The Monster Den
Han Yuhyeon double-checked everything he'd packed into his storage pouch. In truth, that amounted to little more than the Hyeonwol-soin and the Woodscale Guard Token—plus the talismans Baekri-wan had given him.
"Tch."
Unfortunately, Baekri-wan hadn't advanced him every talisman he'd asked for. All he'd managed to get on credit were an upper-grade spirit talisman and a mid-grade concealment talisman.
Even that was more than he'd expected. The whole "start high and bargain down" approach had been pure negotiation theater; what he'd actually needed was a single upper-grade spirit talisman. Walking away with a mid-grade concealment talisman on top of that was pure profit.
The sun was just beginning to climb—nearly the start of the hour of the rabbit. Han Yuhyeon stuck the upper-grade spirit talisman inside his left sleeve and the mid-grade concealment talisman inside his right so he could deploy them in a heartbeat, then headed for the meeting point.
"You're here, Junior Brother."
Jeong Cheon-o was already waiting at the main gate of the Baekun-pa. Han Yuhyeon immediately dipped his head in a polite bow.
"You arrived first, Senior Brother. As the junior, I should have been the one waiting. My apologies."
"Haha. I'm the squad leader for this mission—setting an example is only proper."
"As expected of Senior Brother Jeong."
While he was laying on the reluctant gold leaf, the rest of the Inner Disciples arrived. Han Yuhyeon greeted them with meticulous courtesy; the Inner Disciples, for their part, barely acknowledged him.
It didn't particularly bother him. This was how things were supposed to work. Inner Disciples looked at Outer Disciples the way cattle looked at chickens. The only time they bothered speaking to one was when they wanted a fight.
"Junior Brother Han. These fellows are a bit particular about appearances, you know. Haha! You'll warm up to each other soon enough!"
"Ah—yes."
If anything, Jeong Cheon-o's aggressive friendliness was the more oppressive of the two. Han Yuhyeon still couldn't figure out what the man was thinking.
"Tsk."
A click of the tongue came from among the Inner Disciples he wasn't looking at. He glanced over, but he couldn't tell who had done it or what it meant. Odds were eight in ten they simply resented having Outer Disciples mixed into their ranks.
"Well then. Shall we?"
Jeong Cheon-o pointedly ignored the sound and drew a small rolled strip of red carpet from his storage pouch. What had looked small enough to fit in one hand unfurled until it was easily large enough for four people.
Jeong Cheon-o and the Inner Disciples climbed on; Han Yuhyeon scrambled awkwardly onto the very back. Flying vehicles still felt unnatural to him.
In a way, it was no different from boarding an airplane with no windshield. Taking the aerial version of an already-dangerous motorcycle. What happened if you got a bird strike?
He shook the weak thoughts out of his head. He was already a cultivator walking a path that defied the heavens. Measuring everything by ordinary human standards would get him nowhere.
"We're departing."
At Jeong Cheon-o's word, the red carpet carrying five people rose straight up. Last time, riding Baekri-wan's vehicle, they'd only been hopping to a neighboring peak and hadn't climbed this high. This time they were traveling a real distance, and the carpet shot up endlessly into the sky.
"…Whoa."
Han Yuhyeon looked down before he could stop himself. The people and trees below had already shrunk to dots, and his heart shrank with them.
"Haha. Junior Brother Han still isn't used to flying vehicles, I see."
"Embarrassing as it is, yes."
"You'd do well to learn how to handle one. Especially useful for impressing the ladies."
"Excuse me?"
The remark was so unexpected that Han Yuhyeon doubted his own ears and asked again.
"What? You're a man too, aren't you? Putting on airs in front of your senior brothers?"
"No, that isn't it. I was simply caught off guard by the topic."
"Fair enough. Anyway, you need a stylish flying vehicle if you want to score."
Jeong Cheon-o glanced back with a sly grin. One of the Inner Disciples who had been sitting quietly added a languid comment of his own.
"Look at that face of his. Does that look like a face that can talk about women without it being awkward? Has he even met a woman once?"
Han Yuhyeon laughed in a sparse, embarrassed way. He'd gotten used to people mocking his face. And since the man wasn't wrong, it didn't even sting.
