CHAPTER 35: The Training Begins

Suyeon quickly wore the gauntlets and boots I gave her as she thanked me non-stop before leading the way around the forest.

“Thank me once we figure out how to level you up. For now, let’s try killing a boar to see if you gain experience like the rest of those fuckers in the Gold.” I tell her as we walk around the forest looking for animals.

“The Gold?” She asked me as she followed my instruction on where to go.

“I'll explain next time. Let's go kill something. Go left.” I say as I crouch around looking for a boar.

“Oh okay.” She says as she turns left towards a shrub.

"The fuck, now that we need a boar, there isn't one in sight," I whisper as I see no enemies at all. I look up the sky and I see it's becoming orange as the sun sets on the horizon. “Tsk, it’s getting dark. Let’s go back to camp and resume in the morning. It’s going to be harder to do all these in the dark.”

I stood up and told her to lead the way. She nods happily as she kept on glancing at her gauntlets while walking through the forest.

As far as I remember, those aren’t armor but weapons. That’s why I can use them. But then again, I don’t have the skill to use gauntlets or boots. Tsk, this is getting confusing. I say in my mind as I walk back to camp.

I took out two more fish in my item bag and cooked it onto the campfire. It took a lot longer to light the fire since the sticks were wet. I had to use my skill to help dry the wood. After the fish cooked, I gave her one and I took one for myself. I see her take out the plate I gave her in the beginning when I cooked the ogre queen and washed it in the lake. She used her clothes to dry it and placed the fish on top.

"Wait," I tell her before she ripped it apart with her bare hands. I called out my dimensional bag and took out a spoon and a fork and hand it to her. "Here, keep these. Later, I'm going to divide the items in my bag. You're going to need a couple of things so you don't have to keep relying on me."

She happily took the utensils and started eating with it. But I saw her have a hard time and regressed back using her hands. After dinner, I sat around the fire as she slept in the shelter. I notice her hugging herself as the cold wind probably making her shiver. I took out the blanket I lent her before and placed it over her slowly preventing her from waking up.

"She's like a fucking kid," I whisper as I study her. "She's definitely around my age. But she acts like a kid. But in the beginning, when I found her she was about to rip me to shreds.”

I walked back towards the campfire and fed the fire every now and then with the wet sticks Suyeon have piled up earlier.

“Damn. How the fuck am I going to find Daikichi and Kana?” I whisper to myself. So far she told me what she knows. After they disappeared in the portal, they could have popped up anywhere around this world.

Fucking shit.I curse in my mind. I wish I had more controls in this world like adding friends and being able to communicate through telepathy. I said a couple of commands but nothing. So far, I can only use what I have been using and what Suyeon told me.

Yaaawn~

"Ugh, I'm getting sleepy," I whisper as I remember I have been awake for a while now. The only time I almost got a proper rest is when I almost doze off in my room at the inn. But besides that, I haven't slept at all. I decided to back to the shelter and rest my eyes closing them briefly. But that brief moment turned into a deep slumber in an instant. I felt something shake me and when I briefly open my eyes, it's morning already. I look to my left and I see Suyeon sitting up looking at me.

“What?” I asked her as I see her face with a worried look.

“T-there’s people.” She tells me. As I got a better look, I see a thick fog surrounding us. Then I heard a voice screaming from a distance but I’m not quite sure where.

“Hey! Where are you! Shout if you hear us!” A male voice shouted and I feel like it’s getting closer and closer.

“Yeah! Where are you!” A female voice echoed around us.

“Fuck, they caught up to us already?” I whisper as I crouch down looking around to see where they coming from. Suyeon crouch behind me and she also look around. I notice a shadow figure forming from a distance near the lake and gestured to Suyeon to be quiet. We started hearing splashing around as they probably ran into the water.

"Ah, shit! There's water here watch out! Dammit, I just got these boots.” I can hear one of them curse as they splashed around the water.

Who are these people?I say in my mind as I study the figure. But then I thought about it if I can see their figure, they probably can see ours if we stood up.

“Suyeon, don't make a sound and don't move," I whisper to her and I feel her nod beside me.

“Hello?” The female voice ringed out again.

“They’re probably not here.” The male voice replied.

“They have to be, the guards from the town said they most likely followed a stream since that’s what the girl told them before.” She says.

