Chapter 10

Chapter 10.

His heart dropped with a thud into a bottomless abyss.

The scene before his eyes flowed with unreal slowness. The blade of Yorn, the imperial sergeant, aimed at the neck of Den, his fellow recruit. The sunlight caught on it and burst like a flash, stabbing into Rian’s pupils. The resignation and despair rising on Den’s face. Just a few steps ahead, Borik’s final gaze as he became a cold corpse while trying to save him. All of it tangled inside Rian’s head like a scream.

CLANG! CLANG!

The sound of blades clashing around him and the soldiers’ desperate shouts suddenly grew distant. As if he had been submerged underwater, every sound in the world seemed to echo from beyond a muffling veil. Only the sound of his own heart thrashing madly rang like thunder in Rian’s ears.

‘No…….’

Icy fear flowed down his spine. He wanted to scream and run in the opposite direction right now. He wanted to escape this hellish forest, this dreadful scene of slaughter. If he stayed hidden behind the old tree, curled up as still as a mouse, he could survive. While they killed and were killed, he might be able to hide in another pile of corpses and survive once more.

His gaze fixed on the imperial sergeant, Yorn. He could clearly see the cruel smile hanging on the man’s lips.

“Finished with your last words, Kaien greenhorn?”

A low voice, filled with mockery. Instead of answering, Den squeezed his eyes shut. His face was deathly pale, his lips trembling. It was the face of livestock waiting for death.

‘Is it…… all going to end like this?’

Rian bit his lip. The taste of blood spread bitterly.

‘If I hide here, I’ll live. Yes, I can live. But Den will die.’

That thought led to the next. If Den died, then whose turn would it be next? The squad’s strength had already tilted against them. If they could not stop that experienced sergeant, they would be butchered one by one in the end. Sergeant Kairon too, and the other squad members as well. Eventually, even he, hiding here, would be next.

In the end, everyone would die.

Then Rian’s gaze moved on its own to Borik’s corpse lying at his feet.

The rough hands of a man who had likely rolled through battlefields his entire life. Those hands were still stretched toward his spear lying on the ground. The tenacity of a soldier who had tried not to let go of his weapon until the final moment remained entirely in that posture.

In that instant, a sensation flashed through his mind.

That night when he had survived his first battle. The strange, cold sensation from the moment his hand touched the corpse of “Gareth,” the spearman whose name he had not even known. That chilling experience of something invading every nerve in his body and engraving unfamiliar muscle memory into his arm.

‘Like back then…… if…….’

A dangerous yet alluring thought bloomed like a poisonous weed.

‘If I touch Uncle Borik’s corpse now…… what will happen?’

Thud.

His heart beat loudly once more. But this time, it was not only because of fear. Like water seeping into a dry sandbank, a strange anticipation began pushing aside the emotion of fear.

He recalled last night, when he had thrust the spear alone on the drill ground. The punishment he had imposed on himself to keep Gareth’s death from being in vain, to shoulder that man’s life.

‘Just as I shouldered Gareth’s life, I can’t let Uncle Borik’s death…… go to waste like this.’

This was not a simple struggle to survive. It was a matter of responsibility, of the lives and deaths he had to shoulder. If he survived by using their deaths as stepping stones, then he had to use that power properly and give meaning to their deaths. That strange sense of responsibility, that this was the only way to repay them, slowly pressed down on the fear strangling his throat.

Rian’s eyes changed.

They were no longer the eyes of a frightened, wavering boy. They were the eyes of a predator driven to the edge of a cliff, coldly calculating its move in order to survive.

‘I have to do this.’

His decision was made.

Yorn’s sword arm reached its peak, then began descending toward Den’s neck without hesitation. Everything looked as if it were in slow motion.

‘Now!’

Rian burst out from behind the old tree.

But it was far from a heroic charge. Rather, it was the opposite.

Like a greenhorn who had lost all reason in terror, he moved his feet clumsily and precariously. His limbs flailed wildly, and to anyone watching, he looked as if he had tried to run away in fear only for his feet to tangle.

Thud!

It was according to plan. He deliberately caught his foot on a tree root jutting out from the ground. Losing his balance, his body pitched forward heavily.

“Ghk!”

