The Strongest in Our Neighborhood - Chapter 4

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

The Strongest in Our Neighborhood (4)
Jang Ga-in had practiced the Yungi Yosang Haenggong whenever opportunity arose, and in just four days alongside Eldom’s group, he’d nearly healed his Internal Injury and recovered roughly eighty percent of his Internal Force.
‘Is it because my Dantian ruptured and then sealed itself? I can accumulate about ten percent more Internal Force than before.’
Jang Ga-in examined himself with inner sight, marveling silently.
In truth, he’d perfected the Pungyun Ssingong and reached the Ultimate Realm, gaining the ability to project Sword Energy outward—yet his Internal Force had hit a ceiling since his defeat at the hands of the Demonic Sect, refusing to grow an inch further.
He’d searched high and low for Spirit Beast cores to break through that stubborn barrier, and now, with his Dantian having ruptured and healed, growth was finally possible again.
‘One could call this a Blessing in Disguise!’
As he grasped the depth of gratitude he owed these immortals, his heart swelled with appreciation.
‘But what in the world is that beast? It resembles a tiger, but far larger, and its aura is thoroughly savage.’
While practicing cultivation, he kept his Qi Sense spread wide like a spider’s web to guard against unexpected assault. And it was into that web that a tiger-like creature had blundered.
The creature had crept to within roughly a hundred meters of the group’s campfire, where it now crouched in the undergrowth like a predator stalking prey, watching for its opening.
Jang Ga-in hastily finished his cultivation and rose from his seated posture.
“Doesn’t sitting like that all night leave you stiff? I can barely manage five minutes in that position.”
As Jang Ga-in stood and stretched, Eldom, who’d been keeping watch, spoke to him.
Though Jang Ga-in still struggled to fully comprehend Eldom’s words, he could manage a degree of communication through gestures and the vocabulary he’d gradually picked up.
“It’s for treating my body and restoring my vitality. The cross-legged posture is something I’ve practiced for a long time, so it causes no strain.”
“Treating your body? From where I stand, that awkward position seems more likely to make things worse, not better.”
“…….”
“By the way, is Kain perhaps a High-Rank Knight?”
“I’m unfamiliar with your people’s standards, so I wouldn’t dare claim such a rank.”
Even as Jang Ga-in conversed with Eldom, he continued monitoring the large, tiger-like beast through his Qi Sense. The creature had settled motionless in the undergrowth, leaving him uncertain how to proceed.
“You’d definitely qualify as high-rank. But your language is unlike anything I’ve heard before—where do you hail from?”
“Ah! I come from the surface—that is, from a place called Jungwon in the Lower Realm.”
“The Lower Realm? Jungwon? I’ve never heard those names before. Can you place it roughly? If you mention any nearby kingdoms or empires I know of, I might be able to get my bearings.”
“There are places like Binggung and the Pasa Kingdom in the vicinity, but—wait, hold that thought!”
Jang Ga-in turned sharply as the crouching tiger-shaped beast began to shift position stealthily.
“What is it?”
“There’s a tiger in that brush—or rather, what did you call it yesterday? Ah, that’s right! A Saber Tiger! One of those frightening monsters that’s not as strong as an Ogre but comparable to a Troll or Big Bear.”
“What! A Saber Tiger? Where? It’s hard to see in the pre-dawn darkness.”
At the commotion the two men were making, Kairin and Sairan jolted awake in alarm.
“Eldom, what did you just say? Did you mention a Saber Tiger?”
“Yes, Kain says there’s a Saber Tiger hiding in that thicket.”
Kairin and Sairan turned to look at the undergrowth where their brother and Jang Ga-in were staring. A moment later, Kairin swept her hand through the air.
Whiiiish…….
The wind born from her palm swept across the entire thicket where the tiger-shaped beast lay hidden, and part of it curved back toward the group.
As the returning wind struck her, Kairin’s eyes widened in shock. Without hesitation, she snatched up the bow she’d removed before sleeping.
“Damn, it really is a Saber Tiger! Sairan, get ready to fight.”
“If Kain hadn’t warned us, we’d have been in serious trouble. Eldom, we’ll handle the Saber Tiger—you stay here and protect Kain.”
