Chapter 3
Screeeech—!
Like a bolt shot from the sky, Baekdu Cheongak-eung plunged down and slammed into the pot.
Gulp, gulp—!
It buried its head in the pot and tore into the seonji haejangguk with shameless, delighted greed.
"Kreee! Kieeek~!"
It had apparently forgotten it was a carnivore, because it was absolutely demolishing the ugeoji and bean sprouts.
After all, nobody could resist the cabbage in hangover soup.
Even so, what it loved most was the blood curd. The White-headed Heavenly Awakening Eagle pecked at the seonji with quick, chomping bites.
"Kiheeek!"
With vitamins, protein, calcium, and potassium all packed into that first-rate blood curd, Baekdu Cheongak-eung was practically drunk on bliss.
Yep. The effect’s real enough.
As I watched the bird lose its dignity to a bowl of soup, I drifted back to the original story.
In the novel, the protagonist had simply grabbed this thing by force.
When he encountered Baekdu Cheongak-eung’s fateful chance, the protagonist had just broken into the Transcendent Realm / Hwageong.
No matter how fierce the thing was, there was no escaping a master of Hwageong.
He was running after me with Qinggong like his life depended on it, stuffing himself on elixirs instead of meals. How the hell was he not supposed to get caught?
The hero had said it was to test how powerful Hwageong really was, but to me, it just looked annoying. It wasn’t even a heroine, so why would he bother winning it over?
Anyway, the protagonist had captured Baekdu Cheongak-eung without much trouble, but that was where the real problem began.
It had been smuggled in by Central Plains bastards, dragged here against its will, and now some other barbarian was trying to act like its master?
Of course it would rebel even harder.
The result of all that resistance, as I’d said before, was a pot of samgyetang—no, sam-eung-tang—supposedly good for your body, tasty as hell, and great for your stamina.
In other words, a meal fit for a glorious death.
Still, this time I’ll probably avoid the boiled-bird ending.
Glug, glug—!
Baekdu Cheongak-eung propped the pot up with its two wings and downed the broth in one shot, showing off a little spiritual-beast finesse.
What it was drinking wasn’t just broth.
It was broth simmered with the secret sauce I’d painstakingly perfected after being transmigrated into this fake Murim world, where they sold squid-ink pasta instead of somyeon and my homesickness had nearly killed me.
No, no! This isn’t it...!
Dammit! I want sundae-gukbap with enough seasoning to drown a whole pot of rice, not this risotto garbage!
A seasoning sauce made by a Korean born in Korea, longing for Korea.
The KKK— seasoning sauce.
Different species or not, it would fit the mouth of a fellow Korean race member just fine.
"Hic— burp!"
Baekdu Cheongak-eung belched at the soup that washed down the heartbreak of failed romance and disappointment alike.
"Tastes decent?"
"!?"
When I spoke to the bird after it finished its meal, it stiffened and set itself upright, suddenly trying to look dignified.
It was probably trying to play the role of a spiritual beast and all that.
Yeah, sure. With red broth smeared all over your beak, you just look like a gluttonous gukbap junkie.
"Want this too?"
To that soup-addled glutton, I pulled out my secret weapon from my pocket and held it out.
It was a piece of candy about the size of my thumb.
The white, lozenge-shaped candy gave off a faint minty scent that cooled the nose; it looked perfect as a post-meal palate cleanser.
That, too, was one of the foods I had recreated, just like the seasoning sauce.
Gulp—
I heard it swallow unconsciously.
"You not eating? Then I’ll just—"
"Kieeek!"
The instant I made a show of putting the candy in my mouth, Baekdu Cheongak-eung shot over in a panic.
It snatched the candy with its beak and hopped up onto a nearby tree.
I could have caught it easily with a geumnasu if I wanted to, but I didn’t.
Because this wasn’t something to solve with force.
"Kihng~ kihihng~"
It rolled the candy around inside its beak, humming to itself, clearly pleased with the taste.
"Yeah. Mint candy after a meal is the absolute canon choice."
It wasn’t even human, but watching it eat so happily somehow made me feel warm inside.
Maybe I’m extra pleased because the locals have been trash-talking my food all this time.
I still didn’t get why people who smeared mint chocolate all over their meal pills drew the line at mint.
Well, now that I’d fed it dessert too, maybe it was time to get to the point.
"Hey, Baekdu Cheongak-eung. How about becoming my pet... no, my spiritual beast?"
I took off the bamboo hat I’d been wearing and said it.
"!"
