Chapter 42. Savagery and Savagery
“No.”
Sori spoke firmly and turned around.
It was a firmness that left even Rike, who had been watching, feeling completely awkward.
He trudged outside and disappeared among the Myo tribespeople.
Displeasure was evident in his stride.
“Silvia… are you okay?”
Rike tried to comfort her by patting Silvia’s shoulder.
She trembled.
“You think I’ll back down just like this? Not a chance…….”
Silvia was exactly the type of person with strong tenacity, someone who usually got what she wanted no matter what.
Rike had a hunch that the coming week would not pass smoothly.
Sori was a busy man.
He was among the finest of the Myo warriors.
Everyone in the Myo village relied on Sori.
If the spirit priests led by Jineulbaram were the Myo tribe’s spiritual mainstays, the warriors were fit to be called the tribe’s pillars.
And among them, Sori served as the ridge beam connecting them.
What, then, did the Myo warriors do?
The Myo tribe’s staple food was the plants scattered throughout Hohenberg.
The Myo did not prohibit meat-eating, but their staple diet was vegetarian.
While the people gathered the vegetables they grew and the wild mountain herbs, protecting them was the warriors’ duty.
It was also the warriors’ duty to inspect the wooden fences erected around the village and to patrol.
Butchering and preparing the meat of animals they occasionally ate was also the warriors’ duty.
Training the Myo youths was also the warriors’…….
Moreover, Sori had to spend time with his son, who had returned after several months.
Very. Extremely. So much so that having his body split in two would have been welcome.
And yet…….
“Stop following me, human.”
“Then will you teach me? The Myo tribe’s fighting style.”
Even then, Sori had been asked to repair a village building and was in the middle of working.
The moment she finished unpacking at her lodgings, Silvia began trailing after Sori.
She paid no heed to the piercing gazes of the other Myo tribespeople directed at her.
“Are all humans this shameless by nature?”
“I’m just that kind of person.”
She was brazen enough to make anyone click their tongue.
“Get lost. I have no intention of teaching you anything.”
Sori spat out coldly and returned to his work.
Despite the repeated rejections, Silvia didn’t bat an eye.
“I need to carry this, right? Hand it over.”
She helped another who was grunting under the weight of the materials.
All she could rely on was her sturdy body.
Winning Sori’s favor was important to her.
What Binaeril understood from Jineulbaram’s teachings was this:
Magic is a force that imposes and enforces the user’s will.
A magician realizes what they imagine and conceive through their own mana and willpower.
But to borrow Jineulbaram’s expression, ‘the way of serving spirits’ was the exact opposite method.
Spirit magic was a power of acceptance and receptivity.
Binaeril was not yet accustomed to handling these two conflicting powers.
“Child, if you close your ears, how can the spirit speak to you?”
What Jineulbaram had ordered Binaeril to do was ‘stay still.’
It was partly because the injured Binaeril couldn’t handle intense training, but she also said that emptying one’s mind calmly was important in order to converse with spirits.
To empty his mind, she carefully taught Binaeril how to breathe, starting from the very basics.
It was the Myo tribe’s breathing method, where one slowly felt each inhale and exhale, gradually expanding one’s senses.
Binaeril followed her words.
He lay still.
Lying down… staying still…….
“Ah! Why are you hitting me!”
“Who told you to sleep, brat!”
Every time Binaeril slipped into sleep, Jineulbaram caught him with uncanny timing and struck his head.
“But if I stay still, I get sleepy. What am I supposed to do?”
“Endure it. Emptying your mind and letting your mind wander are two different things.”
Binaeril recalled the special lessons he had received from Director Yulio at Elfenbein.
Moving his body until his breath hitched and his muscles screamed had been difficult, but
emptying his mind without moving a single finger was an equally arduous ordeal.
Random thoughts would surface at the slightest opportunity, and if he let his guard down, sleep would come.
‘What the hell does emptying your mind even mean?’
“Child, empty your mind and breathe. Everything in the world has its own voice. Speech, writing, and thoughts only hinder you from hearing their language.”
Binaeril moved his lips slightly.
“Shh. Do not speak.”
Eden approached and rubbed her face against his hand.
As Binaeril’s mind sank into silence, only Jineulbaram’s voice echoed within the house.
“Listen to the words the world speaks to you. Feel the warmth-laden snowflakes sent to you. Accept the touch that caresses you.”
And so Binaeril fell asleep again.
Jineulbaram’s voice sounded like a distant lullaby.
“Sigh, tsk. Why is this child so sleepy?”
“Aren’t you tired?”
“Huh?”
Today marked the third day.
Since Silvia had started chasing after Sori.
No matter where Sori was or what he was doing, except when he slept, Silvia was always in one corner of his vision.
“What?”
“I asked if you aren’t tired.”
“I slept well and woke up. Hurry up, mister. They’re waiting behind us.”
They were currently on their way out to patrol around the village.
The other Myo warriors, who had watched Silvia with wary eyes for the first day or two, had now grown close enough to exchange a word or two with her.
Sori deliberately ignored Silvia.
As a result, it now looked as though Sori was the one being shunned.
The Myo young men conversed with Silvia with curiosity and took a liking to her cheerful personality.
Silvia wasn’t simply following Sori around.
