Chapter 256: The Obvious Story He Wanted To See (4)

Iliad was walking like a baby bird taking its first steps.

“Haaah! haaah!”

He was like a child who could only crawl until a moment ago suddenly had the courage to stand on their two feet and walk. It was really ridiculous to see a grown man walking like that.

However,

“You got this, Illiiad! Just a little more!”

“Cheer up, Father!”

“Just a little more, just a little more…!”

“Oh! That’s good!”

The people cheered him on seriously rather than laughing at him.

Trickle-!

“Haa, haaah!”

Illiad was drenched in sweat before he knew it. Just by looking at the uncontrollable cramps in his legs, it was obvious just how much he was in pain and struggle. Everyone thought that they should help him now, but they also understood that if they helped him now, all the effort he had put in would have been meaningless.

Therefore,

“Just a little more, just a little more…!”

All they could do was cheer.

“!!”

He walked ten more steps with a powerful shout as encouragement.

In total, he was walking for thirty steps.

Waaaaah!!

After succeeding in leaving thirty grand footprints behind him, Illiad raised both hands and roared. People also ran to him and congratulated him with cheers of joy.

At that sight,

“…If someone saw him, they would think they won the World Series.”

Lee Han couldn’t help but sigh.

Of course, he was also happy.

“I told him to rest for a while… He really doesn’t listen.”

But, it would be even more stranger if he didn’t sighed since he had been like that for three whole hours already.

At that moment, Lee Han thought he understand a little bit the feelings of doctors who were faced against patients who wouldn’t listen.

Lee Han could say with certainty that Illiad’s body was completely destroyed to the point where it was impossible to fix because of the previous incident.

Before he became a Demonic Human, he had only lost the use of his legs, but after becoming a Demonic Human, he had permanent disabilities all over his body that were so serious that would make his inability to use his legs felt like a holiday.

In a way, it was only natural. He had to use his vitality without any care in the world and forcibly restore his body. To make matters worse, his lifespan was also shaved quite a bit. In addition, his heart was also destroyed first before being restored, so his heart’s durability was bound to decrease.

Thanks to the miraculous treatment of the Aura User, the lost vitality was already somehow replenished, and his heart’s regeneration proceeded without much trouble, but even so, his body that had been destroyed wouldn’t be normal anymore.

Aura was not omnipotent, and the world was not like a fairy tale where everything went in a positive direction. In reality, Iliad was now in a situation where he had to worry about whether he could make it through tomorrow, let alone walking.

“H-his Excellency is walking!?”

“???”

Things should be looking bleak for Illiad an all members of the Offen family, but as soon as they heard that Illiad was walking around the training ground, the training ground was instantly filled with people.

The training ground was almost like three baseball stadiums combined, so it was really unbelievable to see it being filled by people in less than 5 minutes.

In a sense, the fact that Illiad was able to walk again was the greatest miracle for Offen Family.

[Waaaahhhhh!]

The same cheers as before rang out.

Lee Han had joked that it looked like they had won the World Series, but wasn’t what he felt now was an even greater passion than before?

“Rather than the World Series, it looks more like the Super Bowl?”

“What is that?”

“…There is something like that. But, why are you here when everybody else is busy cheering for your son?”

“Illiad won’t hear my cheering right now. He’s just that enthusiastic.”

“Wow… You noticed that?”

“You are clearly being rude… But I can’t get angry at all.”

Felicia grumbled, but Lee Han wasn’t all that surprised that this person was suddenly next to him.

However, unlike him, who wasn’t surprised.

“…How did you do it?”

“What?”

“How did you make my son walk again?”

“Oh, that. It’s nothing special…”

“Nothing special my foot. My heart is still pounding even now…!”

Even though Felicia was clearly happy about it, she still couldn’t hide her surprise because it felt like a dream.

Just like what Lee Han thought before, her son was…

“Completely broken. But you gave him something that enabled him to walk again.”

