Ch.63EP.18 – Ghoul vs. Ghoul? (1)

When the semester evaluations begin, the industry that unexpectedly thrives is none other than the quarry.

The final highlight of the semester exams: [The Battle Against Rock Trolls].

This is why the Academy purchases large quantities of quality marble and hard rock excavated from quarries.

However, only the nobles or merchant guild leaders who manage the quarries enjoy the prosperity.

For the laborers working beneath them, it was far from prosperous.

Rather, it was a period of severe overwork.

CRASH! BOOM!

A meager facility without even proper quarrying equipment.

All that occupied the space were pickaxes, massive hammers, and large spikes.

The quarrymen were relentlessly hammering away at the massive rock face exposed from cutting into the mountain.

“Hammer in sequence! Don’t break formation!”

“You stupid idiot! Don’t freeze up! Damn it…!”

“Stay alert, one mistake and your neck gets snapped!”

Harsh reprimands filled the air.

It was unavoidable in professions where a single mistake could endanger lives.

Still, they were only on edge because they needed to extract the massive rocks intact—they weren’t bad people normally.

They were just rough during work because they needed to earn money and valued their lives.

Then suddenly.

CRACK!

“You stupid idiot!”

A worker who had joined today as a newcomer finally caused an accident.

He struck along the wrong grain, causing cracks to form across part of the rock face, and those cracks were gradually widening.

CREAK-CRACK!

“Uh, uhhh?!”

“Stop stammering like an idiot and evacuate, you morons!!”

The gruff foreman’s bellowing voice rang out.

Since even a single mistake could cause a major accident, there were protocols in place, and fleeing to safety without hesitation was the best protocol of all.

As everyone hurriedly scrambled away…

“W-wait a moment…!”

One novice worker’s legs froze.

His legs must have given out from the unexpected situation.

“Gus…!”

A colleague called out his name and rushed to help him, but the timing was already too late.

CRASH-BOOM!

Boulder-sized rocks from the cracked face came tumbling down one after another.

In the face of disasters like rockslides, humans become helplessly powerless.

People watched with pale faces, thinking someone would be reduced to a bloody pulp today, but…

GRAB!

Someone seized the worker by the scruff of his neck and pulled him away from the falling rocks.

“…Huh?”

“Wake up, man. How long are you going to stand there frozen?”

“……”

“You’re really not cut out for this job. Find something else.”

“…Th-thank you.”

“Your thanks are too slow as well.”

“…Y-yes.”

The worker slowly nodded at the advice of the man who had saved him.

It seemed true that this wasn’t the right occupation for him.

* * *

“Rohan! Thank you so much, if it weren’t for you, we’d have had a corpse to clean up.”

“What corpse? We wouldn’t even have been able to recover a corpse.”

“Can you stop with those unlucky comments?”

“If you’re grateful, just give me some extra pay.”

Worker Rohan curtly replied and silently focused on the work that had resumed.

Despite such a major rockfall accident, no one paid it any mind and work simply continued.

This scene was terrifying in its own way, but the laborers were used to it.

There had been an accident, but it was just an unfortunate incident.

In a world without labor unions or worker rights, who would care about a mere accident?

Honestly, such accidents were commonplace, and would you believe some people were actually happy because the fallen rocks meant the work would finish faster?

“I know, I’ll talk to the higher-ups and get you extra. Since we don’t have to pay the guy who caused the accident anyway, I’ll give it all to you.”

“Now that’s a proper show of gratitude.”

CLANG! CRACK!

“…Wow, you’ve got quite the skill there! Have you worked elsewhere before?”

The foreman, who had been observing worker Rohan, exclaimed in admiration after witnessing his technique.

His skills were that extraordinary.

“Just experience I’ve picked up here and there.”

“Haha, so you’re an experienced worker, and an excellent one at that!”

The real start of quarrying work was in shaping the rocks so they could be loaded onto carts.

After all, they couldn’t move stones that were too heavy.

And the only tool provided for shaping rocks was a single pickaxe, with few other tools available.

Therefore, it required the strength and skill of experienced workers, and in a quarry where lives were constantly at risk, skilled veterans were valuable assets.

‘He’s no ordinary fellow, look at those consistent strikes!’

CRACK! CRACKLE!

The rock was shaped with each pass of the pickaxe.

It wasn’t something that could be done with mere strength; it required technique and skill.

Impressive!

‘Even if I have to pay him more, I need to scout him!’

Talent shortages existed in every industry.

The foreman’s eyes gleamed.

‘…This is depressing, somehow only older men seem to really like me.’

The rock-shaping worker Rohan.

