WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Got a Gallery in the Wild ◈
Chapter 189: Variant (2)
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There were many reasons Ludwig wanted to test Grylls despite not being fully recovered.
First, while his body was not yet back to normal, he could still manage a simple sparring match.
Maybe the honey he had been eating steadily yesterday had worked, or maybe it was the fish porridge, but he felt much better.
Until now, he had felt as weak as though he had caught a bad cold. Now, only a little lethargy remained.
Second, he needed to adapt to his new leg.
A Mithril prosthetic leg that had suddenly appeared after a lifetime with all four limbs intact.
If he wanted to survive in the Forest of Four Seasons, he needed to get used to it.
Third, Ludwig was curious about the strength of someone who had survived in the Forest of Four Seasons.
What kind of place was the Forest of Four Seasons? It was a region people would not even approach, called the worst demonic realm in history.
Ludwig himself had experienced firsthand why it was called that.
Grylls had survived in that demonic realm for nearly a month.
Ludwig had realized as much after seeing the marks Grylls had carved into the wall.
‘Simply being able to use mana isn't enough.’
If he could use mana, would Ludwig have survived in the Forest of Four Seasons?
Honestly, he could not say for sure. All kinds of animals had appeared.
Had Grylls used the abilities Ludwig saw yesterday at just the right moments?
Or had he simply overwhelmed everything through sheer physicality?
Or was there some other reason?
Out of pure curiosity, Ludwig had decided to spar with Grylls.
Clang!
Ludwig's Mislicon sword struck the shield.
Even without using mana, the clash of metal rang sharply enough to hurt the ears.
Grylls was about to counterattack when he hesitated.
The sword in his hand was the Heavenly Demon’s Sword.
If he mishandled it, it could cause a disaster.
Whoosh!
Grylls tossed the sword aside as though telling Ludwig to wait a moment.
Understanding his intent, Ludwig stepped back.
He had crossed the distance in the blink of an eye before, but now he walked with a limp.
‘Can he really not use mana?’
Watching Ludwig closely, Grylls picked up the Heavenly Demon’s Sword to put it somewhere else.
That one exchange had given Grylls a rough sense of just how strong Ludwig was.
Skilled martial artists were said to have mana infused into their bodies, making them far stronger than ordinary people even at rest.
Maybe what the Head Mod had said, that Ludwig could beat Grylls even without mana, had not been a lie. Maybe it was half true.
‘Then again, I'm not using mana either.’
This was a contest of pure skill. Even if he used mana, it would only be for physical enhancement.
After setting the Heavenly Demon’s Sword somewhere safe, Grylls brought over the Mislicon sword.
It was sharp too, but at least it was much safer than the Heavenly Demon’s Sword.
‘I should make a wooden practice sword or something later.’
The preparations were complete. Grylls cleared away the scattered tools, leaving an empty clearing.
Perhaps the animal friends sensed the unusual atmosphere between them.
“Come here.”
“Kyuu.”
“......”
They moved farther away to watch.
The giraffe proudly tried to barge in between them, but Kkobong led it away.
That left Grylls and Ludwig facing one another.
Grylls waited for Ludwig's attack, his face tense.
‘Is he planning to defend first, then counterattack?’
Ludwig watched Grylls standing behind his shield.
It was one of the simplest fighting styles for a Sword-and-Shield Warrior.
Trust in the shield's defense, then look for a counterattack.
It was a very useful method. Even when you knew it was coming, you could still fall for it.
‘Though the counterattack itself is unstable.’
It might be different with an axe, but a sword's center of gravity would make the counterattack unstable.
Keeping that in mind, Ludwig limped forward.
He knew that even if he approached this leisurely, Grylls would not attack first.
When Ludwig came right up to Grylls.
Whoosh!
Ludwig swung his gray Mislicon sword with force.
The moment Grylls saw the movement, he raised his shield to block.
‘......?’
But contrary to his expectations, the sword did not strike the shield.
There was no impact. No clash of metal.
Grylls was confused for only a moment before seeing Ludwig disappear past the shield.
‘A feint!’
Another weakness of Sword-and-Shield Warriors. They were highly vulnerable to mind games.
