After taking down the Snowfield Wolfbears in an instant, I noticed something clearly as I faced them one by one.
‘Easy.’
They were strangely easy to deal with.
Considering how often players lost their lives when encountering them early on, befitting their nickname as newbie killers......
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. This is good.”
Only now could I truly feel how much I had grown.
My growth was steeper than in any game session I had ever played.
“I think I understand what you meant about developing real combat experience too.”
How the opponent moved.
And how I needed to react.
I had to move while thinking about all of it.
‘Besides, these things have magical power too.’
I thought for a moment as I watched them use mana as naturally as breathing.
-More, more! Let’s kill them and take their blood!
That certainly sounded like something the Blood-Crazed Training Iron Sword would say.
‘Good thing it isn’t a Magic Sword.’
Well, I agreed that these things needed to be dealt with.
Fighting them seemed as though it would be quite helpful for learning to sense mana as well.
“I should keep at it for now.”
“Hah. You are training even out here?”
I gave a light smile at the soldier’s exhausted expression.
“What are you talking about? You guys are doing it too.”
“......Pardon?”
“You think we’re done just because we deal with the Dungeon? Of course we should take care of anything else that could become a threat.”
The soldiers’ expressions began to change.
They looked exactly the same as they had back when they first sparred with me.
Without hesitation, I led them into a hunt for Snowfield Wolfbears.
We cut them down.
Then cut down more.
We dealt with every one that showed aggression.
After several hours had passed—
“Huff, huff, no more......”
“Tsk. That’s a shame.”
“Young Master, the soldiers are very tired.”
“Still, I guess all that training we did together wasn’t for nothing?”
Aside from exhaustion, we had suffered practically no damage.
Compared to before, their actual skill had clearly improved.
‘It’s important to improve the soldiers’ abilities too.’
There was no way I could stop the Northern Great Invasion through my strength alone.
And that was not all.
They would also become the force that protected the territory in the future.
They were useful guys in more ways than one.
-Amazing! To see this much blood!
-Heh heh, I’m satisfied.
Of course, that was not the only benefit.
I kept sharpening my real combat instincts while also trying to sense mana.
‘This isn’t easy.’
I could vaguely tell that something was different, but I was not there yet.
[You have successfully completed your Pact with the Blood-Crazed Training Iron Sword (Normal).]
[The proficiency of ‘Cold Heart (C+)’ has increased.]
Still, it was not as though I had gained nothing.
As the proficiency rose, my understanding of the Skill increased as well.
It would take time to fully embody that understanding, but......
‘I just have to keep doing things this way.’
It had been the same with Northern Swordsmanship, then Frost Step.
Once proficiency rose high enough, I could immediately begin embodying the Skill through my body.
“Whew. Looks like we’ve dealt with almost every magical beast nearby.”
“At this point, this is a massacre.”
I slowly looked around.
It was not only Snowfield Wolfbears.
There were also basic Monsters commonly found in the area, such as goblins and slimes.
Every last one of them lay cold on the ground.
“All right. Let’s collect the loot and rest.”
Snowfield Wolfbear pelts were valuable goods because they were tough and durable.
There was plenty of worthwhile loot to collect from the other Monsters as well.
“Hmm. So how does my real combat experience look?”
“It is better than I expected. Anyone fighting for the first time would normally be nervous.”
I had not exactly asked because I wanted praise, but hearing that it was not bad still felt pretty good.
At this level, entering the Dungeon probably would not be much of a problem either.
Thinking that, we continued toward the Dungeon.
“Is this it?”
“The amount of magical power contained within the Dungeon itself is ordinary.”
Hearing the relief in Tarian’s voice, I looked around for a moment.
“Is everyone ready?”
The soldiers looked better than before after collecting the loot and taking a short rest.
“Yes!”
“Then let’s go in.”
Together with the soldiers and Tarian, I stood before an enormous door.
A massive iron gate stood amid the snowy field where the trees grew thick.
I slowly opened it and stepped inside.
“What is this atmosphere......?”
The moment we entered the Dungeon, a chill swept across my entire body.
I had thought I had become accustomed to the cold after spending time in the North, but this felt different.
‘This feels completely different.’
When I entered this place in the game, the description said the dense demonic energy was suffocating.
But the energy I felt now was different.
‘Death.’
It was exactly the kind of presence that suited a place called the Tomb of the Ancient Warriors.
“Tarian.”
“Yes.”
“Unless it becomes dangerous, don’t interfere.”
“......Understood.”
Apparently, he had completely figured out my personality by now.
Tarian nodded without protest.
Satisfied, I slowly moved forward.
It did not take long before a large chamber came into view.
Several stone sarcophagi stood lined up inside.
“Young Master.”
“Yeah.”
The sarcophagi looked suspicious at a glance.
Remembering the enemies that would emerge from them, I immediately gripped my sword hilt.
