Chapter 2. The Club
by Foreigner Β· 2026-08-21
There was a boundary.
It wasn't drawn by anyone, yet it was clear.
The trees changed. Until now, there had been trees two or three times a person's height, standing at reasonable intervals. But from a certain point, the trees grew larger. They became thicker, taller, and intertwined with each other.
The light diminished.
The birdsong also diminished.
Gihun stood before that boundary and thought for a moment.
'.......Should I go back?'
If he went back, the problem was where he would go. Upstream was a cliff, and he couldn't climb a cliff. If he went sideways, he'd have to cross the river, but the river was wide.
'.......'
Gihun took a step forward.
It was Mount Dedon.
The first three days were about hunger.
On the fourth day, Gihun realized he had misunderstood something.
There was food in the mountains.
That was true. The problem was that there was very little of it that was edible.
Gihun picked a berry. It was red and plump.
The moment he was about to put it in his mouth, Aron's memory flashed.
'Loesberry. Three berries can kill an adult.'
Gihun threw the berry away.
'.......'
He threw the next one away too.
And the next one.
'What? There's nothing to eat here.'
He saw a mushroom.
'Poiman mushroom. If you eat it, you'll see hallucinations for three days.'
'.......'
He was a little curious about that one. Still, he threw it away.
In the end, what he ate on the fifth day was a root.
Its name didn't come to mind. However, Aron's memory contained something like this:
'Something soldiers chew during wartime. It has no taste, but it won't kill you.'
It had no taste.
Absolutely none.
As Gihun chewed it, he said a few words to Aron.
Aron: Hey.
Naturally, there was no answer.
Aron: Why do you know something like this?
Still, there was no answer.
Aron: No, but seriously, how do you know?
Gihun would later learn the answer to that question.
He hadn't learned it.
He had read it.
Aron loved books. He was the worst at anything physical, so he was always in the library.
The Continental Flora, volumes one and two. He read them when he was twelve.
He had never seen any of the actual plants.
Every night, Gihun stretched.
On the first day, he quit after ten minutes.
Aron: Ugh.
On the second day, it was fifteen minutes.
Aron: Aargh.
On the third day, twenty minutes.
Aron: Aaaargh.
On the fourth night, Gihun stood in the middle of the forest with his legs spread, looking at the sky, and thought,
'A monster is going to hear this and come.'
It actually came.
Something walked out from among the trees.
Gihun froze in his straddling stance.
It was about three meters tall.
Its arms reached its knees, and its hands were the size of two human heads. Its skin was green and looked damp. The center of its face was strangely crushed, and he couldn't tell if that was its original appearance or if it was injured.
Aron's memory provided a name.
Troll.
And next to it, another line was attached.
'If encountered alone, flee immediately.'
'.......'
Gihun liked that sentence.
He liked it very much.
Gihun stood up.
More precisely, he tried to stand up.
His legs wouldn't straighten.
Aron: Ugh.
The troll saw him.
Gihun rolled to the side.
A fist slammed into the spot where he had been sitting just moments before. Dirt flew up to a person's height.
Gihun scrambled away on all fours.
Aron: Ah, wait, wait a minute.
The troll did not wait a minute.
Gihun ran for thirty minutes that night.
To be precise, he ran for about twenty minutes and hung on a tree for about ten minutes.
Trolls couldn't climb trees.
Instead, they shook the trees.
Gihun hung at the top of the swaying tree, gritting his teeth and thinking.
'Why is that thing there?'
After a long while, the troll lost interest and left.
Gihun remained hanging for another hour after that.
After coming down, Gihun made a summary.
One, things like that live in this mountain.
Two, if you run, you can escape. That's a relief.
Three, but you can't escape every time.
Four, to escape, his legs need to be stretched.
From that day on, Gihun doubled his stretching time.
His screams also doubled.
Five days later, Gihun decided to make a club.
The reason was simple. His fists didn't have enough reach, his feet worked but were dangerous if he took too wide a stance, and a rock was a one-time throw.
He needed something to hold in his hand.
Gihun chose a suitable tree.
About the thickness of his forearm and the height of a person.
He grabbed it with both hands and pulled.
Snap.
It was uprooted.
Gihun stood for a moment, holding the uprooted tree.
'.......'
It had been pulled out by the roots.
Gihun put it down and looked at his hands. They were perfectly fine.
'.......'
When he lifted a rock, he just accepted it. Rocks move if you push them.
But a tree was a different matter.
Gihun picked up the tree again. Then he brushed off the dirt.
He broke off the branches. He snapped them with his hands. They broke easily.
After that, he had a decent-looking club.
Gihun swung it around.
'Oh.'
The weight was good.
After picking up the club, Gihun searched Aron's memories.
