Slash.
Since when had the sound I made stopped being air being swung through, and become air being cut?
Click.
Since when had the sound of sheathing my sword become so familiar to my ears?
Right now, they were meaningless questions.
In the deep sea, thoughts did not carry such clear meaning. They merely sank.
“Haa, haa….”
Where those thoughts had been, there was now only a craving for oxygen.
I needed oxygen in me before I could think, and with oxygen in short supply, I had no need for idle thoughts.
ㄴDraw-Sword Saint: As expected, you’re growing the best among all the disciples I’ve taught. Rest now.
“Uuugh….”
Once the Sword Saint gave me permission, I let out a groan and collapsed onto the sand.
The sensation of sand clinging to me with sweat as its adhesive was not particularly pleasant.
A rest where even oxygen tasted sweet.
Without a single thought, my eyes merely looked at the gallery comments.
ㄴTruth Scholar: It’s nice to see your growth with my own eyes. Haha.
ㄴHealingIsViolence: You know you have to stream every day, right?
ㄴKkukku: I’ve been too busy with work to come latelyyy…, but your body’s gotten better?
ㄴDraw-Sword Saint: Get up. Now you should go through actual combat.
I had been reading the comments with dead, fishlike eyes, but after seeing the Sword Saint’s comment, I forced myself up.
To be honest, I was so exhausted I felt like I might die.
But I wanted to properly confirm my growth.
“Ugh….”
As I rose with a groan, something approached from behind.
Whirr.
“Ah, the scanner?”
Eosollujeun came puttering over on its caterpillar treads, a scanner in its hand.
With the illusion that my body was warming up, I took hold of the scanner.
After tying it to my waist so it wouldn’t fall off,
I turned my steps toward the city where the Cyclopses would be.
Eosollujeun waved from behind as if seeing me off.
…Of course, the black egg followed me.
Step. Step.
The city that had frightened me when I first walked into it.
But now, my heart did not tremble much.
My eyes searched for where the Cyclopses might be,
and my footsteps held no hesitation.
ㄴTruth Scholar: You look like a professional.
ㄴEducation Master: Are you talented at searching too?
My steps, which had been advancing without hesitation, soon stopped in place.
Because there was no longer any reason to go farther.
Chirik. Chirik.
The gazes of two pupils.
But it still wasn’t enough.
Shing.
I drew my sword.
This was not a draw-sword technique. If I had to find the proper expression….
Yes, it was closer to an antenna.
An antenna to gather the Cyclopses.
“Phew….”
After a brief deep breath,
I poured mana into the sword.
Hiss!
Mana gathered, and the blade heated up.
At the same time,
Shashashak!!
Two—no, more than that—slashes poured toward me.
My body dodged the slashes with ease.
But.
Slash.
A slash flew toward my head.
A slash targeted my face after I ducked to avoid it.
Kwa-kwaang!
I rolled across the street to dodge, and again.
Dodge, dodge, dodge.
A baptism of slashes came from every direction.
I could not win by ordinary means.
Slashes coiled around me like a spiderweb.
It was an unpleasant feeling, as if I had become a gnat.
Ffit!
At the slash that brushed my collar, my senses flashed sharply.
Clack.
When the slashes began to fill my entire field of vision,
I sheathed my sword.
Now, it was time to cut down the spider.
Heizen Style, First Form.
Flash Bisection 閃光兩斷.
A vertical draw that split the baptism of slashes.
Beyond the divided slashes, I saw six red targets.
The Cyclopses were clearly visible, but only for a moment.
My vision was soon covered by a swarm of slashes.
But it didn’t matter.
The targets had already been decided.
I felt the weighty scabbard in my grip.
The path, the mana, the targets. With all the most basic elements fulfilled,
I advanced.
Shwaak!
Like a fired bullet, the background stretched backward.
Along the path my sword advanced, the slashes were bisected.
Thud.
Of course, so was the Cyclops.
Its upper and lower body split apart as it collapsed.
Perhaps enraged by that sight, the swarm of slashes surged in like a rough tidal wave.