Seeing Geom Mujin’s black hair and black eyes, the eagle’s gaze sharpened with interest.
It looked back and forth between Geom Mujin and the pot, then turned to stare at him.
Its eyes were so deep that it was hard to believe this was the same bird that had been stuffing itself on blood curd soup and mint candy just moments ago.
Wooooong—
When our eyes met, I could feel my upper dantian react.
Oh, nice. Because I’ve been buttering it up, it’s going straight into the first test.
They said a spiritual beast, when choosing a master, looked into the other’s mind and heart.
That was a unique divine ability of spirit beasts that had awakened intelligence and broken free of the frame of mere beasts.
Having achieved the unity of spirit, energy, and body and bloomed the mysterious three flowers gathering at the crown, I was able to perceive the process in much finer detail.
Wooooong—!
As Baekdu Cheongak-eung’s upper dantian began to resonate with mine, the world around us changed all at once.
One moment I was in the mountains; the next, I stood in the middle of a blue sky.
Standing on clouds instead of earth felt strangely unreal.
So this is inside Baekdu Cheongak-eung’s mindscape.
It reminded me of the time I’d been beating up that illusion bastard, Hwanma.
Whoooosh—!!
Then a high wind came from somewhere and tickled my cheek.
Before long, a shadow spread across the heavens.
No, on closer look, it wasn’t a shadow at all. It was wings.
A spiritual beast with wings so enormous they seemed to cover the sky came slicing through the air.
GROOOOAAAR—!!!
As the beast roared, the clouds scattered in all directions.
"Ha."
Looking up at the beast before me, I let out a dumbfounded laugh.
Pure-white feathers, spotless as snow.
Its plumage had deformed so badly it looked like Pidgey had evolved past some ridiculous Mega Evolution into Mega whatever-the-hell-this-is, but there was no doubt about it.
"Aren’t you overdoing the hype a little?"
That was Baekdu Cheongak-eung.
It was its own mindscape, so of course it had dumped on some absurd self-buff.
ROOOAAAR—!!
Maybe it was stung by my comment, because the Baekdu Cheongak-eung, pumped up to phoenix-level proportions, lunged at me at once.
From here on out was the turning point.
Whether I became its master or not would be decided right here.
With a foot that could easily crush rock, it stamped down where Geom Mujin had been standing.
BOOM—!!
But there was nothing there for that talon to catch.
"Here."
Baekdu Cheongak-eung flapped hard toward Geom Mujin, who had slipped away in the blink of an eye.
WHOOOOSH—!
As a whirlwind burst from the tips of its wings and surged over him, Geom Mujin drew his sword.
Mujin Sword Style
Jin-In Sword
Yongho Yuhee, In
The blade drew a circle.
Not a simple circle.
Within it, a dragon and a tiger leaped through heaven and earth, chasing one another in wild play.
From the inner rotation where tail chased tail, a force of attraction was born.
As the sword, filled with that pull, carved its path, the whirlwind was dragged along and hurled up toward the sky.
Seeing the direction of its own whirlwind change at the touch of a single sword, Baekdu Cheongak-eung gaped blankly, beak hanging open.
But only for a moment. Quickly regaining its senses, it pressed the attack.
It slashed with its talons, stabbed with its beak, and flung feathers sharp as blades.
But every one of Baekdu Cheongak-eung’s attacks was rendered meaningless before Geom Mujin’s sword.
The talons and beak were diverted uselessly aside, and the feathers scattered everywhere without ever reaching him.
"Wanna keep going?"
At the provocation, Baekdu Cheongak-eung flapped its wings.
FWOOMP-FWOOMP—!!
The fierce gust made Geom Mujin instinctively raise his arm to shield his eyes.
Baekdu Cheongak-eung didn’t waste the opening and shot high into the air.
"Damn, my vision—"
Squinting at the bird silhouetted against the sun, Geom Mujin narrowed his eyes.
"Planning to go for one big hit, huh?"
Warped like some monster by the influence of its mindscape, its essence was still a hawk. It would try to settle things with its strongest attack, and that meant its tactics were obvious.
"Come on. I’m not planning to dodge."
Smiling faintly, I crooked a finger.
KIEEEEEEK—!!
The instant I said it, Baekdu Cheongak-eung began its diving attack.
Its body grew larger, its mass increased, and the acceleration of its fall grew even greater.
With qi added on top of that, the dive now had the force of a missile.
As the distance closed and I felt the pressure of the incoming strike, Geom Mujin’s mouth curled upward.
"Wrong opponent, buddy."
