Not a barbarian warrior.

This wasn’t the first time Eugene had returned from the brink of death, but it was the first time he had experienced it so many times in such a short period.

In addition to the psychological fatigue, his slashed arms and legs weighed him down, preventing him from getting up.

The blinking frequency of his eyeballs gradually decreased, and at some point, his eyelids became heavy and didn’t open after closing.

As his consciousness slowly sank into deep darkness and his senses became dim to the point where even pain wasn’t felt, it was then that:

Eugene! Get up! Quickly!

“Huff!”

Eugene’s upper body, which seemed like it would never rise again, suddenly shot up.

Eugene looked around, turning his head with wide-open eyes. The owner of the voice that had woken him was nowhere to be seen.

“Daisy…”

Thinking that the small girl had saved him, Eugene hurriedly got up.

First, he took off his leather gauntlets and poured first aid medicine over his wounds. When the white powder touched the wounds, a stinging pain arose. But there was no time to dwell on it.

There were also torn wounds above his elbows, and blood was flowing from his thighs. He sprinkled all the remaining first aid medicine and wrapped bandages he had taken out from his backpack, hastily finishing the treatment. Only then could he catch his breath.

Except for feeling slightly dizzy from losing quite a bit of blood, it wasn’t too bad. No bones or organs were injured, so he would be fine after some rest.

Still, it wasn’t time to completely relax yet.

Eugene was inside a forest. He had rushed here so urgently that he didn’t know whose territory this was. It would be better to hurry and take shelter before encountering any unmanageable monsters.

He first checked the corpse fallen next to the backpack. When he pulled out the arrow stuck in the forehead, the arrowhead covered in dark red blood was slightly broken at the tip.

‘I’ll need to take this to a blacksmith for repair.’

Eugene roughly wiped the blood off the arrowhead and kept it, then started stripping the corpse.

He acquired a gambeson of suitable thickness, leather gloves and boots, a spear made of sturdy oak, and a pouch containing a few silver and copper coins.

Not satisfied with just that, he also took all the tunic, pants, and even the belt the guy had been wearing. These too would all be money if sold at the market.

After stripping everything the corpse had been wearing, all that was left was a pair of loose boxer-style underwear. With that, Eugene turned and headed towards where the other corpses were.

Next was the corpse of the guy who had died swinging an axe.

After pulling out the dagger stuck in his neck and retrieving the throwing knife embedded in his arm, he picked up the battle axe that had fallen to the ground. Then, he stripped the guy’s body one by one.

“Hmm… This gambeson seems usable…”

His build was similar to Eugene’s, and the torn left arm part could be repaired. When he stripped off and tried on the black gambeson the guy had been wearing, it felt very sturdy. When he opened the torn left arm part and looked inside, it was filled with thickly layered linen and wool.

Eugene, with a satisfied face, continued to lay hands on the corpse. Like before, this guy too was left naked except for his underwear.

“Now all that’s left is to strip Marlon…”

Eugene put down the loot he had gathered next to his backpack and walked towards Marlon’s corpse. As he approached close enough to see Marlon’s face clearly, Eugene frowned and narrowed his eyes.

Marlon’s face was, in a word, a mess. It was so battered that his original appearance was unrecognizable.

“To think I did this…”

This wasn’t the first time Eugene had killed someone. For him, who had to wander in places beyond the reach of law and order, uninvited guests like Marlon’s group appeared from time to time.

Each time, Eugene either fought back with weapons or ran away at full speed. Sometimes it was both, like today. And he survived every time.

Still, he had never killed someone so cruelly before. To beat someone to death with bare fists until their head was crushed… This went beyond self-defense and didn’t align with Eugene’s inner sense of morality and ethics.

With an expression of disbelief, Eugene felt a sense of guilt rising.

‘But I had to do this to survive… There was clearly no other way… So… It couldn’t be helped… It couldn’t be helped…’

Eugene repeated these words to himself as he quietly laid hands on Marlon’s corpse. Soon, he too ended up in the same state as his companions, wearing only underwear.

Thus, Eugene collected all the loot from Marlon’s group and neatly packed it into a sack he had taken out from his backpack.

With the already heavy backpack plus the sack full of weapons and clothes, the weight was considerable.

But what could he do? This was all money.

Eugene hurried his steps, planning to move slowly after getting out of the forest quickly.

“Huff… huff…”

When he hurriedly got out of the forest, it was still bright daylight. Eugene returned to the fork in the road where he had met Marlon’s group.

‘They said it wasn’t a lie that there was a craftsman named Malika in Carlisle. If so…’

Eugene turned his body towards the direction of the fortress city Carlisle. Just as he was about to take a step, a thought suddenly struck him.

‘Didn’t these guys say they camped nearby? Since they came all the way here after receiving a request from Carlisle, they must have had quite a lot of luggage…’

With a hopeful heart, Eugene entered the bushes beyond the fork in the road and soon discovered the place where Marlon’s group had camped. There, three backpacks containing their luggage were left behind.

