Ch.80EP.22 – The Knight Seeks Growth (3)

“I removed the demonic energy from the heart, but left the poison intact. Since you said you have poison resistance, it will actually be a great help in building up your poison immunity.”

In half a day, he had become soaked in fatigue as if he’d completed two consecutive triathlons.

Derrick, who truly deserved such an assessment, looked like he might collapse at any moment, but his eyes still sparkled with vitality.

“The potency was so strong that it wasn’t harmonious, so I prepared three different pills containing water energy, earth energy, and wood energy. You need to take them in sequence.”

“…Hmm, thank you.”

Ihan expressed his simple gratitude to the man who had worked so hard.

He could have given a long speech expressing his thanks, but that wasn’t Ihan’s style, and it would have been burdensome for Derrick as well.

Knowing this, Derrick also maintained a simple smile.

“…Yes. Then the rest a bit later…”

Thud.

He collapsed before finishing his sentence.

“Seems like he’s the one who needs medicine.”

Having anticipated the collapse, Ihan caught him and laid him down on a hammock set up in a corner.

Then he looked at the medicines placed on the desk.

Whoosh.

“How dazzling.”

Though his tone was plain, unmistakable surprise settled in his eyes.

He had only asked for simple processing, but something beyond his imagination had appeared.

Anyone could tell these were extraordinary elixirs.

Despite being mere medicines, they emitted a shimmering haze.

The three pills Derrick had instructed him to take.

Each looked like a lustrous pearl emitting water-blue, golden, and green light, appearing as if they would melt instantly in the mouth.

‘Using water energy to enhance earth energy, and earth energy to grow wood energy to protect the whole body… was this guy majoring in traditional medicine?’

Pills that seemed to achieve harmony of the five elements.

Extraordinarily uncommon.

Yet even these remarkable pills couldn’t compare to the one special pill.

“This isn’t a pill, it’s some kind of magical creature?”

Whoosh!

If one could melt a brilliant red sapphire like water, it might look like this.

The beautiful red liquid glowed like fluorescent material, making him wonder if humans could safely consume such a thing.

But.

“He said to take this one first.”

Ihan didn’t hesitate.

As an adult, he should fully consume the elixir that someone had poured all their effort into making.

‘I should eat it all without leaving any.’

He immediately consumed the three pills.

Contrary to his expectation that they would dissolve like water, the pills didn’t melt until he swallowed them.

But the moment the three pills traveled down his esophagus.

Boom!

“!!!”

An impact stronger than anything he’d ever experienced struck his body internally.

It wasn’t like an explosion.

Just a phenomenon as intense as one occurring inside his body.

‘This seems to be draining all the energy from my body?’

The three pills not only used each other’s energy to increase their presence, but were also consuming Ihan’s energy.

The sensation of having all his vitality and energy—which he had painfully recovered through the priest’s treatment—completely drained.

Some might misunderstand that someone was deliberately trying to poison them with such medicine.

It felt like his lifespan was being reduced in real time.

Despite the intense rejection and desire to spit out the pills—

‘It might be fine if I leave it…’

Ihan allowed his energy to be consumed until it reached a dangerous point.

He trusted that Derrick wouldn’t harm him, and moreover, he didn’t feel that the pills’ energy threatened his life.

Rather, as the energy absorbed his vitality, his body felt refreshed in a different way.

It was as if unnecessary energy was being removed, increasing his body’s “capacity”…

It felt like forcibly emptying a vessel.

After letting the three pills do as they pleased for several dozen minutes.

“…Ugh.”

Ihan lost even the strength to speak and felt dizzy.

His vision blurred, and he wanted nothing more than to lose consciousness.

Had there been a mirror nearby, he would have been shocked.

His once robust physique had become so emaciated that it was on the verge of withering.

It was fortunate that his eyes were dim and there was no mirror in the current situation.

Without even seeing the changes to his body, Ihan struggled to reach for the bottle containing the red liquid.

It was heavy.

Though it probably weighed less than 250g, lifting it was incredibly difficult.

Pain and suffering, the desire for sleep and food—none of these could be controlled at will.

He felt like eating anything and everything, yet also wanted to lie down and sleep without eating anything—both urges rising to maddening levels.

If his lust hadn’t been sealed, an embarrassing scene might have unfolded in this unprecedented situation.

In such circumstances, Ihan suppressed all desires and suffering with nothing but “endurance.”

Patience—the one thing he prided himself on not losing to anyone—allowed him to resist even as pain and desire tried to dominate his body like an uncontrollable current.

‘Shut up, shut up…, shut up-!’

Ihan commanded his uncontrollable body.

As if ordering his body to follow his will.

Gulp-.

And Ihan finally pushed the red liquid into his mouth.

Crunch!

Rather than drinking, it was closer to chewing.

Though he was clearly drinking liquid, it kept wriggling in his mouth like tough pig skin or a struggling live octopus.

“——.”

But Ihan didn’t spill a single drop of the liquid.

He just kept chewing and chewing.

He made sure it wouldn’t escape his mouth, and finally.

Gulp!

He chewed and swallowed it completely.

But swallowing was just the beginning of the ordeal.

Boom-!

Boooom.

His entire body tingled as if electrocuted.

It felt like accidentally swallowing a tiny person who, in anger, was repeatedly striking the inside of his stomach with an enormous war hammer.

The pain was so intense that Ihan didn’t even try to endure it—his body simply flipped over.

