Chapter Thirteen: A Lesson in Physics Popularization
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“God of War Potion—use!”
Lightning Keno, wrapped in a mysterious black aura, had fallen unconscious and did not look as though he would be waking anytime soon.
Shiat promptly removed the snowman suit she was wearing and gripped her sword in both hands. One fierce blade aura after another rapidly coalesced around her, while a mysterious radiance shimmered across her palms and sword.
The high-grade katana Yelin had given her underwent a brilliant transformation. Once the light faded, it had become a crystal-blue longsword radiating an icy chill.
“Demonic Sword Descends!”
“Frost Kyradin!”
“Sword and self as one!”
“Phantom Flash—Threefold Severance!”
Boom!
Crash…
Three enormous, razor-sharp gray-white sword auras instantly cleaved apart the stone bed on which Keno slept. The wall behind it collapsed with a thunderous roar as the sword auras cut through it.
The flying blades even sliced a towering tree dozens of meters away into four sections.
As for Keno on the stone bed, there was naturally no chance he had survived.
“What are you doing?”
Yelin stared blankly at Shiat, who was gasping for breath, then turned toward the shattered stone bed, the collapsed wall, and the unfortunate tree.
“I-I killed… Keno!”
Shiat’s legs gave out, and she collapsed to the ground. The state of sword and self as one dispersed, and an overwhelming weakness and nausea surged through her body at once.
She felt terrible.
Her face and lips were as pale as though coated in frost. Her spirit sank, her head spun, and she felt like vomiting.
As expected, forcing out such a powerful strike had been too much for her.
“Are you an idiot? Did you activate sword and self as one, or did you go berserk? You lost all reason like a berserker!”
Yelin clutched his hair and paced back and forth in anguish. Seeing Shiat collapsed and miserable, he desperately wanted to curse her out, yet he could not quite bring himself to do it.
“What… What are you talking about?”
Shiat was both angry and aggrieved. She had been reduced to this state, and instead of showing concern, he was criticizing her and making sarcastic remarks. Was he even human?
“What a shameless scoundrel!”
She muttered the insult under her breath.
The moment Yelin saw her pitiful expression, he burst out laughing.
Never mind. Keno was probably worth only a hundred thousand gold or so. Yelin still had more than twenty million in his pack.
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Still, this bizarre misunderstanding had to be cleared up, lest Shiat recover her strength and use Threefold Severance on him, cutting him into four pieces.
“Look. Keno was trapped in a black nightmare and fell asleep. The unconscious lightning killed all his underlings. All you had to do was place your sword against Keno’s neck and draw it across…”
“Your Threefold Severance not only demolished the building, it obliterated Keno’s corpse as well. Where exactly do you expect the bounty to come from?”
Despite his helplessness, Yelin rummaged through the rubble for a while and eventually found a few scraps of loot: half of Keno’s palm, one of his eyeballs, and a piece of silver-gray flesh.
There was also a ring suffused with violet light.
[Magic Stone Ring]: (Rare) (Usable at Level 6) (Ring)
Magic Defense +352
Intelligence +7
Strength +3
Maximum HP +50
Casting Speed +2%
Description: A ring forged from the lowest-grade magic stone, containing an extremely faint trace of magical power.
“Do you want the ring?”
Yelin gestured toward it. Shiat had done most of the work, after all. Offering it out of courtesy made him look polite.
“I do!”
Shiat nodded emphatically. She could not use it, but she wanted it precisely because she refused to let Yelin have his way.
“You want this thing? That tiny boost of low-level magic is weaker than what you’d gain from running a mile and a quarter to exercise.”
Yelin scoffed. He equipped the ring without the slightest shame, then waved it in front of her eyes.
“Look. A new ring. Isn’t it pretty?”
Shiat rolled her eyes repeatedly. How could someone in this world be so shameless?
“I can’t walk anymore. Give me another potion like that one.”
She did not want to remain in this eerie, sinister Thunder Ruins for even another moment. She was utterly exhausted. She had fled from Bill Mark all the way to Grand Forest, killed a horde of monsters disturbed along the way, and then depleted herself by unleashing that skill at full force.
Now, all she wanted was to eat a proper meal, take a bath, and sleep.
“A potion? I’m out…”
Yelin searched through his pack and frowned.
“What do we do? We used them all. How about waiting here until you’ve rested a little?”
“Are you an idiot?”
At last, Shiat had found an opportunity to strike back. She rolled her eyes and managed a weak sneer.
“Keno is dead, and the thunder has dispersed. Monsters will be approaching before long. That skill of yours is only useful when there aren’t many enemies. If we don’t leave now, we’ll be in danger.”
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“Then what do we do? You want me to leave you here alone? No, no, I can’t do that.”
Yelin was so anxious that he scratched at his head in desperation. His expression of heartfelt concern moved Shiat deeply, and she nodded again and again.
As expected, he truly was a shameless scoundrel.
Did he really intend to force her to say the words “carry me” aloud?
“Oh. I’ll carry you!”
Fortunately, Yelin managed to grasp the last shred of his dignity. He crouched down and gestured for her to climb onto his back.
Shiat moved her arms with difficulty and draped them over Yelin’s shoulders, leaning her body against him.
“We need to hurry. I think I heard the cries of cat demons. It might be a patrol that slipped through.”
Yelin stared solemnly toward a certain direction in the forest and hurried away with Shiat on his back, following the route they had taken on the way in.
Half a minute later, Shiat, her entire body weak and aching, gritted her teeth and negotiated in a voice as faint as a mosquito’s.
“Um… Could you move your hands a little farther forward?”
“Huh? What did you say?”
Yelin seemed not to have heard her.
“I said, could you support my knees instead? Just don’t put them… there.”
Yelin did not answer. He simply quickened his pace and fled the Thunder Ruins.
“Shameless! Don’t deliberately take advantage of me, you creep!”
If she had possessed sharp fangs, she would have sunk them straight into his neck at such close range.
“You’re wronging me. I’m doing this for your own good!”
Yelin tightened his grip slightly and shifted her body higher before beginning to explain physics to Shiat with a perfectly solemn expression.
“You’re completely exhausted. Your arms, draped over my shoulders, have hardly any strength and are swaying with every step I take. If I held you by the knees, gravity would naturally pull you downward, and you’d eventually fall off. To keep you from falling, I’d have to hunch over, which would drastically slow our escape and make it difficult to see where I’m going.”
“But if I support your two rounded muscles, gravity pulling you downward will be blocked by me. It takes a little strength, but my line of sight remains perfectly clear.”
“Besides, you put everything you had into killing Lightning Keno. I can endure this little hardship. Don’t worry, I’m fine. I’ll definitely get you back to the inn!”
Yelin’s running was far from steady. Her body inevitably swayed slightly, only to be lifted again by his hands.
Then the same thing happened over and over.
The corner of Shiat’s mouth twitched as the fury in her chest nearly erupted. What an utterly brazen pervert. He could actually twist taking advantage of her into a noble act of self-sacrifice. It was almost absurd.
“Do you think I don’t know that this posture makes running extremely tiring for you? You’re truly a shameless man with astonishing endurance. Your arms must be numb, and the sensation in your palms nearly gone, yet you still refuse to change positions…”
“I’m not tired. It hasn’t gone numb. It hasn’t…”
“You shameless scoundrel!”
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