Each night, under the flickering moonlight and biting wind, Ken trained alone.
The dull thud of the wooden spear striking the same spot on a tree echoed through the dark camp. Over and over, he repeated the motion, sweat soaking his patched-up shirt, breath steaming in the cold air. The bark chipped, splinters scattered—but his aim was still off. The stab wavered, the angle too high, too shallow, too slow.
And yet, he didn't stop.
Not because he enjoyed it—but because he couldn't afford not to.
Two weeks had passed since the attack. The adventurer party that had once smiled around bonfires and cracked jokes in the dusk now wore grave expressions. They tried to hide it, still laughing and playing cards by the fire at night, but Ken could sense it—the unease behind their eyes, the stiffness in their posture.
Something had changed.
The monsters weren't just attacking. They were moving intelligently.
No one said it outright, but the signs were there. They had found too many oddly precise breaches in nearby villages, patterns too organized to be coincidence. Lisa once let it slip in hushed tones: "We might be looking at a new dungeon... or a mutant-type commander."
Ken didn't know exactly what that meant—but the way her voice trembled said enough.
Boris had grown busier with the party's planning, leaving Ken to train on his own. At first, the silence had been daunting, the emptiness of the nights overwhelming. But Ken adapted.
He stabbed.
He learned how to shift his weight.
He learned how his wrists strained after too many wrong swings and how to hold the shaft to minimize that pain.
He even tried moving targets by tying cloth to a branch and letting the wind sway it. It wasn't much—but it helped. A little.
And all the while, Grind worked silently within him.
His strikes grew faster. The pain came later. His posture corrected itself out of pure repetition. There were no flashy pop-ups. No skill unlocks.
Just progress.
Slow. Brutal. Real.
In the mornings, he returned to work with Lisa, though the number of injured had finally started to drop. The worst cases either succumbed or stabilized. Lisa grew quieter by the day. The relief was bittersweet.
During daylight, Ken picked up other jobs around the temporary village—stacking lumber, unloading supply carts, and patching makeshift walls. He cleaned latrines when needed. No task was beneath him.
Eventually, the village elder took notice.
And so, Ken received his first real pay: two small copper coins.
By the end of the week, he had seventy-two.
It didn't sound like much. It wasn't much.
He soon learned why.
This world's currency system was crude but brutally efficient:
1 Big Copper Coin = 100 Small Copper Coins
1 Small Silver Coin = 100 Big Copper Coins
1 Big Silver Coin = 100 Small Silver Coins
1 Small Gold Coin = 1000 Big Silver Coins
A ridiculous climb.
According to Lisa, even a professional adventuring party like Boris's could barely manage a single small gold coin per month if luck favored them. And that's after slaying monsters, taking bounties, and risking death.
Ken stared at his coins in a hand-sewn pouch—seventy-two small copper coins. It took him a full week to earn what amounted to less than one big copper. And even that was considered generous.
He did the math.
If he kept working like this? He might make four big copper coins in a month. Maybe five, if he broke his back.
But a single Blood Boar—a weak, aggressive beast with no mana or skill ability—was worth five big copper coins on the guild bounty board.
One kill equaled two months of hard labor.
That's the gap, he realized. That's why people risk their lives. Why even someone like Lisa is part of an adventuring group.
Because out here, physical labor won't feed you long.
The economy of this world wasn't just metal coins.
It was a risk.
It was blood.
And the only way to rise from poverty... was through power.
Ken stared at his worn wooden spear, resting beside his sleeping mat. He had no illusions. He was weak. His stats were still below average. He had no magical support. No family. No noble connections. No awakened profession.
But he had [Grind].
And that, he thought, would have to be enough.
"Just a little more," he whispered, wrapping his sore fingers around the shaft of the spear. "If I can train a bit more... I might just survive."
[STATUS SCREEN]
Name: Ken
Species: Human
Level: N/A
Profession: N/A
Talent: Grind
Age: 17 years, 10 months
STR: 1.7
AGI: 1.3
VIT: 1.9
INT: 1.2
SPI: 0.8
Skills: N/A
Ken's body had finally recovered.
The "Weakened" tag on his system panel had disappeared. Strength, Agility, and Vitality had all risen back to baseline—and a little beyond, even. After two weeks of intense physical labor, nightly training, and stuffing himself with whatever food the adventurers gave him, his frame had changed. No longer the hollow, sunken figure from before, Ken now resembled a lean, athletic high schooler—wiry muscle stretched over a still-growing frame.
"Guess... this is what Grind does," he'd muttered with a smirk the morning he noticed his sleeves tightening.
Everything was going smoothly.
Until that night.
It began just after dinner.
