Record of a Thousand Lives

Kang Yoon-Soo and Kalriven drew their swords and started a sparring session. Kalriven moved extremely slowly at first, but the Death General changeditsmind after seeing Kang Yoon-Soo’s swordsmanship. Kalriven increased its speed, and soon all of Kang Yoon-Soo’s attacks were being parried by the Death General.

However, the only gap that existed between them wasone of physical ability, and Kang Yoon-Soo’s swordsmanship did not lag behind that of Kalriven.Kalriven, whohad beenplanning to go easy on Kang Yoon-Soo, suddenlybegan takingthematchseriously.

Clang!

Sparks flew whenever their swords clashed.

The only reason they were able to exchange blows despite the overwhelming difference in their levels was obviously becauseKalriven was holdingback and controlling his strength. However, Kang Yoon-Soo’s movements weresharp and precise.Sometimes,he attacked from an unexpected angle and Kalriven had difficulty blocking the attack; at times,he almost landed an attack on the Death General.

Kalriven was the first one to lay down its sword after hours of sparring. The Death Knight praised Kang Yoon-Soo with a wide smile that showed its satisfaction at the results of the match.“You really are worthy of being the lord. You have amazing skillsdespite your lack ofexperience. Do not misunderstand,my lord;these are not empty praises.”

A purple light flowed out from Kalriven’s sword toward Kang Yoon-Soo, and he absorbed the light.

[You have received theAbyssalSwordskills of the Death General Kalriven.]

[You are the first to receive an undeadbeing’s swordsmanshipon the continent.]

[Your commanding authority over the undead has risen.]

[Abyssal Sword]

Skill Level: 1 (00.00%)

Energy Consumption: 20%

Asword skill that is one with darkness,unique to the undead. The skill effect will differ based on the undead that gave the skill.

*Death General—Apply a critical strike to significantly reduce enemy HP. The critical success rate increases the stronger the enemy isrelative toyou.

Justasmagic consumed mana, the use of physical skills like swordsmanship used energy. The Abyssal Swordconsumed20% of the user’s energy, and the user wouldenter into a state of exhaustion after using it five times.In addition, the sword skill was rather precarious to use due to the fact that the critical success rate increased when the enemy was stronger than the user, which meantit also decreasedwhen the enemy was weaker.Above all, the fact that the skillhad beengiven by a monster stood out;therehad beenno cases of anyone receiving a skill from monsters, since they were hostile to humans.

Kalriven took out a black crystal and gave it to Kang Yoon-Soo, saying,“You may communicate with us through this black crystal once you release the final seal on the castle.” Itcontinuedina voice filled with expectation and sincerity,“My lord, we have decided to place our trust in you. We shall wait for the day you release us and allow us to serve you.”

The undead legion prostrated in front of Kang Yoon-Soo andworshipedhimupon hearingKalriven’s words. Kang Yoon-Soo did not bother to give a reply, and merelysilently nodded.

It was around the time that they crossed the castle drawbridge that Kang Yoon-Soo heard a whisper.

‘The calamity is fast approaching, and you need to prepare to fight against it.’

Kang Yoon-Soo stoppedinhis tracks as he looked around; it was definitely the same voice that had whispered to him back at the mudgem swamp. Itsounded feminine,and its tone wascalm and elegant.

“Are you alright?” Shaneth asked.

“Yeah, it’s nothing,” Kang Yoon-Soo replied.He had a bad feeling,but he shook his head and ignored it.

***

The trio left the Castle of the Deadandreturned tothe forest after crossing the lake. They turned around to take one last look at the black castle, but it was gone without a trace. Thecastle haddisappeared from their view, just like a mirage.

Henrick scratched his cheek and said, “My, that was a strange experience. It’s as if it wereall a dream.”

“I thought my heart was going to burst from anxiety. It feelsas if it’sbeen a hundred years since I last saw the sun,” Shaneth said, raisingboth of her arms to take in the sunlight.

Kang Yoon-Soo suddenly stopped in his tracks,extendinghis hand toward Henrick.

“What do you want?” Henrick asked.

“Alcohol,”Kang Yoon-Sooanswered.

“You…” Henrick grumbled as he opened his backpack.Hisbackpack was filled to the brim with the chilling alcohol from the Castle of the Dead, which did not lose its coldeven under the hotmiddaysun.

“You stole it…?” Shaneth asked, her words trailing off.

“Hey! Who do you think I am? The skeletons gave it to me,” Henrick retorted.

“The undead gave gifts…?” Shanethexclaimed, her eyes wide.

