Ch-296. **With Everything I Have**
—
When I started the game *Pangaenia* and created the character Wilhelm—
I seriously considered deleting Wilhelm the moment I began.
“…This difficulty is insane. Should I just quit?”
Because the situation and condition Wilhelm awakened in were beyond disastrous.
Inside a dark cave.
He was suffering from *Hunger*, *Debilitation*, and *Dehydration*, as if he hadn’t eaten properly for days.
Cases like that did happen occasionally when creating a character, but this was the first time I’d seen one so severe that the body couldn’t even move.
And that wasn’t all.
“The starting point is… the *Forest of Nibelung*? That’s at least a level 9 hunting zone!”
It couldn’t get any worse than this.
The Forest of Nibelung was a place untouched by human hands.
A high-level hunting ground crawling with every kind of monster imaginable.
Only properly trained warriors of at least level 9 could barely hunt there, yet because the variety of monsters was so wide and the variables so unpredictable, no one ever came.
Survive here?
The moment I left the cave, I wouldn’t last even five minutes.
I didn’t even have a proper weapon.
All I had was sheer grit and stubbornness.
“…At least it’s lucky that I know the terrain of the Forest of Nibelung well.”
A vast forest.
Once you adapted, it was actually a fairly decent hunting ground.
Good hunting grounds were always fiercely contested, and places where only a single type of monster appeared were boring.
This place, on the other hand, had no competition, and you had to stay on edge at all times—there was never a moment of rest.
In that sense, it suited me quite well.
But—
*Should I really just delete this?*
The problem was that the character was level 1.
Honestly, deleting him and starting over would have been better.
No matter how I thought about it, it was a waste of time.
Even if I somehow survived, hunting itself was impossible, and I had no idea how long it would take just to escape the Forest of Nibelung.
No matter how godlike my control was, hunting level 9+ monsters with a level 1 character was simply impossible.
What should I do?
Delete him, or not?
I thought about it for a moment, then reached a conclusion.
“…Well. I guess I’ll somehow manage.”
I decided to try, at least.
I crawled along the ground, made my way out of the cave, and ate wild plants growing nearby.
Most of them were poisonous, but there were a few edible varieties.
I licked dew clinging to leaves, picked up crawling insects and ate them, focusing entirely on recovering my physical condition.
Sometimes, if I was lucky enough to find a monster’s half-eaten carcass, I’d take even a single bite.
Three days like that.
It took a full three days just to recover my body.
Even that was nothing short of a miracle.
If the game had been locked to a first-person perspective, it would’ve been impossible.
But *Pangaenia* allowed free perspective switching, and I played in third-person, carefully calculating the movements of monsters that appeared at a distance before moving.
All monsters that appeared in the Forest of Nibelung had the nasty trait of *aggressive first attacks*, but their field of vision was narrow. As long as you learned their movement patterns to some extent, avoiding them was still possible.
“This really is hell difficulty…”
But even after recovering my body, the situation was still dire.
First of all, I couldn’t leave the forest.
I seriously considered using another character to send aid, but the zone Wilhelm was in contained the *King of the Forest of Nibelung*.
A raid boss monster that had never been conquered even once since *Pangaenia* launched.
One wrong move and you were dead.
There was no way I’d risk a high-level character I’d painstakingly raised just to save this trash-tier character.
If I could at least leave this zone, maybe—but—
No matter how careful I was, escaping without hunting even a single monster would be extremely difficult.
“All I can do is swing my sword in this cave…”
And even then, the only weapon I had was a crudely made wooden sword.
Even this cave could be invaded by monsters at any moment.
Yet, strangely enough—
This absolute worst-case scenario seemed to stir my desire to challenge it.
Whoosh!
Whish!
I swung my sword.
Day after day.
Swinging, swinging, and swinging again.
……
I finally escaped the Forest of Nibelung a full month later.
That must have been why.
Why I grew attached to this character—*Wilhelm*.
*
*
I grew greedy.
I wanted to raise him properly.
As a knight more honorable than anyone else, with an indomitable will.
As a symbol of never giving up.
Maybe because that was the kind of person I wanted to be.
His fundamentals were solid, so his growth was fast.
I cleared trial after trial of utterly absurd difficulty.
By the time he was called the Knight King and had become the hope of countless people—
A new desire was born within me.
*The Grand Expedition.*
I wanted to kill the Demon King.
Hunting the Demon King was the final objective of *Pangaenia*.
The moment you killed him, the game ended, and you could have your *wish* granted.
To do that, I raised a knight order and traveled across nations, gathering soldiers.
I pooled every piece of good equipment from all my characters and fully outfitted them.
And yet, due to a *bug* that occurred at the final moment, Wilhelm died.
I was furious. Enraged.
To think the Grand Expedition—something that should have been perfect—failed because of a mere bug!
*Was I actually the one who was lacking?*
…I had been confident it was perfect.
But the moment I saw Wilhelm’s sword.
From the moment I faced the blade Wilhelm wielded—
My thoughts changed.
Maybe, in truth, I was the one who had been lacking.
The Wilhelm climbing the Tower of the War God was nothing like the character I had directly played.
I stood submerged in darkness and raised my sword.
Whoosh!
I swung it.
But it didn’t compare to Wilhelm’s sword.
Sword Mastery Level 32.
I could manifest sword aura and had reached even higher martial attainments—
Yet the sword Wilhelm was wielding before my eyes was unmistakably beyond that.
And beyond the realm I had reached while playing Wilhelm.
