66 Field of Monsters
"The pain is real, but the deaths are not," was the only explanation given to the participants before they were spirited away into the illusion world.
Yeon found himself in a large flat plane surrounded by monsters.
They were relatively short and had sickly white skin. The creatures had a weird body structure where they had stout and fat legs with a skinny torso.
It was something Yeon had never seen before, and he wondered if he they only existed in this illusion or if they were based on something that really existed.
Interestingly, they had no eyes and only floundered about, waving their four stubby arms as if looking for something.
Yeon looked further ahead and realized that the other participants were evenly spaced out in this huge field.
'Being alone is disadvantageous,' Yeon immediately discerned.
He gathered qi into his legs to power his jump and he scanned the field.
Luckily, it seemed that Mia and Emily weren't too far away and so he decided to go towards them.
But as soon as he landed from his jump, the monsters nearby all turned to face him.
He had hardly made any noise, but they had all reacted. It was to the extent that just walking was enough to grab their attention.
"I guess you guys are sensitive to sound. Makes sense considering you have no eyes…" he let out an exasperated sigh as all they started to rush towards him.
He immediately summoned his Mountain Annihilation Blade and separated the blade into two.
With light steps like leaves falling on a pond, he maneuvered through the crowd while focusing more on leaving this crowded area than fighting them.
He didn't know how they fought but looking at their physique, he judged that fighting them head on was a mistake.
And true to his judgement, he immediately found another participant who was already being overwhelmed.
The female participant had the number 12 floating above her head and 4 corpses of the humanoid monsters lay at her feet.
'Each monster is worth 3 points,' he noted.
They oozed their icky black blood that contrasted heavily to their sickly skin tone.
But the sound of battle had attracted nearby monsters to her, and she was quickly surrounded.
They were individually weak, even weaker than level 0 magical beasts, so it was more correct to say that they were weirdly shaped animals.
But they used their stout legs to rush into the girl and their meaty legs served as excellent pillars as she failed to push them away. They used their stubby arms to latch onto the girl.
Her robes which were covered in viscous black gunk made it hard for her to move her limbs.
'Their blood is a trap. If I get bogged down by it, I'll get surrounded.'
He determined that continuous movement was one of the keys to success in this trial.
"Help! I'm from the Kolon clan! I'll never forget to repay this favour if – AHHHHHH!" and they dug into her flesh.
Elder Marvin had not been lying when he said that the pain was real.
She let out a desperate scream but that only attracted more monsters to her.
They tumbled over each other to reach her delicious flesh and they opened their disproportionally large mouths to rip into her.
'Considering the men of this world, that will be the first and last time she gets eaten out,' he thought to himself.
He kept that comment to himself since the event was being streamed and he thought it was inappropriate. The public would certainly not favour him if he said that in front of a woman who was suffering through such pain.
Yeon winced as he rushed by as her face was being bitten - her screams finally stopped. Even for him, it was a horribly gruesome scene.
As Yeon focused on fending off oncoming attacks he apologized to her dying body.
"Sorry, I have other people I need to help and save."
'Well since everyone thinks I'm in a relationship with them-'
"My women are waiting for me," he said.
He thought that saying such lines would increase his favourability with the crowd and offer an explanation as to why he didn't rush in to save her.
But calling them his women made Yeon feel weird, it was an unfamiliar feeling. Only Beatrice had experience with such sentiments, but she had forgotten them long ago.
Yeon stabbed the monster in front of him and his score went up to 6. He could have easily killed more but he was focusing on reaching the girls first.
He used its falling body as a foothold as he jumped into the air to see how Emily and Mia were faring only to witness a scene that left a bitter taste in his mouth.
The two of them had already grouped together but there was another trio who were fighting a few paces away.
However, those three participants who were nearest to them had decided that it would be easier to use the duo as bait after having accidentally attracted a crowd too large for them to handle.
"We're sorry but I'm sure that your lover will come to save you."
"It's the survival of the fittest and our strengths just happen to be greater than yours. I hope that there are no hard feelings."
"If you're stronger then why are you running away!" shouted Mia who realized even before Emily what they were about to do.
"Tsk, it's nothing personal," the tall man replied while throwing a small black pill at the duo.
"What?!" but before they could hit the pill away, BANG, it exploded to create a large smokescreen.
The sound of the explosion attracted the attention of the nearby monsters, and they began to swarm towards the smoke.
"Quickly, let's go before it's too late."
The three rushed away from the crime scene but they were running in the same direction as Yeon was approaching.
Yeon grit his teeth and sped up even faster. He ignored some attacks that would only leave small cut in exchange for speed.
He accumulated tiny cuts over his body as he ran towards the trio.
"Hey it's their lover!"