Rian let out a pained groan and rolled across the ground. Dust rose thickly around him. Roll, roll, roll right beside Borik’s corpse as precisely as iron filings drawn to a magnet.

“Ugh…….”

Groaning, he stretched out his right hand as if by “accident” while trying to brace himself against the ground.

His palm touched Borik’s still-warm leather armor, precisely on the wound in his side where blood was gushing out.

At that moment.

WHOOOOOSH. 

Every sound in the world vanished in an instant.

In an absolute silence as though his eardrums had gone deaf, something cold and enormous, like a waterfall, poured into his body through his palm. Together with the talent, the final memories and emotions of the dead invaded his soul—an awful yet ecstatic sensation.

The rough and heavy sensation of [Basic Spearmanship], which had been dominating his body until then, vanished in an instant like a sandcastle washed away by a powerful current.

Into that empty space was engraved a sensation of movement incomparably more precise, flexible, and efficient. It was everything of a veteran built up through blood and sweat over decades of rolling through battlefields.

The [Basic Spearmanship] talent disappeared, and Borik’s [Intermediate Spearmanship] was forcibly overlaid onto his body.

As he instinctively felt [Intermediate Spearmanship] settle within him, Borik’s final emotions crashed over Rian’s mind like a massive wave.

‘I have to protect them…… those clumsy greenhorns…… I can’t let them die here……!’

Pity for Den and the other squad members. And a deep helplessness and responsibility for failing to protect them. That intense will blended with the resolve Rian had just held, condensing into a single, firm, cold will like steel.

The faint trembling of every muscle in his body stopped as if it had been a lie. His confused mind sank into clarity. His body had completely adapted to the new talent.

***

“What the hell is this bug?”

Yorn, who had stopped the sword meant to cut Den down, looked down in disbelief at Rian, who had suddenly rolled to his feet.

“Are you desperate to die?”

As if annoyed, he kicked Den away and turned toward Rian to deal with the new nuisance.

“No…… Run, Rian……!”

Den, sprawled on the ground, screamed in a breathless voice. But that cry did not reach Rian.

Rian slowly, very slowly, raised himself up.

The frightened, staggering appearance from moments ago was nowhere to be seen.

His two feet stood on the ground without wavering, like a giant tree deeply rooted in the earth. His disheveled waist had straightened, and his shoulders were relaxed without the slightest tension.

He picked up his old spear that had fallen carelessly nearby.

The unimpressive spear, which had looked like nothing more than a rotten wooden stick, seemed to emit a chilling aura the moment it entered his hand, as if it were a famed blade that had finally met its master.

From far away, while crossing weapons with another imperial soldier, Kairon caught sight of that strange scene.

‘That kid……?’

Kairon’s brow narrowed.

‘His atmosphere…… changed.’

Just moments ago, he had clearly been a greenhorn terrified of death. Yet now, he looked like a veteran who had rolled through battlefields for decades.

“You arrogant greenhorn bastard……!”

Yorn did not notice Rian’s change. He only thought of clearing away the bug that had interfered with his hunt.

He thrust his sword quickly and precisely toward Rian’s heart. It was a merciless strike from a trained man.

A speed that Rian’s mind could never have reacted to.

Rian’s eyes merely followed the afterimage of the sword rushing in like lightning.

But his body moved first. It was not Rian’s will. It moved as the “body of Borik” dwelling within him remembered.

Rian twisted his waist slightly with the bare minimum of movement. At the same time, his spear shaft rose smoothly as if sliding and lightly deflected Yorn’s blade to the side.

Sring!

A sharp metallic sound rang out.

He had not blocked it with force. He had used his opponent’s strength and speed against him, slightly twisting the path of the strike. It was a perfect defensive technique, impossible without decades of experience and thousands of real battles.

“What……!”

Yorn’s eyes widened as if they would burst with shock.

‘Th-this movement…… He’s not a greenhorn!’

His thoughts froze for a moment at the unbelievable sight. But Rian’s spear, having deflected the sword, did not stop.

Like flowing water, the defensive motion continued into an attack without the slightest break.

The spear tip extended soundlessly. Cunning and swift, like the tongue of a snake aiming for prey.

