58. Burned It All White

— A sparring match?

“Yeah. She says she wants to see firsthand the skill that beat Song Myeongseok.”

It wasn’t as though the two of them had actually fought, but since Fafnir had done the most to crush the strike force Song Myeongseok led, it wasn’t exactly the wrong way to put it.

“Please call me by my name, not by a title.”
“No. It feels friendlier this way.”

The kind of closeness that licensed rough talk came one of two ways: genuine familiarity, or open enmity. And enmity usually came first, long before two people ever grew at ease using each other’s names. Yujin didn’t sort the woman in front of him into either category.

‘Sooner or later it’ll settle one way or the other.’

Or else she might die before he ever got the chance to have any real dealings with her at all, exactly as the original history had gone.

“You’ll do it, right?”

— I have a condition.

“No. We agreed I’d be the one collecting the reward.”

— You needn’t worry. The one who’ll accept this condition is you, my master.

‘What?’

A question mark floated up over Yujin’s head.

— Master, you spar with the Hunter Jang Miseon first.

“Wow. What’s with the sudden joke.”

Fafnir stood there in silence. Yujin’s face, blank with disbelief, came reflected back between the quietly burning blue corpse-flames.

“Are you — serious?”

— Lately you’ve been far too lax in your spear training.

“I swung it around in my own way whenever I had the time, you know?”

— My doctrine is unwavering. Once you’ve learned the form, you only improve by experiencing real combat.

“I was busy. And in that situation, if I’d thrashed about swinging a spear, I wouldn’t have come out in one piece.”

Yujin pushed back hard. The Hunters who’d swarmed the borderlands during the spider hunt had been 3rd Rank at the very least.

‘I’d even handed the Dragon-Scale Armor over to Fafnir; if I’d fought up close, I’d have lost for sure.’

— When will an enemy ever take your circumstances into account? In that case, don’t go telling anyone you learned from me.

Fafnir wouldn’t bend.

‘Wow. He’s serious, this guy.’

‘Don’t laugh, you backwater goblin.’

Yujin was the one who’d asked Fafnir to teach him spearmanship in the first place. Was Fafnir feeling some sense of responsibility that his student’s skill wasn’t sharpening fast enough?

“Tch. Nothing for it, then.”
“It works out that way?”
“I’m counting on you. Surely you wouldn’t go beating a feeble little priest with everything you’ve got.”
“I never learned how to hold back in a sparring match.”

— Shhing.

Jang Miseon gripped her Unique-grade weapon, the Wind Sword, the same blade Yujin had glimpsed during the Forgotten Shrine clear.

“That’s a live blade. That thing.”
“Yes. I don’t carry a practice sword around.”
“There’s not even a sparring barrier up, and you still mean to swing that?”

— Don’t worry. If it gets dangerous, I’ll block it for you.

‘Son of a bitch. What a comforting thing to say.’

“Great Warrior. Let’s have a separate talk later.”

— We could do it now.

“We’ll do it later.”

None of this had been in the plan. Grumbling, Yujin trudged over to the empty lot where they’d held the get-together.

Yujin and Jang Miseon stood at either end of the empty lot, a gap of about fifty meters between them, close enough to cover in under three seconds at a dead sprint.

‘Didn’t think I’d be warming up here.’

He’d never expected a sparring match, but the situation wasn’t all bad. Just as Fafnir had said, facing an opponent he didn’t need to hold back against would make for good experience.

‘During the crimson camouflage clear I was too busy just blocking attacks.’

The skill gap with the Red Spider Hunters had been so wide that batting them aside even once was the most he could manage. That was an achievement in itself. Even so, this was the first time he’d squared off against a Hunter of his own Stellar Rank.

“You’ve no intention of going easy, right?”
“So long as I’ve drawn a sword, giving my all in every moment is my creed.”

Tough as nails. Even granting that she’d lost to Song Myeongseok, she plainly had talent on par with his. At the Forgotten Shrine she’d cut a curse clean through with that Wind Sword, proof that she read the grain of mana without a hint of doubt.

“Fafnir. Let’s start once I’ve cast a few holy spells.”

— You think your opponent will stand and watch politely while you use buffs in the middle of combat?

“When a priest fights a Martial-line Hunter, you’ve got to grant that much of a handicap.”

