Covenant with the Blood-Mad Iron Sword (6)

In an instant, I had carved through the snowfield wolf-bears. Facing them one by one, a certain truth made itself unmistakably clear.

This is easy.

It was absurdly easy to fight them. Considering that a greenhorn who crossed paths with these things early on—true to their epithet, the Newbie Slaughterer—rarely survived the encounter at all, let alone handled them with ease…

"Are you holding up all right?"

"Yeah, this is great."

Only now could I truly feel how far I had grown. The rate of it was steeper than any game session I had ever played.

"Now I get what they mean about building real combat sense."

How the enemy moved, and how I needed to respond. I had to keep all of it in my head while my body was already in motion.

And these things use mana, too.

Watching them wield mana so effortlessly, I paused to think it over.

Truly the words of a blood-mad iron sword. Thank goodness it's not some kind of demon sword.

Well, I did agree that these things needed to be dealt with. Fighting them, it seemed, would also go a long way toward teaching me to sense mana.

"I'll keep at it, then."

"You're… training even here?"

I gave a light smile at the soldiers' worn-out faces. "What are you talking about? You're doing it too."

"…What?"

"You think clearing the dungeon is the end of it? Obviously we deal with anything that could pose a threat as well."

At those words, the expressions on the soldiers' faces began to change. It was the same look they'd worn back when they used to spar with me.

Without further hesitation, I led them into the hunt for the snowfield wolf-bears.

Cutting down, and cutting down again. We dispatched every creature that showed aggression.

How many hours had passed like that?

"Hah… huff… please, no more…"

"Tsk. What a shame."

"Young Master, the soldiers are exhausted."

"Still, I suppose all that training we did together wasn't for nothing, was it?"

Setting aside sheer stamina, there had been virtually no casualties. It genuinely felt as though our skill itself had improved compared to before.

Building up the soldiers' strength matters too.

Stopping the great northern invasion alone was impossible. And beyond that, these men would one day become the power that defended the territory. They were friends with any number of useful applications.

Of course, that wasn't all. I kept honing my combat instincts and, beyond that, pushed myself to feel the mana.

Not easy.

I had a faint sense that something was a little different, but I wasn't there yet.

Still, I hadn't come away empty-handed. Along with the rise in proficiency, an understanding of the skill bloomed in my mind. It would take time to fully embody that understanding in my body, but…

If I just keep doing it this way, that's enough.

After Northern Swordsmanship came Frost Step. Once proficiency climbed high enough, I could instantly translate it into my body.

"Whew. Looks like we've handled most of the monsters nearby."

"At this point, it's practically a massacre, sir."

I slowly surveyed our surroundings. It wasn't only snowfield wolf-bears, either—goblins and slimes, the common low-grade monsters that tended to appear everywhere, lay scattered about as well. All of them, cold and still, sprawled across the ground.

"All right, let's gather the loot and rest."

The hide of a snowfield wolf-bear was tough and durable, making it one of the most valuable commodities around. And there was plenty more to salvage from the other monsters too.

"Hmm. So, how does my combat sense look?"

"Better than I expected, sir. Enough that I'd have been genuinely nervous facing you for the first time."

I hadn't been fishing for compliments, but hearing that I wasn't bad left me in a rather good mood. At this level, entering the dungeon shouldn't pose much of a problem either.

With that thought, I set off toward the direction of the dungeon.

"This the place?"

"The mana the dungeon itself carries is quite ordinary, sir."

At the note of relief in his voice, I glanced around once more.

"Everyone ready?"

Perhaps because we'd gathered the loot and taken a light rest, the soldiers were in better shape than before.

"Yes, sir!"

"Then we go in."

And so, with the soldiers and Tarian, I stood before the massive gate—a great iron door standing amid dense trees in the middle of the snowfield. We slowly pushed it open and stepped inside.

"What is this atmosphere…"

The moment we entered the dungeon, a chill swept through my entire body. I'd thought myself long accustomed to the cold after my time in the North, but this was different.

This is something else entirely.

In the game, entering this place had come with descriptions of being suffocated by a thick miasma. But the energy I felt now was nothing like that.

Death.

It was a presence befitting a place called the Ancient Warriors' Tomb.

"Tarian."

"Yes, sir."

"Don't intervene unless it's a true crisis."

"…Understood."

He seemed to have fully grasped my temperament by now, nodding without objection. Satisfied with that, I advanced slowly forward.

Before long, a large chamber revealed itself. Inside, stone sarcophagi stood lined up in rows.

"Young Master."

"I know."

Suspicious-looking coffins if ever there were any. Picturing the enemies about to emerge from them, I gripped my sword hilt at once.

And the moment I took one more step—

Grrrrrumble—

The sarcophagi ground open, and from within, something pale emerged.

