A Fateful Encounter on the Snowfield (11): Goodbye in the Snowfield
Each!! (This can't be done!!!!)
I had listened to the explanation of Tread Snow Without Trace from him and tried applying it to Tobogganing, but…
It was way too slow!!!!
There was no sign at all that my speed was increasing.
Of course…
To crawl on four limbs without leaving a single footprint in the snow…
After somehow grasping the principle of Tread Snow Without Trace, I managed to apply it, but…
I didn’t need it as a movement technique…
As a means of travel it was completely stagnant in speed.
It’s too slow… Even if it were possible, I should have at least gained a momentary acceleration of around 30 km/h…
I thought and thought, but nothing came to mind that felt like a real solution.
Hmm… What exactly should I do…
Speed had failed to improve, but I had at least succeeded in not leaving any traces behind.
What am I supposed to do with this…
Well, it’s better to remove the need to run away than to run well, but since I can’t know the future, there’s no helping it.
Hah… If I have to, at least I can act like a cat and have teeth and claws…
On land there are almost no predators, but these penguins that live only in the sea…
They ended up with evolution like this…
I lay sprawled on the ground while complaining about this body structure.
Hmm… Maybe I should just give up…
No matter how much I practiced, nothing changed, so gradually my energy was draining and my will was fading.
If I can’t see any possibility even while trying, why bother…
I was standing there like that when he approached me.
“What seems to be troubling you?”
“Kek (I don’t know… I don’t know what to do…)”
I made a sound of distress as if begging him to leave me alone, but he replied calmly.
“In general, one encounters stagnation during training.”
“As the saying goes from some distant nation’s martial artist, a thousand days of practice make a disciple, ten thousand days of practice make a master, and only after one has endured both can victory be expected.”
“Victory without chance may be a saying, but… practice endurance and repeat the training.”
With those words he left and vanished into the distance.
“Practice… and training…”
“Yeah… It’s already the first month. What else can I expect? I’ll just keep practicing.”
After hearing his words I gathered some strength and went back to my training.
Of course, nothing in my daily life changed just because I started practicing.
Aaah… Fish tastes good.
Every day I caught fish, gave some to him, and practiced.
“Chomp chomp chomp!!!”
While eating the fish I gave him, he swung his sword whether he was resting his body or breaking it down, I couldn’t tell.
From the day before yesterday he had even been swinging his sword with internal energy flowing through it.
“Speaking of which, how far is the realm here?”
The realms I knew were Third-class, Second-class, First-class, Peak Realm, Transcendent Peak, Realm of Transformation, Realm of Profoundness, Realm of Life and Death.
“Well… Peak Realm is said to be the maximum, but I don’t know much about classic wuxia novels.”
Still, I went to him to satisfy my curiosity.
“But… how do I explain this?”
I stared at him and fell into thought.
I wanted to ask something…
“I don’t know how to write, and he’s already understood my intentions… What am I supposed to do…”
“Squawking like a penguin, how am I supposed to explain…”
I tried thinking of a way, but since nothing came to mind I decided to show him with my body.
“Kek (Hey! Look here)”
“Hm? What is it, my friend?”
He looked at me and I first lowered my body, crouched on the ground, and took small steps.
“Kek.”
And then a little faster.
“Ke-ke.”
Next I tensed my whole body and ground my feet hard, pretending to be strong.
“Kek-kek!”
But from his perspective it must have looked strange.
“What kind of explanation is this.”
It was just a penguin doing some weird dance.
He stared at me for a moment.
“…”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Kek…”
Right. Failure.
I sat down on the ground in frustration.
“It seems like he understands the meaning of my crying, but it’s not completely clear.”
It was actually surprising that he understood the abstract concept of my distress.
“How am I supposed to explain the realm?”
I thought long and hard, then suddenly had a good idea. I picked up a small stone and brought it to him.
He took the stone I gave him and tilted his head.
“Why did you bring a stone?”
I placed the small stone on the ground and lightly kicked it with my foot. It moved a little.
Then I gave it power and kicked it hard. It rolled much farther.
I looked at him and gestured with my body.
“Power.”
“More powerful power.”
He thought for a moment.
“You mean the difference in power?”
I nodded to confirm.
“Ke!”
He nodded as if he understood.
“Then you are asking about the stages of a martial artist’s realm.”
“Oh!”
I was puzzled at how he understood, but since it worked I was glad.
“Then what level do you want to know?”
“Kek?”
I hesitated.
“To what extent?”
What I knew was only the level I had seen in novels, and I didn’t know if this world’s standard was the same.
I thought again, recalling the words from earlier.
I tried to represent numbers with my hand, but…
“Ah.”
It was impossible for a penguin’s flipper to count.
