Rise, Strongest Warrior – Chapter 14: Shin Sok(2)

He ran for around six hours. Igeon could feel his arm going numb as he pulled out the dagger stuck in his arm.

‘Is it smeared in poison as well?’

Shin Sok was fast and he also ran well.

‘Does this damn guy ever get tired?’

Yellow lightning darted around the plain, and Igeon was pursuing him relentlessly.

“Damn it!”

Igeon used all his strength and ran. Shin Sok wasn’t an opponent you could catch by saving your energy.

He hastened as if he was sprinting and chased after Shin Sok.

“Good. That’s the way you should be. If you’re not fast, my gun will keep on firing.”

He sure say those things well even though he is actually using a variety of weapons.

“Ahhhh!”

“You lose strength if you scream. Control your breathing.”

He could hear his voice digging into his ears even as he was running.

Whiz whiz!

Daggers and darts, crossbow bolts, beads.

Various things flew by, as Igeon narrowly dodged them.

“Faster. What can you do if you’re so slow?”

Shin An and Gang Chae at least gave him time to rest.

But Shin Sok was so impatient that he couldn’t even stand seeing him rest for even a minute.

‘Fine.’

There should be a reason behind Shin Sok sprints.

Igeon carefully observed his movements as Shin An and Gang Chae taught him and applied it.

He controlled his body to copy his movements.

Jjuk!

He copied his breathing and the movements of his muscles as he ran.

Then his body launched forward with speed a multitude of times faster.

“Oh, can you keep up with me?”

Suddenly, Shin Sok sped up.

Again, he observed and copied.

Then Shin Sok sped up even faster.

It was an endless chase.

They ran like that for 30 days.

When he felt like he was out of breath he would copy Shin Sok’s breathing.

Then, he could feel the rare experience of his body recovering.

“That’s how you do it friend!”

‘What friend!’

After he experienced his breathlessness and the fever-like mind burning around 20 times, Igeon just ran with while being half out of his mind.

After a month, he was barely within the scope of the 10-mile limit.

Looking at Igeon like that, a yellow lightning sparked in Shin Sok’s eyes.

Booom!

He disappeared from his view after breaking the sonic barrier.

Hit by the boom, Igeons body flew back and collapsed, sprawl on the ground.

‘I thought I wouldn’t need to sleep in this place.’

No. When he tried to pour all his strength into his body, he unintentionally slowly fell asleep.

Igeon closed his eyes and lost consciousness.

***

“Wake up!”

Igeon opened his eyes to a loud noise.

He could see a man with grey hair, suiting the words of a smiling angel.

“There’s still a long way to go but your stamina is terrible.”

From the moment he was born, this was the first time he had ever been told this.

When he was in high school he heard that he had stamina of a monster.

“So we just need to continue playing tag?”

“You know it well. That’s what we have to do. Tag. But there is a condition. I’m not good at waiting. I need to deal with things quickly”

“So?”

“If you can’t touch me even after 100 days, you fail. I won’t recognize you.”

That means, I won’t be able to wake up from the warm-up.

Shin An and Gang Chae isn’t a sadist, but nor were they merciless.

This guy is the real one.

“Fine.”

But that didn’t meant he would give up.

If it’s a road he needs to take then he should first at least try to go through it.

Why did this kind of sentence suddenly come across my/his mind?

“Let’s deal with it quickly since it’s something we need to do anyways, if it goes wrong I can just start again.”

He was influenced by Shin Sok.

After listening to his words, Igeon unconsciously assimilated his ways. When he was with Shin An, he was influenced by him, and when he was with Gang Chae he was influenced by him.

That’s why he used his head a lot when he first saw Gang Chae and used his hands without hesitation when he first met Shin Sok.

‘Are their personalities also imprinting themselves onto me?’

Finished speaking, Shin Sok started to run again.

Grind.

Igeon clenched his teeth as he began to move again.

***

He had never been bored of running before.

But Igeon started to become sick of it.

By the 98th day, he wasn’t as fast as Shin Sok but Igeon became faster to the point his body could be compared to a ray of light.

Shin Sok became even faster.

‘It won’t do at this rate…’

His opponent became faster as much as he became faster.

Then?

He had to borrow Shin An and Gang Chae’s power.

Igeon observed Shin Sok’s position in the open field and considered the shortest path to him.

At the same time, his muscles in his thighs flexed.

Bang!

The soil in the ground burst into the air as Igeo kicked off and his body exceeded his maximum speed for a moment.

Naturally, this wasn’t a method he could use for a long period.

Although he had learned to control his body from Gang Chae, this was a makeshift remedy.

But if he can’t catch him in this state, the 100-day cutline was impossible.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Igeon’s body overwhelmed his speed for an instant, leaving marks on the ground as if a giant went by.

‘Reach him!’

He earnestly hoped as he stretched his hand out and Shin Sok’s sped up even further.

‘It’s no good like this. The first time would be better.’

First?

Igeon’s brain started to scan all the days from the day he first came to the plain.

It was the way he copied Shin Sok’s methods.

Igeon’s eyes beamed with a green light and he copied Shin Sok’s movements again.

Once again, he kicked off the ground as if he was leaping.

He kicked off without a sound and as if his body was riding the wind, Igeon ran through the air.

‘So it was this kind of feeling?’

At the same time, an unknown power started to rise from somewhere deep inside his body.

Crackle!

Lightning circulated through his whole body as it awakened all his cells.

In fact, it was obvious for Shin Sok to be fast, since the method he used to run and use his body was different.

As Igeon used a portion of that power, Shin Sok stopped in his position.

Tap.

As Igeon’s hand reached his body, he opened his mouth with a dark smile.

“Pass.”

Proofreader Note: If you guys find errors, or have suggestions for proofreading, feel free to message me on the Kobatoland Discord channel @Pyrenose.

Staff
syk (TL)
Pyrenose (PR)