Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Zeon hurriedly followed Deioden into the portal.

Once again, tremendous pressure bore down on him, but perhaps because he had experienced it once before, he did not lose consciousness.

“Where is this?”

He was in the middle of a desert, where sunlight beat down fiercely.

Until just moments ago, he had been in a space where a volcano was erupting, but the scenery around him had changed as if by magic.

No matter how much he looked around, all he could see was hot, heated sand.

There was nothing visible that could help him identify their location.

Zeon asked Deioden,

“Where are we?”

WHIP!

Instead of answering, Deioden grabbed Zeon’s wrist and twisted it.

“Why...... are you doing this?”

“I cannot see a Rank Insignia on your wrist. I clearly saw you using sand.”

“Grrrgh!”

At the pain of his wrist being crushed, Zeon groaned.

It felt as though his arm had been caught in an enormous press.

Zeon tried to put strength into his arm and pull it free, but it was no use.

Deioden’s strength was not at a level he could handle.

At the terrible pain, Zeon fell to his knees.

He understood what people meant when they said that if something hurt too much, not even a scream would come out.

Releasing the arm he had been gripping tightly, Deioden said,

“Then again, there are many Awakened, so it is not that strange for a freak like you to exist.”

“Kuh-hurk!”

Only then did Zeon let out the groan he had been suppressing. Even so, the pain did not fade.

For a moment, Zeon lost his reason and shouted,

“You dogshit old man! You almost broke my arm!”

“You really are crippled and fragile.”

“Urgh!”

Unable to hold back his anger, Zeon unleashed Sand Blaster.

BOOM!

Sand fired at high pressure slammed into Deioden’s chest. However, Deioden’s chest was not left with so much as a scratch.

Deioden brushed the sand off his chest and laughed.

“It is certain you awakened an ability to control sand. Heh-heh!”

“So what? Did you contribute anything to it?”

“From now on, you are coming with me, cripple!”

“My name is Zeon. Not cripple...... You crippled old bastard.”

“If you are weak, you are all cripples.”

“You......”

“If you say one more word there, I will tear your mouth apart.”

“Ghk!”

Zeon closed his mouth without realizing it.

Only then did his reason return.

The old man before him was a monster who had hunted the Crimson Drake, the Final Boss of the dungeon.

He was not a being to whom Zeon’s common sense applied.

He had lost his reason for a moment and talked back, but from the beginning, Zeon was no match for Deioden.

In Deioden’s eyes, Zeon was something less than an ant.

A worthless existence he could press down and kill with a single finger.

No matter what Deioden did, Zeon could not even resist.

Deioden suddenly looked at Crayon and said,

“Yes! It seems he is only about Grade F for now. It will take a long time before he becomes useful.”

“......”

“Heh-heh! I only need to work him harshly. If he does not die, he will grow stronger.”

The sight of him muttering to himself while looking at Crayon did not seem normal at all.

‘I’ve really gotten caught by a properly insane old man.’

It was a desert with nowhere to hide.

He could not even dream of running away.

Until he built up his strength, he had no choice but to accompany Deioden.

Deioden said,

“Follow me.”

“Yes!”

Zeon let out a sigh and followed Deioden.

‘Having no strength is a sin. A sin!’

---

Deioden did not seem to feel heat.

Even while walking through a desert without a single patch of shade, he showed no sign of exhaustion or difficulty from the heat.

By contrast, Zeon, who followed him, was on the verge of dying.

The sand, into which his feet sank up to the ankles, gnawed away at his stamina, and the sun beating down fiercely tormented him.

His entire body had long since been drenched in sweat.

“Haa! Haa!”

His breathing naturally grew rough, and his steps slowed.

That was when it happened.

“Hmph! What an idiot. You cannot even use one percent of the ability you possess properly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you not gain the ability to control sand?”

“So?”

“Use the sand. Why are you walking so laboriously?”

“Do you think that’s as easy as saying it? I only awakened the day before yesterday.”

“What of it?”

“Seriously!”

Zeon flared up. Then Deioden stopped and looked back.

The expression on his face as he looked at Zeon was plainly one of contempt.

That gaze made anger surge up in Zeon once more.

“I’m Grade F. I’m not a high-ranking Awakened like you.”

“That is why you are a cripple. What does it matter if you are Grade F, or Grade S? Do you think everyone is born Grade S from the beginning? Of course, there may be some bastards like that. Those bastards were born blessed. But because you were not blessed, are you simply going to give up and live that way? In the eyes of others, you will look blessed enough. So stop whining and think about how you can use your ability. What is the point of having all four limbs intact? Your head is crippled.”

“Can’t you really stop saying cripple?”

“If you do not want to hear the word cripple, you will have to break open that stiff head of yours first. Until then, you are the worst cripple among cripples.”

In the end, Zeon could not even recover his dignity and had to close his mouth.

Deioden turned away and said,

“It is your ability. Naturally, you should know it best. So you must also find out how to grow it and how to use it.”

“What if I cannot find out?”

“Then you will die.”

“What?”

“Either I will kill you, or that sun will kill you. It will be one of the two.”

“......”

With those words, Deioden began walking again.

Two lines of footprints stretched long behind him where he passed.

Zeon glared at the back of Deioden’s head.

