Chương 27: What Is Your Dream?

A Battle of Swordsmen No magic. No skills. Only their bare souls and the swords they gripped tightly in their hands. One was an ancient king, long forgotten by history, someone who could scarcely remember the name of the kingdom he had once ruled with pride. The other was an unlucky young man, slain by betrayal and desperation. Through a critical error in the spell he cast while dying, he had seized an opportunity he refused to waste under any circumstances.

Both could be considered undead, each having fallen into their current state through utterly unique and tragic circumstances. They were too different to compare, let alone draw clean parallels between. And yet here they stood, swords clashing fiercely as the ground trembled beneath every impact. CLASH! Why did they fight? For what reason would they stake their very souls and what remained of their lives? CLASH! For a hopeless dream?

Or to finally uncover the truth of this world and escape the confines of the tutorial? Perhaps neither of those reasons. Were these two men — fighting with their souls completely laid bare — truly battling for lofty ideals or distant dreams? The answer was simple and crude. No. CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!

"Hahah…!"

"Hmph." In this moment the two warriors exchanged sword techniques with surprising dexterous grace, each carefully avoiding the other's most lethal strikes. The old king displayed the masterful techniques he had honed across an entire lifetime of rule and warfare. The young man, now a skeleton, demonstrated his extraordinary ability to learn — rapidly copying his opponent's moves and assimilating them into his own style as quickly as he possibly could. They were not fighting for ideals or dreams.

The old king had already abandoned his own the moment he realized it was hopeless to slaughter every human trapped inside this tutorial. The young skeleton was not fighting for the sake of research either. His normally analytical scientific mind had shut down completely. Something far more primal, buried deep within his soul — emotions he thought he had long forgotten — began to reawaken with startling force. They surged uncontrollably, blazing like living flames.

In this beautiful and deadly exchange of pure sword techniques, these two men fought only for each other.

"Tell me, young soul. Why do you fight?"

"…That's a hard question to answer, old king." CLASH!

"Do you hope to achieve anything by winning? By growing stronger? What do you hope to gain with the power you earn and the being you aim to become?"

"That's also a hard question. Truth be told, I have no idea. I've mostly been moving forward for the sake of growth itself. There's an instinct all monsters share — the drive to become stronger no matter what."

"Indeed!" Their swords clashed again with greater force. The king stepped forward and raised his large broadsword high, unleashing a powerful downward slash. Alex quickly sidestepped, narrowly avoiding the lethal blow. The heavy blade struck the ground where he had stood only a second earlier, sending large boulders flying in every direction from the impact.

"But beyond that primal instinct we monsters share, what is your true goal?! What do you hope to achieve with the power you seek, young man?!" Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

"I…" For the first time, Alex did not give a cold or mechanical answer. His eyes widened in surprise. He realized he could even widen them in this skeletal form. As their souls continued to clash, a special ritual began to unfold around them. Pure sword energy spread outward in all directions, carving glowing runes into the ground beneath their feet.

"This is a gift from me to you, young man." The king struck the ground firmly with his sword.

"Ritual of Souls – Endless Battlefield." Arcane magic surged from the last remaining remnants of the old king's mana. Space itself warped violently, and both he and Alex suddenly appeared on an ancient, blood-soaked battlefield. Corpses of fallen warriors littered the ground in every direction. Bloodied spears, swords, and other weapons still pierced the crimson soil. The sky hung heavy with dark clouds, and the thick, metallic scent of blood filled the air.

"…" Alex looked around in quiet wonder. His skeletal form had completely vanished. Instead he stood as a ghostly figure that strongly resembled his living self, his bare soul fully exposed for the first time. Then he saw the true form of the king: no longer a crude golem, but a tall and imposing man with a powerful muscular build, handsome and regal features, flowing long black hair, a short black beard, and sharp, commanding blue eyes that radiated authority.

"You are quite plain-looking, young man. But I expected nothing less."

"What is this place?"

"A domain forged from my Arcane Magic and the deepest secrets of Soul Arts."

