This Is Definitely a Real Qi Master, Right? Probably...... (1)
The eastern gate was far busier than usual. Carriages and people stretched out in a long line.
The priestess spoke first.
“The inspections must have been tightened.”
“Hmph. How long can that charade last?”
It was obvious performative bureaucracy.
Thirin snorted, but the priestess simply smiled.
“I’ve heard the reason behind the strengthened inspections.”
“......”
“They say you rescued all the missing children, sister. That was truly remarkable work.”
Thirin felt strangely awkward.
She could brag all day about how she’d excised a tumor from a heinous criminal or how she’d concocted the most vicious poisons and weapons imaginable.
But when someone praised her for doing something good, she felt inexplicably embarrassed and uncomfortable.
Because Thirin knew perfectly well that she hadn’t exactly been driven by noble intentions.
“...You know what?”
To cover her awkwardness, Thirin launched into a detailed explanation of how she had “reformed” the criminals instead.
“When you whip someone, it’s way more effective to target the inner thighs rather than the back. You avoid fatal injuries but multiply the pain several times over. And then...”
“......”
She had launched into a horrifying topic, yet the priestess’s bright smile never wavered.
The ones whose expressions stiffened were the other travelers walking along the road.
Charm stat 180 and charm stat 120.
Combined, three hundred points of peerless beauty. Merchants and travelers who had been subtly inching closer in hopes of striking up a conversation gradually began widening the gap.
The carriage ahead suddenly picked up speed, while the pedestrian behind slowed down, claiming he needed to retie his shoelaces.
In the end, every living creature within a ten-meter radius vanished without a trace.
Yet the priestess didn’t bat an eye at Thirin’s horrific reformation theory. She even nodded seriously and chimed in.
“You’re performing truly excellent work, sister.”
“...Right?”
“Indeed.”
The priestess continued with a gentle smile.
“Some evil qi lingers in a person’s heart for far too long and hardens until it refuses to dissipate even at death. It sickens the heart and makes it impossible to break.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“In cases like that, shock therapy of the sort you employ is extremely effective. Forcibly shattering what has clumped together and straightening what has become twisted. It is an excellent form of treatment.”
“Right? Right!”
Thirin felt a surge of pride. She had finally found someone she could actually communicate with!
While the two women continued their conversation, marveling at each other’s treatment methods, the radius of common-sense repulsion expanded to a full hundred meters.
Since there were two crazy women, the area-of-effect multiplier went up by ten squared.
The surroundings fell into a silence so complete not even an insect could be heard, yet Thirin basked in satisfaction with a proud expression.
She seemed to mesh surprisingly well with this blonde priestess. In that case, it was about time to get to the main topic.
Thirin spoke first.
“So, what exactly should I do for you?”
“Pardon?”
“What do I need to do? You agreed to teach me something, so I should pay the appropriate price. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
Thirin was practically desperate to establish some kind of transaction.
But the priestess merely let out a faint sigh.
“......I know nothing about you, sister.”
Her voice was calm, yet it carried a subtle note of difficulty.
“I understand that you are a righteous person who saved those children. However, the only thing I know about you is that I briefly took your pulse. I know nothing of your personality, your abilities, or your past.”
The priestess looked straight into Thirin’s eyes.
“So how could I possibly demand anything from you?”
“......”
Thirin was at a loss for words. It was an entirely reasonable point.
The priestess continued.
“Still, a promise is a promise. I will teach you what I know, step by step. So please don’t be too impatient.”
“......Ugh.”
Thirin unconsciously let out a groan.
This was bad. Extremely bad.
If the priestess demanded nothing, Thirin had no justification to ask for instruction.
“....”
During the six months she had been unable to speak, Thirin’s social skills had been obliterated to Swedish levels.
For her, human relationships consisted solely of transactional “deals.”
Transactions were crystal clear.
Whether the other party was a foreigner from another world or a beggar covered in dirt and soot, she could engage as long as there was profit to be had. No emotional labor or complicated interpersonal dynamics required.
But relationships based on pure give-and-take without compensation? Absolutely not her style.
Such things felt unbearably awkward and uncomfortable to Thirin—like forcibly wearing clothes that didn’t fit.
“Really? Nothing at all? I could at least massage your shoulders.”
Thirin refused to give up. She had to find some thread of a transaction.
The priestess stared at her for a moment, then tilted her head.
“By the way, sister.”
“Yes?”
“When we met last time, you spoke quite casually to me. Yet your tone has suddenly changed. Have you already begun the ‘training to refrain from harboring ill intentions’?”
