The Second Coming of Gluttony - Chapter 107

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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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Chapter 107. Sprouting

True to its name, Big Stone Rock Mountain’s terrain was rugged beyond description—ferociously forbidding.
Peaks thrust upward to pierce the clouds, ancient colossal trees stretched toward the heavens.
“Huff! Huff!”
The path itself was more than merely rough. The ridge twisted savagely, and jagged rocks jutted up at irregular intervals—a considerable impediment to any attempt at running.
“Ugh—ugh—!”
Barely five minutes in, and as Seol Jihoo drove himself up the unforgiving ground, his feet had already begun to scream.
The mountain ridge was no different. The slope ascending toward the peak was much the same—except the incline had grown far steeper.
The problem was that this alone doubled the strain on his thighs and calves.
‘This isn’t running…’
Curses wanted to pour out, but he swallowed them, unable to spare the breath. It took more than two seconds just to extend each leg forward. Climbing would be a more honest description.
And that wasn’t all. With no way to know when a monster or beast might emerge, the mental pressure was considerable.
“!”
A moment’s inattention. Just before reaching the summit, his foot slipped on loose ground.
“Whoa—whoa—!”
His flailing hand barely caught a jutting rock. Using the stone as a lifeline, he hauled himself onto the peak and expelled the breath he’d been holding.
It was utterly excruciating. His lungs felt ready to give out; breathing had become agony.
Gasping, he turned to look back. Beyond the white mist swirling around him, the starting point was visible in the distance. Seol Jihoo’s face contorted. He bit down so hard his teeth left marks, then turned back down the slope.
Every mountaineer says the same thing: descent demands twice the effort of ascent. Especially when body and spirit are worn, one must exercise extreme caution. Running downhill without restraint invites disaster.
The slope was so steep that speed accumulated naturally. Charging down such an uneven, treacherous path bordered on suicide.
He needed to restrain his pace, control it carefully to keep from accelerating too quickly. But that balance—that was the hard part.
“Argh—!”
With each step, he forced his feet to brake, to kill his momentum, and his soles burned as if aflame.
The mounting distractions opened an opportunity for disaster. His body, unable to endure the compounding strain, stumbled. Fortunately, he didn’t injure himself seriously and rose at once, though his legs trembled uncontrollably.
After rolling and falling countless times, Seol Jihoo limped back to the starting point with a half-dazed expression. Yet Jang Maldong simply watched in silence, and under that wordless pressure, Seol Jihoo was forced to turn and go again.
Once, twice, thrice, four times—with each round trip, fresh wounds accumulated. Sweat poured like rain; his heart hammered as if it would burst.
His limit.
‘I can’t.’
He couldn’t say why, but something about this training felt fundamentally wrong. Yet Jang Maldong pronounced his verdict as clearly as a judge passing sentence on a defendant.
“Forty-five more.”
In that moment, Seol Jihoo’s legs nearly buckled. Was this how a condemned prisoner felt hearing his execution order? After all that suffering, only to discover he had to do this another forty-five times?
Not even halfway through yet. Despair began to settle like a shroud. The training was that excruciating, that utterly desolate.
“Why aren’t you running? Why are you stopping?”
The moment hesitation showed, a sharp command cut through.
“Don’t rest. Keep running. At this pace, you’ll be at it until tomorrow morning.”
“But—”
“But? You’re the one who insisted so loudly on stepping forward as a warrior.”
Jang Maldong’s expression remained unmoved.
“If you don’t want to be called a man of empty words, start moving in one second.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“Pack your things.”
Jang Maldong turned away. Seol Jihoo clenched his teeth and drove himself forward.
In the end, after running all afternoon to barely complete fifty circuits, Seol Jihoo stumbled back to the cave in the pre-dawn darkness.
Dinner was laid out, but he had no appetite; he collapsed and lost consciousness.
Splash!
Cold water suddenly cascaded across his face. His eyes fluttering open, he saw Jang Maldong holding a bucket.
“Damn it, you won’t wake up? I thought you were dead! Move, you fool!”
“Huh? What?”
“Get up now! The sun’s already risen—how much longer are you planning to laze about?”
Seol Jihoo stared blankly ahead. Bright sunlight poured through the cave entrance.
‘This can’t be real.’
It felt like he’d just closed and opened his eyes. His protests were cut off by an urgent voice telling him to come out now.
“Ugh…”
His entire body ached and throbbed. When he tried to put weight on his feet, the soles seared with pain. Blisters had formed and burst repeatedly—the damage would be catastrophic. He couldn’t bring himself to look.
Limping toward the entrance, a sand bag and an ice spear came flying at him.
“Ten thousand times.”
“?”
“Thrust, cut, and strike. Ten thousand times each.”
Seol Jihoo’s movements, methodical as he adjusted the Sand Bag around his waist, suddenly froze. Not ten thousand combined—ten thousand each. That meant thirty thousand repetitions in total.
“After that, a hundred round trips.”
“Ugh.”
Just hearing it nearly made him retch. His daily training load had doubled overnight.
Seol Jihoo covered his mouth and let out a groan.

