Chapter 42. Dragon Token Exchange (1)

The Forest of Beginnings was engulfed in a fierce snowstorm for the first time in a long while.

Despite it being the afternoon with the sun still up, the forest exuded a dark and gloomy atmosphere.

Everywhere, the cadets were hunkered down in their respective shelters, waiting for the snowstorm to subside.

Most of the cadets were at their mental and physical limits due to the survival test that had lasted over a month.

Given the situation, the atmosphere could have been quite depressing, but surprisingly, the cadets' mood was not bad overall.

This was because January 1st was approaching.

Of course, what the cadets were waiting for was not the New Year.

The fact that they could finally escape this tedious forest in just two days was what made them happy.

Most of the cadets' minds were filled with one thought.

'If I just hold on a little longer… I’ll become the 50th cohort of the Cradle!'

That hope seemed almost within reach.

On that day, as the cadets gradually relaxed their tension in the face of that hope.

Despair crept in, mixed with the snowstorm that raged like a torrent.

* * *

The Forest of Beginnings was shrouded in darkness due to the dark clouds that blocked the sky.

Whooosh—

In the pitch-black darkness, a faint light emitted from a small, crudely constructed hut made of intertwined branches.

Though it was more like a house made of snow, it was a sufficient shelter to block the biting cold wind.

Dennis Wayne, crouching inside, clicked his tongue as he watched the fierce snowstorm.

"What the hell is wrong with this weather? It’s been chaos from start to finish."

Although he grumbled, he was secretly satisfied with the current situation.

'At least this is much better than the beginning.'

In the early days, he didn’t know how to make a fire and couldn’t obtain food, so he had to endure for days, swallowing only the cold snow.

Compared to that, the current situation with a small hut and a campfire was nothing short of revolutionary.

'This is all thanks to the shop!'

The shop he encountered on his way to ring the bell, having decided to give up.

The taste of the tosaba he ate there was something he would never forget until the day he died.

Of course, he had spent all the silver coins he had, but he didn’t regret that decision at the time.

'Thanks to that one tosaba, I regained the courage and hope to keep going!'

With that renewed courage and hope, Dennis steadily guided other cadets who were about to give up like him to the shop.

'Good things should be shared, yeah!'

Of course, thanks to this, he received a small amount of food and flint as a reward.

'In the end, they found out about the shop sooner because of me… so, it was a win-win situation, right?'

Having rationalized the fact that he had sold out others, Dennis cast his gaze outside again.

As he watched the snowflakes fall, he sighed softly.

"Ah, if only time would pass quickly…"

Why did time seem to drag so much?

The remaining two days felt like two years.

"Haah…"

Dennis’s deep sigh turned into a white mist in the cold weather.

Just as he was sighing deeply.

"Huh?"

Dennis noticed something moving in the snowstorm far away.

His brows furrowed in response.

'What’s that…?'

At first, he thought he had seen it wrong.

But it wasn’t.

'Hmm…?'

A dark, indistinct shape moving in the dim light.

The movement gradually grew larger.

"Wha?!"

It quickly dashed toward Dennis’s hut, piercing through the fierce snowstorm.

Only then did he realize that the moving shape was a person.

"Wh-what?!"

Startled, Dennis hastily drew his sword.

However, the 'dark shape' was even faster than Dennis’s reaction.

Swish—

A silver flash cut through the snowstorm.

Dennis instinctively swung his sword at it.

Clang!

Thud—

Immediately after the collision, Dennis felt a sharp pain in his arm and shoulder.

'What kind of strength?!'

A single collision.

It tore his grip, and the sword he lost flew far away.

At the same time, the silver flash lightly grazed Dennis’s cheek and split his hut in half.

The entire process took about ten seconds.

Only then did the silver flash transform back into a sword.

Click—

Dennis fell on his buttocks, startled by the cold edge of the sword at his neck.

Thud—

The hut was blown away, and the campfire Dennis had lit was about to be extinguished by the swirling snowstorm.

Meanwhile, Dennis could see the mysterious attacker who had pointed a sword at his neck.

'Black Sword Soldier?'

The attacker was a man in black clothing.

But he wasn’t a Black Sword Soldier.

He looked too young for that.

Maybe only a couple of years older than Dennis?

Moreover, the black clothing the man wore was the same as Dennis’s.

'Another cadet?'

But he didn’t think so.

The man’s clothing was the same as the cadets’, but there was one difference.

'That’s… a shoulder badge?'

A yellow shoulder badge on the man’s shoulder.

No cadet had a badge like that.

Drip—

Thick blood trickled down Dennis’s cheek.

The man’s eyes were cold as he watched.

Then, a colder voice came from his lips.

"Your skills are trash, and I bet your Dragon Token is a Yellow Dragon Token."

As he said this, the man’s sword swung quickly.

Whoosh—

The sharp sword cut through Dennis’s clothes, turning them into rags.

Faced with the sharp killing intent, Dennis froze, unable to move.

And at that moment.

Clunk—

Something hard caught in Dennis’s clothes.

"This is it."

The man’s sword tip flicked it up.

'What?!'

Dennis’s eyes widened as he saw his Yellow Dragon Token soar right in front of him.

For a moment, it felt like time had slowed down, and all his attention was focused on the Yellow Dragon Token.

Thanks to this, he could sense the silver flash flying toward his Yellow Dragon Token.

Little by little.

The Yellow Dragon Token and the sword gradually drew closer.

And finally, when the silver blade touched the Yellow Dragon Token.

'Huh?'

Dennis inwardly screamed in despair.

Ssssssh—

'No, no, no!'

