Chapter 77

Joy in Life (3)

Now that I had neatly taken care of Treefast’s claws, I went looking for Wonmo.

But when I saw him sleeping so soundly, I felt bad about waking him.

Besides, he was still a cub, so there probably wasn’t any need to maintain his claws yet.

I’ve done everything I needed to do, so...

I checked the time.

It was currently 4 p.m.

It wouldn’t be long before dinner. Until then, I could carefully read through SwordMaster’s posts.

By the time I finished reading and got in some practice, it would probably be time to eat.

When am I going to improve my fundamentals?

The fight with the Guardian had made me painfully aware of something.

I was surviving almost entirely thanks to my gear.

If I hadn’t had the Heavenly Demon’s Sword, there was no way I could have pierced the Guardian’s core.

I wasn’t some swordsman out of a comic book. With my bare physical ability alone, I couldn’t even cut through stone.

But this was a fantasy world.

Wouldn’t there be at least some people here who could cut stone with nothing but their bodies and technique, without using mana?

The thought made me curious, so I made a post in the Gallery.

Title) Can you cut stone with a sword without mana?

Wild Grylls

Normally, mana is what makes your body stronger, right?

Then if you don’t have mana, does that mean everyone is basically no different from an ordinary person?

An ordinary person can’t cut through stone or slice metal with a sword, can they?

└ Heavenly Demon) It depends on the circumstances. If one’s dantian is completely destroyed, then one would indeed be little different from an ordinary person. But as long as the dantian remains intact, one can still exert great strength even under normal circumstances.

└ Wild Grylls) But you’d need the proper technique to go with it, right?

└ Heavenly Demon) Naturally. Power without technique is bound to scatter. Technique exists to focus that power into a single point.

└ Wild Grylls) Then does that mean you can do it, Heavenly Demon?

└ Heavenly Demon) Though I am still lacking, I can cut an opponent using nothing but intent. This is called the Heart Sword.

└ SwordMaster) Ignore that martial-arts boomer’s last comment. Anyway, once you reach a certain level, even your bare body itself becomes like a weapon, so it should be possible.

└ Wild Grylls) What exactly counts as "a certain level"?

└ SwordMaster) Around the level where you can use an Aura Blade unconsciously? It’s the stage where mana affects the body so deeply that even aging slows down.

└ Wild Grylls) Don’t tell me that means SwordMaster level?

└ SwordMaster) Excluding mass-produced SwordMasters.

└ What the hell do you mean "mass-produced"? LOL. A SwordMaster is a SwordMaster.

└ This is all Ash’s fault. Because of that bastard, every other SwordMaster gets mocked as mass-produced, LOL.

└ Someone responsible for an entire country’s military strength, and you call them mass-produced, LOL.

└ If they were really mass-produced, every random nobody would become one;;

└ Wild Grylls) So it’s impossible with just the fundamentals?

└ Heavenly Demon) Considering your talent, it is not impossible. However, without a master to guide you, it will likely take time.

└ SwordMaster) Still, if you keep reading my posts, you’ll definitely be able to master the fundamentals. I can guarantee that much.

└ Wild Grylls) So in the end, getting strong in a short amount of time is impossible.

└ Heavenly Demon) Not necessarily. A martial artist grows stronger the more they fight. You have been cast into a place of death, so as long as you overcome each crisis, you should be able to reach that level quickly.

└ SwordMaster) Heavenly Demon, that kind of sounds like you’re telling him to go die;;

└ Heavenly Demon) A single word can change the meaning entirely. This lady has no doubt that you will survive until the very end.

└ Wild Grylls) Uh... I guess that counts as encouragement, so thank you.

└ Don’tAbandonTheHero) There’s another way to become strong in a short period of time!

└ Wild Grylls) What is it?

└ Don’tAbandonTheHero) Believe in the Goddess! Lady Aris, Goddess of War and Wisdom!

└ Wild Grylls) I don’t like gods.

└ Don’tAbandonTheHero) What?! What kind of blasphemous statement is that?! Why do you dislike them?!

└ Wild Grylls) I was living a decent life, then my parents died in an accident. After that, I struggled like hell to keep going, and then I got dropped into the Forest of Four Seasons. Of course I want to curse at gods.

└ You know what, just go ahead and blaspheme;;

└ Damn, that’s miserable. What kind of life is that? LOL.

└ Is the Mod a paladin or something?

└ Don’tAbandonTheHero) Something similar! I got expelled after a little misunderstanding, though!

Gods, huh.

The Mod’s words sent me into thought.

I didn’t follow any particular religion.

That didn’t mean I was an atheist, though.

Even before I was suddenly dropped into the Forest of Four Seasons, I had been inclined to believe that gods existed.

That way, I could curse them as much as I wanted.

Wasn’t it better to hate a god than to hate people?

