A Fateful Encounter on the Snowfield (10)
Hold on. He was the one who asked me to show him—so why does he look scared?
I watched the expression on his face as he stared at the beam I had just fired. After the blue-tinged cold cut through the air and vanished, a lingering chill hung in the space around us.
At the center of it all, he stood frozen with the look of a man who had just come face-to-face with something utterly unlike anything he had expected.
It was hard to believe this was the same person who, moments earlier, had been begging me to teach him a palm technique. He looked like he had just encountered something that simply did not fit within the bounds of common sense.
"Th-that… wasn't supposed to be a palm technique?"
He glanced carefully in my direction, his voice tangled with confusion and dismay. No doubt the technique he had imagined and the phenomenon that had just unfolded in front of him were far too different from each other.
I tilted my head at his reaction.
"Gak. (Be reasonable. How am I supposed to fire a palm technique with these hands?)"
Even I had to admit it looked a little strange. A palm technique was, at its core, a skill that expelled inner energy through the palm of the hand.
But my "hands" were a penguin's flippers to begin with—spreading them open like a human palm and launching energy that way was simply impossible. So I had found a method that suited my body instead, and the result was the Freeze Beam I had just used.
Humans and penguins were built differently from the ground up. Trying to copy the forms of martial arts he knew, exactly as they were, had been a losing proposition from the start.
I let out a sigh and turned my focus back to practice.
I managed it on my own once. What I need now is to make it so I can use it whenever I want, the moment I want it.
The first success had been closer to pure luck than anything else. But landing something once by accident and producing the same result on command were entirely different problems.
This time, though, I knew the formula. I still didn't fully understand how that strange power inside me moved, or exactly what sensation I was supposed to chase—but if I kept repeating it, I figured I would get used to it eventually.
So I ran through the same motions again and again. Gather the energy. Choose a direction. Focus it into a single point. At first the whole process had felt vague and formless, but the more I repeated it, the more the sensation began to settle into place.
And then—
Piyuuuung.
Once more, a beam of blue cold burst forth.
Yeah… that should do it.
It was far more stable than the first time. The power was consistent, and the time it took to fire had shortened. Instead of that explosive, uncontrolled surge from before, it felt closer to guiding the force exactly where I wanted it to go.
At last, I had fully mastered my very first technique.
Freeze Beam (working title).
"Gak-gak-gak. (Nice. Nice. Freeze Beam is nice.)"
It was more satisfying than I had expected. Having an actual means of attack made an enormous difference. Until now, all I could do was run or tank hits with my body. Now I finally had a way to fight back. There was still plenty left to improve, but at the very least I was no longer stuck in a position where I could only take a beating.
So what's left… is a movement technique?
The Tobogganing I used now was already fairly fast by ordinary penguin standards. Over short distances, I could slide across the snow at a respectable clip. But that was still only by penguin standards.
If I run into another polar bear someday… fighting to win would be a lot less smart than just getting away.
A polar bear could hit roughly forty kilometers an hour on land. Escaping something like that with my current Tobogganing was, realistically, impossible. No matter how fast I went, I was still only about as quick as a human walking pace.
And a human like him… he has to have learned at least some lightness skill, right?
I had already tried grafting the Ice Heaven Steps onto my Tobogganing, and that attempt had failed. Whether it simply didn't suit my body or I still hadn't grasped the underlying principle, I hadn't been able to make it work properly.
That left lightness skills—the movement arts used by martial artists of the Murim, techniques that could eventually let a person walk through the sky. Something like that would definitely help me.
I waddled over to ask him about it.
"Gak."
"What are you trying to say?"
I spread my flippers and flapped them as if I meant to take flight.
"Gak-gak."
"…Lightness skill?"
I nodded hard.
"Gak! (Bingo.)"
He studied me for a moment, then nodded as understanding settled in.
"When I saw you acting like you meant to fly, I wasn't sure what you were getting at at first… but you meant a lightness skill."
I nodded again.
"So… you want to learn lightness skills?"
He asked as if to confirm it, and I gave a short cry.
"Gak."
"Hmm… lightness skills."
He considered it for a moment.
"Truth be told, I was never particularly gifted with lightness skills. I can't promise I'll be able to teach you properly, but… I'll do my best to explain."
And so the lecture began.
"A lightness skill is not simply a technique for moving one's feet quickly."
His voice was calm, rolling forward at an even pace, as if he were reciting something he had organized long ago.
"To become a true master of the Murim, swordsmanship or fist arts alone will never be enough. Only when one understands one's own body and awakens to the proper circulation of inner energy can one truly be called a martial artist."
His expression remained solemn as he continued.
"The foundation of lightness skill lies in making the body light. But this does not mean simply shedding flesh or reducing one's weight. It is the realm in which one gathers inner energy in the dantian, smooths the flow of qi and blood, and moves every muscle and joint exactly as intended—eliminating all waste of force."
"………."
I watched him in silence. At first I listened carefully. For the first few minutes, at least, I found it reasonably interesting. I could grasp, to some degree, that a lightness skill was not merely about moving fast, but about handling the body with efficiency.
But then.
Five minutes.
Ten minutes.
Thirty minutes.
As time dragged on, my eyelids grew heavier and heavier. I had tried to stay focused, telling myself the content was important. The explanation, however, showed no sign of ending, and his words flowed on with the steady monotony of water trickling deep in the mountains.
In the end, I fell asleep halfway through.
The more shocking part was… when I opened my eyes again… he was still explaining.
