A Lighter Burden
The slightly subdued voice drifted through the night air. Tae-sung could feel his younger brother’s gaze on him from the side.
“The only things left inside a man like me are combat and survival.”
“Then look for it in there.”
“……”
“There must be some joy in it, right? A sense of satisfaction, at least.”
Satisfaction. Joy. As Tae-sung mulled over the words his brother had spoken, he gave a small shake of his head.
The satisfaction he gained from fighting for others, from battles that weren’t his own, was nothing more than the simple fact that he was still alive. He didn’t want to call that joy.
While he was lost in those thoughts, Han-sung turned to look at him again and spoke in a light tone.
“No one’s going to push you to fight anymore. You’re free. So from now on, you can do whatever you want. You can fight, you can choose not to fight. If things get bad, you can even run away and no one will blame you.”
Every choice was now entirely his own. No one would force him. Han-sung repeated that he shouldn’t worry about the family anymore.
“Family isn’t about latching onto one person and sucking them dry. We each live our own lives and do our best. Mom and Dad, you, and us too.”
Well, I guess it’s not something I should be saying after I awakened by clinging to you, Han-sung added with a scratch of his cheek. Then he reached out and lightly tapped his brother’s forearm.
“So don’t carry any burden. Let’s live easy. Just take it easy.”
After those words, the conversation didn’t continue much further. Han-sung complained about the cold and went inside first.
But Tae-sung, left alone, wandered around the area for a while, lost in thought.
From early morning, the Han-sung and Yeon-sung brothers were extremely busy. They had begun personal training in an empty lot beside the villa.
Although they called it training, it was mostly focused on building basic stamina. Still, they took full advantage of the fact that awakened bodies recovered far faster than normal humans, pushing through more intense and high-intensity stretching and exercises.
They trained their bodies in the morning, then spent the afternoon practicing with their main weapons—or temporary ones, in this case. Yeon-sung practiced with his bow while Han-sung had found some rebar somewhere, cut it to a suitable length, bundled it together, and swung the crude lump like a sword.
“We need to get stronger fast… and take some of the burden off our brother.”
“We do.”
“I didn’t think he’d actually go out alone after saying all that.”
“Big brother must have his reasons.”
“Still, his face looked a lot brighter than yesterday.”
Just as the two had said, Tae-sung had told them to focus on personal training somewhere not too far from the family for the time being, then left the house by himself. Since they weren’t idiots, the brothers understood what that meant and threw themselves even harder into their training.
“He’s embarrassed to be seen with us, that’s what it is.”
“But we’re both Level 2. He wouldn’t really think that, would he?”
“It means the two of us together are still too weak to properly protect the family.”
Perhaps bored of swinging the rebar bundle, Han-sung grabbed a nearby iron bar, flipped into a handstand, and began doing push-ups. At that, the youngest released the tension on his bowstring slightly, laughed, and shook his head.
Of course, Tae-sung’s actual thoughts weren’t all that different from what Han-sung had guessed.
Rather than sending his two younger brothers out to earn money right away, he judged it better for them to stay near the rest of the family, protect them, and draw monster attention if any appeared.
But when their eldest brother had left the house early that morning, the heavy burden that had weighed so obviously on his face until yesterday was nowhere to be seen. His expression had brightened considerably, as if he had shed an incredibly heavy load.
“Let’s head in.”
Evening was slowly approaching. At the sound of Yu-ri’s voice calling them in for dinner from the front door, the two brothers returned home with steam still rising from their bodies, quickly gathering their gear.
The dinner table was dominated by meat dishes. There was rice and some seasoned vegetables, but most of what went into the two brothers’ mouths was meat.
Awakened people had far superior digestion and nutrient absorption rates than ordinary humans, so even if they ate the same amount, they could store far more of it in their bodies.
Perhaps because of that, the two brothers—who had been mercilessly abusing their muscles—ate a tremendous amount of meat as if to replenish what they had lost.
“Tae-sung said he won’t be coming home today?”
At their mother’s question, Yu-ri picked up the tablet she had set down beside her.
“Hey. We’re in the middle of eating.”
“Mom’s curious.”
Han-sung gave her a slight look, but since his sister was right, he let out a small chuckle and nodded. It seemed the scolding had been mostly playful.
“That’s right. He sent a message. He says he might stay outside for a few days?”
“Where is he?”
When Han-sung asked from the side, Yu-ri tilted her head.
“He said he’s outside the city. He’s wandering around here and there, so he told me to tell ‘Han-sung’ not to even think about coming to find him.”
“Why does he have to single me out?”
“Oh. He sent a photo too. What is this?”
“What is it?”
When the family’s eyes gathered, Yu-ri placed the tablet in the middle of the table so everyone could see and enlarged the photo Tae-sung had sent.
The next photo showed Tae-sung sitting atop the massive rabbit, giving a thumbs-up as he took a selfie.
“What the heck is this selfie?”
