The collapse of the enormous canyon was a magnificent sight.
The cliff crumbled, and the ruins sank into the ground right behind me.
Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwang.
With a deafening roar, dust blotted out the sky.
I had no idea what had happened to the ant monsters that had escaped with me.
Relying on my senses alone, I ran forward.
How long had I run like that?
At last, I managed to break out of the dust cloud.
Rumble, rumble.
The thunderous noise gradually died down.
I looked back.
The dust was settling.
I could see a basin where the canyon had been only moments ago.
A vast, sunken clearing of mixed boulders, stones, and dirt.
There was no trace of the ruins anywhere.
“Am I alive...?”
When I let out a sigh, dust puffed out.
It wasn’t just my mouth that was full of dust.
My whole body was caked in it.
And I wasn’t the only one covered.
A little way off, a group of ants that had turned white were gathered together.
They were the ant monsters that had escaped the ruins with me.
The ant monsters showed no interest in me.
They looked at the collapsed canyon, then turned and left for somewhere else.
“What will happen to those ants?”
[One of the worker ants will become queen, I suppose. Why? Is it a waste to just let them go?]
“I have nothing better to do? If I fight them, I’ll only end up dead.”
There were dozens of surviving ant monsters.
I was just grateful they were leaving on their own.
After the ant monsters departed, I turned around as well.
It was time to return to the base.
The terrain had changed, but thanks to my senses, I didn’t have to worry about losing my direction.
Just as I began walking across the wasteland, Soph’s voice reached me.
[So this is what the outside has become. As expected, a great deal of time has passed.]
His voice was different from usual, heavy with the weight of years.
I asked him,
“What was it like when you were alive?”
[I have lost many of my memories, but... it was green. The land and the mountains alike.]
Listening to the regret in his voice, I moved my feet.
Soph, lost in thought, and me, exhausted.
It seemed as if a long stretch of silence would follow.
But once again, things did not go as expected.
Seeing me walk, Soph clicked his tongue.
[No, why on earth are you simply walking? You said you were tired. Do you have some hobby of traveling even slower when you’re tired?]
The respect that had been welling up inside me shattered with a single sentence.
I was too tired to run, but thanks to my strengthened body, I was walking at a speed similar to jogging.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
At my sullen reply, Soph let out a sigh.
[Even if you don’t know magic, you do know how to use energy, don’t you?
You strengthen your body with energy, and you shove it into your spear just fine. Then why not use that energy to increase your running speed?]
He said it as if it were the easiest thing in the world, but as the one listening, I had no idea what he wanted me to do.
[This is hardly even worth calling magic. It’s closer to a simple trick.]
Soph taught me how to move energy to accelerate my movements.
It certainly wasn’t magic.
All he did was teach me a way to use energy to move my legs faster.
[Just like when you push energy into your spear, when the energy circulates, you push a little more of it toward your legs.]
I tried moving the energy according to his words.
Too much force went into my legs.
I nearly fell flat on my face.
[You can’t just shove it in blindly. If you do that, you’ll only become better at kicking.]
Seeing me flounder, he explained again.
He described in detail how much energy to move and how to move it.
This time, I was able to follow along right away.
Tap!
My body shot forward.
I moved my legs with the same amount of strength, yet my body flew more than twice as far.
It was an absurd speed that made no scientific sense.
A speed that would have long since surpassed the world record for the hundred-meter dash.
And I hadn’t even run with all my might, but my body sped down the path.
“Wow...”
The exclamation slipped out on its own.
My respect for magicians surged up once more.
Unlike me, the magician sounded annoyed.
[You’re good at this. You use your body and move energy so well, so why is it like that when you try to use magic...]
I had nothing to say.
I quickly changed the subject.
“Can I move even faster? Not running long distances like this, but covering short distances quickly.”
[You could use acceleration magic, but I doubt that is what you’re asking. Surely there are no people who use energy that way?]
There was. I told him about the Latin man who moved quickly.
After hearing me out, Soph was dumbfounded.
[He poured energy into it and used a pseudo-magic, then. Don’t tell me the others are like that as well?]
I told him about the others’ superpowers too.
The ability to hide objects, the ability to move ropes, even strengthening a shield.
After hearing me, the magician let out a sigh.
[I have no words. From things that can’t even be called pseudo-magic to things somewhat resembling magic, they’ve truly been using it in all sorts of ways.]
Soph’s words jolted me awake.
Those weren’t unique traits, but all things like magic?
“Don’t tell me you can do all of them with magic?”
Soph answered my question as if I were pathetic.
[If I could do every kind of magic, I would not be an archmage, but a god of magic. Besides, I have lost my memories, so there are only a few spells I can use.]
I knew it.
I should know better than to expect too much from a senile old man.
I should have given up on my expectations immediately, but this time, a little respect for him remained.
Even just this running technique was enough for him to deserve respect.
With that respect in my heart, I asked for more advice.
“But it feels like my energy is gradually decreasing as time passes.”
He answered as if it were obvious.
[Of course it is. Right now, you haven’t properly adjusted the optimal amount.]
Now that I thought about it, that was only natural.
I was using a new ability right away without testing anything.
There were bound to be problems.
“Then what should I do?”
The person who had taught me this ability was right beside me.
