When a shock is too great, some people lose their minds, and others instead resign themselves and grow calm.
In my case, it was usually the latter.
That's why, from the day I fell into a strange world, I started begging and settled in Lizhou.
As soon as I was told I didn't have the bones to learn martial arts, I worked hard to learn to read and write, and once I could, I became a retainer at Jeong Manor.
It was an absurd disaster, but not the first.
My life had always been like this.
So I have to survive.
“What do I do now?”
I looked around.
I saw retainers and servants fleeing in a panic.
They didn't even know which direction they were going; they were simply getting farther away.
That didn't seem like a good idea.
It was still daytime, but there was no telling how long those two would keep up that crazy shit up there.
If I went into the mountains carelessly and got lost, night would become a problem.
I walked the opposite way instead.
The two masters, already floating in the air and making thunder and lightning, had moved away from the ruins of Jeong Manor.
On the contrary, they seemed to be drawing closer to the center of Lizhou, then began circling there.
Then should I leave Lizhou for now?
I know the way.
As long as I got out of Lizhou, isolated by mountain ranges, I wouldn't get caught up in that fight.
But there might be something better than that.
Setting off on a journey without knowing anything and without preparation is also a perfect way to die.
So for now, I'd better head to the government office.
There will be an army, and they'll have some opinion about this situation.
I was too exhausted to run.
By the time my ragged breathing had settled a little, I'd arrived back at Jeong Manor's back gate.
Some people were cowering in corners with their heads buried, and there were sprawled corpses too.
This is how frightening the martial world is. I really can't be a martial artist.
As I trudged through the half-ruined estate, I saw another clash of blades.
I was about to back away to get some distance, but people I knew were fighting each other.
I could hear a conversation that made my head spin.
“You bastard! You are a Hermit Forest assassin! What did you do to our youngest?”
“What bullshit is this? More importantly, where on earth did your old man go?”
“He died at your hands!”
“What do you……?”
What on earth am I supposed to do?
But on one side was Teacher Sa Pae-cheon, and on the other was the eldest of the Namgung siblings.
I wondered what I should say, but what they held in their hands were swords.
Swords scattering lights of every color, no less.
Every time the two clashed, shards of light flew all around.
Some debris crumbled even further, and some caught fire.
I let out a hollow laugh.
I shouldn't even go near them. The moment something flies at me the wrong way, I'm dead.
I went the long way around. I was gradually starting to feel dizzy.
Was my stamina really this bad?
No, it probably really is this bad.
My Taiji training is just something like calisthenics, and it's been a long time since I properly moved my body.
I've never once in my life been good at physical things.
It was the same in Korea.
Of all my efforts to keep my grades up, the hardest was the P.E. performance assessment.
There's no way I could fit in among superhumans like that.
Fighting off the dizziness, I trudged on.
The Namgung young master and Teacher were fighting at the center of the smashed Jeong Manor, so I had to go all the way around.
Things like human remains were rolling around everywhere. An arm even fell from the sky.
It seemed people who had been literally torn apart by the first shockwave were belatedly falling.
There weren't even any groans.
It seemed everyone had really, cleanly died and become corpses.
“Seriously……. what the hell is the murim…….”
That's why I wanted to stay away from it.
I'd just somehow ended up in the middle of it.
I staggered along and passed what had been the main gate.
The moment I passed it, the wall collapsed.
The signboard that had said Jeong Manor in grand brushwork fell with a thud and came flying in front of me.
“Sigh…….”
The dizziness was getting worse.
Once again, a disaster I never agreed to has somehow come crashing down, and somehow my life gets smashed to pieces.
To go from learning to read all the way to passing the examination, I really must have worked myself half to death trying to change my life.
I trudged on and on.
The sky kept turning red and blue again and again, as if it had gone mad.
The world seems to have gone mad, and so have I.
My vision began to turn red.
As my mind grew hazy, anger began to well up.
I don't know my parents' faces, let alone their names.
I was never particularly happy living in a poor orphanage.
Even so, I worked hard to get there.
What I was good at was studying, so I studied and studied again.
And thanks to that, I got into a prestigious national university on a full scholarship.
I'd thought my life could change.
And on that very day, I fell into this murim.
But even after that, I survived.
I worked myself half to death learning the language and then the script, passed the Youth Examination in five years, and became a Licentiate.
I thought I'd take office and my life would finally start again, late as it was.
