WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 47

──────

15 Years Old

The leech flesh had been edible enough, and it did more for his body than the Dregs he had been eating so far, but it still left him unsatisfied.

'Not worth the cost.'

His Lifeline had snapped, so he was stuck in this room for the next week. Kyle accepted his arrogant mistake with humility. At the very least, until he got both shoes, he shouldn't act up during Flood Tide.

'Hm, or not? Do I need a cloak too?'

Fragment had advised him that to move during Flood Tide, he needed both shoes and a cloak. Shoes to walk on the black sea. A cloak to protect him from the gaze of the abyss.

'I'll get the shoes first and test it. If that doesn't work, I'll have to get the cloak too.'

Kyle nodded to himself as he made that decision. Even then, Fragment was still shouting at him and shaking him violently.

"Stop, stop. I get it. I'm sorry. I was really wrong. So please stop shaking me."
"You lunatic! You lunatic! Without a Lifeline, you would've died!"
"I tried it because I had one. Lifelines are great. I'll be careful from now on."
"You crazy..."
"You said it'll take a week for the Lifeline to recover, right? That's too long."

He had caught a leech that acted like one of the angler's feelers, so maybe he could demand a reward. Thinking that, Kyle raised both hands.

"Restore my Lifeline."

Black, translucent light wrapped around his hands. A thin strand of light stretched from the crown of his head, then sagged when it failed to connect to anything in the air. Kyle glanced at the drooping Lifeline hanging near his shoulder and muttered,

"Not enough to fully restore it?"
"Sit still and ask for food, you lunatic!"
"It feels like a waste to ask for only food."

That shameless answer left Fragment too drained to keep shaking him, and he staggered in place. Clutching his throbbing head, he groaned, let out heavy sighs, then returned to his chair.

"I've seen your bloodline in the Sword Tower for five hundred years, but I've never seen a madman like you."
"You met the Founding Ancestor too? He came in here as well, right? What was he like?"
"Ruin Alastor? That bastard was..."

Fragment started to answer, then let out another deep sigh.

"He was... no less crazy. Just crazy in a different way from you. Of course he came here too. He just never stopped by the Mudflat."
"Then did he go to a higher floor?"
"I cannot tell you the structure of the Cultivation Floors. If you want to understand this place, you'll have to reach the end of each layer yourself and move forward."
"But you said the Founding Ancestor never came to the Mudflat."
"Ruin had no need to. You are not Ruin. You need to adapt from the lower layers and work your way to the end."

"I've said too much," Fragment muttered, shaking his head.

"Your Lifeline will recover in two days. For those two days, do nothing stupid. Stay in here and reflect on your arrogant, foolish mistake."

What would happen if he went out to the Mudflat with an incompletely restored Lifeline? He was curious, but Kyle decided not to take pointless risks. If his Spirit Root had been normal, maybe he would've tried. But Kyle's Spirit Root didn't just sense mana well. It also sensed those ominous gazes in the Mudflat far too clearly.

Just as Fragment said, it took exactly two full days for the Lifeline to recover. During those two days, Kyle spent his time productively in his own way, lurking behind Fragment to watch him build the technique and sitting in the middle of the room to focus on cultivation.

The moment his Lifeline recovered, he went straight back out to the Mudflat. He had experienced the danger of Flood Tide firsthand, and he had learned that fishing with shoelaces was too risky, so he focused on hunting during Ebb Tide.

By the time he got both shoes, a year had already passed.

"Hm."

He had worried his body might grow less from poorer nutrition than outside meals, but thankfully, over that year, he had grown well. Even the Dregs from Ebb Tide, with that awful taste he still couldn't get used to, seemed packed with nutrients.

Kyle put boots on both feet and bounced in place. They were new, but they fit his feet as snugly as custom-made shoes, and he felt no discomfort at all while moving.

"..."

Fragment watched him with exhausted eyes. Patience... was that what this was? For over a year, the brat had eaten Dregs for most of his meals, and since about half a year ago, he had barely returned to the room.