One day passed. Then two.
On the fourth day, as if misfortune piled upon misfortune, a downpour began to fall. Yet the training never stopped.
Soaked in the torrential rain, Seol Jihoo thrust and slashed his spear with the desperation of a man clawing for life.
“I do not understand.”
Agnes, watching from just outside the entrance, spoke quietly.
“This is training that damages the body. Surely at least a meal—”
“He’s already eaten breakfast.”
Jang Maldong, who had been chewing mountain vegetables he’d dug up, answered. Since they respected each other, their manner of speech had shifted accordingly.
“Though he did throw up everything during training, mind you.”
“If I may say so, it’s strange to see you push him so hard. It’s unlike you.”
Coming from Agnes, the concern was rare. Yet there was good reason—in merely four days, Seol Jihoo’s condition had deteriorated to the worst imaginable state.
The bright gleam that had once danced in his eyes had grown dull and clouded. The smile had vanished from his face. Watching him stumble and lurch, one might think they were observing a corpse.
“Because it has to be.”
Jang Maldong answered without emotion.
“He’s already aware of it himself, I suspect. But that boy is now completely twisted and misaligned. In mind, in technique, in body.”
Kazuki and Hugo exchanged confused looks. But Agnes, who had trained Seol Jihoo before, bore a troubled expression.
“You mean his heart, technique, and body are discordant?”
“Far worse than that.”
Jang Maldong shook his head gravely.
“All three elements are fundamentally misaligned. His talent is utterly ordinary, yet his mind is so chaotic it defies comprehension. His technique appears refined on the surface, but in truth he doesn’t know how to wield it properly. The same goes for his body. He possesses considerable latent power, yet his frame cannot support it.”
Jang Maldong had already grasped Seol Jihoo’s dilemma. The young man’s condition, when rendered as a geometric analogy, was an indefinable shape—something with a few parts grotesquely protruding at odd angles, impossible to define cleanly.
To be frank, when he first laid eyes on him, Jang Maldong had thought: how does a specimen like this even exist? He had no idea where to begin.
“Before we can even discuss the discord among all three elements, each misaligned component must first be corrected separately.”
If he continued to grow in this state, the damage would become irreversible. Or else he would become something neither this nor that.
“There is.”
“Three methods to fix it.”
Jang Maldong set down his spoon with an expression of displeasure, squinting his eyes as if stricken by a headache.
“First: abandon the mind and body, and develop the technique to an extreme degree.”
“You mean placing a ceiling on his growth potential?”
“I understand the reluctance. Even so, he’d likely reach the upper ranks. Had he become a mage, even the highest ranks might have been possible.”
‘That much?’
Disbelief flickered across Agnes’s face. It was true that he would inevitably hit a ceiling, but that ceiling itself would be abnormally high.
Since the Neutral Zone, she’d known the young man’s status was exceptional compared to others. Yet to speak of the highest ranks so casually—that was unthinkable.
“Second: while severely suppressing the development of his technique, cultivate both mind and body until all three align at equal levels.”
“You’d achieve harmony first, then correct the foundation itself.”
“It takes longer, but it’s the most reliable method.”
But Seol Jihoo had refused.
That left only one path. Without restraining his technique’s growth, he would have to elevate mind and body to the same level. Simultaneously, he would have to refine each misaligned element and ultimately merge all three into harmonious unity. It wasn’t just one or two things to accomplish at once—the difficulty spiked exponentially.
If she were in his position, could she do it? Agnes, after a moment’s thought, shook her head firmly.
“There are limits to willpower and mental fortitude. It is not something a human can accomplish.”
“Quite right.”
Jang Maldong affirmed it. Even calling it a thorny path would fall short. One would need superhuman endurance just to attempt it.
“So he must abandon all hope on his own.”
Now Agnes understood why Jang Maldong repeated this madness. If he didn’t break him here, Seol Jihoo would face far greater hardship ahead.
“Well, this is something. Here you are worrying about someone else.”
“Ah. That is…”
When Jang Maldong teased her, Agnes mentioned that she had trained Seol Jihoo in the Neutral Zone. Jang Maldong seemed surprised and asked.
“Such a thing? Did that fellow train well under you?”
“He absorbed every lesson brilliantly.”
“Such a thing… Well then. That explains it.”
Jang Maldong chuckled and, as if now understanding, brushed off his clothes and stood.
“I thought he was holding up better than expected. If he endured under a demonic instructor, it makes perfect sense. Thank you for the valuable information.”
Jang Maldong flashed a knowing smile.