Then suddenly, the place I'd entrusted myself to is the Demonic Cult's running dogs, the Sword Star dies before my eyes, and so the orthodox and the demonic are running amok in the place I thought of as home.
It's always been like this.
Actually, I've never owned anything.
Not property, not even my own belongings, not once…….
Every time something's about to change, my life gets wrecked again, as if struck by lightning.
Was there any better move than this in the path I took?
What on earth did I do wrong to deserve this?
Can't I just experience a smooth life for once?
It's bitter, and so unfair.
I'd lost even my sense of direction, but I could feel myself clenching my teeth hard.
And soon even that anger scattered.
Where am I?
The ground suddenly came closer.
I realized a little late that I was collapsing.
If I wanted any chance of living, I should have collapsed after reaching the government office…….
In the last moment, I thought.
Maybe it's better to just die. I don't have the strength to keep going.
***
Namgung Ran thought she was lucky.
She had run without even knowing Jeong Manor's exact location, going only by the exploding whirlwind.
So it was entirely possible to miss someone who had collapsed along the way.
That he nonetheless caught her eye at a glance could only be called luck.
The back of the fallen figure looked somehow familiar, so she quickly ran over and checked his pulse first.
He was still alive, but his pulse was not very strong.
She soon realized why.
When she looked up at the sky, the blue domain was being pushed back little by little, and the blood-colored sky was covering this area.
It meant the blood qi was thickening.
The Blood Flow Eight Heavens Art was a martial art for killing a strangely large number of people.
As if it had been created for that purpose from the very beginning.
Regardless of why such a martial art existed in the world, if one trained in it and reached the absolute realm…….
The domain one unfurled would invite death by itself alone.
Because it was a martial art created with such an inner image and intent.
She recalled what she had learned.
If, while two Absolute Masters fought, one side's domain became fixed in place, the phenomenon held by the domain of the Blood Flow Eight Heavens Art would manifest too.
Sure enough, red clouds began to gather in the blood-colored sky.
Drops of water began to fall, pitter-pat.
Actually, it was not water.
It was drops of blood.
Namgung Ran quietly employed the technique of her new realm.
Proof that one had crossed the wall of the Peak appeared in drawing out one's own inner image into the world, even if only a little.
A realm made of qi.
A martial artist's unique space called a Qi Field.
A realm where one could be free from the phenomena a domain caused.
The red blood qi, which had been thickening and growing ever more rank with blood, was pushed back by Namgung Ran's Qi Field.
The realm created by the Namgung Clan's Azure Vault Great Expansion Divine Art was, in whatever form, a space where people could breathe comfortably.
The complexion and breathing of the Licentiate who had given her enlightenment began to stabilize.
Only then could Namgung Ran survey her surroundings.
Jeong Manor seemed to be the site of houses visible a little way off.
She could sense masters of the Peak and above clashing there.
Should she go to their aid?
On her first venture into the martial world, it was hard to decide at once.
The martial world she knew had been nothing but the small world of the clan.
But she looked up at the sky again. In the distance, she could see the bloody battle between the Captain of the Blood Heaven Unit and the Qingcheng Divine Sword.
A battle of a realm she dared not even imagine.
“That is a realm I cannot intervene in.”
She had to move to the inn where her brothers were first.
It was true that the Namgung Clan held sacrifice for the common folk to be noble.
But it did not tell one to do the impossible.
“I cannot save everyone.”
Her conclusion came quickly.
Namgung Ran quickly hoisted Licentiate Heo onto her back and ran in the direction opposite Jeong Manor.
At the Clear Wind Inn were her brothers, and right next to it was the government office where the Governor of Lizhou stayed.
Joining them there would be better than charging in here and falling.
Above all, she could not abandon the benefactor who was to receive the Namgung Token.
Namgung Ran's abilities were not enough to save everyone.
The blood rain falling from the Blood Heaven began to color the road she ran along redder and redder.
***
The smell of blood was too thick.
My body also felt warm, so I opened my eyes.
A face with wide, round eyes was looking at me, brightening.
Rather than being surprised, I grew calm once again.
Why am I alive?
Whatever it was, at the last moment, even my breath had been choked off.
Even a fool would have thought he was about to die.
“Why am I alive?”
“Because I saved you.”
The answer came back so nonchalantly that for a moment I didn't understand what she meant.