He had adapted that much to life in the Mudflat. After eating thousands, tens of thousands of Dregs, his body had finished adapting enough to survive that brutal environment outside.

Mana hardening was still there, but compared to the beginning, it had softened greatly. Now Kyle could run mana outside while ignoring the discomfort, and he could recover mana just by breathing the outside mana without returning to the room.

"I'm killing Dregs now and eating them too, but I don't feel any change anymore. Is that normal?"

Kyle grinned and looked back at Fragment. Golden eyes shone through the shaggy hair that had grown out over the year. In that brilliant color, Fragment saw madness no boy that age should have.

"...Your body has changed too much to be altered by Dregs anymore."
"Then should I move on to the next one?"
"At your current level, you could reach the end of the Mudflat, but I do not recommend entering the next layer."
"Why?"
"To survive there, you need to protect your body with constant aura."
"An aura shield? I can do that too."

Kyle raised his aura to show him. He had already opened his middle dantian two years ago, on the day his Spirit Root awakened, and he was familiar with aura applications from his previous life. Fragment looked at the violet aura wrapped around Kyle and shook his head.

"I won't waste time being shocked that you can do that at your age. What I need to do now is point this out clearly and stop you."
"So this isn't enough?"
"It's not. I told you, you need to protect your body with constant aura. How long can you keep that up?"
"Hmm... five minutes?"

Kyle tilted his head as he answered. The Mudflat was a place with little mana. During Flood Tide, when he couldn't hunt, he had to run his technique the entire time just to refill about half of his lower dantian.

This room was full of mana, but not so full that it vastly surpassed the Cultivation Chambers in the Sword Tower. In the first place, Kyle spent most of his time in the Mudflat, so compared to when he first entered this place, the mana in his dantians had barely increased.

"Five minutes is nowhere near enough. If you want to move to the next layer, you need to maintain an aura shield for a full day."

With a special Spirit Root, a special technique, and Jor as a filter, Kyle's mana growth efficiency was absurdly high. Even so, he was still only twelve. Thanks to all the elixirs he had been fed, his mana pool dwarfed others his age, but it wasn't enough to keep an aura shield up all day.

"Hm."

Kyle wrinkled his nose and scratched his head hard. To go to the next layer, he needed to increase the mana in his lower dantian by dozens of times. To do that, he'd have to stay in this room longer and spend more time running his technique, or demand something like elixirs as rewards for killing Dregs.

"Well... I don't really have to go to the next layer right now, do I?"

He didn't think about it for long. Once he finished the technique, his mana would rise quickly anyway, and as for elixirs, he could get more outside by showing filial piety to Julius. There was no need to target the next layer immediately.

"Now that I have the shoes, can I go down to the sea during Flood Tide?"
"Still... still no! You haven't gotten the cloak yet, you ignorant brat. No matter how much your body adapted to the outside, that doesn't mean it adapted to the abyssal gaze!"
"If I've adapted this much, I feel like I could take the gaze too."
"Don't say stupid things! Humans can never adapt to that gaze!"
"If it's something humans can't adapt to, then if I transcend human limits, that means I can adapt, right?"

Kyle asked with a grin, and Fragment flinched and shut his mouth. Seeing that silence, Kyle chuckled and tapped his own head with a finger.

"As far as I know, opening this makes you transcend human limits. So when that happens, I can face those eyes, right?"
"When you can know too much, see too much, and feel too much... you begin to feel new fears you never knew before."

Fragment wore a fed-up expression and shook his head.

"For my own sanity, I don't want to say useless things. That's also for your sake. Julius probably wouldn't want to answer either."
"Fine, fine. I don't want a pointless death either, so I won't do anything reckless. It took me one year to get two shoes... how long do you think the cloak will take?"
"The cloak... is more valuable than shoes. It protects you from the abyssal gaze, even if only temporarily. You can't raise your hunting speed any further, so it'll take one full year more."
"What about finishing the technique?"
"If you'd tried to build some mediocre body in the Cultivation Floors, it would've been done long ago, but you... exceeded my expectations in many ways."

