The Kind Sea Dragon Who Saves People
“Ugh…”
Rin had come to a little before Hae Sua returned.
“During the mission, I took a hit from my blind spot and went flying toward the Janggang. I lost consciousness right after, dropped my sword, and nearly died…”
It had been a blunder unworthy of her.
She should have realized that after the authorities mobilized troops and wiped out one of the Janggang Water Sect’s branch forts, the leadership would be on edge. And yet she had failed to even handle a single ambush properly.
“Still, it looks like Senior saved me, so at least that’s—”
She never finished the sentence.
Rin’s face went cold.
The compression bandages she normally used for her male disguise lay shredded and scattered across the floor, leaving her bare chest completely exposed. The only thing covering her was a single scrap of rags.
She swallowed hard, eyes trembling as she scanned her surroundings.
“D-did the water bandits find me first?”
No. That couldn’t be. It mustn’t be.
But it also seemed unlikely that a senior from the Murim Alliance who had been on the same mission would have simply stripped her clothes off like this—especially not by unraveling her bandages in this manner. No one was supposed to know she was a woman in the first place. If they had noticed the compression bandages, they would have quietly looked the other way, not left her like this…
“M-my sword…”
In the end, the only conclusion that made sense was that the water bandits had captured her.
Anxiety clawed at her. Rin scrambled to find her sword, but the Murim Alliance standard-issue blade she had dropped when she fell into the middle of the Janggang was never going to be here.
Her expression was just beginning to twist into something ugly when—
“Oh.”
“…”
Hae Sua walked into the cave.
She was carrying Rin’s original wet green robe, a spoon and plate, and an armful of salt and fruit she had bought to cook something for her guest.
“Uh, hi?”
“Who are you.”
It might have come across as relatively friendly under other circumstances, but unfortunately, Rin had no choice but to react with hostility. Up until that very moment she had been imagining the absolute worst-case scenario imaginable—so thoroughly that she hadn’t even registered Hae Sua’s horns and tail yet.
“I’m the one who pulled you out of the water after you floated by.”
“And the person who ‘saved’ me left me stripped like this?”
“You want me to leave someone who nearly drowned in soaking wet clothes? Seriously?”
“My chest hurts like hell. What exactly did you do to me?”
“You were about to die from not being able to breathe, so I gave you CPR.”
“…”
“I just did what anyone should.”
“…Fine. I’ll accept that.”
After a bit of back-and-forth, Rin let her guard down around Hae Sua—somewhat. Lowering her guard was one thing, though. She still had something she needed to do right away.
Murim Gallery.
She opened the Murim Gallery to check for information. Maybe someone had posted about her disappearance, or about the attack on the Murim Alliance members dispatched to the Janggang. But while the Gallery was fast at secondhand distribution of news that had already made its way through Murim’s usual channels, it was helpless until primary information arrived from the field. There was nothing useful to find.
Of course there wasn’t. Rin herself was the martial artist who had been sent to this site. Unless she personally reported to Murim Alliance command, there was no way for anyone in the Alliance who used the Gallery to share secondary intel.
“Haa…”
Rin sighed and dismissed the Gallery from her view.
As a rule, typing on the Murim Gallery required voice input. She couldn’t exactly write a question post with Hae Sua sitting right there—and the process would almost certainly expose her identity anyway. She wasn’t going to risk it.
But that left her with no way of figuring out what had hit her, how she had ended up in the Janggang, and how she had floated all the way to Hae Sua. For the first time in a long while since joining the Murim Alliance, Rin found herself grinding her teeth over a lack of information.
“Ah.”
Only then did it hit her—she had scowled her way through a half-hearted thank-you and left it at that. Their first conversation had been so venomous that they still hadn’t even finished introducing themselves, and on top of that she had spent the last several hours rudely burying herself in the Gallery hunting for intel.
“What’s your name?”
“Hae Sua.”
“You can call me Rin.”
“I’ll be imposing on you for a bit.”
“As much as you need.”
Having finally exchanged names, Rin was about to properly thank her—lips parting as she waited for the right moment—when she froze.
“Huh?”
“What is it?”
“Your horns…”
“What about my horns?”
“…and your tail.”
Only then did Rin’s eyes finally take in the horns and tail attached to Hae Sua.
“You’re a Divine Beast?”
“As you can see?”
“Ah…!”
The pieces snapped into place all at once.
A cave that looked like a freshly made nest, with almost nothing in it. A Divine Beast—rare across all of Murim, Gallery users aside. And yet, in this brutal world of martial artists, here was a Divine Beast moral enough to casually save a stranger and go buy medicinal herbs from a village.
This woman named Hae Sua…
She’s an apex predator, isn’t she?
That was the conclusion Rin finally reached.
“Haaawn…”
Hae Sua, blissfully unaware that her casual act of kindness had already blown her cover, went over to the pool, dipped her hands in, and began kneading the water—struggling to shape another Waterdrop Bed for herself to sleep on. Her skill still wasn’t quite there; the second one refused to come out the way she wanted.
Ah, damn. I should’ve been born a Divine Beast too…
Watching her concentrate, Rin felt a flicker of beauty she couldn’t help, and envy gathered at the corners of her gaze. Unlike Hae Sua, Rin had been a woman back in Korea as well. Fully immersed in a martial artist’s life to the point of crossdressing, she sometimes felt this small stab of jealousy whenever she saw someone like Hae Sua—someone born with outstanding looks who could dress and present themselves however they pleased.
“Done!”
I had thought about making other furniture out of water before, but once the looting started going well, I never bothered with the hard work of crafting anything. So my skill never improved, and I fumbled a few times—but I finally managed to make another Waterdrop Bed with that jelly-like texture. Super single size. Perfect for sprawling out alone to rest or sleep.