The fourth day.
The rain had stopped. As if the downpour had never been, brilliant sunlight poured down in full force.
The training had evolved. The intensity had sharpened, and new exercises had been added.
Training always began the same way: thirty thousand Spear Thrusts into empty air.
The moment Seol Jihoo finished, Jang Maldong strapped all twelve sand bags to his limbs and announced that from today onward, he would modify the running route—using the peaks on the left and right as turnaround points.
Which is to say, instead of straight there-and-back runs, he would now zigzag.
For Seol Jihoo, who had only just begun to grow accustomed to the path, it felt like a thunderbolt from a clear sky.
That wasn’t all. After every ten laps, he had to repeat a new set of Spear Thrusts and Spear Techniques another thousand times each; and worst of all, Jang Maldong had begun to intervene actively in the training as a whole.
He wouldn’t even leave Seol Jihoo alone during the sweet respite of rest breaks scattered throughout. In the meager ten minutes or so allotted, Seol Jihoo had to complete three sets each of Burpee Tests and Kettlebell Swings.
Just as he barely managed to finish and was about to collapse,
Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack!
“Who told you to collapse? Get up!”
“Ugh… argh….”
A wooden rod was wielded without mercy.
In the end, Seol Jihoo had to grit his teeth and turn his steps toward the peaks once more.