‘A cripple? Break open my stiff head first?’

Something surged up from deep inside his chest.

It was anger.

Anger toward Deioden, and anger toward himself.

The two kinds of anger combined and burned fiercely.

Zeon gritted his teeth.

‘Fine! I’ll do just that. I’ll make sure you can never call me a cripple again.’

Strengthening his resolve, Zeon followed behind Deioden. And he thought.

‘What I have is the ability to control sand. So I have to use sand.’

Even after awakening as a Sandmancer, he had not actually grasped how far his ability went.

He had only used it in makeshift ways to escape each crisis as it came.

He had to use this chance to clearly understand his limits. And he had to fiercely consider how far he could make use of it.

Zeon moved his mana. Then the sand in the area was drawn to him and moved.

Like iron filings drawn to a magnet, the sand was pulled toward Zeon.

‘Roughly a five-meter radius centered on me?’

The closer the sand was, the faster it moved, while sand farther away moved slowly.

It could move, but its reaction was slow.

This was also a problem he had to think about.

But Zeon pushed that concern aside.

There was something he had to resolve before that.

Sink! Sink!

The problem was the sand into which his feet sank up to the ankles.

Every time he lifted a foot, it drained an enormous amount of his stamina. If he could not solve this, Zeon would surely fall behind in the desert.

‘What if I condense the sand and harden the place where my feet step?’

It was the method he had used when crossing the river of lava.

Zeon immediately hardened the sand beneath his feet.

Walking became much easier.

It was not tiring, as though he were walking across a stone-paved floor.

But there was a problem.

The consumption of mana was extreme.

Each time he hardened the ground, mana left him in chunks.

At this rate, before he had gone a few dozen more meters, all his mana would be depleted.

Zeon abandoned that method.

That was because he could clearly see what would happen to him after all his mana was exhausted.

‘I’ll be baked dry under the sunlight and become a mummy, or before that, I’ll become a monster’s food.’

Just imagining it was horrifying.

Zeon thought of the next method.

‘My mana reservoir is not large yet. With a method that just consumes mana blindly like this, I can’t endure in the desert. So I have to think of an efficient method that reduces mana consumption.’

What Zeon thought of next was concentrating mana in both legs. Just by concentrating mana there, his steps became lighter, and his stamina consumption decreased noticeably.

However, Zeon had to discard this method too.

It was immediately useful, but it was not a method that used sand, his own ability.

He was a Sandmancer.

If so, he had to polish an ability that used sand.

It would be difficult right now, but considering the future, it could not be helped.

The third thing Zeon chose was a method of moving the sand.

Moving the sand in contact with the soles of his feet.

‘The size of my soles, and about one centimeter thick.’

Zeon concentrated his mind.

Using his control in a limited space like this was more difficult than using it broadly.

As his mana concentrated excessively, the sand instead lost cohesion and scattered uselessly.

Each time that happened, Zeon also lost his balance and slammed into the sand.

“Grrgh!”

Fortunately, since he fell into soft sand, he was not injured, but his mouth filled with sand.

“Ptoo! Ptoo!”

Zeon spat out the sand and rose.

His mouth was already dry because he had not been able to drink water, and the sand made it even drier.

“Haa!”

Zeon’s face showed clear signs of exhaustion.

Far in the distance, he could see Deioden.

Deioden had not looked back even once.

It seemed as though he had no interest whatsoever in whether Zeon lived or died.

That sight made Zeon even angrier.

“Whose fault is it that I ended up like this?”

Anger surged up again.

If not for Deioden, he thought, he would be resting comfortably at the Mana Stone Mine by now.

Because he was in so much pain and hardship, resentment and anger toward Deioden filled him, leaving him unable to judge rationally.

Zeon felt himself slowly going mad.

If he did not find a method quickly, he was certain he would truly lose his mind.

‘Again!’

Zeon focused once more on the sand beneath his feet.

The sand carrying his body slowly began to move.

Like the wheels of a train rolling along rails.

However, the speed was extremely slow.

That was because Zeon was not yet accustomed to handling mana.

If his concentration scattered even slightly, the sand lost its movement and scattered uselessly.

Each time that happened, Zeon fell headfirst into the ground.

He grew more and more exhausted, but Zeon did not give up.

Again and again, he rose and focused on the sand beneath his feet.

His efforts were not in vain.

He gradually grew accustomed to handling sand.

The sand carrying Zeon moved forward much more smoothly.

Sssshhh!

In a way, it looked as though the sand was moving his body on its own. But this was the crystallization of Zeon’s efforts.

It was a movement made possible because he had fallen countless times and agonized over it.

However, there was still quite a bit of wasted mana.

At this rate, he could not endure for very long.

Zeon focused his mind and tried to operate his mana efficiently.

Thanks to that, his mana was maintained by a hair’s breadth, and Zeon was able to move across the sand much more comfortably.

Even without turning back, Deioden noticed Zeon’s condition.

The flow of mana, the movement of the air, and the sound of Zeon’s breathing conveyed a great deal of information to him.

Even without seeing it with his eyes, he knew what state Zeon was in.

Deioden muttered,

“He has become a slightly useful cripple.”

Although by his standards, Zeon was still far from enough.