Etrun (2)
"M-Mermaid head?!"
Beron's hands trembled violently.
How dare a Normal Class—!
The scum wouldn't have dared even meet his eyes outside of Etrun. And why would he? Beron was the eldest son of the Slote family, the Holy Spear House, destined the moment he graduated the academy to join the knightly order of one of the Two Great Princes.
And that eastern country bumpkin, that Lee Tae-hyun? Forget a knightly order—the wretch would be lucky to crawl through some lowborn mercenary outfit before ending up crippled and starving to death in a ditch.
That was simply what Normal Class was. Pebbles laid beneath jewels, existing for no purpose but to make Royal Class shine brighter.
"To take up a spear so lightly! As a member of House Slote, I cannot overlook this!"
"How would you know what I'm thinking? Did you learn mind reading?"
"Just as Sir Rex said. All mouth."
Beron leveled his spear at Tae-hyun.
"By the authority of Superior Knight Rex, the duel between Cadet Beron Slote and Cadet Lee Tae-hyun is hereby sanctioned. Any objections from either side?"
"None, sir."
"No."
And so it was decided—a duel between Normal Class and Royal Class.
The rules were those of Etrun and the continent at large: the first side rendered incapable of fighting loses.
The cadets erupted into a chorus of gossip.
"Challenging a Royal Class? Really?"
"What's wrong with Lee Tae-hyun? Is he sick or something?"
"He was acting weird since this morning."
Royal Class reactions were split down the middle.
"Finally, some entertainment."
"Educating the bottom-feeders who try to climb is part of our job, isn't it?"
Some watched with glittering, eager eyes, while a few others crossed their arms and sighed.
"Boring."
"Why bother watching? We already know how it ends."
"You'll regret this, Normal Class."
"Yeah, sure."
A brief silence passed between the two men. Then—
"The duel begins!"
Beron moved first, unfolding the secret spear art passed down through his family.
"Behold—the Sacred Spear Art!"
The spearhead wavered for an instant, then closed the distance in a single breath.
"Gaze upon this technique and drown in your admiration!"
His opponent had never learned a proper spear art in his life, after all. He would likely be cut down before he could even react, helpless as a lamb.
You call THIS a spear art?
That was what Beron thought.
CLANG!
Right up until his spear was knocked away in a single exchange.
"Wha—?!"
"Honestly, that's barely embarrassing enough to call a spear technique."
"Did you just insult the Slote Sacred Spear Art?!"
"Yeesh, what a grandiose name for something like that."
Tae-hyun rested the spear shaft across his shoulder and beckoned lazily with his hand.
"Go on. Again."
"You insolent—!"
Veins bulged across Beron's forehead as mana surged through him.
"You won't live to regret this!"
The mana-laden Sacred Spear Art came down on Tae-hyun in relentless succession. By all rights, the boy should have been flung away without surviving even the first three exchanges.
Tat! Tatat! Tak!
Tae-hyun was dodging, deflecting, and parrying with room to spare.
The Slote Sacred Spear Art—the pride the Holy Spear House had built over centuries—was crumbling before a single Normal Class cadet.
"Hahk! Hah! Th-this can't be...!"
"Is that it?"
When Beron's spear finally stilled, Tae-hyun stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"Well, the technique itself isn't bad. No real rough edges."
"And what makes you qualified to—!"
"Five forms in total, weighted toward slashing and knocking opponents away rather than piercing. And a few of those forms are just your own improvisations stitched together from the originals, aren't they?"
"...?!"
Beron's eyes went wide with shock.
Everything Tae-hyun had said was true.
He figured all that out in that little amount of time?!
Impossible. Even Superior Knight Rex couldn't grasp the subtleties of the Sacred Spear Art. There was no way a mere Normal Class cadet could have.
"Nothing wrong with the spear art itself. The problem is you."
"What...?"
"Looks like you inherited the technique as a child and drilled nothing but that, day and night."
Beron flinched.
"Skip the fundamentals and jump straight into the forms, of course it falls apart."
"Sh-shut up! Who are you to lecture the Holy Spear House on how it trains!"
"Tsk tsk. Build a tower on land with no foundation and it all comes crumbling down."
With that, Tae-hyun took a proper grip on his spear.
Unlike Beron—his stance flawless.
"Watch closely. I'm about to show you the spear you should have been chasing all along."
A battered old relic of a weapon, the kind no one would bother to touch.
And from that decrepit old spear, a technique took shape.
The Sacred Spear Art.
The spear flowed forward without the slightest hitch.
"Ugh?!"
A metallic groan escaped Beron's lips as he barely caught the strike.
It's—it's heavy!
The spear that had looked as light as a dance was crushingly heavy head-on.
"Wh-what sorcery is this?!"
He was watching it with his own eyes and still couldn't believe it. The man had perfectly analyzed the spear art and traced Beron's entire growth—and as if that weren't enough—
He's unfolding the Sacred Spear Art itself?!
More perfectly than Beron himself could. The spearwork was so exquisite that even in this humiliating moment, awe drowned out his shame.
THWACK-THWACK-THWACK!
The spear shaft hammered into Beron's body.
"GRAAAAAGH!"
Tae-hyun was deliberately striking only with the blunted sides, but the blows were still splitting flesh and tearing veins open. Beron wanted nothing more than to scream surrender right then and there.
But—
I want... to see more!
He wanted to burn more of the Sacred Spear Art unfolding before him into his eyes. Just a little longer, and he felt he could finally leap over the wall that had blocked him for so long.
More... MORE!
Show me more!
That spear art...!
"HOLD!"
Just then, Rex barged in and wedged himself between the two.
