Mansang Guiyuan
“Come out.”
From behind the thickets and trees, nine men and women slowly revealed themselves. Every one of them gripped a weapon, their eyes already gleaming with murderous intent aimed straight at me.
Among them, the man in the center with a particularly vile face carried a presence that stood clearly apart from anyone I had faced so far.
He glanced down at the severed head of his comrade rolling on the ground and clicked his tongue in disgust.
“Tch. What a fucking idiot. I told him to wait until we got here, but he had to go show off alone and get himself killed.”
With that, he turned his gaze toward me.
“I’m Mak So. Among the rogue cultivators, they call me the Smiling Face Demon.”
Rogue cultivators—that was what they called freelancers in this world. A nickname for a mere rogue? That was just funny.
“So what’s the big idea, showing up in a pack like this? What do you want with me?”
“I heard you’ve been staking out territory here and killing everyone.”
I casually rested my iron sword on my shoulder as I answered.
“So my reputation’s spreading, huh?”
“The guy behind me says he saw you fight. Claims you only ever ambush people like a coward.”
“Coming from rats who swarm in packs, that’s rich.”
“Heh heh, not wrong. More importantly, what’s your name?”
“Lee Seo-jun.”
“Unusual name. …Lee Seo-jun.”
Mak So murmured my name as if savoring it, then continued with a smiling face.
“Conveniently, we have one spot open. How about joining us? Having someone as good at ambushes as you would make things a lot easier for us. Our odds of making it into the surviving ten would shoot way up.”
It was a tempting offer.
With fewer than twenty left, there was no reason to fight nine of them to the death.
But it was only trustworthy if he actually kept his word to the end. I knew guys with eyes like his all too well.
It’s always bastards like him who stab you in the back at the last second.
So,
“I decline. I’d rather make friends with bugs than hang around with a rat like you.”
“Can’t read the room, can you?”
Mak So raised his hand slightly, and the nine moved as one to surround me.
I watched them with a cold smile.
“Two years ago, I got stranded in a dungeon once. Hunted by guys who hunted humans.”
“What the hell are you babbling about all of a sudden?”
I clenched and unclenched my fingers as I continued slowly.
“And there, while I was struggling to survive those human-hunting bastards, I realized something….”
At the continued nonsense, he couldn’t hold back his irritation and waved his hand.
“Just kill him.”
At that command, some of the men and women tightening the encirclement took a step forward.
“When a weak guy faces a weak majority, traps are the way to go.”
“Kyaaah—!”
“Aaaagh!”
“Boss! Traps—!”
Agonized screams rang out.
Three who had been standing on the right and rear of the circle sank into the ground at once.
Simple traps I had set up in advance.
Shallow pits made with tree roots and vines, lightly covered with fallen leaves and grass. At the bottom of each pit were sharpened wooden stakes and centipedes I had prepared.
“Aaagh! My leg… my leg…!”
“Get them off… get them off me!”
“S-save me!”
One woman screamed with her thigh deeply pierced. The other two men had their calves run through and were sitting on the ground being bitten by the centipedes.
All three were out of the fight in an instant.
Mak So’s face twisted.
“You… son of a bitch… when did you set these up…!”
“The one who always prepares is the one who survives.”
As I spoke, I launched myself forward.
I swept my iron sword horizontally at the neck of the nearest man who hadn’t fallen into a trap.
Slash—!
His neck was half-severed, blood spraying high.
“Fifteen.”
At the same time, I reverse-gripped my dagger and stabbed the foreheads of the two men and the woman screaming in the traps.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The encirclement began collapsing in an instant. The remaining four looked at each other in panic.
Mak So ground his teeth and readjusted his grip on his sword.
“Don’t just stand there like idiots—kill him…!”
Before the words were even finished, two men charged from the right. They raised their swords and aimed for my chest and arm respectively.
I deliberately took a step back to lure them. The moment the man on the left brought his sword down hard, his foot caught in a vine trap I had laid earlier.
“Uwaah—!”
The vines wrapped around his ankle and yanked his body upward. In the instant he lost balance, I swept my iron sword up from below and, with the dagger in my other hand, plunged it into the heart of the other man who had come right up to me.
Mak So’s face contorted as he watched his comrades drop dead in the blink of an eye.
“You can’t even handle one guy?!”
I threw some mockery his way as he raged.
“You’re just rats. And as the leader of the rats, you’re a fucking rat yourself.”
My words must have truly pissed him off, because Mak So clenched his teeth and charged.
He was fast.
Different from the ones I’d faced so far.
Is this all a Qi Condensation 3rd layer amounts to?
Compared to Wi Ho, whom I’d briefly faced on the first day I entered this world, he was sluggish.
Body Enhancement Lv.2 is seriously OP.
Normally I wouldn’t be able to beat a cultivator, but this world’s setting mixed a bit of martial arts with it, so they were weaker than pure immortal cultivators.
Still, every time I blocked his sword, my arms went numb. I was definitely outmatched in raw strength.
He was scrawnier than me, yet stronger because he had accumulated spiritual energy to reinforce his body.
Taking it head-on with strength is a loss. I have to redirect it.
Mak So swung his sword wide to the side. I narrowed my eyes, timing it.
Good thing the swordsmanship I paid good money to learn works here at least.
Monsters mostly just charged in wildly without any systematic sword arts. That made it hard to time things, so I’d never properly used techniques like redirection in actual combat.
But I trusted my instincts.
Now…!
I swung my iron sword and caught his blade at an angle, redirecting it. The impact dispersed, and Mak So’s body lurched to one side.
“What the hell are you?! How can you, without any spiritual energy…!”
He gritted his teeth and thrust his sword again.
