It was already deep into the night by the time we left the underground bunker.
I drew a deep breath, letting the cold air seep into my lungs. As I gazed up at the star-filled sky, thinking of Sichuan in the Murim somewhere out there, a small hand tapped me on the shoulder.
“Coming with me? I’m thinking of having a light drink.”
“Now?”
“Yeah. Just us.”
It was Faye Chen. Two other members of that “us” stood behind her.
One of them spoke in a voice brimming with dignity.
“Lady of the East, might there be any Romanée-Conti among the wine we shall share?”
“I’m no noblewoman, but of course I have some. Do you like wine, Prince?”
Prince Felix answered with a displeased look.
“I told you to call me His Highness Felix, not Prince. And I enjoy wine in moderation. Especially the 1945 Romanée-Conti.”
“I don’t have the 1945 vintage.”
“Then I must decline. I shall be leaving.”
Was this guy actually insane?
As Prince Felix disappeared with his attendants, Faye Chen turned toward the one person left behind.
“You’re coming, right, Johnson?”
Magic Johnson grinned, baring his snow-white teeth.
“I’m sorry. Unfortunately, I think I’ll have to put it off until next time.”
“Why?”
“I might be deployed to the front tomorrow. I’d feel more at ease if I at least prepared my spells with Memorize.”
As expected of an Archmage. Heroes of the Great Cataclysm didn’t become heroes for nothing.
Deeply impressed by Magic Johnson’s attitude, I spoke up.
“I don’t think I can go right now either.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You’re neither a prince nor an Archmage.”
“……That’s not how this works.”
Unbelievable. Never mind her completely unreasonable demands—that ajumma1 was really something else, suggesting drinks at a time like this.
“You just cursed me in your head, didn’t you? You called me a thoughtless ajumma1 for wanting to drink at a time like this.”
“……How did you know?”
“Oh my, look at how pointlessly honest this boy is.”
Faye Chen poked the tip of my nose with one long finger. She looked like a beautiful woman in her early twenties, but she was actually older than my mother. It felt strange.
“Why don’t you find someone else? Mr. Lee, perhaps……”
“Lee?”
Faye Chen tilted her head slightly. Lee Jungryong had long since disappeared with the Ares Guild members he had brought with him.
“Hmm. He’s rather difficult to deal with. He wasn’t like that during the Great Cataclysm, but he’s turned into such a slippery snake. I can never tell what he’s thinking.”
She had an excellent eye for people.
Faye Chen cast a sidelong glance at another candidate disappearing into the distance before continuing.
“Wu Heixing. He’s far too rude. Drinking with him would ruin the taste.”
I gazed at Wu Heixing’s back as he headed into the deserted forest and answered.
“Nothing we can do, then. You’ll have to drink another time.”
“No. These are exactly the days you drink.”
“……?”
“It might be our last chance.”
“Ah.”
I thought I understood, at least somewhat, why Faye Chen was looking for a drink.
War wore people down. It also brought unexpected farewells in the form of death.
This was her own eve-of-battle ritual after losing countless comrades during the Great Cataclysm.
By the time this crisis was over, one of us might have crossed the river from which no one ever returned.
“Well, since things have turned out this way, I’ll have to find a new target. Right, handsome young man?”
“I told you I’m not going.”
Faye Chen stared at me incredulously.
“Do you have no shame? I meant that young man over there, not you.”
The handsome young man Faye Chen had singled out—Team Leader Choi—nodded readily, contrary to my expectations.
“If you’re inviting me, it would be my honor.”
“Uh, Team Leader. You’re really going?”
“Of course. When will I ever have another chance to share a drink with Faye Chen? Besides, there are many things I’m curious about.”
Faye Chen giggled.
“I thought you were only handsome, but you’re sweet with words, too. So, what are you so curious about?”
“The Equipment you’re wearing right now. Where did you buy it?”
“……That’s your question?”
“Yes.”
“You’re quite a handful yourself.”
Magic Johnson burst into hearty laughter as he watched Faye Chen heave a deep sigh.
“Ha ha. Miss Chen, shall we all go have a drink together, then?”