Which meant—
That realm was one Wilhelm had achieved *on his own*.
Here, in this swamp-like darkness where not even an inch ahead could be seen, Wilhelm had continued swinging his sword without rest.
Whoosh!
The sound of the blade cutting through the air.
Heavy—heavier still.
Yet endlessly soft.
Here, Wilhelm forged a sword that was his alone.
*Heaven and Earth Genesis*.
A sword that opens the heavens and the earth, then remakes them.
A blade imbued with Wilhelm’s wish—to live freely in a new world.
I had believed I used it properly too, but I had never grasped its true essence.
The *Heaven and Earth Genesis* he used was of a completely different rank from mine.
*Open the heavens.*
**Heaven (天).**
Open the upper dantian.
Ordinary martial artists open and train the lower dantian at the navel, accumulating inner power.
The upper dantian in the head is tied to abilities akin to psychic powers; humans who open it wield power like immortals, but suffer side effects such as drastically shortened lifespans.
That’s why it’s common sense to train the lower dantian first, then open the upper.
But Wilhelm was different.
His sword began by opening the heavens—the upper dantian—first.
*Open the earth.*
**Earth (地).**
The earth receives.
It draws the energy of the heavens into the lower dantian.
And through that, one perceives all the principles of the world.
Seeing, feeling, and finally taking a single step.
And when you step out into the world—
*Open the world.*
**Opening (開).**
Only then do you truly come to know the world.
Through his sword, Wilhelm was communicating with the world.
In pitch-black darkness where no one listened and no one accepted him, this was the only way he could communicate.
Yet he still hadn’t reached **Wall (闢)**.
*Open myself…*
Even if you know the entire world—
There is nothing more difficult than knowing the one thing called *yourself*.
Whoosh!
I swung my sword.
Chasing Wilhelm.
Tracing his trajectory.
Because I wanted to reach him.
Just as he had once hoped for me.
At some point, I too began hoping for him.
How much time passed like that?
《‘Sword Mastery’ level has increased.》
《Sword Mastery has reached Lv.33.》
《Hidden Quest ‘Transcend Mastery Level (9)’—originating from the ‘Lord of the Mountain of the Practitioner’—has been completed!》
《This is the Abyss of the Self. Therefore, no one can see it.》
《No one applauds.》
《You have achieved and accomplished it, yet all that remains is emptiness.》
《You may obtain the reward ‘Unknown’.》
《Would you like to receive the reward?》
No one sees it.
Even after achieving results.
Even after stepping into a realm no one else has reached.
Yet Wilhelm simply continued onward.
And so did I.
But there was one difference between Wilhelm and me.
*I am cheering for you.*
I truly supported Wilhelm.
I admired him as he overcame adversity and cheered him on.
But when Wilhelm reached the 30th floor and faced Randolph, his condition was utterly dreadful.
Just like when he had first fallen into the Forest of Nibelung.
The worst possible situation, with no dreams and no hope.
But at least then—
For that one month—
Weren’t Wilhelm and I of the same mind?
Wasn’t that the only moment when I swung my sword as one with Wilhelm?
Huuuaaang.
As I recalled how I’d felt back then, *Golden Scale* began to float around me.
The solid golden lines of the Golden Scale that arose from me began connecting to Wilhelm.
The moment I saw it, I knew what it was.
*With everything I have, I will support only you.*
《Using all ‘Broken Fragments of the Golden Scale (6,000h)’ to support ‘Wilhelm’.》
The solid lines shone even brighter.
Proof that Wilhelm and I were connected.
But it wasn’t enough.
Even after using everything, it still hadn’t fully reached him.
Yet I had already used all the Golden Scale fragments.
Of course, there was still a way.
《‘Main Quest 2: Obtain a Class’ has been completed.》
《‘Main Quest 3: Climb the Tower’ has been completed.》
《‘Main Quest 4: Seal the Rift of the Dark Space’ has been completed.》
I completed all the *main quests* I’d been putting off in one go.
Obtaining a class, climbing the Tower of the War God.
But I hadn’t expected *sealing the Rift of the Dark Space* to be completed as well.
Had the game judged the place where I was standing to be *Dark Space*?
《Your level has increased!》
《Using all ‘Broken Fragments of the Golden Scale (14,000h)’ obtained as rewards to support ‘Wilhelm’.》
It didn’t matter.
If anything, it was good.
The Golden Scale fragments received from completing the main quests—
I converted all rewards into Golden Scale fragments and used them to support Wilhelm.
To convey my sincerity to him.
*
*
…His wounds heal.
Curses that should never have faded— even those inflicted by the two main gods—are erased by blessings beyond imagination.
This was on a completely different level from all the support he had received so far.
Swoooosh—
Weapons, armor, helmet—every piece of equipment he had worn in life was recreated.
His prime.
All his martial power restored, finally able to wield it freely.
The state he had been in just before facing the Demon King.
“……”
Yet Wilhelm simply watched it all quietly.
Even after reclaiming everything, he showed no sign of joy.
“…How absurd. Was it you who pulled me back out of the ‘gate’?”
He merely turned his gaze slowly, looking at his opponent.
The Eternal God Randolph.
Yet what should have been an empty shell had become something else entirely.
Another Randolph, who had vanished after being offered to the Gate of Truth.
The one who had single-handedly slaughtered Abyss Lords and primordial beings on the Island of the Gods.
That monster once called *Destruction* looked upon Wilhelm with a mocking gaze.
