Free Web NovelChapter 20: Ascendant rank [2]
The system spoke inside my mind, congratulating me on my achievement.
I had done it.
Breaking through to another rank in the span of two weeks.
Another impressive fact was that I had slain a Mid Common beast despite being only at the Awakened rank. If anyone else had seen what I had just done, they wouldn’t have believed their eyes and would have called me a genius.
But I’m not a genius. I’m just an author who knows his book very well.
Ahem, not really well, since I hadn’t even known Yves existed. But I was still the author!
This fight wasn’t easy at all. I pushed my body to its limits, breaking bones, bleeding to the point of nearly dying, all against a beast that would have eaten my corpse if I had lost.
But it was all worth it.
Still, I was lucky. I had known two weeks of preparation wouldn’t be enough, but time wasn’t on my side. It was either grow stronger fast or get left behind.
This forest was filled with monsters that could kill me if they really tried, and mind you, I had only been in Section 1, the safest part of it. The deeper I went, the more dangerous it would get.
And here I was, already struggling against a low-tier beast.
If it weren’t for my Main Story suddenly manifesting, I would be dead.
So it had been foolish of me to assume things would be easy just because I had all the knowledge.
If I really wanted to push into the next section and kill the monster that would help rank up my Main Story, I needed to be less arrogant and far more careful.
[The Main Story ’He Who Yearned For Death’ is returning to its slumber.]
The moment I heard that message, I felt all the borrowed strength vanish, and the pain and exhaustion crashed into me all at once.
Shit.
My vision turned black, and like a puppet with its strings cut, I fell onto my back.
It was almost a relief that I fainted. At least I wouldn’t feel the pain of going through body reconstruction. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
My last thought before blacking out was hoping Ezio wouldn’t let me get eaten by the other monkeys.
That would be absolutely not funny.
...
Yves fainted from exhaustion right next to the corpse of the Fire Monkey leader.
The battle had finally come to an end, and Yves had emerged victorious.
The monkeys in the trees climbed down quietly and started approaching, but just before they got too close, Yves’s shadow stirred and Ezio emerged from it.
The moment he appeared, every fire monkey froze in place, shivering, the fur on their bodies standing on end.
They couldn’t move an inch, as if their survival instincts were screaming that the slightest movement would get them killed, even though Ezio had no intention of attacking them.
’I wonder, if I hadn’t come out, would they have tried to eat him?’ He thought.
Ezio didn’t spare them a glance and checked on Yves instead.
After checking his pulse, he pulled back and sighed. "He’s just tired."
He then turned to the frozen monkeys, who flinched and broke into a sweat under his gaze.
"Scram —" Before he even finished the word, the monkeys were already gone, running as if their lives depended on it.
And it sure had. Those beasts would never set foot in that part of the forest again for a long while.
"I wasn’t even going to kill them." Ezio shook his head.
Then he heard a crack and turned toward it. It was the sound of Yves’s bones breaking, his body reconstructing after the ascension.
"He really won..." Ezio muttered, a faint trace of disbelief in his voice as he stared at Yves’s face.
Ezio had just watched Yves do the impossible.
Throughout the entire fight, Yves had fought with nothing but sheer will and confidence.
From the very first clash, Yves had kept pace with the beast, blocking every attack with surprisingly fine reflexes and swordsmanship.
God, his swordsmanship, despite being properly taught for only two weeks, was shocking. He swung that katana as if he had wielded one his entire life.
No wasted movement, every slash and cut delivered with exactly the right amount of force, never too much, never too little. Balanced.
And his quick-draw was so fast and explosive that he had managed to wound the Fire monkey leader’s tough hide.
’This kid is not normal.’
What was even more shocking was that when the beast started overwhelming him and he began getting hurt, he never panicked, never complained. He held the same cold focus from start to finish.
The Yves who had fought that beast looked like an entirely different person from the one Ezio usually knew.
Not once had he seen fear on his face.
"He was smiling."
Ezio wondered if Yves was some kind of masochist.
Yves had been smiling the whole time his body was battered, covered in wounds, bleeding everywhere. As if with every new wound, every drop of blood spilled, his smile only grew wider.
That told Ezio everything. The kid had been enjoying the fight.
Yeah, he was officially a masochist in Ezio’s eyes now.
"I swear, why is no one in this family normal? They all have a screw loose somewhere." Ezio pinched the bridge of his nose. "I want to quit this job already."
He knew that wasn’t going to happen.
Thinking back on the fight, Ezio had to admit Yves was sharp. He had come up with a plan to kill the beast by crippling its mobility and breaking through its tough hide by hammering the same spots over and over.
"Still, there was a flaw in his plan."
He had underestimated the beast’s stamina and how much greater it was compared to his own. It had taken a full hour for the plan to even start working, and by then he was already battered and exhausted.
If he hadn’t pulled Story Manifestation out of nowhere, he would be dead right now.
That had been careless of him.
But it didn’t matter in the end. What mattered was that he won. This world only cared about who came out on top.
"Ezio, you’re really ugly..." Yves’s voice pulled Ezio out of his thoughts.
Ezio frowned and looked down at Yves’s face, which had somehow grown even more handsome after the body reconstruction.
"Tsk. Even in his sleep, he’s a despicable bastard." He clicked his tongue.
Ezio suddenly regretted chasing the other beasts away.
’Maybe I should have just let him get his face mauled by the monkeys...’