Fuck. Are they tracking us already? I say in my mind.

“Yeah but that was like two days ago. They probably quite a distance by now.” The male voice replied.

"Would you stop being so damn negative? We're given a task to find them. And I don't think they'll welcome us back if we came empty-handed." The female voice replied.

Did they hire goons now to look for us? Haha, dumbasses. I say in my mind.

“Suyeon, slowly back up. But watch where you’re stepping.” I tell her and she nods. As usual, everything goes wrong with her. The minute she took the first step, she stepped on a twig snapping it in half. I glare at Suyeon who’s now on the verge of tears due to her mistake.

Sigh*

“Fucking stupid," I whisper as I turn back around to watch the figure within the thick fog.

“Hey, I heard a noise over here.” The female voice says and I hear her walk towards me as her steps splash on the water.

"Ack! Shit!" She trips on the fire pit I made and I see her body stumble forward landing in front of us with her chest on the ground. As she looks straight, she sees my foot and traces it up until she sees me glaring at her.

“Hey! Are you ok?!” the male voice says as I see his figure slowly comes close. The girl never left her gaze towards me. She looks like an adventurer rather than a guard. She's wearing what seems to be leather armor and I can see her chest is quite large as it hugs the ground. She's wearing headgear but it only covers her forehead and sideburns. Her hair was in a ponytail that turns purple towards the ends. Her eyes are hazel color and she looks like someone who came from the west.

A foreigner?I say in my mind.

"H-hey there~," She says giving me a smile.

Shit. I can take on these two easily but…

“Suyeon run!” I shouted and we both bolt away from her with Suyeon leading the way. I can probably take care of these two easily but I rather not have them send me more people my and making it an endless massacre on my end. If only these two chase me, it's a lot more tolerable than having a whole army after us.

“H-hey! W-Wait! Don’t run Shit! Chase them! They ran that way!” I hear the voice shouted as it slowly fades while we gain a distance. As I look back, I see a figure coming towards us and it’s getting closer and closer as the figure gets bigger and bigger within the fog.

“Tsk. Seismic step!” I shouted my skill and with a quick motion, I picked up Suyeon like a shoulder bag and sprinted as fast as I can until the figure disappeared within the fog. But I didn’t stop. I kept running and even when my skill disappeared, I reactivate it again and ran through the forest covered in thick fog. I suddenly stop and look behind me but nothing formed this time. I look around and the fog was so thick it made it difficult to know where I am. I let Suyeon down and called out my item bag taking out a sword.

"Stand back or else you'll be caught within the skill," I tell her and she nods. "Sky king's wind!"

With one swing, a strong gust of wind erupted where we are and it blew the fog away briefly exposing our location.

“What the fuck?” I whisper as I see a flat land without any trees. Not even the ground has grass. But I couldn’t see what’s beyond since the fog surrounded us and it quickly traveled covering us in the fog again. I swung my sword one more time and again; we are in the middle of the dried up land. Looks like the soil hit a drought.

“Are we safe?” Suyeon asks me as she looks around.

“I don’t know. How long have you heard their voice?” I asked her trying to figure out how long they have been there.

“That was the first time.” She tells me.

“What? You woke me up saying there were people.” I tell her.

“Yes. Black.” She says.

“Black? Black what?” I asked but she didn’t respond and stare towards one direction.

“There.” She says pointing towards behind me like a robot.

“Where?” I say as I look behind me staring at the fog but nothing was there. When I turned back around, she was quite a distance away from me crouching on the ground with her arms on her legs rocking back and forth. “What the fuck..”

I slowly approach her and as I grab her shoulder to turn her around, I noticed she wouldn’t budge.

When did she get this strong? What the hel-In a quick motion, her hand grabbed me by my wrist and it traveled up my arm like a spider. I hear her bones crunching as her arms dislocate from her body and I see her head started turning around. I see the skin on her neck rips as her head turns around fully while her body stayed the same position.

