21
21 - How Much Did She Hold Back?
Jin-woo immediately drew his sword and confronted the Elf. Bulkar also took out his thick hammer that made one dizzy just looking at it, and assumed a stance.
However, the Elf showed no change in expression whatsoever. Even while receiving hostility from both of them, she didn't accept it as hostility.
Was it the composure of the strong? Or was she simply not responding to hostility because she had no intention of fighting at all?
"Ah! That $%!@!$ I gave you that $#@."
Instead, upon seeing the white gemstone sword Jin-woo held, she clapped her hands as if delighted. Come to think of it, this creature was the one who had given him this sword.
Jin-woo slightly frowned.
It felt somewhat strange to be pointing a gifted sword at the one who had given it to him. It pricked his conscience a bit, too.
"What do you want?"
Jin-woo asked in clumsy Elvish, no, the continental common language.
"Huh? You can #$@?"
"I learned. A little."
She seemed quite pleased that Jin-woo was using their language, just like when he first met Bulkar.
After all, even Jin-woo would be very happy to see a foreigner who could speak even a little Korean. He'd want to help them for no reason.
If it was like that even when only the country was different, how could one not feel fondness when someone from a different species and world had learned their language?
'Actually, she's been showing goodwill even before I learned the language...'
Since he had thought it was just a passing whim, the current situation was puzzling. The fact that the whim was still maintained even now, long after the first Gate.
Although Jin-woo could only sense goodwill from the Elf, neither he nor Bulkar could lower their weapons.
Especially since they had been pursued by Dark Elves until yesterday.
Seeing their cold reaction, the Elf raised both hands and spoke.
"Not an enemy. Didn't come to fight."
It felt like she was using only simple words so Jin-woo could understand. Even such thoughtful consideration was far from being an enemy.
Jin-woo and Bulkar exchanged signals with sideways glances. Whether to fight like this or try talking.
Bulkar seemed fifty-fifty. It felt like he was leaving the decision to Jin-woo.
Jin-woo pondered for a moment and asked just one thing.
"Attack. Of Dark Elves. Do you know?"
Whether she knew about the Dark Elves who had attacked them.
The place where they were attacked and this cave behind the waterfall were quite far apart, but you never know.
Then the Elf answered with a bright smile.
"Don't know!"
...Was she unrelated to the Dark Elves?
Whether it was a lie or she really didn't know.
Silent time passed. As Bulkar with a dubious expression and Jin-woo not erasing his suspicious look. And the black-haired Elf was smiling with an innocent expression.
Eventually, Jin-woo lowered his sword. Bulkar quietly asked.
"Is it alright?"
"No choice."
Jin-woo answered with a grimacing expression.
He hadn't lowered his sword, trusting her words or her appearance without hostility. There was a more fundamental reason.
'Can't win.'
He had been clearly feeling it from earlier. She wasn't an opponent his current self could handle.
When facing Werewolves or Dark Elves, he hadn't particularly thought about anything. He just thought he should cut, and actually did cut them.
But this Elf didn't seem like she could be cut. Even though he could clearly sense the blue flame like a flower bud, it didn't seem like his sword would reach that flame.
That meant the choice wasn't theirs to make.
"Me too, companion."
There was no way to refuse her who stubbornly demanded to be accepted as a companion.
He also thought about running away, but judging by the atmosphere, she would keep following if they fled. In fact, hadn't she stalked him until the very end at the first Gate, too?
'Is observing humans your hobby?'
There's no way such a hobby exists... He wanted to say, but he couldn't be certain. She might really be an Elf with such a hobby.
Eventually, Jin-woo and Bulkar were forced to accept her as a companion.
"Name. Rona Garcia. You?"
"Jin-woo. Kang Jin-woo."
"Bulkar."
And so they exchanged names with each other.
Rona's eyes sparkled like the ocean particularly brightly upon hearing Jin-woo's name.
***
One human, one Dwarf, and one Elf.
A strange communal life began in the waterfall cave with no other human presence at all.
Bulkar carved out one side of the cave to make a furnace and installed tools and a workbench for forging and hammering.
He drew a water channel from the waterfall and solved everything from work to drinking water to washing with it, and his skill at carving out the solid cave was quite good.
Now he was refining the blue mineral stones he had mined in abundance from the previous vein, creating iron of higher purity.
"It's an iron called Sky Steel. It looks dirty and dark colored like this, but the higher the purity when refined, the more it becomes the light color of the pale sky. It has affinity with wind, water, and lightning."
"I don't really understand, but it looks amazing."
"Of course! Most iron usually harmonizes with one element, but iron with three affinities is rare!"
Throughout the iron refining process, Bulkar looked like he was dying of joy.
Even sweating profusely in front of the hot furnace and suffering, he didn't look tired at all.
Such positive energy was bound to affect the surroundings, so both Jin-woo and Rona liked watching Bulkar's work.
Incidentally, it had already been over two weeks since the three of them had been living in the waterfall cave, and having been around two native speakers for such a long time, his language skills had improved considerably.
"Then I'll be going again today."