“Why?There areno boundaries in love, so why would there be any in friendship? A bond made by booze transcends race and age. Well, except for some jerkwhosteals it in daylight…” Henrick said, glaringat Kang Yoon-Soo.

“…” Shaneth stared at him as well.

“What are you looking at?” Kang Yoon-Sooasked.

“Don’t drink too much, it’s not good for your health,” Shaneth saidworriedly.

“Alcohol is meant to bedrunkthat way;stop nagging, little miss,” Henrick teased her.

The two alcoholicsclinkedtheir mugs filled with the chilling alcoholofthe undead and merrily walked ahead while drinking. The nagging little miss let out a sigh before following behind them.

***

Several exhausted-lookingmen mounted on horses passed through a mountainous area; they were the Third Order of the Imperial Knights. However, they looked so haggard at thatmoment that nobody would believe they were Imperial Knights.

The captain of the knights, Lenox, tied his tired horse to a tree and said,“Iknowthat you are all tired, but I am absolutely certain that our objective lies somewhere herein the HatarMountains. We must find that at all costs and fulfill the imperial order.”

Hereminded them once again of their mission. The knights noddedin response,but they could notkeeptheir exhaustion from showing on their faces.After all, they were knights and not mountaineers, and there was a limit to turning over every stone insuch avast mountain range with only sixty people.

Theyhad beentipped offabouta blonde girl going up into the mountains from the village at the foot of the mountain, and theyhadeven found traces of her hiking up the trail. However, even though they searched the mountains for nearly twenty days, they wereunable to find any signs of her.

A search of this scale wouldusually be carriedout by the imperial army, along with experienced hunters and mountaineers. Unfortunately, they were not able to dosothis time around,becausethey were on a top-secret, classified mission forthe royal family.

The search party wascomposedof knights, but they had abandoned their armor for this mission and werein plain clothesinstead. It was odd for the imperial knights to go tosuch an extentjust to find one girl;they were certaintobe a laughingstock for the Republicans if they wereseen intheir current state.

“Umm… I have a question, though…”Anew member, Eric, scratched his cheek as he raised his hand. His seniors glared at him, but he could not hide his curiosity and asked,“Why were we, the Third Order of the Imperial Knights, mobilized just to find one girl? Not to mention the need for us to be so clandestine. I would like to know the reason why we imperial knights have to go through this just to find a girl.”

Eric’s seniors glared at him, but they could not hide their curiosity as well. It was difficult for even the imperial knights to be motivated in carrying out their mission if they were not aware of what was going on.

Contrary to everyone’s expectations, Lenoxhesitantlyexplained,“From what I have heard… This mission is related to the assassination attempt on the imperial princess.”

The knights were more surprised by the fact that their captain, who was known to be uptight when it came to the rules,hadspilled confidential information regarding their mission than the fact that therehad beenan assassination attempt on the imperial princess.

Lenox was from a fallen noble family, and he had managed to climb up the ranks to become the captain of a knight’s order purely by his swordsmanship and intellect. He was a knightwhowas respected by not only the knights in his order, but other knights as well. The knights would surely have protested by now if it werenot for his leadership.

However, even Lenox could not feel uneasy about their mission this time. He looked at the road underneath them and thought,‘Is this mission reallysoimportant as to even divert the trading routes?’

Henrick was the first tospeak up, asking,“What do you think?”

“About what?” Shaneth asked.

“Our current situation,”Henrickreplied.

“Hmm… I don’t know… It is a difficult one, that’s for sure…”Shanethreplied after contemplating for a bit.

“In short, we’re fucked,” Henrickcursed.

“Please watch your language,”Shanethcautioned him.

Sinirant Trade Route was amajor routethat connectedthe imperial capital to several other cities.Its stone-pavedroads were wide and sturdy enough to sustain the weight of the endless lines of travelers and carriages that passed through. In addition, the roads of Sinirant were famous for being well maintained, to the point that one would not see a single stone sticking out of the pavement.

It took the trio ten days to reach the trade route. Their food rations had run out and they were fatigued from their travels. However,the sightbefore their eyes once theyreached their destinationwas something they nevercould have imagined—the trade routewas completely destroyed.

The stones that should have neatly paved the roads were scattered all over the place, andcountlessshatteredfragments littered the area. The roadshad so many crevices they were impossible towalk on, and there were no carriages or even anypedestriansin sight.

“What in the world happened here…?” Shaneth asked, her eyes wide withsurprise.

“The strangest thingis that the largest trade route in the continent is in ruins, but there’s not a single soul in sight,” Henrickremarked.