In Rian’s eyes, the tiny gap between Yorn’s sturdy armor and his arm guard appeared clearly. A needle-hole weakness he would never have been able to see under normal circumstances.

‘Borik would have aimed here.’

Not his head, but his body said so. Every muscle in his body screamed at him to thrust the spear toward that point.

There was no hesitation.

Rian’s spear tip dug into that gap without the slightest margin of error.

Slice!

A dull yet sharp sensation traveled along the spear shaft to his palm. The horrible, vivid feel of solid muscle and tough tendons being severed.

“Grr……aaaagh!”

A scream mixed with pain and disbelief burst from Yorn’s mouth. Strength no longer entered the right arm holding his sword. The arm, its tendons severed into a ragged lump of flesh, no longer moved according to his will.

There was no emotion on Rian’s face.

He mechanically withdrew the spear, and at the same time, used the recoil to strike Yorn’s jaw hard with the shaft.

Thud!

With the dull sound of bone breaking, Yorn’s body staggered and toppled backward like a scarecrow.

Rian aimed the cold spear tip at Yorn’s fallen throat and steadied his ragged breathing.

It had happened in an instant.

The noisy sounds of battle around them subsided as if they had been a lie. Allies and enemies alike stared blankly at this unbelievable sight.

Their experienced sergeant had been helplessly subdued in only two exchanges by a nameless green conscript.

Den, sitting on the ground, looked up blankly at Rian with his mouth hanging open.

‘No way…… That…… That isn’t Rian…….’

A coward who had not even been able to roll properly. A straggler Den had despised and looked down on so thoroughly. It was not him. The one standing before Den now was a beast ruling over a blood-soaked battlefield.

Rian took his gaze off the fallen Yorn and slowly swept his eyes over his surroundings.

There was no longer a single shred of fear in his eyes. Only vigilance as cold as ice remained.

He opened his mouth in a low voice.

“Who’s next?”

His voice was not loud, but a strange power filled it, making the silent forest ring eerily.

Flinch.

At that voice and those ice-cold eyes, the imperial soldiers who had been so imposing unconsciously faltered and stepped back.

That brief opening.

The Kaien soldiers did not miss it.

“Waaaaaah!”

Against the enemy whose morale had broken, they poured out their final fierce assault. The tide of battle turned in an instant, completely and decisively.

***

It did not take long.

The surviving imperial soldiers completely lost their will to fight, threw down their weapons, and began scattering into the forest. There was no pursuit. The Kaien soldiers had no strength left for that either.

A heavy silence flowed over the forest path after the battle ended. Only the stabbing smell of blood, the rough breathing breaking out here and there, and the painful groans of the wounded filled the air.

For a while, Rian stood rooted in place, breathing heavily.

Every muscle in his body screamed. Borik’s talent had granted his body superhuman movement, but the stamina consumption that came with it was entirely his burden. A draining weakness, as though all the strength in his body had flowed out, crashed over him.

Thud.

The spear slid from his hand and fell to the ground.

His gaze turned back to Borik’s corpse.

Gratitude. Guilt. And the heavy responsibility of having shouldered the entire weight of his decades pressed down on Rian’s shoulders like a mountain.

Step…… Step…….

The sound of someone approaching.

It was Kairon. His face held none of its usual cynicism or mockery. With a blank expression from which no emotion could be read, he was slowly approaching Rian.

Den also staggered to his feet. He only stared at Rian with complicated eyes mixed with disbelief, awe, and an unknowable fear, unable to bring himself closer.

Kairon’s gaze thoroughly swept from Rian’s feet to his hands, then to his unwavering eyes. It was a persistent gaze, as if observing a creature he was seeing for the first time.

From the time Rian had returned alone from his first battle, to the sight of him training bizarrely in the middle of the night while everyone slept, to the seemingly possessed movements just now.

The scattered puzzle pieces in his mind were fitting together toward a single question.

Kairon stopped right in front of Rian. His shadow covered Rian as if it would swallow him whole.

Then, in a low, hoarse voice, he quietly asked.

“……What the hell are you?”

Rian’s hardened face, unable to answer the question, and Kairon’s persistent gaze, as if trying to pierce through to his very soul, collided in midair.