No, the knight Ihan who had temporarily changed his name to become a quarryman, couldn’t hide his discomfort.

Confirming the owner of the intense gaze he felt from behind only deepened his gloom.

Some lucky bastard would receive such intense gazes from beautiful noble ladies, but all I get is…

‘This sucks, damn it.’

Though disgust welled up inside him, he silently concentrated on his quarrying work.

He wore a thick mask to block quarry dust while continuously swinging his pickaxe.

“HUFF! HUFF!”

Breathing was difficult.

The alchemist merchant’s claim was true—the specially made mask blocked 99.9% of quarry dust and fine particles, but it was damn hard to breathe through.

Because of this, the more vigorously he moved, the faster his stamina depleted compared to normal.

However, he was perfectly satisfied with this cursed mask.

Because it helped him feel his limits better.

CLANG! CLANG!!

‘This is ridiculously hard!’

When trying to break a stone that was particularly harder than others, his hands vibrated painfully.

To the foreman, it might look like he was breaking rocks with ease, but it was not easy at all.

Pickaxe work naturally drained more energy the longer one did it, and the harder the object being broken, the more shock was transmitted to the body.

In that sense, his body, which was breaking rocks at more than five times the rate of others, was quickly reaching its limit.

Pain rising from his overworked wrists and forearms.

A warning sign that injury could occur at any moment.

Normally such signals wouldn’t be concerning, but right now he felt extremely exhausted and his mind was growing hazy.

Even with good recovery ability, there were still limits.

’18 hours of training daily really is torture.’

He had been training at this pace all day for eight days already.

Two hours of running as soon as he woke up.

Three hours of climbing cliffs while carrying logs.

Five hours of weapon technique training.

Eating at least seven meals in between and taking short naps.

And he spent all his remaining time at the quarry.

It was practically without any rest, and both his mind and body were gradually showing signs of exhaustion.

Relying solely on his body’s natural regenerative abilities might work for a day or two, but after more than 8 days, it was natural to reach the bottom.

“……”

CLANG! CLANG!!

But he didn’t stop.

Instead, he struck the rocks more vigorously, more powerfully, and kept breaking them!

CLENCH!

He thought he already knew the knack of exerting strength, but with each attempt, new sensations bristled throughout his body.

The flow and movement of power, concentration and embodiment.

The more he repeated and mastered it, the deeper and more intense this embodiment became.

This was probably a training method only he could perform.

Something only he could do with his special constitution and years of repeating this process.

And at some point…!

‘I can see it.’

My limit.

Worker Rohan, no, Knight Ihan concentrated.

This moment, when he could see his own bottom, was the critical juncture.

The crossroads where growth or regression would be determined.

WHOOSH!

‘It’s here!’

He instinctively realized.

What he had been waiting for, what some warriors considered fortunate to experience even once in a lifetime, had arrived…!

The state of self-abandonment.

Or a trance state.

A state he had forcibly induced by pushing himself to the extreme.

Ihan swung his pickaxe endlessly, forgetting both his own existence and the act of moving his body.

Now even Ihan didn’t know the outcome.

Where this forcibly induced state of self-abandonment would lead him.

But Ihan believed in himself.

He believed in his efforts, in the time he had spent striving solely to achieve his goal, pushing himself to his limits.

WHOOSH!

CLANG!

CRACK!

Repeated motions.

No, forgetting even the motions, with unfocused eyes, using the present only to observe his body.

A tiny, very subtle change occurred inside Ihan’s body.

WHIRR-!

A minute, no, minutely occurring change in flow.

And that…

SLICE!!

—Achieved the best possible result.

“…Ah.”

Belatedly, his unfocused pupils normalized, and Ihan almost lost strength in his legs.

“Hey, Brother Rohan. Take it easy, you might end up dead if you push too hard.”

“…How long have I been like this?”

“Huh? It hasn’t even been a minute?”

“A minute…”

“A-are you sure you’re okay? Do you want to go back now?”

“……”

The foreman fretted, worried that his precious ace might hurt himself, while Ihan observed what he had accomplished.

‘…I guess it was worth trying after all.’

The rock he had struck.

It had been incredibly hard, and until now he could only break it.

But now.

“Huh? Why is the rock face like this?”

“Brother Rohan, how did you do this?”

“…Just, well.”

The pickaxe hadn’t shattered the rock but had cleanly split it into several pieces, like chopping firewood, and seeing this, Ihan…

“It just happened that way.”

…simply shrugged his shoulders in response.

Night of the 12th day of semester evaluations.

The knight had completed his personal “bulking up” in preparation for any contingency.