novelraw Chapter 103 : Closing One’s Eyes Before a Potato
Chapter 103 : Closing One’s Eyes Before a Potato
Chapter 103: Closing One’s Eyes Before a Potato
When Robin first grasped fighting spirit, it had been in an extreme situation.
On the battlefield, he had witnessed the deaths of precious people one after another, making it difficult to maintain his reason.
Fighting spirit mixed with killing intent could, if mishandled, gnaw away at one’s sanity.
Harold’s journal had helped alleviate those side effects.
Reproducing another’s power had the advantage of allowing one to take a step back from one’s own emotions.
“…To the shadow of the past, indifference. To indomitable fighting spirit, agitation.”
The air wrapping around Robin’s sword rippled.
The formless fighting spirit grew so fierce it was visible to the naked eye.
As he spread his two swords, they sliced through the air and flew toward Potato’s head.
Kwaang!
Potato did not dodge Robin’s attack.
He merely dipped his head slightly and took it with his horns.
There was not a single scratch on Potato’s horns.
Over three years, it was not only Robin who had grown stronger.
From the point when two years had passed, Potato no longer feared Robin and Sigbard.
Sigbard lifted the corners of his mouth, then sprinted at full speed and hurled himself toward Potato.
Bung. Buuung.
The rod spinning above his head lashed down on Potato’s shoulder.
Ppaak.
It did not break bones, nor did it force him to retreat.
Potato staggered for a moment.
That brief opening alone was enough.
Robin had already lunged at Potato just like Sigbard.
The fighting spirit gathered on his sword tore through Potato’s hide, spraying fresh blood.
Dung. Dung. Dung. Dung.
The barbarians watching felt their blood boil.
Overcome with excitement, they beat their chests like drums.
Clashing fists, stabbing spears into the ground, and swinging greatswords, they descended one by one.
They did not weigh whether they could win by fighting.
They risked their lives simply to land even a single blow on that enormous monster.
Kagagak.
Robin’s sword split the creature’s bones.
It was the first time a single sword strike had pierced the hide and cleaved through bone.
The bones that had felt like steel could no longer stop Robin’s blade.
“Robin! Be careful!”
The instant Sigbard’s warning ended, the creature kicked toward Robin.
Kkuguguk.
He concentrated his fighting spirit on the tip of his foot in an instant.
Harold’s journal had introduced the concept of fighting spirit techniques.
They were techniques that enhanced the body, and Harold had reaped benefits from using fighting spirit techniques in battle countless times.
Robin had refined them through innumerable practices to suit his own body.
Pang!
He escaped Potato’s range.
As the creature’s foot struck the ground, a deafening roar and dust erupted.
When Sigbard spun his rod and swept the dust away, the creature swung its tail this time.
Kwagwaaang!
The tail failed to reach Robin.
It was blocked by the rod Sigbard held, his arms spread wide.
Robin kicked off the ground and landed on the creature’s back.
He condensed strength into his arms and swung his sword.
Cracks began to form on the creature’s back, hard as rock.
Potato thrashed wildly, but Robin drove his sword into its back and hung on.
“Grrrrr!”
Realizing it could not shake Robin off, the creature snorted hot breath.
It scraped the ground with its hind legs as if digging, then ran in the direction opposite the cliff.
Seeing Potato rapidly grow distant, Sigbard and the barbarians were stunned.
“Is it running away?”
One barbarian lifted his weapon and laughed.
If it was fleeing in fear of them, it was as good as victory.
A sense of intoxication spread among the nearby barbarians.
“No. Everyone, spread out wide!”
Sigbard warned them and leapt sideways.
The barbarians soon realized why.
Potato, which they thought had fled, came charging madly toward the cliff.
Kwagagagagagagwang!
Each time its feet struck the ground, the sound of something exploding served as a warning.
There was no one here who could withstand that charge.
Barbarians were belligerent, but they were not stupid.
Spreading out as Sigbard had said, they barely escaped Potato’s charging path.
Even the successive shockwaves were enough to make their bodies stagger.
Kkwaaaaaaang!
Potato slammed its back—Robin still on it—straight into the cliff.
It meant that it intended to kill at all costs, not caring even if its own back took the impact.