She tried her best to imitate Sori’s movements through the forest, and she asked other Myo tribespeople about what she found difficult.
Not all the other Myo warriors treated her coldly.
Some kindly demonstrated for Silvia.
“We split up here. Heobi, search the left path. Sanha, Neoul, Dolmok, take the center path. And…….”
Sori looked down at Silvia. She wasn’t even a member of the Myo tribe, and she would follow him anyway, so there was no point in including her.
“I’ll take the right path. I seem to have a tagalong attached anyway.”
Silvia waved her arms and bid farewell to the other Myo tribespeople.
The right patrol route had rough terrain and relatively frequent monster appearances, making it the most dangerous direction.
‘Wait, did he say rough terrain?’
Sori suddenly stopped.
“Ow! If you’re going to stop, say something first, mister!”
Silvia, who had treated Sori respectfully on the first day, now called him whatever she pleased since he maintained silence like a wooden post.
‘She wants me to teach her the Myo fighting style?’
Sori suddenly thought of a method.
‘If she wants to learn, let her try.’
He sprinted at full speed down the pathless patrol route.
Silvia’s scream burst out, then faded to a dot.
A feeling of exhilaration welled up in Sori’s chest for the first time in a very long while.
Without looking back at the distant Silvia, he muttered like a petty man.
“Follow me if you can.”
Three days had passed since Binaeril started Jineulbaram’s special lectures.
During that time, Binaeril had shown a surprising lack of progress.
-Hmph. Your sluggish talent that took three years to cast a single spell isn’t going anywhere.
He lightly ignored Veritas’s blunt sarcasm.
Strangely, Veritas seemed less than pleased that Binaeril was learning spirit magic.
“Still can’t get the hang of it?”
Unable to do as he wished, Binaeril grew a bit impatient.
Binaeril had felt a wall when facing Zilf.
It was the first time he had felt powerless since learning magic.
The sight of Zilf unscathed despite drawing so heavily on Veritas’s mana.
It remained etched in Binaeril’s mind like a brand.
‘If I could draw out Eden’s power to that degree…….’
He had no interest in other spirits.
Because he already had one loyal spirit.
“At the very least, I wanted to hear Eden’s voice.”
Jineulbaram’s lessons weren’t tutoring he could take anytime, like with Director Yulio.
It was a special class with a fixed deadline of exactly one week.
“Come to think of it…….”
Binaeril recalled a certain fact.
“I could hear Zilf’s voice, though?”
Jineulbaram slightly furrowed her brows.
“I could hear Lord Zilf’s voice, though?”
Only then did her furrowed brows smooth out.
“Do not speak the spirit’s name carelessly. That is because the valley’s spirit is no ordinary spirit. You can tell just by the fact that he possesses a name.”
“Does a name hold special meaning for spirits?”
“Of course. Just as not every blowing wind has a name, only special, high-ranking spirits possess unique names.”
‘But Eden has a name?’
But thinking it over again carefully, that wasn’t the case either.
The name Eden was merely a designation arbitrarily given by the people of Elfenbein, for he had never heard Eden’s voice.
Not once had she approached Binaeril’s ear and introduced herself by saying, ‘My name is Eden.’
“Originally, it takes years of devoted practice to hear a spirit’s voice. Child, do not be so impatient.”
Binaeril answered with an awkward smile that he understood.
He thought he needed to set a different goal.
Jineulbaram’s words telling him to feel the spiritual energy dwelling in all things felt far too vague.
But Eden rubbing her face against his fingertips was a real existence.
Binaeril had always been someone who couldn’t easily believe in vague things.
He decided to make hearing Eden’s voice his goal.
On a forest path where there was no one to hear, Silvia spewed out a torrent of heavy curses.
“This isn’t the way to mess with someone.”
She ran until her feet were sweating, but she couldn’t even see Sori’s shadow.
The Myo moved through the forest leaving almost no trace, making him nearly impossible to find.
All she could do was run endlessly in the direction Sori had disappeared.
After running for a few minutes, a strange sound reached Silvia’s ears.
A sound like something hard clashing with iron.
A low growl and a faint, bloody stench.
“A monster?”
Sori was the only one who had gone this way.
Silvia pushed herself to run faster.
It was a terrible predicament.
Sori, who had been running hard in petty revenge, had run into a pack of Nols.
Sori, having spotted the Nols first thanks to the Myo’s wide field of vision, immediately hid.
“I was careless.”
Normally, the rule was to patrol in pairs.
But he had made a misjudgment due to the human woman stubbornly clinging to him.
The fact that the surroundings had become relatively safer due to the Wind Valley’s rampage in recent months had also played a part.
“It would have been better if I had at least brought that human along.”
This was within the Myo tribe’s habitation. If he fled like this, the scent-tracking Nols might charge into the village.
It was a dilemma for Sori.
Sniff, sniff.
Then, a Nol near Sori sniffed the air.
Nols, wolf-like monsters, possessed an excellent sense of smell.
The Nols that caught Sori’s scent snarled and charged at him.
“It can’t be helped!”
Sori’s main weapon was a short spear.
Tensing his muscles taut, Sori drove his short spear deep into the charging Nol’s lower jaw.
“Go to hell, monsters!”
The Nols didn’t cower in the slightest and thrust their fangs at Sori.
It was truly a battle of savagery against savagery.