If it had been before, my body would have been crushed into minced meat.
If it had been before, that is.
My strengthened body and sharply heightened senses created the illusion that the slashes had slowed.
In that slowed world, my sword moved.
Heizen Style, Second Form.
Chain Slash 連鎖斬.
Clack.
A small noise.
Kooong!
A massive storm.
At the same time I sheathed my sword, the tidal wave of slashes vanished.
By releasing mana, it defended and at the same time laid the groundwork for a follow-up….
“Hah….”
It was swordsmanship that an ordinary talent could never even dream of.
If I had possessed little mana, I wouldn’t have been able to learn it even if I died and came back to life.
But right now, none of that mattered.
If it helped me survive, I would use it.
The five Cyclopses were immobilized.
Perhaps it was the aftereffect of the mana wave; their giant pupils trembled, unable to look straight at me.
I instinctively realized it.
Now was the time to end it.
Tap.
My callused hand settled over the black hilt.
I continued the movement I had repeated hundreds of times.
Slash.
A sound that seemed too modest to be the product of countless hours of practice.
But its aftermath was not modest at all.
Five masses of flesh collapsed.
The fivefold coordination collapsed.
The floor beneath the five collapsed.
Looking at the lumps of flesh lined up near me, I realized one thing.
At last, I had become a being one step above the Cyclopses.
***
A few minutes had passed since I killed the pack of Cyclopses.
I was standing near their corpses, troubled.
Honestly, I could have just gone back to the submersible….
“This feels like a waste….”
I had hunted Cyclopses before.
But I had never hunted several at once like this.
…Back then, I had converted them into meat or water and used them.
Now, though, I could get meat from the exchange, and water could be made with the shower….
ㄴTruth Scholar: Are they difficult to dispose of?
ㄴHealingIsViolence: What would you even use them for? Just leave them behind.
Honestly, the regular was right.
They were hard to handle, and there was no immediate, proper use for them.
But why was it….
“I just get the feeling it wouldn’t be good to leave them like this.”
There was something that kept nagging at me.
It was like seeing a blue tile stuck in the middle of a swimming pool floor where all the other tiles were white.
After pondering for a long while,
I found an object.
“I had this, didn’t I?”
The scanner Eosollujeun had given me and told me to take.
Now that I thought about it, the scanner also contained information on the fabrication machine.
I took out the scanner and tapped the screen a few times.
The fabrication machine’s catalog appeared.
Of course, the items I could view were limited.
Since the crafting catalog opened together when I opened the biological catalog,
right now, at best, it only showed things I could make with Cyclopses.
Scrolling down a few times, I searched for something that looked useful.
And then.
[Mana Emission Rifle]
My intuition had been right.
There was a tool that looked useful no matter how you looked at it.
A rifle.
It might not be a tool used in a fantasy world, but in the modern world, as long as you had one, it was an all-purpose tool capable of killing almost any living creature.
“I found a use for them!”
ㄴTruth Scholar: Oh! What is it?
“A rifle!”
ㄴTruth Scholar: …A rifle?
Truth Scholar sounded somewhat uneasy.
I wondered why, and then—
ㄴHealingIsViolence: Aren’t rifles made to show off engineering technology?
Listening to the explanation that followed,
rifles did not hold the same status as they did on Earth.
Since this was a fantasy world, that was only natural.
Apparently, rifles were made by engineering companies as a way to show off their technological prowess, like mechanical watches.
But that did not really matter to me.
This place was the deep sea to begin with, a place where the technology was probably higher than on the surface.
So… the rifle should be similar to those on Earth.
With that expectation, I immediately set out to search for materials.
Materials such as titanium, mana-gathering stones, mana stones, and the like.
Well, I did not actually wander around for very long.
At most, it was only a few minutes.
And so, with both hands full of materials, I headed for the submersible.
“Uuugh….”
…Of course, that included one of the materials, a Cyclops cornea.
That squishy texture was… ugh. Horrifying.
In any case, the materials I had brought back.