— Hm. You have a point. Do as you like.

‘What a high and mighty lord he’s become.’

But Yujin was the one doing the asking here, and a man with his hand out keeps his complaints to himself. He swallowed the thought.

As the holy power soaked in, strength boiled up through his whole body. At the same time, his breath turned a shade ragged.

‘So this is what the stamina drain feels like.’

Not bad. No. If anything, the surge of valor lent him a confidence that he could do anything.

“I’m ready.”

The instant the words left his mouth, Fafnir snapped down the hand he’d raised overhead.

— Begin.

The moment that right hand fell, Jang Miseon kicked off the ground and brought the Wind Sword level. Everyone knew priest-line Hunters were weak at close range, the Paladin and Crusader job-classes excepted.

— Ka-gak!

The instant the projectile streaking straight at her caught her eye, Jang Miseon swung on pure instinct. Her wrist smarted. The thing had come in so fast that only after knocking it aside could she tell what had flown at her.

“Bone?”

She’d batted it aside without missing a beat. Priests had next to none of the destructive spells the magic line boasted, least of all at low Stellar Rank, and Jang Miseon had charged in precisely because she knew Yujin was priest-line. He’d turned that very assumption against her, and she’d swatted it away clean.

— Master. That’s magic!

“You never said I could only use the spear in a sparring match.”

‘And it’s not over yet.’

Jang Miseon’s feet had halted the instant she deflected the Cursed Fang he’d thrown first, and in that same beat he took the remaining three under control and floated them into the air.

‘Keep them spaced so they don’t get swept up in a single sword-stroke.’

Swung at the precise instant, the Wind Sword could shear through even mana, and the spirit-power packed into a magical armament was no exception.

‘I’ve already gauged how fast she swings the sword.’

The Cursed Fang came at her from every direction. Their power and speed fell well short of the Bone Spear, but not so far that she could take them barehanded.

— Fwaaaak!

A wind fierce enough to set Yujin’s hair fluttering dozens of meters off. A veil of wind, heavy with mana and scattering faint light, shoved the Cursed Fang back.

“Meteor Sword? That one needs you to handle aura before its real power shows.”

— She touched the flow of the air with the Wind Sword to produce an effect resembling aura.

‘Damn. To think she’d put the Wind Sword’s energy-interference to use like that.’

Compared to swordsmanship driven by real aura, of course, it put out barely a tenth of the power. The trouble was that even that sliver was enough to drive the Cursed Fang back.

A chill ran down his spine. She was moving several times faster than her opening charge, the sword loosed at a speed his Agility could barely react to, driving straight for his heart.

And so.

It wasn’t that he saw the thrust coming and consciously reacted. His body moved against Jang Miseon’s sharp lunge of its own accord, carried by the ‘instinct’ built from the countless battles he’d fought on the way to the 9th Stellar Rank before the regression.

— Teooong!

The bone spear in Yujin’s hand traced a long arc and knocked the onrushing Wind Sword aside. Bone and metal met with a great resounding clang.

He couldn’t fully parry the ascending-art thrust of the Meteor Sword. Even though he’d knocked it cleanly away, he was the one left staggering.

‘How?’

Astonishment flooded Jang Miseon’s eyes. Even so, her movement didn’t turn the least bit sluggish. Instead she twisted the thrust a fraction off the line where it had wavered against the spear, hoarding her force, and where she’d first aimed for his chest she now drove for his abdomen.

‘Wow. How did she pull this off.’

Two things startled Yujin: the spearmanship he’d always wielded by conscious effort had unfurled as smoothly as running water, and even after his shaft caught her blade, her sword-tip had barely wavered.

This time he hadn’t moved on reflex. A sharp pain flared from the fist clenched around the spear-shaft, and through it he could read the direction of the sword-strike. He shifted the Dragon-Scale Armor into the most defensive of its forms.

— Kung!

Yujin was flung several meters back on a dry cough. Before his airborne body could hit the ground, he forced just enough strength into his feet to land and spared himself a tumble.

— Hoh.

‘Don’t sit there gasping in admiration. My wrists and ankles are screaming.’

The abdomen the sword-tip had found took no wound, thanks to the Dragon-Scale Armor, but the plate couldn’t swallow all the force, and the shock rattled clear through him. Blood dripped, drop by drop, from the hand that had been gripping the spear-shaft.

