The Mountain Lord's Charge
Kyros couldn't understand even half of the transaction that had unfolded before his eyes in the blink of an eye. Just what kind of conversational flow had led to him parting ways with the high priestess while smiling...? The deeper he sank into those thoughts, the more his head throbbed, so he shook it vigorously from side to side to scatter the distracting thoughts. Worrying about a decision already made was far less urgent than dealing with the crisis staring him in the face.
“Haa… Haa… K-Kyle.”
Maria was no different from him. She trembled in fear of Cardnios, whose actions were utterly unpredictable.
“W-what if I turn weird again? What do I do?”
“It’s fine. The holy knights are nearby, and that woman Iria is right beside you. He won’t be able to pull any nonsense.”
Kyros let out a bitter chuckle at his own words. He won’t pull any nonsense? Yeah, right. Cardnios absolutely would. He seemed to be holding back for now, but once they reached the latter half of the game—
‘Maria, do you even need armor when you have the Guardian’s Blessing? Can’t you just do it bare-bodied?’
—he had stripped her clothes off in front of a crowd. Kyros knew the man could be as bold as he wanted whenever he chose. Keeping distance would be ideal, but that option had already slipped away. Normal methods no longer offered any path forward; it might be time to start thinking like a gamer.
Since Cardnios was currently registered as an allied NPC, progressing through the game would let him learn several techniques from the man. Most of what Cardnios taught came with brutal side effects, but their sheer power made them staples in speedruns. The problem was that his skill sheet fluctuated wildly depending on choices, making it difficult to lock in any specific technique with certainty.
That was why Kyros’s current target was the set known as the Four Divine Arts: Taishan Giant Strength Axe, Mad Dog Rampage, Mountain Lord’s Charge, and Mad Blood Evil Claw. No matter what choices were made, these techniques never dropped from Cardnios’s sheet and would be taught at least once regardless of favorability or relationship.
He had already confirmed Taishan Giant Strength Axe back in the plaza. In the game, it massively boosted raw strength and slightly raised axe mastery, but it was a troll skill with a chance to trigger berserk and burn nearly forty percent of your stamina. Still, mastering it granted the attribute Mountain-Uprooting Might, which nearly doubled one’s strength, making it a mandatory pick for solo strategies.
Mountain-Uprooting Might was obviously excellent for the protagonist Kyros, but as he reviewed the plan his gaze drifted downward to Maria, who was still trembling faintly. For her, the technique might as well have been a dedicated ultimate. When she was in Kyros’s party she could only function as a brainless aggro tank with absurdly high defense. But once Cardnios stole her and she appeared as an enemy, everything changed. With both Taishan Giant Strength Axe and Mountain-Uprooting Might applied, her ridiculous defense, self-healing, and disgustingly painful damage turned her into an unholy cockroach. The moment she became an opponent she grew insanely strong—so much so that the community had even saddled her with the infamous label of “NTR-optimized heroine.”
Kyros, who knew exactly how repulsive that performance felt to fight against, agonized over whether he should recommend it to her.
“…Maria.”
“Yeah?”
“Cardnios. Remember that bastard’s axe technique?”
“Yeah.”
“If you could learn it… would you want to?”
At his cautious suggestion, Maria slowly raised her head and met his eyes. The resentment burning in her gaze made Kyros look away.
“What about you, Kyle?”
“Haa… I’m planning to ask him for it myself.”
“Why?”
“Because at this rate we can’t beat him.”
“Do you want me to learn it, Kyle?”
“No.”
“Then why ask?”
“I don’t like it, but it’ll help you.”
Maria closed her eyes for a moment, thinking, then slowly opened them and let out a heavy sigh.
“…Do you think he’ll teach it?”
“I don’t know. But he seemed conscious of the people watching, so I’ll at least make the request.”
After another brief hesitation, Maria sighed deeply and threw herself into Kyle’s arms.
“Haa… Kiss me and I’ll try.”
A soft peck.
“Thanks.”
I had already entrusted the chains and magic tome with the blessing and was about to leisurely learn Mad Dog Rampage when an unexpected pair of guests showed up.
“Hm? What brings you two here?”
The useless saintess and the idiot hero suddenly bowed with solemn, determined expressions.
What the hell are these bastards doing?
“Please teach us your techniques.”
What the actual fuck are these guys on about?
I had zero intention of listening, so I grabbed both their shoulders and forcibly hauled them upright.
“This is rather sudden. And quite rude. Are you looking down on me because I’m an incubus?”
I rearranged Earth’s ultimate technique—‘black guy screaming the n-word to flip the racism script’—and used it to seal these two idiots’ mouths. I wasn’t actually offended, but I let demonic energy drip from my eyes as if I were absolutely furious and glared at them. Their bodies went rigid.
“Uh, that is…”
There was no need to hear them out. Coming on strong now would make it easier to handle them later.
BANG!
I slammed the door shut with enough force to rattle it without breaking the wood.
You morons. Did you seriously come here naked begging me to cook you? Now that I’ve gotten friendly with the holy knights, naturally isolating these two should make the future very entertaining.
I ignored the pair of idiots and returned to reading the Mad Dog Rampage manual.
Mad Dog Rampage 犬公亂鬪
*From the great world BB-013, Central Plains. One of the differentiated branches of the supreme learning “Gourd Butterfly Drunken Dream” belonging to the second greatest under heaven, the Foot Sovereign Ha Hu Pae, who succeeded Bodhidharma during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Created so his subordinates could learn it.
*Takes the form of fighting without fear or restraint, like a dog gone drunk on liquor.
*Increases speed.
