I Became a Swordsmanship Genius in the Game

Chapter 85. Montis Rocky Mountains

‘I received divine possession.’

Van felt more bewildered than happy.

It was something he had longed for his entire life but could never achieve.

The miracle that had occurred while he was living with that conclusion didn't feel real.

Could it be a dream?

Instead of slapping his own cheek, Van gathered his strength.

Whoosh—

Simply by recalling the memory of his awakening, his pupils turned red.

He could enter the awakened state as naturally as breathing.

‘So easily…’

He had achieved his lifelong wish with surprising ease.

‘Did it really… happen?’

The despair and misery of not receiving divine possession after becoming an adult.

After that, unable to endure being the laughingstock of his kin, he had recklessly run away from the tribe.

Wandering the Demon World empty-handed was a suicidal act.

He had thought that surviving and becoming a slave was the last bit of luck he had left.

[Big bro. This Orc kid is something different.]

[Where? …You blockhead, this is a High Orc. Hand him over to the Arena.]

He had admired the slave trader's keen eye for recognizing him as a High Orc without any tattoos.

After that, being sold to the Bellatus Arena and becoming an administrator instead of a gladiator just because of his good lineage was his second stroke of luck.

A slave gladiator at the very bottom of the barrel.

A clown who displayed death after a fierce battle.

Just when he was taking some comfort in the fact that he wasn't in such a position, he had met a certain human.

He realized it now.

Meeting him was his greatest fortune.

‘…Hyunwoo.’

The human race, classified as the weakest in the Demon World.

Certainly, the human he had first met was as frail as most humans Van knew.

Van looked at the sleeping Hyunwoo intently.

The things he had gone through naturally came to mind.

The terrible and perilous matches that he never thought he could survive.

From the Black Whale Survival to the match in the extreme environment that had made him the champion.

He had tenaciously survived in any situation.

At a glance, one might think he was a lucky human with no fear.

But he remembered it clearly.

The fact that in his first match, he had trembled and held his sword against a mere goblin.

Feeling fear was the same for him and for himself.

But,

‘He was… so different from me.’

His attitude and stance towards fear were different.

He had crumbled in the face of fear, but he had faced it head-on.

At first, the difference was so small it was almost meaningless.

But now, that difference had widened the gap to the point where it was difficult to look up at him.

Watching his growth from the side, he vaguely realized that the difference stemmed from his mindset.

Could it be that his inability to receive divine possession was because of his weak mind?

While he was reflecting on himself like that, he had been consumed by the darkness.

The scenes he most wanted to forget were replayed before his eyes.

The scene of not receiving divine possession and being ridiculed and pointed at by his kin.

The darkness had urged him to run away like that time, but this time, he didn't.

‘Hyunwoo.’ Googlᴇ search novel-fire.ɴet

He didn't know why that human's face had come to mind at that moment.

But the moment he thought of that human's face, the fear disappeared as if by magic.

Because he wanted to be like him.

The admiration and longing he had secretly held for him.

In an instant, he had unleashed the emotions that had surfaced.

[Not anymore—!]

The moment he had bravely faced the resentment he had kept deep in his heart for so long.

The tangled, festering wound in his heart melted away in an instant.

Something filled his cleanly emptied heart.

Divine possession.

The immortal power that was said to contain the power of the ancestral gods.

That power had come to him.

The moment of awakening he had so longed for.

He never thought that moment would be achieved because of a human….

Just then, a voice that woke Van from his deep thoughts was heard.

“Are you asleep?”

When he gently opened his eyes, Hyunwoo was standing right behind him.

“…No.”

“It looked like you were sleeping…”

“I was just closing my eyes!”

“What are you so worked up about? Let's switch the night watch.”

“…Alright.”

Van nodded and went to lie down.

He didn't think he would be able to sleep today.

He raised his head at the rustling sound coming from Hyunwoo's direction.

He was about to move somewhere.

“Where are you going?”

“I'm going to look around.”

Hyunwoo, as if his body was stiff, twisted his whole body and continued to speak.

“Ugh… my body is a mess. Go to sleep. There won't be much danger anyway.”

Hyunwoo, leaving only those words, began to move away from the campsite.

Although he had said it was safe from Modric, it seemed he was going to check a distant place just in case.

He was a being who always stood at the forefront, preparing and acting before others.

A being who showed his front to the enemy and his back to his comrades.

It was the same this time.

Van spoke to Hyunwoo's back as he was about to leave.

“Why did you take care of me?”

“What are you talking about all of a sudden? I didn't take care of you.”

“You gave me my freedom. And… you even taught me shield arts for survival. I must have been useless to you.”

Compared to Lucas, who was beside Hyunwoo, he was of no help at all.

But he had been taking care of him ever since the Arena.

Van had always wondered about that.

“I don't know. I haven't really thought about it.”

Hyunwoo scratched his head and pondered for a moment before speaking.

“Because it was the first time?”

“The first time?”

“I mean… you were the first one to take care of me, whether it was for work or whatever.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“Do you need a big reason to be together? If you’ve been through tough times together, you're comrades.”

“Comrades…?”

“Don't like it? We can be friends then.”

