Leveling Up Alone

The Tree of Beginnings region, the only area in the Bastro Dimension where Bastrolings of the Light Faction survived, was still grim.

[Mom, I’m hungry…]

A young sheep Bastroling from the sheep race whined to the mother sheep, holding onto his rumbling stomach.

[H-Hang in there for a bit, Dad’s gone to find something to eat.]

[Huh, tree bark again?]

[B-Bark is delicious in its own way if you chew it lots.]

[Whaaaa!]

Eventually, the young sheep burst into tears.

The young sheep was very thin. He had been fed nothing but poor food since birth, but he knew that bark didn’t taste good. The child’s only wish was to eat something delicious. He had never tasted anything delicious, but he had heard stories from his uncle and aunt about the taste of delicious food.

[Hey, there, will you be quiet?]

[S-Sorry. It’s just that my kid is really hungry…]

[Every Bastroling here is hungry.]

[...]

The young sheep’s mother resented the other Bastrolings for not understanding that her child was crying because he was hungry. But there was no point in saying anything since it would merely turn into an argument, so she swallowed her frustration and focused on comforting her child.

‘Just how did things become like this?’

Although she was a typical mother, anxious about her child’s crying, a few years ago, she had been an excellent female warrior of the sheep race. She’d still take up arms if she had to, but there wasn’t much to fight about now.

Most of the Bastrolings, including the sheep race, were terrified of the hyena race and had been hiding within the protection of the Tree of Beginnings’ holy aura from the contaminant attribute.

While the land was rich with blessings from the Tree of Beginnings, too many Bastrolings had taken refuge there. With so many Bastrolings densely packed into such a small area, there was a limit to the food that could be harvested, no matter how bountiful the land was. It wasn’t long before they faced widespread starvation.

After the mother sheep finally soothed her child to sleep, she looked up at the sky.

‘Where has our glorious past gone?’

Her unfocused, sad eyes stared at the sky. Her eyes were fixated on the sky, but she was thinking of everything but the sky.

‘Huh?’

But then the color of the sky caught her eye.

‘Blue?!’

The color of sky in the Bastro Dimension was the same light blue as Earth, which was why pale blue was called sky blue, the same color as the sky.

However, she was surprised for a different reason.

‘Not gray, but sky blue?’

The sky that she had been looking up at all this time while resenting her current situation was dark gray at night and light gray during the day. Now, the sky was the same clear, beautiful blue color she had always seen in her peaceful and nostalgic past.

‘H-How?’

There was still an army of contaminants outside.

D-Did the contamination attribute disappear from the sky?

Her mind began racing for the first time in a while.

[H-Huh. W-What is that?]

Another Bastroling woman pointed to the sky in a different direction.

[What’s going on?]

Mumble.

Unidentifiable flying creatures in the distance caused chaos in the area. It wasn’t simply because something was flying toward them.

Like Noras said, a few Bastroling sorcerers possessed flying skills, but in the area guarded by the Tree of Beginnings, no such sorcerers were left.

“Kooo!”

“Khaaaa!”

Kwang!

A little while after the contaminant army had first surrounded the area, the Bastroling sorcerers had tried to use their flying skills to procure food and weapons. However, their efforts were cut short and the flying contaminants killed them. Caught completely off guard, they scraped all of their flying sorcerers together in order to get a large amount of supplies at once. But that ambush had wiped out all the sorcerers with the flying skill in one fell swoop.

Once again, the flying contaminants charged at the unidentifiable flying creatures coming toward them.

[The flying contaminants are active, which means that might be a survivor of the Light Faction?]

They were glad to see their comrades alive, but they also felt sorry for them.

[Tsk tsk, they must’ve heard the rumors seeing that they’re coming here. I’m glad to see them, but what a shame.]

[We don’t have the capacity to have more people here, and there’s no way a sorcerer with flying skills can face a flying contaminant that flies much faster than them.]

Grumble!

[Ugh, I’m so hungry, but we still have to wait if we want to eat the crops.]

[Damn it!]

Most of the Bastrolings turned their attention away from the unidentified flying creatures approaching them. For them, the most important thing right now was getting food.

