Thirin the Unicorn (2)
Thirin wanted to channel the energy in her dantian straight to her arms without routing it through her back or head. A shortcut. High efficiency. This was the modern way of doing things. Side effects? She didn’t bother thinking about them. Worrying and second-guessing had never been her style.
She really should have worried a little. This reckless attempt was the equivalent of reversing the direction of a heart’s blood pump. The kind of thing that could make blood vessels explode. Of course, a true demonic cultivator would have forced a path by punching through their own acupoints, but fortunately Thirin lacked that kind of knowledge.
“Kugh…!”
She couldn’t even scream properly. She had barely moved a single inch, yet the flames inside her body rampaged on their own, flooding backward through her meridians.
“Hurk, cough, haaah…!”
Thirin gasped desperately for air. If she had pushed even a little further, it would have been catastrophic. There was a reason martial artists always stood guard for one another during qi circulation. Even the slightest external interference could twist the flow of inner energy and trigger qi deviation.
Yet Thirin had walked right up to the edge of that deviation all by herself, armed with nothing but her own shining willpower and boundless recklessness. The martial genius Thirin was apparently also a genius at nearly killing herself with qi deviation.
After nearly flipping her own organs inside out, Thirin bolted upright from the bed. This wouldn’t do. How can I do this differently?
In the middle of her confusion, a single scene flashed through her mind like lightning. The fist of that insane blonde priestess slamming into her stomach. That’s right. That woman…!
Thirin remembered. The priestess had condensed something at the tip of her fist. I definitely know this.
Outside the window, the blue dawn had yet to fully shake off the darkness. Thirin dashed out of the inn without a second thought.
Your understanding of others has increased!
Deepen your comprehension to obtain Enlightenment!
The chilly morning air whipped past her as Thirin once again stood before the Savior Cult’s clinic. This was hardly polite, but the obsessed Thirin had no mental bandwidth left to care about manners.
“Aaaaaargh!”
Fortunately for Thirin, something convenient happened. Before she could even knock, a gut-wrenching scream leaked out from inside.
“Aaaaaargh! I was wrong! I was wrong! I won’t do it again!”
Without hesitation, Thirin threw the door open and stepped inside. A scene straight out of a sacred hell unfolded before her. In the center of the clinic, a man and a woman were each tied tightly to chairs. Standing before them was the blonde priestess with her sleeves rolled up, wearing a benevolent smile.
The bound man saw Thirin burst in and shouted as if she were his savior. “S-save me! That crazy nun is trying to kill us!”
“......?”
But the priestess remained perfectly calm. She turned her head toward Thirin and beamed as if nothing unusual was happening.
“What brings you here, sister? It’s quite early. Is something the matter?”
“...What the hell are you doing?”
When Thirin asked, the priestess simply jerked her chin toward the tied-up pair and answered serenely.
“I’m treating them.”
“...Treating them?”
“That’s correct.”
The priestess nodded without losing her smile. “This sister here habitually abused her child, and that brother over there used violence against his lover. Both have deep evil qi rooted in their hearts. I’m in the middle of extracting it.”
“......”
Thirin could only stand there with her mouth hanging open. This priestess was genuinely insane! But setting that aside...
Her attitude is completely confident. She doesn’t seem to be lying. Meanwhile, those two are avoiding eye contact. So that means...
Thirin nodded. They really are a domestic abuser and a child abuser.
She took a step closer to the priestess.
“Let’s work together.”
“...Pardon?”
“I want to learn it too.”
The priestess’s gentle smile froze for a moment. She asked, looking genuinely dumbfounded.
“Sister. Do you even understand what I’m doing right now?”
“I think I get the gist?”
Thirin jerked her chin toward the bound man. “You condense energy at the tip of your fist, precisely strike his acupoints with it, shatter the evil qi clumped inside, and make the blocked energy flow reconnect. Right?”
“...!”
The priestess’s eyes widened in genuine shock. She muttered blankly, “How could you possibly know that…?”
“I’m kind of a genius.”
Thirin shrugged. The priestess stared at her with a stupid expression. It was shocking that Thirin had figured out the principle behind her treatment method in one glance, but casually calling herself a genius was shocking in an entirely different way.