In the end I drew a circle on the ground, then a smaller circle inside it, and another even smaller one.
The innermost felt weakest, and as I moved outward it felt stronger.
He stared at it in silence for a while.
“Hm…”
“You are asking about the layers of the realm.”
I quickly nodded.
“Kek!”
He stuck his sword into the ground and began to explain slowly.
“In Murim, those who have just begun to cultivate martial arts are usually called Third-class. After that it becomes Second-class, First-class, and so on.”
I listened attentively.
“But after the Peak Realm it becomes difficult to divide them simply by the difference in power.”
He looked at his own hand.
“Because depth of internal energy, understanding of the martial art, and even the realm of the heart all influence it.”
I tilted my head.
“As expected, it’s the same.”
But he said something unexpected.
“However… since you are asking about such things, it seems you are not an ordinary creature.”
I tensed up suddenly.
“Did he figure it out?”
But he continued without any strange reaction.
“Ordinary beasts would not be able to speak, so they would not inquire about such things.”
“Kek…”
Sweat broke out on my forehead for a moment.
“Yeah… Asking a penguin about martial arts realms from the start is already weird.”
I turned my head as if nothing was wrong.
Then he gave a small smile.
“You are truly a strange fellow.”
“But…”
He raised his sword.
“Inquiring is not a bad thing.”
“The beginning of martial arts is always born from doubt.”
I looked at him quietly after hearing those words.
“It was so hard just to ask one question… I should have been born human…”
Once my doubts were somewhat cleared, he asked the opposite.
“May I ask you a question?”
“Kek (Question? To me?)”
“Yes. Have you… ever seen my father? Or a corpse…”
“Ah… So that’s what he wants to know.”
I sensed the moment and approached him, then gestured for him to follow me. He followed.
Crunch
Crunch
I passed the cave where we lived and headed toward the snowdrift where the old man was buried.
“This isn’t a plain snowdrift, is it?”
“Kek (Dig here)”
I gestured as if digging and he understood and began shoveling the snow.
After a while
“This is…”
The old man’s corpse was revealed in the snow.
“Kek (I don’t know if this is your father, but the old man who gave me martial arts is him)”
He went to the corpse and looked closely at the face.
“Thank you… This is my father, the North Sea Ice Emperor Seol Cheonseok.”
“Kek… (Yeah…)”
He stared at his father’s corpse for a while, then
Shoo shoo
He cleared the snow aside and covered the body again.
“Hah… Since I don’t have the strength right now… I’ll leave him here. After I clean up the Ice Palace… I’ll come back to look for him.”
He stood up with a relieved expression.
“I thank you for burying my father.”
“Kek (No… it’s nothing)”
He looked at me as if he had made up his mind and said something.
“Now I must part ways with you as well… I’m going to protect my home.”
“Kek (Hm… is that so…)”
What could I say? It was what I had expected from the beginning. I had known it from the start.
This human would not stay here forever. His wounds had almost healed and he had a purpose.
His home. The North Sea Ice Palace. And there were people waiting there.
“Even so, hearing it actually feels a bit sad.”
It was strange.
“I only spent a few weeks with him and feel this way?”
On the first day he was just a patient. On the seventh day he was almost a thief trying to take my things.
But when had it changed?
The sight of him swinging his sword every day had become familiar. The way he ate the fish I caught and laughed had become familiar. The occasional mumbling he did alone had become familiar.
From some point he had become the only companion in this vast snowfield.
Of course I was a penguin and he was human, but still…
I couldn’t help but feel a little regretful.
“You’ve caused me a lot of trouble.”
I shook my head and cried
“Kek (Me too)”
He said thank you to me, but what I had really done was nothing special.
Catching a few more fish, finding the old man buried in the snow, and staying by his side while he recovered.
Just that much.
But he said with a serious face.
“No. If it weren’t for you, I would have died here.”
I looked at him wordlessly.
“And you didn’t find your father either, did you?”
He looked toward the direction where the snow was piled.
“Truly, thank you.”
“Kek…”
I felt strangely embarrassed.
How long had it been since I heard praise like this?
I had never been acknowledged by anyone before I became a penguin, and I had only moved to survive because I was born.
“It feels a bit awkward…”
He took something from inside his clothes.
“This is the Fire Crystal I used. It’s an unusual stone that spits out flames when you pour internal energy into it.”
“Kek?”
“This is a sign that I will come find you again. After I finish cleaning up the Ice Palace, I will definitely come find you and return this to you at that time.”
He placed the Fire Crystal around my neck like a necklace.
“Then… I’ll go now. Rest well. It was only a few weeks, but I was truly grateful.”
He bid me farewell and left quickly.
“Kek!”
“Goodbye”
Thus the first farewell after my reincarnation passed.