"Yeah, yeah. Go well. Don't die."
"I want to go too, Jin-woo."
Jin-woo mainly searched through the nearby forest, and Rona always followed behind Jin-woo.
Since there was nothing to do inside the cave and nothing to help Bulkar with his work, going outside was natural.
Once, he asked if exploring separately wouldn't double the exploration efficiency, but Rona shook her head and refused.
After that, he just let her follow along.
The good thing about Rona following was that the danger was greatly reduced.
Jin-woo himself already belonged to the strong on the 1st Floor, but there were still anxious points.
But Rona was different. She walked around the Primeval Forest as if taking a stroll, and there was no wariness at all in her steps.
It was the confident walk of someone who could win against any existence that appeared on just the 1st Floor.
"How far did you say you've been, Rona?"
"5th Floor!"
Hearing it again, Jin-woo quietly swallowed in the distant realm.
"I'd like to challenge the 6th Floor someday, but I'm still wandering around the 5th Floor, so it's not easy."
"It must be a very difficult place."
"It's a place where even breathing isn't easy, so I have to prepare thoroughly each time I go."
From what he heard, Rona was at a level that operated on the 5th Floor.
The 5th Floor - for Jin-woo, who was just wandering around the 1st Floor, it was a layer he could hardly even look up to.
Usually, the 3rd Floor and above of the Gates are called high floors.
Following the Management Bureau's recommended standards, the 3rd Floor is mainly where B to A-rank Hunters operate.
The 4th Floor is where A to S-rank Hunters operate, and the 5th Floor is a place recommended only for S-rank.
The layer that Shartia used to frequent during her active days was said to be the 5th Floor.
That meant Rona was also an expert equal to Shartia, an S-rank level in Earth terms.
Moreover, while Shartia was a support class with many support abilities, Rona was a combat class that used a sword. In terms of simple strength alone, she was above Shartia.
'I was already so shocked when Shartia took control of the library.'
An existence that surpassed that of Shartia in combat power. It was fortunate he hadn't charged at her when they met two weeks ago.
'What result would have come if I had ignored her request to accept her as a companion and attacked?'
It was something he didn't want to imagine. Probably his head would have fallen off the moment he swung his sword...
Then Jin-woo discovered a Blue Portal.
"It's a Blue Portal."
"You found another one. I'll mark it on the map."
He marked the location of the Blue Portal on the map that Shartia had roughly drawn of the surrounding forest.
Since it was a map roughly drawn from climbing high trees, detailed paths weren't drawn, but you could tell the shape of the forest and general locations.
"This makes it the 5th one."
"Well, it's a decent amount."
As could be seen from the expression ‘another’, this was already the 5th Blue Portal they had found.
As Rona said, it was a decent number. The exploration period had been two weeks, and moreover, exploring the forest with Rona was very fast-paced, allowing them to survey a considerable range.
Thinking about how wide a forest they had searched during these two weeks, five actually seemed slightly few.
However, Jin-woo felt a bit wronged.
"When I was desperately searching for them, not even a trace appeared..."
Whether during the first Gate or when being chased by Dark Elves, when he desperately searched, he couldn't find even one.
Then, when he had leisure, they were discovered one after another. Jin-woo couldn't help but feel wronged.
"By the way, Jin-woo. Do you have the ability to collect souls?"
"Souls?"
Rona asked something completely out of the blue in a casual conversational tone.
"Why all of a sudden..."
"It's a very scary ability for Elves. Benvil also retreated, trembling with fear."
"Who's Benvil?"
"Ah."
She covered her mouth and looked around as if in trouble. Then she hastily added.
"That bear we dealt with last time. That bear's name was Benvil, and I saw you collecting…."
"Come to think of it, you healed me then and left the sword too. Thank you."
"Don't mention it."
Rona answered with a grin. Whether she was smiling because she was happy to receive thanks or for some other reason, he couldn't tell.
"Souls... I guess that blue flame is a soul."
"So you do have that ability?"
"Well, probably. But Elves are scared of that?"
"Yes. Souls are very important to Elves."
He thought there was no creature for whom souls weren't important, but listening to Rona's explanation, he understood.
The birth, death, and reincarnation cycle of Elves centered around the Mother World Tree. Moreover, the story is that the number of souls was naturally decreasing, and the Mother World Tree was drying up.
Hearing that, he came to understand why Elves thought of souls specially, why they killed other races so much in Gates.
Also, why was his ability a threat to Elves?
"Such a relationship... But why are you sticking to me? If you're also an Elf, shouldn't you be scared of my ability?"
"Are you going to collect mine?"
"If necessary."
"Jin-woo is really full of bluster. With Jin-woo's skills, you couldn't cut me even if you trained for a hundred years."
Rona said while giggling. It was true, but his pride was still a bit hurt.
Even I awakened sword abilities, but I need a hundred years? Jin-woo pouted and sighed, shaking his head.
"But I was really curious - why did you follow me in the previous Gate? And why did you leave the prey at night?"
