Is it because I fought too hard right after awakening my Aura?
I eventually lost consciousness and collapsed.
How much time had passed?
When I barely managed to open my eyes, the sun had already set, and it was a dark night.
- Crackle. Crackle.
A campfire was burning.
The regular sound of wood burning away.
The warmth radiating from it seemed to ease the tension that had built up.
I’d mentioned it once when I went on vacation, but I’d never once rested until now.
I felt like I’d always been doing something my whole life.
After finishing a request, the mercenary group gave me time to rest, but I always used that time to train with my sword or to help the village residents.
It’s not that I want to call myself a saint or a workaholic.
It’s just… to some extent it was rewarding, and it’s true that I did it because it was something I liked.
But how should I put it…
‘It just felt like something I had to do.’
Anyway, because I’d lived such a life, this moment of lying still beside a campfire was completely foreign to me.
"You’re awake."
As I lay on the ground blankly staring at the campfire, a familiar voice came from behind me.
"!!!!"
My dazed mind snapped awake in an instant.
"Ugh."
I tried to turn my waist slightly to look toward the old man, but the aftereffects of fighting those monkeys seemed to hinder my movement.
I felt sparks flying throughout my body, as if I’d gotten terrible cramps everywhere.
It was still bearable.
But if left like this, I couldn’t guarantee when my body would recover.
Then,
- Thud!
The old man jabbed various spots on my back with his fingertips.
"Argh!!!!!!!!"
Unable to endure the suddenly inflicted pain, I eventually let out a scream.
But this bastard old man simply kept poking my back with his fingers, regardless.
‘Crazy old man! Crazy old man!!!!!! Fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!’
I-I’m gonna… die!?!?!???
Fuck, I’m really gonna die!!!!!!!!!!!
"Huff. Huff…"
It wasn’t the old man’s incredible technique…
‘Huh? My body feels kind of lighter?’
The old man paid no attention to my amazed reaction whatsoever and went to the other side, sitting on a fallen tree trunk as if it were a chair.
"If you push your body to the limit immediately after awakening your Aura, the circuits within your body react extremely sensitively to the Aura. If you train your Aura or have a cultivation method infused into you at that time, you can enjoy explosive growth in every aspect—the quality of your Aura, the speed at which you draw it out, and so on."
After hearing the old man’s words, I could understand why my body felt lighter.
When I clenched and unclenched my fist, I could definitely feel the Aura racing rapidly through my body.
"The golden time is six hours after awakening your Aura. Doing it immediately right after awakening yields the best results."
Hmm?
Listening to the old man’s explanation, another question came to mind.
"Didn’t quite a bit of time pass after I fought earlier? It feels like it’s been more than six hours??"
When I collapsed fighting the monkeys, it was daytime.
Now it was night.
Based on the sun’s position I’d checked before entering the forest, calculating the current time, it had definitely been over six hours.
"I did it the moment you collapsed, so there’s nothing to worry about. I was waiting for you to awaken your Aura from the very beginning."
"Huh? Then you deliberately didn’t save me when I was being beaten by those guys?"
"......"
The old man fell silent at my question.
What kind of absurd talk is it to deliberately leave someone on the brink of death?
Until now, I’d been calling him a bastard half-jokingly… but this time, he really is a bastard, isn’t he?
Of course, thanks to that judgment, I did awaken my Aura, but that’s far too results-oriented.
What if I had died without realizing my Aura?
There were plenty of ways to teach me Aura without resorting to such methods.
Perhaps reading the resentment and revulsion in my eyes, the old man explained his actions after a brief moment of thought.
"Can a bird trapped in a cage truly fly?"
"??"
Starting to speak in cryptic nonsense again was extremely annoying, but I decided to listen to the old man until the very end.
"Most birds will be unable to fly until they die. They have no space to practice flying, no teacher to instruct them. They lack talent, and they have no desperation."
The more I listened to the old man, the more I started to get the gist.
The bird was probably someone aspiring to become a martial artist, and the cage was probably something like Caliseo that I’d passed through.
If there was someone who had never stepped outside their home in their life, their cage would be inside that house.
If someone had experience catching monsters in the nearby forest, their cage would be that nearby forest.
The act of flying probably meant growth.
Or perhaps reaching a certain realm.
"Of course, some birds are different. They might have a good teacher by their side to pass down experience and knowledge, or even without desperation, some may be able to fly to some degree with innate talent alone."
It was something I’d encountered more often than I’d expected during my mercenary life.
Once, a young nobleman had come asking to join a mercenary job.
Our captain had strongly dissuaded him and done his best to talk him out of it, but eventually reluctantly permitted him to accompany us in the face of noble authority.
