I Can't Possibly Be a Demon!
I gripped the sword. The sensation felt utterly reliable.
Of course, it wasn’t the feeling of some peerless divine blade resting in my hand. It was simply that the firm way I held the sword, the wild pounding of my heart, and the blood boiling through my veins were all screaming the same thing.
I could cut it down. I could defy the waves. I could defy the storm itself.
Even if a single drop of poison splashed onto me, the blood-red armor wrapped around my entire body would protect me. No, I probably wouldn’t even get hit in the first place. My slightly reddened vision was catching every single ripple of the poison waves and every movement of the hidden weapons.
And above all else, the sensation of the sword in my grip filled me with certainty.
My blade, drenched in sticky yet ferocious energy, was—by my cold, rational judgment—in an absolutely insane state.
I knew I wasn’t invincible. I knew the tower was overflowing with people stronger than me. Yet the thought rose unbidden anyway.
Right now, I felt like I could cut down anything. A sense of omnipotence surged through me.
Relying on that feeling, I stepped forward and swung my sword into the storm of jet-black hidden weapons.
───It was cut.
The ominous-colored poison split apart like the Red Sea, and the razor-sharp hidden weapons crumbled into nothing. Through the gap in the bisected storm, I saw a middle-aged face twisted in panic.
The man who looked like a venomous snake ground his teeth and thrust a hand blackened with energy toward me.
“Goddammit!!”
It felt different from the crazy old woman. Her hand itself had turned pitch black, but his looked like energy coiled around it.
The granny had bragged about something called ganggi—strong energy. She’d gone on about star power or whatever. In Western terms, it was probably like an aura blade. If that was the case, this must be some kind of ultimate technique, but for some reason it still felt like I could cut right through it.
I took one more step and swung my sword.
The blackened hand collided with my blood-soaked blade. Naturally, one side gave way. With a wet crunch, five pitch-black fingers flew spinning through the air.
Facing the man’s stunned expression, I took another step.
Crunch!
I drove the sword straight into his heart. A line of blood spurted out. The middle-aged man stared blankly down at my face.
I was wondering if all Murim people had some special trait that kept them from dying when he muttered in a low voice.
“Even seeing it again… you really are green as hell.”
For a second I thought it was an insult, but what filled his eyes wasn’t contempt. It was self-loathing. Humiliation.
“…So if you’ve only just stepped into the Jianghu, does that mean Poison Demon Dang Cheol-hwi becomes the monster’s first meal?”
The man let out a bitter, self-mocking laugh, then staggered backward. It didn’t look like a desperate struggle for survival, so I simply watched.
With my sword still buried in his heart, he dragged himself along until he tripped over a half-broken tree and collapsed powerlessly to the ground. Gazing up at the empty sky with hollow eyes, he muttered one last time.
“Goddammit.”
Then his breath stopped.
For someone who commanded a dragon and called himself the Poison Demon, it was an absurdly hollow death.
I shook my head, then pulled Excalibur—whom I had briefly parted with—free from the corpse’s chest. After that, I suppressed the Asura energy I had drawn out with everything I had, along with the blood that had wrapped around me like armor.
I’d been worried it might rampage on its own like during the apocalypse, but thankfully it slipped obediently back inside according to my will. Maybe it was satisfied after expending that much power.
If so, I might have found a way to suppress the madness after all. I was straightening my clothes with that thought when the old woman finally climbed up the hill.
“Why are you so late?”
“Hoo…”
The granny frowned, staring at me for a long moment before her gaze dropped to the corpse at my feet.
“…You actually killed the Poison Demon.”
“Yeah, that’s what people were calling him. Sounded like a pretty grandiose nickname. Was he strong?”
“Even if he couldn’t quite reach the top twenty, if we broadened the range a little he could have made it into the world’s top twenty masters. Before his decline, he was probably just a bit below me.”
“Hmm.”
World’s top twenty masters? Unlike the top ten, it didn’t carry any weight or cool factor at all. It felt forced. Narrow-minded, even. If the granny was only a little stronger than that, she couldn’t have been all that impressive either, right?
Some unintended suspicion must have crept into my eyes, because the granny immediately scowled and exploded.
“But I was at the level right below the world’s top ten masters!”
“Yes, I understand.”
