Surviving a Shounen Manga - Chapter 45

He’ll be fine, right?

I silently watched Firmino’s men rushing up towards the surface. 

Counting only the ones who’d jumped up so far, there were about a thousand. But that wasn’t the end of it. There seemed to be quite a number who were running late.

Even in the best case, at least one and a half thousand people.

This was a variable. They were much more numerous than I’d previously anticipated.

‘I hope he doesn’t try to clash with them head-on.’

The mission I’d entrusted to Chinuavi was only to lure them out. Just to drag the mooks out of town somehow.

Even that was more than what I’d originally intended. Because he wasn’t one of those goblins who were accustomed to fighting.

But,

“Yes, I did fail the Brawler Goblin Test. But strictly speaking, that’s just about your combat skills. It doesn’t measure your strategical acumen, you know?”

“Oh, is there some other goblin test for strategy and tactics?”

“No.”

“…?”

“But I’ve have read more about it than anybody else. I’m confident.”

“Aha, did you learn the theory from a book? What about practice?”

“This’ll be my first time, so just leave it all to me.”

It was a demonstration of unbelievable self-confidence. A sky-high arrogance that demanded me to just trust it and use it.

“But it looks like you’re misunderstanding something. This isn’t about the fight, it’s about luring them out.”

“Uh-huh, I roughly understand it all, so leave it to me, yeah? Senior, why are you even here? Don’t be like an old man long put out to pasture who keeps dreaming about the old days, you’re just wasting time.”

“…”

It finally opened my eyes to how this guy was still a ‘goblin’ in his bones. All his ‘gentleness’ had to have just been a concept, like middle school syndrome back on earth.

Just when I was about snap back that I didn’t want to –

“I, too, have to do something to help Miss Cocoa.”

“What?”

“I just want to.”

“… Being by her side would also help. That kid shouldn’t be left alone…”

“I know. I know but… when I saw those letters, I suddenly couldn’t stand it.”

Chinuavi also seemed to have seen the back of Cocoa’s neck.

At this point, I had nothing more to say.

“Well… don’t get hurt.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got a Squatjaw here too.”

“…”

It was all good, except the bit at the end.

Come to think of it, why was he imitating me?’

I still hadn’t been able to figure that out.

Of course, I did look a little strong from the outside. I was big, could look gloomy and even rough. But even going just by appearance, this world was littered with people who looked much more terrifying.

‘More like… how an elementary school kid might mimic his middle schooler elder brother?”

To be honest, my appearance fit more of an ‘uncle’ than an older brother, though.

Hmmm.

Come to think of it, it’d been a while since this guy had last asked me about my secret. In the past, whenever I asked him to use an ability, he’d ask one thing he was curious about in return. How did I know that he was a goblin, who did I hear about the five gods from, and so on. Of course, I never gave a proper answer.

Anyway, such had been the terms of our deal.

Well, the fact that he’d stopped doing it probably meant he was now a proper teammate. I must’ve become a colleague instead of an interesting customer at some point.

I gave a little chuckle.

You have to have ‘colleagues’, or ‘friends’, in a shounen manga.

Although it was just like kiddy roleplay, it did feel good.

Meanwhile,

‘… But what am I doing?’

Suddenly, reality ensued.

I shook my head and let my jumbled thoughts go. 

This wasn’t the time to get lost in my own mind.

I glanced around, and there was no one in sight, as if everybody had run away.

I got out of my hiding spot at the walls, and started moving slowly.

Ten minutes of walking around, holding my breath.

Navigating this empty underground city was more complicated than I’d expected.

Colourful buildings were scattered all around the streets, and the roads slithered like a maze between them. It was similar to that cafeteria back in Big City, only enlarged by about five hundred times, and even more complex.

I decided to boldly ignore Cocoa’s advice that ‘there should be a large building nearby’. There were no big buildings no matter how hard I looked, and even the ones that were relatively large were only bigger by about half as much compared to their neighbours.

She’d only been about six or seven years old at the time, so everything must’ve looked gigantic in her eyes. I decided to sort things out myself.

By using my ‘pathfinding eyes’.

This was the basis of my confidence in coming here alone.

I’d always thought, surely my eyes couldn’t be that bad?

It was still an open question.

‘Pathfinding eyes’ was also a hidden characteristic, so why wouldn’t it improve with my stat increases?

Of course, the type and importance of such hidden abilities are different from basic ones like ‘strength’ or ‘agility’. They are the most important factors in determining a guide’s level, and for all other adventurer positions as well.

But even so, it was impossible to have made no progress. Not with how much my ‘standing’ had risen.