Ken lay back on his mat, eyes half-lidded, stomach full. He was just about to get up for sword practice—something he'd been neglecting lately in favor of spear drills—when the camp suddenly buzzed with commotion.
At first, it was just footsteps. Then raised voices. Then shouting.
"Ken! Quickly—come with me! Help the others!" Lisa's urgent voice cut through the chaos as she ran toward him. No time for questions. He sprang to his feet and followed.
They moved toward the center of the village.
There, a crowd had already gathered—civilians, elders, some injured, all surrounded by Boris's adventurer group. Ken spotted another group guarding the outskirts, bright flashes of fire and light erupting in the far distance. The sky beyond the trees lit up in pulses—red, blue, and gold—followed by the deep BOOM of detonations that rattled the ground beneath them.
'Wha… what the hell is happening?' Ken's breath caught.
His first real glimpse of battle in this world. His first encounter with magic, not in theory, but reality. Raw, brutal, loud.
Even though he couldn't see the details clearly, the impact was immense.
Explosions rumbled like distant thunder. Bright magical flares arced across the forest horizon. Screams—both human and not—pierced the night.
The weight of fear dropped into his chest like a stone.
'So this… this is what it means to be in a battlefield,' he thought, body rigid.
Lisa stood at the front of their group, hands aglow, her voice weaving a chant. She was calm. Controlled. Her focus is unbreakable despite the chaos. Ken remembered what she once told him—how a caster must channel absolute concentration or risk backfire. At this moment, he saw what that meant.
Then the goblins broke through.
Small, vicious figures leapt from the underbrush into the village perimeter.
Boris's party moved instantly.
They didn't walk. They launched.
Ken's eyes widened.
It wasn't just speed—it was power. Blades gleamed in the torchlight. Their movements were like streaks of lightning crashing through the air. In one fluid motion, Boris brought down a greatsword, cleaving a goblin clean in half. Another adventurer danced between three goblins, twin daggers slicing like ribbons through flesh.
Blood sprayed. Green bodies dropped.
Splashes of gore soaked the dirt.
The adventurers were laughing, grinning—even enjoying it.
Ken stood frozen.
'This is insane... they're on a completely different level.'
He could feel his heart thudding violently. The smell of blood filled the air. But amid the fear, something else sparked in his chest.
Aw.
Desire.
'This is intense... How cool...' he whispered under his breath, eyes wide as he watched the group move like gods of war.
Then—he felt it.
A shiver ran down his spine. Something... off. Everyone was focused on the goblins. The defense line was holding—but too cleanly. Too easily. Ken's gut twisted.
His gaze swept the field. Nothing.
Then—he saw it. Emerging silently from behind a half-toppled cart near the back, muscles twitching, jaws wide with fangs and tusks—a blood boar.
Big.
Silent.
And fast.
It was already inside the perimeter.
And it was charging straight toward Lisa.
+
Before tonight, Ken had listened carefully to Boris's teachings.
In this world, species weren't equal—not in strength, not in instinct, and certainly not in how they interacted with mana. Goblins were humanoid. They possessed basic mana reserves, crude intelligence, and the ability to use skills. That made them easy to track with Mana Sense, a detection skill some of Boris's party members had mastered.
But blood boars—they were different.
No mana. No spells. Just raw, terrifying flesh—fast, heavy, armored. Deadly not because of magic, but because they didn't trigger magical alarms. Ken had learned that lesson painfully in his old life. And he hadn't forgotten.
So when the boar charged silently from the rear bush, Ken knew instantly—this wasn't coincidence.
It was calculated.
'It slipped through because they rely too much on mana sensing. Just like last time...'
His eyes locked on Lisa.
She stood like a statue at the center of the formation, hands raised, voice steady—casting a high-level buffing spell. Concentration etched across her face. Vulnerable.
Too vulnerable.
Boris saw the danger too—but his team was locked in combat. Trapped. Surrounded by goblins in a tight ring, their escape deliberately blocked. This wasn't a chaotic raid.
It was a trap.
"Lisa! Stop the cast—!"
Boris shouted, panic tearing at his voice, but it was too late.
The blood boar lunged.
Fast. Massive. Its tusks gleamed under the torchlight, jaws wide in a silent roar as it barreled toward Lisa like a living battering ram.
Then—a shadow moved.
Between the boar and Lisa, a slim figure stepped forward.
His spear scraped against the ground as he lowered it into stance. His feet dug in, posture grounded, and for the first time, his gaze burned—not with fear, but resolve.
A fierce glint sparked in his eyes.
'I've been training for this. Every night. Every bruise. Every drop of sweat. This is my moment.'