The Strongest in Our Neighborhood - Chapter 30

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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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The Strongest in Our Neighborhood (30)
Jang Ga-in entered the forest where monsters frequently appeared, riding atop Sabel Tiger alongside Sai-ran, and through Ki Sensing he detected a faint Demonic Energy that made his expression shift with curiosity.
‘When I came here just days ago, I didn’t sense anything like this. Something must have happened in the meantime.’
As they ventured deeper into the forest, Sabel Tiger’s galloping pace slowed. After continuing for roughly another ten minutes, they reached a thicket where towering trees clustered so densely they formed a dense grove, and Sabel Tiger’s gait became cautious, matching a human’s walking speed.
Jang Ga-in and Sai-ran dismounted from Sabel Tiger’s back and proceeded carefully, surveying their surroundings.
“Sabel, is this where you first met the troll? No? We need to go further? Understood.”
Jang Ga-in communicated through Sabel Tiger’s nods and continued forward.
Soon they entered a shaded area where the dense canopy blocked out almost all sunlight, and both their eyes widened nearly simultaneously.
“Do you sense it, sir? The Demonic Energy suddenly grows much denser from here.”
“Yes, I feel it as well. At this level of Demonic Energy, other monsters besides the troll may have been corrupted. Sabel—is this where you fought the troll?”
A low growl rumbled from the beast’s throat.
As Sabel Tiger nodded, Jang Ga-in spoke to Sai-ran beside him.
“I’ve only just arrived at this exact location today, though I’ve been to the area ahead several times. But just days ago, I detected no Demonic Energy at all. Now, not only is the Demonic Energy present, but there are also several Mutants corrupted by it scattered about.”
Sai-ran’s eyes widened suddenly.
“Several Mutants? Where?”
“They’re lurking in the shadows right now, prowling around us.”
“Th-then aren’t we in grave danger?”
“They’re corrupted, yes, but not as strong as that troll. They’re weak specimens. The dense Demonic Energy in this area likely corrupted them.”
“I see… but Mutants are still dangerous. Perhaps we should return to the Village and devise a strategy before coming back.”
Jang Ga-in tilted his head, noticing how different Sai-ran’s eyes looked now—trembling with anxiety, unlike before.
“The Mutants lurking nearby—Sabel could handle them alone without my help. So there’s no need to worry so much.”
“But the Demonic Energy is becoming even denser. That means stronger Mutants could emerge.”
“Even so, you seem unusually apprehensive.”
As Jang Ga-in tilted his head in confusion, Sai-ran dragged her palm across the goosebumped skin of her forearm and clenched her teeth.
“As the Demonic Energy intensifies, my Spirit Force is being suppressed. If we venture into a place with even stronger Demonic Energy, I may lose access to my Spirit Force entirely.”
Upon hearing this, Jang Ga-in gathered Inner Energy in his fingertips, released it, and deployed the Wind Character Technique to summon a gust of wind, which he directed toward Sai-ran.
“How is this?”
“Oh! The suppressed Spirit Force is now more activated than usual. How did you do that?”
“I haven’t yet learned to hear the wind’s voice, but they told me I could summon even intermediate-level Spirits using Spirit Force alone. I’ve shared a portion of that ability with you.”
“Ah! Thank you. I can breathe so much easier now, and my Spirit feels revitalized.”
“Then shall we continue exploring the forest?”
“Yes.”
As Jang Ga-in began walking toward the thicker Demonic Energy, Sai-ran quickly moved beside him, walking so close they were almost touching.
A deep, long breath drawn in…
Jang Ga-in inhaled the increasingly dense Demonic Energy deeply, observing his body’s response.
The Demonic Energy absorbed through his lungs mixed seamlessly with the other energies already present in his body and gathered toward his Energy Center without any sense of discord.
‘I thought such sticky Demonic Energy wouldn’t suit my body… yet it’s assimilating so easily.’
Even with light use of Inner Energy, he felt no unusual symptoms.
Suddenly he recalled something a master of the Poison Art once said—that even a poison deadly to humans could become medicine for him.
‘This Demonic Energy… now that I think about it, it’s actually medicine for me.’