"Come now. Junior Brother Han has a certain charm if you look closely."
"…You've completely lost your mind."
The Inner Disciple folded his arms and closed his eyes. If you had to invent a physical pose for "Do Not Feed the Idiot," that would be it.
"By the way, Junior Brother Han—how exactly did you manage to charm that aloof Elder Baek?"
"Pardon?"
Jeong Cheon-o's question left him flustered all over again. Another topic he hadn't seen coming. "Elder Baek" could only mean Baekri-wan.
While Han Yuhyeon was still fumbling for a reply, Jeong Cheon-o pressed on.
"Come now, friend. The rumor has already spread far and wide. Elder Baek has taken an interest in a male disciple for the first time—that's the word."
"Is that so?"
"Absolutely. Don't you know Elder Baek? The number of men she's rejected alone would fill Myeong-wang-bong from base to peak. Naturally she never lets a man near her of her own accord."
"Ah. I see."
"You really didn't know. Go check the Talisman Workshop right now and see if there's a single male talisman master. There isn't one."
"That serious, then."
Han Yuhyeon answered half-heartedly while Jeong Cheon-o spit with excitement in front of him. Honestly, he couldn't have cared less. He had eyes—he knew Baekri-wan was beautiful. But what business did someone like him have harboring designs on her? Whatever she did was entirely outside his sphere of interest.
"I don't understand why that rumor started in the first place. She did ask me to serve as her attendant, but I turned her down."
"What? You turned down a chance like that—are you insane?"
Jeong Cheon-o suddenly bellowed. When Han Yuhyeon stared at him as if looking at a madman, Jeong Cheon-o cleared his throat and adjusted his tone.
"No, no. That was the right call. If you'd accepted the post of Elder Baek's attendant cultivator, you'd have drawn the envy of half the sect. A wise choice."
So Baekri-wan was some kind of idol inside the Baekun-pa. At least one of the people doing the envying was clearly Jeong Cheon-o himself.
"Anyway, at the Elders' Council, Elder Baek and Elder Mun clashed—over you, Junior Brother. Elder Mun was furious that an Outer Disciple who'd killed his attendant cultivator walked away without a single punishment. Elder Baek shot back asking since when he'd cared so much about a dead man."
That was unexpected. Baekri-wan had gone so far as to fight for him behind the scenes. He'd clearly made a better impression on her than he'd realized—which was probably why she'd signed a partnership agreement with an Outer Disciple in the first place.
"I didn't know that."
"You shouldn't be this calm about it. You have no idea how big a deal this is. You're the first male disciple in this entire sect that Elder Baek has ever taken under her wing."
Han Yuhyeon did want to ask her about it when he got back. But it wasn't important enough to justify Jeong Cheon-o's theatrics.
"Which is why I'm saying this—could you put in a good word for me with Elder Baek? She seems at least willing to listen to you, Junior Brother."
"…Ah."
At the oily gleam in Jeong Cheon-o's eyes and the carefully casual tone, Han Yuhyeon finally understood why he'd been included on this mission. The whole assignment was a bribe from a man who wanted to get close to Baekri-wan. Slip the gift into the pocket first, then reveal your true colors—cleverly done. Refuse now, and Han Yuhyeon would be the ungrateful one.
"I can at least bring it up with her."
"I knew it! I hadn't misjudged you after all. Thank you, Junior Brother!"
Han Yuhyeon and Jeong Cheon-o beamed at each other.
Ugh.
Of course, Han Yuhyeon had no intention of mentioning Jeong Cheon-o to Baekri-wan. Setting aside the fact that Jeong Cheon-o had tried to gamble for his spirit stones in the first place, Baekri-wan had her reasons for avoiding men. His saying anything wouldn't change that, and he had no desire to kick a hornet's nest. Later he could quietly go to Jeong Cheon-o alone and simply say she'd refused.
After he accepted the request, the atmosphere on the flying vehicle grew considerably warmer—though only between Han Yuhyeon and Jeong Cheon-o. The other Inner Disciples had no interest in joining in.
