Waaaaaaah!
The deafening roar of tens of thousands of martial artists made my ears ring.
They had gathered here to attend the Star-Array Grand Banquet, each carrying dreams of rising to prominence, and their cheers seemed endless.
The noise, which seemed as though it would never end, gradually died down the moment Dharma King Hong Dao raised his hand.
In that hand was the Green Jade Buddha Staff, the symbol of a thousand years of Shaolin. Shaolin Temple was the Mount Tai and Northern Dipper of the Murim, and its immense authority silenced the crowd.
The old monk’s deep voice, infused with profound internal energy, spread across the grounds.
“I often look up at the sky. Over the long years, I have seen, read, and watched countless stars.”
I had heard something once.
They said the greatest reason Dharma King Hong Dao had become the Abbot of Shaolin was not his formidable martial arts, but his learning and wisdom.
“The Star-Array Grand Banquet. If you wish to become the brightest star at this banquet, think brightly and act brightly.”
After a brief silence, he added one short sentence.
“That is how one survives even in darkness.”
The shorter a congratulatory speech, the better. Better still if it contained a hint of profound wisdom, and better yet if the speaker was the Abbot of Shaolin.
Another roar of cheers and applause erupted.
“Waaaaaaah!”
As I watched, I suddenly wondered how many of the tens of thousands gathered here had actually understood what he meant.
Probably one in ten.
No, not even one in a hundred.
But I understood. I knew what Hong Dao’s words referred to.
Dark Heaven.
My training in the Fire Gate Cavern had been harsher than everything I had endured before it combined.
Jeok Cheongang had pushed me relentlessly, so much so that he had seemed not merely impatient, but downright anxious.
At first, I had thought it was because of his infirmities of old age.
But before long, Jeok Cheongang revealed something after much deliberation. Only then did I understand his urgency.
Dark Heaven. A powerful enemy that had yet to reveal its true nature.
We don’t have much time. Keep training and preparing. That is the best thing you can do.
I looked at the old man standing to Hong Dao’s right.
His small frame was noticeably different from Hong Dao’s, yet he gave off an overwhelming presence. Jeok Cheongang somehow spotted me and flashed a crooked grin.
He looked visibly older than he had a year ago. My chest churned before I knew it.
You’d better know you’re dead if you don’t win.
“……”
Especially if you run into some bastard with the surname Peng. Beat the shit out of him. Break him and tear him apart!
A cold wind swept through my queasy chest.
One dose of the Fire King’s motion-sickness medicine, delivered through Sound Transmission, cured me completely. I quietly looked away.
Until I arrived, I had been fairly confident. But seeing the sheer number of martial artists with my own eyes made it difficult to guarantee victory.
I’d better not answer. If I give him a definite answer and then lose, he’ll ride my ass even more.
In any case, the opening address was over, so the preliminaries would begin soon.
Like a salmon swimming upstream, I pushed through the tightly packed martial artists toward the back. Then I spotted a familiar face.
“Huh?”
What was that guy’s name again?
Oh, right. Jongni Chu of Yunnan. The guy with the self-styled epithet Always-Victorious Sword.
I had wondered why he had come all the way here from some remote backwater. Apparently, he had come for the Star-Array Grand Banquet after all.
With his skills, he should make it pretty far.
I considered saying hello, but decided against it. It seemed like it would only become a hassle.
Instead, I sent a greeting to the guy standing blankly and looking around, one he could not hear.
Yeah. Good luck to you too.
And prayed that, if possible, he wouldn’t run into me.
“I like duels. There are winners and losers, but no draws. What could be more clear-cut than that?”
The middle-aged man muttered in a relaxed voice.
A pair of glasses imported from the Western Regions1 rested on his nose. They had the marvelous ability to make objects appear several times larger, which naturally made them extremely expensive.
“That’s why people bet money on them. The result is certain.”
Gambling was an inseparable part of the Star-Array Grand Banquet.
From the preliminaries, which filtered out the unqualified among tens of thousands of applicants, to the finals, hundreds of duels would be held.
For that reason, the Star-Array Grand Banquet was not only a feast for the martial artists of the world. It was also the greatest season of the year for gamblers across the continent.
