The sword forests of the Red and Black Mountains are terrible.
Every leaf on every tree is a razor-sharp blade, and there is nothing that is not deadly, from the thorny bark to the roots.
And now, in the midst of this infernal jungle, two men were fighting for their lives.
Vikir and Ahheman.
They faced each other with swords at their hips and bows strapped to their backs.
A crowd of spectators formed a wide circle around them.
Though obscured by the dense foliage and vines, the Balak warriors with good eyes and ears could see the fight hundreds of meters away.
Ahheman gritted his teeth.
" ...you've only been running for two years."
Vikir had only been acclimatized to the depht for two years.
He, on the other hand, was used to dealing with the terrain, a body that had lived here for nearly 70 years.
Some of the younger hunters were not even close.
"I'll make you regret choosing the jungle for the Iliad instead of the plains."
Ahheman moved quickly through the jungle.
He ducked into a tree-root vine for cover and nocked an arrow to his bow.
"Hooray. Here's a good one."
He crouched down and found something beneath the roots.
It was a large centipede with a red body and black legs.
He pulled out an arrow and nocked it in the centipede's head.
The centipede's head shattered, spilling its venomous brain matter onto the arrowhead.
Ahheman has also laid out vines on the ground that are translucent and hard to see, but unbreakable and strong enough to cut through.
If your opponent jumps on one, they're sure to get cut, and if they're lucky, they might even get their ankle amputated.
I also spread dry sand and fallen leaves over the muddy pit, where the ground is soft and you're bound to get stuck, and I dropped a few honeycombs, where the fierce bees are sleeping, ready to wake them up at any moment.
"Just wait and see."
Ahheman gripped the poisoned arrow in his hand tightly, waiting for Vikir's figure to emerge from the dense foliage.
Just then.
"...Who are you waiting for?"
The cold voice touches his ears and he freezes.
A shudder rippled through his body.
He turns his head, barely holding on to his falling heart, and sees Vikir's expressionless face looming behind him.
"Uh, how!"
How did he get this far without making a sound?
But Ahheman can't bring himself to ask the question out loud.
Vikir has sliced the awl in his hand to the side.
Hit.
Bikir sliced through all the ankle-cutting vines that Ahheman had set up.
He scrambled backwards to get away from it, stepped in a puddle of mud he had hidden, and was up to his waist in water, dropping a few beehives in the process.
Weeeeeeeeeee-.
The homeless wasps vented their anger at Ahheman in the mud pit.
Vikir quietly backed away, while Ahheman flailed his hands in the mud, trying to swat the bees away.
Ahheman narrowly escapes death by diving into the mud for a long time.
But his body was already swollen with bee stings.
Meanwhile. Ahheman had just crawled out of the mud when Vikir climbed up a tree trunk and yawned.
"What the fuck!"
Ahheman hung the arrow in protest.
The centipede venom had been washed away when he fell into the mud, but the sharpness of the arrowhead was intimidating enough.
Boom.
The mud on the bowstring flies off in all directions.
A powerful arrow shot vertically, aimed at Vikir.
But.
Boom.
A crimson slash flew out, slicing Ahheman's arrow in two.
Before he could react, Vikir vanished like a ghost and landed on Ahheman's back.
Ahheman's eyes were gouged out, bleeding profusely.
Vikir's speed was one thing, but... if there was something more amazing.
"No sound!?
Vikir was moving so fast, yet there was no sound.
Obviously, Vikir was moving at a tremendous speed in front of me, but I couldn't hear anything.
His feet crunching through the grass, splashing through the mud, breaking branches, stomping over stones and logs.
All of these sounds are inaudible. Or if they did, they were so faint that they were drowned out by the buzzing of grasshoppers around them.
"Mu, what tricks are you playing, you bastard!"
Ahheman fired arrow after arrow, but they only managed to hit a few Aman orangutans in the trees.
Then, Vikir's magic sword, Beelzebub, began to spit out a black aura.
The liquid aura, sticky as honey and tainted with blood, was an unmistakable indication of the Graduator's advanced level.
Ahheman was stunned by the level of aura that even Balak's most seasoned veteran warriors could not easily manifest.
'This kid was this strong!'
It's a fighting power that doesn't match his age at all.
Ahheman was only too eager to retreat backwards.
But the hound's six teeth never let go of its prey.
Carnivorous, Baskerville.
Six ambush teeth lurked and leapt out, tearing at Ahheman's entire body.
What's more, wherever the blade's teeth grazed, a searing sting followed.
Moreover, a hot burning pain always visited the place where the teeth of the blade brushed past.