Sairan had expended most of her Spirit Power healing her younger brother Eldom, and had used precious little on Jang Ga-in since their initial encounter, so she assumed his recovery was far less complete than Eldom’s.
“Understood. Be careful.”
“Don’t worry! A Saber Tiger is nothing the two of us can’t handle.”
Seeing that Kairin and Sairan didn’t seem particularly afraid of the Saber Tiger, Jang Ga-in abandoned his impulse to rush forward and remained where he was.
‘It doesn’t strike me as a creature to be taken lightly, but… well, if things grow dangerous, I can always step in. For now, giving these two immortals a chance to gain real combat experience isn’t the worst idea.’
From the previous fight with the Ogre, he’d observed that their wind and water techniques were skillful, yet they lacked practical application and destructive power in real combat.
Such shortcomings naturally corrected themselves through direct engagement in life-and-death battles.
Growwwwwl, roooaaarrr…….
When the two women approached the Saber Tiger’s hiding place, the beast seized its chance. It rose from its crouch and charged.
As the Saber Tiger—far larger than an ordinary tiger, easily the size of a buffalo—came hurtling forward, Kairin fired her bow while Sairan hurled viscous water droplets to engulf the creature’s face.
Both women believed the beast, though larger than expected, would fall to their assault more readily than the Ogre had.
Plink, plink-plink…….
But the Saber Tiger moved with extraordinary agility, dodging the arrows and bursting the water droplets with its protruding fangs as though popping balloons.
The burst water reformed to engulf the creature’s face once more, yet its rapid movement meant it couldn’t properly seal the nostrils and mouth, dealing no significant damage.
“Kain, I think your sisters are in danger!”
“I’ll help them.”
“No, your wounds are worse than mine. Stay here.”
“They’re not that severe.”
Despite his injuries not being fully healed, Eldom seized his spear and charged forward when his sisters found themselves pressed.
Meanwhile, Kairin continued her retreat, firing arrow after arrow, while Sairan’s water droplets switched tactics—binding the Saber Tiger’s limbs instead of its face.
As the droplets slowed the creature’s movements, Kairin’s arrows found their marks in its body, yet they failed to penetrate deep enough to be truly fatal.
Eldom, arriving belatedly, hurled his spear with the spirit of wind channeled through it.
Shrieeeeeeek…….
Thwack.
The Saber Tiger, distracted by the earlier assault, took the spear across its flank and staggered for a moment.
Roooaaaarrr…….
A moment later, a savage roar tore from the beast’s maw, and it hurled itself at Eldom with maddened fury.
The water droplets Sairan had flung still clung to its limbs, dulling its movements, and Kairin’s arrows had lodged in its body in several places, but the Saber Tiger charged forward with murderous intent fixed solely on Eldom.
“Eldom! Look out!”
“Oh, no!”
‘Damn it! If my body were whole, I could dodge this easily…….’
Eldom summoned wind to retreat swiftly, but he felt the Saber Tiger closing in relentlessly.
His teeth clenched without his bidding.
‘Is this how I die?’
Shrieeeeek.
In that instant, a fierce wind swept past his ear, and Jang Ga-in appeared before the Saber Tiger.
Crack.
His raised leg snapped upward, catching the beast’s jaw, and with a sound like shattering bone, the Saber Tiger’s neck wrenched backward. Its massive frame—as large as a buffalo—rose into the air and flew backward nearly sixty feet before slamming into the earth.
Boom.
Eldom, who had been backing away in panic, tripped over a stone and fell, while Kairin and Sairan, who had been pursuing the beast, stopped in their tracks and wore expressions of disbelief.
That immense Saber Tiger—sent flying with a single kick.
“Are you all right?”
Jang Ga-in, who had kicked the Saber Tiger away, extended his hand to the fallen Eldom, and Eldom took it with a dazed expression and stood.
“Y-yes! I’m fine.”
“What happened?”
Kairin and Sairan rushed over, their faces etched with concern as they looked at Jang Ga-in.
“Your body hasn’t fully healed. You shouldn’t strain yourself like this.”
“It’s all right now. I’ve recovered enough that this level of movement causes no trouble.”
“You killed a Saber Tiger with one kick……Are you hurt?”
Unaware of it themselves, the three of them now spoke to Jang Ga-in with formal courtesy.