It was a collision so tremendous that even from afar they were swept by the shockwave.
Sigbard furrowed his brow and searched for Robin.
Snow from atop the cliff fell in clumps, obscuring his vision.
“Robin! Are you alive!”
There was no answer.
Sigbard did not even know whether his voice had reached Robin.
Three seconds later, Robin pierced through the snow, traced a parabolic arc, and landed on the ground.
The sight of him spinning through the air as he fell could have been called a rare spectacle.
“Are you alright!”
“I’m fine. More importantly, it looks like Potato’s really angry.”
Today, you die.
I will definitely kill you.
Perhaps his intent had been conveyed.
As if sensing the end of the grueling subjugation, the creature hissed.
“When has it ever not been angry.”
“That’s true.”
“Whether that thing’s angry or not, the result won’t change.”
With the cliff at its back, Potato turned its body.
‘That look in its eyes… it’s changed.’
A chilling aura he had never seen before gathered.
Robin felt the hair all over his body stand on end as goosebumps rose.
An aura as if malice had been gathered into one place and then filtered into something even more concentrated.
Now he could be certain.
Just looking at it made it feel hard to breathe.
A filthy power he could never forget.
“Demonic energy.”
Udeuk. Udeudeuk.
Horns sprouted from the creature.
They shot up long from its head, the cross-sections left as they were, as if someone had roughly snapped them off.
Guuung.
Demonic energy surged up from the ground and gathered atop its horns.
From the size of a fist, it gradually grew until a massive sphere formed.
‘That’s dangerous.’
The moment they saw it, everyone realized.
If struck by ‘that’, there would be nothing left to gather—not even bones.
“M-my legs won’t move.”
The bodies of several barbarians stiffened.
Perhaps that was the normal reaction.
Robin, too, felt chills every time he looked at the ever-growing demonic energy.
Potato glared at Robin and Sigbard as if it wanted to kill them, then turned its head.
“It intends to kill the warriors.”
That cunning monster had created a situation where Robin and Sigbard could not dodge.
From what it had observed all this time, it had grasped their tendencies.
The two ran without a word.
When Sigbard slammed his rod into the ground nearby, the barbarians’ stiffness was released.
At the same time, the bloated black sphere was fired.
Swooooooosh.
A sphere made of demonic energy.
It surged forward, trailing a tail as if a meteor were falling from the sky.
Robin concentrated the fighting spirit he had pushed to its limit into his sword and received it.
Geugeugeugeugeuk.
Robin and the sphere collided in midair and contended with each other’s force.
They looked evenly matched, but little by little, Robin was pushed back.
‘I didn’t know it had been hiding such a technique.’
Had he known, he would have prepared a bit more.
‘A meaningless assumption.’
As he braced himself for being driven into the ground, Sigbard leapt up.
“I’ll help too.”
Sigbard set his rod upright like a spear and stabbed into the center of the sphere.
Puhwaaaak!
The black sphere burst apart.
Sigbard pushed Robin’s back with his thick hand.
“Go.”
Arms as thick as logs bent to their fullest.
The barbarian’s strength, far surpassing that of a human, sent Robin flying.
-People, monsters, or demon tribe—if you strike the vital point, they die.
Reciting Burt’s words to himself, he expelled his fighting spirit.
The fighting spirit shot toward the nape of the neck, leaving a vivid mark.
Chest, abdomen, legs, tail.
Just as Burt had done, Robin’s fighting spirit struck its targets precisely.
‘The last thing left is…….’
Puuk.
After stabbing his sword into the creature’s glabella, he quickly widened the distance.
He stayed on guard against the black sphere.
Potato shuddered as if electrocuted and stopped moving.
‘It worked.’
“Strikeeeeee!”
The barbarian warriors immediately rushed in.
The four legs supporting the creature were dismantled one by one.
The warriors’ fervor reached its peak.
They vented the resentment they had suppressed all this time.
Whether they wounded the creature or not did not matter.
Though each one’s strength differed, their hearts were one.
Ppaak! Ppak!
Sigbard also swung his rod.
The rod, filled with pent-up bitterness, was fierce.
Robin took in the state of the battle at a glance and thought.
‘Everyone’s doing well, but there’s no finishing blow.’