Fragment pointed to the thick stack of parchment piled on the desk.

"Every time you come back here, I check your body, and every time I get chills. All those Dregs you've stuffed into yourself have warped your already malformed body even further."
"Is that bad?"
"No. You're becoming the optimal vessel for your Spirit Root. But..."

Fragment let out another deep sigh and sat back in his chair.

"The vessel keeps changing every time I look, so I have to revise the technique every time. I'm making it far more extreme and bold than the original design, but my head feels like it's splitting apart."
"You're not making it sloppily, right?"
"What do you take me for? You wouldn't understand, but for a being like me, a promise is absolute. So stop ruining my mood with useless doubts, go suffer, and bring back the cloak."
"Yes."

Kyle grinned and left the room.
Fragment's estimate was exact. Only after another full year had passed did Kyle receive the cloak.

"Ugly design."

Two years had passed since he entered the Cultivation Floors. Kyle had gone through voice change, and his voice was still beautiful, but no longer as boyish as before. He toyed with his roughly cut, spiky hair and stared at the cloak floating in midair.

A thin strip of pitch-black cloth. No fancy embroidery, no ornaments, just a rough, plain look. Kyle took the cloak from the air and draped it over himself.

Like the boots, the cloak fit him snugly. He focused on the strange sensation he felt the moment he put it on. There was a brief chill, like being submerged in cold water, and at the same time, a hollow feeling as though his presence had been erased from the world.

Kyle turned to the mirror. The boundary of the area covered by the cloak shimmered faintly. He lifted the hem and murmured in admiration.

"Oh... this seems like it'd work for assassination too."
"Assassination, my ass. Would the glorious youngest young master of Alastor ever need to personally assassinate someone? It's a precious artifact that lets you endure the abyssal gaze. Use it for what it was made for."

Fragment grumbled from his chair.

"I've told you many times, the cloak isn't all-powerful. It only lets you endure the gaze temporarily. Same with the boots. They're all consumables. Keep using them, and they'll wear out and disappear."
"How long will they last?"
"That... you'll feel it naturally. Focus on your senses. If you feel something wrong under your soles, the boots are going. And when you feel like you're about to die, or like... you can't take it anymore... that's when the cloak has worn out. When that happens, don't act tough. Run for the coral reef."
"So I'll only know for sure by experiencing it myself."

After saying that, Kyle headed out to the Mudflat.

"Hmm, rotten smell."

He had suffered in this rotten Mudflat for two years to get two shoes and one cloak. He didn't find that process boring.

He no longer felt any tension in fights against Dregs, but by cutting down those things, he had gotten more than enough real combat experience, and he had refined the swords he already knew into something sharper and more flexible.

'I am curious what might be happening outside.'

Had Aslan escaped garden life and returned to the mansion? Maybe... maybe when he got out, he'd really have a sibling. If so, Kyle sincerely hoped for a younger sister.

'Maybe that pig got disowned. Maybe my uncles who left have come back too.'

If his uncles had returned with good results, he might even get to meet his grandmother, whom he had never met because she had been asleep all this time.

'I don't know how much longer I'll be stuck in here, but if I go out after years, the outside should've changed too.'

Maybe not a ridiculous change on the scale of five hundred years. Still, when he got out of here, Kyle hoped interesting changes would be waiting.

Kugugugung...

It was time. Kyle ignored the corpses of the Dregs he had just cut down and ran to the nearest coral. Those things no longer changed his body anyway. Until now, he had only eaten them as meal substitutes.

But starting today, he could eat something new. Kyle recalled the taste of the leech he had eaten two years ago. The things called Byproducts tasted far more like food than Dregs.

"Today's meal will be a new flavor. What do you think, Jor? Excited?"