“Coming for you. Come. Co-coming for you Yasu.” She started speaking as her jaws open and a black liquid dripped out of it. Her eyes turned completely black and she started crying blood, as the smile on her face got bigger. Her body leaped backward while her mouth aimed at my throat biting me in the neck. I feel air enter my throat as blood spurt out and I gargle it trying to breathe. I lost all movement of my body and I fall back onto the ground looking at the sky. I see her walk back to get on top of me. Her arms raised like a robot and yanked out her head off her body pulling out her spine and her lower half become jelly dropping on top of me. But her head stopped right before it hit my face and now I'm really close as I feel the heat of her breath. She began vomiting the black liquid into my mouth and I felt it go in my lungs as I start to choke to death. I feel a finger go over my eyes and she slowly pressed the nail of her thumb digging her fingers into my iris causing me to go blind. I tried screaming but all that came out is gargled noise as the black liquid overflowed out my mouth entering into my nose. In an instant, everything stopped like a switch was turned it off. I couldn’t see anything, feel anything. Nothing but pure blackness. I hear something pant in my ear, but I couldn’t move any body parts nor talk.

“Let this be a warning. I soon will come for you. Yasu.” The voice says and I suddenly woke up from my sleep.

“Guah!” I screamed awake gasping for air.

Pant*

Pant*

"What the fuck," I say to myself as I just had one of the worst nightmares I've had in a while. I quickly look beside me and I see Suyeon still sleeping. Her back is facing me, as she never moved an inch from what I last remember of her position.

“That fucking voice," I whisper as I grab my throat and rub it. "Fucking Unum."

The voice in my dream was exactly the same voice the ogre queen made when he possessed her. I call out my item back and quickly drink water since my throat felt dry more than usual. I went to the lake to wash my face and the water is cool enough to be refreshing in contact with my face waking me up fully.

"You fucking shit bag. This makes me want to come and rip your throat out." I whisper as I taunt Unum as if he's able to hear what I was saying from wherever he's at. I quickly go over to Suyeon and woke her up. After we both ate breakfast, I told her we should keep walking through the forest until we start finding things to hunt and test out how to level her up. I gave her three of my water container that's filled with the fresh water from the lake. I also gave her some of the items like spare clothes, a towel, something I stocked up with quantities. She happily accepted all of it quickly storing the items in her bag. We walked through the forest but no boar in sight. Not one wolf, no bear, nothing. I stopped to look at the map the dungeon safe keeper gave me when I got out of the sky king dungeon. It’s quite hard to pinpoint where we are since we ran away from the forest boar town in the middle of the night not thinking about the direction or what so ever.

“Shit, should I climb a tree? Fuck, I’m going to have to.” I whisper as I look up the enormous trees towering us. Suyeon, stay on a lookout. Shout when you see something." I tell her and she nods. I took out two daggers from my bag and started climbing a tree using it. As soon as I reached the top, I took out the map to try and pinpoint our location based on the landmark.

"Ok, I think we're probably around here," I whisper as I try to pinpoint our surrounding. We ran out of the forest boar town so fast, we didn't monitor our direction. I see the forest stretch for miles and the horizontal mountain we descended from is so far that it's barely visible.

"Shit, they could be anywhere in this forest," I whisper as I stand up atop the tree overlooking the vast forest spread across all directions. Daikichi and Kana can be anywhere and, the forest is so damn large it would take me a while to even explore every corner of it. From the first day to now, I probably only explored at least a small percentage of the forest. I look at the map again and try to trace the outline of the horizontal mountain trying to figure out which side I'm staring at. Then I noticed on the map that there's a number up at the top left corner that's barely visible unless you shine it down towards sunlight.

“Huh 1-20?” I say inspecting the number. “Wait, does this represent the level of the monsters?”

I quickly climb down the tree and we both started walking one direction. I chose to walk away from the horizontal mountain. The further away, the better since I’ll know we’ll be inching away from the forest boar inn. We kept walking while taking small to little breaks as possible. I want to use my seismic step skill so bad to just blaze through the forest but I know Suyeon won’t be able to keep up since she doesn’t have any skill that boosts her movement. The sun started setting into the horizon and the forest was enveloped in darkness again. I created fire but I didn't bother building a shelter this time.

"Not once, we found a boar. What the fuck, I think they were only near the town." I say as I ate a cooked fish. Suyeon took out her plate and started eating her portion also. Ever since she told me her story, she talked less and looked a bit more distant. After eating, she quickly went to sleep while I tend to the fire. Ever since the nightmare of Unum possessing Suyeon, I decided not to sleep and stay up. Morning quickly came and we both continued walking through the forest. We looked around for any monster in sight but nothing. This area is completely empty as if adventurers cleaned it to the brim. We kept walking until I notice the trees are getting smaller and smaller.

