The Swordmaster Wants To Live Peacefully [EN]: Chapter 58

Swordmaster Wants to Live in Peace – Episode 58

Iron Mountain (3)

“The mining is going smoothly today.”

“Indeed. Not even a single monster appeared on the way to the point.”

“…Saying things like that is dangerous. Do you know what a flag is? A flag?” [In storytelling, a ‘flag’ is a statement or action that foreshadows negative consequences.]

“What’s that, you weeb?” [A ‘weeb’ is slang for someone obsessed with Japanese culture.]

A little before the incident, B-2 mine.

The mining point of the mid-sized guilds, Lily and Rose.

The two guilds planned to use this expedition as a stepping stone to become even larger guilds.

If the expedition ended successfully, they could rise to even greater heights than they were now, so the two guilds invested quite a lot in this expedition.

“Hoo, should we rest for a bit?”

The foreman, who was in charge of the miners, said after they had been mining for a while.

The mining was going so smoothly that they would soon meet their quota.

So they decided to take a short break and then resume mining.

While they were sitting and resting, a strange sound began to echo in the mine.

Tung, tung, tung…….

The sound was coming from inside.

The one who recognized the sound was a gatherer from the gathering team who had sharp ears.

Tilted his head at the sudden sound, he got up from his seat and said.

“Don’t you hear something?”

“What sound? I don’t hear anything.”

“No, I definitely hear it. From this way…….”

Others said they couldn’t hear it.

But he could hear it clearly, so he moved towards the source of the sound.

“Here, the sound is coming from here…….”

It was a blocked wall.

But the sound was definitely coming from the wall.

The gatherer carefully put his ear to the wall.

And hurriedly took his ear away when he realized that the sound was getting closer and closer.

But it was already too late.

Because a large, pitch-black spider suddenly popped out of the wall and grabbed the gatherer’s head, dragging him inside.

The gathering team who saw this quickly got up from their seats and started running away.

However, countless spiders began to pop out of the hole, one by one, eating the gathering team.

“R, run away!”

“Aaaaaaagh!”

The screams echoed through the mine.

The desperate screams filled the inside of the mine.

The guard team, who were guarding the entrance, heard the screams and quickly entered the mine, but the situation was already at its worst.

“Damn it, everyone protect the people! Request support from other points!”

“Receiver status is bad! Not connected!”

“Damn it, gathering team there! One person run! To the nearest place! We’ll hold them off here!”

“Y, yes, sir!”

* * *

“T, that’s what happened! If we don’t go quickly!”

Yoosungwoo frowned at the gatherer’s words and said.

“Baek, you quickly run to the other team’s mine, and Hong, you go into our mine now. I’ll go to B-2.”

“Understood.”

“Yes, sir!”

The two didn’t argue and quickly ran as Yoosungwoo said.

Baek Woohyun ran to the other team, A-1 point, with lightning speed, and Hong Seohwa ran into the mine.

The gatherer looked up at Yoosungwoo with a look that asked why he was dividing them into three people.

A face that said he couldn’t understand the reason.

“B, by the way, you don’t even have a gas mask…….”

“It seems like this isn’t just happening on that side. Wait here and explain it to the others.”

“Y, yes, sir?”

“Answer.”

“Y, yes, sir!”

“Then.”

Yoosungwoo, who heard the answer, quickly kicked off the ground.

His figure disappeared from the gatherer’s eyes in an instant.

The gatherer only blinked as if he had seen something unreal.

* * *

“……I’m a little late.”

Even though the distance between B-2 and C-3 points was the closest, there was still some distance.

It meant that the battle continued even while the gatherer was running.

Yoosungwoo picked up the flashlight that had fallen on the floor and moved into the mine, which was now silent.

The mine was full of traces of battle everywhere.

Scattered bloodstains and scratches from hitting the wall.

And even the sharp traces of the monster called ‘Iron Spider’.

Like the Iron Oni [A type of demon in Japanese folklore], the outer skin was made of hard iron, and there were scratches everywhere that were not made by a sword.

‘……A strange trace.’

Yoosungwoo, who was checking the inside of the mine, realized that the amount of bleeding was small compared to the number of people.

In other words, seeing that there were no bodies, it meant that they had been dragged away alive.

Yoosungwoo frowned and moved to the end of the mine to check the hole.

It was a hole that a person could barely enter.

Yoosungwoo, who was larger than others, couldn’t pass through the hole.

‘It’s impossible unless you wriggle like an earthworm.’

And it was deep.

He roughly guessed where the end of this hole was connected to, so he left the mine and returned to C-3 point.

When he returned to C-3 point, people were gathered together.

The gathering team and guard team from the other team were all gathered.

“Master!”

“Yeah. You gathered them well. What was the state of the other mines?”

“It was similar. I’m glad I went without being late, or we would have been attacked by the Iron Spider.”

Hong Seohwa, who went to B-2, and Baek Woohyun, who ran to A-1, explained the situation.

The two mines had not been attacked yet, and they heard a sound from inside the mine, so they quickly evacuated.

The spiders didn’t chase them to the outside of the mine, so they were waiting outside.

“There are no more people left in B-2.”

“What?! Are they all dead?!”

“Listen to what people have to say until the end. All those people have disappeared. But the amount of bleeding is small. It seems like they dragged them away alive.”

“Dragged them away, where to?”

“……To the nest, I guess. So, there are two options now. The first is to go save them, and the second is to go train.”

Hong Seohwa raised her hand slightly at Yoosungwoo’s words.

“A question? You can ask.”

