Dragon's Nest, Experiments, Advancement, and Enhancement (7)
It was nothing like I’d expected.
Instead of bursting over here in excitement, he looked stubbornly confused, the kind of obstinacy that made no sense at all.
Of course, that left me feeling a little slighted.
When I thought about how much time I’d spent making the enhancement serum, it wasn’t unreasonable to feel put out. He would have had to do research either way, sure, but this was something I’d made specifically for Park Deokgu.
This… pig…
I couldn’t understand why he was refusing it.
Of course, I could guess the reason.
From my point of view, it was a rather pathetic one.
He probably wanted to grow stronger with his own power, or didn’t want to borrow the strength of some potion like this. A pitiful reason, really.
This bastard…
It was only natural that the thought crossed my mind: does he not understand desperation?
If he truly understood the situation he was in, there was no way he’d be saying something like that.
For that matter, the only reason he’d gotten this far in the first place was because he’d had the backing of others.
I was almost too dumbfounded to stomach such a narrow-minded way of thinking, where he decided one thing was fine and another wasn’t.
If Park Deokgu had grown up clawing his way through some mediocre mid-tier guild instead of Blue Guild, he would have grabbed this serum without a second thought.
If this potion ever hit the market, it would sell like wildfire to anyone who had begun to feel their limits. That much was obvious.
It was a little embarrassing to say this about my own work, but for someone like him, this serum was practically a miracle elixir.
Some strange sense of betrayal sent sparks flying in my eyes as well. I wasn’t furious. It was more accurate to say I’d just become mildly irritated.
“What?”
“I appreciate it, but I’m not drinking it. Is that really why you called me?”
“That’s exactly why I called you.”
“I’m grateful you were thinking of me, but you don’t need to worry about me this much. I’m not a child, and I can do just fine without things like this.”
He looked extremely uncomfortable too.
In fact, ever since we’d started traveling together, this was the first time he’d ever looked at me like that.
It felt like I’d touched some forbidden nerve that shouldn’t have been touched, though maybe it was just inferiority at work.
He’d been working hard, pushing forward all this time, and then he got offered a potion like this. He might have felt like he was being pitied.
There could be all kinds of reasons, but from my side, I had no choice but to press him.
“You’re being stubborn over something pointless.”
“It’s not stubbornness.”
“It isn’t just for you. You need to think about the party too.”
“You don’t have to dance around it. You’re saying we need a stronger front line, aren’t you?”
I couldn’t exactly deny it.
“Then use someone else. Anyway, I’m not taking this.”
“You—”
“I said I’m not taking it!”
The moment I grabbed him by the arm as he turned to leave, he flared up and slapped my hand away.
He had gotten quite a bit stronger, but my frail body was naturally thrown backward.
I caught a flash of Park Deokgu’s startled expression.
Unlike the look on his face, which clearly showed he knew he’d messed up, my body was already flying toward a nearby desk.
Goddamn—
Lucky or unlucky, I managed to clutch the enhancement serum tightly against my chest with my left hand and protect it, but that didn’t change the fact that I’d rolled across the floor in an undignified heap.
I felt a small jolt in my back, and after checking the serum’s safety, I immediately turned my gaze back to him.
“You— fat bastard!”
Just as I was about to shout in anger, I felt a massive surge of mana moving through the room.
Ah.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
When I turned my head, I saw Jung Hayan with her hand extended toward Park Deokgu.
The mana I could feel from the opening of her Legendary-grade trait was beyond anything I’d imagined.
It was so immense that I swallowed without meaning to.
She wasn’t simply pressuring him with raw mana. I didn’t know what spell she was using, but the ground beneath Park Deokgu’s feet was gouging inward with a grinding sound.
He was trembling all over, trying to hold out, but he didn’t seem able to resist the pressure bearing down on him from above.
The sight of him flattened into the earth like a frog was kind of pitiful.
“Uuugh….”
He kept trying to get up, but there was no way he could.
Having high endurance and being able to take a hit were completely different things from enduring mana pressure and still moving freely.
For someone with low strength and mana, resisting that unknown magic was impossible.
I knew Jung Hayan was sensitive when it came to my safety, but I hadn’t expected her to take that attitude with Park Deokgu too.
“Apologize.”
“Huuuuuk!”
“Apologize!”
Kwarararararack!
With another push of force, Park Deokgu started sinking deeper into the ground.
Seeing her about to kill the man, I hurriedly had to stop Jung Hayan.
He was sturdy enough, but there was no way he’d come out without damage if he took pressure like that head-on.
“Jung Hayan, stop.”
“Ah….”
“He isn’t hurt, and it wasn’t on purpose.”
“S-sorry.”
“Apologize to Deokgu later.”
“……”
The moment Jung Hayan lowered her hand, the pressure of mana vanished.
Just the loss of that mana devouring the area made breathing much easier.
Even with 45 mana, it seemed hard for him to withstand Jung Hayan’s power.
As I walked toward Park Deokgu, I saw the man, still half-buried in the ground, quietly pulling himself upright.
It was only natural to offer him my hand. I checked his condition with Mind’s Eye to see if he’d been injured, but there was no serious damage.
It looked like he’d overdrawn his mana trying to resist Jung Hayan, and the inside of his body had taken a bit of a beating, but it was a wound he could recover from on his own.
Traces of his desperate attempt to resist her were visible all over him.
I silently held out my hand and waited for him to take it, but the pig’s expression wasn’t very good.
It was filled with a bitter sense of defeat.
Defeat at being unable to so much as twitch a finger against Jung Hayan’s magic.
Ah….
I had no choice but to admit things had become a little more complicated.
If Park Deokgu really did harbor some inferiority, then that only made it worse.