After walking for some time, Jang Ga-in realized the types of corrupted monsters lurking around them had changed.
Through the forest gaps, where sunlight was notably absent and darkness mimicked night, he could see pairs of glowing red eyes.
Low growls and snarls echoed through the darkness.
And those red-eyed creatures no longer merely prowled around them—they were closing in slowly, encircling.
When the corrupted monsters revealed themselves, Jang Ga-in stopped and tilted his head.
“I thought corrupted monsters lose their reason, but these don’t seem to have lost it at all. More than that, they’re deliberately cutting off our retreat.”
“Perhaps we should return to the Village now and prepare a proper strategy before returning, sir?”
Sai-ran tensed immediately at the appearance of the corrupted monsters.
“That does seem wisest. I wanted to reach the source of the Demonic Energy, but proceeding further like this would be too dangerous.”
Alone, he could kill his way through the Mutants without hesitation, but protecting Sabel Tiger and Sai-ran while doing so would be far more difficult.
As Jang Ga-in drew his weapon and stepped forward, a two-headed wolf among the encircling monsters was the first to accelerate and charge, followed by a bear-like creature with quill-like spines protruding from its back and a crocodilian monster with two horns that both spread outward and rushed at him from left and right.
“Interesting—the three strongest-looking ones charge while the rest block our retreat? They fight more intelligently than hunting hounds trained at the Main Sect.”
Jang Ga-in deployed the Wind Cloud Divine Art at maximum intensity, concentrating Inner Energy into his blade.
Wind roared up from beneath his feet.
The gust spiraled up his body in an instant and culminated at his sword’s edge, and Jang Ga-in’s form appeared before the two-headed wolf’s snout in the blink of an eye.
The wolf, startled, instinctively opened its jaws to bite him, and through those gaping teeth, Jang Ga-in’s blade flashed like a ray of light, then withdrew before arcing around to sever the opposite head’s neck.
A wet thud. A sickening crunch.
The left wolf-head, unaware its palate had been pierced, snapped at empty air where Jang Ga-in had stood, while the other head turned following the fading afterimage of his form, only to have its severed neck separate from the body and drop to the earth.
Jang Ga-in dispatched the two-headed wolf in an instant and leaped toward the horned crocodile.
The creature’s length exceeded three meters when crawling on all fours, but as Jang Ga-in charged forward, it astoundingly rose up on its hind legs and tail, opening its jaws wide, pushing off the ground with a leap to meet him, attempting to swallow him whole in a single bite.
“A crocodile standing on two legs—now that’s a first!”
It was an attack he hadn’t anticipated, but Jang Ga-in was no one to be caught off guard by such an unconventional move.
He rode the wind to shift his direction, slipped past the snapping jaws, then swept his blade to sever both front legs before leaping upward and driving his sword through the creature’s skull.
Shluck, gurgle…….
Thud.
The light drained from the crocodile’s eyes in an instant; it toppled forward without rising again, and Jang Ga-in was already launching himself toward his next target.
Crack-snap…….
But then came a thunderous sound of bones breaking from the bear ahead.
Sabel Tiger had already rushed in and seized the bear’s neck—a creature bristling with spines like a porcupine—shaking it viciously side to side.
Roaaaaaagh…….
The bear shrieked and thrashed, but couldn’t break free from Sabel Tiger’s grip.
Jang Ga-in watched the beast with a look of mild concern.
“Sabel, are you all right? Those spines must be tearing up the roof of your mouth.”
Rumble…….
Whether the beast heard his question or not, Sabel Tiger tore a great chunk from the bear’s neck and crunched through flesh, bone, and nerve bundles with a wet, grinding sound.
“Seems you’ve seen worse. And you certainly know how to enjoy a meal.”
Sabel Tiger glanced at the fallen bear, then charged toward another monster; Jang Ga-in followed suit, racing after his own target without hesitation.
* * *
‘Was Ga-in always this strong?’
Sai-ran stood with her eyes wide, barely blinking as she watched Jang Ga-in and Sabel Tiger massacre the towering corrupted monsters around them.