"Skulls?"

"S-Skeletons!"

Skeletons—monsters that moved by supplying mana from a core into the bones of a once-living body. An irritating breed of monster: unless you crushed the core, the bones would regenerate endlessly until its mana ran dry.

Hearing the soldier's panicked cry, I couldn't help being the more startled of us. Skeletons, of all things.

Looking the enemies over closely, I could see a round core set where each of their hearts would be.

"That appears to be the core."

"Looks that way."

There were five of them—not an overwhelming number. But each wielded a different weapon.

A sword, a bow, a spear, an axe, and even a hammer?

A laugh slipped out of me before I knew it. I'd been caught off guard, sure—but it was the pleasant kind of surprise.

"Skeletons in my very first dungeon. I like it."

"You… like them? Skeletons are monsters most people avoid, sir. They keep reviving unless you crush the core, and they sometimes ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠remember who they were in life, so— wait. You can't mean…"

Tarian stopped mid-sentence and stared at me in disbelief. I burst out laughing at the sight. Shouldn't he be used to this by now?

"If they keep reviving, that just means I can keep fighting them, doesn't it?"

"Good heavens, Young Master, you are truly insa— rather, a genius."

"I think you already said the first part."

The finest unbreakable training material, right here before me. The enemies in front of my eyes had begun to look like nothing so much as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠walking experience points.

Without a moment's hesitation, I charged at the sword-wielding skeleton.

Clang—

It parried my strike with ease. I'd expected as much, so I used Frost Step to slip out to the side—and in the same instant, an arrow buried itself in the spot where I'd been standing.

"Oh ho."

They were certainly no pushovers. But they weren't impossible, either. In the game, these things would have possessed physical substance and attacked with miasma coating every blow—here, they did not.

"This is fun!"

Refusing to let a single opening go to waste, I evaded a thrusting spear with Frost Step, then drove my sword at the neck of the axe skeleton as it wound up a massive swing.

Crunch!

The sound of shattering bone rang out, and the skeleton's head went spinning away. From the look of it, reassembly would take quite a while.

"K-Knight. Shouldn't we be helping him…?"

"The Young Master?"

"Ah, well… fair point, actually."

Off in the distance, I could see the soldiers and Tarian chattering amongst themselves. I couldn't make out a word of it.

A healthy edge of tension, a body burning hot, and enemies that refused to stay down.

Perfect.

It was, quite simply, the ideal training environment. A colossal axe came splitting down toward me, a spear stabbed into my gaps, a sword met me head-on—and arrows flew through it all.

The archer, then.

I set my target at once and moved to eliminate it. Sliding low across the ground, I cut down the bow skeleton's limbs as they weathered the enemy assault without breaking formation.

Two left.

Unlike before, I had no trouble with stamina or strength whatsoever. The only regret was—

I still can't sense the mana.

I knew perfectly well that the core's mana was what kept them ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠moving, but I couldn't even guess at the principle behind it.

Still, that was no obstacle. If I can't do it, I'll do it until I can. All I had to do was repeat what I'd always done.

I knocked aside the spear and severed both its arms. Met the sword head-on and split its skull down the middle. Cleaved the axe—and its haft—clean in half.

"Whew…"

And with that, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I looked down at the skeletons strewn around me. The hammer skeleton was only just beginning to reattach its bones, confirming that regeneration here genuinely took time.

"Well fought, Young Master."

"Good grief. I knew you were remarkable, but this…"

Tarian praising me, the soldiers marveling. I shrugged at them all, keeping my guard up as I put distance between myself and the fallen foes.

"Think we could take these things home with us?"

"Surely you are not still unsatisfied, sir?"

Tarian stared at me as if I'd lost my mind. Ignoring him, I studied the skeletons.

"No, I mean—if they keep regenerating like that, they'd make better scarecrows than an ordinary one, wouldn't they?"

"A moving scarecrow…? Then what in the world has all our training until now been…"

"And if we take them, we won't need to spar with each other for a while, right?"

"He's right! Is this guy a genius or what?"

The soldiers huddled together, whispering, and soon their eyes were shining.

"Though I imagine their mana will run dry in time, and they'll stop regenerating."

"…"

And just as quickly, the soldiers deflated at Tarian's words.

"Still usable for a good while, though, right?"

At that, Tarian pressed a hand to his forehead.

"There's something I'd like to test out here first."

"And that would be?"

"Mana. I think I might be able to get a feel for it."

The skeletons didn't manifest sword aura or anything of the sort, but they were using mana naturally all the same. The way their bodies were reinforced by drawing on the mana in their cores—that was the sense of it, wasn't it?

"And to truly feel that out…"

The only way to know was to stay locked with them until the very end.