Kyle had aged two years and gone through voice change. A normal boy his age would be going through puberty around now, but Kyle was only thirteen in body. Mentally, he was still the Sword Demon, so puberty never came for him.

Jor was different. Three years had passed since contracting with Kyle and settling in his middle dantian, and Jor had now shed the frame of a baby spirit.

[Ki... kill, kill!]

For the first time, Kyle learned that spirits could have puberty too. Maybe it really was puberty, or maybe two years of feeding on Dregs and polluted mana had driven him crazy. Either way, Jor had entered a rebellious phase lately, and his speech had gotten rough.

"Die, my ass. If I die, you die too. You still don't know that?"
[Die... dying!]
"Oh, you're not telling me to die, you're saying you'll die? Who told you to say weak stuff like that?"

Kyle snickered and glanced under the coral. Thanks to that helpful hand bastard diligently scooping water from far away, the space beneath the coral was now filled with black seawater.

"Let's go."

Feeling his heart pound with excitement, Kyle jumped down.

[Aaaah!]

Amid Jor's scream, Kyle's feet touched the sea. Thanks to the boots, his body didn't sink straight down, but the movement of the surface felt completely different from standing on the Mudflat. Kyle quickly steadied himself after wobbling as if he might fall.

"Just standing here is training."

The Mudflat had been unpleasantly squishy, but never this violently unstable. This sea didn't only sway with the waves. If his force distribution and balance were off for even a moment, it felt like he'd be dragged under instantly.

"..."

A chill ran down his spine.

The cloak trembled with a faint buzz, and the cloth touching him, and the skin beneath it, all shivered the same way. Goosebumps rose. Kyle swallowed and stood still in silence.

He felt a gaze from the deep, deep abyss below. Back when he saw those eyes from the coral reef, he'd felt a strong urge to meet that gaze. Not now. He only felt the gaze, and aside from the chill, he felt nothing else. There was no nauseating sensation of his mind breaking.

'As expected, this is how you endure it.'

He could still endure more. The moment he realized that, the gaze left. The Abyssal Eye had closed. Kyle flexed his hand, drenched in cold sweat, and grinned.

"I really want to know what kind of insane bastard is down there."

He was curious, but he couldn't know yet.

And he shouldn't know yet. Kyle slid across the sea and glanced below. This cloak protected him not only from the abyssal gaze, but from the gaze of Byproducts too. So even if he came down and walked across the sea, Byproducts wouldn't attack first.

That meant he had to provoke them first. After walking on the sea for a while, Kyle stopped. Below him, he saw a wriggling leech, and farther down, a giant angler lying still.

Was it the same one from two years ago? He had definitely cut that leech then, but it could've regenerated over two years.

It didn't have to be the same individual. The leech he'd eaten two years ago had tasted pretty good, so he had already decided this commemorative first meal would be that.

Aura wrapped around his wooden sword and plunged into the sea.

The surface rippled from the plunging aura. Kyle stood still and waited for it to react, while trying to grasp what kind of world lay below through the aura boring downward.

'My Sword Qi... is getting squeezed.'

The aura, the Sword Qi covering Kyle's sword, was a perfect recreation of his previous-life experience. But the moment it entered the sea, that flawless Sword Qi started shrinking, compressed as if it might burst. If someone other than Kyle had been controlling it, it would've collapsed the instant it went in.

'Water pressure...'

Fragment had described the danger of this sea as toxic liquid that contaminated everything it touched. But from what Kyle felt through Sword Qi right now, forget contamination. It felt like the pressure alone would crush a body to death the moment it entered.

Kyle focused even harder on maintaining Sword Qi. The moment it reached the leech below, a violent vibration traveled back through it. His heart pounded, and he sprang backward.

Kwaaaah!

The surface where he had just stood exploded and overturned. A massive wave rose, but instead of moving to dodge, Kyle focused on the sensation in his boot soles and ran his mana.

These boots somehow let him stand on the sea. Even in violent currents, as long as he held his center, he wouldn't fall in. His whole body was whipped and staggered by the flow, but his center never broke.

