Chapter 33

“Please kill me.”

A young man with disheveled hair, covered in blood and dust, dropped to his knees. His name was Lee Seogwang—the elder brother of the late Lee Seogeun and the Young Sect Leader of the Mount Heng Sword Sect.

“Report. From your own mouth.”

The cold voice froze everyone inside the tent. Every last one of them was a senior figure in the Mount Heng Sword Sect, a master who had spent long years roaming the martial world.

Yet even they had to bow their heads before one man.

“Father…”

“That isn’t the answer I want.”

The Blood Wolf Sword, Lee Cheonbaek, did not even turn around. Lee Seogwang forced the words out in a trembling voice.

“There are only twenty-three survivors, including me. We don’t know whether the rest are alive or dead.”

A heavy silence settled over the gathering.

Some two hundred troops had been killed or captured, and they had lost three Peak masters. That alone would have made it hard to avoid punishment, but there was a bigger problem still.

“What orders were you given?”

“…To wipe out the Jin Family of Taiyuan’s branches and advance as far as Jeongyang.”

“And after that?”

“To blockade the road and wait for the main force to join us.”

“Why did you push as far as Honju?”

“Intelligence—I obtained intelligence.”

“Intelligence?”

“Yes. I was told that Jopil, One Question, One Kill, had chased Jin Taekyung all the way to Honju and captured him. But…”

“He must have said the Jin Family of Taiyuan’s pursuit party was on his heels and asked you to help him.”

Lee Seogwang lowered his head, and Lee Cheonbaek let out a hollow laugh.

“Who delivered that information?”

“A wandering martial artist under Jopil.”

“Do you still think that?”

“…No.”

Smack!

Lee Seogwang’s head snapped to the side. Lee Cheonbaek’s gaze poured down on him like fire.

“Be grateful you were born my son.”

In the end, Lee Seogwang was ordered to return to the Mount Heng Sword Sect. Once he withdrew, the matter was settled for the time being.

Now it was time to look at reality with a cool head.

“What is the situation?”

“We lost two hundred men, but more than half were wandering martial artists we scraped together in a hurry. The damage isn’t as severe as it sounds. The problem is…”

“We lost three Peak masters.”

It left a bitter taste in Lee Cheonbaek’s mouth. The Mount Heng Twin Devils, who had stood with him for twenty years. And Jopil, whom he had paid a fortune to hire, was dead as well.

A Peak master could change the course of a battle. Somehow, they had to fill the void.

“Gather more. Buy wandering martial artists from the black market, hire mounted bandits—use whatever means necessary.”

“The expense is already too high. By now, word of what happened in Honju will have spread, so they’ll try to drive their prices up.”

“They aren’t trustworthy, either. Especially the mounted bandits. Aren’t they human butchers? If we hire men like that, our sect’s reputation afterward…”

Lee Cheonbaek did not even blink.

“All the better. Hire them all.”

“Sect Leader!”

“There are no fewer than five hundred men gathered here. We outnumber them by more than two to one, and we aren’t behind in the number of Peak masters either.”

“My son thought the same thing. Then he got utterly wrecked in Honju.”

“That was…”

“Forget whether they’re human butchers or anything else. Throw everything we have into this. If we lose this war, it won’t be our reputation we lose—it’ll be our lives!”

At Lee Cheonbaek’s thunderous command, the seniors realized that trying to persuade him was pointless. But that did not mean the discussion was over.

“The martial artists’ morale is in shambles.”

“The defeat at Honju is one thing, but they’re shaken by the news that Jin Taekyung killed Jopil, One Question, One Kill.”

Jin Taekyung.

Hearing the name of his enemy made Lee Cheonbaek’s stomach churn.

Are there really fools stupid enough to believe a rumor that dumb?

As if it weren’t enough that the pathetic fool Jin Taekyung had poisoned his son, now he had supposedly killed a Peak master too. The scheme was obvious. Lee Cheonbaek’s teeth clenched at the Jin Family of Taiyuan’s despicable tactics.

“Find everyone spreading that nonsense. Don’t miss a single one!”

If he took a few heads as examples, morale might drop, but he could keep the army from collapsing. Now was the time to clamp down and push forward.

“Three days. In three days, we march on Taiyuan!”

That was how the debts and grudges of Murim worked. The chain of debts and grudges would not break until one of the two sides fell.

I’ll take everything from you. Just as you did.

“What an incredible recovery.”

The physician marveled. It was my second day since I’d come to. Overnight, the scabs had fallen away, and pale new skin had grown in.

“In ten years as a physician, I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Even to me, the speed of my recovery was astonishing. The flesh melted by the heat of Flame Divine Palm, the fractured bones, the deep sword wounds—there was no trace of them left.

Oh, and the internal injuries too.

Must be the effect of leveling up.

There was only one method in the real world that produced a similar result.

Healing magic used by the tiny handful of Hunters known as healers.

Is complete healing too much to ask?

I was a little disappointed, but it was just as well. If a single level-up had healed every wound on my body, it would have been hard to dodge suspicion.

Even now, the physician kept stealing glances at me like I was a monster.

“Heavens. How bizarre. This is far too much to attribute to the effects of hundred-year snow ginseng…”

“Hundred-year snow ginseng?”

I remembered seeing something like it in martial arts novels. Wild ginseng that had grown for a hundred years, or whatever.

Why is that suddenly coming up?

Seeing how lost I looked, the physician explained. He was one of the few NPCs who knew I had lost my memory.

“Around this time last year, the Medicine King Hall’s storeroom was robbed.”

Ah. The moment he said it, I understood.

The stolen medicinals must have included hundred-year snow ginseng, and the culprit was obviously…

“The Medicine King Hall Leader was absolutely furious.”

The physician gave me an awkward smile.

