Lv.7 Sword Expert Lee Mi-ri [2]

Gaon was exceptionally kind to women. So kind, in fact, that in a game he'd played years ago, he'd had to shut a few mouths with real-life PKs after they smeared him as a Queen Bee sycophant.

Even Gaon, of all people, had come within a hair's breadth of calling the woman in front of him a crazy bitch.

This girl's way of thinking is not normal.

The education and religious upbringing of his boyhood years barely managed to haul his sense of chivalry to the surface. Gaon forced a smile.

"If you want a match..."

He assumed the stance the instructor had taught him. The Crown Stance. All those recent hours of training had paid off — the form was perfect. Even the instructor had declared there was nothing left to criticize.

But Lee Mi-ri neither praised nor marveled at Gaon's stance. She merely furrowed her brow.

"No, that's the German fencing the instructor teaches. The stance you used in the video was different. You're not going to use that swordsmanship?"

Gaon shook his head.

"Back then? What I was swinging around back then wasn't swordsmanship or anything like it. What does cutting bullets have to do with fencing?"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Anyway... just do it with your original swordsmanship."

"I don't know any swordsmanship."

"Why are you lying? In the video you were slicing people up like sashimi with that sword."

"That's just swinging a blade well. It has nothing to do with systematic swordsmanship."

Gaon was telling the truth, but to Lee Mi-ri it sounded like a lie — a lie told because he didn't want to show her his technique.

"Is it some one-successor secret art, some hidden school? What era do you think this is, hoarding something like that? Everything I do to improve myself is for the Republic of Korea. Unless you're a descendant of Japanese collaborators, hand over the teaching."

Gaon had no idea what "for the Republic of Korea" was supposed to mean, but he answered anyway.

"I'm not even Korean, let alone a collaborator's descendant."

"What kind of bullshit is that? This is the Korean server."

"People from As don't have regional restrictions when they create a character."

Lee Mi-ri's eyes narrowed.

"You're from As? Then you probably don't have much money. I'll pay you five hundred thousand won a month in lesson fees, so just quietly..."

Gaon was appalled. How could someone dismiss another human being so casually, so naturally?

"I'm loaded. Don't you know I paid everyone here to charge in with me last time? I dropped tens of millions of won in a single sitting."

"So... you won't teach me swordsmanship?"

"No, I'm telling you there's no swordsmanship to teach."

"That so?"

"That's so."

"Then... I guess I have no choice."

Muttering ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that, Lee Mi-ri did not return the sword she'd already drawn to its sheath. She swung it instead. Straight at Gaon's throat.

"Die, you son of a bitch!"

An ambush. But a Swordmaster's dynamic vision caught it with perfect clarity. Gaon dodged with room to spare — and still nearly jumped out of his skin.

"What the hell? Why are you doing this all of a sudden?"

While Gaon yelped, Lee Mi-ri kept swinging. She shouted:

"Shut up and swing your sword, you bastard!"

Gaon kicked her in the stomach. Lee Mi-ri tumbled across the ground, then sprang back up and came at him with a venomous snarl.

"Swing your sword! Cut my damn head off!"

But Gaon had no intention of fighting to the death here. Out of old habit, he tried to evade. Teleport. He didn't go far.

"Where the fuck did this piece of shit go?!"

Lee Mi-ri's roar carried from beyond. Gaon hurriedly shut the building door and asked the instructor, who'd been watching from this side the whole time.

"What was that? You saw that just now, right? What's that woman doing?"

The instructor smiled faintly.

"Trying to steal your swordsmanship, I'd imagine. She believes she can learn it by fighting you directly."

"If she wants to learn swordsmanship, she should learn from you, the teacher. Why come at me?"

"That young lady isn't satisfied with the swordsmanship she learns from me."

"Why not?"

"She said no one who trained in German fencing has ever become a Swordmaster. No matter how well you swing a sword, if you're not a Swordmaster you're trash — and a school that hasn't produced a Swordmaster is trash too."

"She said that to your face? Her brain is legendary."

Apparently the conversation had carried. The door burst open, and Lee Mi-ri stormed in.

"Hiding in here, are we?"

Lee Mi-ri's eyes rolled wild.

"No, you fu—"

"Today, either I die or you die. One of the two."

The moment she lunged, Gaon teleported. This time, outside the fencing school. He shifted position and bolted, fleeing the assault, heading somewhere he knew other players would be.

Sure enough, two players were chatting in front of the bulletin board. Lee Bok-dong and Jijonmussang.

Jijonmussang was buzzing as if he'd been drinking since noon. He had every reason to be. Every item they'd looted yesterday had sold. The cash-out was already done. A few million won sitting in his bank account seemed to have inflated his confidence. Jijonmussang spoke with expansive generosity.

"Hyung's buying drinks, yeah? Drinks! Let's meet up and drink!"

"I can't drink. Beer knocks me out."

"Then you can drink cola while hyung drinks soju! Just work on the snacks, yeah?"

Lee Bok-dong couldn't bring himself to say that meeting people in itself was stressful. It would make him look like too much of a loser. He fumbled for a refusal, lacking the social grace to decline properly, when Gaon walked up between them.

"He said he doesn't want to. Why are you pushing?"

Fortunately for Lee Bok-dong, Jijonmussang's attention shifted. Jijonmussang asked warmly.

"Oh, training already over?"

"No, I got chased out. Weird stuff happened during training hours. So annoying..."

"Chased out? Why?"

Gaon grumbled through the absurd incident that had just unfolded. Lee Bok-dong was unimpressed after hearing it all. A woman showing interest, in any form, felt like a kind of deception to him. But Jijonmussang, as if he understood the feeling perfectly, asked in an angry voice:

"She's a psycho! Why'd you let her live? You should've just killed her."

"If I kill her I go PK status. I'd be a wanted criminal."

"So what if you go PK and get wanted? The mayor here's on your side, Gaon."

"Still, killing a woman is a bit much."

At that, Lee Bok-dong thought discontentedly, Over-immersed in the game? Or trying to look good in front of a female player?

He didn't have the courage to say it out loud, so he kept his mouth shut. He'd been told to drop the honorifics and he had, but he wasn't actually confident they were that close. Jijonmussang, however, sounded incredulous.

"Come on, woman or not, this is a game."

"It's too much like reality, though."

"Yeah, but still."

"Ah, I've got this whole tragic, tear-jerking backstory, okay? I'm a man with a past. Woman or not, I could probably kill her if I wanted, but then I'd have nightmares. Happy now?"

At that, Jijonmussang offered:

"Then want me to kill her for you?"

"Wait, for real?"

"Of course! She's at the fencing school, right?"

Jijonmussang grabbed his gun and strode off. Then he was gone. Lee Bok-dong stared blankly at his receding back, then asked:

"You said you didn't want to kill a woman. But it's fine if someone else does it?"

"Come on, it's a game, so what if she dies a little? She died in the city, so she won't even drop items, and she can reconnect in an hour."

Lee Bok-dong was still processing the absurdity of it when, in the distance, gunshots and a scream rang out. Both of them knew Jijonmussang had succeeded. Sure enough, a moment later Jijonmussang returned, grinning.

"You kill her?"

"Yep. Went and taught a sword-swinger the greatness of the gun."

"Nice."

As Gaon held up a thumb, Jijonmussang smiled awkwardly.

"Uh, so, Chairman? You'd be fine going PK, but I'm not. If I wander around the city like this I could drop my gear and be completely screwed..."

"Ah, right. I should compensate you."

"I'm not saying this because I want compensation... I actually sniffed out a pretty decent job? I'll even drive us there..."

Gaon barely suppressed the urge to sigh.

"You've probably figured this out by now, but I genuinely don't play this game for the money. I'd rather just pay you a fee than spend my time on something else instead of cash."

"Ah, this one's something you'd actually be interested in. You're training in swordsmanship, right? Then this'll help."

"How would it help with sword training?"

"Swordmasters show up there from time to time — it's famous for it. And the Swordmasters in this game are one hundred percent confirmed to be real-life Swordmasters, so seeing them in person would help your training somehow, wouldn't it?"

It was a plausible argument. Gaon thought it over for a moment, then showed interest.

"Swordmasters actually show up? For real?"

"It wasn't a Swordmaster?"

"Yes. If you look at the forum posts..."

While the surrounding White Skull Unit members watched his mood, Ryu Si-beom — who had come after reading the forum posts — clicked his tongue. Ryu Si-beom was the guildmaster of the White Skull Unit.

Lately his mood had been especially foul. No matter how many times he tried to set the record straight, people kept calling him an Ilbe troll and worse. It was deeply unfair. In reality, Ryu Si-beom had never even joined a Daum cafe, let alone Ilbe. He'd named the guild the White Skull Unit because he was proud of having served in the actual Republic of Korea White Skull Unit — it had nothing to do with Ilbe.

If Ryu Si-beom had a fault, it was only that he'd made a few political remarks and some verbal abuse. He'd been trying to walk those mistakes back, but he still hadn't managed it. Ryu Si-beom spoke in an irritated voice.

"So the guy who swept the second defense line wasn't Hyungtun, just some guy who could use haste spells and swing a sword well? I got scared for nothing and bailed on a fight we'd already won."

"That's not what I said — it's what people are saying online..."

Ryu Si-beom thought for a moment, then said:

"I think that guy really is a Swordmaster."

"Sir?"

"I said he seems like a Swordmaster. Hyungtun. Not the NPC — the real Hyungtun. The dictator."

The White Skull Unit member did not ask who Ryu Si-beom was to tell a Swordmaster from a fake. That would have earned him hours of verbal abuse. So he asked as carefully as possible:

"But isn't Hyungtun a president? I don't think someone who's a president would log into a game for hours at a time..."

Even that was enough to enrage the old retired soldier. Ryu Si-beom's eyes bulged.

This fucking bastard. This son of a bitch. When I talk you just shut the hell up and listen, but this little shit talks back point by point, doesn't even know his place.

While the White Skull Unit member floundered, Ryu Si-beom tried to calm his anger. Ever since he'd started playing this damn game, his temper had been hard to control. The stress kept piling up, scrambling his mind. From the beginning, Ryu Si-beom had never once enjoyed being guildmaster of this game. He was doing it all for the money anyway. He composed himself as best he could, then said:

"Why do you think a former general like me bothers commanding boneheads like you until my brain melts? It's because I'm hired and paid, isn't it? You know... who hired me?"

"The... the group chairmen, sir."

"Right. And why would those chairmen pay me a fortune to hire me? This is a gambling-adjacent game with a terrible image, full of nothing but money-grubbing gamer vermin — you think they'd sponsor a gaming clan that gets called Ilbe just for corporate advertising?"

"No, sir. They're after the game's final reward, hoping for a chance at life extension..."

"Exactly. And Hyungtun would want that chance too, wouldn't he? That man is over a hundred years old, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠right? What's a human being who's lived past a hundred? A half-corpse waiting to drop dead any day. What's so strange about a man like that playing the game himself to extend his lifespan?"

Gaon agreed to participate in tomorrow's battle. He pretended his only interest was the combat experience he'd gain from the fight, but that wasn't actually true. Gaon was also interested in the outcome of tomorrow's battle. In something other than money.

Gaon watched a video that had been posted on the Korean internet. A video of his own exploits. The reactions had piled up in the comments.

Admiration directed at himself. Gaon read these comments, and read them again. For four hours straight, over and over.

The praise in the comments continued. Apparently the image of the White Skull Unit they'd just defeated was truly terrible. There were even compliments calling him a guardian of justice and the like.

All this praise was so sweet that Gaon even pretended not to notice his goddess hinting that he should go to sleep. He kept savoring the comments.

Then a song reached his ears. A song the goddess was singing for him, descending from the heavens.

Even that sweet song could not put Gaon to sleep. A Swordmaster craves glory. The glory he failed to obtain decades ago. He was still reading the comments, again and again, when the goddess's song cut off.

Only when the goddess grew angry did Gaon finally repent.

"I'll sleep, my goddess. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'll sleep right now. Please don't do that."

Fortunately, the merciful goddess forgave her disloyal Great Warrior.