It had become an opportunity to take a much closer look at the gap between him and Kim Hyunsung’s party, a gap I’d already roughly anticipated through Kim Yeri.
I mean, even I…
I was having trouble keeping up with that party of monsters.
As someone in a noncombat role, I was doing my best to cling to them, but even I could feel that everyone around me was a monster. The man standing on the front line probably felt it even more keenly than I did.
In the end, he didn’t take my hand.
After rising to his feet with defeat written on his face, as though even escaping that magic had been impossible, he turned and walked out of the nest without another word.
“I… I’m sorry about earlier, Hyung-nim.”
“No. You seemed a little worked up too. I’m sorry as well, Deokgu. I think I was in a bit of a hurry too… Let’s talk about this again later, slowly.”
“No. Hyung-nim did nothing wrong.”
I couldn’t stop him as he slowly moved away.
This is annoying…
My irritation kept rising and rising.
I had this urge to flat-out tell him, You don’t have any talent, so shut up and just swallow it. You have limits, and if you keep going like this, the gap between you and everyone else is only going to widen.
But once I thought about his feelings, I couldn’t say that.
Even if I didn’t say it, it was something he already knew, and I thought it would be more effective to speak gently, like coaxing a child, rather than shouting at him.
Jung Hayan seemed to realize she’d made a mistake, because she was quietly watching my mood, while Dialugia, looking at me from a distance, seemed to be trying to understand what exactly was going on.
I wanted to know why things had suddenly gone sideways too. This was definitely not the picture I’d had in mind.
God, this is so frustrating, shit….
I wondered if he’d gotten some soft little idea into his head, like the strength I gained through him isn’t my own strength, but whatever he was thinking, I couldn’t deny that I was worried about him.
In the end, I had no choice but to start walking again, slowly.
“I’m going back to the guild for a bit.”
“Okay… Oppa.”
Whether I was going to check on him or talk to Kim Hyunsung, I needed to come up with some kind of solution again.
This really is the last time.
My care of him ends here. I firmly resolved that after helping him one more time, I would not catch him again when he fell back down, and with that thought in mind I hurried back to Blue Guild.
I didn’t bother taking the White Pole. I wanted to see what condition Park Deokgu was in first.
If I showed up dramatically by riding a griffon and advertising my arrival, I figured he’d just shut himself in his room instead.
Since the nest wasn’t far away, I reached Blue Guild House in no time.
He looked like he’d drink himself stupid in the basement tavern, so I briefly wondered if that was what he was doing, but I decided he probably wasn’t there.
Just in case, I headed to the place where I’d been with Kim Yeri last time.
When I took a seat at the spot where I’d once watched Park Deokgu with Jung Hayan, sure enough he came into view along with Kim Yeri.
Kim Yeri had even noticed me, her eyes subtly shifting so no one would notice. I could tell she was quietly watching me.
Park Deokgu didn’t seem to feel my presence, but Kim Yeri clearly knew I was here.
The fact that she didn’t mention me to Park Deokgu meant she must have roughly understood the situation.
Kim Yeri, who had quietly looked away from me, began speaking to Park Deokgu.
I could hear his voice answering her right away.
“Your face. Bad. Just forcing training. Not very efficient. When you rest, you should rest.”
“No, I’m telling you, this isn’t training today.”
“Then what.”
“A spar.”
“If it’s a spar, that’s what we do every day. It’s training.”
“No. Not that.”
“Then what.”
“I mean do it like it’s real.”
“You mean don’t hold back? You’ll get hurt, mister.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Park Deokgu looked anxious.
It seemed the shock of being unable to do a thing against Jung Hayan had really hit him hard.
He probably wanted to pin down exactly where he stood right now.
Instead of replying to Park Deokgu, Kim Yeri casually shifted her eyes toward where I was sitting.
Her expression looked like she was asking whether it was really all right to go through with this.
I wasn’t sure why she was asking for my opinion on something like this, but for now, a slight nod seemed only natural.
He needed to know his position accurately, too.
Park Deokgu settled into his stance, and Kim Yeri immediately lunged at him.
Kim Hyunsung?
It only took an instant to realize whom the girl had modeled her close-quarters combat after.
She was a little lighter and more stylish than Kim Hyunsung, but now and then his shadow showed through her movements.
Apparently she’d absorbed a great deal from him without even realizing it.
Park Deokgu grabbed his sword in alarm, but Kim Yeri was already near him. In an instant, blood splattered around them.
I’d already felt it to some degree when he fought Cha Heera, but that little girl’s combat ability was almost on par with Cho Hyejin’s.
Watching him get pushed around so badly that even calling it a fight felt embarrassing made my chest ache.
His natural endurance kept him standing, but he couldn’t catch her or block her.
Park Deokgu wasn’t weak.
Monster brat.
She gave off the feeling that she already knew exactly how Deokgu would move.
She was moving half a beat faster.
When they separated, the throwing daggers she hurled were already buried in his body, and those daggers raked across him as though they were tearing his whole body apart.
Seeing him turn blood-soaked in an instant was absurd. I could see why she had described it as holding back against Park Deokgu.
“I’m done now.”
“Huh?”
“Enough. If it goes on any longer, it’ll be dangerous. I’ll call a priest.”
“Just a little more… huhh… huhh….”
“No. I don’t understand why you want to fight me.”
“……”
“Mister, your role isn’t to fight me. Right?”
“……”
“You can’t do what that auntie Cho Hyejin or Hyunsung Oppa can do anyway. It’s better to accept it.”
The little girl quietly looked at Park Deokgu for a moment, then immediately turned away.
She was probably going to fetch a priest.
Park Deokgu sat down on the ground with a flop and buried his head between his knees. I checked on him, half-expecting him to jump up and swing his sword again like he had last time, but no such sound came.
Instead, a strange choking sob echoed softly through the air.