They often began with the assumption that they had to block, so if they were careless, their other openings would be left completely exposed.
Grylls had faced opponents like the Chief Gorilla, who simply smashed through his shield, but this was his first time fighting someone who used feints. He could not help being rattled.
‘Right!’
Clang!
Still, his response was impressive despite the surprise.
Grylls immediately swung his shield toward where Ludwig had disappeared and blocked the attack.
He could react so quickly because he regularly trained his dynamic vision with Fast Sloth.
‘Not bad.’
His dynamic vision and reaction speed passed the test.
Ludwig had attacked in earnest, yet Grylls had blocked immediately despite being caught off guard.
There was another reason Sword-and-Shield Warriors became more undervalued the higher their level rose.
‘If you can't block it, you lose.’
The shield's defensive power gradually became meaningless.
When masters capable of cutting through iron like tofu were everywhere, trying to block with a shield?
It was practically putting up a sign that said, “Please cut me up.”
Of course, there were people who used shields brilliantly, but they were exceptional cases.
Ludwig wondered whether Grylls could become one of those exceptions.
‘In my current state, I can't break through his shield. So...’
Ludwig decided to target the shield's weakness in another way.
More precisely, he would target Grylls's rigid fighting style.
“Haah!”
Grylls attacked first.
He seemed to think it was his turn after successfully blocking once.
Slash! Slash!
Grylls swung the sword with all his strength. To be clear, he swung it.
Ludwig had seen it before, but Grylls put so much force into every movement that he looked more like he was swinging a club.
The ridiculous part was how fast he was. Fast enough to rival most knights.
Since he was swinging entirely through raw physical power, Ludwig could only let out a hollow laugh.
Clang!
“Hm?”
But something even more surprising happened.
When Ludwig seized the opening to counterattack, Grylls knocked his sword away with the shield as though he had anticipated it.
It was what people commonly called Parrying, a technique that required predicting an opponent's attack.
‘What kind of strength is that...?’
Parrying with a shield was not particularly difficult. What caught Ludwig's attention was the strength Grylls displayed while doing it.
Ludwig had put considerable force into the strike, yet not only had his arm been knocked back, but it also tingled as though it might dislocate.
Grylls was brutally strong in the most literal sense. Ludwig had felt it before, but their raw physicality was absurdly different.
“Hup!”
The sparring did not end there.
Having succeeded with the parry, Grylls swung his sword diagonally.
Ludwig's upper body was wide open from the parry. At this rate, he would be cut.
Swish-
Yet Ludwig did not panic. He easily avoided it by taking a couple of steps back.
Distance control at its finest. Every martial artist needed to learn it, but applying it in real combat was difficult.
Ludwig stepped back with plenty of room to spare. It showed his experience.
Whoosh!
The attack had missed, so the initiative returned to Ludwig.
After regaining his balance, Ludwig brought down both arms that had been knocked upward.
Clang!
Grylls gritted his teeth and blocked the downward strike.
His upper body had no choice but to dip slightly, which normally would have broken his balance.
But Grylls had been aiming for that. Ludwig's leg entered his sight.
Grylls's usual tactic was to reduce his opponent's mobility.
Ludwig's mobility had already been reduced, but that was fine.
‘Someone like him will definitely have a way around it.’
The moment that thought crossed his mind, Grylls swung his sword horizontally.
The blade was headed straight for Ludwig's ankle.
At this rate, Ludwig would need another prosthetic leg, but...
Crunch!
As though he had expected it, Ludwig casually stepped on the sword.
Grylls's decisive blow missed. His sword had even been pinned beneath Ludwig's foot.
“Not bad.”
“......”
“Most people don't choose to target the legs.”
Ludwig's voice came from above Grylls's head.
At the same time, Grylls felt a chill near his neck.
Ludwig's Mislicon sword was pressed against his throat.
“...I lost.”
“Hm.”
They could not understand each other's words, but Ludwig understood what Grylls meant.
He withdrew his sword and stepped back. Grylls straightened up and regained his balance.
‘He saw right through every move I had.’
As expected of a person, and a veteran knight at that, rather than a beast.