‘That guy Bodhidharma was a Buddhist, so he droned on about the five aggregates and enlightenment and all that tedious crap. To ruffians like us, that’s just empty talk about catching clouds. Just grab whatever’s in reach and beat a man to death. That’s all there is to it.’
—Excerpt from casual conversation between the greatest under heaven, Foot Sovereign Ha Hu Pae, and his disciple Tak Bal Il Su.
Even though it boasted titles like Foot Sovereign and greatest under heaven, the actual book was a flimsy thing barely twenty pages long. Still, it was twice as thick as Taishan Giant Strength Axe. Of course, twice the thickness didn’t mean twice the content.
“Huh… Why do I feel like I’ve been scammed?”
The depth of the material was almost identical to Taishan Giant Strength Axe. Absorb ki into the body and reinforce the physique through body training. The fundamental action was the same, but where Taishan Giant Strength Axe focused on swinging with overwhelming power, Mad Dog Rampage emphasized light, rapid movement. That was the difference.
Ah, there was one other distinction. If Taishan Giant Strength Axe was like a piglet that ate anything and ended up with a stomachache, this one at least demonstrated the minimal intelligence of clearing turbid ki with breathing before circulating and absorbing it.
Another unique point was the complete absence of forms. Instead of proper stances, it was basically a weapon manual that listed what to swing and how to make it hurt. Could this garbage even be called a manual?
“Shoes, tree branch, liquor bottle… Wait, why the hell is underwear listed?”
At this point I felt like I could guess what I was supposed to do next. Surely kicking the ground hard wouldn’t just spawn another weird martial art, right?
The two morons were still loitering outside the door, so I didn’t want to leave that way. With no other choice, I stepped onto the windowsill, loaded my leg with inner power refined through the Three Talents Mental Method—just like when I used Taishan Giant Strength Axe—and kicked off with everything I had.
My body shot upward like a rocket. After soaring for a while, gravity finally took hold and I began to fall. I still had enough inner power for roughly three more uses, so I immediately poured it into the opposite leg. The moment I landed I kicked off again.
Mountain Lord’s Charge
“…What the actual fuck. Seriously.”
Was this really the right way to learn it? I spent a brief moment in sage time wondering why this nonsense kept happening. Weren’t these guys supposed to be the Foot Sovereign and the greatest under heaven? Then why did their techniques feel no different from what the green forest bandits would cook up?
I quickly arrived at the answer. Why do wuxia novels always sing about Shaolin as the thousand-year Shaolin? Because Bodhidharma brought martial arts from India and the monks spent roughly a thousand years researching them. So let’s think rationally. Back in Bodhidharma’s era, he was called the greatest under heaven, but did anyone ever say he had reached the Harmony Realm or the Profound Realm? Of course not. That would be ridiculous.
Martial arts are a form of study. Study requires accumulation before better results appear. Just like how the Greek mathematician Pythagoras wasn’t dumber than a seven-year-old Korean girl named Kim Ye-seul who had already previewed middle-school material.
“Haa… Fuck.”
I had forgotten that in low-power wuxia settings, the greatest under heaven only reached the peak level. So even though they grandly called him Foot Sovereign or Bodhidharma, at best he was peak level. Realistically, he was probably just first-rate at most. Naturally, since proper research hadn’t been done, all they could do was eat! Spit! Spew! Simple actions like that. In a way, it made sense.
Ah, the green forest bastards were just brainless and used it crudely. If after a thousand years everyone else is doing trigonometry and calculus while you’re proudly showing off addition and subtraction, you’re an idiot.
Now that I knew the reason, the disappointment was huge. The systematic, proper way of fighting I had hoped for when I received the mission had once again sailed away. At this point it seemed my fate was to keep brawling like a thug.
“Since I already learned it, I might as well check the description.”
Mountain Lord’s Charge
*From the great world AX-021, Central Plains. A martial art created by Mak Ga Nom, the 13th supreme leader of the Five Great Green Forests.
*Footwork that embodies the charge of the mountain’s king, the tiger.
*Though spoken grandly, it is ultimately nothing more than a cool way of describing the act of kicking the ground with force.
*Rumor says it was created while trying to use his older brother—the 12th supreme leader Mak Gae Pyeong’s Taishan Giant Strength Axe—with the legs instead.
*Strengthens leg power and exerts mental pressure on those possessing less inner power than oneself.
‘If only my older brother had been smarter, he wouldn’t have died back then.’
—Excerpt from the complaint the 13th supreme leader Mak Ga Nom made in front of the grave of the 12th supreme leader Mak Gae Pyeong.
“Hm?”
Familiar names kept popping up.
“Oh.”
After skimming the explanation for Taishan Giant Strength Axe again, a sigh of admiration escaped me. So the younger brother of the guy who created Taishan Giant Strength Axe became the next supreme leader after his older brother died. Meanwhile the brainless green forest leader apparently died without ever realizing what his own technique could do.
If I found similar martial arts, would I get to see more of this kind of backstory? The thought briefly sparked my interest, but I quickly dropped it. Even after I finished this mission and returned to my own world, the shop’s insane profit margins meant I wouldn’t be able to shop properly anyway. What was the point of getting curious?
Thinking about the shop made me regret the mental method even more. The Three Talents Mental Method was decent, but the amount of inner power I could accumulate with it was pathetically small. Those stupid green forest bastards… Their heads were so empty they couldn’t even form a proper dantian.
“Sigh. I think I can figure out how to draw in and use ki, but how the hell do I make a dantian… Hm?”
As I pondered the dantian, an itchy sensation spread through my mind, as if a truly good idea was about to surface.