“So, who would you like to bet on, and how much?”
The bald man sitting across from the middle-aged man asked the question. At a glance, he looked like someone with one foot in the underworld, but his manner was polite.
“You’re still as impatient as ever.”
“We have a lot of customers waiting.”
“I see. Well, let’s see…”
After a moment’s pause, the middle-aged man pulled a money pouch from his robes and tossed it onto the table.
Unable to withstand the weight, the pouch opened, and gleaming silver yuanbao2 spilled across the tabletop with a clatter.
“A thousand silver nyang3 on the Iron-Water Divine Dragon of the Yangtze River Channel League.”
“……”
It was an enormous sum.
Especially considering the preliminaries had not even begun.
The middle-aged man’s nerve was clearly extraordinary.
The bald man’s eyelids trembled as he stared at the silver yuanbao2.
“Are you betting on the Iron-Water Divine Dragon to win the whole thing?”
“Of course not. Cheol Soo may be one of the Ten Dragons and Phoenixes, but he’s not capable of that yet. His Master, the Seafaring King, would be another matter.”
“Then…?”
“I’m betting he’ll take first place in the preliminaries.”
“Hmm.”
The bald man let out a low groan.
The preliminaries of the Star-Array Grand Banquet were commonly called a “sieve.” With so many applicants, those below the required level had to be filtered out.
Naturally, judging tens of thousands of applicants created countless possible outcomes.
Which also meant the odds would be enormous.
“That’s different from what you said earlier.”
“How so?”
“You said you liked duels because there were only winners and losers, making the result clear-cut.”
“You really shouldn’t gamble.”
The middle-aged man laughed heartily before continuing.
“That’s the kind of wager third-rate gamblers make. All or nothing. One of the two sides is bound to win, so there’s a limit to how much you can earn. But who am I?”
“A Dogon.”
“Exactly. That’s why I like duels. People want the easy road. They don’t want the difficult one.”
“Ah.”
A gambler among gamblers. A gambler who had reached the Peak of his craft was called a Dogon.
The middle-aged man had come here with a conclusion drawn from meticulous research and calculation.
The bald man bowed deeply in admiration.
“I’ve learned a great deal, Great Hero Kwak.”
“If you learned something, you should pay the tuition.”
“What would you like?”
“Keep your mouth shut, just as you have until now.”
“Of course.”
“Then that’s enough. Let’s see… The preliminaries should be starting soon. I’ll have a drink and come back to collect my money.”
He had absolute confidence that his prediction would prove correct.
That was a Dogon for you.
The middle-aged man pushed up his glasses and left.
A swordsman guarding the door, practically dying of curiosity, cautiously asked, “Boss, who was that?”
“That gentleman? A Dogon.”
“Gasp! A Dogon?”
“And one of the most renowned Dogons in the world.”
“Is he really that incredible?”
“There are exactly three legendary Dogons.”
The bald man spread three fingers.
“A-Gwi4 in Sichuan. Jjak-Gwi5 in Guangdong. And the last one…”
One of his fingers folded down.
“On a continental scale, that gentleman. Kwak Cheolyung.”
“Kwak Cheolyung…!”
“So go keep an eye on the Iron-Water Divine Dragon. Now that I think about it, that rookie’s gotten pretty damn cocky.”
Whack!
The bald man kicked the swordsman in the shin.
A short while later, he welcomed his next customer. This one was rather strange, with a mask pulled up over his nose.
“Where would you like to place your bet?”
“Will this be kept confidential?”
The masked man’s voice was uneasy.
He flinched as if people beat him up every chance they got. Anyone could tell at a glance that he was a Third Rate martial artist.
The area around his eye is all black and blue. Someone must’ve worked him over pretty good. Well, as long as I get paid, it’s none of my concern.
A gentle smile spread across the bald man’s lips.
It was his professional smile, the one that appeared automatically whenever he saw a sucker.
“Of course. Go ahead.”
The masked man glanced around nervously before pulling out a money pouch.
“A hundred silver nyang3 on Jin Taekyung, the Sleeping Dragon of Shanxi, taking first place in the preliminaries.”