Kkobong had been easier to deal with because of its terrible eyesight. Ludwig was different.
‘If this is him with reduced mobility, how strong was he normally?’
Grylls watched Ludwig scribble away in a notebook.
Everyone in the Gallery had kept saying Ludwig was strong, and after this sparring match, Grylls understood why.
‘It looks like even someone like him has a hard time surviving without mana. He can't use his techniques.’
As Grylls once again realized the importance of mana, Ludwig was having an entirely different thought.
‘In the wild, raw physicality matters more than skill. There's a reason elephants rule the plains.’
The reason Grylls had survived in the Forest of Four Seasons despite the dangers was his physicality.
Every technique he used was a complete mess, but he possessed overwhelming physical ability and an insanely fucking powerful aura.
Would adding technique really make that much of a difference? Honestly, Ludwig did not think so.
‘It would be best to train him as a sword-and-shield fighter. Physicality before technique.’
It was not that Grylls lacked talent. His combat instincts were excellent.
Ludwig was not teaching a human techniques to defeat a gorilla.
He was teaching a gorilla human martial arts to make it even stronger.
Was it not too much to treat a perfectly normal person like a wild animal?
To Ludwig, Grylls was not much different from that white gorilla over there.
Giving up his greatest advantage, his physicality, to invest in technique would be deeply foolish.
‘He's good at adapting too. He also has a good eye for tracking an opponent's movements. If he were outside, he'd be fun to train.’
Grylls did not possess heaven-sent talent like Asella, the Hero.
Instead, he had been blessed with the kind of talent that made someone worth training.
If you taught Asella one thing, she would figure out ten, then a hundred, all on her own.
Grylls was different. If you taught him one thing, he would find all sorts of ways to apply it.
Above all, there was his physicality. He might not have much martial aptitude, but there was a good chance he had exceptional talent where physique was concerned.
Some people found it difficult to surpass sixty kilograms no matter how much they ate, while others passed one hundred kilograms after eating only a little.
Ludwig needed to observe more, but Grylls might be the latter.
‘First, I should teach him how to cut with a sword. If he has no talent for it, I'll tell him to use an axe instead.’
Ludwig found himself hoping Grylls had no talent for the sword.
Nothing was more suitable than an axe for making use of that monstrous physique.
Still, it would be a shame to waste everything Grylls had learned so far. More than anything, it would be a shame to waste the Heavenly Demon’s Sword.
Ludwig already knew how excellent the Heavenly Demon’s Sword was. It was a weapon worthy of being called the finest among fine swords.
“Here.”
“Thank you.”
Ludwig handed Grylls the evaluation sheet. It was quite lengthy.
The moment Grylls received it, he uploaded it to the Gallery.
He wanted to ask the Head Mod about it, but he could not exactly bother someone busy.
“Hey.”
“Hm?”
Grylls was using the Gallery when Kkobong, who had been quietly watching, approached Ludwig.
Ludwig looked at the gorilla approaching him with a puzzled expression.
“You. Fight. Me.”
“What?”
“Hup, hup. Fight. Once.”
Kkobong gestured as it invited Ludwig to fight.
It seemed that watching Grylls and Ludwig spar had made it restless.
Ludwig stared silently at Kkobong.
‘...I never get used to this.’
The white fur was strange enough, but Kkobong even wore glasses.
It also had a Mana Suppressor around its neck, the sort of thing prisoners would wear.
Ludwig had heard a rough explanation from Grylls, but he still could not get used to it.
‘Are there only variants here?’
The thought had barely crossed his mind when Ludwig said,
“Fine. I'll prepare right away.”
“Thanks. Teach me.”
Once Ludwig agreed, Kkobong performed a Central Plains greeting, a fist-and-palm salute.
It was a gesture of respect toward a martial artist, and an extremely unusual one at that.
Having watched the entire exchange, Grylls was utterly dumbfounded.
“Hey. Why don't you greet me?”
“You are a beast. Worse than a beast.”
“You little bastard.”
“......”
Ludwig watched the two who could communicate. No, one person and one animal.
‘I wonder when I'll ever get used to this.’
This forest really was a village of three-eyed people.
Footnotes:
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