“I’m putting this one next to yours. There aren’t many spots in the cave where we can keep a fire going, so we’ll have to sleep close.”
“Yes, go ahead.”
Thankfully, Rin didn’t seem to mind the beds being pushed together.
“So… what should I do next?”
I closed my eyes gently and thought about the work ahead. As I pondered, my tail swayed lazily left and right, and since that third leg of mine was swinging side to side, my whole body naturally tipped with it.
After a while of that—
“Ah. Her clothes should be dry by now.”
I remembered Rin, who had been lying on the Waterdrop Bed for hours in nothing but rags. I had shoved the beds right up against the campfire because I wanted to sleep warm—I couldn’t exactly leave her without a single change of clothes.
“Want to try these on? They look dry now.”
“Ah—thank you for telling me. I, um… I’ve been undressed so long that I actually got used to it and forgot.”
“How are they? Dry enough?”
“Mmm… yes. There’s a little dampness left, but it should clear up quickly if I stay by the fire.”
The green robe I had briefly borrowed returned to its rightful owner. As Rin gathered her clothes and began dressing, she stared at my face for a long moment.
“Could you go to the village tomorrow and get me some bandages?”
“Bandages? What for?”
“I plan to use them in place of undergarments.”
“Ah.”
Right. This girl had been wrapping her chest in weird bandages instead of anything resembling a bra. Unwinding those wet things had been a whole ordeal.
Anyway.
“Mind if I ask why you use bandages? Seems like it’d be suffocating. Is that what everyone does? Should I be doing it too?”
“Ah, well, that’s…”
I didn’t understand the choice, but then again, I hadn’t lived as a woman before, so maybe I just couldn’t relate. When I casually asked why she used them, Rin looked pointedly at my chest and made a flat face.
“I don’t think you’d be able to use bandages anyway.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
“Know what?”
“Even at my ordinary size it looks uncomfortable. What do you think would happen if you tried, Miss Hae?”
“Huh?”
Oh. Right.
I definitely couldn’t use bandages. My chest wasn’t just “a little big.” How big did they have to be for things that should exist to have vanished completely inward?
“And fasten your clothes properly. Aren’t you embarrassed? Walking around a place this unsafe advertising yourself as a pretty, well-built female Divine Beast—what are you going to do if something happens?”
“Maybe it’s because I only just started wearing clothes again, but everything feels so stuffy… Leaving a little open makes it feel like I can actually breathe. Kind of like skin breathing?”
“Skin breathing…? Ah, is that a thing?”
Of course, on the clothes front, I didn’t really have any defense beyond “it’s more comfortable this way.” I knew perfectly well that buttoning up neatly looked proper and put-together. But ever since arriving here, I had spent days naked or nearly naked. In that short stretch I had gotten used to going around undressed, and I was still adjusting. Especially when I closed things all the way over my chest—it felt like I couldn’t breathe properly. A person has to breathe, right?
“Anyway, Rin—why are you even here? You suddenly float down the river half-dead. What happened?”
“Ah, that…”
Feeling vaguely awkward, I deliberately changed the subject. Rin fell silent for a moment, then slowly began.
“I am a member of the Murim Alliance—a coalition that protects orthodox martial artists who walk the righteous path. The authorities suddenly intervened and struck a blow against the Janggang Water Sect, that perennial nuisance, so I was sent here to investigate.”
“By swimming?”
“…No. I was ambushed by Janggang Water Sect bandits, fell into the water, and ended up like this. I’m not a strong swimmer, and the Janggang’s current is fierce.”
“Ahh.”
So after I sold out those water bandits, the government had done something about it. The user going by Murim Alliance Guard had said the authorities would handle the cleanup just fine—this was probably part of that cleanup. And once the authorities moved, the Alliance dispatched an agent to assess the situation.
“So are they going to wipe the whole place clean now? The government?”
“…No, that would be difficult. The Central Plains are vast. The authorities can’t maintain order on their own, and they’re throwing everything they have into holding the northern and western borders against the foreign tribes.”
“Then who handles security inland?”
“We martial artists do, as an unspoken commission.”
“Hmm…”
But hang on.
Wasn’t this structure a little weird?
Fine—the government was holding the borders, so they couldn’t manage the interior. Except they could manage it. When I handed over those water bandits, they processed them just fine, and the moment they saw an opening they took the initiative and attacked. But day to day? Day to day, martial artists were supposed to be the ones dealing with scum like Eom Gutaek’s crew…
“What have you people been doing this whole time, then?”
“Each faction bases itself in a key county or mountain and protects the surrounding region. Stronghold-style security is the main approach, but we also use junior talents on their martial journeys to address problems across the Central Plains that our hands normally don’t reach…”
“Ahhh.”
I got it.
These martial artist types. All fancy talk, but nothing nearly as impressive as they made it sound.
“Got it. I understand.”
Your level. Completely clear now.
No wonder the system had snarked the second I arrived that beating people up first thing meant I was fully qualified to be a martial artist.
Aren’t martial artists basically just gangs? Only protecting their own turf—that’s exactly the look.
But I didn’t say any of that out loud. I was a civilized person, and I knew perfectly well that voicing every single thought was not a virtue.
“Sounds like tough work. Hang in there. I’m rooting for you.”
I tried to brush it off like someone else’s problem.
That was the plan, anyway.
“Um, by any chance…”
“Yeah?”
“I think it’ll take some time for my body to recover. Would you be willing to move with me for just a little while?”
An unexpected proposal.
“Just a little while is fine. I want to go back and check the place where I was ambushed and fell into the water. Of course, I’ll compensate you.”
Looking at her face, this clearly wasn’t a casual request.
Alright then. Let’s hear her out.