The fifth day.
Jang Maldong wasn’t always present during training. He frequently stepped away to oversee the three other disciples, but that didn’t mean there was no one watching.
Today, for instance, Kazuki had come as his substitute.
Around the point when Seol Jihoo had completed thirty laps and was working through his Spear Thrusts and Spear Techniques again.
“Uuuuurgh!”
Suddenly, vomit sprayed from his mouth. His stomach, forced to accept lunch, rejected it outright.
Yet he only paused for a moment. Without even thinking to wipe his mouth, Seol Jihoo thrust his spear into empty air again.
“…You might want to pace yourself.”
Kazuki, who had been watching silently, spoke up abruptly.
“Not a single person has made it to the end of a Banquet on their first attempt.”
Seol Jihoo said nothing. He glanced at Kazuki, which suggested he’d heard, but his lips remained sealed. He was so depleted that he couldn’t spare even a single breath.
“You’re still Level 3. When you reach Level 4 or higher in two years, you could try again.”
Seol Jihoo’s face twisted. A sister-in-law who discourages is worse than a mother-in-law who strikes, or so the saying went. Already dying under the weight of it all, and now to have this interference heaped upon him—anger flared.
“Don’t worry because of your teacher. Even he hopes you’ll come to understand this yourself. You’ll hear a word or two from him, but still, if you’ve made it this far….”
Swish!
Without warning, the spear point swung toward Kazuki. It stopped just short of his throat, but the technique, which had been dulling by the moment, suddenly regained its edge and sharpness. The message was clear: stop interfering.
Kazuki’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“What are you doing? You want to fight?”
“…Don’t touch me.”
His voice came out ragged and hoarse. Kazuki’s brow twitched.
“What?”
“Don’t shake my Heart-Technique-Body. Right now, I can’t promise I won’t do something reckless.”
Seol Jihoo, staring with unfocused eyes, summoned an Ice Spear.
Then, he began thrusting like a madman once more.
Kazuki rubbed his throat and gritted his teeth.
“So you’re really going to be stubborn about this?”
“Shut up. I know what you’re saying—just shut up!”
Seol Jihoo growled right back at him. He was already pushed to his limit; he had no energy left to think about his usual composure.
“I don’t understand. What’s wrong with a spearman throwing a spear?”
“I’m not saying I won’t use it!”
Bang!
In an instant, the sound of air tearing erupted from the spear’s tip. Startled, Kazuki only belatedly questioned his ears.
“What, what did you say?”
“I’ll use it. I will use it!”
Boom. Boom.
The Spear Techniques and Spear Thrusts began accompanied by no small wind-splitting sounds. Yet Seol Jihoo, seemingly oblivious, continued to shout without pause.
“I just don’t want to throw only that!”
“That’s exactly—”
“What if a situation comes where Mana Spear Throw stops working?”
“That could happen. But then trust us. We don’t move as a team for nothing.”
“What if even Mana Spear Throw fails and the team gets into trouble!”
“Are we playing twenty questions now?”
Seol Jihoo laughed. It was unmistakably a scoff.
“Who said that? The banquet has too many uncertain factors!”
Kazuki fell silent, his expression betraying defeat.
“Can you guarantee it? Can you promise it?”
“…….”
“You can’t!”
“…….”
“I can’t be certain of anything! So what’s wrong with preparing for the one-in-a-thousand chance!”
Seol Jihoo screamed as if thrashing against invisible chains.
“Like when Cho Hong collapsed—like I couldn’t do anything then either…!”
Watching him rave incoherently, Kazuki could tell the man had completely lost it. He smacked his lips and exhaled a long, weary sigh.
“…Madman.”
Was he mad?
Did others see him as mad?
Fine. Call it madness.
Having finally reached three thousand repetitions, Seol Jihoo hurled the spear and charged forward like a lunatic.
Five days passed, then six, and at last the seventh dawn broke.
It was also the first day a flicker of displeasure crossed Jang Maldong’s face.