And if a god struck me down for cursing at them?

Then I’d curse them even harder for being so petty.

People even curse their king when no one’s watching.

Believing in gods just so I could hate them.

It sounded rather ironic.

Still, that mindset had helped me stubbornly keep living, so it wasn’t entirely bad.

For now, training really is my only answer.

It felt like my mana kept increasing endlessly, but I still couldn’t get the slightest feel for an Aura Blade.

If anything, I had so much mana that controlling it was difficult.

Maybe that was because I was originally from Earth.

If I had been born differently, shouldn’t the method I used to train mana be different too?

The fact that I could sense mana at all was already close to a miracle.

...This is going to take a long time.

If I wanted to escape the Forest of Four Seasons, I had to become stronger.

But to become strong enough, I would at least need to know how to use an Aura Blade.

And learning to use an Aura Blade might take a very long time.

So I had to prepare myself for the possibility of living in the Forest of Four Seasons for quite a while.

As long as I can escape eventually.

With that resolve, I closed the Gallery.

The Mod seemed to be saying something to me, but I casually ignored it.

Something about blasphemy being unacceptable, and that no matter how difficult life was, I shouldn’t curse the gods.

Judging by the way he talked, he seemed deeply religious.

Maybe I shouldn’t have brought the subject up.

It’s not like gods put food on the table.

Besides, there were far more things in the world worth worrying about than gods.

Ah.

That didn’t mean I looked down on religious people or anything.

If anything, there were few people I respected more than genuinely devout believers.

They were people who embodied self-sacrifice, so why would I insult them?

It’s not people I hate.

My parents had been good people.

And all the people helping me now were good people too.

Sure, there were occasionally some rotten bastards, but I wasn’t the type to just sit there and let them walk all over me.

When you look at it that way, the Gallery is strange too.

I knew all too well just how ugly people could become under the cover of anonymity.

Where I came from, you could kill a person with a pen instead of a weapon.

Compared to that, the Gallery might be overflowing with desire and degeneracy, but there were surprisingly few personal attacks.

Every now and then, some weird dwarf-obsessed woman showed up, but the other races just ignored her.

Only the dwarves reacted.

The same was true for the beastkin.

If someone took their preference that far, you could only chalk it up to personal taste.

I want to go home.

I glanced at the cave wall.

Tomorrow would already mark my tenth day here.

It didn’t feel like I had done much, yet time had flown by.

I hadn’t explored all that many places, and every so often some beast attacked me, which only made things more exhausting.

Where should I go tomorrow?

I shifted my gaze to the side.

A roughly drawn map was spread across a large sheet of white paper.

The river that was practically my lifeline.

The lakeshore connected to that river.

The colony of fully grown Mandrakes.

The mushroom cave.

The Orichalcum cave.

And so on.

Looking at it this way, I had actually explored quite a few places.

Granted, I had only discovered one of them by accident while searching for Wonmo after he ran away.

Following the river downstream only leads to the lake, so I should probably establish another route.

I stared at the map and thought.

It was about time I started exploring with an actual plan.

If I was going to be staying here for a long time, it would be better to explore the area thoroughly.

I should also put up markers along the way so I wouldn’t get lost.

Going around the lake was impossible.

If that giant crab came out again, I’d die.

Or should I follow the river upstream?

That wasn’t a bad choice.

There was no rule saying the river had to be a single continuous stream.

Even if I followed it upstream, it might split into two branches somewhere.

Or several.

It would be best to find out what lies at each end of the river.

Downstream was the lake.

But I had no idea what lay upstream.

Rather than wandering around aimlessly, it would be better to pick a definite route and follow it.

I roughly finished planning for tomorrow, then checked the time.

It was already close to five.

It seemed like a good time to head up to the river and check whether I’d caught any fish.

"I’ll be back in a bit."

"...."

After telling Treefast, I stepped outside the cave.

As an extra precaution against anything unexpected, I put up the barricade.

Then I armed myself and headed toward the river.

A pack of otters had appeared as recently as lunchtime today, so I needed to stay alert.

Splash! Splash!

"What the? Three of them?"

When I checked the fish trap, there were a whopping three fish inside.

One golden fish and two red fish.

I couldn’t believe that many had been caught in such a short amount of time.

Well, good is good.

The more food I had, the better.

Humming to myself, I hauled up the fish trap.

Even while pulling it in, I kept an eye on my surroundings in case something attacked me.

It hadn’t been long since the otter pack died, so something might have come after smelling the blood.

Let’s get back quickly.

Once I collected the trap, I hurried back to the cave.

I was so worried something might chase me from behind that I even used mana to run faster.

After returning, I dumped the fish into a metal container.

With three of them, even the metal container was filled up.

I can eat one tomorrow morning.

If every day could be like this...

No.

What was I thinking?

