Chapter 28

The forest of Killip Gorge, covered in darkness.
The enormous trees that covered the sky did not allow even a trace of moonlight through.

Fwoosh-

There, a small flame was running.
A torch moving at high speed.
It was a small flame that only lit the ground beneath his feet, but even a small light was dazzling in the dark.

Kireeek!

Various demonic creatures chased the fire.

Whether they knew the feelings of the fire’s owner or not, they kept up the endless chase.

“Uwaaaaaaah!!!”

Serpens’s scream rang through the gorge.
The faster he ran, the more dangerously the torch flame shook.
The flame was not the only thing shaking.

“Fuuuuuck! Lucas!”

The boy’s reason was shaking along with it.

Lucas’s instruction had been to run along the designated path without letting the fire go out.
It had made him uneasy from the start.
Running in the middle of the night.
It would already be dangerous in a village because of drunkards, and now he had to run in a place crawling with demonic creatures!
And did it even make sense that he had to run while holding a torch?
It was no different from courting demonic creatures and asking them to please eat him.

“Heut!”

Serpens quickly slipped between the trees.
He was running blindly, but he had no confidence that he was going the right way.
Everywhere he looked, there were only trees that looked the same.
Even if he wanted to return to the place where he had started, he couldn’t.
The reason he still didn’t stop running?
If he didn’t run, he would die, so did he not have to run like mad?
He didn’t even have the leisure to look back.

Kieeek!

With the sound so vivid, he didn’t think he would look back even if he had the leisure.

Swaek-!

“Uwaaak!”

Sometimes, arrows flew at him like this.
If he had not had the “sense” Lucas spoke of, he would have long since become a tasty late-night snack for the demonic creatures.

His stamina was gradually reaching its limit.
His lungs stabbed with pain.
The torch also began flickering more violently.
This might be dangerous-

Tap.

At that moment, the boy’s foot caught on a protruding tree root.

It felt as if his heart had dropped beneath his feet.
When the world flipped over in an instant, the boy instinctively knew something had gone very wrong.

“Eugagak!”

His body tumbled across the dirt.
The torch had gone out long ago, and the pain that came with the darkness brought panic.

Dudududu.

The footsteps of the demonic creatures followed after him.
Serpens let out a hollow breath and closed his eyes.

---

“Seriously, why are we doing this kind of training?”

At the entrance of a cave in the gorge.
Serpens grumbled as he brushed off his clothes, which were dirty with mud.

“It is good training that develops stamina and situational judgment. I do not make you do unnecessary training.”
“I almost died!”
“If you had not taken the training seriously, I intended to let you die.”
“Tsk.”

Lucas observed the boy closely.
He was a rather admirable boy who did his best even while grumbling.
That was why Lucas made him do training beyond his current skill level.

At least when training, Serpens did not rely on Lucas.
Meaning, he did not think things like, ‘That man will save me anyway.’
Rather, when Lucas gave him help, he showed frustration.

“From now on, you will do that training every day.”
“What? Every day?”
“For the next five months. Autumn will end, and winter will come. And when that winter nears its end, we will leave the gorge.”
“……Is the training I’ll be doing only running with a torch every night?”
“Of course not.”
“Ah…….”

Serpens went wild and vented his irritation.
Lucas looked at the dark gorge without giving him any attention.

Five months.
During that time, the world would surely face change.
That was why he had to hurry and make the boy grow.
Because those who could not keep up with the changes of the world were bound to be weeded out.

“Uwaaa……! High-intensity training is doubling……. Should I laugh, or should I cry!”

Serpens clutched his head and groaned.

“Laugh while you can. Once training begins, there will be more times to cry than to laugh.”
“That is not the answer I was hoping for?!”
“I did not say it because I thought you wanted that answer.”

The boy pouted and glared at Lucas, but soon sighed and gave up.
That man was that kind of person.
Someone who never backed down and never went easy.
Even so, he was a reliable person who silently helped.

“It is late. Get some sleep. The hardship begins tomorrow.”
“You really know how to make me want to sleep.”
“…….”
“Good night.”

And so, the gorge also fell asleep with the boy, and when the sun rose, the noisy day began to repeat itself.

For the first few weeks, simply running was overwhelming.
Relying on a single light in the darkness crawling with demonic creatures became an even greater pressure, and it felt as if his stamina was being gnawed away twice as fast.
Because he was focused on the demonic creatures’ movements, he often missed what was underfoot, and after falling over and over, his whole body was covered in scratches and bruises.

Around the time he became somewhat used to running with demonic creatures.
The boy began looking for routes.
To spend the nights efficiently, he roamed the gorge during the day.
He memorized the geography around the cave where they had settled.
He also checked places he had to be careful of and places he could use in advance.
He went through all sorts of crises in the process, but thanks to those crises, he also realized all sorts of lessons.

A few more weeks passed, and when the trees of the gorge had shed all their leaves.
The boy’s day began to change.
A morning greeted with simple exercises, as usual.
A meal made from demonic creatures, which had become familiar before he knew it.
After strength training and sparring with Lucas, by the time the sun was setting, the boy began preparing to run.

‘My body feels lighter.’

Serpens lightly bounced in place.
Before he knew it, muscles had formed all over his body.
Not scrawny muscles, but decent muscles that looked fairly good.

That was not all.
His stamina had increased compared to before, and his feet had grown faster.
He had also gotten used to handling a sword, to the point that he could now deal with about twenty goblins easily.

Of course, he had gone into training expecting growth.
But now that he had actually taken a step forward, he felt strange.
If he could just do something about his clothes, worn out with blood and sweat……

‘I won’t look like a beggar.’

Had he not become someone fairly presentable?
That was what the boy was thinking.

Lucas handed a torch to the boy.