"And the stages of lightness skill are not divided merely by differences in speed, but by how completely the harmony between body and energy has been perfected. A beginner must first learn simply to move their own body, and…"
Th-this maniac is a walking speedwagon of words.
"…Therefore, true lightness skill is not the state of never touching the ground, but the state of becoming one with the ground itself."
I stared at him blankly.
I mean… even skimming, I've been listening for over an hour.
And all I actually took away is… put inner energy in your feet and walk?
I tried reorganizing everything in my head, but strangely, the only thing left was that one painfully simple conclusion. Of course I understood that the process mattered—but the way he explained that process was just far too long.
First shock: the guy had been talking for over an hour straight.
This guy is genuinely terrible at explaining things.
Second shock: he was absolutely awful at explaining.
How does a person explain something this badly?
I was sincerely baffled. The content itself didn't seem wrong. If anything, it was the kind of deep, layered explanation you would expect from someone who had trained in martial arts for a long time. The problem was the delivery.
And right in the middle of my stunned silence—
"Ah. For reference, the Ice Heaven Steps—our Ice Palace's signature footwork—were created to recreate Tread Snow Without Trace, one of the higher realms of lightness skill."
Something actually interesting finally came through.
"Gak? (Huh?)"
I had already known it was a footwork technique, but…
It contains the principles of lightness skill?
That was information I had never considered. Until now I had thought of the Ice Heaven Steps as nothing more than a specialized form of footwork for moving across snow. If the principles of lightness skill were woven into it, though, that changed things. My head started to ache a little—and at the same time, I felt a flicker of relief.
So even if the Ice Heaven Steps themselves aren't a perfect fit for me… if I can understand the lightness principles inside them, that might still help me learn lightness skills, right?
After turning that over for a while, I looked back at him.
"Gak."
"Hm? Is there something more you wish to know?"
He asked whether I needed further explanation.
"Gak. (Ossu.)"
When I nodded and chirped, he thought for a moment, then picked up the thread again.
"Tread Snow Without Trace is not simply a technique for walking swiftly across snow."
This time he seemed to be trying to make it easier. He paused, then continued more slowly.
"Many people think of lightness skill as nothing more than a way to move quickly and walk through the air—but that is only the result that shows on the surface. True lightness skill depends on how perfectly one can understand and command one's own body."
He looked down at the snow beneath his feet. His footprints remained there—but they were shallow, faint, as if he had only lightly brushed past.
"Every time a person moves, they use force. Stepping forward, pushing the body, keeping balance—force arises naturally through all of it. But not all of that force is necessary. When unnecessary force creeps in, the movement grows heavy, and traces are left behind. Using inner energy to strip away those unnecessary parts and unite the flow of body and qi into one—that is where lightness skill begins."
I listened quietly. This time was different. When I had first heard him explain lightness skills, I had honestly understood almost none of it. Talk of understanding the body, circulating energy, and moving every muscle and bone at will had sounded plausible enough, but to me back then it had been nothing but abstraction.
Now, though, I thought I was starting to get it. I had already been through something similar. When I first learned Freeze Beam, I hadn't even known what kind of power lived inside me.
It had manifested by accident, and only through repeated use had I gradually learned the sensation. I hadn't controlled the force perfectly from the start. I had repeated it endlessly, failed, tried again, and slowly reshaped it into something that worked for me.
So lightness skill follows the same principle?
I looked down at my own body, and almost immediately a problem presented itself.
But copying human lightness skills as-is is going to be hard.
That much was unavoidable—humans and penguins had completely different body structures. Still.
That doesn't mean there's no way forward.
I got up and stood on the snow, slowly feeling for the power inside me. I registered the cold of the snow against the underside of my belly. Ordinarily I would have let a sensation like that pass without a second thought, but now I focused on every single movement of my body, checking each one.
Instead of gathering force into one point the way I did for Freeze Beam, I spread it through my entire body. I balanced myself as evenly as I could, moved as lightly and smoothly as possible, and concentrated on cutting out every scrap of unnecessary force. On top of that, I pressed myself flat to the ground for Tobogganing and slowly pushed with my feet.
At first I felt no change at all. It was just sliding across the snow the way I always did.
Still too hard, huh?
I tried again. This time I didn't force the speed. Going fast wasn't the goal. The heart of lightness skill wasn't raw velocity—it was how efficiently you could use your own body.
I eased off the power a little and tried to feel the natural direction and flow of my movement. And then I felt a tiny shift. Ordinary Tobogganing worked by shoving the snow aside with my body to drive myself forward.
This was different. Instead of forcing the snow out of the way, it felt like I was riding on top of it, moving with its flow—less like fighting the snow, and more like moving in step with it.
My speed hadn't increased by much. But the force I needed to cover the same distance had clearly dropped.
It works… sort of.
It wasn't perfect, but the direction was right.
Yeah… I'm going to need more practice and research…
I was turning over how to refine it when—
"……."
—I felt his gaze on me. At some point he had gone completely silent and was simply watching. I stopped.
"Gak?"
"Remarkable."
His voice was low.
"Even granting that I explained it to you… to take that and adapt it to suit your own body…"
There was more than simple surprise on his face. He looked like a man who had just confirmed a result he had never expected to see.
I tilted my head.
Is it really that impressive?
What I had done wasn't anything special. I had just found a method that fit my body.
"Gak. (I have no idea what you're trying to say, so…)"
I ignored him and went right back to practicing.