The infernal flames, visible only to Bikir's eyes, were burning directly into Ahheman's soul.
"Aaaahhhh!"
Ahheman shuddered in unintelligible pain.
It was natural to feel pain when one's flesh is cut by a sword, but the pain from Bikir's blade was strangely intense.
He had been struck by swords, spears, and arrows countless times in his nearly seventy years of life, but he had never felt such pain.
It was as if he had been cut open with a flaming knife, flesh by flesh, and even now the flames were burning through his skin, consuming his flesh and fat.
Of course, the Balak warriors watching the spectacle were unaware of any of this, and could only squeal at the slightest cut, showing their contempt for Ahheman.
"Ugh!"
Ahheman eventually dropped the pretense.
Honor, pride, tradition, none of that matters now.
Balak's warriors booed as Ahheman fled in disgrace, having challenged the younger warrior first.
Woo-woo-woo!
The chorus of accusations and jeers from across the dense foliage made it seem as if the entire jungle was condemning him.
He backed away in a huff and turned to fire another arrow at Vikir.
But he hadn't thought of that.
Vikir, too, had spent the last two years studying archery with Aiyen, and had become quite a skilled archer.
Ping-!
An arrow flew in a parabolic arc.
…Puck!
The arrow struck right into Ahheman's groin.
"Ugh!"
Ahmed's eyes flew open.
He strained his eyes so hard that the flesh around his eyes was torn and tears of blood flowed.
Then, clutching his groin, he collapsed and the leaves in front of him scattered.
Rustle.
Vikir walked out, his face expressionless.
"You coveted an oxbear's genitals, and now you've earned it."
Two years ago, Vikir had demanded a decoction of the genitals of his hunted prey.
Remembering it, he bit his lip until it bled.
"You're playing with me!"
"I didn't mean to, you're not good enough to be my plaything."
"Ugh... Ugh!"
With that, Ahheman staggered to his feet, dropping the sword and bow in his hand.
"...!"
Vikir felt things take a turn for the worse.
The wind shifted.
Dark mana was gathering around them.
They crackled sinisterly, converging on a single point. The palms of Ahheman's hands!
'...Good. A shaman, I see.
Vikir had been expecting a trick up his sleeve.
The man drew a number with his blood-stained palms and chanted a strange incantation.
The next moment, a dark current swept through the area, extending from his hands.
Crackle, crackle, crackle!
Vikir jerked back as he felt several individuals reaching for his ankles.
To his surprise, several figures stood in his way.
They were orangutan carcasses with rotting flesh and exposed bones.
Ahheman had used witchcraft to resurrect the corpses of the orangutans he had shot with his arrows earlier.
"It's like this. … … Right. Was Ahhemman from the Rococo tribe?"
Vikir remembered what Aiyen had told him before they had begun the Iliad.
Ahheman was essentially an outsider, but it turns out he was from the Rokoko, a tribe of shamans.
Known to the natives of Depht as witchcraft, and to the Empire as a form of black magic, this bizarre practice of resuscitating the dead is one of them.
It was also the specialty of the shamanic Rokoko people.
In his haste, Ahheman raised the freshly dead orangutan zombies and skeletons to escort him.
"Heh heh... heh heh heh heh, the Iliad is unorthodox combat, it doesn't mean you have to fight with swords and bows!"
But in the physicality-oriented atmosphere of Balak, Ahheman's behavior was frowned upon by many of the warriors.
It seemed that while all the warriors had little interest in spells, he had been diligently studying and mastering them on his own.
"Go! Go stop him! Buy me time to heal him!"
Ahheman called for the orangutans to block Vikir's path.
Orangutans are almost as tall as humans and can weigh up to 100 kilograms, which should be enough to buy them some time as meat shields.
Ahheman thought so.
But.
"Hmmm. Not as good as I thought."
Vikir stamped his foot, still sounding unimpressed.
"...?"
Ahheman opens his mouth, wanting something.
Puh-lease!
Something shuts his mouth in an instant.
It's a tremendous impact that knocks him off his feet and onto his back!
The impact ripped the skin off his back, broke his spine, and dislodged all of his internal organs.
Not surprisingly, the orangutan carcasses next to him were also reduced to a pool of blood and crushed to the ground in an instant.
Only Vikir stood back, not making a sound, not making a move.
"????"
Ahheman looked up, saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth. Aside from the pain, he is at a loss for words.
His vision flips, and a giant shadow looms over him.
[Grrrr...]
The hulking creature pricked up its ears to see if it could see.
An old female oxbear thrusts her massive forepaws at Ahheman.