‘There’s this much of a gap?’

Yujin’s raw strength sat at the level of a Martial-line Hunter just inside the 2nd Rank. Stack the triple buff on top and it edged into the tail-end of the next Stellar Rank. Whatever unique trait Jang Miseon carried, the gap in raw stats shouldn’t have been overwhelming.

‘Ascending swordsmanship. And the difference in the knack for applying force.’

The same strength, delivered differently, gave a different result. Fafnir had harped on exactly this for the longest time, and now, squared off against Jang Miseon at his own Stellar Rank, Yujin felt the truth of it land.

“Oh. Are you really a priest?”

Jang Miseon let out a gasp of admiration. Catching his shaft, she too had felt no small force behind it. His form on the spear was hopeless, yet the strength loaded into it was far too much to pass for a priest’s work.

— Ta-tat.

“She doesn’t give me a moment to rest.”

Clicking his tongue, Yujin set his spirit-power moving all the same. From the very instant the sword had struck and shoved him back, the Cursed Fang had slipped under his control once more.

— Swish!

The magical armament swept in tight behind the charging Jang Miseon, and in the same beat Yujin himself sprang straight for her.

‘Dodging gets me no odds of winning anyway.’

A Necromancer’s true strength lay in corpses. Whether by raising the undead or detonating the dead with spirit-power, that was how they drove an enemy back. Right now Yujin had neither.

He hadn’t even learned poison-type spells, and there wasn’t a spare moment for the curses engraved into the Shadow Mask.

‘Even if I used them, she’d cut them down.’

She could cut a Mask Beast’s curse clean through with that Wind Sword. Without amplifying the core spell through a catalyst like a ghoul’s claw, a novice-grade curse couldn’t so much as scratch Jang Miseon.

‘This is the best I can do.’

Pouring every ounce of his body into the spear-tip, Yujin drove forward fast. He’d never used the move sparring against Fafnir; when he was being beaten one-sidedly, pressing the attack had never once been an option.

‘Same as now, though.’

The same Stellar Rank? No. The gap in raw stats between the two of them might be small, but against a Jang Miseon who handled ascending swordsmanship so deftly, he couldn’t last more than a few exchanges.

‘I’ll mount a joint assault with the Cursed Fang.’

— Cling! Cli-cling!

A hail of sword-strikes. After beating back every Cursed Fang loosed from every angle, the blade swung to face Yujin head-on.

The tremendous recoil felt fit to snap his wrist.

‘Even though I put all my strength in, it’s no good?’

Pain enough to prick tears at his eyes. And yet, for the sake of the next move, he kept his spirit-power flowing without pause.

He fired off once more the Cursed Fang that had ricocheted back near him.

With the life force he’d banked in advance, he mended his throbbing wrist and clawed his stamina back.

‘It feels different.’

Before the regression he’d almost never had to move and fight in person. He’d been dragged through every kind of hell, on land, at sea, and in the air, and had picked up body-arts of a sort along the way. Why would a Necromancer ever step onto the front line?

And so, working spearmanship and necromancy in the same breath, a sensation he’d never once felt before now spurred Yujin on.

‘Shall I push a little further?’

His skin tingled. It felt as though a little more sparring might shake loose some fresh inspiration.

— Ka-gak!

“Hah. Not bad at all. You.”

Fresh off Meteor Shower, Jang Miseon had knocked the Bone Spear away in quick succession, and now she spoke through ragged, heaving breaths.

“Are you really a priest? How are you so good at fighting?”
“Says the one playing weak without laying all her cards on the table.”
“That goes for you too, Hunter Yujin.”

‘It does not. What in the world do you expect from a Necromancer without a single corpse?’

— Cling! Cli-cli-cling!

Yujin came at her from every angle at once, weaving Bone Control, Bone Spear, and Verdian-Style Basic Spearmanship together. With a single sword, Jang Miseon turned aside every strike, staggered and simultaneous alike.

— Taeng!

Five minutes into the exchange, the bone spear was knocked spinning from Yujin’s hand and buried itself deep in the ground. A blade came to rest, leveled at his throat.

“That was a good sparring match.”
“Thanks to it, I learned a great deal.”

Winner and loser had been decided. Yet not the faintest shadow could be found on either of their faces.