He finally asked what he had been really, really curious about. He had been waiting for the right timing ever since they became able to have conversations, and there seemed to be no better timing than now.
As if she knew Jin-woo's question would come someday, Rona tapped her chin with her index finger.
"Do you want to know?"
"Yeah."
"Actually, I don't know either."
"???"
What kind of answer was this?
When Jin-woo looked at her with eyes that saw something strange, Rona burst into laughter.
What was so funny that she laughed so well? Well, it was better than being blunt.
"I didn't know either, but I learned a bit this time."
"What did you learn?"
"After coming out of the last Gate, I thought about it for a long time at home. Several possibilities came to mind, but I wasn't certain. Meeting Jin-woo again this time, I narrowed it down to one possibility. You're a Spirit, aren't you, Jin-woo?"
"...What? A Spirit?"
Jin-woo asked back in bewilderment at the most out-of-the-blue question he had heard so far.
"When I first saw Jin-woo, I felt somehow familiar and comfortable, and there aren't many beings that make Elves feel that way. Either fellow Elves or Spirits."
"Since I'm not an Elf, I'm a Spirit?"
"Yes."
"I'm not an Elf, that's right, but I'm not a Spirit either. I'm human."
"Even if you're human now, you might have been a Spirit before birth. Actually, don't the Hunters in your world use abilities from past lives?"
"That's true, but."
Suddenly a Spirit?
'I'm not sure.'
Honestly, he didn't really feel it.
Shartia said his past life was an Elf. Even when he heard that, he didn't feel anything particular. Rona says his past life was a Spirit. That statement also didn't strike him either.
Well, just because he didn't feel it didn't mean their opinions were wrong...
In the first place, he still had no sense of what his past life was. Would he realize it if he awakened more abilities?
"If I'm a Spirit, why do I have abilities like soul absorption? Isn't that cannibalism?"
"Spirit is a very big category, so it's not particularly like that. Just because a lion that's an animal eats a rabbit that's also an animal doesn't make it cannibalism."
"That's true."
"Well, Spirits that eat other Spirits are still a special case, so in our world, we classify them separately as Evil Spirits. They're much stronger than ordinary Spirits, but they're also that much more dangerous."
"My past life was an Evil Spirit..."
"Since Jin-woo uses a sword well, maybe a Sword Evil Spirit? I thought it might be something like that. Then all my emotions and actions were explained."
Rona spoke in a definitive tone as if she had already reached that conclusion.
It was interesting that it was a completely different opinion from Shartia's. Maybe they were looking from different perspectives.
'At least one candidate came up.'
Anyway, one clue about his past life's identity had emerged, so it wasn't bad.
Perhaps feeling good about having expressed all the thoughts she had been keeping inside, Rona made a suggestion.
"It seems like it'll take some time until Bulkar finishes making the sword, so shall I teach you some swordsmanship? You might regain your memories, you know."
"I'd be grateful."
It was a sudden suggestion, but there was no reason to refuse. In fact, Jin-woo had been thinking about it inwardly too.
He had been thinking about looking for a swordsmanship dojo or academy anyway, but an S-rank level swordsman would be 100 times better than any academy.
He couldn't easily ask to be taught techniques, so he had been worrying about it, but it was fortunate she brought it up first.
"Good. Let's make this stream our training ground."
The place where the two faced each other with drawn swords was the stream beside the waterfall. It was full of smooth, round pebbles, so the footing wasn't level.
Still, they could wash off sweat right away, and with the refreshing sound of the pouring waterfall, there was no more refreshing space than here.
"Take your stance."
"I don't have any special stance."
Even while saying that, Jin-woo raised his sword and aimed it at her.
It was the stance most conducive to cutting that his body had learned through swinging his sword thousands of times.
Gulp.
Jin-woo swallowed. He was already getting nervous about how amazing an S-rank sword would be. What if he couldn't even receive a single move and got knocked down?
'Learning only works well when the levels somewhat match.'
If the gap between master and disciple was too vastly different, you couldn't properly learn what there was to learn.
Even if a national soccer player taught a child kicking a ball for the first time, there would be nothing to teach but the basics.
If this precious opportunity to learn from an S-rank is passed by learning only basics like that, it would be very regrettable.
"Then here I go!"
In contrast, Rona was very light. While it was a heavenly opportunity for Jin-woo, for Rona, it was nothing more than light time-killing.
Her steps also bounced lightly on the pebble field, so light that her body weight couldn't be felt.
So lightly, yet approaching Jin-woo in an instant and swinging her sword. What received it was Jin-woo's sword, tensed stiffly.
However.
Clang!
"Huh?"
One sword flew away. The sword spun round and round in the sky before falling and getting stuck deep in the pebble field.
In front of Jin-woo's eyes was Rona, who had dropped her sword.
"Huh?"
Jin-woo was as confused as she was. She had obviously held back, but he had no idea how much she had held back. For her sword to fly away in one blow.
"Again, one more time."
Rona pulled out the sword stuck in the pebbles and charged again. This time her eyes had become slightly more serious.
Clang-crack!
Her sword broke in half and flew up.