Whoooosh…….
Just then, the fallen Saber Tiger suddenly lurched to its feet and bolted away at a terrifying speed.
“Wait! I heard its bones crack…… How is it still alive?”
“That’s strange. The impact from that jaw strike sent it flying twenty meters, yet it can still run.”
“Wait! The spear! That spear……You can’t leave the spear behind!”
Jang Ga-in, who had been watching the fleeing beast with an impassive gaze, caught sight of the spear lodged in its flank and stamped the ground.
He could not lose such a masterwork—a spear even the Demonic Sect had rarely seen.
Shrieeeeeeech…….
With each stamp of the ground, Jang Ga-in flew nearly a hundred feet, and the three who witnessed it had their mouths fall open in astonishment.
A speed they dared not attempt to match. How could a person move so swiftly?
While the three stood in amazement, the Saber Tiger and Jang Ga-in vanished into the darkness of the forest.
“S-Sairan.”
“Yes?”
“Did you continue treating Ga-in after we arrived?”
“No. After the initial emergency treatment, I focused on treating Eldom.”
“That’s what I thought. But how can he be so completely fine? Better than fine?”
“I don’t know either.”
The three of them dared not pursue, so they steadied their nerves and waited for Jang Ga-in to return.
He returned roughly ten minutes later—but he did not come back merely with the spear recovered. He was riding atop the Saber Tiger.
Once again, the three’s eyes widened in shock.
By now the sun was rising slowly, so even from a distance they could see clearly.
When Jang Ga-in, mounted on the Saber Tiger, came before them, Eldom asked in disbelief.
“How did you manage to ride such a ferocious beast?”
Even Eldom now used formal speech when addressing Jang Ga-in.
After dismounting from the Saber Tiger, Jang Ga-in mixed hand signs with body language to recount what had happened in the forest.
“I was going to kill the Saber Tiger, but then it suddenly rolled onto its back and exposed its belly. I’ve always understood that when a beast shows its belly like that, it’s a complete surrender. So instead of killing it, I tried to just pull out the spear and leave, but the creature started following me. I was about to drive it away, but then I thought—if I could ride it like a horse or load cargo on it, that would be useful. So I tried mounting it once.”
The Demonic Sect had those who trained Spirit Beasts to ride them like horses, so for Jang Ga-in it was nothing remarkable. But to the three who witnessed it, their faces filled with amazement.
“Does a Saber Tiger really allow people to ride it like a horse?”
“That’s impossible. The beast probably carried him because it wanted to live.”
“The Saber Tiger is known to be ferocious beyond all others…….”
“For any living thing, survival comes first. That’s why this Saber Tiger submitted to him.”
Jang Ga-in listened to what the three said while watching where the Saber Tiger kept turning its gaze.
There, in that place, lay a leather pouch that Sairan had been carrying all along—the one containing Ogre Hide and Blood.
The moment he saw it, something clicked into place.
“You didn’t follow us because you caught the scent of Ogre blood, did you?”
Kairin’s body, from when she’d skinned the Ogre and collected its blood, still carried the faint reek of blood upon her.
Over the past three days of travel, they hadn’t found anywhere with enough water to wash it away.
The Saber Tiger simply blinked at Jang Ga-in’s words, as if unable to understand them.
Jang Ga-in hesitated for a moment, asked Kairin’s permission, then carved off a piece of the Ogre’s blood—now congealed like jelly—and offered it to the Saber Tiger.
The beast snatched it up at once and swallowed it down.
“So that’s what drew you here?”
This time the Saber Tiger nodded, as if it truly understood the words, smacking its jaws with satisfaction.
“Well, I’ll be. That’s absurd—a creature with half its jaw shattered, bleeding all over itself, yet still coveting Ogre blood.”
Jang Ga-in knew that Eldom and his sister held Ogre blood in high regard, so he offered no more and turned his attention to Sairan instead.
“Sairan, I was thinking of loading our supplies onto this creature’s back for the journey to the village. What do you think?”
“Oh! That would certainly be a relief and a welcome arrangement.”
“Then, if you would, please tend to its wounds.”
“Of course.”
Though these two siblings spoke to him with formal courtesy, Jang Ga-in’s command of their language was still clumsy enough that he didn’t notice it.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————