“It isn’t something you can get just because you have money, after all. You stole an elixir that can grant twenty years of internal energy in a single dose and consumed it.”

“Twenty years of internal energy?”

Something clicked. The third internal energy that had refused to obey me.

So that was it.

At the same time, a pang of regret washed over me. At the last moment, when I used the Skill, most of the twenty years of internal energy from the hundred-year snow ginseng had vanished.

The whole disaster had happened because it ran wild instead of obeying my control.

I used it as a one-time item.

The physician misread the look on my face and hurriedly added, “Of course, Young Master, you must have made that decision for some grand purpose.”

Grand purpose, my ass. I probably ate it as a tonic.

The snow ginseng’s internal energy had kept me alive, but it was still a waste.

A waste so bad it was killing me.

“You’ve almost completely recovered, so you shouldn’t have any trouble moving around. Then I’ll be on my way.”

The moment the physician hurried out, I opened the System window.

Open Status Window.

Ding.

System

Status Window

Lv. 30 Jin Taekyung

Class: Second Rate Martial Artist

Fame: 410

Titles: 4 (Title effects active)

— Scion of a Prestigious Family (All stats +5, Fame +50)

— Family Shame (All stats −5, Fame −50)

— Novice Trainee (Training speed +10%)

— Gambler (Combat-related stats increased by 10% in a one-on-one fight)

Strength: 115 Stamina: 120

Agility: 116 Intelligence: 15

Charm: 15 Internal Energy: 15 years

Remaining Points: 0

The moment I saw it, pride welled up.

I’ve grown a lot.

It felt like only yesterday I’d been shaking in front of some two-bit bandits. Now I was something of a master. My Level had jumped after I took down Jopil, and I’d gained a massive amount of Fame.

That wasn’t all. I’d absorbed some of the hundred-year snow ginseng’s remaining energy and gained another four years of internal energy. On top of that…

System

Skill Window

One Flash

Grade: Peak

Realm: Second Stage

Restriction: Jin Taekyung

Effect: Consumes Stamina and internal energy to deliver a powerful strike. Depending on the amount used, the user enters a helpless state for a certain period of time.

I had a new martial art—or rather, a new Skill.

But it was very different from my Skills in the real world.

I can adjust how much it consumes and how much power it puts out.

Thrust with All My Might. This Skill, now named One Flash, couldn’t be spammed. It could put out destructive power several stages above my usual level for an instant, but that single blow burned through all my strength.

No. Maybe it was always a Skill I could adjust.

In the real world, I was an F-rank Hunter. My physical abilities and the mana in my body were pathetic. But this game—Murim—was different.

Here I was a martial artist with fifteen years of internal energy and physical abilities superior to NPCs with a twenty- or thirty-Level gap. Changing the vessel that held the power had revealed how versatile the Skill had always been.

I’ve gotten stronger again.

It felt like only yesterday Hyuk Mujin had been wiping the floor with me while I learned martial arts. Now I’d taken down a Peak master.

Outside the window, people chanted my name several times a day.

Sleeping Dragon of Shanxi. Hero of the family. That sort of thing.

A hero.

I never thought I’d hear a word like that in my life. For a two-bit F-rank Hunter whose motto was safety first, it was a word that had never had anything to do with me.

I lay still and fidgeted with my hands. Palms that had once been a young master’s—white and soft—were now packed tight with calluses.

With these hands, I took down Jopil.

All told, the people I’d taken down numbered more than a few dozen. Bandits, wandering martial artists, even people rated as First Rate—and I had survived. I’d even taken down a Peak master I thought I could never beat: Jopil, One Question, One Kill.

I suddenly remembered something Wipeng had said.

The one who survives is strong.

If he was right, I was definitely strong. I’d survived every enemy I’d faced so far, and people were calling me a hero.

Yeah. If I’m being honest…

It doesn’t feel bad.

The real-world me was pitiful.

I ate and slept in a one-room goshiwon barely ten square meters in size,¹ the breadwinner who had to support my family. I couldn’t become a hero, and I didn’t want to.

I was just Jin Taekyung, a bottom-rung Hunter who fought every day while praying he would survive.

That was me.

But in this game, I’m different.

I’d done a lot of things F-rank Hunter Jin Taekyung could never do. At the very least… I could protect the people who trusted and followed me from the enemy. People acknowledged me. They called me a hero.

Even if everything here was nothing but virtual, even if the people in front of me were NPCs, that fact didn’t change.

Thinking that, I suddenly laughed.

This is why games are scary.

Was this game addiction?

Before I knew it, I’d found that I was enjoying living as Jin Taekyung, a martial artist of Murim. Because this was a game. Because it could turn every impossibility into a possibility.

But now it was time to leave.

Back to that place packed with impossibilities—the real world. My family was there. The real me was there.

Check Quest Window.

Ding.

System

Quest

Logout

Now you must make your way through this harsh Murim.

Become stronger and more famous.

For the day that will eventually come…

Grade: Main Quest

Restriction: Jin Taekyung

Objective: Achieve the First Rate realm (Incomplete)
       Achieve Lv. 30 (Complete)
       Achieve Fame 500 (410/500)

Reward: Logout

Logout.

The moment I saw that glittering word, my breath caught.

Only two conditions left before I could log out. Time could take care of Fame. The more rumors about me spread, the more it would keep climbing.

The problem was something else.

“First Rate.”

What did I even need to become First Rate?

If it wasn’t Level, stats, or Fame, then…

Internal energy? Or do I need to raise the realm of my martial arts further?

Just then, a polite voice came from outside the door.

“Young Master. The Lesser Family Head is looking for you.”

“Ah.”

Right. When you don’t know something, the best thing to do is ask.

And for that, Peak master Jin Wikyung was the best private tutor I could get.