“I’m telling the truth!”
“I didn’t say anything? Anyway, why were you so late, Granny? The fight down below seemed to have ended ages ago.”
“I chased down and killed the ones who ran away.”
She must have meant the guy who had endured one clash with my sword and the woman who’d been spitting hidden weapons from the tree like a coward.
“You went after them too?”
“If you had run away or barely survived, it’s better not to leave any witnesses.”
The old woman, who looked strangely tired, sighed as she gazed down at the Poison Demon’s corpse.
“…Though I never expected you to survive completely unscathed.”
“Yeah, he was weaker than I thought.”
“A dead man would curse you for saying that.”
Maybe she was annoyed at me belittling someone on her level. The granny’s face twitched a few times before she spoke again.
“Let’s head down the mountain today.”
“Mmm.”
Maybe killing the pursuers had put her at ease. These people had seemed more interested in chasing me than her… As I thought that and looked at the old woman, she stared at my blood-soaked figure with an even more exhausted complexion than before the fight and muttered.
“We can’t keep wandering around the mountains looking like that.”
“No, this is—”
It cleans itself quickly thanks to the sword’s effect. Thanks to Blood Seed I didn’t even need to get drenched in blood anymore, but I kept my mouth shut. The granny’s breathing had grown strangely ragged, so it seemed we really did need to descend.
“Why don’t we just ride horses this time? Taking the mountain paths feels like they’ll catch up anyway.”
“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said.”
“…The first?”
Hmm. I held back because she was an old woman.
I had thought that thanks to Blessing of the Adventurer, which always kept my body clean, climbing mountains forever would be no problem. But now I found myself thinking, Who the hell thought that?
Following the mountain path down under the old woman’s guidance, we arrived at a hot spring village right away. The surprisingly wealthy great patron paid the fee without hesitation, and then it was paradise.
“…Ahh, this is nice.”
It was my first time soaking in a properly hot spring since arriving at the tower. Every worry, concern, anger, and frustration melted away completely.
Yes. This was life.
Half-dissolved in the bathwater, I giggled and hummed a little tune. Killing the Poison Demon, relieving stress, melting away fatigue in the hot water—today really felt like my day.
The mission’s already on its third day? No, only two days left.
The growth that had been stalled had finally broken through the wall.
The Great Explorer has gained enlightenment.
Trait 'Sword Mastery' has been deleted.
Trait has been changed to 'Asura Sword'.
Somehow, the only English left in my status window was my name at the top.
I’m Korean, you know.
It seemed like a strange phenomenon in many ways, but good was good. I let it slide. No matter the language or format, the message in front of me was simply that I had become stronger.
I had grown so strong that it was hard to believe I was still only on the low floors at Level 2.
“Hmm. Maybe I’ll level up soon?”
Normally you had to reach the middle floors for your rank to rise, but in my case it might be different. Maybe another achievement was about to be added?
With bright prospects filling my head and the warm bathwater soothing my body, I spent a long time smiling like an idiot.
A pitch-black night lit only by starlight.
The Dharma Protector who had swung his sword across the jet-black soil confirmed the corpse of Poison Demon Dang Cheol-hwi revealed between the split earth. The man had died with his eyes wide open in utter resentment.
“Only one sword wound.”
His heart had been pierced in a single strike. The man following the Dharma Protector quickly nodded and muttered.
“Then it must have been a surprise attack.”
“No.”
“…Pardon?”
The Divine Cult’s Left Dharma Protector glared at the heart wound with burning eyes beneath his face cloth.
“It seems the difference in skill was simply overwhelming. It looks like the previous Dharma Protector secured a very powerful ally.”
“Should we request reinforcements?”
“No, that won’t be necessary.”
The Dharma Protector glanced sideways at the red star floating in the sky and muttered.
“After all, I will be the one above.”
The next day, while riding with the old woman, Liz encountered a common bandit on the plains.
“Hey, hand over everything you’ve got—!”
Slice!
Dead instantly.
If that had been all, it wouldn’t have been anything special. The important part came afterward.
The Explorer has accumulated too many achievements!
The Dimensional Tower is astonished and is updating the Great Explorer's information!
The Explorer's rank rises by one stage!
“Oh, I leveled up.”
Liz nodded in satisfaction.