Book 1-5.7 The Strange Young Man
Yulian was surprised and rolled his body backwards. It was so fast that he could not even think about getting his greatsword out.
The owner of the voice finally revealed themselves inside the light of the golden turtle. With long black hair tied in a ponytail, the young man had skin so pale, Yulian debated whether he had not seen any sunlight or it was because the light shined too brightly in the darkness.
The young man pushed forth the blade that felt like it would cut your body if you stared at it before saying again.
“This is your last warning. Do not come. If you want to come, come later.”
This made Yulian angry. Yes, they were intruders, but they had not done anything that was disrespectful, but this guy was still swinging his sword at them!
Haisha was also angry seeing Yulian roll backwards like he was falling down and took out his sword to hit the young man’s sword.
Slash.
The two swords clearly hit, but the sound was not what he expected.
Clank.
The front part of Haisha’s greatsword was cleanly sliced off and fell to the ground. Haisha was usually cautious and laid-back, and he knew that he would not be able to handle this guy’s level of strength, but to receive the insult of his sword being cut angered him so much he did not think things through. Furthermore, putting aside his personality, you could not call yourself a desert warrior if you just accepted an insult like that and did nothing about it.
“You son of a!”
Haisha placed the cut greatsword in front of his body and swung his other intact greatsword. Watching this happen, the young man’s face was filled with a murderous aura.
“If you don’t listen, you are a bad guy. So you are a bad guy. Since I even warned you, I followed all the rules I was supposed to follow.”
Even without knowing what it was that he kept, the young man spoke in a weird accent that did not match the murderous aura around him and started to attack Haisha with his sword.
Seeing Haisha’s life in danger after clashing their weapons just once, Yulian did not have any time to try to settle things before quickly pushing Haisha aside and blocking the young man’s sword.
After learning martial arts from his master and slashing the Sand Dragon, lately, he was able to bring forth all the energy inside of his body. Yulian thought that other than his master, he would not lose to anybody, but the young man’s sword was fiercer and stronger than his own.
In just a couple of seconds, Yulian could feel that his life was in danger, and Haisha tried to help him from the side, but he was not much help.
If they continued like this, it was certain that it would not take long for Yulian to be cut by this guy’s sword. That much was certain. However, the young man did not push Yulian any further and just maintained that level of attack. But seeing as how the murderous aura was still present, it looked like the young man may have felt a strange sensation from Yulian.
Yulian and Haisha, who had to use all of their efforts to defend against the young man, could feel their sweat drenching their clothes.
‘This is not an enemy I can defeat. He’s at the level of “Palhal” that master once showed me. Where did such a warrior come from…….am I going to die like this today?’ (TL: I have no idea what Palhal is, to my recollection, it’s never been mentioned before. So I am going to keep it romanized)
Yulian could not help but think of all sorts of different things as the young man’s sword continued to threaten his life.
“Luff!”
Even though the opponent had not been using all of their strength, Yulian had to overcome the border of life and death tens of times. Just as Yulian was about to run out of energy, he could see the silhouette of a person in the far away light who yelled loudly before running towards them.
The young man who was in the light immediately stopped his sword but continued to stare at Yulian and Haisha, and the two of them had no thoughts whatsoever of attacking him.
There was just too much of a difference in strength.
“Luff.”
The second person, who had brown hair and was wearing a flowing green robe, was a young man who seemed to be about the same age as the first person. He started to speak while holding onto the first man’s arm.
“Wait a bit.”
The young man with brown hair pulled the fierce dude towards him and asked Yulian a question.
“How did a person end up here? I’m sure I put a forcefield around the entrance. How did you end up in this place?”
The brown haired man asked, as if he could not fathom how they got there. This was a dungeon not many people knew about, and the only entrance was protected by a forcefield he had put up together with the old hag from the Magic Tower. That was the reason their enemies, the people of Chaos, could never enter.
That was the reason he was extremely shocked that people, wearing outfits he had never seen before, had appeared in front of them.
Yulian felt like he could talk to this person and respectfully greeted him before speaking.
“My name is Yulian Provoke, a warrior of Pareia. Please accept our apologies for entering into an Advanced Magician’s dungeon without approval. However, we had entered into an accident of falling inside of the desert’s quicksand, and ended up in here. We had no choice or say in the matter.”
Yulian was able to confirm that the person in front of him was the Advanced Magician. If he wasn’t, he could not explain all the things around them.
Even that wild warrior stopped his sword at one word from the green robed man.
“Pareia? Magician? Desert’s quicksand? Fall inside? Into here?”
“.......”
Watching Yulian and Haisha looking at each other unable to answer the multitude of questions he asked, the young man thought to himself for a second before his eyes lit up like he realized what happened.
“Ah! Now that I think about it, the Crimson Desert must be on top of this. Then you must be…. People who live in the desert, right?”
“Yes, you are correct.”
“I know what quicksand is. You faced a dangerous situation. My name is Mai, and I am researching something similar to a magician. You must have been shocked because of this friend of mine.” (TL: Winnie...no...your real name is Mai…)
The man named Mai seemed to have a refreshing personality and showed a friendly smile before bowing his head and apologizing to Yulian and Haisha.
“No, there is no need to apologize. Although we had no choice about being here, we are still intruders who showed up without an invitation.”
Listening to Yulian respond while also bowing, Mai put a hand on the man named Luff before speaking again.
“I am in the middle of something extremely important right now, so this friend is protecting me. Your skills are magnificent. There are only a handful of people even in the continent who can block Luff’s sword.”
‘If there are only a handful of people even in the continent who can defend against him, just how strong is he?’
Yulian could not fathom Luff’s strength, and could only nod as Mai continued on.
“Then, where did you come in through? The entrance is completely sealed, and since you said you arrived through quicksand, the location of it….”
As Yulian and Haisha pointed behind them and took the lead, Mai followed after them and the man named Luff stuck close, right next to Mai. The moment Luff stared at Yulian and Haisha, the two of them felt goosebumps all over their body and stopped their walking.
“Luff! They are not bad people.”
Mai must have felt Luff’s stare as well, as he quickly scolded Luff before speaking to Yulian.
“I’m sorry. This friend’s mental state is currently not normal because of something that happened. In addition, I told him that anybody who shows up is a bad person...please see it in your hearts to understand.”
As Mai respectfully apologized again, Yulian and Haisha looked at Luff. There were no openings or wasted movements.
‘How much longer must I train to show that level of expertise?”
His training was definitely not complete; Yulian had not even mastered half of what his master had taught him. Yulian felt that when he reached that age, he would be able to fight on par with Luff, which made him able to accept the loss without embarrassment.
“Your martial arts, who taught it to you? That is not mana that they speak of in the continent. It’s a mental force known as Ki.”
As Luff asked Yulian, the one who was surprised was not Yulian, but rather Mai, who was standing next to Luff.
“Luff, are you able to remember?”
This was his friend who could not speak at higher than a five year old child’s level for a very long time.
The fact that he was asking this question made Mai feel like Luff was able to recall some of his training methods that Mai had never seen before.
Luff looked at Mai and shook his head no before continuing.
“I don’t know. That person is weird. He swings his sword the same way my master taught me. That is why I did not kill him quickly.”
This must have been the reason Luff was filled with murderous aura but did not kill Yulian and Haisha earlier.