Felicia was very happy about that. She was as happy as when she gave birth to Illiad.

But at the same time,

“I can’t help but feel curious.”

She had lived for over 90 years, and she was an explorer who had explored about a third of the continent. It meant that she had accumulated deep and diverse experiences that made her impervious from being surprised by most things, but even she had never experienced something as miraculous as what Lee Han did before.

Raising someone who was completely disabled back up…

Isn’t that some kind of miracle?

“Were you a saint by any chance?”

“Do I look like a believer to you?”

“No. I think you are a person who will swing an axe to the sky if needed.”

“I’m not going to do something like that…”

“Say it quickly. How much do you intend to make this old woman feel uncomfortable!”

“I didn’t do it on purpose…”

Lee Han was dumbfounded, but he knew that it wasn’t easy to suppress a person’s curiosity. Especially when it’s a matter that happened to their own son.

That’s why.

“It’s really nothing special. Right now, your son is kind of a puppet.”

He was able to say the answer quite easily.

What Lee Han did was really nothing special.

“I just let him feel [Martial Power].”

“Are you talking about the martial arts you found?”

“It’s not something grand enough to be called martial arts….”

The principle was simple. Martial Power was the primal power that humans possessed. So, It’s about drawing out the power that comes from the human body such as muscles, bones, tendons, and internal organs.

“I just taught your son the basics of sensing Martial Power. In other words, I just opened a new path for him.”

“…That’s enough to make him move like that?”

Felicia’s doubts grew as she listened to Lee Han’s story. She understood the principle, but she couldn’t believe that Illiad could walk just with that.

Honestly, if it was also possible to create using Aura since it wasn’t a difficult process. In other words, it was something that Felicia had already tried, so Lee Han’s story didn’t make sense.

Just as she wondered so,

“Of course you can’t do what I did. Unless you understand the complexity of human’s body.”

“Huh?”

“I’m a so-called ‘expert.’ I mean, someone who understands the movement of the body’s muscles, bones, organs, nerves, and other complex organs well.”

He was confident that he could do it because he was the only one.

Does it seem easy to do Twisting the Muscles and Bones?

Does it seem easy to teach a technique to others?

The reason Lee Han could do it was because of his experience and hundreds of repeated experiments.

I experimented a lot against the magic freaks.

There were really few experts as proficient in the body as Lee Han. Moreover, he also had the talent for it.

“There are two things I put inside that guy. One is a core that can feel the Martial Power, and the other is a mechanism to transmit the strength.”

“Mechani what?”

“There is something like that. To put it simply, that guy’s legs and arms are not moving naturally, but are being manipulated like a puppet.”

Countless invisible threads were controlling each leg, arm, waist, and shoulder.

It might sound easy from the explanation alone, but…

“It was easier said than done. Even us wouldn’t be able to do it unless we were born with a unique brain.”

It’s possible because he’s Illiad. He manipulated the energy that spread out like threads one by one to stimulate the muscles, and only after understanding the role and structure of those muscles did he move one step at a time.

Even for Lee Han, something like that was not easy. His head would start hurting and he would get a nosebleed just after 10 seconds of doing it.

But that guy was different. Even without looking at his talent, he still had a brain that would be hailed as one of the best in the Southern Continent.

“If he were an ordinary person, it would probably take him over three months to walk one step, you know?”

“…”

“The reason why he could walk so much was because he’s him. Oh, but you should know this. From now on, he won’t be able to use Sword Resonance or Sword Energy since he’ll have to use all of his energy to move his body. Also, don’t forget to stimulate his body with Aura every day and replenish his vitality. Until his skeletal muscle mass exceeds the average level for men, he’ll be a bottomless pit.”

Lee Han kept giving additional advice, driving the nail in firmly as if that was all he could do.

But…

“Why?”

“?”

“Why… are you doing this much?”

Felicia was grateful but also couldn’t understand.

