Possessing Nothing Novel (쥐뿔도 없는 회귀)

Chapter 71 - Sword Dragon

Aine did not die. As the situation at that time was severely disadvantageous to her, she chose to stop fighting and escape. Although Sungmin cut off both of her arms, he saw Aine's legs instantly regenerating with his own eyes.

He didn't know why Aine wanted to kill him, but this was for sure. Aine knew that Sungmin possessed the Black Heart. That insanely strong lich, Prescan, hadn't died either. It was very likely that the two are working together.

'They... probably want the heart.'

This time, he was lucky, he could only consider himself so. WIthout Scarlett, he would have died before long, and if he was unable to gain insight into using spearforce, he would have died regardless of Scarlett's presence.

Yes. He was just lucky.

'It all comes down to luck.'

It was unknown when Aine would come attacking again, so they departed the morning after the rain stopped. Sungmin's wounds had mostly recovered, but Scarlett went out of her way to drive the carriage anyhow.

Unexpectedly, she was quite good at it. Since she knew Sungmin's circumstances now, she agreed to leave the region as soon as possible.

Thanks to Scarlett driving the carriage, Sungmin had more time to think about himself. He could now use spearforce, but his martial arts prowess hadn't improved at all. The achievements shown on the status window wouldn't lie.

'I haven't broken through to the exceed-level yet.'

He simply broke through one bottleneck. He still had many in front of him. And he didn't even know what they were.

Have I become stronger?

Sungmin couldn't answer that question. Stronger... he should be. However, he felt that his current strength was too lacking. Despite his newfound ability to use spearforce, he didn't think that he would be able to beat Prescan, or Aine for that matter. There was no guarantee he would be so lucky next time, either.

So, Sungmin started swinging his spear again. Thinking about it, it had been quite a long time since he focused on training. When he met a bottleneck, and thought that he was unable to break through, Sungmin had despaired, and in his despair, he had stopped training. He didn't want to despair any further. He was afraid of the despair he would feel when everything he did did not work at all.

But now it was different.

Although he was worried about Aine and Prescan's attack, Aine hadn't shown herself again after the first attack. Although this worried him a little, the journey was smooth besides that. They passed through several cities on the way, and each time they did, they switched horses and fixed up the carriage.

Three months had passed since Sungmin and Scarlett had left Behengerr. In these three months, Sungmin trained in his spear, stepping, and internal cultivation. Whenever he trained, Scarlett would open her magic texts and focus on magic, to Sungmin's incomprehension.

"You're quite earnest."

The dawn air was quite cold. Scarlett, who had left the carriage, had a blanket wrapped around her. Sungmin, who was letting the cold air dry his sweat, looked back at her.

"You're up earlier than usual."

"I had a bad dream."

As she said that, she had a vexed expression on her face. Scarlett had a look at the fire that had almost burned out, and reached out her hand. Without any incantation, the fire was reignited again.

"Now that I think about it, you had a restraint on your dreams back on Mount Msh.... You're quite the thing, you know? You had a nightmare every single day. I would have gone crazy."