"Lee Tae-hyun! What is the meaning of this?!"
"What do you mean, sir?"
"You dare use underhanded tricks to deceive Cadet Beron?!"
"And what trick would that be?"
"Th-that will come to light when we investigate!"
"That's... not even a sentence."
"You are banned from training until the investigation concludes! Return to your dormitory and reflect on yourself!"
Judging that reasoning with this man would go nowhere, Tae-hyun simply complied.
Objective complete!
All Stats +3
Good enough.
He'd achieved the objective, after all. Tae-hyun left the training grounds without a second glance.
"Wh-what just happened?!"
"That just now..."
"Did Lee Tae-hyun just beat Beron?"
"He was toying with him. One-sided."
Beron stood frozen in place for a long while. Then he gnawed at his lips and let his fury explode.
"HUUUURGH!"
The targets of his rage were many. Himself, beaten by a mere Normal Class. The honor he'd lost. The shame of defiling his family's spear art.
But the greatest of them all—
"Ahem. C-Cadet Beron? Are you all right?"
"..."
"Seems fine. I will certainly uncover whatever trick that insect used and punish him to the fullest—"
"Why... did you stop it?"
"Hm? What was that?"
"Why did you interfere with the duel without warning?!"
Because he hadn't been allowed to watch Lee Tae-hyun's perfect Sacred Spear Art to the end.
Looks like everything I have can be used outside the fragment.
After returning to the dormitory, I ran experiments on my own. The result: there was no real difference between inside the fragment and outside. Flame Soul, the Nameless Spear Art, my other skills—even the items in my subspace—all carried over intact.
"Then there are two goals."
First, gather information about the Monarch. Second, complete as many objectives as possible and grow.
That said, there was no telling when or where an objective would appear. Just in case, I did a few basic push-ups and such, but unlike the morning workout, the system didn't hand out any free stats. Which left me with the generation condition I'd settled on:
Events.
When something specific happened, a matching objective seemed to spawn. Considering the dueling match with mermaid-head just now had produced an objective with the insane reward of All Stats +3—
The bigger the event, the bigger the reward.
If that was true, I couldn't just sit around here twiddling my thumbs.
"Let's go!"
Step outside, and something was bound to happen.
I kicked open the dormitory door and marched out with plenty of swagger.
"God, the grounds are absurdly big, though."
This was the kingdom's finest educational institution, wasn't it? The size fit the reputation. They'd built the entire academy into the middle of a mountain range.
After wandering aimlessly for quite a while—
"This is..."
Something unsettling brushed against my senses. Faint, but unmistakable: a long trail of mana's afterecho winding deep into the mountain.
Objective: Trace the mana
🎁 Reward: Technique (Tech) +1
"Oh, nice."
There it was—an event.
Five Senses Amplification
I extended my senses and followed the mana deep into the mountain. The terrain was brutally rough, but that meant nothing to an A-rank hunter.
What kind of mana is this?
Mana came in roughly two flavors: human, and everything else.
This was the latter. Definitely not human mana.
But it's not a monster's either.
Monsters couldn't leave behind mana this dense. So if it was neither human nor monster, what the hell—
"...!"
As I pressed forward, thinking, several figures in black masks entered my field of view. I slipped behind a tree in an instant and sharpened my hearing.
"Found it?"
"Not yet. But it can't have gotten far."
"This is driving me crazy. You know there are no second chances if we lose this one, right?"
Their voices drifted over bit by bit.
"This is a divine beast capture we're talking about. Keep your heads on straight."
Divine beasts?
A strangely familiar word. After all, Sagimoon's martial art referenced four divine beasts, didn't it?
So they're trying to capture a divine beast?
A place where divine beasts actually existed. So this world wasn't an ordinary one either, huh.
"Hey! Over here!"
Just then, another masked figure called out to them from the distance.
"Found it! Get over here, quick!"
"Good news."
"Now we won't have to answer to That Person."
The masked men hurried toward their companion, and I followed at a careful remove.
Mist Shadow Step.
Silent as fog.
The mana's getting thicker.
What I found when I finally arrived—
"GRRRRRR...!"
"Hold still, you damned mutt!"
"Alive would be preferable, but the order says killing it is acceptable."
—was a pack of masked men, and at the center of their encirclement, a single wolf.
And indeed, there was good reason for them to call it a divine beast.
Near death, and it still radiates that much presence.
Blue, savage claws and keen, intelligent eyes. A wild whirlwind spiraling around its body.
A wolf-type divine beast like that—there's only one it can be.
Fenrir.
The wolf that devours gods.
Doesn't look like a full adult, though.
If it were, those masked fools would have been swallowed in a single bite. I'd never fought one myself, but before my regression, a gate with a mature Fenrir as its boss had opened in the Nordic sector.
S-rank, that one was.
Top-tier even among S-ranks in terms of difficulty. And yet a Fenrir before its maturity could be cornered this badly by mere humans.
"GRrrrrgh..."
Chains wound around the Fenrir's body were sapping its strength—almost certainly an artifact crafted specifically to capture or hunt divine beasts.
SPLURT!
Fresh red blood gushed out. Blades and arrows were already buried deep in its vitals.
That one's beyond saving.
There was no way to keep it alive. Divine beast or not, it was no being that had conquered death itself.
"Let's just kill it and transport the carcass. Easier that way."
"Killing a divine beast leaves a foul aftertaste... but no choice, I suppose."
The masked men drew their blades and advanced on the Fenrir.
"Well then, time to wrap up—"
Objective: Deal with the unidentified individuals
🎁 Reward: All Stats +3
Shall I go ruin their day, then?