No matter how much they were his disciple’s parents, even if they had some kind of connection, in the end, they were just strangers to him, right?

But…

“Why did you do so much for us? Weren’t I and Offen just a nuisance to you?”

In the end, he didn’t accept anything she offered him. He didn’t want money, and he was even more terrified by honor. He even distanced himself from her, an Aura User, saying it was a nuisance…

Nevertheless, he readily taught them his vision.

He made her son walk again.

“W-we didn’t do anything for you…”

Felica felt sorry and guilty.

And when she was lamenting like that,

“I did it because you guys are ‘good people’.”

“…Huh?”

“I helped you because you guys are nice.”

“…”

He recited the reason he helped them in a light tone, as if it was such a trivial reason.

“I like happy endings in fairy tales and plays the most. And my favorite happy endings are where people who live honestly live happily ever after.”

“…”

“But unlike fairy tales, reality is not like that. There are many cases where good people die unreasonably early or fall into despair more often than bad people. No one ever helps them. On the contrary, bad people live well. They have a lot of things because they lived badly.”

“…”

“But that really makes me feel sad. So whenever possible, I…”

Want to help the good people around me.

“I just have to help a little. I find it rewarding when the gloomy story becomes a comedy with my help.”

Good people becoming happy… Even though It’s such a cliché and obvious story, that’s the kind of story Lee Han wanted to see

“I just want to see that obvious story.”

“…”

“That’s not a good reason, is it? But what can I do? It’s already like this.”

“…”

“Oh, but there’s something you can do for me.”

“Something I can do for you?”

“The conclusion of the story.”

“??”

“Remember what I advised you? Please try it now.”

“???”

Iliad found himself in a miserable state. Walking alone was already painful for him, yet his head felt like it was burning every time he walked. He would probably continue to be miserable until he got used to it, or even after he got used to it..

But still…

T-this is the start.

Iliad was grateful that he could ‘try’. He was more than happy that there was a possibility that he would be rewarded if he tried. A life where he could be rewarded if he tried was more splendid than a life where he couldn’t even try.

Iliad smiled happily…

“My son…”

“Mother?”

Iliad, drenched in sweat, suddenly voiced his confusion at his mother who was blocking his way.

Was she trying to force me to rest? Did I overdid it?

Illiad tried to wave his hand that it was okay.

This much was nothing, right now he didn;t want to do anything but experienced this joy a little more.

He tried to say that.

But…

“I… I’m proud of you…”

“???”

“I’m so proud of you.”

For a moment, Illiad thought that his ears suddenly stopped working properly.

He couldn’t understand why his mother was saying such things in the middle of a crowded training ground, and he couldn’t understand even more why she was suddenly praising him.

No, in the first place.

It’s so unfamiliar.

When Illiad asked himself why he was so flustered, he realized that he had never heard such words from his mother.

He had heard quite a few things like he was a genius or great, but praise like that…

“I am always proud of you. When you were born, when you started walking, when you showed your talent with the sword, when you showed me your first drawing, when you became the head of the family at a young age, when you gave me my grandchild, even when you became a Demonic Human. There wasn’t a single day when I wasn’t proud of you.”

“…”

“I-I’m proud of you. You’re my treasure, my pride.”

“…”

What kind of expression was he making right now, he wonder?

Iliad couldn’t understand it at all.

Was his face twisting? Was it turning red?

If it’s neither…

Trickle…

“I’m sweating so much…”

“You should wipe it off.”

“Yes, I’m sweating so much. It’s making my eyes hurt….”

“I see…”

The pair of mother and son stared blankly at each other for a while, chatting about nothing, and the people quietly left their seats.

The pair who had been dishonest with each other and rarely communicated with each other was finally revealing their sincerity, and it was really good to watch it.

“Are you satisfied now?”

“Meh. If you have to rate it, it’s only as high as 6.”

“You are bad.”

“Bad my foot.”

Lee Han snickered.

“6 is a high score for a cliche story.”