But when I raised my head, I saw two people looking at me with concern.
I remember the anger at the moment I collapsed.
Should I call this cursed luck? Is having cursed luck really a good thing?
Somehow, a way to live turns up again.
Sadly, I don't have the courage to give up on life.
So I smiled bitterly and bowed my head.
“Thank you, truly. Now I'm the one in your debt. It's become too great a kindness to be repaid with the price of some food.”
As I said that and looked around, I could tell this was the Clear Wind Inn.
Probably the top floor. Only then did I notice the other person.
There was a young man sitting cross-legged, looking at me with an expression as stiff as wood and stone.
When he opened his mouth, I realized it was the first time I'd heard his voice.
It was a voice as stiff as his expression.
“I heard Ran received a great kindness from you, Licentiate. We lack the strength to protect Lizhou, and it seems we must escape. Will you come with us?”
There was nothing more direct than that.
But I could tell he was speaking as slowly and clearly as possible, perhaps considering that I'd just come to.
When I stared at him, he looked about to start over from the beginning, so I answered.
“I'd be truly grateful if you would. But could you first tell me what's going on?”
The second son hesitated for a moment. His expression said he hadn't considered that I was ignorant of the murim.
“Our father, that is, the Sword Star, passed away in Lizhou. The Sect Leader of the Qingcheng Sect came to investigate, and judging by the circumstances, he seems to be fighting the Captain of the Blood Heaven Unit.”
“The Captain of the Blood Heaven Unit is a famous master of the demonic path.”
Namgung Ran, who had been watching for a chance, slipped in.
I sat all the way up now.
The dizziness was gone.
“Then we'd better run quickly.”
“That is right. I was just discussing that with Ran. The Divine Sword told me to wait for my brother and leave together, but now that things have come to this, I intend to move first.”
“The Qingcheng Divine Sword is the alias of the Qingcheng Sect Leader.”
The two siblings' kindness was almost bewildering.
Then I realized I'd seen the eldest of the three siblings at the site of Jeong Manor.
“Your brother was fighting at Jeong Manor.”
“Pardon?”
“It seemed he was looking for your youngest…….”
As I said that and looked at Namgung Ran's face, she'd gone white as a sheet, as plain as could be.
“For me?”
“Ran……. You picked a bad time to sneak out.”
In this case, it'd be right for me to just provide the information and keep my mouth shut.
I'd only just realized it.
I know nothing about this world's murim.
Everything I thought I knew is just stories on paper; the murim before my eyes now is probably different in every way from what I knew.
As I watched, thinking that, the second son rose from his seat.
“I am Namgung Ho-won.”
“I'm Heo Saeng. You can call me Licentiate Heo. Whatever you're comfortable with.”
“Yes, Licentiate. It seems we must trust my brother and leave Lizhou ahead of him. I have a poor sense of direction and do not know how the roads connect. Which way would get us out of here fastest?”
But when someone seemed this ignorant of the ways of the world, I found myself making a suggestion.
“The government office is right next to the inn. The Governor of Lizhou is staying there, so there should be government troops too. They say the government and the murim don't intrude on each other, but wouldn't it be better for us to entrust ourselves to them and move together?”
Ho-won's eyes widened, as if he truly hadn't thought of that.
Then they quickly narrowed again. He seemed to have few emotional ups and downs and felt dry, but he looked that much more composed.
Judging by the sorry state of the clan as I'd heard it from Namgung Ran, this one must be on his first venture too.
“You are right. We should go to the government office first.”
I got up.
The Clear Wind Inn wasn't a small place, so I could see the waiters and many other people trembling.
Before I could step up, the two Namgung stepped forward.
“Gather this way. We are going to the government office.”
“If we go to the Governor, there will be a way out. Everyone, move calmly.”
That also didn't seem at all like inexperienced first-timers in the martial world.
It wasn't so much that their methods were skillful as that they were certain of what they were doing.
And that certainty, together with the proud Namgung characters embroidered on their martial arts uniforms, became the force that moved the common folk.
“Well……”
As rigid as they are, they must be just as surely righteous.
After all, the strengths and weaknesses of the world are two sides of the same coin.
As I got up, I tried not to let my face look like I was about to cry.
Heaven, please, just once.
Please, just once, let me accomplish something.
Take pity on this Licentiate Heo, who has never once been rewarded for his efforts.
Let me get out of here alive…….
And please, let me take office…….