Book 1-5.5 The Golden Turtle (I)
If you think it has been long, then it has been long, and if you think it has been short, it has been short. Either way, Red Storm has spent two months in the Monster’s Desert.
They filled five travel-use backpacks full of Monster’s Souls, which can help you understand just how many monsters the Red Storm warriors have defeated during that time.
An endless haze had spread across the desert sand, and the sun’s intense heat was pouring down with no regards, as if it wanted to push away all of the haze, but despite the haze and the heat, all of the warriors had grins on their faces and were full of confidence as they headed off to their final monster subjugation.
The end of this round of subjugation was to be the end of their training.
Thrint’s squad of warriors, who ended up in last place during the training, were definitely worried about what kind of punishment they will receive from Yulian after they returned. However, they were still happy that they all survived.
The squad that received first place for the training was Shubeon’s squad. They just barely managed to edge out Haisha’s squad who was in second place.
“Yulian-nim, what rewards will you be giving to the warriors who received first place during this training?”
Yulian responded to Shubeon’s question.
“What reward do you wish for me to give?”
Shubeon looked around at the other warriors before cautiously speaking.
“I hope the reward and punishment could offset each other.”
“What do you mean?”
“The punishment for Thrint’s mistake, I hope that you will forgive it as our reward.”
Yulian glared at Shubeon who was telling him to recall his order, but knowing that the reason they were coming at him like this was only for their comrades, his expression became peaceful once again.
“Is this your wish?”
“I am speaking on behalf of my entire squad who wishes for this to be the case.”
As Yulian turned to look at Thrint, Thrint could not look Yulian in the eye and turned his head away.
‘Looks like he has already been convinced. Is it because he is not the only one who would be getting punished?’
That was what Yulian was thinking, as the prideful Thrint would never accept this type of help. If it was not because of his squad members, there was no way Thrint would be so quiet.
“Fine, I will approve of it.”
Once Yulian gave his approval, all of the warriors started to smile. They could not scream in joy as they made Yulian take back his word, but they were all very happy.
Yulian and Red Storm continued to catch many monsters as they slowly headed towards the center of the Monster’s Desert.
“I know there is no point for me to say this, but don’t let your guard down just because there are many of us.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then let’s sweep through like a storm.”
“Waaaaaaah!”
The warriors started to holler as they started to run towards the visible monsters. Yulian did not join the hunt just in case something abnormal happened, and continued to survey the area and the status of the warriors.
“Huh? What kind of monster is that? Is it an animal?”
Haisha was looking at a golden light at the bottom of the ground, a fist-sized lifeform that was crawling through the sand as if it was swimming. Haisha ran towards the monster.
As he got close, this turtle-like lifeform was shining so brightly as if it wouldn’t be wrong to call it a block of moving gold. (TL: How many of you read Ancient Strengthening Technique? This made me think of the 5000 year old turtle Qing Shui has)
Haisha realized that he had never heard about a monster or lifeform which looked like the one he was seeing.
‘If I catch this, I’m sure the shamans and tribespeople will enjoy the marvelous sight.’
Haisha placed his greatsword on his side and removed his Sosoonta from his chest. It looked like he could catch it with his bare hands, but he wanted to be prepared just in case it could transform.
Haisha slowly headed towards the golden turtle. The golden turtle was casually moving like it was swimming in the sand but suddenly put his head into the sand and started to dig, as if it felt the murderous aura coming from Haisha.
“Oh no you don’t!”
As the golden turtle started to head into the sand, Haisha darted quickly to catch the turtle.
Thankfully, it looked like the golden turtle was just an animal. It started to flail its legs around to escape.
“This thing, does it only have strength in its legs?”
Haisha was muttering to himself as he could not feel any power coming from the hard golden shell in his hand.
“Haisha!”
He noticed Yulian shouting loudly and heading towards him.
Haisha did not understand why Yulian was in a panic and tilted his head in confusion while looking at Yulian.
Haisha was not the only one to be surprised at Yulian’s shout. The warriors were surprised at Yulian’s shouting, then looked at Haisha again before going pale in the face and heading towards Haisha while calling his name.
“What’s going on? Huh, why does everybody look so big?”
Haisha was baffled while watching everybody running towards him. Everybody seemed at least twice as tall as he was. Then maybe, was this an animal that causes illusions?”
“Catch!”
Yulian shouted while throwing a thick rope to Haisha.
“Why are you suddenly throwing…!”
Haisha looked down as if he finally understood. He could not see below his waist.
“Quicksand!”
The golden turtle in his hand was not looking like it was swimming, it was actually swimming in the sand.
The quicksand Haisha was in did not look any different than the other desert sand.
You could watch out for quicksand when it was continuously flowing, but since this did not look any different, even a cautious and attentive warrior like Haisha ended up falling inside this quicksand.
At first he was slowly falling in, but once his hips fell inside, it was as if the center of gravity fell towards the bottom and the speed of his descent became much faster.
“Haisha! Catch!”
Haisha regained his focus listening to Yulian and the other warriors and let go of the golden turtle. By the time he caught the rope, the sand was already up to his chest.
“Pull!”
Once Haisha grabbed onto the rope, Yulian shouted loudly and used all of his strength to pull on the rope.
Following him, the other warriors all started to pull on the rope as well, but it was not enough to pull out Haisha, who was covered up to his neck in sand.
In addition, since he could not put any strength into his shoulders, Haisha did not have any strength to pull on the rope either. Haisha continued to fall further into the sand.
“Haisha!”
While everybody was shouting Haisha’s name and pulling with all of their strength, Haisha had fallen completely into the quicksand.
In the short amount of time he had, Yulian quickly thought about how the sand where Haisha had fallen was not flowing, and decided it must be a hole.
‘If that’s the case, there has to be a bottom. If there is a bottom, there has to be a way to get him out.”
Of course it’s probably more honest to say Yulian did not have time to think all of that threw and just started to head towards it on instinct, but whatever. Yulian started to run while fastening the rope on his hips and yelled.
“Hold on tightly. I will go get him!”
“Yulian-nim, don’t do it!”
Many of the warriors gasped and tried to stop him, but Yulian was already in the quicksand and his feet started to sink.
The warriors were shocked and tried to pull him out with the rope, but Yulian had already used a martial arts called “Chun-gun-choo,” which makes your lower body heavier, and was quickly sinking into the sand.
The Red Storm warriors had a look of devastation on their faces while holding on tightly to the two ropes on the ground, and could only wait for Yulian to come back safely as he proclaimed.
Yulian noticed that it quickly became dark around him and sand started to fall into his nose and ears. Yulian blocked his nose and ears and used the aura he had been training for so long to protect his eyes.
As Yulian expected, the sand was not flowing, and his body just continued to fall further into the sand.
While Yulian was falling, he noticed the tip of a rope in front of him. Recognizing that it was the rope Haisha had held onto, Yulian reached out to grab onto the rope and pushed himself to fall even faster into the sand.
“Koong!” (TL: Korean noise when an impact is made. Kind of like Bam! Or Boom!)