Chapter 141: The 2nd Trial (2)
PU-BUK!
With practiced hands, I cut off the Poison Toad’s breathing.
After killing them over and over again, I felt like I understood their patterns completely.
When they wiggled their hips, it ant they were about to leap at , so I had to strike first.
One of them died with a burst of toxic fluid, leaving behind a shriveled lump of hide.
I snatched it up and stuffed it into the backpack on my back.
“Even picking these up is work.”
Just as this whole routine was starting to get tireso, thud—the Poison Toad’s corpse bounced off without passing through the randoseru.
[The allowable weight of the Low-Cost Randoseru has been exceeded.]
“Ah.”
I tapped the randoseru lightly.
The bag was swollen tight, as if it were about to burst.
Inside were sixty-five Poison Toad hides alone.
Aside from a few essential items, it was packed to the brim with toad corpses.
I had worried about the weight, since the bodies were fairly heavy, and it seed I had finally exceeded the 200-kilogram limit.
“That’s the end of easy farming.”
I smacked my lips in regret.
With my inventory full, there was no helping it.
Excluding the sixty-five already in the bag, there were thirty-five left.
I had filled the count to eight, so I only needed to hunt twenty-seven more summons.
‘Guess I will have to make up the rest with my body…….’
I picked up a few daggers rendered useless by Pain from the ground and reset my stance.
After killing two more Poison Toads and offering them to the altar, the number finally changed to double digits.
[10/100]
The light of the altar grew vivid, and the surrounding air settled into a calm stillness.
“Gyarrr.”
A mustelid with dark brown fur sprang out from a tear in the air.
Agile movents, sharp glowing eyes, a thick tail—it was a Counter Weasel.
A phantasmal beast known for flowing movents and tail counters aid at retaliation.
At the sa ti, the atmosphere around the altar shifted.
A faint green mist spread out, granting them an agility buff.
Perhaps fully empowered, they raised their tails and charged at
at ferocious speed.
‘A stronger trial.’
As the altar filled, stronger enemies appeared, along with stronger buffs.
The difficulty curve was designed to steadily tighten its grip around the challenger’s throat.
‘Well, still.’
Counter Weasels were manageable for now.
When struck, they instinctively deflected attacks and retaliated with tail counters.
If you kicked upward, they spun once in the air and slamd down with their tail; if you threw a left hook, a right liver shot followed.
The orthodox answer was either a single overwhelming blow that denied any counter, or rapid consecutive strikes fast enough to break their counter timing.
‘But there is no need to hold back.’
I gripped the dagger—no, sothing that had beco nothing more than an iron rod—in a reverse grip in my left hand.
In my right was my main weapon, the long saber, forming an improvised dual-wield stance.
Then I honestly slashed from the upper right with the saber.
Whoosh!
The creature bent its waist flexibly and avoided the blade.
At the sa ti, its tail swung left with centrifugal force.
A textbook, clean counterattack.
Clang!
The iron rod I had been holding in my left hand struck its tail dead-on.
As the weasel’s posture collapsed from the blocked attack, I brought the saber down.
Slash!
The weasel’s body was cleanly split apart.
No matter how good they were at counters, if you knew their movent direction, raising a guard was faster than striking.
On top of that, perhaps because my stats had risen, I could even respond to the sound of weasels lunging for openings.
‘When stats go up, senses sharpen too.’
Places that should have been blind spots were now within reaction range.
Dodging and countering their attacks, I steadily built up the count.
[20/100]
When the number reached twenty, a new presence was detected off to one side.
“Kik! Kik!”
It was a monkey.
A long-ard monkey stood at a distance, holding a wooden staff in one hand.
For reference, the phantasmal beast’s na was literally just “Monkey.”
The setting was that an ordinary long-ard monkey picked up a magic-infused piece of wood and beca a phantasmal beast.
When it swung the staff, moisture in the air began to condense.
Among phantasmal beasts, they were rare individuals capable of directly manipulating magic and even casting spells.
Pibibibit!
