you talking about?"
"I didn't even see him swing. It looked like the thing just split on its own."
Everyone had no choice but to be bewildered. The barbarians who had watched Yujun cut the Retein couldn't follow the speed of the sword stroke with their eyes, and more than that, it had made almost no sound. In a noisy arena, few barbarians had hearing sharp enough to catch so faint a cutting whisper. The reaction of the Golden Lion elites who had been watching the stage was not much different. Eyes wide, they held their breath and stared at Yujun alone.
The host barbarian, flustered, approached the Retein ore. After fumbling over it a few times, his eyes went wide and he opened his mouth.
"It isn't regenerating!"
"..."
The barbarian leapt down from the stage and took off running. The unexpected turn left Yujun rattled.
I didn't even use the grain...?
He hadn't imbued the strike with Chaos, either. In the first place, he had no Chaos left in him right now. Then what was this? The question resolved itself quickly.
A barbarian who looked to be of high rank in the Golden Lion Tribe came running over. He examined the Retein, clicked his tongue, and spoke.
"Retein can't restore itself if you lop off a huge chunk like that."
"Then..."
"We'll just have to use what's left. Split the two pieces and use them separately, or something."
The host barbarian, Kam, looked ready to cry. As a single mass, the Retein ore had projected tremendous presence. Cut in half, its majesty could no longer be compared to what it had been. In a word, it had lost its style. For Kam, who had labored day and night to wring every drop of spectacle out of the tribal games, it was a situation that left him utterly desolate.
Yujun felt oddly sorry.
Should've held back.
Honestly, even before he swung, he had been certain he could split the Retein cleanly in half. That was why he had gone through with it. He just hadn't known it wouldn't regenerate. The barbarians beside him seemed just as thrown; they glanced around with blank, dumbfounded faces.
"May we step down?"
Yujun approached Kam and asked. Kam nodded before he quite realized he was doing it.
What kind of guy is this?
He couldn't understand the detached attitude. Looking at a result like that, getting excited was the only natural response. He had never seen a barbarian show so little emotion.
Yujun came down from the stage with the barbarians of the Ledordang Tribe. Back in the stands, he drew every eye at once.
"Does anyone know who that barbarian is?"
"First time I've seen him."
"I thought the sword looked unusual from the start..."
"It isn't the sword. I grew up with a blade in my hands from the day I was born, and that guy is from another world entirely. The level of his technique..."
A few sharp-eyed barbarians of the Golden Lion Tribe managed to grasp his skill, if only roughly. But roughly was all it was. The gap in ability was so vast that they couldn't tell exactly what realm he occupied.
And so, with no barbarian surpassing the result Yujun had left behind, the first event came to an end.