Chapter 10

After walking for more than ten minutes, we arrived at a cliff that sealed off the rear of the Jin Family of Taiyuan. A massive cavern gaped open in its face, and one man stood before it.

“Hmm. So you’ve come.”

He had the build of a brown bear and spoke in a solemn tone.

Jin Wikyung.

I bowed awkwardly.

“Hello, hyung¹… sir.”

Jin Wikyung made me uncomfortable. As if suddenly acquiring an NPC family wasn’t enough, he paid an absurd amount of attention to me.

Just look at him. He was trying desperately not to show it with everyone watching, but if you looked closely, his eyes were moist.

Is this guy seriously that sentimental?

He looked like he could make even a triad² boss back down, yet somehow every character in this game was completely bizarre.

“I can no longer overlook your conduct. As the Lesser Family Head and acting Family Head, I have ordered you into closed-door confinement. Do you have anything to say?”

Of course I do.

But this was all a staged performance. On the way to the training hall, Wipeng had explained what was really going on. There was a power struggle among the upper ranks of the Jin Family of Taiyuan, and Jin Wikyung was shielding me from it.

In other words, this forced confinement was all for show.

“The Young Master needed a place to train anyway, didn’t he? Just endure it for three days.”

Remembering Wipeng’s final words, I bowed my head and pretended to repent.

“I will gladly accept my punishment.”

The best thing about this play was how short my lines were.

Jin Wikyung delivered his final line with sorrow in his eyes.

“Confine the criminal to the training hall. The date of his release will be announced later.”

The moment he finished speaking, two warriors guarding the entrance to the training hall approached and grabbed me by both arms.

The play was over. Time to exit the stage.

I stood at the entrance to the training hall.

I’ve had everything you need brought there. Little brother, don’t overdo it.

With Jin Wikyung’s Sound Transmission in my ear, I took my first step inside.

The training hall was, in a word, a cave. An artificial cave carved into the cliff, at that.

It was tall, spacious, and damp.

Splash. Splash.

I followed one of the training hall’s warriors deeper inside. By the time I could no longer tell whether I was wearing leather shoes or wet mops, a massive iron gate appeared before us.

Wow…

My mouth fell open the moment I saw it. The gate filled the passage from edge to edge, making it look less like a door than a wall built to prevent anyone from entering or leaving.

The warrior guiding me raised his torch and shouted, “Open the gate!”

Grrrnnng—

The massive iron gate slowly opened its jaws. It wasn’t some magic command like “Open Sesame.” An NPC waiting nearby had simply pulled a protruding lever that operated the gate.

Even so, it was an overwhelming sight.

And the moment I saw what lay beyond—

“Whoa.”

This time, I couldn’t suppress the exclamation that escaped me.

When I first entered the training hall, I had imagined nothing more than a damp underground cave, but…

“What is all this?”

There was a broad bed with a fur blanket that lifted my spirits just by looking at it. In place of a damp, uneven stone floor, a smooth gray surface stretched across the chamber.

Cement… Obviously not. Limestone?

Aside from the chill in the air—and even taking that into account—it was far nicer than I had imagined.

This is supposed to be a punishment?

As I stared around in a daze, someone cleared his throat behind me. I turned to find the warrior who had guided me here.

“We’ve prepared everything you’ll need. Then I’ll be on my way.”

Grrrnnng.

I watched the iron gate slowly close with another grinding sound, then suddenly remembered the Sound Transmission I had heard at the entrance to the training hall.

I’ve had everything you need brought there. Little brother, don’t overdo it.

Ah, the heart of an NPC who cared for his little brother.

This unworthy user wept his eyes out.

It was something that happened all the time in the real world, too. High-ranking officials who had committed corruption showing up at the prosecutors’ office in wheelchairs, or checking themselves into private hospital rooms to avoid investigation.

My circumstances were a little different, but the arrangement was much the same. Deeply moved, I surveyed my private suite in the training hall.