"Ok, wait here," I say as I climb another tree. As soon as I got up, I notice an area from a distance where the trees don't exist. As if the middle of the forest has an empty spot. "What the hell is that?"

I quickly got down and we walked towards the empty land with caution. As soon as we got to it, a smile was plastered across my face.

"A meadow," I whisper as I see boars, wolfs, rabbits, the empty plot of land was teeming with animals. Right in the center is a small pond which the reason why they have all gathered here.

"Ok, let's go kill one of them and see if you level up," I whisper to her and we both started walking near the trees towards one boar that is closer to the forest. "Ok wait here, let me grab that thing. I'll hold it and you kill it."

I slowly crouch down the bush trying to get a bit closer towards the boar. “Seismic Step!” I screamed my skill as soon as I jump out and quickly close the distance between us. I grapple the boar placing my arm around its neck squeezing it tight. The boar thrashed around while letting out a sound similar to pigs that starting to irritate me.

“Suyeon now!” I shout at her and she burst out the forest running towards the boar and me.

“W-what do I have to do?" She asked me looking confused.

“What else?! Hit it!” I tell her and she lightly punched the boar on its snout.

You got to be fucking kidding me.I say in my mind.

"Harder! Punch it harder!! The fuck!" I shout and I see her try again with a slightly stronger force. I see a negative number appear. As usual, like most boars I encounter, it doesn’t have any indicator above its head showing how much HP it has or its name.

“Item bag!” I screamed my bag and it dropped right next to Suyeon. “Grab it and open the bag!” I tell her and she did. I jumped on top the boar placing my weight on it as I kept one arm in a headlock but the boar broke free and ran towards the forest. “Shit!”

I grab the bag out of her hands and took out a dagger. I quickly caught up with the boar and with one quick slice, I cut one of its legs off and it came stumbling down the ground. It kept screaming letting out a sound that shows it’s in pain. But it can’t stand up as one of its legs was cleanly cut off its body.

“Suyeon get over here!" I shouted at her and she quickly ran towards me and looked at the boar. "Ok, now kill it."

I instructed her what to do but in the back of my mind, I'm thinking that she would hesitate to kill the animal. Suddenly, her expression changed as she smiled while punching the boar from its side. More negative numbers appeared on top the boar but it wasn’t enough, as she never dealt any critical hit.

"Ah shit, this will take too long," I whisper to myself as I watch her mercilessly beat the poor boar. Right when she’s about to punch again, I caught her wrist abruptly stopping her. Her facial expression regressed back to normal as she looked up to me.

“D-did I do it wrong?” She asked me.

“No, it just takes too long with your method. Go for critical strike.” I tell her but she just stared at me looking confused. “Must I do everything for you? Come here.”

I kept my grip on her wrist and dragged her towards the boar's face. I see blood coming out of its nose and mouth as it stopped screaming and just continued to breathe heavily.

“You see, our class is fucking retarded. Why? Because our damage output is similar to our level. If your level one, your damage output is fucking one. This boar might have one hundred HP which means you need to hit it a hundred times to kill it. Would be fine if this is the only thing you have to kill but, it would take you forever to kill everything in this area.” I explained to her as I kept my hand on her wrist. Then I brought it down towards the boar’s face and placed her hand near its eyes. I see her hand move side to side as if she was petting a dog.

“What the hell- don’t pet it!” I shouted at her and I feel her arms go tense.

“I-I’m sorry.” She apologized.

Sigh.

“Listen, when I was in a hidden dungeon, I noticed one thing that doesn't apply with our damage per hit. But it only happens in random. Use your fingers to pull its eyes out.” I tell her and she looked at me with surprise.

“W-what?” She asked.

"Use your fingers, place it in its eye socket and rip its eyes out of its head," I tell her as I let go of her wrist. She looks at me with a worried look. "Don't tell me you have a conscience. Do it, that's the only way to survive."

She looked back towards the boar that’s barely clinging on and she slowly placed her finger inside the boar’s eyes. The minute the boar felt something touch its eyeball; the head started thrashing while letting out a shriek.