I just had to ask him.
[What do you mean, what should you do? The amount each person can use is different, so you have to run and find the proper amount yourself.]
What?
I took a deep breath and asked again.
“Then I should stop right now and...”
Before I could even finish the question, the answer came.
[It would be better not to stop. You are forcibly moving an exhausted body with energy right now. If you stop, it will be hard to move again.]
‘This old coot!’
[It will be good training. Continuously consuming energy is very helpful for building the foundations of magic.]
Respect for people was nothing but a mirage.
A paltry illusion that vanished with a single sentence.
As I ran across the wasteland, I gained a new insight into humanity.
It was an hour later when I arrived at the base.
“...I’m here. I made it. I made it alive.”
The road that had taken half a day on the way there had taken me only an hour on the way back.
I had succeeded in finding the proper way to operate my energy.
More than once, my energy had dropped to rock bottom, nearly making me collapse.
But in the end, I succeeded.
If I had not, I would have fallen somewhere along the road.
Just like I did now.
“Intruder!”
A man covered in dust and dirt had collapsed in front of the base, so it was only natural that an alarm went up.
People carrying spears rushed out.
“Who are you!”
“Hands up!”
“Don’t move!”
They thrust their spears forward and each shouted their own command.
Even if my body hadn’t been unable to move, those instructions would have been hard to obey.
I gritted my teeth and lifted my head.
“Hyeon... Hyeon Myeonghan.”
“Who?”
They were people I knew, but they did not recognize me.
“Hyeon Myeonghan? Isn’t that the guy they said died yesterday?”
Still, one of them understood what I said.
At those words, someone came running from the back.
“Sergeant Hyeon’s back?”
From the voice, I could tell who it was.
“You were alive. I knew you’d be alive!”
A middle-aged man shook me wildly. It was Master Sergeant An.
The world shook violently.
Part of it was because he was shaking me, but even more than that, it was because I was exhausted.
I barely managed to get out my last words.
“I’m too... tired... I’ll report later. First, I’m going to sleep a bit.”
With those words, I blacked out.
**
The next day.
I opened my eyes to the voice of a girl waking me up.
“Wake up. It’s morning.”
When I opened my eyes, Hanna was sitting right beside me.
I was lying inside the cave being used as my quarters.
It seemed the others had carried me here after I fainted.
“Is your body all right?”
Hanna was sitting neatly, looking over my body.
I sat up and checked my condition.
Nothing hurt, and my muscles were fine.
My dark energy was also perfectly fine. In fact, it wasn’t just fine—it had increased by a lot.
It made me want to curse, but the magician had been right.
All that suffering yesterday had not been bad training.
‘Not that I have any intention of doing it again.’
After confirming that my body was fine, I asked Hanna,
“Did you come to wake me?”
“Yes. I said I would wake you.”
It was somehow hard to respond to that.
As I scratched my head at the awkward situation, Soph’s voice came.
[So that was your preference. I do not know what the culture of your world is like, but isn’t she still rather young?]
Damn senile old man.
He was spouting nonsense as soon as I woke up.
His staff—no, spear—was lying beside me.
My backpack was also at my bedside.
It seemed the advance party had not taken the chest.
Ignoring the old man’s nonsense, I got to my feet.
Dust poured from my clothes.
I checked my clothes and let out a sigh.
They were no different from rags.
Seeing me sigh, Hanna said,
“I wiped your face, hands, and feet with a wet towel, but there was nothing I could do about your clothes.”
I wanted to ask if she had wiped me herself, but I had no idea what answer I would hear, so I couldn’t ask.
[I prefer someone a bit older myself. Wouldn’t it be better to protect young women a little more, then meet them after they become fine women?]
The magician’s nonsense only got worse.
I couldn’t endure it any longer.
“Was someone looking for me?”
Someone must have been looking for me if she had come to wake me.
“The leader of the advance party has been looking for you since morning.”
I thought it was morning, but it seemed more time had passed than I realized.
“Thanks for waking me.”
After thanking Hanna, I picked up my spear and backpack and went outside the cave.
The sun was high in the sky.
There weren’t many people outside the cave.
It seemed everyone had gone out to their duties.
The people who remained looked at me curiously and whispered among themselves.
“Is that him?”
“How did he survive?”
“He’s lucky. Some people die, and some people come back alive.”
They were whispering quietly, but I could hear it all.
Pretending I hadn’t heard, I went straight into the advance party’s cave.
Inside the cave, all the exploration members were gathered.
Except for the one who had died.
Not everyone was uninjured.
The young black man had thin leather wrapped around his leg instead of bandages, and the Latin man had something resembling medicinal herbs smeared all over his head.
Still, they were all alive.
“You really came back safely.”
“See! I told you he’d come back alive!”
As soon as I entered the cave, I was greeted by Huiwon and Magreta’s cheers.
[Yes! This is what I was talking about. There are such fine women here. I did not misjudge you after all.]
Ridiculously enough, the magician was pleased as if the cheers were for him.
“It’s a relief you weren’t late. We were scheduled to depart for Earth today. If you had been any later, you might have had to go alone.”
At Magreta’s delighted words, I looked down at the spear.
[I told you, didn’t I? There is a way for me to go with you.]