I lowered my body to redirect the blade, then drew the dagger hidden in my sleeve and aimed for his right arm.
Thud!
The dagger sank deep into his forearm. Mak So swallowed a groan and swung his sword horizontally, but it only grazed past my body.
“Kh… you son of a bitch…!”
I twisted the dagger free and tried to slash his neck with the iron sword, but Mak So retreated just in time to dodge. Still, blood streamed down the side of his neck.
“Why are you so weak?”
Mak So’s face flushed red.
“Grr! I’m not weak! You must be using some kind of sorcery!”
He charged again. This time it seemed he was going all out; power packed his sword.
“Guys like you always look for excuses.”
Just as I was about to charge him myself—
“Boss!”
The two surviving men from behind rushed to strike at my back.
This is a bit dangerous.
The moment I tried to dodge sideways, a sword grazed my side and cut me. Sharp pain, and blood soaked through. As I rolled on the ground and tried to get up, Mak So was already right in front of me.
“Haha! I’ve won—”
I scooped up a handful of dirt from the ground and flung it into his face.
“Aaagh, my eyes…!”
Mak So closed his eyes and staggered. In that opening, I drove my dagger into the top of his foot.
Thud!
“Gyaaah!”
He groaned and dropped to one knee.
I rose and raised my iron sword. But Mak So’s two comrades were already attacking frantically with their weapons. One with a sword, the other with a dagger.
Blood flowed from the wound on my shoulder. The angles were bad for blocking both at once.
This is seriously dangerous.
Just as I tried to pull back as much as possible to dodge—
A sound of something cutting the wind came from above my head, and my gaze naturally turned toward the source as I muttered without thinking.
“Abalone?”
Suddenly an abalone dropped from the sky. Then a small, pure white foot precisely caught the sword blade swinging at me, and the sword gripped in a pure white hand swung right through, severing both of their necks.
Two heads hit the ground at the same time. And a woman with red eyes lightly landed in front of me, lowering her sword.
“…I’ve repaid the debt.”
At that moment, a pathetic sound came from behind.
“Hiiik… s-save me…”
It was Mak So. Dragging his wounded body, he was crawling away across the ground. His face now had not a trace of the smile that had earned him the moniker Smiling Face Demon.
“You can’t go that way.”
Thud.
His whole body sank into the last pit trap I had left.
“There should be venomous snakes inside with their poison fully primed.”
“Gyaaaaaah—!”
“Oh dear.”
A truly pitiful end. But that wasn’t what mattered right now.
I turned my gaze.
“Thanks for the help, Abalone.”
The woman’s eyebrows twitched slightly.
“Abalone? What’s that?”
“Just a slip of the tongue. Don’t mind it.”
“Hearing you say weird shit like that, I knew you were a crazy bastard.”
“When did you even see me to call me crazy?”
“I’ve been watching from a distance for a few days. Not sleeping, setting up traps like that, counting every time you kill someone. No matter how you look at it, you’re insane, right?”
“The counting’s just a habit. And the traps… let’s call them strategy.”
“Whatever. Can you move?”
“Thanks to you, I’m fine. More importantly, what’s your name?”
She paused a moment, looking at me, then spat it out shortly.
“Dan Ha.”
A name as pretty as her face. I approached her side and held out my hand.
“I’m Lee Seo-jun.”
“Don’t act all buddy-buddy, will you?”
She was ruder than I expected.
Makes me want to hypnotize-rape her.
Then it happened.
A group of people in red martial robes appeared from the sky and landed.
“The Solitary Hall trial is over.”
Wang O and the other Red Blood Sect disciples landed all around, looking down at us. Their gazes slowly swept over the corpses strewn on the ground, then stopped on me and Dan Ha.
Wang O surveyed the surroundings once and spoke.
“Ten survivors. Lee Seo-jun, Dan Ha, and the remaining eight. Congratulations. From now on, you are outer disciples of the Red Blood Sect.”
With his words, the tension seemed to ease.
Finally over.
Blood still flowed from my wounds. My whole body ached. From lack of proper sleep, my mind was starting to feel fuzzy.
Wang O added coldly.
“You officially become disciples of the Red Blood Sect starting tomorrow. Rest well today.”
No sooner had he finished than the disciples moved to guide the survivors.
I looked to the side.
Dan Ha sheathed her sword and walked alongside me.
“Congrats on surviving.”
She replied shortly.
“…You too.”
Once I received a cultivation method, things would start in earnest.
Get reasonably strong, grab the opportunities, then bail.
I muttered to myself as I followed behind the disciples with Dan Ha.
The gray mist of the Solitary Hall gradually cleared, and a red stone gate appeared before us. The moment we passed through the gate, the stench of blood faded and night air rushed into my lungs. Clean air I hadn’t breathed in days.
The place the disciples led us into was a neat lodging. Wooden buildings stood in a row, faint light leaking from each room.
The outer disciple walking ahead stopped and spoke.
“Pick your own rooms. And everyone is to assemble at the training grounds tomorrow morning. Be late and prepare yourselves for the consequences.”
He turned and disappeared, and the other disciples scattered after him.
I glanced at Dan Ha.
“Want to share a room?”
“Are you crazy?”
“Why not? We’re comrades who survived together.”
Dan Ha didn’t even listen to the end of my sentence before turning away. She approached a short girl with brown bobbed hair who was standing awkwardly alone among the ten survivors, said something briefly, and the two of them took a room together and went inside.
“Shame.”
I muttered to myself as I found an empty room and entered.
The moment I threw myself onto the bed, days of fatigue poured out all at once.
“Ah… I should wash up.”
The second I closed my eyes, my consciousness cut out.