There was a time when he’d believed it: that coming to Paradise was his fate.
The belief wasn’t unreasonable. A Gold Mark, an Innate Ability others didn’t possess, and everything he touched seemed to succeed—he’d sailed before favorable winds wherever he went. He’d even quietly giggled to himself, imagining that if Paradise had a protagonist, it would surely be him.
That certainty began to crack after leaving the Neutral Zone.
To cut to it plainly: Seol Jihoo was no protagonist. He’d come to feel it himself.
Turn his eyes even slightly and the world overflowed with strong beings. By volunteering for missions beyond his capability, his life hung by a thread. He’d survived through degradation and desperation—hardly the path of any hero worth mentioning.
Growth too came differently. Heroes in novels grew effortlessly through Fortuitous Encounters and Elixirs. But not him. His talent was utterly ordinary, and despite what effort he poured in, he saw scant progress.
Worse still, even the very abilities that had once made him feel special now tightened around his throat. All because of a ‘self’ that relied on nothing but expectations—everyone else’s, no one’s fault but his own.
The conclusion was singular.
Only effort remained.
From the moment he recognized himself as ordinary, the only choice left was to carve away at his flesh and blood through labor.
This was why Seol Jihoo never abandoned the hellish training.
A fleeting image flickered past: leaving the Delphinion Duchy Research Institute and fleeing without a destination.
When hunger first gnawed at him, all manner of foods swirled through his mind. Then he craved a cold drink, something fizzy and sharp like cola, until finally he wanted only water.
More precisely: every nerve, every thought, his brain, his head, his organs, each cell of his body yearned for nothing but water.
Training was much the same.
At first, endless temptations assailed him. Just rest a moment. Slip out of sight, take a sip of water, smoke a cigarette. At the very least, when training, cut corners bit by bit.
But push through those moments and regret sets in. The urge to cheat would come, yet all he’d already done would feel wasted, so he’d force through the full quota.
After that, thought ceased. The body moved like a machine.
But as Agnes had said, even will and mental fortitude have their limits.
A quiet night. Accumulated fatigue had finally broken him, and Seol Jihoo, left alone, was finishing the remainder of his training.
‘…How many was that…?’
Past forty, surely.
Eyes half-closed, he looked up at the peak. On the verge of collapse, swaying left and right as he ran precariously, Seol Jihoo suddenly felt something snap in his mind.
‘Huh?’
When his eyes opened again, he saw earth.
He’d been about to climb the ridge just moments ago. Why was soil visible?
‘…Oh.’
Seol Jihoo’s mouth fell open. He must have lost consciousness for a second or two, but it hardly mattered anymore.
‘…It’s done….’
What little strength had sustained his body drained away.
‘…Should I lie down?’
It was fine. He could just fall right here.
‘I’m not giving up.’
His body had simply given out. Yes—this training had been absurd from the start.
Kazuki had been the same. He’d said this training was designed to force surrender.
‘Let me rest. I’ve done enough.’
Slowly. The darkening soil drew near. A faint smile formed on his open mouth.
‘I just need to close my eyes now.’
To lie on damp earth—wouldn’t that feel like paradise? The cool ground soothing his burning body, soft and yielding beneath him.
‘It would be so easy….’
Besides, something was blocking the path ahead like a wall, so he couldn’t run any further anyway…?
‘A wall?’
His dead eyes snapped into focus. Even now, the ground crept closer with each passing moment.
His vision blurred. Time seemed to stretch, flowing in molasses.
Yet beneath the exhaustion, something stirred—a peculiar sense of déjà vu. As if he’d lived this moment before.
Just before his face struck earth, the young man’s expression twisted into violent internal struggle.
He wanted to collapse. To lie down and close his eyes—
“!”
Crash!
His palms slammed into the ground at the last instant.
‘A wall.’
A wall. At last, the wall had arrived.
On the verge of losing consciousness, he’d finally glimpsed the limit he could transcend.
Then what?
‘I have to break through.’
He drove strength into his arms and pushed himself upright with a violent thrust, forcing reluctant legs to cooperate as they carried him down the slope.
And so.
“Aaaaaahhh!”
Seol Jihoo began running again.

