The Martial Unity

The two of them had been walking for quite some time. There was no point in sprinting when they didn’t have a destination yet. Furthermore, Rui needed time to scan his surroundings and explore direction along all three hundred and sixty degrees around himself. He didn’t bother reading all the space curvature all around him within a certain radius. Instead, he focused all of his reading in one particular direction at any given moment, sweeping across his surroundings across time by individually scanning each direction to the maximum distance, replicating Radar mechanics.

Thus he needed to take his time, if they traveled too fast, then he wouldn’t thoroughly be able to sweep his surroundings. The two of them chatted a bit more about lighter topics before Rui paused, abruptly turning his head forward.

“What happened?” Kane grew more wary and vigilant. “Is it a monster?”

“Not exactly,” Rui murmured. “I think I just happened across something interesting. Let’s check it out.”

He began picking up the pace heading towards the strange stimulus he felt in his sensory sweep.

It wasn’t long before he reached it. He narrowed his eyes, as his expression grew more grim.

Kane quickly caught up as well, his eyes widened as he too beheld what Rui had sensed. “Is that a human?”

Rui nodded. “A corpse, but…”

He didn’t even need to complete his words. The corpse had a sickly black color to it, which immediately suggested poison or venom to Rui. That wasn’t what was shocking about this corpse to Rui, however.

“This man… was a normal human being, when he was alive,” Rui’s expression under his mask morphed into one of shock.

This should have been entirely impossible!

Humans were unable to enter the inner ring of the Adventurer Ring town due to the sheer pressure that the dungeon exerted on their psyches. That meant there was no way for humans to enter the Shionel Dungeon without suffering traumatizing and crippling fear and stress. Many would even be rendered unconscious, while many would lose their sanity.

There were very few humans that could withstand the pressure of the Squire Realm. The old blacksmith that Rui had met in the town of Hajin, as well as some remarkable men in the Shionel Confederation were probably the only exceptions.

The fact that a human being had made it so deep into the Shionel Dungeon was something that Rui was unable to wrap his head around.

Was this human being one such remarkable person who possessed otherworldly mental fortitude?

“A normal human being?” Kane gasped, before cringing at the disgusting rotting odor while he knelt down to take a good look at the corpse. “You’re right, these remaining scraps of clothes are not those of the Martial attire of a Martial Artist.”

Kane keenly noticed that the surviving scraps covering the corpse were not those of a Martial Squire. Martial Squire attire was made out of very special esoteric fabrics that could at the very least survive their power, even if they could not offer any protection to the wearer.

“Not only that,” Rui murmured. “This body is most certainly not that of a Martial Squire. It’s not a Martial body, it’s that of a normal human.”

He grabbed a rock, kicking it at the dead skin of the corpse. The motion immediately opened up a tear in the skin.

“Even a dead Martial Squire’s body would not be that fragile,” he remarked with narrowed eyes. “On top of that, observe the muscle tone and definition and body fat to weight percentage, it deviates from Martial Squires. This person has never undergone the equivalent of the Foundation Stage of the Martial Academy. In fact, this person is most certainly not a fighter in any way.”

“That makes sense,” Kane nodded. “That makes this discovery even more bizarre. How on Earth did a non-combatant human enter the Shionel Dungeon so deeply, and even die here?”

That was the question that begged itself to both of them. Neither of them could understand how such a thing came to be.

“This mystery isn’t exactly relevant to us, but it’s a shame that we cannot find out anything about this person,” Kane sighed.

“That’s not true,” Rui refuted him as he keenly scrutinized the body. “This person most likely did not live in the heart of the Shionel Confederation, and most likely was part of the lowest class of the state.”

“How can you possibly figure that out?” Kane frowned.

Rui pointed to a scar on the man’s neck. “He was cut quite deeply on his neck, but the scar still remains, furthermore the wound was professionally stitched and healed naturally from the looks of it. That meant that there was no usage of potions during the treatment, which automatically puts a bar on the economic class this person could have been a part of and also eliminates the possibility of being a resident of most places in the Shionel Dungeon, given how widespread the application of potions in medicine is.”

He felt the fabric of the remaining scraps with his fingers. “Simple cotton. That’s not proof of anything, but still, it’s frankly hard to fathom what a person like this would be doing anywhere near the Shionel Dungeon, let alone go anywhere inside it, let alone go this deep.”

“What else can you deduce from this corpse?” Kane asked with interest.

“Based on the degree of coagulation and rotting of blood I’d say it probably hasn’t been more than a few days since death,” Rui pointed at the tear in the skin that he had created half a minute ago, before turning to the arms of the corpse. “The biceps and triceps are much more underdeveloped compared to the muscles of the forearm. That indicates a profession, job, or lifestyle that involved rigorous use of the fingers and hands, but not of the entire arm. Most likely no manual labor, but a manual skilled profession. This is also further supported by the fact that the nails on his fingers are uniform while the toenails are messier.”