Soon black seawater was sucked toward one point, and a huge whirlpool formed. The sea was being pulled into the angler's gaping mouth as it rose to the surface.

[Die, die!]

Jor, in puberty, screamed short words over and over. No spirit, no guts. Maybe he should set aside a day for mental discipline.

[I-I'm saying this because I'm worried!]

Jor read Kyle's thoughts and shouted again. It seemed he didn't want that discipline.

In truth, he only sounded weak. Jor was moving exactly as Kyle intended. He was already stirring mana fiercely in the middle dantian, fully focused on refining the mana surging up from the lower dantian into Sword Qi.

Crackle! The wooden sword rose out of the water wrapped in aura. It was sharper and larger than the aura Kyle usually used to dismantle Dregs. As the wildly flickering, lightning-like aura swirled and fully wrapped the wooden sword, Kyle gripped the hilt with both hands.

"Long time no see."

He didn't know if this was the same individual as two years ago, but he greeted it with genuine pleasure. Either way, he had been eaten by something that looked like that two years ago.

Without the Lifeline, he would've died then, making it the second death across his two lives. By pure result, that giant angler had done exactly what Ruin Alastor did to him.

'If I had really died back then.'

Kyle's lips curled upward. He had avoided death thanks to the Lifeline's protection, but two years ago he had still lost. He had lost many times in his previous life too, so he felt no self-loathing over defeat itself.

The reason was simple. Fight again, and win next time. Since his previous life, Kyle, the Sword Demon, had always thought that way and fled after defeat.

Kwaaaaarrr!

The sea was sucked into the angler's gaping mouth. Kyle didn't run. He gave himself to the current pulling into that mouth. He felt not a trace of fear toward that giant maw that swallowed everything.

Things were very different from two years ago. Then, atop the coral, he had nowhere to evade, and his mana wasn't flexible enough to strike at the exact timing he wanted. Now he could jump and move anywhere on the sea, choose his own timing, and his mana had become more flexible.

He had countless ways to cut down that giant angler right now, and he chose the easiest one. Just like the leech, that skin wouldn't be cut by ordinary Sword Qi, so in this case, like before, stabbing into the mouth was simplest.

The sword tip followed his will. Kyle thrust the wooden sword forward with both hands. It was the instant before he would be swallowed by the angler's mouth. The moment he thrust at that black, cave-like maw, the aura wrapped around his wooden sword spun even harder and exploded.

Jwaaaang! The straight-firing spiral of aura became Sword Qi. The extended blade pierced the darkness and shot upward.

Puhak!

The angler's upper palate split in half.

That was the end. Seawater that had been sucked into its mouth rushed back out. This time, Kyle didn't stand and endure it on the sea. He jumped and clung to a nearby coral reef wall so he wouldn't be swept too far away.

The sea settled quietly. Kyle looked down with cautious eyes. In that black water below, there were not only anglers but many monsters lying in wait. From what he had observed so far, they didn't move in groups. He didn't know whether they ignored one another or watched one another, but they moved while keeping their distance.

That made one-by-one hunting easy, but if they started targeting corpses like scavengers, it would be troublesome. And that angler had been absurdly huge.

'I've used quite a bit of mana too.'

Eating the whole angler was impossible. He should take only what he could eat and rest today. While he was thinking that, black smoke rose from the angler.

Like Dregs, a successful Byproduct hunt added power to his body.

Fwaaaash!

Black smoke flowing from the angler covered Kyle's body.

"Urk...!"

His teeth clenched on their own. The density of that energy was on a completely different level from the Dregs he had killed so far. Burning pain engulfed his whole body, like boiling lava poured over him.

Crack...!

His bones twisted and his muscles convulsed. The energy was so powerful and toxic that even Fragment's blessing, which purified and absorbed the Mudflat's foul aura, struggled with it, and his mind shook violently.

[M-Master?]

Jor hurriedly circulated mana to cool the heat, but Kyle shook his head.

