WeTried Translations
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◈ A Wandering Warrior's Survival Guide ◈
Chapter 17: A Killing Ordeal (1)
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There was only one basis for being certain that the Blood Serpent Gang had robbed Cheongmok Pharmacy.
“They found a Blood Serpent Gang member's dagger in the burned-out underground medicine vault.”
The handle had melted away, but the smith's mark had been engraved on the metal hidden within it. After asking around about that mark, they confirmed that the dagger had been passed on to the Blood Serpent Gang.
The gang also had a record of attacking in pursuit of the elixir. Cheongmok Pharmacy had therefore announced a massive bounty for the Blood Serpent Gang's extermination.
How could a mere pharmacy do such a thing? Yet Cheongmok Pharmacy had drained Changchun, Jilin, dry through dealings every bit as black as the Black Path's. With Changchun's purse strings firmly in hand, placing a request with the Wandering Warrior Hall was no trouble. They also seemed ready to mobilize every connection and contact network they had built in the Martial World.
Yi Mu-gwang passed the news on to Cheon Hwi.
“See? What did I tell you?”
Cheon Hwi merely looked away toward the distant sky, pretending not to know anything.
If the Blood Serpent Gang heard this, they would probably come coughing up blood and shouting, “What kind of bullshit is that?”
In any case, Cheongmok Pharmacy had no intention of letting them off after their attempt to loot the pharmacy's medicines.
The pharmacy began looking into everyone who knew there was an elixir beneath the building.
There were only a handful of internal staff and the few wanderers who had escorted the elixir as part of a job.
None of them had the skill needed to dare break into the underground vault.
More importantly, there was clear evidence of what each person had been doing at that hour.
Even if Cheon Hwi stepped forward proudly and said, “I robbed it!” the pharmacy staff, knowing the power of the Mechanism Formation, would not believe him for a moment.
“A campaign against a first-rate master. Are we joining?”
“Ha ha. You beat a second-rate martial artist once by luck, and now you think you've become first-rate? The Blood Serpent Gang's leader is a master at the early first-rate stage. So naturally, we...”
“...Naturally?”
“Stay out of it. Even if a crowd of second-rate martial artists rushed him, they would not stand a chance.”
Yi Mu-gwang knew how to distinguish a job that would kill him from one he could survive.
Cheon Hwi nodded and agreed that they should look for other work. The Blood Serpent Gang was not some sworn enemy of theirs. There was no reason to participate.
“If I ate the Black-Shell Softshell Turtle Elixir, I'd die, right?”
“...?”
Yi Mu-gwang stared at him as though wondering what nonsense he had suddenly started spouting, then shook his head.
“Don't say pointless things.”
“I was just curious about it. It was supposed to have burned up and disappeared, after all. My stomach hurt badly enough after I ate the Small Shell Pill.”
“Of course you'd die.”
The answer came without a moment's hesitation.
“If you die from qi deviation after eating a spiritual elixir, that's considered a good death in the Martial World.”
Cheon Hwi figured he would find out when he ate it.
For that, he needed to find somewhere safe. Somewhere with no one around.
Somewhere even Yi Mu-gwang would not be.
Yi Mu-gwang said he had accepted work as an escort guard for an escort agency that would be guarding a merchant caravan headed for the Central Plains in two days.
It meant Yi Mu-gwang planned to drink and play for the next two days, so Cheon Hwi could train or wander around as he pleased.
“Two days.”
What he needed to do during that time was clear.
* * *
A secluded mountain valley several hours from the city.
Cheon Hwi squeezed into a small cave he had found with great difficulty. It was a narrow crack that could barely fit one person, with no light reaching inside.
Beyond the entrance, the space opened up a little.
Drip. Drip.
Water fell from the ceiling at regular intervals.
Even if he groaned in pain or coughed up blood, no one would find him here.
‘This will do.’
He carefully unfolded the piece of cloth he had kept deep inside his clothes. In the pitch-black darkness, an object radiating an uncanny glow appeared.
The Black-Shell Softshell Turtle Elixir.
A spiritual elixir formed by condensing the blood and essence of a hundred-year-old Black-Shell Softshell Turtle.
How much would it cost if one tried to buy it with money? It was difficult to tell. One thing was certain. It was not something that should ever have fallen into the hands of a third-rate martial artist like him.
Fine golden patterns resembling a turtle's shell were carved across the surface of the walnut-sized blue-black elixir pellet.
Yi Mu-gwang's warning echoed in his ears.
He had died dozens, no, hundreds of times.
His neck had been severed by a blade. His five organs and six viscera had melted from poisoned needles. His whole body had burned in flames. After enduring such horrible agony and finding a way through it all, he had finally obtained this elixir.
And he was supposed to just carry it around without eating it?
If that were the plan, he would not have gone through all that shit to steal it in the first place.
