010. Encounter with the Lizardman Swordsman

"You told me it wasn't a sledgehammer! It's a sledgehammer, isn't it!"

"Then don't bother with the dramatic production in the first place! What is this? Who builds a thing up into this grand reveal and then lets it shrivel the second it's in your hands?"

"Level? There's a level? Info. Show me. Now!"

"No abilities. Nothing. It's just a heavy, hard sledgehammer!"

"Where do you think you're going, you lunatic constellation? Running away? Seriously?"

Kanghyuk was dumbfounded, but training had apparently already calcified into habit, because he was grumbling his way out the front door all the same.

"Can't practice at the playground anymore, so I suppose I'm renting a hunter training hall. Which is money. It's always money. My account just springs leaks these days. What's even the point of making money off stocks if I never get to spend any of it?"

"Wow, thank goodness his reaction was milder than I expected. When that sledgehammer popped out, I honestly figured he'd throw it."

"Exactly. Kanghyuk truly is good-natured. Heading straight off to train, even after being put through all that."

"That's right. I am good-natured. Diligent, too!"

"The shamelessness of butting in like that!"

When Ping shot me a glare, I casually looked away.

"Anyway — any chance I could run his training myself?"

"You could. The problem is the divine power it would eat."

"Ooh! Then what's the option that eats the least?"

"Teaching him inside a dream. Though the efficiency drops, and every word you speak burns that much more divine power on top."

Hmm. Then maybe I don't need to say anything at all — just drive it into his body until it sinks in on its own.

An idea had just surfaced, and I sank into thought.

"Why are you making that evil face again?"

Ping edged away into the far distance.

"Evil face, my foot! This is all in service of training efficiency. Efficiency!"

"And this efficient idea of yours would be...?"

"You can't feel pain in dreams. Right?"

"Naturally."

"Which makes it awfully hard to carve lessons into his body there. You see the problem."

"I do see it."

"So: I issue him a quest the moment he falls asleep. He dodges my attacks, and if he fails to dodge, the penalty makes him feel pain even inside the dream. And, of course, he doesn't get to wake up."

"Wow... that is genuinely vile. A demon would be the more humane of the two of you! Booo."

To have a method that pinched every drop of divine power as far as it would go while making me grow at maximum efficiency described as demonic — I felt profoundly slandered.

"So — can it be done, or not?"

"It should work, yes. What will the reward be?"

"A deep, uninterrupted sleep once training's over?"

"Oh, stars of the heavens above! The most wicked constellation in all creation stands before you. Please! We beg you! Punish him at once!"

"And how exactly is this all for my benefit? Huh?"

"If Kanghyuk does well, that is you doing well — so yes, it is precisely a scheme for you and you alone."

I had no answer to that.

Bit by bit, the training was becoming fun for Kanghyuk. Nothing stood in the way of his growth anymore. What he'd barely slogged through one day felt manageable the next, and a week on, it sat as naturally in his body as anything he'd done all his life.

"Okay — now it's finally starting to feel at home in my hands."

Progress he could feel with every sunrise; how could that not be fun? He'd even started wondering, idly, where the bottom of his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠limits actually lay.

"You know, I think I can get this suit on and off by myself now?"

"Ah. Got it. Got it. At least the thing doesn't stink or make my skin itch."

Mercifully, the Arachne Suit lived up to its eye-watering price tag: even bathing with it on left him feeling scrubbed clean from head to toe.

"Another gloriously full day!"

Dinner went down hearty as always, he lay down to sleep — and the constellation's message floated up before his eyes.

"Since when do you send good-night greetings? From the creep who stares at me all day ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like a peeping tom?"

Something about it niggled at him, but Kanghyuk closed his eyes as usual all the same. Before long, sleep carried him into a space of featureless, blinding white.

"What is this? A dream?"

A blurred human silhouette materialized before the flustered Kanghyuk, something gripped in its hand — and one glance at that something told him precisely who had come calling.

"THIS is what 'see you shortly' meant? All right, what is it this time?"

The constellation's reply was to wordlessly swing what could only be the divine weapon — a heavy, blunt brute of a thing.

WHAM—

"Gwaaagh! You insane constellation! What the hell was that!"

He had known it was a dream. Pain as real as waking life crashed over him anyway. He'd have sworn the spot where it landed should have been pulp — yet the pain arrived while his body stayed perfectly, bafflingly whole.

"The day I see your real face, I'm hitting you at least once. You hear me, you bastard!"

Kanghyuk crammed every scrap of hoarded rage into both hands and swung his weapon.

"Die!"

The sledgehammer christened Breaker carved a clean, honest arc toward the constellation—

KRAAANG!

—where the constellation's own Breaker, riding the exact opposite arc, batted his weapon clean out of line.

"Ughk!"

He strangled the grip with everything he had rather than let go, but nothing stopped the Breaker from being flung wide — and the moment he felt his body whipped around with it, open air flashed overhead and his back slammed into the ground.

"Hrk."

Flat on the ground with no idea what had even happened to him, Kanghyuk surged straight back up.

"RAAAAGH!"

This time he tried to vent it all in a single overhead smash — and the constellation evaded with one lone diagonal step, then snapped the Breaker back in and drove its blade into Kanghyuk's belly.

"Hup—!"

Agony, every bit as absolute as before — and his body came through it without a scratch.

"Hey. Hey, you damnable constellation. Now I can't even sleep in peace because of you?"

The constellation said nothing. It simply waggled the Breaker, ever so slightly — which was all it took to stoke the fire.

"Fine. FINE. Today I land one hit on you if it's the last thing I do. Come at me!"

