Episode 1
It all started with a recommendation from a friend I’d known for twenty years.
“Hey, you said you like martial arts stuff, right?”
“Why are you asking all of a sudden?”
“Some new game came out with a wuxia setting. Give it a shot, yeah?”
My friend, who lived the life of a gaming YouTuber by exchanging his parents’ dignity for subscriber counts, had come to me with a game recommendation.
“No, I like wuxia novels, not wuxia games…”
Even when he offered to buy the game for me, I hesitated.
After work, I’m busy getting home. When was I supposed to play?
“C’mon~ Don’t be like that. Just try it, pleeease~”
When I still refused, he switched to begging.
“Ugh...! Cut it out already!”
At that demonic, next-level filthy coaxing, I threw both hands up in surrender.
If I hadn’t, twenty years of friendship would’ve been sliced clean in half.
“Waaah! Thanks!”
“But why are you asking me to play it? Why don’t you do it yourself?”
He was a gaming YouTuber too, for God’s sake.
“Well, I’ve already got so many games going right now. And the viewers say wuxia smells like old-man breath.”
“You little...”
My pride as an old-school wuxia nerd got scratched raw, and my friend hurriedly vanished.
“Anyway, tell me how it is once you clear it! Bye!”
And with that, the idiot was gone, leaving me no choice but to start the wuxia game he’d given me.
It was an RPG called My Murim Academy.
The game began when the protagonist, who claimed to be an ordinary swordsman found anywhere and everywhere, entered Cheonmu Academy.
But My Murim Academy, once it got going, was a game overflowing with irritation.
“Young Master! Come flower-viewing with me today!”
“Look at this girl, seriously? The young hero already promised to go boating with me!”
First off, I felt a strong sense of discomfort at the protagonist doing nothing but dating instead of training.
As a so-called martial artist, his schedule was packed with dates instead of practice.
Must be nice. I never even got to have dates... ahem.
At that point it was basically an otome game, but the real things I couldn’t tolerate were something else entirely.
“Ooh! A martial artist barely out of his youth has already learned sword aura...!”
“He must be the youngest in martial arts history!”
“He’s so damn strong!”
I couldn’t stand the way the protagonist just clicked and got stronger.
While everyone else was grinding themselves to the bone, the protagonist would clear one event and suddenly his realm had climbed.
It was thanks to his talent and that protagonist-only body of his that kept attracting random fortunate encounters.
“Damn... Does that mean no matter how hard I work, I can never catch up to a genius?”
“What have I been doing all this time...?”
Watching the students sob as they hit the wall against the protagonist’s ridiculous instant power-up made me feel weirdly guilty too.
The game developers had rendered the psychology too damn vividly.
Still, if I were generous, I could let those things slide. Sure, whatever.
Modern players want catharsis and fast pacing.
A straight-faced, old-fashioned wuxia protagonist probably wouldn’t sell.
Fine. I could understand all that, but...
Putting modern food like Americano coffee and pasta into wuxia? That was crossing the line!
“Waiter! Bring me half-and-half fried chicken! Extra radish!”
“The grain-block pills are best when they’re mint chocolate flavor.”
When the protagonist’s party sat in a sky lounge, looking out over Dongting Lake while slicing into medium-rare tomahawk steaks, I finally exploded.
What the hell is this? This isn’t wuxia!
A wuxia story without bamboo-leaf liquor or noodle soup?
“That’ll be 450,000 gold in total.”
“Ack...!”
The fantasy-style currency, presented as if it were the most natural thing in the world, made my mind go blank.
This wasn’t wuxia anymore.
This was just a mutant mix with a spoonful of wuxia and a spoonful of every other genre thrown in for good measure.
Even some freak who loved his daughter and his pet dog to death couldn’t have produced a hideous chimera like this.
My blood pressure must’ve shot up to 120 just from sheer rage, but I kept playing.
Since I’d started it, I figured I should at least see it through.
It wasn’t because I’d been seduced by the heroines’ illustrations. Absolutely not.
“Oh, nice service scene. Damn, that’s hot. Screenshot first.”
After that, the story started in earnest with the Demon Cult—the viral villain of wuxia—making an appearance.
That’s right. Wuxia is all about the Demon Cult!
Of course, that was before I realized the Demon Cult had been hit by fantasy lightning.
Anyway, before long the game had entered its final stretch, and I finally reached the ending.
“...S...hameful...”
The protagonist, a massive hole torn through his chest, vomited blood and fell.
He lost to the final boss and died.
At first, I thought it was some kind of awakening event.
One of those scenes where the protagonist realizes something on the border between life and death, wakes up, and then trounces the final boss.
HP: [x] / [max]
But the red-letter ending log flat-out rejected my assumption.
What the hell? Was this for real?
“Kyaaaah! Ack!”
“Young Master... I want to see that young master...”
“I-I don’t want to die...!”
And those lunatics at the game company didn’t stop there—they killed off every single heroine too, dragging them down to follow the protagonist.
