Savage Ascension: Starting with God-Tier Plunder Ability-Chapter 51: Cold Calculation

Rowan didn’t run recklessly.

’I need to be calm at times like this.’

Since his own life wasn’t hanging by a thread, becoming cold was easy. Sen’s face flickered before him, but Rowan wasn’t one to be swayed by such sentimentality. He knew better than anyone this world’s cruelty and selfishness.

When bandits ravaged the village, unlike Rowan, who thought they should join forces to overcome that crisis while simultaneously harboring the greedy thought of opening black doors, hunter Geric’s choice was to run.

Life here, where individuals were considered more important than the collective. The way they responded to problems gave Rowan great enlightenment.

’Being swayed by black dreams is unavoidable.’

Because it was greed too great for an individual to handle, losing your head for a moment was understandable. But now he had to forcibly abandon a modern person’s common sense.

Rather than the young blood that jumps recklessly for a drunk middle-aged man who fell on the subway tracks, he had to stay silent and turn away even when hearing screams of someone dying.

That was the survival method for living in this world.

"Caw!"

Kaiya landed on Rowan, who was moving covertly, crouched low and going slowly.

"Kaiya! Are you sure there are no enemies nearby?"

"Caw."

He fed Kaiya a dried wild strawberry. Wild strawberry varieties with taste and texture most similar to raisins couldn’t be found in forests and mountains, so it was one of the few snacks, and one of the few things that gave enthusiasm to the crow Kaiya in urgent situations.

Because even animals knew damn well what tasted good. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Even puppies get tempted by chicken over dog food.

Kaiya noticeably moved his tongue quickly, planning to savor it.

’Should I pick up speed?’

As soon as Rowan secured his safety, he quickly increased his speed. Meeting up with the other mercenaries would be difficult. He just had no choice but to run as fast as possible toward where the sound came from. This was quite an altruistic action.

But Rowan didn’t realize that. Since he’d used it for himself in the initial response, he thought it was sufficiently selfish. Fortunately, there was Rear-picker Bedum, who’d confirmed in advance that Rowan would get entangled in the orcs’ scheme.

"Rowan!"

Since Rowan was running so roughly, Bedum shouted harshly.

"Bedum? Whose scream was it?"

When Rowan spoke without a drop of sweat, Bedum was inwardly surprised.

’Tremendous stamina. The title of Deep Forest Hunter isn’t for nothing.’

Rowan’s ability to run through mountains was amazing. But not even being out of breath showed how tremendous his lung capacity was. He was also forcibly expanding his lungs with modern training methods. He’d even bivouacked on mountain peaks at high altitudes.

Just living in places with even slightly lower oxygen increased lung capacity, and doing even a little exercise there made him short of breath while his body wasn’t tired.

That training method was a training regimen even modern people with only superficial knowledge of vast information could devise.

"It’s Sen’s scream. And heading there isn’t a good decision. There’s bound to be an orc trap."

Rowan seemed to vaguely understand the reason, so he naturally stopped walking. But he asked for the exact reason.

"Why?"

Bedum scratched the back of his head. His hesitation was brief. To bring along Rowan, the combatant, he had no choice but to talk about orcs, at least partially. Rowan was the one who’d charged out into the darkness and stood at the front when Mushroom Mountain Village youths tried to rob them.

That bravery would definitely turn into recklessness this time.

’The situation is in the orc’s hands. If we leave him to die, greater damage could occur.’

"Orcs’ strength is tremendous. There’s no way they’d let Sen scream like that. If we dance to their tune, everyone might die like dogs."

Rowan obediently nodded and followed behind Bedum. Bedum skillfully descended the mountain, choosing only the roughest and steepest places.

"Huff. Huff."

Bedum breathed roughly but never stopped and increased his descending speed. Rowan was relaxed. Because he had his own know-how for descending mountains.

’I just need to focus on maintaining controllable speed.’

One piece of that know-how was the act of only trying to reduce speed forcefully. Human two legs were useless at reducing speed. It was different from braking on all fours. Also, because they were long, maintaining balance in places that weren’t flat was difficult too.

That’s why it was scary, so you had no choice but to descend with strength tensed throughout your body. That was exactly what Bedum was doing.

’I used to be like that too.’

No matter how much you climbed mountains, getting know-how or not was ultimately your own responsibility. If a mercenary who didn’t learn couldn’t grasp it, they’d have to descend mountains with difficulty their whole life.

’To maintain speed, you have to brake by applying force strongly when landing.’

That was difficult. It was close to impossible to reduce the sense of speed created while descending on two legs. That’s why Bedum was also descending while putting in all his strength and sometimes grabbing bushes.

Rowan angled his feet slightly to give lateral surface force. It was very dangerous behavior. If done wrong, his ankle could roll, but he started descending while boldly angling his feet sideways.

He confirmed landing spots very stably, but didn’t just look at one place. He quickly moved his eyes to also check where he needed to go ahead.

It looked dangerous at a glance, but actually it wasn’t. Since his body also turned sideways, it was no different from descending sideways.

’Descending sideways is more comfortable.’

And this descent method wasn’t know-how gained from Rowan in this life. He’d learned it during military training in his previous life, when he had trouble walking and suffered from ingrown toenails. Going straight down, he’d felt great pain from his big toe’s toenail.

He didn’t experience it during normal walking, but every time he descended mountains, he felt pain from being pressed down, so if he went down slowly he’d get cursed out terribly.

That’s how he obtained sideways walking. Rowan’s body, which had no ingrown toenails and instead had a body like a warrior’s, took that know-how to another level.