And so, this time, the constellation attacked first. Kanghyuk swung up to intercept the blow screaming toward his head — and the constellation's stance dropped without warning, sending the strike sliding from skull to ribs.

"Urgh—!"

Even with his ribs taking the hit, Kanghyuk kept his eyes on the constellation. Its lead foot had shot far forward, driving the whole stance low by force.

He widened his stride to drop his height! Damn it. That hurts like hell.

From that moment on, Kanghyuk had no choice but to study the constellation down to the centimeter if he wanted to eat even one fewer hit. For all that it looked like it was simply swinging the Breaker around, it never once swung it the same way twice.

Hand position, grip, the width of its step — not one of them ever repeats. So this is what a gap in level actually looks like?

Inside the dream, Kanghyuk took it all — bludgeoned, cleaved, skewered, swept off his feet, every species of attack there was. It was also the first time he learned a Breaker could do far more than simply swing.

"Enough! Stop hitting me!"

Morning came, and Kanghyuk woke with a scream.

"Hah... hah... So it was just a dream, huh."

A dream so real it had actually hurt — yet waking, he found not a single wound left on his body. If anything, he felt positively well-rested, without a shred of fatigue.

"Damn it. If you're going to teach me, can't you be civil about it? What's with these caveman methods?"

"No — at least TALK me through it while you beat me! You're chatting away just fine right now!"

"What kind of bullshit is that!"

Heat pouring off him, Kanghyuk began hammering fists into his pillow.

"AAARGH, infuriating! Unbelievable!"

And there it was — the quest window, popping up before his eyes right on schedule.

"Would it kill you to read the room!"

Grumbling every step of the way, Kanghyuk scooped up the Breaker and headed out. Infuriating as it all was, he knew — with certainty — that he was getting stronger.

BEEEEEP———

The emergency-alert tone of his smartphone shrilled in Kanghyuk's ears on his way to training.

"What kind of monster calls for this much hysteria? If it shows up in front of me, I'll pound it into jerky on the spot."

"Aw, come on. There's no way it actually shows up. That's just a figure of speech. Just. A figure of speech."

"Hiiissss— hiiissss—"

And the words took root.

"What? What is that sound?"

What slid into view before the suddenly taut Kanghyuk was a creature sheathed head to tail in gleaming scales, its legs hinging backward like a dinosaur's, a slender sword in each hand.

"A lizardman?"

"A lizardman swordsman? That's a D-rank monster! Damn it, I haven't even spent all my money yet and I'm dying here?"

Kanghyuk forced his pulse down and looked — really looked — and the lizardman swordsman's skin leapt out at him.

"Huh. Its scales look kind of... dried out?"

The constellation had a point: it was the height of summer, the asphalt hot enough to fry an egg on. For a creature that ran on moisture, there could scarcely be a deadlier stage.

"Hiiissss—"

Serpentine eyes crawled over Kanghyuk without a moment's pause, hunting for an opening. To wall off any approach, Kanghyuk thrust the Breaker out before him, strung wire-tight.

"Hissss— hiss!"

With a short, sharp exhale, the lizardman swordsman kicked off the pavement—

It's fast.

—and its blade came flashing in faster than anything he'd braced for, slicing across his body.

Shff—

"Hissss-hissss-hissss-hissss!"

It was a skin-crawling, serpentine sound — but Kanghyuk knew instinctively that it was laughter.

"Why, you smug little gecko."

"Hisss?"

Finding no blood on its blade tip, the lizardman swordsman seemed, for a moment, genuinely thrown.

"The Arachne Suit saved my life. They said it was woven from Arachne spider silk — forget a training suit, this thing is straight-up armor!"

Kanghyuk swung on the conviction that the best defense was a good offense. The lizardman swordsman looked utterly unbothered.

Tap. Shff. Shff.

Its blades went on skating across his body all the same. Without the Arachne Suit, he would have been wallpapered with wounds.

"I'm not trying to bait it — I could give this my absolute all and it would still look like I'm napping!"

Diminished, yes — but a D-rank monster all the same. At first it held back, wary that its strikes weren't opening so much as a scratch; then, apparently satisfied that it was simply the faster of the two of them, it shifted into lightning hit-and-fade assaults.

Driiing. Ding.

Every time the lizardman's attacks kissed the queen-spider webbing threaded through the Arachne Suit, the strings rang out like a plucked instrument. And from a certain point on, it aimed for nothing but the strings — it was playing him like one.

"Ssssssssssssssss—sssss!"

Those flat, dead psychopath's eyes and that torn, stitched mouth regarded him the way a child regards a toy.

Completely off its guard, aren't you. You arrogant little lizard.

Kanghyuk poured his whole body into an overhead smash — a blow that looked for all the world like surrender.

Seeing it, the lizardman eased off at a taunting distance, ready to freeze just out of reach and savor the whiff — and Kanghyuk's instincts screamed that this was the opening.

Stride a touch longer. Grip a touch lower.

Borrowing the motion the constellation had shown him the night before, Kanghyuk let the Breaker — ostensibly plummeting for its skull — run long instead, gliding forward until it poured into the lizardman's chest.

"Hiss—?!"

The target had moved in a blink. Flustered, the lizardman crossed its slender swords to catch the blow — but ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Breaker was not a thing that scraps of metal got to stop.

CRACK. WHAM!

The Breaker sheared through the slender swords like kindling and caved in the lizardman swordsman's chest. All that reached Kanghyuk's hands was a resistance like crushed cookie crumbs.

"How's it feel, getting one-shotted by your toy?"

The sprawled lizardman had no answer for him, and Kanghyuk finally spat out the words he'd been choking back.

"Don't you dare look down on me. You damn bastard!"