Chapter 387

By the time we emerged from the underground bunker, it was already deep into the night.

I drew a deep breath, letting the cold air seep into my lungs. As I gazed up at the star-studded night sky, thinking of Murim’s Sichuan somewhere out there, a small hand tapped me on the shoulder.

“Want to come along? I was thinking of having a light drink.”

“Now?”

“Yeah. Just us.”

It was Pai Chen. Behind her stood the other two people included in that “us.”

One of them spoke in a tone overflowing with dignity.

“O noblewoman of the East, might there be a bottle of Romanée-Conti among the wine we shall drink together?”

“I’m no noblewoman, but of course there is. Do you like wine, Prince?”

Prince Felix answered with a displeased expression.

“I told you to call me Your Highness Felix, not Prince. And I enjoy wine in moderation—especially 1945 Romanée-Conti.”

“We don’t have the 1945 vintage.”

“Then I must decline. I’ll be going.”

Is he actually insane?

Prince Felix disappeared with his attendants, and Pai Chen turned to the one person left.

“You’re coming, right, Johnson?”

Magic Johnson smiled, baring his snow-white teeth.

“I’m sorry. Unfortunately, I think I’ll have to take a rain check.”

“Why?”

“I might be deployed to the front as early as tomorrow. I should at least get Memorize ready beforehand so I can put my mind at ease.”

As expected of an Archmage. You didn’t become a hero of the Great Cataclysm 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.”

“…”

“What kind of logic is that?”

Unbelievable. Her ridiculous stubbornness was one thing, but this middle-aged woman was really something, suggesting drinks at a time like this.

“You just insulted me in your head, didn’t you? Called me a thoughtless middle-aged woman for wanting a drink in a situation like this.”

“…How did you know?”

“Oh my. Look how pointlessly honest you are.”

Pai 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.

“How about finding someone else? Mr. Lee, maybe…”

“Lee?”

Pai Chen tilted her head slightly. Lee Jungryong had long since disappeared with the Ares Guild members he had brought along.

“Hmm. He’s difficult to deal with. He wasn’t that bad during the Great Cataclysm, but he’s turned into a slippery old fox. I can never tell what he’s thinking.”

She’s a pretty accurate judge of character.

Pai Chen continued, casting a sidelong glance at another candidate disappearing in the distance.

“Wu Heixing. He’s too rude. Drinking with him would ruin the wine.”

I stared at Wu Heixing’s back as he headed into a deserted forest and answered.

“Nothing we can do. You’ll have to drink next time.”

“No. This is exactly the sort of night you drink on.”

“…?”

“It might be our last chance.”

“Ah.”

I thought I understood, at least to some extent, why Pai Chen wanted a drink.

War exhausted people. At the same time, it brought unexpected farewells in the form of death.

This was her own eve-of-battle ritual after losing countless companions during the Great Cataclysm.

By the time this crisis was over, one of us might have crossed the river of no return.

“Well, now that things have turned out this way, I have no choice but to change targets. Don’t you agree, handsome bachelor over there?”

“I told you I’m not going.”

Pai Chen stared at me in disbelief.

“Have you no shame? I meant that young man, not you.”

Contrary to my expectations, the handsome bachelor Pai Chen had singled out—Team Leader Choi—nodded readily.

“If you’ll have me, I’d be honored.”

“Wait, Team Leader. You’re really going?”

“Of course. When will I ever get another chance to have a drink with Pai Chen? Besides, I have plenty of questions.”

Pai Chen burst into laughter.

“I thought you were only handsome, but you say such pretty things, too. All right, then. What are you so curious about?”

“The Equipment you’re wearing right now. Where did you buy it?”

“…That’s your question?”

“Yes.”

“This one’s quite a handful too.”

As Pai Chen let out a deep sigh, Magic Johnson burst into hearty laughter.

“Haha! Miss Chen, shall we all go have that drink now?”

“All of us? Johnson, didn’t you say you weren’t coming?”

“I did. I don’t make a habit of drinking alone with women. But if a charming man like Mr. Choi joins us, that changes things.”

“…”

“I like men. Especially East Asian men.”

“R-right. Let’s go.”

No wonder Time had named him the world’s most influential LGBTQ person.

I sent Team Leader Choi a Sound Transmission as he was dragged away, stiff as a board.

—If anything happens, contact me.

Team Leader Choi looked at me with the sad eyes of an ox being led to slaughter, then disappeared with the two S-rank Hunters. I looked around before setting off.

This was the direction.

How long had I walked along the dark path to avoid people’s eyes? I stopped in the pitch-black darkness and spoke.

“Come out.”

After a brief silence, someone’s voice drifted out.

“…Not bad.”

Rustle.

A figure emerged with the sound of someone approaching. Wu Heixing looked me up and down.

“How did you know?”

What kind of question was that?

I answered listlessly.

“You might as well ask me what one plus one is. That’d be harder.”

“Hmm. You’re more capable than I expected.”

“Don’t pretend to compliment me now. It’s obvious you’re trying to pull some cheap trick.”

“…!”

Bull’s-eye. Wu Heixing’s face flushed red.

In a way, he was incredibly easy to handle. I knew he was already past his mid-thirties, yet it was hard to imagine anyone being this simple.

“N-no, that’s not it. I sincerely—”

“You probably do sincerely think I’m a bangzi.¹ You were annoyed because some Korean guy who isn’t even an official S-rank Hunter yet was getting attention instead of you. You picked a fight with your usual one-dimensional behavior, but it didn’t go over well, and that bangzi bastard turned out to be tougher than you expected, huh?”

Without giving him a chance to answer, I continued at machine-gun speed.

“So now you’re throwing out a few compliments you don’t mean and acting friendly while you look for an angle… Did I get any of that wrong?”

