The Last Survivors of the Raccoon Tribe
Of the two survivors left of the Raccoon Tribe, the hulking barbarian Koman turned as if he had been waiting and met Yujun head-on. He tried to catch the sword Yujun drove in at a dead sprint by setting his greatsword sideways to receive it.
He should not have. Even knowing Yujun had split that supposedly unyielding Retein ore clean in half, he still meant to block.
A thin hiss of steel.
Koman's greatsword parted with an ease that felt almost hollow. All that thickness might as well have meant nothing.
"Wh—!"
For the first time, Koman let out a stunned, vacant sound. With his weapon halved, there was no counter left to him. Yujun had already slipped half a step back, refusing to yield the distance, and Koman knew far too well what would happen if he rushed in. The blade that had sheared his weapon in the blink of an eye would take his neck the same way. He could not bring himself to close.
Just as Yujun moved to finish him, the other Raccoon Tribe barbarian darted in and swung. He had been measuring the moment of the attack, hunting the opening that had to show itself the instant Yujun committed. It was clever. You could hardly call the judgment wrong. His opponent, however, was Yujun.
The arc of the sword stretching forward suddenly whipped like a striking snake and flew at the barbarian beside him—something like magic, a total wreck of every rule they had known. Yujun's blade pierced the man's throat before the Raccoon barbarian's sword could so much as touch him.
"Guhk."
That was the last cry the Raccoon Tribe barbarian would ever make.
Now only Koman remained. The focus had gone from his eyes, as if he had been smoking opium. Yujun knew that look. He had seen it often enough in the Tower of Infinity: the eyes of a man who understood not only that he had no chance, but exactly what his fate would be.
As Yujun advanced with his sword, Koman's body seemed to answer on its own, swinging a blade whose edge was already half gone. Short as it was, it fell hopelessly short of reaching him.
A heavy chop.
Yujun took Koman's neck with ease and brought the fight to an end.
Kam had never imagined the first bout would finish so quickly.
"...Th-the winner! The Ledordang Tribe!"
He had been staring blankly. A heartbeat later he came to himself and shouted, and the arena filled with a roar.
"Waaaaah!"
"Incredible!"
"He's insane! Insane!"
Some in the crowd surely sighed or grieved, but those voices had no choice but to drown beneath the thunder of thousands. Setting aside any loyalty to a particular tribe, the barbarians applauded sheer overwhelming performance. A people starved for strength always respected the strong—and if that strength was a crane among chickens, one figure standing utterly apart from the flock, they respected it all the more.
"He isn't even in the same league."
"The scale is different. He's blown straight past what a tribal melee is supposed to be. Honestly? I don't think I could take him either."
"Well, obviously. Who are you to be his match?"
"That's true of you, too."
"And who said it wasn't?"
The aftershock of the first duel was so great that the barbarians went on about it for a long while. Even as the second bout got underway, the restless mood held.
"Attention—!"
Kam seized the crowd with that voice of his, big enough to fill the stands. Perhaps the shock of the first match had simply been too much. Watching the second, the barbarians found little to enjoy. Fights between weaker barbarians were usually gripping in their own way, but Yujun's martial display had been so astonishing that the next bout could only feel flat by comparison.
"They got the bracket order wrong."
"Shame. I want to see it again."
"It ended way too fast. If it were the Poison Dagger Tribe, don't you think they could last a little longer against Shin Yujun?"
"Hard to say. I'm not even sure they'd be a match."
The crowd's interest had already fixed on the clash between the Poison Dagger Tribe and the Ledordang Tribe. And, as everyone expected, the final came down to Yujun's Ledordang against the Poison Dagger.
Climbing all the way to the final, the Ledordang had not lost a single life after the opening round, thanks entirely to Yujun. More often than not, a barbarian who found himself standing directly before him forfeited before their blades had even met once, so a proper fight almost never took shape. The crowd showered the forfeiters with boos, but what else were they supposed to do? Throwing yourself at someone you could never beat, and dying for it, was not confidence. It was stubbornness and empty bravado. The ruthlessness Yujun had shown the Raccoon Tribe had no doubt played its part—though to the tribes that faced him afterward, he had shown mercy, subduing them cleanly without taking their lives.
"Looks like he had a grudge against the Raccoon Tribe."
"Doesn't it? Were they his parents' killers or something?"
"Even if not, their misdeeds were widely known. Maybe that's why he killed them."
"As expected... the makings of a great warrior."
The Poison Dagger Tribe had kept every member alive on the way to the final. Aside from Corshas and Remian, the rest were skilled enough in their own right, and they had arrived with nothing worse than light injuries. The Ledordang barbarians, by contrast, did not have a scratch among them. Yujun's presence had already broken much of the enemy's will.