“What’s the difference between the two options?”

“The first is going voluntarily, and the second is being dragged by me. Either way, you’ll end up going to the nest.”

Baek Woohyun and Hong Seohwa looked at each other for a moment, then opened their mouths.

Their voices were slightly subdued.

“We’ll go save them.”

“We’ll go…….”

* * *

“Go to the nest? That’s crazy! How are you going to break through a special abyss with the current forces?!”

“We’re not a raid team, we’re a guard team! It’s suicide!”

It was natural for the other guard team to object to the idea of going to save people.

The remaining guard team was fifteen divers who were guarding A-1 point.

Most of them were A-class and B-class, so they were only capable of dealing with one or two monsters lurking in the resting area.

Baek Woohyun stepped forward and explained to the guard team.

“You guys aren’t going. Stay here and escort the gathering team to the entrance of the abyss. You can go out and call for reinforcements.”

“Then what, you guys are going to the nest alone?! That’s even more suicidal!”

It wasn’t wrong.

Three people going to a special abyss, to the nest of the Iron Spider where there might be a boss-level monster.

But there was a golden time [A limited window of opportunity].

If they didn’t go to save them right away and went out and brought back reinforcements, they might not be able to save the people who were still alive.

This was the only option.

Baek Woohyun somehow persuaded the remaining guard team and gathering team to go outside.

And the three of them set off for the Iron Spider’s nest.

“But how do we get to the nest? Master.”

“It seems difficult to use the tunnels made by the spiders. They’re too small.”

“I was thinking about that part a little bit.”

The holes made by the spiders were difficult to move through, and if they were attacked, they couldn’t swing their swords.

It meant that if they used that path, they would be easily defeated.

So Yoosungwoo thought.

If there was no path, he would make one.

“From now on, we’re going to break through the Iron Mountain. With this borrowed from the gathering team.”

Yoosungwoo held out the pickaxes he had brought to the two of them.

One for each of them.

It was a terribly hard and sharp pickaxe made by concentrating the latest technology.

“It’s not that far to the nest. So, we dig.”

It was the beginning of manual labor.

* * *

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

A clear sound echoed continuously without a break.

There were two people diligently pickaxing in the mine where the gatherers had disappeared.

Not just miners, but S-class divers, no, S-class miners.

As they put magic power into the pickaxe and pickaxed, the iron ground was dug out in handfuls.

“A little lower.”

“Yeah, there. Good job.”

Yoosungwoo was the supervisor of the two.

The mine was small, so two people were enough to dig up the entire front.

This was also a kind of training.

Digging through the mine while constantly putting energy into the pickaxe…… It was training.

After digging for about ten minutes.

Yoosungwoo stepped forward and said.

“Give it to me.”

“Yes.”

Baek Woohyun handed the pickaxe to Yoosungwoo.

Yoosungwoo held the pickaxe with both hands and made the two step back.

Then, he took a long breath and poured energy into the pickaxe.

The pickaxe turned red as if it was burning.

At the same time, the atmosphere and air inside the mine calmed down, and wind blew from somewhere.

“W, wait a minute.”

“Shouldn’t we step back more?!”

“Avoid the debris on your own.”

And Yoosungwoo struck down as it was when the energy reached its peak.

Clearly, at this moment, he was not a Swordmaster, but an SSS-class miner.

He strikes down and a beat later, a roar fills the mine!

The vibration was so great that it seemed like the entire Iron Mountain was collapsing.

A ki wave [energy wave] that tears the sky and the earth flows along the walls of the mine.

Hong Seohwa and Baek Woohyun, who were behind him, were barely protecting themselves from his tremendous pickaxing.

“It’s done.”

And when the sound subsided, Baek Woohyun and Hong Seohwa could see it.

A huge cave leading to the inside of the Iron Mountain.

“Let’s go.”

Yoosungwoo put down the pickaxe and picked up his sword.

Then, he threw himself into the cave, and the other two also threw their pickaxes and picked up their swords.

From now on, it was time to work as S-class divers, not S-class miners.

“What is this tunnel?”

“It’s probably a passage used by the spiders. What I saw in the mine was dug up on the spot, and this seems to have been dug up for quite a while.”

“Can Master even know that? Awesome.”

“……What are you guys learning while working as divers? How to fight and die honorably?”

“We learn how to run well. So we don’t die.”

“It seems like someone embezzled the education budget.”

Yoosungwoo said so and pointed to a trace with a flashlight.

It was a much larger trace than the other scratched traces.

“Can you see this? It’s bigger than the other traces.”

“Yes, I can see it. But that means…….”

“It means there’s a spider this big. This is the tunnel that spider dug. A direct passage to the nest.”

“Oh, shit.”

Hong Seohwa blinked as she estimated the size.

An Iron Spider the size of a house.

A spider made of iron the size of a house…….

It was an absurd size.

“It’s not the boss, is it?”

“Probably not.”

“Where is the core of the special abyss anyway? Then?”

“I have a guess…… But it’ll be hard to catch. Right now.”

“Even for Master?”

“It’s not that I can’t defeat it. It seems harder to get him out. Besides, it seems like there’s more than one boss.”

Hong Seohwa’s head went blank.

Then how should we attack a special abyss?

Baek Woohyun had similar thoughts.

Will the day ever come when we attack a special abyss?

“Be careful. It seems like we’re almost at the nest.”

Yoosungwoo said so and shone the flashlight forward.

Broken eggs and spiderwebs were scattered everywhere.

From now on, it is the Iron Spider’s territory.