“…”

“Yeah, I’ve seen plenty of people like you. I’ve been blindsided so many times that even this slow brain of mine has learned to work fast.”

I looked at him like he was pathetic. His face already bright red, Wu Heixing stammered.

“I wasn’t trying to pull another trick.”

“Then what? If you’re thinking of becoming friends with me, fold that thought up neatly and tuck it away. If I stand next to shit, the stink rubs off on me too.”

“…!”

“By the way, what are you doing right now?”

At my quiet question, the hand moving toward his sword hilt stopped dead.

“Don’t draw it. You’ll get hurt.”

Wu Heixing stared at me, visibly conflicted, before blurting out,

“You knew all along… so why did you follow me so readily?”

“Because I had something to ask.”

“What?”

I looked straight into Wu Heixing’s eyes.

“Sound Transmission. Right?”

“…!”

His face stiffened. That was answer enough. I had suspected as much, but I scratched the back of my head and muttered,

“So it was. Well, this is the mainland, after all. There could still be all kinds of martial arts here. An internal-energy cultivation technique, for example.”

“W-what are you talking about? That was a Message Spell…”

“Oh, please.”

A dry laugh escaped me at the sight of his frantic excuses.

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 unmistakably been Sound Transmission.

The reason I had accepted an offer I could have ignored was that Wu Heixing himself had sent it.

“H-how did you know that?”

“What, was it a secret no one else knew?”

I stared at the flustered Wu Heixing and continued.

“I did think it was somewhat possible, but it’s still fascinating. Didn’t you wipe out all the martial artists during your Cultural Revolution and whatnot? Martial arts somehow survived even through that.”

“Shut your mouth!”

“Ah, you said your family was powerful. Did the highest levels of the Communist Party use their positions to quietly spirit it away?”

“…”

His expression instantly sank.

Looks like I was right.

As a foreigner, I didn’t know exactly how serious a problem this was. But I knew how valuable an internal-energy cultivation technique was—the thing now called a mana cultivation method in the modern era.

If this were the Murim, a bloody storm would have erupted.

Now that he’d been caught with the golden calf that had been secretly spirited away, no wonder he wasn’t taking it well.

“It would be best if you never uttered what you just said again.”

“I wasn’t planning to, but that tone of yours is pretty damn irritating.”

Wu Heixing glared at me viciously.

“Do you think you’ll still be able to act this way once you learn who my father is?”

“I don’t know who your father is, but I have a feeling he used to be a Red Guard.”

“…!”

“Wasn’t your father the one who smashed Confucius’s tomb with a sledgehammer in his youth?”

“You fucking bangzi bastard—!”

Fwish!

With a furious roar, he shot forward.

A straight sword had already been drawn from its scabbard. The Aura Blade rising from it—no, the Sword Force—flew toward my neck.

Shiiiiing!

The cool wind scattered my hair. I bent backward until my back nearly touched the ground, letting the Sword Force pass overhead, then sprang upright and drove my knee into his chin.

Crack!

Teeth and blood shot into the air. As he staggered, I seized both his arms and whispered into his ear.

“I told you not to draw that sword.”

Hiss! Crack!

“Gaaaaaaaaah!”

The powerful Scorching Yang Qi surging through both my hands shattered his armor and seared his flesh.

The scream that tore from Wu Heixing’s lips struck the Qi Curtain I had spread and went no farther.

“You bastard!”

Whooom!

That bastard had learned fist-and-foot techniques too. Unlike his shoddy sword technique, this one was reasonably sharp.

Of course…

Compared with the Murim, the quality of his martial arts was far lower.

Slightly disappointed, I reached out.

Boom!

Internal energy collided with internal energy.

The leg he had whipped toward my waist like a lash stopped dead.

Wu Heixing’s eyes trembled with shock and disbelief.

“H-how?”

“Well.”

I grabbed his ankle and slammed him into the ground with all my strength.

Whoom! Boom!

Once more.

Whoooom! Crash!

More, more, more.

Crash! Crash! KRA-KOOM!

The ground turned over, and rocks and trees were ripped from the earth.

A little while later, when I finally stopped using him as a living pickaxe, Wu Heixing lay spread-eagled in a huge crater, looking as if his soul had left his body.

“Still, you’ve got a sturdy body. You’re not hurt that badly.”

“Hh… hhaa…”

“Hey, are you crying?”

“Hhaaa…”

He was completely out of it.

Clicking my tongue, I bent over and searched through his pockets.

After rummaging through the pouch enchanted with spatial expansion magic for some time, I finally found what I wanted.

“Ah, here it is. An Advanced Potion.”

Ding.

System

Acquired: Supreme Potion!

“…No, wait. Supreme Potion? What the hell, you bastard?”

I stared in shock at the sprawled-out Wu Heixing. Even for an S-rank Hunter, who carried something like this around?

Advanced Potions were rare enough, but only one or two Supreme Potions appeared in an entire year, if that.

Never mind the price, which was so high it hardly felt real. They were so scarce that even having the money wasn’t enough to get one.

I’d only ever seen one online. And now here it is.

After a moment’s thought, I quietly slipped the Supreme Potion into my inventory. Then I searched his pouch again, found an Advanced Potion, and poured it over him.

“I’ve taken my settlement payment, so I’ll let you off here. You’ve got plenty to hide yourself, so if you go around blabbing about what happened today… you know what’ll happen, right?”

“Hh… hhh…”

“Okay. We’ve reached a settlement.”

Just as I neatly wrapped things up, the phone in my pocket shuddered.

A short text message had arrived from Team Leader Choi.

〈 Team Leader Choi

Team Leader Choi

Ji nTaekyung please come quic kly

“…”

No, Johnson.