All abilities achieve awakening when their understanding and proficiency rise.
That is why awakening takes a long time.
Understanding something and becoming proficient in it isn't something that happens overnight.
But I was different now.
The instincts I had before regression had shortened that time to an absurd degree.
“I already got [Efficient Parry]. What a windfall.”
If that was the case, didn't it mean I could awaken other abilities just as quickly?
As long as they weren't abilities like Strength, Stamina, and Agility that required only proficiency.
Grinning, I regenerated the Deriphon. There were still about three minutes left before assigned cleaning duty.
I stood facing it once again.
When I raised my sword, it charged at me like a beast of prey spotting its quarry.
WHOOSH—!
Its sword, raised vertically overhead, was certainly threatening. That attack had made me stagger again and again.
This time, I paid it no mind and angled my sword horizontally.
THUNK—!
The force that struck my blade didn't feel heavy at all, unlike before. The hand gripping the sword hilt, the arm and shoulder connected to it, and even my center of balance remained perfectly steady.
[Efficient Parry] had completely erased the gap in strength between us.
“KRRK?”
Its eyes wavered for a moment. Apparently still unable to grasp the situation, it brought its sword down again.
THUNK—!
THUNK—!
THUNK—!
Three consecutive blows.
Normally, I should've been sent flying, unable to withstand the force, but both my feet remained calmly planted on the floor.
A simple [Parry] could never have done this.
There was too much of a difference in both raw strength and the capability of the technique itself.
But after awakening into [Efficient Parry], it made every one of those differences irrelevant.
THUNK—!
After pouring its full strength into several attacks, the Deriphon finally exhausted itself and began panting.
In actual combat, that would've meant exposing an opening.
Of course, the same was true now.
SHNK.
I drove my sword into its torso.
The hologram scattered and vanished in an instant.
This was the power of awakening.
The ability itself rose to a higher tier.
“Whew.”
As I wrapped up my training, I felt it once again.
Regression was actually an opportunity.
A miraculous opportunity that could let me soar far higher than I ever had before regression.
***
― Heh heh, the Duty Officer is making an announcement. All company personnel are to begin assigned cleaning duty as of this time. I repeat. All company personnel are….
20:30.
The area assigned to our squad this week was the women's restroom. We had to clean the toilets, of course, but also the sinks and floors, then wash everything down with water, so unless something unusual came up, only low-ranking rookies like me went.
The problem was that our squad didn't have many Private Second Classes, and every last one of them happened to be assigned to guard duty.
There were Private First Classes too, but what they would do was obvious.
“Hey, just take care of everything yourselves.”
Led by Private First Class Kang Seong-jun, they halfheartedly pretended to work before disappearing somewhere.
They acted like that because they had Corporal Byeon Ji-tak backing them.
“Damn bastards. I hope they trip on the way and break their noses.”
I cursed them as I put on a pair of rubber gloves.
I started by straightening up the messy sinks. Just like a regular military restroom, the Hunter Corps restroom had several sinks, so I had no time to dawdle.
I was putting each showerhead back in its holder and unclogging a toilet when it happened.
“Huh? Yun-ho, why are you doing this alone?”
Corporal Jeong Ye-som entered the restroom with a yawn.
“The other Private Second Classes are out on guard duty.”
“What about the Private First Classes? Kang Seong-jun should be assigned here too.”
“They said they had something to do and left.”
Her brow furrowed.
“Do those bastards seriously have a death wish? They ditched you and left you to clean the restroom alone? Haah, Yun-ho. Don't stop me today. I'm going to cremate somebody and go to the brig.”
“Please calm down, Corporal Jeong Ye-som.”
I patted her on the back, and Corporal Jeong Ye-som barely managed to suppress her anger.
“You don't know where they went?”
“No.”
“Those bastards are hopeless. I'll tear into them properly later.”
Grinding her teeth, she pointed at one of the stalls I'd already finished cleaning.
“I can use this one, right?”
“Yes. If you need to relieve yourself, I'll step outside for a moment.”
“It's number two, though? Just ignore me and keep working.”
“Hmm, are you sure that's all right?”
She was going to take a dump and told me not to mind her.
For a moment I wondered what the hell this was, but her next words immediately made it make sense.
“What's the big deal between us?”
A childhood buddy with no boundaries.
An older neighborhood girl who held absolutely nothing back around me.
That was the kind of person Corporal Jeong Ye-som had been to me.
We hadn't simply been close.
“I'll help once I'm done.”
“You don't have to.”
“Oh, please. You don't mean that.”
“Haha.”
“Just keep at it for now. I'll be right out.”
“Yes.”
Leaving Corporal Jeong Ye-som to take care of her business, I finished cleaning the remaining toilets first.
No matter what, I couldn't make a senior soldier do the hard work.
Cleaning the floor was relatively easy, so I rushed through everything else and left only that.
By the time a faint smell began to waft through the restroom, Corporal Jeong Ye-som came back out.
She rolled up her sleeves and put on rubber gloves.
She handled the mop with practiced ease.
Her skill at sweeping away the water and polishing the floor until it gleamed was impressive.