“So this is the life of a gold spoon.”³

It wasn’t only the graphics and artificial intelligence that were realistic. The game also carried the social message that, no matter how high you flew or how low you crawled, gold spoons³ had it best.

Seriously, what would I have done without this character? His father was the Family Head, his eldest brother was the Lesser Family Head, and his second brother was a martial arts prodigy. No wonder he could spend every day loafing around pleasure houses without a care in the world.

Jin Taekyung, you bastard…

Now that I thought about it, wasn’t he actually some great sage who had grasped the ways of the world at a young age?

Shuddering at the realistic God-Spoon³ System, I walked around the training hall, which covered a little over a hundred pyeong.⁴ Before long, I found the “necessities” the warrior had mentioned.

Food first.

The food was stored in two jars. When I looked inside, I found rice balls that gave off a strong medicinal scent.

System

Item Window

Excellent Fasting Pill

Type: Pill

Grade: First Rate

Restriction: None

Description: A fasting pill made by crudely cramming in all kinds of beneficial medicinal ingredients. Restores vitality when consumed and grants additional effects with prolonged use.

“Oh, so these are the famous fasting pills?”

I had seen them plenty of times in martial arts novels. They were light, compact, easy to carry, and apparently provided nutritional supplementation, too.

The other jar was packed with fasting pills too.

I should put these in my inventory for now.

I grabbed the two jars and muttered, “Acquire items.”

Anyone watching would have fallen over in shock. The two perfectly ordinary jars vanished as if they had evaporated.

I gazed fondly at them inside my inventory.

That takes care of food.

The second necessity I found was water. Since the training hall was, after all, a cave, a cold underground spring in one corner took care of my drinking water.

Then came the third and final necessity.

“Hmm.”

A weapons rack held several weapons in a neat row. Naturally, the first thing I picked up was a sturdy-looking wooden spear.

Item appraisal.

Ding.

System

Item Window

Training Wooden Spear

Type: Weapon

Grade: Third Rate

Restriction: None

Description: Made for beginners.

“Oh.”

A wooden training spear made for beginners. It was exactly what I needed right now.

If I had just one more thing, everything would be perfect.

“Open inventory.”

Grinning, I took a martial arts manual titled Jin Family’s Spear Technique out of my inventory.

Ding.

System

• Would you like to learn the Jin Family’s Spear Technique? (3 / 10)

“Obviously.”

The System was great.

Sometimes, it was even adorable.

Yesterday, while learning the Jin Family’s Manoeuvre Technique, I had discovered something for the first time.

Ding wasn’t the System’s only notification sound.

I had also discovered just how much I hated the other one.

Beep!

System

• The movement failed.

• Remaining successful attempts (2 / 100)

The failure message. The System window that appeared without fail whenever I botched a movement.

I had no idea how many times I had seen it by now.

I stared at the Training Wooden Spear in my hand.

I was thinking about this all wrong.

Maybe because it was made of wood, the spear was light. Whether I thrust or swung it, it moved fast.

That was the problem.

It’s too light to control.

The slightest adjustment was difficult, so I kept slipping up. There was no chance this damn nitpicky System would overlook even the tiniest mistake.

Beep.

System

• The movement failed.

• Remaining successful attempts (5 / 100)

“Ah, fuck.”

In the end, I tossed the Training Wooden Spear aside and pulled the Sharp Spear from my inventory. Its length and shaft thickness were roughly the same as the spear I had used in the real world.

So why hadn’t I taken it out from the start?

“It’s fucking heavy. Seriously.”

The entire thing was solid steel, so its weight was no joke. By feel alone, the monster had to weigh nearly fifty kilograms.⁵

My Stamina wouldn’t hold out if I swung something like this for hours.

My current realm was Second Rate. Even with the System’s help, there was no way I could whirl around more than half a sack of rice like a pinwheel.

It’s not like the strength of a tiger is suddenly going to well up inside me.

That was when it hit me.

“…Huh?”

What had I just said?

The strength of a tiger?

“I do have it.”

This was a game. It had a System and stats.