Sharp ice shards poured out from the tip of the staff like a machine gun.
“Whoa!”
If I had not knocked aside the charging weasel and thrown my body away, I would have been riddled with holes.
The monkey showed no restraint, generating more ice shards and blasting them at .
I kicked off the ground and rushed straight at it, closing the distance.
Ice fragnts grazed my cheek, but I ignored them.
Thud—the monkey’s head fell to the floor.
The problem ca next.
Before I knew it, monkeys had spawned all around.
There were still weasels I had not dealt with.
The beasts’ cacophony layered over itself.
The Counter Weasels lurked, waiting for openings, while the monkeys kept their distance and prepared spells.
A pincer of lee and ranged attacks, far more troubleso than when I had been leisurely farming Poison Toads.
‘What a pain.’
There were too many to dodge and cut one by one.
Then there was only one answer.
Crush them with overwhelming power.
I drew in a deep breath.
I seized the current of pain flowing through my body and reshaped it into the form I desired.
What I needed now was raw strength.
[Pain: Forging]
Crunch!
Every muscle scread.
Agonizing pain, like a blacksmith’s rough hamring pounding my entire body.
It felt as if my bones were about to shatter, and a scream nearly escaped my throat.
Instead of screaming, I accepted the pain as power.
Throb—
Veins bulged violently along my arms, muscle fibers tightening to their limit.
[Strength: 19 ( 15)]
A value beyond the limits of the human body.
In exchange for converting Pain, destructive power surged to the point where it was difficult to control.
I brought the sword to its scabbard and sheathed it, then took my stance.
My sharpened senses made it feel as if I could locate every target even with my eyes closed.
The charging weasels and the monkeys’ spells closed in.
In a fleeting instant, I stomped my foot and drew the sword.
[Draw: Single Flash]
KRA-KRA-KANG!
tal scraped violently, sending out a heavy reverberation.
By itself, it was nothing special, just swordsmanship.
Judged by skill rank, it was rely a lower mid-tier technique, rank six.
But when the stats applied during execution broke all standards, the story changed.
Along the trajectory of the drawn blade, the air warped.
The sword, swung with massive force, tore through the air and released a wave of blade energy.
“…….”
A mont of silence fell.
The charging Counter Weasels froze mid-motion.
The ice shards conjured by the monkeys hung suspended in midair.
Whooom!
When the delayed shockwave tore through the room, the weasels and monkeys filling the front were split cleanly in half.
No screams followed. Only after being severed did they seem to realize their deaths.
Crack!
The unlaunched ice crystals fell to the floor and crumbled into powder.
Soon after, the beasts’ bodies also disintegrated and were drawn into the central altar.
‘Whew.’
As my stats reverted, I felt like a deflated balloon.
The lingering, sticky agony in my body was a bonus.
There was no such thing as free power.
[42/100]
anwhile, the burnt offering count skyrocketed.
Passing forty ant the difficulty had jumped two stages beyond the monkeys.
Whoooom—
This ti, a heavy noise resounded from the ceiling.
Sothing with trendous mass was falling.
KWA-AANG!
A cloud of dust erupted as sothing landed.
So much fanfare just for an entrance.
Through the settling dust, a massive silhouette rose.
A low, growling subsonic rumble tightened every nerve in my body.
What erged was pitch-black fur like a living shadow, and a body far larger than even most orcs.
The phrase “bears tear people apart” surfaced unbidden.
The Black Bear, once revered as a mountain guardian spirit, was now nothing more than a slaughter machine summoned to grind challengers into pulp.
Red energy began pouring out from the altar and instantly wrapped around the bear.
Its eyes turned blood-red and glead.
It was clearly under a berserk buff.
“Kuuoooh!”
The mont it spotted , it raised its forepaws and charged.
Whoosh!
Even the passing wind felt sharp enough to cut flesh.
I leapt straight toward it.
“You are not my problem.”
I used its shoulder as a foothold and jumped again.
There was sothing important to rember here.