Twenty-three basic sword forms appeared again.
Gihun tried a few of them.
Form 3. A stance to parry an opponent's downward strike.
'.......'
It couldn't be parried with a club.
Form 7. A stance to step back half a pace and slash when an opponent attacks from the side.
'.......'
A club doesn't slash.
Form 12. A stance to circle when there are two or more opponents.
This one worked. Circling could be done with a club.
Gihun concluded that only three of the twenty-three forms were useful.
'It makes sense.'
Because it wasn't a sword.
So Gihun did something else.
He extracted only the theories from memory.
Swordsmanship ultimately came down to two things: distance and angle. The same applied to clubs and kicks. What he learned at the dojo was ultimately that.
Gihun swung his club every night.
One hundred downward strikes. One hundred horizontal swings. One hundred thrusts.
Thrusts weren't very effective with a club, but he did them anyway.
And two hundred kicks.
His groin slowly began to loosen up.
He encountered the second troll ten days later.
This time, Gihun saw it first.
It was eating something by the water. It was better not to look at what it was eating.
Gihun pressed himself against a tree and thought.
'Let's go back.'
He thought that.
But that day, Gihun had been starving for two days.
And next to what the troll was eating, there was one more thing it hadn't eaten yet.
It looked like a wild boar.
'.......'
Gihun gripped his club tighter.
'Just hit it once and run.'
That was the plan.
Plans usually don't work out that way.
The first hit landed well.
Gihun leaped from the tree and brought his club down. All the force of his weight, the fall, and his body's strength was concentrated in that blow.
It struck the troll's shoulder.
There was no *thwack* sound.
Instead, there was a *crunch*.
The troll toppled sideways.
'...Oh?'
Gihun reached out towards the wild boar.
The troll stood up.
'...Huh?'
Its shoulder, which had been twisted at an odd angle, snapped back into place right before his eyes. He heard the sound of bones realigning.
Gihun witnessed the scene up close.
'...'
And then Aron's memory arrived belatedly.
'Troll. Possesses regenerative abilities. Does not die from limb dismemberment.'
Aron.: Hey.
Gihun said.
Aron.: You should have told me that beforehand.
The troll swung its arm.
That day, Gihun hit the troll twenty-three times.
He knew because he counted.
Around the third hit, he thought his ribs might have broken. Around the tenth hit, he couldn't tell what was broken anymore. Around the fifteenth hit, his club split in half.
Gihun kept hitting it with the remaining half.
The troll kept getting back up.
'...'
After the twenty-third hit, Gihun stepped back.
He was completely out of breath. His arm wouldn't lift. He couldn't see out of his left eye, unsure if it was from blood flowing into it or swelling.
The troll was still standing.
Its body was a mess. But it was standing.
'...The head.'
Gihun thought.
If the body reattached, then the head...
Gihun threw the remaining half of the club.
The troll blocked it with its arm.
At that moment, Gihun lunged.
His foot landed on the troll's knee.
The knee buckled.
The troll collapsed, and at that moment, its head came to Gihun's eye level.
Gihun picked up a rock nearby.
It was the size of a human torso.
'.......'
He lifted it.
And brought it down.
Gihun sat there for a long time afterward.
The troll wasn't moving.
Gihun looked at his hands. They were trembling. Two of his fingernails were gone, and his finger joints were all scraped.
'.......'
Gihun dragged the wild boar to the riverside.
He started a fire. This time, it only took thirty minutes.
He roasted the meat.
It was delicious.
As Gihun ate it, he sorted out three things.
One, monsters die if their heads are crushed. At least trolls do.
Two, clubs break in one hit. He needed to make a thicker one.
Three, rocks are the strongest.
Gihun liked the third one the most.
A month passed like that.
Gihun learned how a day in these mountains went.
He would wake up in the morning and warm up. This now took an hour. It hurt, but if he didn't do it, he would die.
He would look for water. Animals came near the water. Monsters also came where animals came. So he would fetch water at dawn.
He would look for food. Aron's memories filtered out half of it. Half of the remaining half tasted bad.
During the day, he would walk. He would go downstream.
When the sun began to set, he would look for a place to sleep. The top of a tree was the safest.
And at night, he would train.
One hundred downward strikes.
One hundred swings.
Two hundred kicks.
One night, Gihun looked at his arm.
Muscles had formed.
'.......'
It was strange.
Muscles didn't form like this in just a month.
Gihun looked at it for a long time before pulling down his sleeve.
'It's a good thing.'
It was on the 34th day that he encountered a Hedge Spider.
It was the size of a human.
It had eight legs, the front two of which were long, and it used them to cross between trees. According to Aron's memories, it was a smaller species than a Giant Spider.