Even asthe two were completely dumbfounded, Kang Yoon-Soo raised his right hand and pointed toward something. A tiny dotappeared onthe horizon,slowlymovingtoward them. The dot grew larger and larger as it neared them, but it was still tiny nonetheless.

When the dot finally reached the party, they saw that it wasactually a dwarf with a black beard. Heslowly opened his bag andstarted to pick up the stones one by one.

“Excuse me,sir!” Shaneth called out to the middle-aged dwarf.

“What do you want?” the dwarf replied.

“What happened here? Where is everybody?”Shanethasked.

“Aren’t you guys behind on the news?” the dwarfremarked, strokinghis beard. He added,“This trade route has been closed.”

“What? Why?”Shanethasked in disbelief.

“Because of the bandits;they’ve been rampaging in this area these days,”the dwarfreplied.

“Was it so bad that they had to close the trade route?”Shaneth asked.

“How would I know? Well, to be honest, people have been talking because of this closure. They say the nobles are fighting among themselves, or the empire hastheulterior motive of curbing the powers of the merchant companies. Well, one thing’sfor certain; the bandits are just an excuse to close the trade route,” the dwarf explained as he picked up the scattered stones.

“Most people have diverted to another route, and the lack of people encouraged the monsters and animals to come out all the way to the road; as you can see, they made a mess out of it. Well, I’m not complaining, because I get to come and get good quality stones for free,” the dwarf explained. Hepicked up a few more stones before leaving.

“What should we do now?” Shaneth asked.

“Do we even have a choice? We need to return to where we came from and buy a horse, or use another traderoute,” Henrick said with a sigh.

“We just wasted our time, then…”Shanethreplied, sighingas well.

Kang Yoon-Soo suddenly spoke up.“We’re not going back.”

“Eh?” the other two exclaimed.

“We’llcross the Hatar Mountains,”Kang Yoon-Soosaid, pointing toward the nearby mountain range.

The mountain trail was not usually used by people because of thewell-developedtrade route; thus,the mountain did not even have a proper path to walk on.

“You plan to cross the mountain without a pathfinder? Do you plan to get lost and starve for days?” Henrickasked, looking perplexed.

“This is a shortcut,” Kang Yoon-Soo answered.

“But who’ll guide us through it…?”Henrickasked.

“I will,” Kang Yoon-Soo answered, beginning to walktoward the mountain.

Shaneth and Henrick hesitated for a while, looked at each other, and let outsighsat the same time.

“We can trust that guy, right?”Henrickasked.

“Didn’t you see what happened at the Castle of the Dead? He’s unpredictable,”Shanethreplied.

“In other words, he’s a madman…”Henricksighed in resignation.

Henrick took out aflame-spittingdoll from his summoning box and placed it on the ground.The flame from the doll emitted smoke, whichhe planned to use as a guide tofindinghis way back if theyevergot lost.He then ran to catch up withKang Yoon-Soo, grumbling as he trailed behind.“If only he weren’t doing a legendary quest…”

***

The Hatar Mountain Rangeconsisted of numerousmountainsconnected together. While some of the mountainpeaks in the range pierced through the clouds, some were low enough to be closer to tall hills. However, the landscape of the mountain range was quite complex, and the fact that it was extremely vast and overgrown did not help with navigating it. In fact, therange hadstill not been completely mapped out, and there was no map ofitavailable.

“Kyaah!”Shaneth screamed as she tripped over a tree, but KangYoon-Sooeasily caught her with one hand.She was in the middle ofthankinghim when all of a sudden, Henrick screamed from behind them.

“Gah!”Henrickfell down and was almost buried in a thickthorn bush, but Kang Yoon-Soo caught him as well withthe otherhand.

Shaneth sighed and said, “Trekkingacrossa mountain at night is a very dangerous thing to do.”

“I agree;it’s so dark we can’t see what’s right in front of us,” Henrick added, waving his handsin front of him.

However, Kang Yoon-Soo did not hesitate even for a moment and confidently walkedintothe darkness. Oddly enough, he did not even graze a tree branch whilewalking in the dark.

Henrick’s face distorted into a grimace as he grumbled, “What the hell is that guy?”

“He isn’t a normal person, that’s for sure…”Shanethreplied.

“Then am I traveling with a ghost and not a human? Come to think of it, he doesn’t even get drunk and he has the same expression day and night. He’s definitely closer to a ghost than a human…”Henrick remarked.

Kang Yoon-Soo suddenly pointedinto the distance,at a crevice on the mountain wall—it was a small cave.“We’llmake camp here,” he said.