After a few hours on the vehicle, he began to adjust to the wind hitting his bare skin. Piercing through clouds and carving the sky with nothing but his body was, he had to admit, exhilarating.
Now and then they passed through cloud-covered regions where the vapor closed around them until nothing at all was visible. When he asked how anyone navigated in conditions like that, Jeong Cheon-o helpfully explained that there was a separate dharma tool that indicated direction—essentially the cultivation world's version of a compass.
The vehicle flew for two full days. Yeongil-ju might have been a tiny region in the game, but experiencing it in reality revealed an almost absurd expanse.
"We've arrived."
Jeong Cheon-o checked a compass-like dharma tool and began a gradual descent. The houses and mountain trees that had been dots steadily grew larger.
"Cheonbang-jin. Been a while."
Jeong Cheon-o said. As a veteran, Han Yuhyeon knew the place too—a town stuck to the southeastern tip of Yeongil-ju.
No hidden pieces, nothing of particular interest. The kind of town you only visited to light up the map.
The moment they stowed the flying vehicle and stepped into Cheonbang-jin, Han Yuhyeon and the Inner Disciples all frowned. Black smoke hung thick in the air, laced with the stench of burning corpses.
At the center of town, a lattice of stacked wood was burning in the open square. Villagers with grim faces were tossing bodies into the flames.
Han Yuhyeon glanced at the corpses before they burned. Every one of them bore wounds that looked like they'd been torn or raked by some enormous beast.
"Ohhh! The cultivators of the Baekun-pa have come!"
Someone among them recognized the group and cried out. The commoners immediately prostrated themselves before the cultivators.
"Please, honored cultivators—save our village."
"Saving you is one thing. What about the reward?"
"Of course we've prepared it. Our village gathered everything we could—you won't be disappointed."
"Show me that first, then."
Jeong Cheon-o's manner was blunt to the point of rudeness, but the old man who appeared to be Cheonbang-jin's village head showed no offense at all. He drew a pouch from his waist. Inside were thirty lower-grade spirit stones. A single lower-grade spirit stone was worth a thousand lowest-grade stones—so the village had posted a bounty of thirty thousand lowest-grade spirit stones.
"Solid enough."
Jeong Cheon-o opened the mouth of the pouch, made sure Han Yuhyeon and the rest of the squad all saw the contents, and looked satisfied.
"We'll go clear them out. In the meantime, get rid of the rotting-corpse stench in this village. It's so foul I don't care to stay long."
"Understood!"
Han Yuhyeon clicked his tongue inwardly. Those burning bodies had been someone's family, someone's friend, and talking like that was exactly average cultivator behavior. The fact that it still sat a little wrong with him only proved he had a long way to go before he could match the standard.
Following the village head's directions to the northern approach, they found a hole pouring out dense demonic energy. A monster den—a dungeon of yao beasts.
It was far too close to the village. No wonder there had been so many casualties. No wonder the village had scraped together every last coin for the bounty.
"We're going in."
Jeong Cheon-o drew a recording spirit stone from his robes and activated it. The stone glowed and began to tremble, capturing their images. As squad leader, Jeong Cheon-o went first into the hole of demonic energy.
"Hah!"
Han Yuhyeon drew a deep breath, let out a shout, and jumped after him. Four months since his transmigration, and this was his first monster den.
He closed his eyes and opened them again to find himself in a dark forest. The air of a monster den was thick with demonic energy, and the unpleasantness of it was immediate.
"Everyone's here."
Once Han Yuhyeon—the last of them—was inside, Jeong Cheon-o immediately assigned vanguard, center, and rearguard positions and explained the tactics.
Firepower was entirely the Inner Disciples' job. Han Yuhyeon's role in the center was essentially that of a porter—collecting the byproducts and spirit stones that dropped when the beasts died. Was five thousand spirit stones really appropriate pay for grunt work like this? Then again, when someone was overpaying, there was no point arguing.
"This place has beasts up to rank six. Doesn't matter much to us, but you should be careful, Junior Brother Han. Don't stick your neck out more than you have to."
"Understood."