My initially insignificant ‘stamina’ and ‘agility’ were now at a monstrous level. Not to mention my ‘strength’ that I’d originally started with.

After a lot of thought, I’d come to a conclusion –

I simply didn’t know how to use the ability properly.

Since it couldn’t be used naturally like ‘strength’ or ‘agility’, there had to be a special way to use it.

So, I’d asked Cocoa directly.

“Can’t you just feel it?”

“Huh?”

“To see the path. If I go this way, I’ll come out over there… you feel anything like that?”

“Feel? I don’t?”

“No?”

“No.”

“I guess, here… I’m not going with you?”

“That’s right.”

“But you can’t even feel the path…?”

Cocoa shook her head as if in frustration.

“Idiot Squatjaw. I guess… right, of course there’s a reason behind the feeling. You have to look to see the path, and you have to search to find it.”

“Oh… reason? So there’s some kind of basis?”

“It’s just like when you usually find your way. If you have a map, you look at it, and if there’s a scent you’re following, you sniff…”

It sounded absurd.

“Which map did you ever look at to find a path? And smell? Do you take me for a bloodhound?” 

“It’s like that. You just have to first understand the environment around you. Then you can look for the path.”

“Aren’t you just trying to catch a trail with your senses?”

“Um, I don’t know. Maybe?”

“…”

After a few rounds of, ‘It’s like this I guess?’, and interrogating that talented weirdo for a while, I was able to establish three main processes for finding a path.

1. Setting a goal.

– This is the most basic step, since you can’t even start if you don’t specifically set the goal you’re aiming for.

I’d taken this for granted, but piecing Cocoa’s words together, I’d actually been terribly neglecting this area. 

It wasn’t just about what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go, or who I wanted to meet. She said that I had to constantly rehearse and visualize my goal, without being distracted for even a single moment. Most people get onto a wrong path because they forget to focus, even if only for an eyeblink.

I immediately thought of my goal for the day.

Naturally, that was the position of that bastard, Firmino.

‘No, wait. Should I find that baldie instead? I’d like to deal with him first.’

After thinking for a while, I changed my aim to the baldie. It seemed better to find him first, because there were some things I had to check before my final battle with Firmino.

2. Search for clues.

– This step is where you find the starting point of the path. The key is to discover something ‘unique and strange’ mixed in the surrounding environment. Cocoa described this as ‘the step to open the way’.

“A clue for the path…? What do you mean?”

“Something that catches your eye. It’ll just stand out.”

“So what exactly is it?”

“It’s different each time. Different in shape, colour, and form. Obviously, it has to be strange. And most importantly, you have to understand what makes it different. That’s where it starts.”

I quickly looked around.

An alley between the buildings. A place where the front and back were blocked by the building walls, and a large boulevard just a few blocks away.

‘Now, when I look around, do I see something different… something strange and unique…’

There was nothing.

None of it was ‘different’. It was just the same land, the same buildings, and the same walls.

After looking around for a while, I couldn’t find anything particularly ‘unique’.

‘So it’s not here?’

I considered taking another look for one last time, but then gave up.

I’d already spent enough time. If I obsessed about it any further, I might end up seeing even ordinary things as unique. That’s how human vision usually works.

3. Keep moving.

– If you don’t see a clue, immediately keep moving.

It was for this reason that I moved to the next block without hesitation.

Again, there was no path there.

Cocoa had said that no matter how good a guide is, setting a goal doesn’t mean that you can simply find the path on the spot. If you don’t see anything, you should just keep moving.

“Then where should I go?”

“Stupid Squatjaw. Where do you think? You go where you feel like going.”

“Mmm, that’s right. You really have to search based on your feelings.”

“Actually, you can try to designate a new path as the target in order to find it, but…”

“… What are you talking about?”

“No, just keep looking around. That’d be faster.”

The same was true for the next block.

I tried not to get nervous.

Not here, not there, not there either… But as long as I kept moving, I’d find it eventually.

After a while,

“There really is something different.”

After passing three blocks, I really found something ‘different’.

A set of footprints on the ground.

It wasn’t alone, of course, but it was completely different from the others around it. The footprints were leaking a faint yellow light.

My worries were laid to rest. My eyes could clearly tell the difference. It looked so strangely clear that I couldn’t help but notice it.

My ‘pathfinding eyes’ was growing little by little.

I immediately started trailing after the footprints.

The prints were spaced three to four meters apart, and the light shone brighter and brighter with each passing step.

At some point, I could recognize my destination even from a distance.

Blindingly shining footprints leading to the front door of a certain building.

‘I see.’

Creak–.

As soon as I opened the door, I saw a familiar face.

“Huh?”

“What?”