It was the completion of a true massacre ending.
If it was going to end, then at least end with a happy ending!
Honestly, whether the protagonist died or not, I didn’t care that much.
But murdering the heroine-chan I’d painstakingly raised affection with, squeezing what was left of my slaughtered romantic instincts?
That I could not forgive. No, I shouldn’t forgive it.
Tap-tap-tap-!
Right then and there, I went to the game company’s homepage and unleashed a 3,700-character rant of righteous fury.
A complaint post carrying the grudge of a thirty-year-old virgin old-timer in the fandom went up on the board.
After that, I shut down my computer and flung myself onto my bed.
Tomorrow, after work, I’d curse out the idiot friend who’d recommended this trash and try a second playthrough.
Thinking that, I drifted off to sleep, not yet realizing...
that it would be my last night on Earth.
* * *
Inside a carriage somewhere.
“...Mm.”
My drowsy consciousness stirred at the sensation of someone approaching.
I’d dozed off without meaning to, and just before possession, I dreamed of the day before it happened.
Given everything that came after the possession, it wasn’t exactly a pleasant dream.
That bastard.
Cursing my friend under my breath, I sat up.
“...Have we arrived?”
“Yes, sir! We have.”
When I asked, pushing down the unpleasant feeling as best I could, the coachman nodded.
“That’ll be 58,000 gold.”
“Here you are.”
I handed over a gold coin stamped with the face of Hongwu, the founder of the Ming Dynasty.
“Ah! Thank you! Whenever you need to travel from one city to another, use Thousand-Mile Taxi, fast and safe every time! Please come again!”
Neighh-!
Having received his fare, the coachman slapped the horse’s rump and rode off.
Watching the carriage depart, Geom Mujin started walking.
The place I’d arrived in was Wuhan, the provincial capital of Hubei.
“Fresh coffee imported all the way from the West!”
“Lobsters just hauled in from the Southern Seas!”
“The latest volume of Youth Boy has arrived. Very good for men.”
Like any famous transport and logistics hub, this city was packed with merchants loudly advertising their goods.
As I strolled through those streets, Geom Mujin recalled what had happened a few days earlier.
The Plum Blossom Festival, a famous event of the Hwasan Sect.
The protagonist’s party had visited Shaanxi to watch the festival, where they encountered bandits.
Taking advantage of the festival’s bustle, the bandits had hidden themselves in houses on the outskirts, all of them looking terrified as though they were being chased by someone.
There was no way they looked like the leaders of even a small-to-medium bandit gang.
As a righteous orthodox martial artist, the protagonist clashed with the bandits.
“You’d steal the homes of innocent commoners? Unforgivable!”
Despite appearances, the bandit chief had a pretty big reputation, and the protagonist seemed to struggle at first.
“You brat! Do you take me, Donebulluk, for a joke?”
But then, as the protagonist buffed by talent and sheer dogpile pressure gradually gained the upper hand, he appeared.
The bandits were shaking like children who’d met the sack-bearer.
“H-Hiiik! It’s him! He’s here! He actually followed us...!”
“Damn it! They said he’d never show his face in Shaanxi!”
The man who had simply been going about his day, bandit-raiding in peace, only to suddenly appear and butcher their gang.
The man who raced through the jianghu with nothing but a single sword.
The man who stood at the summit of all the world’s swordsmen, scattered across the martial world like grains of sand.
The Great Swordmaster.
That was the entrance of the strongest swordsman under heaven, Geom Mujin.
“Wh-why! Why are you doing this to us...! What did we ever do to you...?”
“I’m bored.”
“Wha... thud.”
Once they heard the reason he’d chased them this far, the chief and his men lost their heads in the blink of an eye.
Bandits are necessary for the first meeting between the Great Swordmaster and the protagonist, but there weren’t any nearby.
And so the protagonist and the Great Swordmaster had their monumental first meeting, but there was no need for long-winded talk.
Sure, it was an otome-style game, but the protagonist was still a martial artist aiming to become the greatest in the world.
And in front of him stood a swordsman bearing the title of the world’s greatest.
There was only one thing to do.
“I’ll... surpass the strongest!”
The protagonist challenged him boldly, but it was far too early for that.
“Only by stepping over me can you reach the summit!”
After leaving those words of encouragement for the utterly crushed protagonist, the Great Swordmaster departed with leisurely grace.
Honestly, I’d done that myself, but damn, it was satisfying.
I only wished someone had slapped my back for it.
“Heh, heh...”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
“Mom... That black-haired uncle is weird. He’s laughing all by himself.”
“Hush! Don’t look at things like that.”
The mother covered the child’s eyes and hurried past.
“.....Ahem.”
Having been treated like that kind of person, the strongest swordsman in the world cleared his throat and regained his composure.
That kid was crying like crazy, so the motivation should be set now.
I hadn’t gone around beating up a perfectly decent bandit gang and the protagonist because I was starving for content.