To think there exists a human with such shameless confidence…
Thirin continued. “That’s not what’s important. Anyway, teach me too. I heard you do medical volunteer work? You must be short on hands if you’re going around offering free services, right?”
She spoke as if she were being extraordinarily generous. “So I’ll help you out. In return, you teach me that technique. It’s a perfect deal, isn’t it?”
Thirin’s gaze naturally drifted toward the two tied-up people. “And look, we even have patients right here. Perfect teaching materials for hands-on practice.”
The faces of the man and woman bound to the chairs turned deathly pale. The man muttered, “These crazy bitches…!”
Naturally, the priestess did not hand the patients over to Thirin. No matter how insane the priestess was, she wasn’t insane enough to use patients as training punching bags.
Thirin clicked her tongue with clear regret. To have such excellent practice materials right in front of me and not be able to use them.
Still, she couldn’t give up on the priestess’s technique. The ability to condense inner energy at the tip of one’s fist and manipulate it freely was absolutely necessary to step into the first-class realm. Her knowledge of acupoints was equally tempting.
But the priestess spoke with a troubled expression.
“Sister. The truth is, I won’t be staying here long. I only stopped by Lutetia briefly before heading elsewhere.”
“Where are you going?”
“News arrived that an unknown plague is spreading in a small mining village in the eastern part of the Empire. I plan to go there.”
Plague. Thirin’s ears perked up.
“I’m going too.”
“...You can’t. Sister, that place…”
The priestess began explaining the contagious disease in detail. It was an illness with an unknown cause. Since there wasn’t even a proper temple there, she couldn’t guarantee treatment would be possible. There were even sinister rumors that an evil curse capable of devouring souls might be involved.
But Thirin simply scoffed.
“I’ll be fine.”
“That’s impossible.”
“You’re going there despite the danger. There’s no rule saying I can’t do the same.”
At Thirin’s firm declaration, the priestess stared at her with slightly dazed eyes.
......
The priestess fell into brief thought. Memories of Thirin flashed rapidly through her mind. The strange woman before her had swallowed a forgotten god’s divine core and remained completely fine. She knew the word “Heavenly Demon,” a forbidden term within the cult that no one should have told her. And just now, she had seen the principle behind the treatment technique once and instantly understood it, even offering to help.
......
And now she wanted to follow her to a plague-ridden village. The priestess thought to herself. Although her stated intentions weren’t exactly wholesome, when looking only at her actions...
Perhaps… she really is…?
But the woman before her seemed far too… crude. The priestess spoke as if sighing.
“......I will consider your words, sister. However, please give me some time.”
“I need a clear answer.”
“......Then please wait here. I know nothing about you, after all. I need time to verify what kind of person you are, sister.”
“......”
It was an argument Thirin couldn’t refute. And so she sat in a corner of the clinic, closing her eyes and circulating her qi while using the patients’ screams as a lullaby.
Just as Thirin was debating whether to circulate her qi through lunch and then dinner, the priestess returned.
She had agreed to let Thirin accompany her.
“However, there is one condition, sister.”
“A condition?”
“Yes. From what I’ve heard… you tend to behave rather violently quite often.”
It seemed she had stopped by the guild to gather some information about Thirin while she was gone. Thirin’s shoulders rose proudly. It sounded like praise for her achievement as the Godslayer.
The priestess continued. “Sister. Words carry power. If you keep releasing negative emotions and expressions so carelessly, the faint evil qi still lingering in your bones may raise its head again.”
“...!”
Thirin was surprised. That was actually quite plausible. The priestess looked at her with serious eyes and made her proposal.
“While traveling with me, you will train to suppress those negative impulses on your own. If you keep that promise, I will teach you everything I know without holding anything back.”
“......”
Training to suppress negative impulses, huh. Thirin thought for a moment before answering cheerfully.
“Sure!”
The reason was simple. The priestess had said she must suppress the bad words. She hadn’t said to eliminate them. Which meant a little bit was still okay. As always, Thirin only heard what she wanted to hear.
She nodded with a bright smile. “I’ll be careful!”
“......”
The priestess felt an ominous premonition.