“Run straight west. There will be an unusually shaped tree. From there, run south again. If you keep running, you will come to a field without trees. Reaching that place is today’s training.”
“Understood.”

Fwoosh-!

The torch burned especially fiercely today.
The boy frowned.
On days when the torch burned fiercely, it meant that day’s training would be hard.
It meant he had to run around for a long time, and it also meant he would stand out more to the demonic creatures.

Tat-

Even so, Serpens began running without saying much.
The unusually shaped tree to the west.
That was a place the boy knew too.
He had discovered it a few days ago while roaming the area. There was an enormous tree twisted strangely in every direction.
Running to that place was not a problem.

‘A field without trees……?’

But this was the problem.
At least within the range the boy had roamed for the past few weeks, he had never seen a place without trees.
Well, he didn’t care much.
If he ran in the direction Lucas had told him, wouldn’t he reach that place eventually?

Kiruk?

Not long after the boy cut through the darkness, the demonic creatures began to react.

A goblin sprang out from beyond the range lit by the torch.

Slice.

The boy quickly drew his sword and cut the creature’s neck.
When the splattered droplets of blood touched the torch, they evaporated with a sharp sound.

“It’s a pain right from the start.”

Serpens changed the direction he was running.
Goblins never moved alone.
If he ran straight ahead, he would end up dealing with the annoying task of encountering a goblin group.

Bark, bark!

The sound of dogs barking came from behind.
It seemed beast-type demonic creatures were starting to follow.
The boy put strength into his legs and sped up.

Fwoooosh-

The torch quickly cut through the darkness.
His movements held no hesitation.
It was possible because he had applied this thing called sense not only to an opponent’s attacks, but also to the surrounding terrain and obstacles.
Even without lowering his gaze, he could lightly avoid obstacles beneath his feet.
The boy made the best decision he could in each moment and ran toward his goal.

“Found it.”

As he ran while avoiding demonic creatures and watching his footing, he arrived before the strange tree before he knew it.
It was an unusual tree whose trunk looked like several twisted snakes, and whose branches looked as if they had been struck by lightning and torn apart.

“When I saw it during the day, it was fascinating. Now it’s scary.”

After giving that brief impression, the boy searched for the direction.
The place he had to go was south.
Even with demonic creatures chasing him, Serpens calmly felt the blowing wind.

There was something he had learned while traveling with Lucas.
A somewhat accurate way to estimate direction.
The wind in winter was a northwest wind.
And by using that fact, he could infer the direction to some extent.

‘Well, there are plenty of times it’s wrong, though.’

Of course, it was the best method available, not the best method overall.
Because this was a gorge, the wind was irregular, and nature was unpredictable to begin with.

That was why the boy desperately hoped luck would be with him.

Serpens’s light-brown hair fluttered in the wind.
A moment later, the boy’s feet moved after making his choice.

The boy kept running toward the direction he thought was south.
The winter chill, which even the torch could not fully block, made his skin sting.

After running like that for several minutes.
Anxiety crept over the boy.

‘Did I choose the wrong direction?’

The place Lucas had mentioned was a field without trees.
He had long since left the area he had investigated before.
The land he was running through now was a new area.
Even if the direction was right, he did not know how far he had to run to reach the destination.

What if, in that situation, he had chosen the wrong direction?
That would be a complete disaster.
In vulgar terms, one could say he was fucked.

But he couldn’t turn back either.
He had already run quite a distance.
Even if he turned back, there was no guarantee he could find the exact path again.

Kireeek!

Of course, having to break through all the demonic creatures chasing him was also a problem.

“Damn it.”

Strength entered the hand holding the torch.
The boy’s thoughts grew tangled.

Then it happened.

Jab.

He felt a strange sensation beneath his feet.
A feeling that was damp, yet somehow firm.

And in the very next moment.

Rumble-!

“What is this now!”

Serpens’s body was pulled downward in an instant.
It was not that he had stepped wrong.
The ground collapsed.

“Uwaaak!”

Gugugugu.

The flat ground became a slope close to a cliff and dragged the boy down.
The torch slipped from his hand, and the light grew farther away.
He repeatedly struck rocks and scraped against the ground.
Pain rushed in, but he couldn’t let go of consciousness.

In the darkness, Serpens instinctively curled up his body.
After rolling and falling over and over, he finally struck the ground hard.

“……Kheuk!”

The air was knocked from his lungs.
For a few seconds, it was difficult even to breathe.
Then, after gasping for breath for a while and trying to raise himself, Serpens felt something strange.

“……Light?”

He had fallen from quite a high place.
If he had fallen lower, should it not have gotten darker?
And yet his surroundings were dyed in faint light.

“What is this……?”

A vast field without a single tree.
In the field, glowing plants grew at regular intervals.
Rather than wild plants, they seemed as if someone had planted them to cultivate them……

At that moment,

Kagang!

Serpens swung his sword with trembling hands.
A sudden attack.

Kang! Kagang!

With the following attacks, metal struck metal and sparks flew.
A numbing shock ran through Serpens’s hand.

The shape of a person visible through the faint light.
He swung his sword without pause and drove Serpens back.

The boy was pushed back, then pushed back again, and again.
And then, in the end.

Takang!

He ended up losing his sword.

Serpens looked at the tip of the sword pointed at his neck.
His body was a mess from rolling down, but even if that had not been the case, it was certain that this was an opponent he could not defeat.

Serpens’s gaze followed the sword and swept over his opponent.
Leather boots stained with mud. A belt loosely tied around his waist, and beneath it, pants easy to move in.
Short, neatly trimmed hair, and dark skin that looked sunburned.
A man whose appearance suited farm tools more than a sword. In other words, a farmer more than a swordsman.

That man thrust his sword toward Serpens and asked.

“Who the hell are you?”