Chapter – 29
Pirancheva, who had been watching for a long time, got up and attacked Staccato.
“Pile Driver!”
Pirancheva jumped from a high place, leaping down while using the earth-attribute spell, Pile Driver.
A sharp, cone-shaped stone spear formed in the air, spinning rapidly as it flew towards Staccato.
“What the!”
A dark mage, surprised by the sudden appearance of the stone spear, looked up into the air and saw a person falling towards him.
“Kyaaak!”
While leaping down, Pirancheva brought his sword down on one dark mage, inflicting a long wound from his head to his groin.
As the dark mage fell, spraying blood, Pirancheva turned his body as if certain of the kill, and threw the sword he was holding with all his might towards the remaining dark mage.
*Swoosh!*
With a sound tearing through the air, the sword flew at the speed of light, piercing the dark mage’s heart and embedding itself in a rock.
Pirancheva didn’t stop there; he turned his head to look at Staccato.
As expected, Staccato, wounded by the Pile Driver, was thrashing about as if it had taken significant damage.
*Swooosh!*
Pirancheva quickly moved to avoid Staccato’s thrashing, escaping its range. Once Staccato’s flailing subsided, he took out a dagger, aimed for the wounded spot, and threw it with all his strength.
“Control!”
Using the Control spell, which allows one to move objects in a desired direction, he guided the dagger to fly towards the wounded area.
*Thud!*
The thrashing had lessened, allowing him to hit the wounded spot more easily than expected.
So far, things were proceeding as planned.
“Kuooh!”
Staccato let out a monstrous roar and glared at Pirancheva with eyes that had turned blue, but perhaps because it had been poisoned by the dark mages for so long, its ferocity seemed diminished compared to before.
Staccato opened its mouth wide, then lifted and straightened its upper body before falling vertically and rapidly towards where Pirancheva was standing.
*Whoosh!*
As if he had anticipated such an attack, Pirancheva immediately sprinted sideways. Once the embedded dagger came into view, he used magic.
“Chain Lightning!”
*Bzzzzzt!*
A spark occurred in the air, and a bolt of lightning fell towards the dagger embedded in Staccato’s body.
As if the dagger’s hilt acted as a lightning rod, the lightning energy seeped into the hilt, flowed along the blade, and into Staccato’s body.
“Explosion!”
At that moment, the lightning energy that had flowed into Staccato’s body caused an explosion, electrocuting Staccato’s entire form.
The destructive power was so immense that Staccato’s massive body leaped into the air before crashing back down to the ground.
*Bzzzt!*
The lightning energy, having instantly burned Staccato’s insides, vanished as if its role was done. The giant Staccato lay fallen, seemingly dead, having lost all strength.
It wasn’t dead yet, but Staccato couldn’t move anymore, not even a twitch.
Pirancheva approached Staccato and grabbed the dagger embedded in its skin with his hand.
“Fire!”
*Whoosh!*
Fire erupted from within Staccato, burning its flesh and internal organs. The smell of burning flesh was similar to that of delicious meat being grilled.
“Hmm…”
Just in case, Pirancheva extinguished the fire burning Staccato’s insides, pulled the dagger out of the wound, pried the wound open, and tore off a bit of the cooked meat to taste it.
He showed no hesitation, as if he had hunted monsters and eaten their meat many times before.
“It’s tasty. It melts in your mouth like Hanwoo beef. I can’t carry raw meat because it’s heavy.”
Pirancheva thought for a moment, then grinned as if a good idea had come to him.
“If I make jerky, it’ll be light. And I can sell it for money if needed, or eat it myself while traveling.”
Pirancheva decided to turn Staccato’s flesh into jerky and immediately set to work.
First, he had to skin the tough, sturdy hide of Staccato. He applied a Sharpness spell to his dagger and began skinning it, peeling the skin off bit by bit.
But the work speed was incredibly slow, a testament to how tough Staccato’s skin was.
“Fish market owners stake an eel’s head on a nail, slit its throat, and peel it right off… why won’t that work for this guy?”
Even after skinning for a long time, he wasn’t making progress, and all sorts of thoughts crossed his mind.
“Then again, even if I nailed this guy’s skin, I can’t lift this mountain-sized body by hand.”
After a long time, Pirancheva managed to slice open Staccato’s belly and split the skin in half. Separating the skin from the torso was easier than expected once he inserted the blade inside the flesh and peeled it away.
Although the giant Staccato’s skin looked like it would be heavy, it was characteristically as light as a feather.
It was light, yet so hard and tough that it couldn’t be torn by a sword, making it one of those item materials that knights and nobles would pay a high price to acquire.
Although Pirancheva had a Bottomless Pouch, the Staccato skin was too voluminous to fit inside.
So, Pirancheva rolled the skin up tightly to reduce its volume as much as possible, then took out a cloth similar to a wrapping cloth from his Bottomless Pouch and tied it firmly around his waist.
“If I take this to the main territory of the Marquis of Raymond and entrust it to the dwarves, they’ll make something good out of it.”
Pirancheva now planned to leave the Bertie territory, head to the main territory of the Marquis of Raymond to take care of his business, and then journey to the imperial capital, Versailles.