“A selfie stick? That trend from forever ago… where did he even get one?”
“He looks like he’s having fun.”
Yu-ri and Han-sung, who had been grumbling, both nodded with similar expressions at Yeon-sung’s comment.
“Now that you mention it, he does.”
“He really looks happy.”
“Maybe he’s the type who needs to live in the mountains.”
“You really don’t hold back when talking about your brother.”
“No, I mean… mountains aren’t bad, right?”
When their mother spoke up, Yu-ri shrank her neck a little and answered, then set the tablet down again and focused on her meal.
Of course, she didn’t forget to send Tae-sung a message before putting it away.
Yu-ri saw her brother’s reply after dinner and grinned widely.
The rabbit was, as expected, an extremely violent creature. The moment they encountered it on the mountain path, it let out a high-pitched kyiiiik— and began leaping toward them at terrifying speed.
Its already blood-red eyes held a hint of madness, and although it was clearly a herbivore, its protruding front teeth were stained with blood of unknown origin.
But no matter how violent it was, a rabbit was still a rabbit. It was a beast that sat quite low on the food chain, one that monsters would eat.
Still, it gets treated as a monster.
Tae-sung took several photos and uploaded them to the group chat with his siblings. Then he activated automatic butchering and collected the byproducts that appeared.
“Time to head back.”
He hadn’t returned to the mountain for any special reason. This was the place he had left for another world and later returned from. He had simply wanted to come back here and steady his heart.
It seemed it hadn’t been a useless thought. As he stood on the mountain looking down at the cityscape, his heart felt considerably lighter.
After gathering the byproducts, Tae-sung briskly descended the mountain path. Seeing the city at dusk reminded him of the first day he had returned home, but the sense of alienation he had felt back then was almost entirely gone now.
Had he grown used to the current situation at some point? Or to be honest, the world where monsters rampaged was the one most familiar to him.
In a way, I guess that’s fortunate.
If his hometown had truly remained exactly as it was before, would he have been able to endure it? Could he have lived an ordinary life as if nothing had happened?
It wasn’t a very convincing hypothesis. As he walked through the ruined outskirts of the city—a world that almost seemed prepared just for him—Tae-sung looked around at the completely dark night scenery and instead wore a faint smile.
“I smell something.”
The scent of monsters was drifting in from somewhere. With every step he took, sprinting down the road, the ice axes on his boots scraped against the ground.
Grrrr…
Kukrak!
When Tae-sung stopped running, he found a completely unexpected scene. Two groups were facing off, openly revealing their killing intent.
On one side were two rather ferocious-looking orcs. On the other side and all around them were nearly twenty wolves gathered together.
The awkward standoff was clearly disadvantageous for the orcs, but the orcs wouldn’t be taken down one-sidedly either.
Orcs were the kind of creatures that could drag at least half their enemies down to the afterlife with them, and the wolves knew it, which was why they couldn’t rush in recklessly.
But the approach of something else shattered that stalemate. Both sides turned their fierce eyes toward the newcomer and soon discovered the single human standing there, watching them with curious eyes.
That human—Tae-sung—drew a jungle knife from the heavy sheath at the back of his waist and gripped it firmly in his right hand.
“Looks like I won’t have to worry about meat for a while.”
As he spoke and adjusted his grip, the jungle knife somehow appeared to be coated with a faint glowing layer.
The blade gave off a soft, slightly brighter light than could be explained by moonlight alone.
“I don’t like wasting mana. Let’s get this started quickly.”
Having said that, Tae-sung charged toward the wolf pack without hesitation.
Kyaaao—!
The nearest wolves bared their maws wide, revealing their vicious fangs as they lunged at him.
But what ended up being shredded was their own bodies. Wherever Tae-sung moved, chunks of furred hide or pieces of jaw flew off in large and small pieces.
A jungle knife that would normally become completely unusable or even snap after just a few swings continued to carve through several wolves without any problem.
It was thanks to the mana coating its surface. However, Tae-sung didn’t particularly like this method because it consumed far more mana than normal combat.
If he had a good weapon, he could achieve even better results while using far less mana. But the worse the weapon, the more mana he had to pour into it to protect it.
Still, it was better than fighting with bare fists and feet. And when he coated his fists and feet with mana, he always felt a slight stinging sensation afterward that he didn’t care for.
“I’m going to need a good weapon.”
Tae-sung ducked under another charging wolf and tore open its belly in one long slash. He had only killed about ten of them, yet he could already tell he had used a considerable amount of mana. He muttered to himself as he continued.
But good weapons would be expensive. Even better weapons would be needed to earn money more easily, yet he needed a lot of money to get them. It was a vicious cycle.
My mental stat really does seem useful.
Thanks to his mana pool having doubled, he could still manage despite the high consumption.
Thinking he might raise his mental stat again at the next level, Tae-sung swung his blade repeatedly. He refused to let the disoriented wolves retreat after losing their momentum and instead pressed the attack even harder.