I shoved all of them into the fabrication machine.
Whirrr.
With the sound of an engine, the rifle’s fabrication began.
A few minutes passed like that.
Thunk.
The wall opened, and the “Mana Emission Rifle” popped out.
True to the word rifle, it had about the size and weight of a K2.
For some reason, I felt a strange sense of familiarity from the white-painted fantasy object.
Now it was time to check the tool’s performance.
Holding the rifle in a familiar stance, I walked out through the hatch.
Perhaps because I had the tool, I did not feel nervous.
After walking toward the city for a short while, a test subject appeared at once.
Chirik.
The Cyclops’s huge single eye stared straight at me.
But far from tension, anticipation instead hung in the air.
Clack.
The white front sight rose over the Cyclops’s single eye.
Sharp claws and the rifle began preparing to kill each other.
In that fleeting instant,
the Cyclops’s hand and my hand moved at the same time.
Kwa-kwaang!!
The Cyclops had been the one in the position of strength.
But its attack never reached me.
ㄴTruth Scholar: …This can be realized with simple engineering?
ㄴDraw-Sword Saint: This… seems comparable to the combat power of a full-fledged knight.
ㄴHealingIsTruth: There isn’t even a shape left.
Ttik.
Sparks leapt from the place where the Cyclops had been.
The mass of mana that shot out from the rifle had swept across the area like a calamity.
“Wow….”
Only an exclamation escaped my mouth.
It had pierced through the Cyclops and still melted part of a building.
Since even a lump-of-flesh-like Cyclops actually had a density like bone, one could imagine its power.
The regulars watching my stream seemed to think the same, as they left comments.
ㄴTruth Scholar: Its performance is truly excellent…, but it doesn’t look to be in good condition?
What was he talking about? The rifle’s condition was perfectly—
“Huh? Huhh?”
When I turned my gaze to the rifle, I saw the barrel heating up and going limp.
Honestly, I was dumbfounded.
It wasn’t as if I had fired in bursts, so why was the muzzle melting?
As if he had expected my reaction, Truth Scholar continued his explanation.
ㄴTruth Scholar: It’s only natural, if you think about it. It compressed Aurora’s mana and fired it, so….
ㄴDraw-Sword Saint: Mana overheating, is it? I’ve experienced it a few times myself, so I know.
Looking at the comments, it seemed my mana was the problem again.
Because an excessive amount of mana was being contained, it exceeded the limit of how much mana the rifle could hold, and its form turned into heat….
ㄴDraw-Sword Saint: Don’t be too disappointed. That phenomenon can also be controlled.
“Oh, really?”
ㄴDraw-Sword Saint: You just need to artificially manipulate the flow of mana.
ㄴHealingIsViolence: That’s not something a guy who can’t even pare down his mana should try, is it?
HealingIsViolence snapped at the Sword Saint, saying that made no sense.
…Though there was a slight insult toward me mixed in.
To be honest, I wanted to refute his comment, but I couldn’t.
I still couldn’t pare down my mana.
Feeling pointlessly deflated, I turned my steps.
Partly to check the rifle’s durability, and partly to vent my anger.
I was absolutely not going to kill Cyclopses because I was angry.
After a few steps like that,
a Cyclops popped out like a battle event.
Chirik.
The moment I saw that huge pupil, I immediately aimed the rifle.
There was no hesitation, no doubt.
Whirrrrr!
I heard the rifle’s motor sound as it drew in my mana.
The instant the absorption of mana cut off,
Kwa-kwaang!!
Overwhelming destruction overturned the deep-sea city.
The Cyclops should have vanished without leaving even a trace….
ㄴTruth Scholar: That’s….
Or so I thought.
In my sight, I could see it atop the crushed flesh of the Cyclops.
A pitch-black egg like the abyss of the deep sea.
But right now, it was a little different.
The part where the rifle had struck the egg.
From that spot, yellow cracks spread.
Crack.
One tremor.
One split.
Crack. Crack.
Trembling, splitting.
The egg was beginning to hatch.