He already knew what it would feel like to be stabbed, poisoned, bleed from his seven orifices, be cut by a saber, or have his heart torn apart.
But he had never experienced qi deviation.
“...Phew.”
Cheon Hwi steadied his breathing and set a dagger beside him.
It might not be possible, but if he fell into qi deviation and regained his senses afterward, he would probably be half crippled. The dagger was there so he could stab his own neck and regress.
‘If I explode to death, I'll just come back and keep forcing it down until I don't explode.’
Cheon Hwi was the sort to make even death into a tool for training. Having made up his mind, he tossed the Black-Shell Softshell Turtle Elixir into his mouth without hesitation.
Gulp.
The force with which it slid down his throat was already anything but ordinary.
‘Urgh...’
It felt as though he had swallowed a lump of ice.
The moment it passed down his esophagus.
KRAAASH!
A phantom peal of thunder rang beside Cheon Hwi's ears.
At the same time, his cross-legged body jolted, and his waist bent backward.
“Ghhh!”
It was as though a suppressed beast inside his dantian had roared. Immense, violent qi erupted in every direction.
When he had swallowed the Small Shell Pill, it had merely felt as though unfamiliar energy were whirling fiercely in his stomach.
This was nothing like that.
If the Small Shell Pill's energy had felt like an earthworm wriggling inside his body, this was an imugi overturning a river and thrashing toward the sky to ascend into a dragon.
Their scale and force could not even be compared.
The problem was that the energy was not diminishing.
It was growing stronger by the moment.
“Ghhh...!”
His spine bent like a bow, and blue veins bulged across his forehead and neck as though about to burst.
Bluish qi surged from his dantian, violently striking his blocked qi channels as it spread through his body.
Eating a spiritual elixir before he had even properly completed a Small Circulation had clearly been reckless.
Yet perhaps because his body was trying desperately to survive, several closed acupoints were forced open as though being torn apart. The elixir's energy spread throughout his body.
He did not know whether that happened because his body was trying to survive, or because the elixir's energy was so fierce that it overflowed and forced its way through.
Pop-pop-pop-pop!
“Urk!”
Blocked acupoints burst open in every direction, bringing pain as though he were being beaten with a club.
His breathing and concentration had long since collapsed.
There was no need to mention the severe internal injuries that followed.
It felt as though the ceiling of the cave within his dantian had collapsed, pouring down a blue-black flood.
The palm-sized pool overflowed in an instant.
The water flooded into his acupoints, mercilessly tearing through the spaces between his meridians as it rampaged in every direction.
‘I've got to stop it...!’
The inner qi pooled at the bottom of his dantian was only a small stream.
The Black-Shell Softshell Turtle Elixir's energy came crashing down like a landslide.
The moment he tried to stop it, Cheon Hwi's inner qi was pushed back instead.
His acupoints burst.
The blood vessels near them were crushed by the powerful shock, and his organs ruptured.
Blood burst from his mouth.
Pshhk!
Blood soon flowed from his nose and ears as well.
His vision turned crimson.
He could hear something inside him continually tearing, rupturing, and snapping.
His acupoints collapsed and twisted. His blood vessels and organs could not endure the aftermath and burst apart, while his dantian swelled like a boiling cauldron.
‘Ah, so this is... qi deviation?’
Cheon Hwi laughed as he coughed up blood.
‘You die if you eat it all at once.’
Before the realization could even settle in, his vision went dark.
Cheon Hwi's eyes snapped open.
He was in the cave.
The blue-black elixir pellet rested quietly in his palm.
Cheon Hwi stared at it for a long while before letting out a short laugh.
He had definitely died and come back, yet he was smiling.
He did not know whether what he had experienced was qi deviation or simply death from failing to contain rampaging inner power.
“I guess I've experienced one of those rare good deaths in the Martial World.”
There were only two outcomes after falling into qi deviation.
Either one died, as he had just done, or one woke a few hours later with collapsed blood channels and a half crippled body.
“The latter would be the worst.”
If he was going to die, then he would die.
Otherwise, he had to digest it.
Prepared to risk his life, Cheon Hwi drew the dagger and placed it beside him again, then swallowed the spiritual elixir.
Gulp.
But as though the latter outcome were not even worth considering, Cheon Hwi began dying and coming back again without fail.
Cheon Hwi's narrow, withered qi channels could not handle the elixir's immense energy. They began tearing throughout his body with cries of agony.
Tiny blood vessels burst beneath his skin, leaving dark blue bruises. His joints slipped out of place, and gruesome cracking sounds struck the cave walls.
Yet Cheon Hwi bit down hard on his bleeding lips and clung to the thread of his consciousness.
At first he spat blood.
Then it lessened until blood merely trickled from his mouth.
Then even that blood stopped flowing.
Eventually, he changed little by little until he could observe it all and merely endure the pain.
If a full step forward was too difficult, then half a step.
If even that was impossible, then half of half a step.