Of course, using a rare twin-sword style in the martial world did make me seem a little shady...
All of this was for the protagonist’s sake.
It had been twenty years since I possessed this fake-martial-arts world, and I still remembered it.
I remembered what happened to a protagonist who got strong off lucky encounters alone.
That was why I needed to intervene before his bad habits took root.
Now that he was in the first semester of his first year, the timing was perfect.
I’d have to drill him until graduation.
If it were up to me, I’d start tightening the leash even earlier, but I can’t make the angle work.
Before this point, he’d been staying on Mount Wudang, so that was impossible, and the place where he’d lived before entering the sect wasn’t described in the original story, so I didn’t know it.
In any case, the important thing here was not to crush him, but to give him a goal.
A goal to surpass the strongest swordsman in the world.
You need to get strong through training.
It had also been mentioned in the original work from time to time, but the protagonist’s talent was top-notch.
I knew it because I’d crossed blades with him.
The more exchanges we had, the more his swordsmanship improved and refined itself.
That was talent worthy of a true protagonist.
With talent like that, if he still screws around, of course he gets a massacre ending.
With active use of fortunate encounters, he might be able to raise his realm quickly, but that would be nothing more than a worthless shell with a pretty shine.
For the sake of those heroine-chans, too, you have to—
“Ah.”
At the mention of the heroines, Geom Mujin suddenly felt a wave of existential burnout hit him.
When I’d gone to meet the protagonist, the heroines were with him.
Incomplete as they may have been, I’d met the heroines I’d only ever seen through a screen in the flesh.
And I’d seen them cooing over the protagonist who had been cut down and knocked flat by my hand.
...Bitter. So bitter. Way too bitter.
My mouth went as dry and sour as if I’d downed a shot of dark herbal medicine black as my hair.
“...Let’s grab something to eat.”
As I walked the street, I stepped into a nearby tavern to calm the bitterness in my mouth.
“Welcome! Dining alone, sir?”
As soon as I entered, the tavern keeper—one of the great representatives of the murim service industry, beggars excluded—greeted me.
“That’s right.”
“Then please, have a seat here!”
After sitting where he guided me, I unfolded the menu.
“I’ll take one Qi-Boosting Brunch Set, hearty enough to feel like I’ve circulated my energy after eating.”
“For drinks, we have iced Americano and iced tea. Which would you like?”
“Iced Americano. Eight pumps of syrup.”
“Right away, sir!”
After taking my order, the waiter disappeared toward the kitchen.
Ordinarily, the standard tavern fare would be noodles and dumplings, but in this town those were hard to find unless you went out of your way for them.
“Have you heard about that?”
“Heard what?”
As I knocked back a cup of chilled water placed on the table, I heard the conversation of two men at the neighboring seat.
“About Baekmun Escort Bureau.”
“The one that’s been on a hot streak lately, pushing out its rival, Hoyeon Escort Bureau?”
“Yeah, that one. Apparently Baekmun Escort Bureau’s been searching the Dabie Mountains recently.”
“Ah, I saw that too. They were practically on fire, the way they were looking. Something about catching bandits, wasn’t it?”
“Actually, word is Baekmun Escort Bureau isn’t doing that because of bandits, but because they’re searching for something.”
“Searching?”
When the man tilted his head, the other lowered his voice.
Like hell that would fool the Great Swordmaster’s ears, though.
“Apparently Baekmun Escort Bureau brought in some rare eagle from Olangkae land this time, but the thing escaped.”
“It’s been almost half a month of them making a racket in the mountains, and they still haven’t caught it?”
“They say that bird’s brains are no joke. It dodges traps like a pro, so they can’t pin it down.”
“Even so, it’s still just an animal, right? Sounds like Baekmun Escort Bureau is incompetent to me.”
The man quietly resolved never to use Baekmun Escort Bureau again.
“Tsk, tsk, my friend. Don’t you know a spirit beast when you see one? That’s why it keeps evading them so well.”
“A spirit beast? What is it, our neighbor’s mutt? And where’d you hear all this, anyway?”
“My younger brother’s friend’s fifth cousin’s brother-in-law heard it while drinking with one of Baekmun Escort Bureau’s servants.”
“...Just finish your pizza.”
“Right.”
The two of them resumed eating their half-finished pizza.
Meanwhile, Geom Mujin, who’d been eavesdropping on their conversation, clicked his tongue inwardly.
Tsk. The rumor’s already spreading.
The man in the back seemed to have dismissed it as idle nonsense, but what they’d just been discussing was a fact.
Baekdu Cheongak-eung.
One of the fortunate encounters the protagonist receives in the original story, and the reason I came here.
I gave the protagonist a lucky encounter—me—so I should be allowed to take one too, right? Ahem!
It’s all to keep him from becoming dependent on lucky encounters in the first place.
I’m honestly a very busy man, and I’m going this far just because of you. Because of you.
It was absolutely not because I’d developed an interest in pet content.
Really.