“First, let’s take this guy’s meat, make jerky, and then leave this place.”
* * *
After completing his request in the Bertie territory, Pirancheva immediately left the Bertie Gorge and headed for the main territory of the Marquis of Raymond.
The distance from the Bertie territory to the Marquis’s main territory was quite considerable. Ideally, it would be nice to get an escort request heading to the Marquisate, but such sweet deals were all snatched up by mercenary bands, making it difficult for solo mercenaries unless they were A-rank or S-rank.
*Screech!*
While passing through the Bertie Gorge, Pirancheva fought the monsters he encountered. Among them, some monsters caught the scent of blood on Pirancheva and followed at a distance, while others, like goblins and orcs, mindlessly attacked him.
One orc, wielding a massive sword with its heavy body as easily as chopsticks, brought its sword down vertically from the air, aiming for Pirancheva’s chest.
Pirancheva watched the descending sword until the last moment before sidestepping; the sword struck the ground, sending stones flying in all directions.
After dodging the orc’s sword, Pirancheva immediately counterattacked.
*Slash!*
Pirancheva’s sword swept across the orc’s abdomen. But, as if well aware that wouldn’t kill the orc instantly, Pirancheva’s gaze remained fixed on it.
As the orc raised its sword and swung it horizontally, the sword whistled past, just grazing above Pirancheva’s head.
Pirancheva bent his waist to avoid the sword and immediately thrust his blade into the wounded area.
“Fire!”
He then used magic; fire flowed along the blade into the orc’s body, igniting a large fire inside that burned the orc’s organs.
“Kueeeek!”
The orc let out a agonized scream and thrashed about in pain. Pirancheva stepped back, avoiding the orc.
Eventually, the orc burned to death.
After killing the last orc, Pirancheva sheathed his sword and looked around.
There were seven orc corpses lying on the ground.
Pirancheva, now only sixteen years old, had killed seven orcs—creatures that even soldiers couldn’t easily handle—without much effort.
As a 5th Circle mage and at the Mana Expert stage capable of wielding a mana sword, his combat power alone far surpassed that of an A-rank mercenary.
However, his youth and lack of experience were the only things holding him back.
Moreover, when Pirancheva performed requests with other mercenaries, he never showed his full strength. Thus, the other mercenaries didn’t know his exact capabilities.
The reason Pirancheva hid his strength from people was that these secrets could be a means to save his life at least once.
After killing the orcs, Pirancheva collected their tusks and quickly left the spot.
He knew that weaker monsters were following him at a distance.
The dead orcs would be a meal for them, so leaving quickly was a consideration, allowing them to enjoy fresh meat.
After Pirancheva left, monsters appeared shortly after, swarming the dead orcs and devouring them ravenously, as if they hadn’t eaten for days, chewing on everything from the flesh to the bones.
*Awooooo…*
The long howl sounded like a expression of gratitude to Pirancheva for providing a meal.
Pirancheva, hearing the howl from a short distance away, also chuckled.
“Well, what’s good is good.”
Even though Pirancheva moved quickly, darkness fell before he could exit the Bertie Gorge.
If he hadn’t fought monsters along the way, he could have left the gorge before sunset, but unfortunately, he had to camp in the Bertie Gorge again tonight.
Camping in a monster habitat was very dangerous, but Pirancheva, as if accustomed to it, lit a campfire and then used a magic circle to create magic traps, hiding them on the ground.
If monsters discovered Pirancheva and charged, passing over the magic traps, they would explode, blowing the monsters away—a kind of trap similar to a landmine.
Pirancheva drew about ten magic traps around his vicinity, then came to the campfire, sat cross-legged, and closed his eyes.
Since learning the Heavenly Demon Art’s internal energy method, he had practiced it morning and evening without fail, except in special circumstances. As a result, he quickly reached the Mana Expert stage capable of using a mana sword.
—”Nowadays, those who can use an Aura Blade are called Sword Masters, but what we knights call a true Sword Master is someone who understands the strengths and weaknesses of the swordsmanship they’ve learned, strives to compensate for the weaknesses and learn a more perfect swordsmanship, and cultivates themselves.”
It was something Poren had told him long ago. Pirancheva strongly agreed with this statement.
‘The Aura Blade is just one of many sword techniques. A true master should be able to wield swordsmanship perfectly, as Sir Poren said.’
In that sense, Pirancheva was closer to a Sword User than a Mana Expert.
Of course, by the continent’s standards, since he could use a mana sword, it wouldn’t be wrong to say he was at the Mana Expert level.
But he applied his own standards to himself, not the continent’s.
“This time, I will break through the 4th Star and enter the 5th Star stage.”
Pirancheva closed his eyes and circulated the Heavenly Demon Art’s internal energy method.
As he circulated the internal energy method, mana gathered around Pirancheva. This mana was absorbed into his body not through inhalation and exhalation, but through his skin, and then released back out through his skin.
After remaining motionless for a while, focusing solely on the Heavenly Demon Art’s internal energy method, Pirancheva soon fell deep into a meditative state.