But the attacker mercilessly cut through Dennis’s Yellow Dragon Token, despite his inner screams.

Thud— Thud—

The Yellow Dragon Token, made of copper, was sliced like a piece of wood.

The sword struck four times in the air.

Clunk—

The Yellow Dragon Token fell to the ground in eight pieces.

"Ah…"

Dennis stared blankly at the scattered pieces of his Dragon Token.

He felt as if what had just happened was a dream.

'My… my… Dragon Token?'

In the Forest of Beginnings, the Dragon Token was like life itself.

The fact that his Dragon Token was shattered meant that his life was also shattered.

'Is this… is this the end?'

How did I survive for a month?

I only need to hold on for two more days.

In two days, I’ll become a member of the Cradle.

The hope that was within reach had completely evaporated.

Especially after witnessing his Dragon Token shatter right in front of him, the sense of despair and helplessness was indescribable.

"Aah… no… nooo!"

This time, Dennis screamed out loud and gathered the scattered pieces of his Yellow Dragon Token with trembling hands.

Meanwhile, the attacker, who had been inspecting Dennis, frowned.

"Tch, you’re just a piece of trash."

The attacker, who seemed displeased, clicked his tongue and coldly shouted at Dennis, who was still in shock.

"Get lost. You don’t deserve to be my junior. You’re just a piece of garbage."

Leaving those cruel words, the attacker left.

A short while later, Dennis, who had finally regained some composure, quietly repeated the attacker’s words.

"Junior…?"

He stared blankly at the direction the attacker had disappeared, his eyes filled with moisture.

* * *

At the time when the desperate screams of the cadets began to echo throughout the Forest of Beginnings.

There was one person who was letting out a happy scream.

"Hehehe! I’m rich!"

Jingle jingle—

Yuri’s face, rubbing against the heavy, bulging bag of coins, looked like a well-fed cat.

Behind her.

The stockpile of supplies that had been piled up in one corner of the hideout was completely gone.

In its place was a sturdy wooden box.

Yuri alone knew the secret that two more bags of coins, similar in size to the one she was hugging, were inside the box.

"Ah, this heavy feeling… it’s so good, isn’t it?"

Although they weren’t real currency, she had never possessed this much silver in her life, so she was enjoying a sense of vicarious satisfaction.

'If this were real gold…'

Through this incident, the total amount of silver coins Yuri had collected exceeded 200,000.

Including the 100,000 silver coins she originally had.

If this were real gold, it would be an astounding 300,000 gold.

Thinking about it, a hint of regret crept into Yuri’s eyes.

'With so many cadets, I only got 230,000 silver coins…'

The secret of the numbers engraved on the silver coins.

It belonged to the latter of the two scenarios Yuri had predicted.

The number of silver coins in the bag varied depending on how one entered the Cradle.

A Yellow Dragon Token obtained through a donation recommendation was worth 500.

A cadet recommended by a Silver Dragon Token holder was worth 3,000.

A cadet recommended by a Gold Dragon Token holder was worth 10,000.

'For those recommended by a White Dragon Token holder… probably around 30,000 to 50,000.'

In other words, the reason she received 100,000 silver coins was because she had been recommended by Johann, the Black Dragon Token holder.

And the 100,000 silver coins she received thanks to Johann were an enormous amount.

'Out of the 503 cadets, only about thirty didn’t use my shop.'

Most of the cadets with Yellow Dragon Tokens had used her shop to buy items.

During this process, over 95% of the silver coins from the Yellow Dragon Tokens became hers.

Even so, it was only 230,000 silver coins.

Yuri, who had received 100,000 silver coins alone.

"I never thought I’d benefit from the old man like this."

If this unique silver coin really became the currency in the Cradle as she had predicted…

'I’ll forgive the old man for always boasting.'

Yuri’s mind quickly flashed to Johann’s face, who had grumbled, "Are you crazy? Just let that precious Dragon Token fly away!"

At that moment.

Click—

The sudden sound changed Yuri’s expression.

The happiness that had filled her moments ago vanished, and her face turned cold.

'Intruder.'

Yuri quickly made a judgment and acted as she had when the one-eyed man attacked.

She extinguished the campfire and threw a couple of logs toward the entrance, then hid in the darkness.

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

Yuri stared at the entrance and listened intently.

Click! Clang!

'The trap worked perfectly.'

After the attack by the one-eyed man, Yuri had learned from the experience and improved the traps in her hideout.

The result was the sound she was hearing now.

Click— Clang— Click—

Various noises coming from beyond the entrance.

Even if the traps didn’t pose a real threat to the intruder, she had adjusted them to make sure the alarm sounds were clear.

Click— Click— Clang!

The sounds were gradually getting closer.

Yuri’s eyes sparkled.

'This guy has some skill.'

But he wasn’t skilled enough to ignore the traps she had set; the sounds of breaking through the traps were quite loud.

Yuri closed her eyes.

She focused more on the sounds and visualized the locations of the traps she had set.

A three-dimensional map of the traps appeared in her mind.

Clang— Clang— Thud!

The continuous sounds mixed with the trap map in her mind.

'From the sounds, there’s one intruder, and he’s still at the entrance of the passage.'

Soon, the vivid image of the intruder dodging and breaking through the traps began to play in her mind.

Click— Thud—

She knew which trap was triggering each sound.

Clang—

The time and method the intruder used to block or break each trap.

Yuri perfectly analyzed the sounds and deduced the intruder’s skill level.

Just as most of the traps were destroyed and the sounds began to fade.

Yuri, who had gauged the intruder’s skill level, slowly opened her eyes.

At the same time.

Swoosh—

In the darkness, a pair of red lips twisted into a small dimple.