“Therearen’t any beastsinside, right?” Henrickasked before pickingup a stone and throwingit intothe cave.

Clack!

Luckily, there was no movement or sound from within the cave. The trio entered the cave through its tight entrance, andfound that its interiorwas quite spacious. The interior of thecave was quite warm, and was suitable for them to spend the night.

Kang Yoon-Soo scavenged some firewood and litafire.Shaneth took outsomedried food, and Henrick laydown and started to carve pieces ofwoodwith his sculpting knife.Henrick appeared to just bemessing around at first, but he carved three wooden utensils in an instant with only a few movements of his hands.

“Your crafting speed is really fast!” Shaneth exclaimed in surprise.

“What’s the point? It’s nothing compared to that guy,”Henrickgrumbled.

“No,” Kang Yoon-Soo suddenly said.

Henrick’s hands stopped movingwhen he heardKang Yoon-Soo’s words, and he just looked atthe other man. Kang Yoon-Soo silently stared at Henrick, but the way he looked at him was a bit different this time.

“I learned how to craft and control puppets from you at one point in time. However, I couldn’t hold a candletoyour skills—no matter how much I practiced.”

Kang Yoon-Soo saidseveralwords thatmade nosense.Henrick had taught him how to craft and control puppets? It had not even been a month since they begantravelingtogether, and Henrick did not recall teachingKang Yoon-Soohow to do anythingin that time.

Henrick looked at him with a perplexedexpressionandreplied,“You mentioned that at the pub last time, but what do you mean by that, exactly? It hasn’t been a month since we first met, but you’re saying that you learned such skills from me? You sound as if you knew me from before…”

Kang Yoon-Soofell silentand did notreply further.An awkward silence filled the cave.

Shaneth spoke up to change the mood.“Come to think of it, our rations are running out quite quickly. We have nochoice but to eat them soonbecause they might spoil in the backpack. We should’ve bought more dried rations if we knew this was going to happen…”

Kang Yoon-Soo suddenly stood upafter Shaneth voiced her concern, and Shaneth looked at himcuriously.“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To get food,”Kang Yoon-Sooanswered.

“Can you find your way back without getting lost?”Shanethasked just in case, even though she felt the answer would be obvious.

“Yeah,”Kang Yoon-Sooreplied.

He thenexited the cave. It was dark outside, but visibilityhadnever been an issue with him in the first place, to the point that he closed his eyes as he walked. He could findhis way just by the sounds of leaves crunching under his steps,the dirt shifting beneath his feet, andthegrass dancing inthe wind.

He walked for quite a distance before thinking to himself,‘I have to be careful.’He had subconsciously blurted out the story regarding Henrick. Hehadtried to suppress his emotions, but the memories of his previous life had somehow found their way out of his mouth.

In fact, Kang Yoon-Soo was well aware ofit. He was aware that he could not cope with the changeshe had experienced in his regressions, and that he was falling apart.‘I shouldn’t think negatively. I have to hold it in…the same wayI did for so long.’

].

Hemassaged his templeashe walked behind a large boulder. Funnily enough, he came across a wild tusk boar that had its snout in the ground, feastingon a bunch of wild mushrooms it had found. The wild tusk boar was a beast that lived up to its namedue to its long,sharp tusks; in fact, its tusks were so sharp that there would beno need to refinethembefore usingthemas weapons.

Kang Yoon-Soo drew his longsword, stabbing it into theneck of the wild tusk boar. The beastlet out anear-splitting shriek before whimpering in pain. Unfortunately, Kang Yoon-Soo couldunderstand the cries of the beast.

‘Spare me! I have five kids in my burrow! They’ll all die if I don’t return tonight.’

Kang Yoon-Soo stabbedthe boar with hislongsword several times more. The fact that he could understand the beast tormented him, because killing ashriekingbeast and killing a talking beast weredifferent issues altogether. Forhim,there was only a thin line between a human and a monster.He hadconversed and hunted alongside monsters inaprevious life, and he hadformed a bond with them.

He bit his lipsandtold himself, ‘Don’t think about the past. Focus on this life.’

The wild tusk boar stopped breathing, andKang Yoon-Soo lifted its carcass ontohis backbefore walkingback toward the cave.

It was only after Kang Yoon-Soo had walked quite some distance thatan arrow sharply flew toward himandgrazed his cheek; a thin red line of blood formed in its wake.

Kang Yoon-Soo looked toward the place the arrowhad flownfrom, and a chilling voice called out from the darkness.

“Kang Yoon-Soo, how is yourthousandth life going?”