Chapter 21

Translator: Exodus Tales

Editor: Exodus Tales

What on earth was this world?

Fang Zheng himself was pretty speechless after dying countless times. He just sat there beside the bonfire, feeling the hostility this world was showing him in full.

In the beginning, he still thought that this looked like a rather normal world, but it was no longer the case. If dying to the knight the first time was because of his carelessness, the other times were not. He had already made full preparations, but he still suffered merciless defeat. At the very least, those failures weren’t wasted, and he was able to use the repel skill he thought of as useless and actually managed to get the hang of it. He’d managed to deflect the knight’s attack, and plunged his blade into his chest.

Thinking that everything had ended, a black, liquid-like thing emerged from the knight’s body before he could even pull the sword out. It twisted into a huge snake-like monster and bit at him.

That moment, Fang Zheng was in full despair.

He thought this was an abandoned world at first.

Then, he thought it was a world with strong foes.

But now… What the hell was that monster?!

Was he supposed to use his sword to cut down this gigantic, inhuman thing of a monster?

Wasn’t this world too much?!

Diablo had its monsters too, but at least he got to use some abilities to protect himself!

Here, he could only roll, block, slice? No skills, no magic, no magic items, and no teammates?

His heart couldn’t take this!

It was a full-on nightmare!

Fortunately for him, he had come here to train his sword skills and his battle mind. Otherwise, he’d probably choose to kill himself if he could. Surviving in this world was more complicated than just having a big heart.

Luckily for him, there was a small place of refuge in this dark world. After finally killing the knight, he passed through the big gate and entered a place called Firelink Shrine. There, he met a blindfolded young woman, who called herself Firekeeper. He understood the world a bit more through her words.

This world was in a state of chaos, but yet, the first flame lit up once more one day. People found the great lord’s soul, and using that strength of fire they defeated the ancient dragons. After that, was the first age of fire, the age of civilization. But, even that flame had its end waiting for it, and in order to keep the fire burning, heroes with great strength had to offer themselves as fuel to maintain their age of light.

And now, all of this was nearing the end.

The fire had run out, and the bells rang, awakening the original lords of cinder that were in deep slumber.

And yet, they have given up their positions as lords.

His own duty was to defeat these lords of cinder, so that the fire could be lit once more.

After talking to the Firekeeper, Fang Zheng seemed to understand the setting of this world a bit more. As an example, this world was like a bonfire; it burned once, bringing warmth and light, but was now only a pile of ash. What he needed to do was basically get more firewood and light up this bonfire again, or everything would end.

What a world of despair.

Fortunately, though, he had this Firekeeper girl to comfort his broken heart. At least it was better than that muscle smith and old witch. In comparison, those two seemed like souls trapped in this world. Right, and that one hugging the sword, always crying up there on the balcony. What was he even talking about, anyway?

Having experienced many hard battles before, Fang Zheng felt that he’d understood how he should survive in this world. Filled with determination, he used the Firekeeper’s instructions and transported himself using the bonfire all the way to the castle walls of Lothric. He’d decided to take this adventure, and in truth, those monsters on the walls really weren’t much of a threat to him. They were undead wielding axes, but parrying them was pretty easy, taking him only one hit after that.

Fang Zheng had confidence in himself. That didn’t sound right, though at least he now knew how to properly engage in combat here. 

Until he met a bastard called Knight of Lothric.

This guy was not the same as the one he met earlier. He was clothed weirdly, and it was hard to communicate with him. The instant he saw Fang Zheng, he charged over at him.

Fang Zheng was not that easily surprised anymore, since he’d realized that other than those people at Firelink Shrine, the enemies outside that he met would all be like mindless monsters, charging at him right away. Fang Zheng went on without hesitation and got his shield ready to parry.

What he didn’t expect, however, was how the Lothric knight would raise his shield and slam it on him, dazing him. He didn’t recover yet when his sword came… And the world was silent.

Fang Zheng finally understood that he was still a noob in terms of using weapons like this.

He was able to win against Shidon earlier because of the special Royal Crusader skill, and while Shidon did tell him that there was something deep that he didn’t understand about the sword skill, Fang Zheng didn’t think much of it. In truth, he didn’t use all he had. He could’ve just used an invincibility spell and charged a divine storm at Shidon from the start. It’d ruin him even more…

Putting that aside, even if he did meet enemies stronger than him, he still had his Soul Stones.

And here, in this world, he finally knew how weak he was.

Without the Soul Stones, there were no Crusader skills. He was so weak!

After coming here, how many times had he died?

Sitting at the bonfire, he frowned. If it was said that he didn’t have enough confidence in his skills before, then in this world, he finally realized first hand how weak he really was. Thinking about it, that first fight after coming to this world. He had used Soul Stones to protect himself from death as well. In the Diablo World, he also used the Soul Stone against Maghdan. This was all something given to him by the system. It wasn’t his own strength.

Had he lost himself because of that?

If from the start, he’d used the attitude of improving and getting stronger, he’d be seriously doubting if that actually was the case now. Did he need to rely on this system’s help forever? It was quite a large support, but if he wasn’t strong enough, it wouldn’t be enough!

“Still too careless…”

As he shook his head, he stood up with a bitter smile. He wasn’t a warrior in his past life, and while he did take some military training, he didn’t do much physical work. He didn’t know how to battle well at all, and while he didn’t think that would be a problem, he knew just what he lacked now.

Perhaps this was why the system gave him this world.

With that, he raised his sword again and stood at the edge fo the balcony. Looking at this abandoned city, he could hear the sound of the wind, along with low and heavy footsteps all around. Those mindless monsters seemed to be just walking around this place, looking for life to kill.

Fang Zheng didn’t know what the enemy was, what they did, why they fought, but he knew one thing very clearly.

All of these were his enemies.

With that, he took his sword and stepped down the stairs with big strides.