Little by little, he died, came back, and shoved the Black-Shell Softshell Turtle Elixir into his mouth again.
The principle of the Well-Returning Moving Art, which allowed him to cultivate qi even while moving, proved quite helpful to Cheon Hwi.
Before long, Cheon Hwi could suppress and endure the elixir's initial agony.
He reached the stage where he could try to circulate its energy.
He had literally died and come back more than ten times merely from swallowing the elixir and enduring its energy.
Cheon Hwi forcibly seized the rampaging energy of the elixir and crammed it toward the Ren and Du Meridians.
“Yeah, if I die, I die.”
* * *
While Cheon Hwi was completely absorbed in increasing his inner power, night deepened over Changchun.
On the surface, it was a peaceful night.
Only one thing was different.
Not a single insect could be heard in the forests and fields in one direction beyond Changchun's walls.
Whether the city knew of that silence outside or not, Changchun itself was even livelier than usual. Wanderers were beginning to finish their jobs and receive their rewards one by one, bringing life to the city.
The forges burned without rest.
Pigs and chickens were slaughtered and sold.
Brewed liquor flowed out of shops.
At the inns, the boisterous laughter of wanderers with full purses never ceased.
They all talked about one thing.
Since daytime, blue notices reading, “Recruiting Participants for the Blood Serpent Gang Extermination,” had been plastered everywhere before Cheongmok Pharmacy and on the Wandering Warrior Hall's bulletin board, stirring up the streets.
Normally, it would have been another familiar night in the Martial World, with wanderers who risked their lives for pennies drinking and making merry over the extermination reward.
But the outskirts of the city were markedly different from usual.
The packs of stray dogs that usually prowled the alleys at night in search of scraps had vanished somewhere.
The night clouds swallowed the moonlight completely.
From a shadowed entrance on the eastern side of the city, dozens of dark figures silently began taking control of the streets.
Their eyes gleamed in the darkness.
Blood-red snake-patterned headscarves were wrapped around their foreheads and shoulders.
Shing.
As though by prior agreement, bluish weapons left their sheaths all at once.
There appeared to be more than fifty weapons splitting the moonlight.
They were members of the Blood Serpent Gang and Black Path groups allied with them.
“Kill every bastard who sided with Cheongmok Pharmacy!”
“Deputy Leader Gyu Pae's enemy is in this Changchun too!”
“Kill everyone carrying a weapon!”
With murderous shouts, the Blood Serpent Gang members divided into three groups and surged forward like a torrent.
They had two goals.
First, to uproot and eliminate Cheongmok Pharmacy's faction for daring to try to draw their blades without knowing their place.
Second, to find and kill the bastard called Cheon Hwi in honor of their deputy leader's soul.
“Find the runt called Cheon Hwi and the bastard traveling with him!”
“Even if you find them, don't kill them! The leader said he would deal with them himself!”
At the very front of the group advancing toward the inn was a man who walked with particular leisure amid the wildly rampaging gang members.
He wore a black long robe embroidered with vivid red snake patterns.
At first glance, he appeared unarmed. Yet where a belt should have been at his waist, there was a handle like one belonging to a sword.
Anyone with a sharp eye would have known that he carried a thin, long flexible sword.
A flexible sword fluttered like a sheet of paper and could not even be used as a weapon without considerable inner power.
The fact that he could use one meant he was a master who had easily surpassed the second-rate level.
As screams rang out around him, blood sprayed, and corpses fell one by one onto Changchun's streets, he walked with his hands behind his back like a scholar out for a leisurely stroll.
He was the Blood Serpent Gang's absolute master, Blood Serpent Sword Gwak Do-mun, who had reached the early first-rate stage.
His build was that of an ordinary man, but his most unusual feature was his narrow eyes, which always looked as though they were half shut.
He was the sort of man whose expression made it impossible to tell whether his eyes were open or whether he was smiling.
He gave off an aura entirely opposite to that of Deputy Leader Gyu Pae, who had crushed enemies beneath his enormous Nine-Ring Saber.
The shadow trailing behind his steps swayed from side to side like a snake.
Gwak Do-mun was a master of shifting swordplay and swift swordplay, using his fluid, ever-changing flexible sword to strike an opponent's openings as quickly as a venomous snake and erase them.
Even amid the hellish chaos of spraying blood and spilling entrails, a kindly smile hung on his face.
Yet it was difficult to read even the slightest emotion in Gwak Do-mun's long, narrow eyes.
Drip. Drip.
Blood spraying like a fountain from a decapitated wanderer's neck flew toward Gwak Do-mun's cheek, only to bounce away as though blocked by something.
“We found the inn where Yi Mu-gwang and Cheon Hwi are staying!”
When Gwak Do-mun nodded, the Black Path fighters rushed in one direction like arrows.
Footnotes:
An imugi is a serpent-like mythical creature believed to become a dragon.
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