I had already cleared the Second Trial.
Instead of fighting the Black Bear, I vaulted over it and sprinted straight for the altar.
It roared and chased after , but I had no intention of engaging it.
As I ran, I flung open the mouth of the randoseru slung over my shoulder.
“Poison Toad corpses, all of them!”
Open, bag.
A brief silence hung in the air, then a violent roar burst from the randoseru’s opening.
KUGUGUGUNG!
All sixty-five Poison Toad corpses I had collected poured out like madness.
Like a waterfall…… no.
That was too beautiful a taphor for this.
It was more like filthy wastewater exploding out of a massive sewage pipe.
Shriveled green lumps of hide sprayed through the air with viscous fluid, grotesque and revolting.
“Ugh. Damn it, this is disgusting…….”
I could not help swearing.
‘Why do I feel like I see stomach-turning scenes so often?’
It was the sa when cleaning MacGuffin World.
With my heightened stats sharpening my senses, the nauseating spectacle felt disturbingly vivid.
Useful in combat, but in daily life this side effect was…….
Would I even be able to eat once I returned to reality?
Thankfully, the biochemical terror of Poison Toads did not last long.
As if it had been waiting, the altar flared greedily and began grinding the pouring corpses into powder and absorbing them.
51, 67, 73, 78…….
The count climbed at an insane pace.
The red aura pouring from the altar thickened steadily.
“Uwooooh!”
The Black Bear, which had been chasing
all along, let out a monstrous roar.
An enormous quantity of offerings had entered at once, stacking the berserk buff emitted by the altar.
It went completely mad, charging at
as if its adrenaline were maxed out.
KWA-AANG!
The Black Bear slamd the ground.
It felt like a bomb had gone off.
Cracks spread from the point where its paw struck, followed by a massive crater.
Fragnts shot out like bullets and grazed my cheek.
The Black Bear was already strong, and with the altar’s buff on top of that, this was power beyond rely tearing soone apart.
It would pulverize them.
I glared resentfully at the altar.
‘Damn it, hurry up and eat!’
There was food right there, so why could it not finish?
[89/100]
The gauge was still rising, but it had not reached one hundred, and the Black Bear did not stop.
I could not let things fall apart at the very end.
Gritting my teeth, I focused on every single movent of the bear.
My sharpened senses dissected it thoroughly.
Muscle contractions, minute tremors in its fur, even the flow of its shifting center of gravity.
Information flooded in and etched itself into my mind.
‘Here it cos.’
Its left shoulder twitched.
A movent ant to draw my gaze, but it was a feint.
Its weight was loaded onto the left hind leg.
It was signaling an attack powered by mass and rotation.
‘Right.’
Just as expected.
Its massive right forepaw flew at
like a cannonball.
Whoosh!
I lowered my upper body diagonally to the left and avoided the attack.
The heavy sound of air being torn passed just inches from where my head had been.
Even without direct contact, the pressure alone stung my skin like a blade.
“Ghk.”
But I avoided it.
And in that mont—
“Kuuoo!”
The Black Bear roared and opened its jaws toward , charging as if to swallow my head whole.
But its teeth never reached .
Because its enormous body began collapsing from its feet upward.
Its murderous glare, claws that looked ready to tear flesh apart, all turned to dust and scattered.
[100/100]
At last, the altar had finished its al.
“Hah.”
I dropped straight down, sitting on the spot.
As the tension drained away, strength left my legs.
When I looked back, a bizarre sight greeted .
Just monts ago, the altar had been spewing crimson light and spreading berserk buffs.
Now it shone with pure white light, sacred and serene, as if nothing had happened.
Quiet, beautiful, utterly innocent.
‘What an act.’
I let out a hollow laugh in disbelief.
[You have passed the Second Trial, “Burnt Offering of Gluttony.”]
The ssage announcing the end of the trial followed.
‘……Finally.’
The hardship had paid off.
At last, I could obtain what I had been aiming for.
An artifact that might allow my academy life to truly blossom.
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