“Urrrgh….”

He couldn’t even scream properly.

He had no strength to yell, and his eyes seemed about to roll back.

It wouldn’t be strange if he lost consciousness at any moment.

The sky seemed to turn yellow.

Could this be similar to the pain women experience during childbirth?

‘Wait, I’m a man though?’

Ihan was momentarily dumbfounded, wondering if this was right.

But the fact that he had the luxury to think meant he wasn’t in enough pain to die yet.

Perhaps the energy from the three pills was blocking this wild bull-like potency.

‘Ha! You call this potency?!’

He had been told the potency was strong.

And that three pills had been prepared for this reason.

But this was far beyond what could be dismissed as mere “potency”!

Ihan’s mind grew distant from the pain of the Great Archfiend’s heart’s potency, not even feeling the pain from the poison.

If the first pills he had taken hadn’t protected his stomach, he would have long since lost consciousness from the pain.

‘…Maybe losing consciousness would be better.’

A bitter smile came involuntarily, but Ihan knew that losing consciousness wasn’t a good option.

Shouldn’t he know exactly what was happening to his body?

Therefore.

‘Damn it! Let’s see who wins.’

Chomp.

In an instant, he bit his tongue to draw blood.

The taste of iron spread, and with this different pain, he managed to hold onto his hazy consciousness.

And soon.

“Hoo, hoooo!”

Tap, tap-tap, tap-tap-tap.

He began to step.

Boxing steps.

He started to extend and thrust his fists as if shadow boxing.

A body with no vitality, overwhelmed by fatigue and drowsiness.

Yet the pain prevented him from falling asleep properly, bringing him to the brink of madness.

In that case, he might as well force his body to move.

To protect his mind, it would be better to focus on something else.

To others, it might have seemed like a foolish act, but Ihan willingly chose to sweat to overcome the pain.

Whoosh-!

He repeatedly extended and retracted his fist.

At first, he was incredibly slow.

After all, the very act of moving his body was now unbearably painful.

Crunch!

But Ihan persisted.

As if determined not to yield to pain, he gave his all to extend his fists and move his body, and gradually his initially sluggish punches began to speed up.

Punches aimed at empty air.

At first, they were so weak they couldn’t even catch a fly, but as Ihan continued.

Whoosh, whoooosh!

As speed built up, power circulated not just in his fists, but throughout his entire body.

Hadn’t he realized it the day before?

That there is strength even in softness.

Thus, strength exists everywhere, and even with a body deflated like a balloon, it’s possible to exert power.

In any way possible.

As his punches became increasingly faster, they began to take on a threatening sharpness.

Though lacking in power, they gained a sharpness like an awl or a spike.

But this wasn’t particularly enlightening.

He was simply doing what he could, a desperate struggle against the pain and overwhelming drowsiness.

And that struggle.

Crunch!

Gradually began to show effect as it absorbed the potency.

Originally a process that should have taken an entire day, Ihan defied common sense by forcibly moving his body to absorb—no, adapt to—the potency.

“—–.”

At some point, Ihan was throwing punches in a trance-like state, his eyes unfocused.

With his consciousness half-dimmed, his body moved solely by will.

Thus, he didn’t see what was rising from his body.

Hissss.

The steam.

Whoooosh.

The identity of the steam being discharged from his body was the waste that had accumulated in his body until now.

Side effects from mysterious medicines that the magician had forced him to swallow as a child, or toxins accumulated from battlefields.

Things that had piled up knowingly and unknowingly flowed out of his body like sweat, and somehow the heavy fatigue that had dominated Ihan seemed to have completely drained away.

Moreover.

Boom! Booom!

The potency went a step further and made his emaciated body swell again.

It wasn’t just bulking up crudely.

While his body had always been hard as flint, now it had gained elasticity like a spring or rubber.

His physique, which he thought had minimal room for development having already been trained to its limits, was achieving not just encouraging growth but a leap forward.

This was a “miraculous opportunity.”

However, this miraculous opportunity couldn’t be attributed solely to the medicine’s help.

It was the fruit of Ihan’s desperate life, of fierce and life-risking training that ordinary people wouldn’t dare attempt.

If someone other than Ihan had taken the elixir, they wouldn’t have dreamed of such growth.

It would have been no more than taking an expensive nutritional supplement.

A leap in growth achieved only because it was [him].

It shouldn’t be dismissed merely as the help of medicine.

…Unfortunately, at this historic moment when the results of his efforts were manifesting, Ihan, in his trance-like state, continued his punches into the air without knowing the changes occurring in his body—no,

Crack, crack!

He simply repeated the Hundred Step Divine Fist in his unconscious state.

Endlessly.

——And ten minutes later, when Derrick finally regained consciousness, he was shocked.

Not just from seeing the wall on the verge of destruction….

“Y-you just consumed it? Without even waiting for me to wake up?”

“……”

“I-I’m sure I mentioned there was a specific order for taking them before I collapsed, don’t you remember? No, more importantly, weren’t you in pain? Taking them out of order is like pouring oil on fire…”

“……”

“Y-you could have died trying to endure that pain…”

“…Hmm.”

“…Did it hurt a lot?”

“Ahem!”

Ihan gazed into the distance.

Though there were no mountains visible underground, he felt like looking away right now.

And he thought.

Somehow…

‘…It hurt like hell.’

The knight reaffirmed the lesson that when the head is ignorant, the body suffers—a saying that didn’t exist for nothing.