“All together? Johnson, didn’t you say you weren’t coming?”
“I did. I have no interest in drinking alone with a woman. But if an attractive man like Mr. Choi here joins us, that changes things.”
“……”
“I like men. East Asian men in particular.”
“R-right. Let’s go.”
As expected of Time magazine’s choice for the world’s number-one most influential LGBT person.
I sent Team Leader Choi a Sound Transmission as he was dragged away, stiff as a board.
—Call me if anything happens.
Team Leader Choi looked back at me with mournful eyes, like a cow being led to the slaughterhouse, then disappeared with the two S-rank Hunters.
I looked around before setting off.
This was the direction.
After walking along the dark path for some time, keeping out of sight, I stopped in the pitch-black darkness and spoke.
“Come out.”
After a brief silence, someone’s voice drifted from the darkness.
“……Not bad.”
Rustle.
Wu Heixing emerged with the sound and looked me up and down.
“How did you know?”
“What kind of question was that?” I answered flatly.
“You might as well ask me what one plus one is. That would be harder.”
“Hmm. So you were more capable than I expected.”
“Don’t pretend to praise me now. It’s obvious you’re trying to pull some cheap trick.”
“……!”
I had hit the nail on the head. Wu Heixing’s face flushed bright red.
In a way, he was remarkably easy to handle. I knew he was well into his thirties, but it was hard to believe anyone could be this simple-minded at that age.
“I-it wasn’t like that. I sincerely……”
“You sincerely think I’m a bangzi.2 You were pissed because some random Korean who isn’t even officially an S-rank Hunter was getting all the attention instead of you. So you picked a fight with your usual one-dimensional bullshit, but nobody reacted well, and that bangzi2 turned out to be less of a pushover than you expected. Right?”
I kept firing off words like a machine gun without giving him a chance to answer.
“So now you’re throwing out a few compliments you don’t mean and making friendly gestures, trying to pull some kind of trick…… Wait. Is any part of what I just said wrong?”
“……”
“Yeah, I’ve met plenty of guys like you. I’ve been smacked in the back of the head so many times that even my useless brain finally started turning.”
When I gave him a contemptuous look, the red-faced Wu Heixing began to stammer.
“I wasn’t trying to pull some other trick.”
“Then what? If you’re thinking of becoming friends with me, fold that idea up neatly and put it away. If you stand next to shit, the smell gets on me too.”
“……!”
“But what are you doing right now?”
At my quiet question, the hand creeping toward his sword hilt stopped dead.
“Don’t draw it. You’ll get hurt.”
Wu Heixing looked at me with conflicted eyes before blurting out a question.
“You already knew everything…… So why did you come along so willingly?”
“Because I had something to ask.”
“What?”
I looked straight into Wu Heixing’s eyes.
“Sound Transmission. Right?”
“……!”
His rigid expression was answer enough. I’d thought it might be possible, but this was still surprising. Scratching the back of my head, I muttered,
“I guess it is. Well, this is the mainland, so I suppose various martial arts could have survived here. An internal-energy cultivation technique, for example.”
“W-what are you talking about? That was message magic……”
“Oh, please.”
A snort escaped me at the sight of him scrambling to make excuses.
Other people who had never encountered martial arts might not be able to tell the difference, but he couldn’t fool me.
Come see me for a moment.
What had reached my ear near the end of the meeting had unquestionably been Sound Transmission.
I had accepted an invitation I could easily have ignored because Wu Heixing himself had sent it.
“H-how did you know?”
“Why? Was it some secret no one else knew?”
I stared at the flustered Wu Heixing and continued.
“I thought it might be possible, but it’s still fascinating. Didn’t you people wipe out all the martial artists during that whole Cultural Revolution3 business? I’m impressed that martial arts survived even through that.”
“Shut your mouth!”
“Oh, right. You said your family was powerful. Did the highest-ranking Communist Party officials quietly smuggle it out by abusing their positions?”
“……”
His expression sank instantly. I must have been right.
As a foreigner, I didn’t know how serious a problem this was, but I understood the value of an internal-energy cultivation technique—in other words, what was called a mana cultivation technique in the modern era.