Mujin Sword Style
Wolhyangeom
Samilwollim
Geom Mujin’s right arm and sword danced, leaving afterimages like crescent moons in their wake.
One became two.
Two became four.
Four became eight.
As the dance continued, the crescent moons multiplied exponentially.
In an instant, the crescents spread into a forest.
A forest made entirely of crescent moons.
It was a breathtaking sight, beautiful enough to steal your eyes away, but the Baekdu Cheongak-eung staring at that forest screamed in terror.
"Kie... kieeek!?"
"Normally, maybe. But in your current state? You couldn’t dodge even if you wanted to."
With its body overbuffed to absurdity, Baekdu Cheongak-eung couldn’t turn and collided head-on with the forest.
CRRRRSH-!!
The crescents filling the forest shredded the bird all over.
"Kieee...!"
Raked across its entire body, Baekdu Cheongak-eung lost all momentum and came crashing down.
THUD—!
Normally, it would’ve been pounded so thoroughly you couldn’t even recognize its original shape, but I’d held back.
This is about earning its recognition, not staging a life-and-death duel.
Death in a mindscape could even affect the body.
"Feeling a little more willing to acknowledge me now?"
"......"
Even with its major meridians cut and its body pinned down, Baekdu Cheongak-eung still didn’t acknowledge Geom Mujin as its master.
I know you’re strong. But I don’t choose a master based on something like this. Show me your mindscape.
Reading that unspoken challenge in its eyes, Geom Mujin let out a small sigh.
"Honestly, what a pain. So you really hadn’t noticed."
".....?"
Baekdu Cheongak-eung floated a question mark over its head that looked a few centuries ahead of its time.
"Kiee..."
Its gaze begged him not to keep it to himself and to explain properly.
"I’ve been showing you this the whole time. My mindscape."
Saying that, he extended the sword he’d been holding all along.
It looked exactly like the sword he usually used, but this wasn’t a real-world weapon.
There was no way a real object could be brought into a mindscape in the first place.
It was, in the truest sense, mind as sword.
Strictly speaking, it’s only a fragment of that.
If I revealed it completely, the mindscape would collapse.
Meanwhile, Baekdu Cheongak-eung stared at the sword with eyes so wide they looked like they might split apart.
Within this ordinary-looking sword rested the mindscape of a swordsman unrivaled under heaven.
After silently gazing into Geom Mujin’s mindscape, Baekdu Cheongak-eung looked away.
"......"
From that look, I could tell what it wanted from me.
I had no idea exactly what it had seen in my mindscape, but now there was only one thing left to do.
Subdue Baekdu Cheongak-eung’s mindscape with my own.
"The order’s a little off, but whatever."
Geom Mujin deliberately ignored the blood-soaked Baekdu Cheongak-eung and took up the stance of the upper heavens.
"Watch closely."
The sword he’d been holding a moment ago had vanished before I even noticed.
His hands now looked empty, but he wasn’t unarmed.
Streams of sword-light flowed in from nowhere and gathered in his palms.
Strong and soft, fast and dazzling, heavy and deep.
Different currents of sword-light came together and formed a single blade.
Geom Mujin gripped the sword forged from a thousand currents and brought it down in a single slash.
It was a plain vertical cut, but the result was anything but ordinary.
Along the path his sword took, the blue sky was split clean in two.
Flash—!
And then light burst from the severed mindscape and swallowed them both.
* * *
"Mm... I’m back."
I blinked awake from what felt like a brief nap and looked around. We were back in the Dabie Mountains.
Looking at the sun in the sky, I saw that less than half a kyan had passed.
"You came back too, huh."
The bird hopped down from the tree and landed on my shoulder.
Its familiar attitude made the earlier scuffle feel almost like a joke.
"Brrr-rrr."
Ting—!
At that moment, something like a thread stretched out from my upper dantian.
The same thing happened with the bird, and the threads extending from each of us wound around one another, knotting together.
When the knot was complete, I realized some kind of connection had formed between us.
So this is the psychic imprint between a spiritual beast and its master.
"Kiee!"
Since it had officially accepted me, the bird rubbed its head against me as if asking for good care from now on.
Watching it longer, it really was cute.
"Still, I can’t keep calling you Baekdu Cheongak-eung forever, so maybe I should at least give you a name—"
"Wait!"
"?"
I was about to name it when someone called out to stop me.
"Please hand that eagle over to me. I’ll pay you handsomely."
"No, how did you even get here...?"
The man turned his head and blurted out in surprise.
One of the heroines from My Murim Academy had appeared right in front of me.