‘Madman.’
When Seol Jihoo finally crested the peak, that was Jang Maldong’s only assessment.
He’d expected collapse. Instead, just before breaking point, the boy had frozen mid-fall as though performing a push-up, then risen to his feet and resumed running—successfully.
‘What the hell?’
Jang Maldong hadn’t thought he’d make it. By gaming logic, this was defeating an unkillable boss. By warfare standards, it was breaching every obstacle in the arsenal—ankle mines, buried charges, spring traps, tripwires, claymores, anti-tank mines, all of it.
‘What are you, exactly?’
At this level, it transcended mere grit or stubbornness. The human body was honest; no matter how iron the will, if danger crossed a threshold, the brain shut down all signals to protect itself.
For someone to push past that meant,
‘What does this even mean.’
That he’d endured worse than this training before. That he’d been driven with lethal intent—and survived near-death experiences not once or twice, but many times over.
While Jang Maldong processed this shock, Seol Jihoo completed the turnaround and left himself one final slope to climb.
One step. Then another. His pace faltered gradually; his body tilted, threatening to topple. Jang Maldong, watching with mounting tension, blinked.
“You.”
He was crying. Weeping. With eyes rolled back in agony, still clawing upward with desperate gasps, Seol Jihoo sobbed.
Jang Maldong instinctively moved to catch him, then froze. He gnawed his lip, then spoke quietly.
“…One more left!”
As the boy swayed on the brink, Jang Maldong’s face crumpled with fierce determination. He struck the ground with his rod.
“Come on! You’re almost there! After getting this far, you’ll surrender now?”
A flinch.
Seol Jihoo hesitated.
“Ugh… hic….”
With trembling arms and shaking legs,
his face contorted by silent sobs, he managed at last to claw his way back to the starting point!
The moment he crested the ridge, a tumbling crash echoed out. Shortly after, Seol Jihoo’s body—quivering violently—went limp.
A brief silence fell. Then Jang Maldong opened his mouth.
“Why.”
“…….”
“In all my years, I’ve never seen anything like you. To push yourself this far just to attend a banquet? What’s wrong with you?”
“…The Neutral Zone….”
Still breathing hard, whether conscious or delirious, the words spilled out in fragmented gasps.
“…Blind… no preparation… skull….”
“?”
“…Nearly died… so… never again….”
The words came broken and barely intelligible.
“…I understand your resolve.”
Jang Maldong exhaled sharply and tossed something from his hand.
Thud.
A small pouch landed beside the boy’s head.
“Competence Elixir.”
Seol Jihoo’s eyes flew open. Competence Elixir? Among the village chief’s reserves—or in all of Paradise?
“Competence Elixir…?”
“Why the shock? Most of the Neutral Zone’s supplies come from Paradise in the first place.”
Now that he thought about it, that made sense. Freci’s tears were a product manufactured by the Paradiseans too.
“I didn’t expect to see this here either. When the empire fell, the formula was lost with it.”
……
“It’s rare enough that you could sell it for a decent price… Are you going to?”
Seol Jihoo shook his head with all the strength he could muster. Why would he sell something this good? He finally had access to it.
Jang Maldong opened his mouth as if he’d expected exactly that.
“Then from now on, drink one bottle before training starts each day. We’re raising the quality of your practice starting today—if you have the competence, it might just be possible.”
Seol Jihoo, who had been gazing at the milky liquid in the Antidote Potion inside his pouch, suddenly lifted his head.
“…What?”
“Nothing has changed.”
Jang Maldong grumbled, his voice quite stern.
“What matters is that you’ve merely endured one more day. The moment you show the slightest hesitation, I’m packing your things and sending you out. Keep that in mind.”
Jang Maldong turned his body. Before heading into the entrance, he stopped mid-stride and continued with a slightly softened expression.
“…Get plenty of rest. Starting tomorrow, it’s going to be harder.”
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say his face looked like he’d conceded defeat. It was the sort of thing that would shock Ian if he found out—that stubborn man had finally bent his will.
“Try to wash up before you come in, would you? The smell is absolutely foul.”
With a snort, Jang Maldong quietly slipped from view.
After lying collapsed for some time, Seol Jihoo pushed his body up with difficulty. The moment he gripped the pouch and rose to his feet, his exhausted eyes went blank.
He’d been too distracted to notice until now, but several unread messages were displayed in the air before him.

[The ‘Grit’ trait is created.]
[‘Endurance’ trait evolves into ‘Self-Mastery’.]
[Your Stamina level rises from Lower-Superior to Lower-Intermediate.]

He’d done it. The change in the front part was no small matter. Given that the required points for raising it increased proportionally, there was a stark difference between Lower and Intermediate tiers.
The crucial thing was that he hadn’t raised it through points. Strength and stamina are difficult for an ordinary person—someone who isn’t a consistent athlete—to breakthrough through ordinary training alone. Yet he’d managed to break through in the end.
‘It never went up before.’
It was only natural. Until now, Seol Jihoo hadn’t skipped training very often, but he’d never pushed himself to his absolute limits. So while he’d maintained his current state, there had been no sign of improvement.
But over the past week, the grueling training he’d endured, when combined with everything he’d accumulated bit by bit until now, had yielded the result of increased stamina.
Once his body recovered properly, he’d be able to feel the effect.
Seol Jihoo rose from his position with a light heart. He couldn’t help but feel good.
During training, he’d had to fight ceaselessly against himself.
Of course, competing against himself wasn’t something he was doing for the first time—like when he’d been caught up in gambling, he’d done it before. But he’d always lost.
But today,
“…Hehe.”
For the first time, he’d won properly against himself—how could he not be happy?

(To be continued in the next installment)

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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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