The moment I took another step—
GRIND—
A sarcophagus opened, and something white emerged from within.
“Bones?”
“S-Skeletons!”
Skeletons.
Monsters whose bones moved through magical power supplied by a core.
They were also troublesome Monsters whose bones would continue regenerating until the core was destroyed or the magical power inside it ran dry.
The soldier sounded startled.
I was even more surprised.
‘Skeletons?’
Looking more closely at the enemies, I could see round cores positioned where their hearts would have been.
“That appears to be the core.”
“Looks like it.”
There were only five of them, so the number was not particularly large.
But each carried a different weapon.
‘A sword, bow, spear, axe, and even a hammer?’
A smile escaped me as I looked at them.
I was surprised.
But it was the pleasant kind of surprise.
-Judging by their stances, they are proper northern warriors.
-Can you defeat them fair and square?
[Defeat the Skeletons with the Weighty Northern Iron Sword (Normal)]
[0/1]
“Skeletons in my first Dungeon. I like it.”
“You like it? Skeletons are Monsters most people avoid. Unless you destroy their cores, they continue resurrecting, and some even remember when they were human...... Surely?”
Tarian stopped mid-sentence and stared at me in surprise.
I chuckled.
Shouldn’t he be used to this by now?
“If they keep resurrecting, that means I can keep fighting them, right?”
“Hah. Young Master, you really are insa...... No, a genius.”
“Didn’t you basically say it anyway?”
The perfect training material that would not break was right in front of me.
The enemies before me were starting to look like nothing but experience points.
Without hesitation, I charged at the Skeleton holding a sword.
CLACK—
It blocked me with ease.
I had expected that.
I used Frost Step to slip sideways.
An arrow immediately buried itself in the spot where I had been standing.
“Oh.”
They certainly were not easy opponents.
But neither were they impossible.
In the game, they would have attacked with fully manifested bodies infused with demonic energy.
Right now, they did not.
“This is fun!”
I used Frost Step to evade the spear thrusting into the opening I had left, then drove my sword toward the neck of the axe-wielding Skeleton as it prepared a wide swing.
CRACK—!
Bone shattered, and the Skeleton’s head went flying.
Judging by the look of it, regeneration would take a fair amount of time.
“S-Sir Knight, shouldn’t we help him......?”
“Young Master?”
“Ah, well. True.”
I could see Tarian and the soldiers talking among themselves in the distance.
I did not really hear what they were saying.
Just the right amount of tension.
A body heated by battle.
And enemies that would not stay down.
‘Perfect.’
These were ideal training conditions.
A massive axe came down as though to split me apart.
A spear stabbed into an opening.
The sword-wielding Skeleton clashed against me from the front.
Arrows flew between them all.
‘The archer.’
I immediately chose my target and moved to eliminate it.
I slid across the ground, firmly enduring and deflecting the attacks coming at me.
‘Two of them.’
Then I reached the bow-wielding Skeleton and dismantled its limbs.
Unlike before, neither my stamina nor my strength posed any problem.
The only disappointing part was......
‘I still can’t sense mana.’
I knew they were reviving through the magical power stored in their cores.
But I still had no idea how those cores actually worked.
That was fine.
‘If I can’t do it, I keep going until I can.’
I only had to repeat what I had done until now.
I knocked aside the spear and cut off both arms.
I met the sword-wielding Skeleton head-on and split its skull vertically.
I cut the axe clean in half along with its haft.
“Whew......”
I looked down at the Skeletons lying around me.
The hammer-wielding Skeleton had only just begun putting its bones back together.
It definitely seemed to take a fair amount of time for them to regenerate.
“Young Master, well done.”
“Hah. I knew you were impressive, but......”
Tarian praised me while the soldiers stared in admiration.
I shrugged.
Without letting down my guard, I put some distance between myself and the Skeletons and asked Tarian a question.
“Think we can take these guys with us?”
“Surely you still aren’t satisfied?”
Tarian stared at me as though he could not understand what I was saying.
I looked over the Skeletons.
“No, I just thought that if they keep regenerating like that, they’d be better than ordinary training dummies.”
“Skeletons as moving training dummies......? Then what exactly has all your training until now been......”
“But if we take them back, doesn’t that mean we won’t have to spar with Young Master for a while?”
“That’s true! Are you a genius?”
The soldiers whispered among themselves.
Their faces quickly brightened.
“They will probably stop regenerating once their magical power runs out.”
“......”
At Tarian’s words, the soldiers immediately sank into disappointment again.
“Still, that means we can use them for a while, right?”
Tarian pressed a hand to his forehead.
“There’s something I want to test here first.”
“What is it?”
“Mana. I think I’m starting to get a feel for it.”
The Skeletons were not manifesting sword aura or anything like that, but they were naturally using mana.
Especially their cores.
It felt as though they were strengthening their bodies by drawing on the magical power inside them.
“If I want to feel that clearly......”
I would only know by fighting them all the way through.