"I'm fine."

The pain was brutal, but the change was just as clear. Muscle fibers torn by the energy seeping through his body rewove themselves, reconstructed tougher and harder. It felt like his already-wide mana circuits expanded even more, and some circuits that had only nearly touched finally latched together.

'If I keep eating this, they'll connect.'

The change was even more noticeable in his Spirit Root. A Spirit Root that held the whole world. Not harmonious, but containing everything, a chaotic aptitude that could become anything.

Even that Spirit Root had never held distortions as foul and ominous as the beings in this Mudflat. He had eaten Dregs for two years, adding distortion little by little, but he had never felt this much change from a single meal.

'So Dregs and Byproducts really are different tiers...'

The heat settled. Kyle steadied his breathing and wiped away the cold sweat soaking his face.

[Ugeegeegeek...]

In his middle dantian, Jor writhed and let out strange groans. A change big enough for Kyle to feel had affected Jor too, whose nest was in that middle dantian. Born as an infant lightning spirit, Jor had clearly moved beyond the normal frame of existence since entering the Cultivation Floors.

'Am I the same?'

Kyle kept taking deep breaths as he thought. Two years in the Mudflat. He had killed and eaten too many Dregs to count. His body had already been far from normal, and now he didn't know where it was heading.

'At least it's heading in a direction where I can swing a sword better.'

He was certain. Kyle jumped into the now-calm sea, approached the angler's corpse, and raised his wooden sword. Slash! He didn't even run mana through his technique, but the sword he swung generated sharp wind pressure and cleanly cut the angler's flesh.

"..."

His body had become incomparably stronger than before entering the Cultivation Floors. And from now on, as he ate Byproducts, it would only get stronger. Kyle let out a dry laugh and nodded.

"Guess I need to learn force control too."

At this rate, if his body kept getting stronger, he might start snapping spoons every time he ate. Carrying a chunk of angler flesh as large as his torso, Kyle hopped back up to the coral reef.

He sat at the edge and looked down for a moment. Thick red blood flowing from the angler's corpse couldn't change the sea's color. Instead, the sea surged and rapidly dissolved the corpse.

Before long, that massive body left no trace and became part of the sea. Kyle gave a dry laugh at the sight and shook his head.

"Couldn't have eaten it all anyway."

Should he be grateful other Byproducts weren't stealing it? Thinking that, Kyle turned to the angler flesh beside him.

[Ugeek... geek... i-is... food... food?]

Jor, still writhing, asked in a stammer. Instead of answering, Kyle rubbed his jaw and leaned toward the angler flesh.

The chunk of meat tangled in bright red slime looked disgusting enough to turn anyone's stomach, but Kyle didn't care. He had spent two full years in this Mudflat eating all kinds of Dregs.

'Hmm.'

If anything, compared to how it looked, it smelled good. A deep, rich sea scent. Kyle sniffed a few times, then bit into it boldly.

Crunch.

'Tastes good?'

He meant it. Unlike the nauseating taste of Dregs, the angler tasted much more like real food. It felt like drinking a thick seafood soup. Every time he chewed, it felt like something was bursting in his mouth, no, inside his body.

'Hmm...'

The taste in his mouth was good, but his body was in agony. Kyle closed his eyes and felt the changes happening inside. Countless mana circuits linked to his lower dantian. Circuits he had spent two years connecting were severed once, then reconstructed more solidly.

"Hoo..."

After finishing the meal while enduring nonstop pain, Kyle closed his eyes and ran his technique.

Before entering the Cultivation Floors, the Primordial Chaos Art he had struggled to build had felt decent enough. Compared to this body, it now felt far too low-tier. Mana flow was fast enough to feel, violent enough to shake him, and free enough to reach anywhere he wanted. It had become that free, and because of that, the old operating style of the Primordial Chaos Art now felt like shackles.

'At this rate, I really am a monster.'