If this were the Murim, there would’ve been a bloodbath.
He had been caught secretly hoarding a golden calf like that. Naturally, Wu Heixing wasn’t reacting well.
“It would be wise never to speak of what you just said again.”
“I had no particular intention of doing so, but your tone is pretty damn offensive.”
Wu Heixing glared at me with venomous eyes.
“Would you still act like this after learning who my father is?”
“I don’t know who your father is, but he sounds like he might have been a former Red Guard.”4
“……!”
“Wasn’t your father the one who went around with a sledgehammer in his youth, smashing Confucius’s tomb?”
“You fucking bangzi2 bastard!”
Flash!
With a furious shout, he shot forward.
An Aura Blade—no, Sword Force—surged from the straight sword already drawn from its sheath and hurtled toward my throat.
Whoosh!
The cool wind scattered my hair. I bent backward until my waist nearly touched the ground, letting the Sword Force pass overhead, then sprang upright and drove my knee into his chin.
Crack!
Teeth and blood flew through the air. As Wu Heixing staggered, I seized both his arms and whispered in his ear.
“I told you not to draw that sword.”
Sizzle. Crack!
“Aaaaaaargh!”
The powerful Scorching Yang Qi coursing through my hands shattered his armor and burned his flesh.
Wu Heixing’s scream struck the qi barrier I had spread around us and went no farther.
“You bastard!”
Whoosh!
This guy had even learned fist-and-foot martial arts. Unlike his shoddy sword technique, this was fairly sharp.
Of course……
Compared to the Murim, the quality of his martial arts is much lower.
Slightly disappointed, I reached out.
Boom!
Internal energy collided with internal energy.
His leg, whipping toward my waist, stopped dead.
Wu Heixing’s eyes trembled with shock and disbelief.
“H-how?”
“I’m good.”
I grabbed his ankle and slammed him into the ground with all my strength.
Whoosh! Boom!
Once more.
Whoosh! Boom!
Again. And again. And again.
Boom! Boom! Craaash!
The ground churned, and rocks and trees were ripped free.
By the time I stopped using him as a human pickaxe, Wu Heixing lay spread-eagled in a huge crater, looking as though his soul had left his body.
“Still, you’ve got a sturdy body, so you’re not hurt that badly.”
“Urgh…… ugh……”
“Hey, are you crying?”
“Uuuugh……”
He was completely out of it.
Clicking my tongue, I bent down and searched his pockets.
After rummaging through the pouch enchanted with spatial expansion magic for a while, I finally found what I was looking for.
“Ah, here it is. A high-grade potion.”
System
Acquired: Top-Grade Potion
“……No, wait. A top-grade potion? What the hell, you bastard?”
I stared in surprise at the sprawled-out Wu Heixing. Even for an S-rank Hunter, carrying something like this around was absurd.
High-grade potions were rare enough, but top-grade potions appeared maybe once or twice a year.
Their almost unreal price aside, they were so scarce that even people with money couldn’t get their hands on one.
I’ve only ever seen these online, and now there’s one right in front of me.
After a moment’s hesitation, I slipped the top-grade potion into my Inventory. Then I searched his pouch again, found a high-grade potion, and poured it over him.
“I’ve got my settlement payment, so I’ll let you off here. You’ve got plenty to be worried about yourself, so if you go around telling people about what happened today…… You know what’ll happen, right?”
“Ugh…… uuuugh……”
“Okay. We’ve reached a settlement.”
Just as I finished wrapping things up neatly, the phone in my pocket vibrated.
A short text from Team Leader Choi was waiting for me.
Team Leader Choi
└ Team Leader Choi: Mr. Ji nTaekyung, pl ease come quickly.
“……”
No, Johnson.
Footnotes
-
Ajumma is a familiar Korean term for a middle-aged or married woman. ↩ ↩2
-
Bangzi is a derogatory Chinese term for a Korean person. ↩ ↩2 ↩3
-
The Cultural Revolution was a political movement in China from 1966 to 1976 during which historical and cultural traditions were attacked. ↩
-
The Red Guards were groups mobilized during China’s Cultural Revolution to attack people and traditions deemed politically suspect. ↩
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