The creature, as enormous as a fortress, had only stopped moving for a moment.
There was no guarantee that an attack like the one just now would not come again.
Robin wanted to go further.
-I recommend that you build your own sword.
He slightly loosened the strength in his hand and held the sword lightly.
He closed his eyes and focused on the sounds.
They were filled with the sounds of various weapons striking the creature’s hide.
When he concentrated further, each sound was laden with bitterness.
Robin recalled the past three years.
It would be a lie to say he had never wanted to give up.
Kang! Kagang!
The barbarians who had been forced to avert their eyes from reality, leaning on the sacrifice of heroes.
Sigbard, who had tried to carry on his father’s will but had been rejected.
Robin, who had trained to repay those who had taken what was precious from him.
He heard the bitterness of everyone present.
Dung. Dung. Dung.
The heartbeat was low and deep, like a drumbeat.
How beautiful was the fighting spirit of warriors who poured out everything while gazing at a single goal.
Robin gathered the feelings he sensed now, then opened his eyes.
The sword resonated in time with his heartbeat.
Before a beast like a great mountain
Footsteps that summon a typhoon
Tiny me
Fear laid on thick
Even so, I face it
An unknown power settled into Robin’s sword.
A thousand suns setting
Beside ten thousand deaths
My weapon honed and honed
With the sword tip bearing my yearning
I cleave even the great mountain
Uuuung.
He did not know why he recited it like that.
He simply felt he had to open his mouth.
A heaviness he had never felt before wrapped around the sword.
It was similar to fighting spirit, yet slightly different.
If he had to say, it was a fighting spirit that fit him better.
It was his first time experiencing this, so he hesitated for a moment, but soon regained his composure.
What he had to do was clear.
‘Kill it.’
However, to swing the sword as he had been doing until now, the energy contained within the sword was too heavy.
It was the first time he did not know what to do while holding a sword.
“You said if you strike the vital point, it dies.”
Robin looked at the stiffened Potato.
Though it had stopped moving, perhaps because it could still handle demonic energy without issue,
the black sphere was once again gathering between the horns sprouting from its head.
‘If it’s now, somehow…….’
Robin pulled both arms taut all the way back to his sides.
Then he thrust them forward at the same time.
The posture of thrusting upward from below was not his usual swordsmanship.
It was a crude posture guided solely by instinct.
Piyuung.
Fighting spirit shot forth from the sword tip.
The fighting spirit flew like an arrow and pierced the creature’s heart.
Kwaaaaang!
The fighting spirit that burst out from its back shook the cliff.
A moment later, the sound of impact spread, and everyone lifted their heads.
“Geooooo…….”
The monster that had driven them into fear, called a calamity.
It gushed blood.
Flesh spilled out from two small holes in its chest.
“It’s falling! Everyone, get back!”
At Sigbard’s shout, the warriors widened their distance.
Robin tried to move as well, but his legs would not budge.
“Huh?”
Strength drained completely from his body.
The creature’s head fell down toward Robin.
Ppaak!
Sigbard, who had been watching closely, smashed the creature’s head with his rod.
The force was so great that a quarter of its face collapsed inward.
Kuuung.
No one was crushed beneath its body.
Robin clenched his teeth and endured as he was about to collapse.
“Are you alright.”
“Yes… thanks to you, I lived.”
“You brought it down, that monster.”
“We all did it together.”
The barbarian warriors approached one by one.
Even in that fierce battle, there were no fatalities.
A strange longing was contained in their eyes.
Robin shook off Sigbard’s support and said.
“Don’t you have something you want to say?”
“…….”
“You should make things like this clear.”
“Is that so…….”
Sigbard looked around.
Everyone waited for the words that would come from his mouth.
He opened his mouth with a voice he himself could hardly believe.
“We won.”
All around was silent.
Robin lightly poked Sigbard’s side.
“How about saying it a bit louder.”
Sigbard took a deep breath and shouted.
“We! Wooooon!”
“Waaaaaaaah!!”
The cheers of the warriors who had fought together covered all directions.
The echoing shouts resounded so loudly they could be faintly heard even in the village.
A barbarian who had been rejected for half his life raised his rod.
Having fulfilled his father’s will, he set down the heavy burden in his heart.
Tears welled up slightly.