On the day of the request.
That noble kid came with a large middle-aged man who looked cheerful at a glance.
Reading the spirit he gave off, the middle-aged man was slightly stronger than me.
Every time the noble kid—armed with all sorts of high-grade armor and weapons—swung his weapon, the middle-aged man gave an incredible amount of advice, saying do this and do that.
I wondered what good all that was, but his skills did improve nonetheless.
Lastly,
someone with talent.
That was me.
It was embarrassing to say with my own mouth, but there weren’t many people stronger than me around Rotten.
Especially among those my age.
"But if you ask whether that is truly flying, it is not. To fly, one needs desperation and effort that draws blood. Humans survive in life-or-death struggles, and that is how they grow."
- Crackle.
The wood was burning.
Slowly charring black and crumbling.
And so, the campfire burned even brighter and hotter.
"You needed a catalyst. A catalyst to come out of the cage and grow. The monkeys you met today were the first wall to come before you, who had been complacent in comfort until now. Because you met a wall, you gained the strong will to overcome it, and the result of your potential resonating with that will is precisely Aura."
The old man finished his explanation and fell silent again.
The campfire’s flames flickered.
If you aren’t prepared to lose something, you cannot gain something.
Humans are greedy; they always want to have everything.
This is good, and that is good.
They whine and throw tantrums, asking why they must suffer losses.
But the more you become an adult, and the more you live in this world, you eventually realize you can’t live like that forever.
Today, I had surely become a bit more of an adult.
Because I had lost the ability to be complacent in a comfortable place.
Spending the rest of my days making my home my cage was certainly one way to live.
But I realized that doing so would mean quietly drowning without even knowing it.
This knowledge had become something of a curse to me.
How could I choose the option of quietly drowning?
I’d rather burn brilliantly and disappear in pain.
And I hoped that the flame blazing so brightly would become a comfort and warmth to someone.
Just like the comfort I had received from this campfire.
***
Morning broke.
The old man and I set out again.
Things similar to yesterday kept happening.
When we encountered a new monster, the old man briefly explained about it.
That one’s a Stone Golem, so its core is whatever.
That one’s a giant bird monster called a Sturaco, and their ecology is whatever.
The moment the explanation ended, the monsters rushed in as if they’d been waiting.
Only at me.
‘How the hell am I supposed to live like this, it’s so unfair!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’
I cursed up a storm but still moved my sword.
I’d never heard of anyone educating their student like this in my life.
Usually they make you do physical training, then build up your fundamentals.
I’d often heard stories of learning various forms and tricks the teacher showed you and repeating them until mastered.
Pushing your student into life-or-death situations.
Setting them up for a mid-air date with a bird monster and not even saving them when they fall.
It was just… comprehensively fucked.
But the funny thing is,
‘My skills really are improving, damn it.’
My life flashed before my eyes several times in dire situations,
finding ways to survive in the process.
Desperately swinging my sword to deal with various situations and not die, my stamina increased and my swordsmanship grew more refined, but if there was one thing that improved the most—
- Rustle.
There it is.
"Kuaaek!"
It was my senses.
Before, I relied on my five senses to track the enemy.
The ghost monkey was a prime example.
I struggled quite a bit trying to chase shadows with my eyes.
But now it’s different.
It felt like I’d gained another sense.
"Monsters are cunning. Do not bind monsters within the confines of human common sense. Always think of and assume the worst-case scenario. Even if there’s only a 1% possibility, never take it lightly."
The old man’s words were always right.
Unlike the ghost monkeys, there was a monster whose form was visible but that form was a lie.
Its real body was hidden somewhere in a state of invisibility.
Its name was Illusion, and I really wondered what kind of bastard like that even existed.
There was also the opposite case.
Once when facing a monster I’d never seen before, I stopped and waited still.
Thinking, what kind of crazy pattern is this now?
Isn’t that guy bluffing with a visible form like that Illusion whatever earlier?
While thinking this, in the end.
"Sh…it."
I allowed the monster’s attack to hit me.
Turns out that monster’s strength was its speed, and if the opponent stayed still for a certain amount of time, it would come to attack.
If the opponent moved even slightly, it would unconditionally flee.
It was just pure bullshit, total bullshit.
Still, the fortunate thing was that if I somehow survived, when I woke up the next day, my wounds were cleanly healed.
The old man probably did it.
He really is an amazing old man, no matter how I look at it.
‘But that’s that…’
How long do I have to keep doing this?
Didn’t that old man definitely say he’d teach me his sword?
Why am I the only one getting run ragged??