The other two reacted and looked at Yeon rushing towards them.
"Hey, you better hurry or you're going to be late!" the shorter of the two cackled.
"Tsk, this is a disciple trial, not a dating event. Keep your drama out of it and take this seriously! You're ruining the face of the Sapling Sword Sect!" said the taller man, the one who had thrown the smoke bomb.
He was talking as if he was already a disciple of the sect.
The number floating above his head read 14.
'14? Since it's not a multiple of 3, I guess there are other ways to earn points,' Yeon thought.
Just before he passed them the taller man taunted Yeon.
"Your lover-" was all he managed to say before a long and heavy blade appeared before his eyes.
He flinched and tried to dodge but couldn't react in time.
"I'll show you how serious I am," Yeon said as he cut off his head.
"You!" the short man beside the tall man tried to confront Yeon, but Yeon rushed on ahead while ignoring them.
"It's too late, we should leave," the more rational one said to calm the short man down.
"Tsk, I'll remember this."
Yeon had wasted a bit of time by attacking the tall man, but that was why he had made some time by allowing a few hits from the monsters.
He had planned on killing the one who threw the smoke bomb either way.
Yeon ran towards the smoke before noticing that his score had increased by exactly 7 points so that a large 13 was floating above his head.
"It turns out that every one of us is a treasure, we only have to look deep inside to find it," he spoke as if he were referring to finding self-worth, but he was referring to the other participant's flesh and blood.
"But it's stingy. Only giving half of their points…"
Yeon didn't have time to pout as he ran into the smoke to find Emily and Mia.
"Emi! Mia! Where are you?!" he shouted.
"Yeon! Hurry!" Emily's voice rang out from the shadow.
It was further than he had expected as the two had made the correct decision of running away as well.
It was difficult to see far ahead because of the smoke. It didn't help that the area was full of monsters as well.
He gathered power into his legs and leapt into the air in the direction of the noise. He jumped high enough that he just avoided the reach of the monsters who had short reach due to their arms.
It was a risky decision, but luckily, he landed in a rare gap between the monsters.
The smoke must have influenced the monsters since the ones who had rushed in to follow the noise were all distraught and flailing wildly without direction.
He spotted Mia and Emily fighting their way out of the smoke.
"Yeon!"
"Shhh. Let's go," he said while lowering his voice.
The monsters were currently confused but he didn't want to risk grabbing their attention.
"Mia is…" Emily quietly said while motioning to Mia.
Mia had been covered in the gunky blood of the monsters and her robes were hindering her movement.
"Spare robes?"
"No…they hadn't dried by this morning, so I left them up in our room," said Emily. She looked sorry as if that were her fault. There was no way they could have known that this would happen.
Yeon made a split decision:
"Take it off," he said while kicking a monster who had approached them away back into the smoke, "quickly."
"B-b-but…" she stuttered in embarrassment.
Even through the smoke, her thick blush was apparent.
"Yeon!" Emily chided, "even so! How could you suggest that?! What about her dignit-!!"
But Emily turned away while blushing just as much as Mia was when Yeon began taking his outer robe off.
He had given his spare robes to Sylvie to wear back in the inn and so this was the only option he could think of.
He promptly took the robe off, but he was still wearing his trousers, the one that he wore underneath his robes. This meant that his torso was nude for the world to see.
Yeon had a surprisingly built body considering his slender frame, and each and every muscle was sculpted to perfection.
His smooth skin and perfect proportions made him look like a Greek god - a devilish body that Empresses and Queens would wage war over.
The top part of his hair that was jet-black contrasted with his white skin, and his muscles were in full view as they contracted and stretched to support the heavy weight of the Mountain Annihilation Blade.
He had round and built shoulders, but the most impressive and eye-catching part of his body was his well-defined back.
They were a perfect blend of aesthetic and imposingness, giving off an air of dominance that wouldn't be pushed by any swordsman on the Continent.
"The smoke will prevent the spectators from seeing. You must change now," he instructed them.
He gave his robe to Emily and turned his back to them so that he couldn't see.
"I'll fend them off while you change. Hurry!"
Rather than slicing, he hit the monsters with the flat end of his sword and focused on pushing them away.
He didn't want the area to get pooled with their sticky blood and pushing them into each other so that they entangled each other was a good way to earn more time.
"This trial will probably end when either all the monsters are dead or after a certain time limit," he explained.
He told them everything he had found out about the monsters and points with his back still turned.
"Once we're ready, we're going to kill all the monsters here in the smoke before we leave. I don't know what properties that black pill had but it's confused all the monsters here. We shouldn't waste this opportunity and pick them off one by one."
Just as he finished explaining, a quiet whisper could be heard behind him.
"Y-Yeon, I've put the robe on."