“Those from there to here, follow me.”
The Star-Array Grand Banquet had so many participants that it required hundreds of supervisors and multiple testing grounds.
More than a hundred applicants followed their assigned supervisor. Naturally, I was among them.
There really are a lot of people.
Not only were they numerous, but they came in every possible variety.
There were skinny people and fat people, fresh-faced youths with downy hair and wandering martial artists who looked as though they had been through every hardship imaginable. There were women who immediately drew the eye and handsome men with flawlessly smooth features.
A hundred people, a hundred different appearances. The saying fit perfectly.
One massive man stood out even among that crowd. He looked like the very definition of a man’s man, and judging by our eye levels, he was at least a head taller than me.
Fuck, is this the continent or Norway?
He stood over two meters6 tall. His forearms bulged with enough muscle to look ready to burst, and one bore a tattoo of a salmon impaled on a harpoon.
Even his features looked oddly Western. He looked so much like a Norwegian that I began to wonder if he actually was one.
I stole a sideways glance at him, only for our eyes to meet.
“……”
“……”
I cautiously opened my mouth.
“Ah, aim fine, thankoo. An’ yoo?”
“……?”
That wasn’t it. What was it again?
I had stopped studying English after my elementary-school red-pen workbooks,7 and now I was so nervous the words barely came out.
“Ah! Where are you from?”
Norway answered.
“You fucking asshole, what are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“You little shit, are you picking a fight with me right now?”
A hearty stream of curses and the gazes of everyone around us came flying my way.
Just as I was about to answer, the supervisor shouted sternly.
“Anyone who causes trouble will be forcibly disqualified!”
Norway opened and closed his mouth like a salmon as he glared at me.
Then a strand of Sound Transmission reached me, carrying an aura and killing intent as rough and sharp as a harpoon.
I’ll make you regret this.
Talk about vicious. A true descendant of the Vikings.
Still, I was the one in the wrong.
I bowed my head in apology and continued walking. A forceful snort sounded behind me, but I pretended not to hear it.
He’s pretty strong, though.
He looked to be in his twenties, yet he was already a formidable opponent. My pulse quickened at the thought that I had encountered someone like him right from the start.
The world really is wide.
If the preliminaries were already this intense, genuine monsters might come crawling out during the main event. Remembering Jeok Cheongang’s warning, I steeled my resolve.
“The first thing we will assess is your fist-and-foot techniques.”
The supervisor led us to an unnamed cliff.
I did not need to ask how the test would be conducted.
Other applicants were already taking it.
Whack! Crack!
“Graaagh!”
A foolish martial artist with his wrist twisted rolled across the ground. The supervisor sighed and broke a bamboo marker.
“Jangyu of the Butterfly Sect, eliminated. Next!”
The next martial artist stepped forward and punched the cliff.
Boom!
This martial artist was around the First Rate level. At least he knew how to put internal energy behind his strike.
A clear mark appeared on the cliff, which was a hard-packed mixture of roughly equal parts rock and soil.
The supervisor measured its depth and width, then nodded.
“Gobul of the Sodang Sect, passed. Next!”
Those who passed moved aside, while Third Rate martial artists whose punches left faint marks—or who hurt their hands with a single blow—were eliminated in droves.
“You’ve seen enough to understand how this works. Let’s begin. Now, let’s see…”
The supervisor pulled out a bamboo marker.
Then he called a name.
“Jin Taekyung of the Jin Family of Taiyuan.”
As the gazes of the people around me turned toward me, a System notification rang out.
Ding.
System
- Quest: Star-Array Grand Banquet has been created.
Footnotes
-
The Western Regions is a historical East Asian term for lands to the west of China, especially Central Asia. ↩
-
A nyang is a traditional Korean unit of currency. It is not a Korean won. ↩ ↩2
-
A-Gwi means “hungry ghost,” a being in Buddhist tradition. ↩
-
Jjak-Gwi is a Korean nickname meaning “one ear.” ↩
-
Two meters is about 6 ft 7 in. ↩
-
Red Pen is a Korean home-study workbook brand. ↩
Comments
Comments need a network connection.