Escaping as soon as possible was the priority.

I shook my head hard.

Until I escape.

Yeah.

That was the proper mindset.

I went back up to the river, reset the fish trap, then started preparing dinner.

Wonmo, who had been napping, seemed to realize that dinner was approaching and slowly crawled out.

Seeing him shuffle over with sleepy eyes was ridiculously cute.

Every time I looked at him, it felt like my heart was healing a little.

Sizzle!

I gave one cleaned fish to Wonmo and cooked another one as usual.

Just a little salt was enough to make a delicious fish dish!

It was a taste I never got tired of no matter how often I ate it.

It felt less like eating fish and more like eating premium beef.

Why does this taste better than tiger meat?

Maybe it was because the tiger meat had been smoked.

Now that dinner was taken care of, I began circulating my internal energy cultivation method.

I didn’t forget to take the medicine Allfather had given me either.

"Aww, Wonmo. Try catching this."

"Kyuuuu! Kyuu!"

After I finished everything, I played with Wonmo.

I tied a piece of cloth to the end of a stick and waved it around.

I’d sometimes seen cat owners playing with their cats like this on YouTube.

Wonmo wasn’t a cat, but I’d heard that this kind of play could help develop hunting skills to some extent.

Thump!

"Kyua!"

"Ugh!"

Well.

Sometimes there were unfortunate accidents where we crashed into each other, but it was tolerable.

He was still a small cub, after all.

He had grown since the first time I saw him, but a cub was still a cub.

"Kyuuu! Kyuu!"

"Hehehe."

I hugged Wonmo tightly and rubbed my face against him for a while before quietly letting him go.

I think I understood why people raised pets.

Having him around really did make the loneliness fade, even if only a little.

Wonder what the Gallery’s doing.

It was starting to get dark outside.

I logged into the Gallery.

As always, it was overflowing with all kinds of nonsense posts.

A place that felt more full of human life than anywhere else.

There were occasionally people with screws loose in their heads, but I ignored them.

I wonder what these people are doing in real life.

That suddenly made me curious.

Especially the registered users I’d grown close to.

Almost every one of them was far removed from anything you could call "ordinary."

Even the Heavenly Demon, who constantly got mocked as a martial-arts boomer, seemed like an adult to me.

An adult in the sense that she was probably someone of very high standing.

They’re good people.

I was curious, sure.

But I had absolutely no intention of digging too deeply into their personal lives.

The fact that they were helping me at all was already more than enough.

Title) Day 9 complete!

Wild Grylls

(Photo of a campfire)

Day 9 was especially rough, but it’s finally over! Day 10 starts tomorrow!

See you tomorrow!

└ Heavenly Demon) Rest well. This lady is always cheering for you.

└ SwordMaster) You had an especially hard time today. Hang in there.

└ Starlight Princess) Fighting! I sincerely hope you don’t surpass my record!

└ Looks like he’s definitely going to, though?

└ There’s no point counting. He’s not getting out anyway, lol.

└ Starlight Princess) You people really are trash.

└ Let’s Grow Trees) Thank you for the core today! It made my work much easier!

└ Wild Grylls) I’m glad it helped. I’m also making good use of the gift you gave me.

└ Let’s Grow Trees) How is it? The pride of Alvenheim!

└ Wild Grylls) Are all elves smokers by any chance?

└ Let’s Grow Trees) Ah. Right.

└ What do you mean, "Ah, right"? LOL.

└ Looks like she gave him tobacco and forgot about it, LOL.

└ Hey, elf. Do you smoke too?

└ Let’s Grow Trees) No! I use it as incense.

└ That’s weird in its own way;;

└ Who uses tobacco as incense?

Let’s Grow Trees was a strange person too.

What exactly did she need cores for?

Still, from my perspective, it had been a good trade since I got rid of something that was more trouble than it was worth.

Tomorrow, I’ll follow the river upstream.

There was still some time before bed.

Until then, I continued circulating my internal energy cultivation method.

The Heavenly Demon had said she wanted to teach me the next chant, but that I needed to strengthen my fundamentals first.

I had no idea exactly what standard she was using for "fundamentals," but she said I needed at least two weeks.

Then I can start eating the inner cores after that.

About four days remained.

I quietly closed my eyes and began circulating my energy.

I could vividly feel the mana flowing through my body.

Strangely, with each passing day, it felt like the amount of mana was increasing and the circulation speed was getting faster.

Is it because of the fish?

Maybe it was because I had been eating fish containing inner cores every day—

No, practically every meal.

Still, I could control it.

If I couldn’t even control it, my body probably would have exploded by now.

Without any interruptions around me, I slowly—

very slowly—

sank deeper into concentration.

And then, the next day.

SHWAAAAAAA!!

"Ah, for fuck’s sake."

I cursed at the torrential rain pouring down.