"Arcane Magic… Soul Arts?" Alex's eyes sparkled with genuine fascination — yet another new subject he wished to explore. Yet he knew this was not the proper time. This was a sacred ritual, one the king had created specifically to test him.

"I will now test your soul."

"Why?"

"Because I see something in you that I have never seen in anyone else before."

"…You've fought others while serving as a dungeon boss?"

"I have killed many. Each of them came to me for different reasons. This tutorial is not the first time I have been sent to this place."

"I see. How did you manage to survive all those times?"

"I didn't. I have been endlessly revived and transformed into different forms — most often an Undead Golem. My army remains forever tormented for sins I can no longer clearly remember. My mind and memories have slowly fragmented with each death and subsequent resurrection as a vengeful specter."

"…"

"You are the first to not only adapt so rapidly to my swordsmanship, but to begin copying it with such surprising accuracy." The king gazed steadily at Alex. His heavy black armor rumbled softly as he tightened his grip on the broadsword.

"Show me now, with your bare soul, what you truly desire. What is your goal? What is your dream!" Alex asked the question pragmatically, as he always did.

"Why?"

"Because to us undead, nothing is more precious than what we still hold dear within our souls," the king explained with quiet intensity.

"We are corrupted beings who should not exist in this world. What keeps us moving forward is resentment, hatred, and… sometimes, unfulfilled dreams."

"Unfulfilled dreams?" The words echoed inside Alex's mind far longer than he had expected. He stared down at his own ghostly hands in silence. That's right. Unfulfilled dreams. What did that concept even mean to him? What were his own dreams? What had Alex truly tried to achieve throughout his long and monotonous life? He had studied harder than anyone around him. He had worked himself to exhaustion every single day. He had saved money diligently and tried to stay reasonably healthy. All for what, in the end?

None of it mattered anymore. The endless obligations society had imposed on him had vanished the moment he died. Until now he had harbored no real dreams of his own. He had never truly hoped for a brighter future. He had only ever worked hard enough to survive another day. A soft, almost self-deprecating smile touched Alex's lips. He summoned a ghostly sword from the depths of his soul, a blade formed entirely of calm blue flames.

"You're mistaken."

"Hm?"

"I never had any real dreams until the day I died."

"What?"

"I lived a hopeless, pointless life. The only thing that mattered even slightly was video games. They made life feel a little more worth living from time to time. But now even that is pointless. I don't want to become human again. I would rather disappear completely than return to the person I once was." The king's eyes narrowed as he began to understand this strange young man more clearly.

"It could be said that I only started truly living after I died and became an undead…"

"…"

"Everything that came before that might as well have been a long, bad nightmare. My real life has only just begun."

"I see." The king nodded slowly, struck by how bizarre and tragic this young man's existence was compared to the great warriors and philosophers of his own world.

"I now understand that your world is very different from mine. In my world, men grow up with clear dreams in their hearts and fight fiercely to protect those dreams and the people they love. To think there exists a world that could crush a young man so thoroughly that he feels no hope and holds no dreams at all… It is truly tragic. Perhaps even more so than my own painful past. To have no dreams is almost like not being alive at all."

"Maybe," Alex replied as he took a steady step forward.

"But now that my life has truly begun, I want to experience everything it has to offer. And above all…" He remembered Gryg — the unexpected bond they had forged almost by accident, yet someone who had already become important to him.

"I want to build something like… a group."

"A group?"

"A group of friends, family, maybe," Alex said a little awkwardly.

"…" Alex looked directly into the king's eyes and chose, for once, to be completely selfish.

"I want to have a family. I will build one — from strange people like us. Those the world has already discarded. I will gather them together and lead them toward a brighter future. Yeah… I've decided."

"!!!" In that moment the king saw the genuine dream taking clear shape behind Alex's words. Though it was still immature and even a little childish, it was—"Magnificent." The king stepped forward with renewed purpose. His blade glowed brightly with the pure white flames of his own soul as the spirits of his long-fallen comrades rose behind him, lending him their remaining power.

"Then let us see whose dream is stronger."