“Hmm… Let’s see what’s inside.”

Eugene opened each of their backpacks one by one.

Spare clothes, blankets, sleeping bags, waterproof oiled cloth, dried foods like biscuits and dried jerky, rope, daggers, pouches containing bug-repelling herbs and medicinal herbs, soap… and many other miscellaneous items that weren’t listed.

Wondering how to carry all this, Eugene started packing mostly valuable items while discarding things that wouldn’t fetch much money. After a while, the three backpacks were barely reduced to two.

Eugene knew this was all greed, but he couldn’t help it. Such opportunities didn’t come often.

‘It’ll be a bit tough, but I just need to endure a little. If I can just get to the next village and buy a small cart, I can travel comfortably after that.’

Eugene fixed the sack containing the loot on top of the backpack he was carrying on his back, and hung one backpack on each arm from those on the ground.

The heavier gravity weighed down on Eugene’s body, and it felt like the wounds on his arms and legs were screaming and opening up.

Eugene ignored all of that and took a step forward.

‘This is all worth how much money.’

Leaving deep footprints, he set off on his journey. For a while, pain and joy coexisted in his journey.

A setback in Eugene’s greedy journey occurred just a day later.

Everything went well up to the point of arriving at a neighboring village with the luggage and purchasing a cart.

However, perhaps due to overexertion, he started to develop a fever, and his head felt dizzy.

Feeling his condition gradually worsening, Eugene had to rest in the village without moving. He planned to rent a suitable empty room and lie down for a while until he felt better.

The symptoms accompanying fever and dizziness soon worsened, with his body burning up and sweat pouring like rain. With extreme headaches and chills added to the mix, Eugene could only let out painful groans with his eyes closed.

No one paid attention to the strange barbarian who suddenly visited the village. He suffered alone without anyone to nurse him.

As his mind gradually became foggy, Eugene chewed on the medicinal herbs that were in Marlon’s group’s backpacks, roughly ate meals with water and biscuits, and then collapsed like a dead rat.

Then he lost consciousness and fell asleep at some point.

Eugene opened his eyes in a completely black space. Marlon was standing in front of him. Marlon rushed towards Eugene.

Eugene closed the distance and threw him just like when he killed Marlon, then mounted his body and swung his fists wildly.

In the dream, he could see very clearly the process of Marlon’s face being destroyed.

Skin burst and blood flowed. Teeth fell out, the nose bridge collapsed, and cheekbones caved in. Still, the punching didn’t stop.

Eugene clearly tried to stop. But his body swung his arms on its own. At some point, Marlon moved his mouth. He was clearly saying something, but it couldn’t be heard.

The punching continued, and Marlon’s death was reproduced identically. After another Marlon died like that, Eugene opened his blood-stained fists and got up.

Eugene, who had been looking at Marlon’s battered face with shaking eyes, slowly raised his head at the presence of someone.

Another Marlon was jumping out holding a sword. Suddenly, a sword was gripped in his own hand.

‘Ah… damn it…’

Even though Eugene was aware that this was a dream, he couldn’t do anything.

Defeating the newly appeared Marlon again, laying him down and beating him to death, and then another new Marlon appearing, beating him to death…

In this repeating cycle, Eugene belatedly realized.

This was a punishment that Kim Woojin was inflicting on Eugene.

Despite it being a punishment he was inflicting on himself, Eugene didn’t know how to end it. Meanwhile, another Marlon met his death.

How long had it been like this… The hundred and twenty-first Marlon died with his face being crushed by Eugene. Now Eugene’s entire body was dyed in bright red blood.

He defeated the hundred and twenty-second Marlon who had appeared again. He swung his fists, crushing and tearing apart his face.

All this time, Marlon moved his mouth saying something in the same way. In the long repetition, Eugene finally succeeded in reading his lip movements.

Help me.

And at that moment, Eugene woke up from his sleep.

“Huu… huu…”

He breathed heavily, drenched in sweat. His eyes, which had just regained consciousness, were somehow empty.

As his rough breathing slowly subsided and his pounding heart calmed down, life gradually returned to his eyes.

Eugene tried to recall the fading nightmare in his mind but couldn’t. It was because his stomach, which had been empty for nearly three days, was sounding an alarm.

‘Let’s try to get up first…’

Eugene slowly got up from his place, went out to buy oatmeal porridge, and came back. He slowly chewed to soothe his stomach, and checked his body condition while changing the bandages.

The fever had subsided, and there was no headache or chills. The wounds were healing well, and putting food in his stomach gave him strength. This was enough to move around sufficiently.

The sun was slowly rising in the sky.

It was just the right time to leave the village now.

Eugene packed his things, loaded them onto the cart, and slipped out of the village as if fleeing.

The villagers who saw him staying quietly and then leaving could only inwardly feel relieved.

Thus, it was ten days after Eugene had left Daisy’s village that he arrived at the fortress city of Carlisle.