I Stepped on Their Shadows and Skills Started Copying Like Crazy - Chapter 56

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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56
Roga moved toward his brother with trembling steps, limping forward.
Si Hyeon did not hold him back. He simply walked in silence, matching his pace to Roga’s.
‘There’s no choice. This knot must be tied here.’
Roga and Garak, Garak and Roga—they were gazing in completely opposite directions, their paths parallel lines that would never meet.
If that was the case, this ending had to be resolved, no matter what shape it took. This relationship.
Though Si Hyeon had grown up an orphan, he could not know what this moment meant to Roga.
And so, before long, the two of them drew near the enemy’s very doorstep.
Garak, whose face Roga had already glimpsed, had come out early to wait for him.
“…Brother.”
The brother he had searched for so long.
He had hoped he was alive, had sworn to rescue him if he was being held captive.
But Garak was not bound.
Rather, he stood on the side that held the leash.
Garak spoke his brother’s name first, his voice warm with what seemed like joy, a smile playing at his lips.
“You were alive. Roga.”
A reunion with his brother. It was the moment he had longed for so desperately, yet Roga could not smile.
“You… were alive too.”
“Yes. I survived.”
At Garak’s calm reply, Roga’s hand clenched around the Sun Bird Feather hung at his neck.
“What… what have you done, brother…?”
“Roga, you’ve always been like this from the start. If you want to ask ‘How could you betray your own kind? Why do you stand there like that?’—then ask it directly. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”
That was not what Roga wanted to hear.
He simply hoped his brother would tell him it was not true, that things were different from how they appeared.
But Garak’s answer shattered even that fragile hope.
“It was something someone had to do. For everyone’s sake.”
“For everyone’s sake…?”
Roga echoed his words hollowly.
His gaze naturally shifted to what lay behind Garak.
Prisoners with collars around their necks.
Goblin slave-soldiers gripping spears and shields, watching nervously for the slightest sign from the Lizardmen.
“Do they count as part of this ‘everyone’ you’re talking about?”
“Why? Do they look pitiful to you? At least they don’t starve to death, and they don’t end up in Nol’s belly. Wearing a collar doesn’t make everyone unhappy.”
“But how can they be free to live like that, bound without any freedom? Can they truly be happy just by surviving like this?”
“Freedom? Happiness? Do they even want those things?”
Garak’s eyes grew cold and sharp.
“Very well. Let me show you how worthless freedom truly is.”
Soon after, Garak called to his subordinates and issued a strange command.
“Release them all.”
It was an order that made no sense, but his subordinates, overwhelmed by his icy authority, obeyed without question.
“Garak! What are you doing! Did you plan this from the beginning!?”
The Lizardman representative in the ranks immediately protested, but Garak was utterly confident.
“Peace, I beg you. This is no betrayal.”
Garak laughed easily.
“If you will only watch a moment longer, you will understand.”
Snip.
The ropes binding the prisoners’ wrists fell away.
Click. Clink.
Then the iron collars around the necks of the armed goblin slave-soldiers came undone as well.
Garak truly had released them all, and he called out to the goblins, now free.
“Anyone who wishes to go may do so. I will not stop you.”
To suddenly release them like this.
No one dared to move first at words so unbelievable. They only whispered among themselves, searching the faces around them for some sign of what to do.
“…Is it really true? We can actually leave?”
“Quiet, you fool! You believe that? The moment we try to run, arrows will be in our backs!”
Garak raised his voice once more.
“Still don’t believe me? Very well, then. Allow me to demonstrate.”
Garak slowly turned his gaze toward the troops under his command.
“Touch no one who flees. Lower no spears, loose no arrows, pursue no one. This is my command.”
And then Garak’s gaze turned back toward the goblins.
A cold smile curved his lips.
“If you still don’t believe me, there’s nothing I can do. But if you truly desire freedom, isn’t this worth trying?”
Yet not a single goblin stepped out of formation.
They simply stood there, staring blankly ahead.
“Ugh…!”
Then one small goblin—a captive until now—bolted from the ranks as if fleeing.
“I… I…!”
Malnourished and barely fed, the child’s legs buckled beneath him with every step, threatening to give out.
‘It’s over.’
The remaining goblins squeezed their eyes shut, certain arrows would rain down on the fleeing child.
But nothing of the sort happened.
Garak had never intended to break his word.
“At last one showed courage. Impressive for one so young. Did you see? I keep my promises. This is your final chance. If you wish to leave, go.”
In that moment, even the goblins who had doubted Garak realized he had not lied.
And yet their feet remained rooted to the ground.
The Great Forest was perilous.
Lizardmen prowled there, along with savage beasts and venomous creatures—threats lurked at every turn.
The goblins at the crossroads had no choice but to hesitate.
Complete freedom or oppressive survival?
‘If I leave here now, can I really make it to safety alive…?’
Garak found their reluctance almost amusing. He turned his gaze back to Roga.
“Look at them, Roga. I’ve freed them, told them to go—and still they can’t flee. This is the freedom you’re fighting for.”
The words struck Roga like a blow to the chest.
He wanted to cry out that his brother was wrong.
But his mouth wouldn’t open.
The scene before him proved his brother’s words true.
“Mama! Mama!”
“…!”
The wailing snapped Roga back to awareness, and he traced the sound through the chaos.
The child who had fled lay crumpled on the ground, blood streaming from scraped knees, crying alone.
Garak let out a soft laugh and jerked his chin toward the child.
“Not even chasing them, and still they can’t escape—can’t even walk properly. Pitiful, really. Don’t you think so, brother?”
“…………”
“How many days does that child have left? But it’s not just the young ones. All of us are like this. Beneath this vast forest, we goblins are weak—desperately, hopelessly weak. That’s why it had to be this way.”
Roga’s hands trembled finely.