“Hold it’s head down!” I shouted out loud as the boar's noise is overlapping mine. I see she's still startled by the boar's sudden movement that she froze in place. "Hey! Place your knee on its head and put all your body weight on it! Then yank its fucking eyeball out!"

Suyeon snaps back to reality and did as I instructed. She placed her knee on the boar's head pinning it down towards the ground then she digs into the boar's eye socket and slowly yanked out its eyes until it completely came off. The boar let out a loud so loud, the other animals in the area turned their attention on us. “Ah shit.”

The wolves started barking while the other boar did nothing and turn back around smelling the ground. But that’s all they did. Not one of the wolves or any other animals approached us even with so much noise this boar is making.

“Hmpf! You better stand back. Hey, Suyeon you saw that number above?.” I asked without looking at her keeping my glare towards the mobs at a distance.

“Oh, The red line with one?” She told me.

“Yea, there should be something else besides it but it didn’t appear this time so let's do another eye." I say as I turn back around and inspect if the boar is still alive. "It's still alive and breathing."

I slowly placed my hand under the boar and tipped him over trying not to damage him or accidentally killing him. Once he’s on the other side, I stood up and pointed towards its other eye.

"Ok, try the other one," I tell her and she happily yanked out its eye without any remorse.

This girl…

“O-Oh! I saw something new! Cr-cr-ticu-cua-“ She tried reading the words like a kid.

“Critical strike.” I corrected her before she even finished.

“Y-yeah! That!” She happily said as she looks at me holding the two eyeballs in her hand.

“Ok, you see that damage? The number that went up.” I asked her.

“The red line with number ten.” She tells me.

“Negative ten," I tell her as she kept saying a red line.

“Negative?” She asked me.

"Negative is the red line. It means ten points were taken out of its health. The critical strike happens randomly and mostly when you either rip a body part off. When I started, I didn't see it much until I got a weapon which is why I gave you the gauntlets." I explained to her and she just nods.

"Ok, let's see..." My voice fades out as I get a closer look at the boar stomach slowly going up and down. "Jeez, it's still breathing. Ok, let's go for the jaw this time."

“T-the jaw?” She asked me as she looks towards its head. “Won’t it bite me?”

“You’re wearing a metal gauntlet and it’s probably weak enough to not be able to bite hard. Just place your foot on its snout and use both hands to grab its jaw and yank it.” I tell her.

"Ok." She says and did what I instructed. She placed her foot on top the boar's nose and place some of her fingers inside the mouth. The boar looks like it gave up on life as it stopped struggling and just continued to breathe hard.

AWOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

I hear one of the wolves’ howl starting a chain reaction to all the wolves around the area.

“Tsk, fucking loud shits. Hurry up and yank it out so we can deal with everything else.” I tell her.

"O-ok. U-um M-Mr. Boar, If you don't mind, I need to yank it out~" She says talking to the boar. I see her pull as hard as she can with both hands, and I notice the boar started trashing again as it felt its jaw being ripped off its head slowly. I quickly got on top the body preventing it from moving so Suyeon can yank out its jaw. I see parts of its skin around the mouth rips as Suyeon opens its way more than it can handle. I hear it’s jaw dislocate and in an instant, she suddenly flew back as the jaw comes off the boar and its body stopped thrashing as blood gushed out of its opened mouth.

"Is it dead?" I say to myself.

"I-I got another critical strike! It has a bigger number this time!" Suyeon says holding up the jaw of the boar.

“It's health probably isn't that much to die this quick," I whisper to myself.

Huh, it didn't disappear. I wonder if leveled monsters turn into dust if she kills it. I say in my mind as I look towards the wolves. Even from a distance, I can see their name and level above their head. Only the boar doesn't have it.

“O-oh! I leveled up!” She says as she read something in front of her. “Y-Yasu! I leveled up!” She says looking up at me smiling.

So she's like the rest. What makes her class legendary then? I say in my mind as I notice her class to be nothing special except the name. Well, her damage per hit is the same as her level, like mine. Maybe that’s what makes it special?

“Well then, Let’s see how much you can level up with them," I say as I turn around towards the monsters in the area. I gripped the dagger that's still in my hand and using my seismic step skill, I sprinted towards a wolf.

“Ah wolves~ this brings back memories~” I whisper as I smile at Suyeon’s next victim.