Back in the Sword Tower, Julius had called him things like a monster-like treasure and a treasure-like monster many times. Kyle had never gotten excited by those words.

Strong enough to seem impossible for his age? That was because he had reincarnated with all his memories as the Sword Demon intact. The swordsmanship and mana control that made everyone in the Sword Tower gasp were all things he had already done in his previous life, and even then, he was still below that level. In many ways, he was not fully ripe yet.

Even while trying various methods to surpass his previous life, he had found it hard to picture exactly where he'd end up. Kyle had little attachment to his life as the Sword Demon. He had fought enough, enjoyed enough, and become as strong as he could imagine.

Still, he had been weaker than Ruin Alastor, and he had died after losing to him. Vaguely, he had thought that in this life, he would become stronger than his previous self, stronger than Ruin, and love the sword more. But honestly, even that future had been hard to picture clearly.

The reason was simple. Kyle, the Sword Demon, had never seen Ruin Alastor's full strength. On the other hand, he knew his own full strength from that defeat, and at the time, he had believed it was the limit.

Now he clearly understood how low that so-called limit had been. Kyle was certain that even if he only completed this body, he'd already lay the foundation to far surpass his previous life. Realizing that at age thirteen, he felt like he could finally call himself a monster with pride.

'...'

Kyle looked at the hand far beyond the horizon. Even now, every time he looked at it, his whole body chilled and his head throbbed, but thanks to the cloak, he could look at it fairly directly.

'That hand...'

Something that looked like a hand, but wasn't a hand, stood beyond the horizon. In the sky, there was something that triggered fear just from looking up. In the deep sea, there was something that felt as if merely meeting its gaze could drive him mad, kill him, or bring something even worse.

Those were likely transcendent beings, far beyond what the word monster could describe. Kyle grinned without realizing it, then glanced beside him.

He saw the leftover angler flesh, not even half finished. He hadn't left it because he was full. He left it because he felt he shouldn't eat more.

Even good medicine ruins the body when taken in excess. Angler flesh, Byproduct flesh, was like that. He had felt an instinctive warning that forcing more down would damage his body. Hunting was the same. If he got impatient and absorbed too much power, it felt like his very existence might become something else.

'Looks like I'll be spending years here after all.'

Thinking that, Kyle closed his eyes.

As Fragment had said, boots and cloaks were consumables. They were rewards from gathering and killing Dregs for two years, but with use, they wore down and vanished.

The good news was that both lasted much longer than Kyle had expected. That was because he didn't stay too long at sea and finished his Byproduct hunts quickly.

Even so, they wore out. After about two months, both cloak and boots vanished at the same time, and Kyle immediately returned to the room.

"Cloak and shoes."

After exchanging rough greetings with Fragment, Kyle immediately demanded a cloak and shoes as payment. Thankfully, Byproducts were far higher tier than Dregs, so he received cloak and shoes at once when he asked.

After that, Kyle lived on a fixed routine.

By day, kill Dregs. By night, kill and eat Byproducts.

When cloak and boots wore out, return to the room and get new ones.

"Hm."

Black sea.

Standing on the corpse of a sea anemone with countless tentacles hanging down, Kyle opened his pocket watch.

Four years had already passed since he entered the Cultivation Floors.

"Now even if I kill and eat them, I don't change much."
[Then... then...]

Behind Kyle, a giant purple snake lifted its head while crunching on anemone tentacles. Despite its savage appearance, its eyes were sparkling with tears.

[Then... are we finally leaving?]
"Hmm..."

Kyle slurped down a bite-sized tentacle slice and rested his chin on his hand.

[Master, why aren't you answering right away? If eating doesn't change us anymore, then we can just leave now!]

Jor, now a snake, shoved his giant head forward and begged. Five years ago, he had been the size of a finger. Now he had grown large enough to swallow a human in one gulp.

Kyle pushed Jor's head away with one hand and stood up.

"Let's go back to the room first."
[Waaaaaaah!]

Jor trembled all over and cheered.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried