The Heavenly Slaughter Star
The Heavenly Slaughter Star. Originally, people tend to feel lonely when they’re alone. Even parents who seemed like they’d last forever eventually die, and friends drift apart. Inevitably, the world inside the computer, the internet, becomes your only friend.
The black-handed grandmother, with nowhere else to turn, was naturally expected to end up the same way. But she refused to teach me any martial arts until the very end.
“Why are you being so difficult!”
“……Would you teach secret arts to some random girl whose identity you don’t even know?”
“You said you were going to take in one of the nameless poor as a disciple anyway! What makes me any worse than them!”
“……Ahem.”
Black Water Granny eventually ran out of things to say and simply turned her back on me. Seriously, I went out of my way to protect her, and she wouldn’t even pay the protection fee? Anyone watching would think I was holding her hostage!
While grumbling to myself like that, I suddenly tilted my head.
……Don’t tell me this old hag still doesn’t trust me?
I thought we’d narrowed the emotional distance a little after opening up to each other, but it seemed that had only been my own delusion. Oh, so I was the only one being sincere, huh?
The demon inside my chest began throwing a tantrum, but I endured it with superhuman patience. The mission itself seemed easy if I just stayed hidden, and it was a chance to learn martial arts for free.
‘She said she used to be quite strong.’
In reality, she had fought evenly against me when I was wielding a sword with only my bare fists, so she was probably hiding even more. Well, I was hiding my own strength too.
Anyway, learning decent martial arts—skills—without spending achievement points was a precious opportunity.
“Status window.”
As soon as I whispered quietly, my character information appeared.
‘……Hmm, maybe I have an aptitude for martial arts.’
I didn’t feel like I’d realized that much, yet Asura Divine Art had already reached the 4th star. Wasn’t that pretty fast growth? I wasn’t sure how well it would match with Granny’s martial arts, but it would be good to learn if I could.
The problem was how to coax this old woman……
Burdened by an unexpected worry, I racked my brain, let out a sigh, and stood up. When I showed signs of moving, Granny glanced over at me. Was she still thinking I might run away?
“Granny, you trust me, right?”
“……Of course I trust you.”
“Hmm, that doesn’t sound very convincing…… We’re going to be one body and one mind for the next five days, you know?”
“Yes, yes, we’re together.”
“……”
Whatever. If things went wrong, I could just abandon this crazy old hag and run. Maybe we’d get closer while traveling together. Yeah, you never know with people.
I let out a deep breath and muttered while staring out the still-dark window.
“Then let’s get out of the city first.”
Since pursuers would obviously come soon, it was best to put as much distance as possible between us.
Before the sun had fully risen, we slipped over the city wall under cover of night. Two absolute peak experts, or whatever they called it in this Central Plains lingo. With just the two of us, sneaking in or escaping somewhere was easy.
“Haaam.”
The guards on the wall were practically drooling with yawns, right on the verge of falling asleep. The most dangerous moment is always when you think, ‘It should be fine now, they wouldn’t come at a time like this.’
This applied to me too, since I was going to be chased alongside the runaway ninja granny. The moment the thought ‘They couldn’t have come already, right?’ crossed my mind, I decided to escape. Yeah, this was the most dangerous timing. If you keep thinking ‘just a little longer, just one more night,’ you’ll end up surrounded and say goodbye to this life.
My only worry was whether Granny would quietly follow me.
‘……At least she didn’t run away while we were crossing the wall.’
No matter how tough I was, if my protection target ran off like that, my heart would shatter. Ah, what a relief. I genuinely felt reassured as I approached my comrade who had crossed the wall with me and asked,
“So which way should we go now?”
“……You don’t even know how to read a map?”
“Wow, way to make it sound so unpleasant.”
It wasn’t that I hadn’t decided where to go. From the start, our possible routes were extremely limited. Heading northwest to Xizang or Qinghai would bring us closer to the Divine Cult, our most likely pursuer. The south, Guizhou and Yunnan, would require crossing the Yangtze River. According to Granny, reaching the Yangtze in five days seemed impossible, but it was still better than getting caught on a boat.
In the end, we were heading east, toward the region with Mount Zhongnan in Shaanxi and Mount Wudang.
‘And if we go a little further from there, there’s that famous Mount Hua.’
This damn granny kept grumbling that we could never make it that far…… Come to think of it, this old woman was ridiculously full of complaints.
‘Ugh, how did I end up with the fate of protecting such an ungrateful person?’
My chest felt so stuffy. As I pounded my chest and ran, Granny once again looked at me with an odd expression, but that wasn’t my problem. I was just hoping the mission would end quickly. By the time that thought crossed my mind, the sun seemed tired of hanging in the sky and slipped below the horizon.
Once everything turned pitch black, we stopped moving and made a simple campsite, lighting a torch. We used the crackling campfire as background noise and looked up at the night sky filled with the Milky Way.
As I absentmindedly counted the stars, I realized anew how clean the air was compared to the 21st century. This place would one day cause yellow dust storms, but right now it was a fairly pristine Central Plains. And since we were in the middle of a forest, it was nature itself.
Of course, I wasn’t afraid of wild beasts like wolves. The only things that worried me were other martial artists. For example, unknown pursuers, or the old woman I had to spend the night with.
“……”
Ah, damn it. Having newly realized the danger the old woman posed, I let out yet another sigh—I’d lost count of how many—and stood up. I couldn’t sleep because I was worried this crazy old hag might slit my throat the moment I closed my eyes.
……I could subdue her easily enough while awake, but I had no idea what would happen if I let my guard down even for a moment. Her skill was too high to simply close my eyes while staying alert enough to sense her presence. If I just ran away it would be fine, but who could guarantee she wouldn’t quietly approach and snap my neck?
‘Is camping always this stressful?’
It hadn’t been like this in the lower-floor dungeons. There were too many uncertain factors, so I guess I was a bit tense. Someone much stronger than me could be chasing us. And that damn old woman, who was conditionally around my level, could break my neck at any time.
“……Sigh.”
If I kept losing sleep over all these anxiety factors, I’d be exhausted when it came time to fight. It was a self-contradiction. As I kept sighing like that, the old woman lying across from me tossed and turned, then sat up just like me and glared.
“What the hell are you so worried about that you keep sighing in the middle of the night, you lunatic?”
“……Hey, a person can sigh sometimes. And if you keep swearing at me, I’m going to start talking casually too, okay?”
“Aigo, what a fate. The world’s most damnable bitch is right here.”
The grumbling old woman glanced at my frowning face, then shook her head as if she had no choice and patted the ground beside her.
“Ahem. If you’re not going to sleep and just keep sighing, come over here and let’s talk.”
“Oh ho.”
So this damn old woman was finally feeling lonely. Since I couldn’t sleep anyway, I thought it was perfect timing and sat down beside her.
With one corner of my mouth quirked up, I looked at the old woman’s face and asked,
“Then what should we talk about?”
“Hmm.”
After a brief pause, the old woman met my eyes and murmured,
“The story of my martial arts.”
The young master of the Sichuan Tang Clan, Tang Cheol-ak, followed his father’s orders and gathered the clan’s warriors and his brothers to form a pursuit team chasing an unidentified monster. His father, the Poison Demon, who seemed very interested in the monster’s corpse poison, said he had a lot of work to do and would join them later if they were still chasing it. Well, he said “join,” but it sounded to Tang Cheol-ak like the old man planned to swoop in at the end and snatch all the credit.
He hadn’t wanted to lead this pursuit team in the first place, and his father’s nasty temper added even more unpleasant aspects. Nevertheless, as the obedient son, he brought along the Poison Bird and made plans to track the monster.
“Here, this scent.”
Tang Cheol-ak sprinkled the blackened soil from the slums onto the bird’s beak, waited a moment, then began chasing after it once it took flight.
The crazy old woman who had suggested talking about martial arts last night suddenly screamed.
“……Th-this is impossible!”
“What’s impossible?”
“There’s no way you could learn this fast on your first try! This is sorcery! It must be sorcery!”
“What sorcery—”
It seemed the old woman had finally gone mad. I let out yet another sigh—I’d lost count—and scratched my head with a hand that had somehow turned completely black. It was right around the time the sun was beginning to rise.