Remian and Corshas stood directly before him. Tension had put useless strength into their arms and legs, and Yujun could see it. Their faces were those of the last champions marching into a war meant to stop the Demon God.
Remian spoke to Corshas.
"You're ready, aren't you?"
"Of course."
They had traveled together when they came to the Golden Lion Tribe, but facing him as enemies, neither Remian nor Corshas could keep from tensing, try as they might. They had known how strong he was from the moment he slaughtered six tyragos in an instant. As time passed, though, the stage revealed more and more of Yujun's true measure, and they had come to admit he was an opponent on another level entirely. Even so, they had no thought of giving up or forfeiting. A duel that ran too hot might put their lives in danger, but they did not want to worry about that now.
For the first time in a long while, Remian and Corshas were of one mind. Even if it killed them, they would fight Yujun with everything they had. A chance to stake their lives against a warrior of that caliber might never come again. More than winning the tribal melee, what they could not bear was letting the chance to fight him slip away. Challenging the Trial was good. Winning, and raising the tribe's honor, was good. But none of it meant anything unless they themselves grew.
Of course, I don't think we're winning this. Not a chance.
The Ledordang Tribe's rise as a dark horse owed everything to a single existence: Shin Yujun. And that existence was an enormous wall. It would have been nice to break it. They did not believe they could. Aside from a few, everyone in the arena was thinking the same thing.
"We're counting on you!"
"Make it fun!"
"Hey, you two! You know it's no fun if you end it too fast, right?"
The final stage. Victory here awarded a score so much higher than second place that the two could hardly be compared, and regardless of the points accumulated so far, winning was as good as securing the right to challenge the Trial.
At last the final began.
Once again, the first to surge forward was Yujun. Contrary to what Corshas and Remian had imagined, he wanted the Trial more than he wanted a duel, and he had no interest in entertaining the crowd. He meant to end the final quickly.
Remian and Corshas came on together, as if they had expected exactly that, and swung. Yujun was clearly faster than either of them, but his body was not so overwhelming that he could casually handle two at once. They knew it. To keep from being picked off one by one, they moved as a single body and pressed him.
The weight coming through the sword is definitely different.
After a few exchanges, Yujun was mildly surprised. Set beside the sheer bulk of the Raccoon Tribe, Remian and Corshas's strength was considerable—embarrassingly so. More precisely, they simply knew how to fight: great force from little strength. Swinging at a Retein ore that stood still and putting your weight behind a weapon in the middle of a desperate fight could never be the same thing. In that sense, the two of them stood several ranks above Koman of the Raccoon Tribe. Unlike Koman, all power and no technique, they could fairly be called specialists with their weapons. To Yujun's eye, of course, they were still fledglings.
A sharp crack.
The iron club Remian had newly acquired flew far off. It was not that he had lost in raw strength. The result came strictly from a difference in skill. Yujun drove a kick into his abdomen.
"Guhk!"
Breath cut short, Remian dropped to his knees in pain. In that opening Yujun turned on Corshas. She gave everything she had, but she failed to receive three of his strokes, and her weapon shattered. In a moment that sharp, she had no ally nearby. The rest of her tribe was already too busy with the Ledordang barbarians.
Yujun struck the back of Corshas's neck with his scabbard and knocked her out, then cleaned up the remaining barbarians just as quickly. The fight had lasted longer than the one against the Raccoon Tribe, but only by a matter of tens of seconds. With every opponent unable to continue, the final ended in the Ledordang Tribe's victory.
What followed was some tiresome award ceremony, but Yujun's attention was fixed entirely on the Trial. Kam's booming voice never quite reached his ears.
They said the more achievements I stack in the Trial, the better.
When it came to achievements, Yujun's confidence knew no limit. If he had grown so quickly after coming to the Tower of Infinity, achievements had played no small part.
Nothing lasts forever. Even the ceremony, which he found thoroughly tedious, came to an end at last. Then they told him there was still a presentation to come. He let out a long sigh.
This one, at least, ought to be over quickly.
The chieftain of the Golden Lion Tribe would personally bestow an item. Ought he to be glad it was an item, and not some medal? He did not know whether he could carry it back to his original world as it was, but there was one sure way to make that possible: put it in Paranet's hands.
In the end, I never did meet Manuela or Yenil. Doesn't look like we were sent to the same world.
If it had been those two, they would have stood out long before now. Since they had not, they had clearly been moved into different worlds.
They'll manage.
Yujun stood face to face with the chieftain of the Golden Lion Tribe. Shehil said nothing. He simply gazed at him, steady and unblinking. When the silence stretched past ten seconds, Yujun spoke first.
"What item am I to receive?"
"I will give you three choices. Pick one."
So said Shehil. It must not have been part of the original plan. Kam, standing beside them, went wide-eyed.