Han Yuhyeon nodded. Truthfully, now that he was in a monster den, he wanted a chance to fight the beasts himself—he'd just expanded his qi capacity through the Mongan Hyeolseo yesterday. But if he charged ahead and derailed their route, it could turn into a catastrophe.
"They're starting to show."
Basic rank-nine beasts began to appear—Wood Fiends and Red Snakes, the trash mobs of a monster den.
With four Inner Disciples of at least Qi Condensation sixth star among them, rank-nine beasts were no contest at all.
A massive fireball formed in Jeong Cheon-o's hand, then burst into dozens of fire bolts.
"Kyaaaaah!"
The beasts struck by the fire bolts screamed and vanished. In the places where they'd stood, spirit stones and junk items like hides dropped to the ground. That part was oddly just like the game.
Han Yuhyeon moved quickly, scooping up the loot and stuffing it into the shared storage pouch Jeong Cheon-o had given him. The den seemed straightforward enough.
Then again, the fact that Jeong Cheon-o had added Han Yuhyeon to the squad at all was itself a judgment that this wasn't a high-difficulty den.
The squad smashed through the den at a crushing pace. And yet, somehow, the den showed no sign of ending. Normally, the weaker the boss beast of a den, the smaller the den itself. If a rank-six beast from a low-tier region like Yeongil-ju was the boss, the den should have been over long ago.
"Something feels off."
At last, one of the Inner Disciples put the vague unease in everyone's mind into words.
"Nothing's gone wrong so far, has it?"
Squad leader Jeong Cheon-o tried to soothe the anxiety, but the Inner Disciple's brow furrowed.
"This already is the problem. Does it make any sense that the den still isn't over?"
"Hey—when you take a mission, you're supposed to investigate properly first."
The Inner Disciples who had been quiet until now began to push back. Fair enough—this was entirely the squad leader's fault. Inadequate reconnaissance of the place he was leading his people into.
"So what, are you saying we should retreat?"
"…"
Now Jeong Cheon-o came at them with shameless bluntness. Put that way, the Inner Disciples had no good answer either.
When variables appeared mid-mission, the textbook move was to admit failure on the spot and pull out. But the Inner Disciples who had come this far were also reluctant to go home empty-handed.
"Damn it. Fine—we push on for now."
Han Yuhyeon had no say in the decision either way. He was just the pack mule.
And so the cultivators who couldn't let go of greed crossed into the next zone of the den—when a tremendous tremor shook the ground. From behind them came a sound like a mountain collapsing. Even with his ears momentarily shielded by spiritual power, the roar felt ready to split his eardrums.
KRA-KOOM!
Everyone spun around. The mountain path they had just crossed had completely collapsed, sealed under rubble.
"…Oh, fuck."
Han Yuhyeon knew what this meant. When a monster den shifted themes this hard, either the beasts had laid a trap or the den itself had mutated. Either way, the difficulty was about to spike.
Whiiish!
In that instant, Han Yuhyeon sensed a thread-thin, razor-sharp killing intent riding the wind. Reflexively, he activated the True Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art and drove his fist forward.
A fist suddenly shooting out in front of his face startled an Inner Disciple so badly he fell flat on his rear.
"What the hell is—!"
The Inner Disciple started to snap at Han Yuhyeon, then froze mid-sentence. He had seen the snake clamped onto Han Yuhyeon's arm. And it wasn't one of the rank-nine Red Snakes they'd been fighting a moment ago.
"A Zhu Snake?"
The Inner Disciple's voice was hollow with shock. A Zhu Snake with two pairs of wings carried enough extreme venom that the creature itself ranked as a rank-six beast.
"Tch!"
Han Yuhyeon grimaced and clamped his other hand around the Zhu Snake's throat. Feeling the pain, the snake thrashed its wings and tried to fly free—but he had no intention of letting go. In the end, the Zhu Snake died of strangulation. The head that had been locked on his arm dropped free.
"It's mutated."
Han Yuhyeon brushed off the place where the snake had bitten him as he spoke. A den where a rank-six beast was supposed to be the boss—and a rank-six Zhu Snake had just appeared as a trash mob. That left only one explanation: the den itself had mutated, and its entire grade had changed. Everyone stared at Han Yuhyeon with blank, stunned faces.