It was the baldie I’d been looking for.

He was with somebody else, seemingly an executive.

“Who sent you?”

“Have all those guys making a fuss been dealt with?”

He didn’t seem to remember me at all. Well, him remembering me might’ve been even more surprising.

Instead of responding, I took a close look.

The one who’d scared me stiff the first time we’d met.

The guy who’d demonstrated the difference in our ‘class’ to me, keeping me rooted in place with just his presence.

And most of all, the guy who’d made me feel ‘death’.

That man… was no longer here.

“What a wimp[1].”

“… What?”

“I’m saying you’re a wimp now.”

The baldie frowned as if he didn’t understand.

“You’ve been harassing our Cocoa for so long.”

“Cocoa…? Cocoa?”

And then,

“Ah, that little kid! What, you know her or something?”

The bald man burst into laughter once I mentioned Cocoa, as if he hadn’t noticed my earlier words.

The guy standing next to him frowned and stepped forward.

“Is that the problem now? Isn’t this guy is an enemy? He’s cheeky, too.”

“Ahaha, listen. Do you know how much that stupid little bitch pays me every week? A whopping ten million gold, ten million gold! She even believes she can be free one day. Oh dear. When I asked her where all the money was coming from…”

I didn’t hear any more.

I rushed in.

“That stinky mouth of yours…”

The executive standing next to him tried to stop me, startled, but he was too slow.

Th-ud.

My left fist hit his jaw and blew him away, and I then was facing the baldie.

Then,

“What do you think I should do with it?”

I gripped him by the jaws with my right hand, and lifted him up.

“K, kh, kggh!”

The baldie, startled, also tried to resist, but soon fell silent as he felt the power in my grip.

He must’ve guessed what his fate would be if he moved even the slightest, seeing what’d happened to his subordinate.

“I should’ve looked for you earlier, instead of so late. How hard that kid must’ve had it.”

The baldie’s eyes were slowly filling with fear.

Perhaps because he felt the threat of his life being snuffed out, bubbling in the clenched fist of my other hand.

“Ah, don’t worry. Your mouth will be fine. You have to be able to say you’re sorry, right? Of course, I can’t promise about the rest of you.”

Soon after,

“Agh, agggggh!”

The building was filled with the screams of a bald-headed man.

Again, I’d been right.

I left the building with a slightly refreshed mind.

The verification process was over.

These guys weren’t strong.

It was one of the reasons why I’d swaggered in with so much confidence. Because I’d expected myself to be much stronger than them.

The basis behind my reasoning was simple.

These guys were ‘characters created from the beginning’.

According to my guess, these guys were set up as quite strong, so they couldn’t appear early on and got pushed back to a long time later. When they did, they were an opponent that Leo or Kiriko couldn’t easily deal with by themselves.

But rather because of that, I thought these guys would be easier.

At best, their strength was comparable to the Leo of the beginning of the work.

And it wasn’t like Leo had already achieved some tremendous growth compared to that time. The cliché ‘crisis growth buffs’ or ‘rage growth buffs’ hadn’t been applied to him yet.

But nevertheless, Leo enjoys the benefit of getting slowly yet incrementally stronger as the story progresses, or when a new strong character appears. This is a kind of correction effect for the protagonist, and a kind of ‘plausibility reinforcement’ ensuring that he’s poised to win at every moment of crisis.

For example, Leo must’ve had already become even stronger just by the appearance of a character named Karl Zayed.

But these guys were different. They weren’t Leo, who could get stronger without any basis. Because they were not the protagonist.

And I, right now, was much stronger than Leo.

Perhaps in the future, when these guys would be slated to formally appear in the work, they could be the opponent of the current me, but that’d be a long time in coming.

I considered my next opponent.

The baldie had already been given a beating, so now only Firmino remained.

Now that two officers had been knocked down inside the city, he had to have noticed the presence of another raider inside the defences.

I had to quickly find Firmino before the guys who’d left the house came back and made themselves a nuisance.

I immediately targeted him and started searching for a path.

And surprisingly,

“Huh?”

The ‘difference’ was quickly discovered. It’d have been weirder to miss it, honestly. Because it was right there. And because there were so many.

‘… What is this?’

There were countless shining footprints on the ground.

And they were all headed towards the path up to the surface.

What this meant, was clear.

Firmino was now on the surface.

In that moment, it was as if lightning had struck inside my head.

“… Chinuavi.”

My feet had already started moving, faster than my thoughts.

I raced up towards the surface, my path a blaze of thousands of shining footprints.

Editor’s Notes:

[1] 좁밥 (lit. narrow rice) is an expression usually used to describe kids who are lacking in some way or easily fall apart.