Less than five minutes had passed since he’d begun his assault, and most of the beasts encircling the area lay dead; the four he hadn’t personally engaged had been torn apart by Sabel Tiger.
Boom.
When the enormous spider—the one that had shot webbing to entangle Sabel Tiger—had its grotesquely human-like head split clean by Jang Ga-in’s blade and finally collapsed, the screaming forest fell silent.
Every corrupted monster that had surrounded them lay dead.
A moment later, Jang Ga-in approached Sabel Tiger, who was scraping webbing off against trees and rocks.
“Ugh! You fool of a beast—when the web flies at you, dodge it. Why did you swat at it with your paws? Now it’s stuck like glue.”
As Jang Ga-in began helping remove the webbing with a twig, Sai-ran came to her senses and hurriedly summoned a water spirit.
“Ga-in, if you’ll lend me some of that Spirit Force, I can use it to pull the webbing off Sabel’s body.”
“Spirit Force? Ah, of course.”
When Jang Ga-in released his inner energy to summon wind, the water spirit caught in that gust swelled to three times its size in a heartbeat, transforming into a massive droplet that enveloped Sabel Tiger’s form. Moments later, it lifted all the webbing at once into the air, drifted some three meters to the side, then dissolved into rain that pattered down to earth.
Jang Ga-in stared at this, dropped the stick he’d been holding, and his expression filled with wonder.
“Sai-ran, that was remarkable. The web was so tangled in the fur I thought it’d never come free—yet you separated it without losing a single hair. How on earth did you control the water with such precision?”
“I didn’t control the water at all.”
“What?”
Jang Ga-in asked again, confused, and Sai-ran let out a soft laugh.
“The spirit I’m bonded with shares consciousness with me and controls the water according to my will.”
“So you’re not the one manually adjusting every droplet?”
“No. If I had to control everything that precisely myself, there’d be no point in making a contract with a spirit. I supply the spirit with Spirit Force, and the spirit carries out my intent.”
“Ah—I thought all this time that I needed to train until I could control wind with that kind of finesse…… Now I understand a little better why the wind spirit has never whispered to me.”
Shudder.
Mid-conversation with Jang Ga-in, Sai-ran suddenly felt a wave of demonic energy so intense her skin prickled with dread.
“Gasp! Ga-in! There’s an enormous concentration of demonic energy rushing toward us. We need to flee—now!”
* * *
Jang Ga-in sensed it too and was startled—but his fighting spirit surged before fear could take hold.
‘Is it a demon beast? No… it has the shape of a person. A member of the Demon Race?’
His competitive spirit blazed, but he couldn’t put Sai-ran in danger because of it. He swiftly lifted her and seated her on Sabel Tiger’s back.
“Sabel, take her and get out of this forest right now.”
Rumble…….
“Ga-in, come with us. That kind of demonic energy is dangerous even for you.”
“Sai-ran, the demon bearing that power is formidable, yes—but not enough to make me flee. The only reason I’m having you move to safety is that you might get caught in the crossfire and wounded.”
“You’re not afraid of that demon?”
Sai-ran looked at Jang Ga-in’s fearless expression with disbelief written across her face.
“Not at all. So please step back and let me fight with peace of mind. Sabel, go!”
Smack.
When Jang Ga-in struck Sabel Tiger’s rear, the beast—which had been hesitant—immediately burst into a sprint.
“Ga-in, I’m sorry. My strength is too weak to be of any help.”
“If I’m injured, you’ll heal me, won’t you? That alone gives me the confidence to fight without fear of death.”
Jang Ga-in watched until Sabel Tiger and Sai-ran vanished into the forest, then turned toward the approaching demonic energy.
Whissssh…….
The darkness of the forest seemed to tear open, and a man wreathed in terrible demonic energy descended in a flutter of Black Cloak, landing hard upon the earth.
The man’s face darkened as he took in Jang Ga-in, then swept his gaze across the mutated monsters sprawled dead around them.
“Blast! In mere moments—! These precious pets I painstakingly created, feeding them my own blood to nurture them, and you, a worthless insect, dared to slaughter my beloved creatures?”

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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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