'If this is the small one, what's the big one like?'
The spider spat something from its mouth.
Gihun rolled to the side.
The web stuck to a tree. The tree bark melted.
'.......'
Gihun took a moment to collect his thoughts on the spot.
He couldn't get hit by that.
The spider spat a second time.
This time, he rolled and immediately stood up. The moment his feet touched the ground, he changed direction. Three steps to the side.
The third time.
Gihun leaped.
The web passed beneath his feet.
He folded his body in mid-air. He spun once. Then, as he landed, he kicked one of its legs.
Thud.
The spider wobbled.
Gihun spun again on the spot. This time, it was the club. It was a new one, much thicker than the first.
It hit its head.
The spider flipped over.
Gihun grabbed the club with both hands and brought it down.
Once.
Twice.
A third time wasn't needed.
Gihun stood there and checked his body.
He was fine.
'.......'
He was fine.
He hadn't been hit even once.
Gihun slung the club over his shoulder and stood there for a moment.
Something that had oozed from the spider was on his shoes. The smell was terrible.
Yet, he felt good.
'.......'
Gihun looked at that feeling for a moment and was a little surprised.
Because he was smiling.
He washed himself in the river.
The spider's essence had permeated his clothes to the point where they were unwearable.
As Gihun washed his clothes and body, he saw his reflection in the water.
He was different from a month ago.
His hair was longer, and his face was tanned. His cheekbones were more prominent, and his eyes had deepened. A line had formed on his shoulder.
He was still handsome.
'.......'
Gihun found that a bit strange.
Even after a month of hardship, his face hadn't suffered. His wounds healed as soon as they appeared. The hole the wolf had made in his left arm was only a faint mark.
Gihun looked at his palms.
Calluses were starting to form.
'.......'
He liked that the most.
It was on the 41st day that he discovered the village.
More precisely, it had been a village.
Gihun saw it as he emerged from the forest. At first, he thought it was just an empty lot. But then he saw roofs between the trees.
There were twelve houses.
Gihun walked towards them.
As he walked, his steps slowed.
It was because of the smell.
The doors were broken.
All of them were broken inwards. This meant they had been forced open from the outside.
Gihun stood in front of the first house and looked inside.
Then he turned his gaze.
He looked at the second house too.
He looked at the third house too.
From the fourth house onwards, he didn't look.
There was a well in the middle of the village. Something was cowering beside it.
As Gihun approached, it raised its head.
It was small. About the size of a dog. Its snout was red.
It was eating something.
Gihun looked at it.
And picked up his club.
Gihun killed everything that was in that village that day.
There were six of them.
Two tried to escape but couldn't.
Then he gathered the people who were in the village in one place.
He couldn't gather all of them. Some were not in human form. He moved those too. His hands kept trembling as he moved them, but Gihun just kept moving them.
He couldn't move one.
It was a woman.
She was holding a child, and her arms were stiff.
Gihun tried to pry them apart.
He tried twice and then stopped.
Gihun picked them both up.
They were the lightest.
He counted thirty-seven.
Nine were children.
Gihun laid them in the middle of the village and stacked wood on top of them.
It took half a day to gather the wood.
It took ten minutes to light the fire.
The fire burned all night.
Gihun sat in front of it.
He sat and did nothing.
'.......'
The strange thing was that he wasn't sad.
They were strangers. He didn't know their names or their faces. There was no reason to be sad.
But his hands kept trembling.
Gihun tucked his hands between his knees.
The fire crackled.
Gihun tried not to think about anything for a long time.
But thoughts kept coming back.
These people must have been alive until yesterday. They must have eaten, drawn water, and scolded their children. Someone must have planned to do something today, and someone else must have planned to do something tomorrow.
And it was all over.
Gihun had never thought such thoughts in his twenty-two years of life.
He didn't expect anything from anyone and didn't wish for anything. So he lost nothing. That was comfortable.
It should be comfortable now too.
Because they were strangers.
Aron: ......Ha.
Gihun looked at the sky.
Two moons hung there.
Aron: ......Why did you save me?
A voice came out.
Gihun was a little surprised after saying it. He hadn't intended to.
There was no answer.
It was natural.
There was no one he had asked.
At dawn, Gihun covered the ashes with dirt.
Then he searched the village.
He felt no guilt. Dead people don't need things.
A flint. A little dried meat. An old leather pouch. A jar with a little salt left.
And a piece of paper hanging on the wall.
It was a map.
It was hand-drawn and half-torn. Gihun unfolded it and matched it with Aron's memories.
One mountain. One river. And a dot to the east.
There was writing next to the dot.
Seton.
Gihun folded it and put it in the pouch.
Then he left the village.
He never looked back.