And it had internal energy.

Ten years of internal energy that I could draw out through a cultivation technique!

It was embarrassing that I had forgotten about it even for a moment.

“I should’ve tried using that…”

They say you only know what something is like once you’ve experienced it. Was it any wonder an F-rank Hunter was F-rank? With barely any mana to speak of, I made do with my bare body. Even among Hunters, I was treated like a half-baked amateur.

At least that solves one problem.

I laughed in disbelief and picked up the spear. Then, slowly and carefully, I began drawing out my internal energy.

The formula of the Jin Family’s Cultivation Technique, imprinted in my mind by the System, rapidly played through my thoughts, guiding my internal energy along its prescribed path.

A prickling sensation ran through me.

The response was immediate.

The ten years of internal energy coiled in my dantian spread throughout my body. Because this was a game and I was a martial artist, I could feel that energy reaching every part of me.

This is…

Strength overflowed through my entire body. My vastly improved physical abilities and senses once again filled me with exhilaration after my life as an F-rank Hunter.

I can change this much?

I gripped the spear and performed the Jin Family’s Spear Technique. The fifty-kilogram⁵ iron spear no longer felt heavy. Following my will, it thrust and slashed through the air.

Before long—

Ding.

System

• Remaining successful attempts (6 / 100)

At last, the notification I had been waiting for began to ring.

Jin Wikyung spoke with concern written across his face.

“He’s doing well, isn’t he?”

“He should be, if he has any sense of shame.”

“He still hasn’t fully recovered… He’ll be all right, won’t he?”

“Anyone who didn’t know better would think the Third Young Master was on death’s door. A little spit would fix him right up.”

“No. You only say that because you don’t know how frail the youngest was as a child.”

Wipeng stared at him in disbelief.

“The elixirs and tonics that have gone into the Third Young Master could fill an entire room. And have you already forgotten the Hundred-Year-Old Snow Ginseng theft last year?”

“Ahem. That was…”

“The Medicine King Hall Master was so furious that he ran around threatening to cut open the Third Young Master’s stomach. To be honest, even while I was restraining him, I found myself thinking that cutting him open would count as self-defense.”

Jin Wikyung quietly looked away.

The matter had eventually been settled with compensation paid from Jin Wikyung’s personal fortune, but the Medicine King Hall Master’s fury at the time had been extraordinary.

“He swallowed that much elixir. Whatever else may be true, he probably won’t suffer from minor ailments until the day he dies.”

“It still isn’t enough. Can’t you tell just by looking at him? Every time I see the youngest, I feel sorry for him. He looks like a skeleton with a few scraps of flesh stuck to it. He’s so feeble and weak every morning.”

“No strength?”

Wipeng suddenly remembered a rumor he had once heard.

Among the courtesans of Taiyuan’s red-light district, Jin Taekyung was supposedly known as the Night King.

Just how impressive is he?

It seemed all that medicine had worked after all. Without realizing it, Wipeng raised his forearm and tried to imagine the size.

“What are you doing?”

“Ah, nothing.”

Jin Wikyung sighed as he looked over the mountain of documents piled before him.

“Between the youngest and everything happening inside and outside the family, there’s no end to my worries. Especially… the fact that ‘they’ have contacted us bothers me.”

“You mean the Mount Heng Sword Sect.”

The Mount Heng Sword Sect.

The weight of that name was anything but light.

Ever since an undefeated wandering martial artist hung up its signboard decades ago, the sect had grown at a terrifying pace. By now, it was powerful enough to threaten the Jin Family of Taiyuan’s position.

“What do they intend?”

“I’ve sent my subordinates to investigate.”

Jin Wikyung toyed with the letter from the Mount Heng Sword Sect.

Why were they coming? What did they want?

One question led to another, until he arrived at a single conclusion.

“Notify every branch in Shanxi Province. Whatever the Mount Heng Sword Sect’s purpose may be, tell them to prepare for every possibility.”

This was Murim.

Only those who were prepared would survive to see tomorrow.