‘That’s why’—those three words carried such weight.
That’s why they sold their own kind, why they placed collars around the necks of their kin.
That’s why they became thralls to the Lizardmen, clinging to survival that way.
Roga wanted to ask.
Was survival purchased at such a price truly survival at all?
But the words lodged in his throat.
Garak broke the silence first, pressing into Roga’s muteness.
“Did you think you were any different? Would you have survived this long without that human—without him?”
“That’s…”
Roga’s gaze drifted without his meaning it to—toward Si Hyeon.
The black-haired human, the promised savior, Ashukatal.
Without Si Hyeon, Roga would not be standing here now.
He would have ended long ago—in some beast’s gullet, or the quarries of the Lizardmen, somewhere.
Roga clenched his teeth.
“That… that part is true.”
A thin smile spread across Garak’s face.
“Yes. It’s true.”
“But Ashukatal doesn’t devour us! He doesn’t collar our necks!”
“Only because he has no need to.”
Garak’s reply came swift.
“The strong always have choices. A collar, or an outstretched hand—either path is theirs to pick. But regardless which they choose, the outcome remains the same. The weak always lean on the strength of the strong to survive.”
“No!”
“Is that truly so?”
Garak tilted his head.
“Roga, right now you follow that human, you obey his commands, you fight his enemies, you move only as far as he permits. How is that different from a collar?”
Roga had no answer.
Garak did not press him further.
Instead, he continued speaking matter-of-factly, as if coaxing a child.
“Humans are human. They will not remain in this forest forever. But the Lizardmen—they are different. Soon they will drive out those wretches and become the masters of this forest. When that day comes, we goblins will no longer need to fear being raised as livestock and slaughtered.”
“You’re just describing how to become an obedient dog.”
The words barely escaped Roga’s throat.
Yet Garak laughed as if he had been waiting for exactly this.
“Yes, that’s what it is. To serve a master.”
“Brother…!”
“Why deny it? The forest has always had a master. The wretches, the Lizardmen, older monsters still. The question is not whether a master exists—it’s whose master you kneel before.”
Garak’s voice dropped lower.
“The wretches devour us. The Lizardmen command us. If we must choose between the two, the answer is clear.”
With rough hands, he pulled down his tunic and bared his chest.
There, directly above his heart, a deep burn scar lay exposed.
It was the same mark that branded the foreheads of slave soldiers, yet different.
A steady, unwavering brand—unmarred by any thrashing in agony. Garak had burned it into himself with his own hands.
“Look. This is my choice.”
Roga’s face contorted.
“That’s the future you speak of?”
“Yes. Those we serve becoming the masters of this forest. That is the future I have drawn for us—for the Green Breath.”
Garak’s gaze did not waver.
He meant every word.
“Now answer me, brother. Do you still see me as a traitor who sold out his own kind?”
Garak believed himself not a betrayer of his kin, but a pioneer who had found the path to save them.
That misguided conviction wounded Roga all the more deeply.
It would have been easier if his brother were simply a coward.
It would have been simpler if he were a traitor blinded by greed.
Then Roga could have simply hated him.
But Garak was not.
And so Roga found himself unable to speak at all.
‘I don’t know… what am I supposed to do in a moment like this?’
As everything Roga had believed in crumbled, he heard a small goblin weeping.
“Sob… it hurts….”
An injured leg. A small body caked in mud.
Unable to stand alone.
In that moment, Roga thought of Si Hyeon.
‘If it were Si Hyeon—if he were here.’
Roga understood now, dimly but surely.
That human—Si Hyeon—was not some legendary savior.
They had crossed the line between life and death together, laughed and chattered, sat at the same table and shared a meal. Through it all, Roga had learned.
The human’s true nature was nothing so grand as salvation.
He was simply a kindhearted man who could not leave a lost goblin behind.
‘Yes, now I understand. I know what I must do.’
Roga drew a slow breath.
He could not articulate where his brother’s words went wrong.
He could not explain the difference between following a human and wearing a collar.
Such difficult things escaped him.
But he knew—with absolute clarity—that this child needed help now.
He knew how Si Hyeon would have acted in this moment.
Having resolved his heart, Roga approached the child, bent forward, and offered his back.
“Climb on.”
“…?”
The tear-stained child hesitated, glancing between them, then climbed onto Roga’s back. Slowly, Roga straightened and stood.
His brother’s smile faded at the sight.
“Put him down, Roga. That child chose this.”
“I can’t.”
“He will become a burden.”
“No. A child is not a burden—he is the future of our kind. I may be foolish, but I know that much.”
“He is a burden. Because you are weak, because your body cannot sustain itself, he is a burden. Do you still not see it?”
“I don’t understand such complicated things.”
Garak’s voice that followed turned cold and settled.
“I didn’t want to go this far, but it seems I have no choice.”
Garak stepped forward and seized Roga’s wrist roughly. Roga tried to wrench his hand free—
No, he tried to, but couldn’t.
“Let go!”
“I can’t. No brother would stand by and watch his younger brother march to his death.”
Roga was dragged along helplessly by Garak’s harsh grip.
From childhood, Garak had been marked as the neighborhood’s strongest, and later as a warrior destined to lead the tribe.
Roga, who had been pointed at all his life as a coward, had no strength to match him.
“Stop—stop it! Let me go!”
“Enough! Stop this stubborn nonsense! We’re almost there! It’s right in front of us now…! Why on earth—!”
At that very moment, a streak of darkness flashed through Garak’s vision like lightning.
“…!?”
Someone seized Garak’s arm firmly.
“Let him go. He doesn’t want to.”
A tall figure cast a shadow lengthened by the setting sun.
The shadow wavered like an angry flame.
Just by stepping on a shadow, the skill copied immediately
Author |
Killing Part
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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