“……”

“Don't worry. You've awakened this time, so you'll get stronger soon.”

Hyunwoo seemed to think he was mired in the powerlessness he had felt during the Lycanthrope incident.

That wasn't the reason, but his answer was helpful nonetheless.

Van's expression was complicated as he watched Hyunwoo's back move away from the campsite.

“Comrades. Or friends, is it…”

The awkward feeling he had never felt before felt strange.

* * *

After a full day's rest at the exit of the gorge, he seemed to have recovered to some extent.

Hyunwoo's party, who had rested, began to walk again.

The path through the Kerno Gorge was the fastest way to the Montis Rocky Mountains, but it wasn't directly connected to the mountains as soon as they left the gorge.

It was about a week's walk from the exit of the gorge to the rocky mountains.

During that time, they were attacked by wild monsters several times.

Of course, Van took care of the wild monsters.

It was all to practice Van's ‘awakened state’.

‘Something… seems different.’

It felt like his mindset, not his strength, had changed.

Crack—!

Watching Van's shield slam down on the last remaining enemy's torso, Hyunwoo nodded.

The crushed enemy's identity was a ‘mummy’.

They were undead-type monsters, like mummies wrapped in bandages.

They were weak monsters commonly seen in the Demon World.

But the story changes when their number exceeds dozens.

Thud—

Dozens of mummy corpses were scattered around Van as he lifted his shield again.

Van hadn't even gotten his tattoos yet, but he had become significantly stronger since his awakening.

It seemed that even if a truckload of weak monsters like mummies were to attack, Van could handle them on his own.

Hoo—

Van, who let out a short breath, approached Hyunwoo and Lucas.

“How long do I have to fight alone?”

“Why? You're handling them just fine. Don't want to fight?”

“That's not it. I decided to follow your words.”

“…Why all of a sudden?”

“I just decided to.”

After leaving the Kerno Gorge, Van's attitude had definitely become strange.

There was no fun in teasing him like this.

“You can stop fighting alone now. You seem to have gotten used to that power. And we're almost there anyway. Lucas.”

At Hyunwoo's call, Lucas straightened his back and focused on his surroundings.

A moment later, he spoke.

“There are no enemies left nearby. What will you do? Will you rest here?”

Hyunwoo looked up at the sky.

The weather was clear like a clear autumn sky, without a single cloud.

‘Though it's a red sky.’

Anyway, the sun, high in the sky, had not yet set even though it was late.

“Let's move. We can get to the rocky mountains before the sun sets.”

About a week had passed since they left the Kerno Gorge.

It was time for their destination to appear.

Hyunwoo urged Van and Lucas and began to move again.

After walking for a while.

Something began to appear in their eyes.

Large and small gray rocks scattered here and there on the red ground.

If viewed from above, it would probably look like a cookie with chocolate chips embedded in it.

The size of the rocks that appeared grew larger as they moved forward.

Then, when they began to see huge rocks showing off their grandeur from a distance.

Thud—

Hyunwoo, feeling the hard sensation under his feet, looked down.

A hard ground like gray cement appeared, not the dry soil of the red land.

“Is it from here?”

The boundary between the red land and the gray land.

From here, it would be the area called the rocky mountains.

The Montis Rocky Mountains.

Finally, they had reached their destination.

“We've come to the right place.”

The Harpy Queen's nest.

It was the place where the monstrous bird slept.

Thud—

As he took a step and looked around, the first thought that came to Hyunwoo was ‘big’.

The rocky mountains were big, and there were many of them.

Despite it being just a natural landscape, he felt overwhelmed.

And there were still more parts he hadn't seen than what was revealed on the surface.

Because they were still at the bottom of the rocky mountains.

Hyunwoo looked up at the dizzyingly high rocky mountains.

Through the gap in his hand that he had raised to block the sunlight, the grandeur of the rocky mountains soaring dizzyingly was revealed.

A sigh escaped at the height that naturally made him groan.

“…When are we going to climb this.”

“We have to climb this?”

Like Lucas’s reply, climbing a rocky mountain of this height felt like an impossible task.

And the rocky mountain he was looking at now was only a part of the whole.

He would have to climb to a certain height to be able to survey the entire landscape.

Hyunwoo stopped looking at the rocky mountains and took out the map.

The first thing to do was to find a place where the High Orc tribes might be staying.

He compared the location on the map with the scene before his eyes.

‘Our current location is… around here. A place where the High Orcs might be… the harpies would have taken all the high ground.’

Hyunwoo began to mark the locations on the map where the High Orc tribes might be.

He put the marked map away and looked back at Van.

“Do you feel anything?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like your blood is calling. Something like that.”

“No. Nothing like that.”

Hyunwoo licked his lips and looked at a part of the rocky mountain that was closest to them.

Big.

Hyunwoo pointed to one of them with his finger and said to the party.

“Let's search there first.”

No matter how high and numerous the rocky mountains were, if they climbed them one by one, they would be able to find traces of the High Orc group.

‘Assuming we search one rocky mountain a day, it won't take that long.’

Hyunwoo was confident that he could find the traces of the High Orcs quickly and climbed the first rocky mountain.