“How are you so good at that?”
“I used to be where you are now too, Yun-ho.”
“I can't imagine it. You being a Private Second Class, Corporal Jeong Ye-som.”
“Pfft, I was totally clueless back then too. I picked up skills like these as I went through that phase.”
She made the floor spotless in no time.
Thanks to her, the work became much easier.
“But it works the other way too.”
“Yes?”
“I can't imagine you becoming a Corporal either, Yun-ho. It feels like you'll be our cute youngest forever.”
“Haha.”
I swallowed the words that this youngest soldier would make it all the way to Master Sergeant, not merely Corporal, big sis, and finished cleaning.
It was already getting close to 21:00.
“Hey, all of you. Get over here.”
“Private First Class Kang Seong-jun. What is it?”
As soon as we returned to the barracks, Corporal Jeong Ye-som called Private First Class Kang Seong-jun over.
FWOOSH—!
Her fingertips burst into flame in an instant.
Private First Class Kang Seong-jun flinched.
The other Private First Classes who'd run off with him froze too.
If those flames could burn monster hide, there was no reason they couldn't burn human skin.
“W-why are you doing this?”
“Why am I doing this? You seriously don't know? Who told you bastards to ditch cleaning and run off?”
“W-we didn't run off. W-we finished our share.”
“Finished what? I went to the restroom and nothing had been done. I just chewed Gu Yun-ho's ass out over it too.”
Of course, the part about chewing me out was a lie.
She was taking preventive measures so they couldn't give me shit about it later.
Maybe because of that, even Corporal Byeon Ji-tak couldn't butt in.
“Want me to brand your cheek? Shall I really work you over with some heat?”
“I-I'm sorry.”
Private First Class Kang Seong-jun trembled.
There was an actual precedent for this.
Corporal Jeong Ye-som had once scorched the head of a Corporal from another platoon who sexually harassed her.
The wise disciplinary committee had sentenced Corporal Jeong Ye-som to restriction and the Corporal from the other platoon to the maximum term in the brig.
In any case, Corporal Jeong Ye-som was the type to go straight for it when someone crossed her.
Private First Class Kang Seong-jun apologized again and again.
“I-I'll never do it again.”
“And Kang Seong-jun.”
“P-Private First Class Kang Seong-jun!”
“This isn't just about today.”
“Yes…?”
Corporal Jeong Ye-som glanced at Corporal Byeon Ji-tak as she spoke.
“Stop clinging to somebody's side and yapping all the time. Before I rip your mouth off.”
“U-understood.”
Faced with that vicious warning, Private First Class Kang Seong-jun could barely open his mouth.
But how long would that last?
It was obvious he'd start acting up again as long as he had Corporal Byeon Ji-tak behind him.
I needed to cut it off at the root.
Make sure he could never hold his head high again.
And it wasn't only Private First Class Kang Seong-jun.
I had to send Corporal Byeon Ji-tak into the abyss too.
Before regression, failing to do that had remained a bitter lifelong regret.
But this time, it felt possible.
No, it was possible.
A rough scenario was already taking shape in my head.
“Nothing unusual to report, right?”
“No.”
“Tomorrow morning is specialty training. In the afternoon, we're heading to Song-su Station for an investigation, so keep that in mind.”
“Song-su Station? Didn't we already finish investigating that place?”
“The Company Commander ordered us to check it one more time, just in case.”
Before evening roll call, we held the squad's daily wrap-up.
Staff Sergeant Kwon Min-chan, who couldn't be bothered with anything, rushed through it and left the barracks.
He was probably going to rest in his room attached to the squad leader's office.
The moment he left, complaints broke out everywhere.
“Come on, we're going back to Song-su Station again?”
“What the hell does the Company Commander think is there that we need to check it one more time?”
“Exactly. Do people start going senile in their thirties these days?”
As I remembered it, a dungeon had formed at Song-su Station about a month ago.
It had been easy to clear since it contained only gnoll-type monsters, but the interior was enormous.
About as large as four or five ordinary dungeons combined.
The Company Commander had become fixated on it.
“Damn it, just because it's big doesn't mean there's a relic in there. Maybe if there were ruins or something, but the place had nothing but grass.”
A relic.
An item from another world discovered inside a dungeon.
Everyone was complaining, but surprisingly, the Company Commander's hunch was right.
There really was a relic there.
‘Strictly speaking, a Rune isn't the same thing as a relic, but it's definitely valuable.’
A Rune could unlock in mere seconds an ability that could otherwise be gained only through innate talent, enlightenment, or intense training.
The method was simple too.
You just put it in your mouth and swallowed it like a pill.
‘I'll use our break time to get my hands on it somehow.’
I already knew exactly what ability that Rune contained.
My mouth was watering already.
Anyway, specialty training in the morning.
That worked out perfectly.
It looked like I'd be able to test the power of [Efficient Parry] in a real match rather than a simulation.
I'd used it until I was sick of it before regression, but back then my body had already been developed to some extent.
Now, on the other hand, I had nothing built up at all.
Using [Efficient Parry] in a body like this.
How would it perform?