Boom!

But soon, they heard an explosion and were startled.

[W-What was that?]

[What was the explosion?]

[Did a sorcerer cause such a huge explosion?]

[No way!]

To them, sorcerers were like helpers, supporting warriors in battle and making their daily lives easier. In other words, sorcerers weren’t warriors who led battles. So it wasn’t normal for sorcerers to create such a massive explosion.

[I-It can’t be?]

[There’s no way they made it here…]

Despite their pessimistic predictions, the unidentified flying creatures defeated all the flying contaminants and leisurely approached the Tree of Beginnings region.

[Huh!]

[T-This can’t be!]

[W-Wait a minute. If they come here, we’ll have to share our food.]

[Ugh, crap. What do we do?]

Ugly greed surged in their hearts.

[Should we kill them?]

[W-We don’t have a choice. We’re already running low on food and those guys who possess that much strength will want to eat their hearts out. Simple combat will only hurt us.]

[T-True!]

Many Bastrolings agreed with this greedy argument.

‘H-How could they…’

However, some Bastrolings were appalled by such greed, especially the Bastroling woman sheep holding her child in her arms.

‘Although we’re hiding here, we’re proud Bastro Warriors. How could a Bastroling think such a thing?’

She felt disillusioned to be a part of the same Light Faction. Despite her thoughts, the number of greedy Bastrolings grew as more of them gathered around after hearing the explosion.

Most of them weren’t elite warriors, but civilians. They were capable of basic combat of course, but they could only mobilize for battle under very special circumstances. In other words, they were not professional warriors like the sheep race woman. As a result, the warrior’s pride was somewhat diminished.

In addition, prolonged starvation and the fear of death were enough to turn the once pure Bastrolings into greedy beings.

The female sheep clenched her fist.

[Mmm.]

She then looked down at the child squirming in her arms.

‘Never, never lose your pride, even if this fleeting life is lost. If they want to kill our people, then I will gladly become their enemy.’

If time continued to flow like this, they were bound to be destroyed anyway.

A priest once said that the Tree of Beginnings was so old that it was going to wither away in a year at most. Then the sacred spell would come to an end, and the contaminant army led by the hyenas would break through. Then the Bastrolings, with only a few professional warriors, would be wiped out.

‘If I’m going to die anyway, I’m going to die as a warrior.’

That way, she’d have some courage to visit her ancestors.

Shhh. Kwang!

The unidentified creatures easily annihilated all the flying contaminants despite their relentless attacks, and they flew straight into the holy ground and landed dramatically.

Thud.

[H-Hmm.]

Gulp.

[Huff.]

Although the Bastrolings were determined to kill their opponents, they were still nervous. The Bastrolings were skilled in combat, but seeing how easily their opponents had annihilated the flying contaminants made them feel like it wasn’t going to be an easy battle.

With a loud crash, sand and dust rose from the ground, obscuring everyone’s vision. After a few moments, the dust settled and they could see the figures inside.

[W-What the…?]

It was their first time seeing such races.

[H-Huh?]

The smallest and most dangerous looking creature out of all of them smirked.

“How dare you, cocky bastards. Get down on your knees, or else I'll kill you.”

With a single sentence, all the Bastrolings felt goosebumps forming all over their bodies.

Tap, tap. Shaaaa!

With each step Han-Yeol took, powerful mana emanated from his body.

Gulp!

‘W-Who is that?’

‘Judging from the fact that he entered this land protected by the Tree of Beginnings, he doesn’t seem to belong to the hyena race.’

Everyone was dumbfounded by the appearance of a strange race, but in some ways, this motivated them even further to accomplish their goal of killing their opponent.

‘They’re a different race, so it won’t matter if we kill them.’

‘He’s technically trespassing our territory. We can’t let him live.’

However, they didn’t realize they were wrong. At first, their opponent was too strong and they were afraid of not being able to take control, so they were going to pretend to be on the same side and ambush them later on. However, how could different races be on the same side?

Losing the ability to remain composed due to pride only led to futile desires and corruption.

‘W-What race is that…’