“Hmph.”
Thirin grumbled.
“I’m not some crazy bitch who suddenly starts acting all polite to random people... I mean.”
“Is that so? Then why the sudden honorifics?”
“......”
Thirin was stumped.
The reason wasn’t complicated.
First, no transaction had been established, so she had nothing to offer. Second, the K-hierarchy protocol engraved in her DNA was screaming at her to be polite to her elders.
But how could she possibly say that out loud?
Commenting on a woman’s age was one of the greatest taboos.
It was common sense that even Thirin, whose mind remained male, understood to the marrow of her bones.
‘What do I do? How do I explain this?’
While Thirin groaned and clutched her head, the priestess asked again.
“What’s the matter, sister? You don’t look well.”
“......”
Thirin agonized. She agonized some more. Finally, she opened her mouth.
Yes. This was the only way.
“Well, it’s just… From now on I’m the one learning, right? I can’t just call you ‘hey, you.’ Should I say teacher? Master? Or maybe… I was thinking I should call you sister…”
Silence.
The priestess simply stared at Thirin without a word.
Her face still wore a smile, but it had gone completely rigid.
Thirin broke out in a cold sweat. She had clearly said the wrong thing.
After a long pause, the priestess spoke.
“......Sister.”
Her voice had dropped a full tone lower than before.
“Do I look that old to you?”
“......!”
Thirin nearly jumped out of her skin. She had stepped on a landmine with perfect precision.
“Ah, no, no! That’s not what I meant!”
Thirin waved her hands frantically.
If she messed up here she’d only sink deeper. The best defense was a quick, honest excuse.
“Honestly I thought you were younger than me! But when I asked at the guild they said that wasn’t the case?!”
“......”
The moment the words left her mouth, Thirin realized her mistake.
‘Ah.’
She had just confessed with her own lips that she had gone digging for personal information at the guild.
“......”
The priestess said nothing.
She simply stared at Thirin with a hardened expression. Thirin felt cold sweat trickling down her spine.
After a long moment, the priestess spoke.
“...You thought I looked younger?”
“Uh? Uh, yeah.”
Thirin nodded before she could stop herself.
“I see. Then it can’t be helped.”
The priestess gave a single stiff nod, face still rigid.
“It can’t be helped. You may speak comfortably. If I looked younger to you, then there’s nothing to be done.”
“......”
Thirin thought to herself.
The age gap between them was roughly equivalent to an elementary schooler and a middle schooler. Yet one comment about looking younger had completely flipped her attitude.
Moreover, what the priestess had just said was an indirect way of implying that Thirin herself looked older.
‘....I look old?’
With a very manly sort of distress, Thirin felt deeply uncomfortable.
This woman seemed to have even less of a conscience than she appeared.
“No, that doesn’t seem right.”
“......”
“......”
Silence descended once more.
After a while, the priestess spoke first.
“Sister.”
Thirin answered.
“Priestess.”
In the end, the matter of titles was settled in the most painfully ambiguous way possible.
It was the completion of a world where everyone had been vaguely wounded.
#
Before they knew it, night had fallen.
They hadn’t traveled far from the city, but once the sun set the landscape swiftly revealed its wild nature.
Campfires of scattered travelers flickered along the road like small islands in the darkness.
Thirin and the priestess joined none of the groups.
They chose an open space a suitable distance from the road and lit their own modest campfire.
Only the crackling of flames filled the silence between them.
Thirin kept stealing glances at the priestess. It was about time to get to the main topic.
Finally, the priestess spoke first.
“Shall we begin?”
“......!”
Thirin’s eyes sparkled. She was finally going to learn the secrets of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art. Her heart pounded.
“Yeah. Hurry up and teach me. That Heavenly Demon Divine Art… I mean, the healing technique.”
The point, the break, the connection.
But if she said “Heavenly Demon” the priestess would probably get angry again, so she had to gloss over it as a healing technique.
The priestess shook her head.
“There is something we must clarify first.”
“Clarify?”
The priestess nodded.
“I called it treatment for the sake of simplicity, but strictly speaking it is not treatment. Since you are learning the essence, we should be precise. It is closer to ‘tuning’ than treatment.”
“Tuning?”
“Yes. Tuning, or perhaps facilitation, would be more accurate.”
The priestess gazed at the burning campfire as she continued.
“The human body inherently possesses the power to heal itself. However, sometimes the ‘evil qi’ that forms the root of disease blocks that flow, preventing the recovery power from functioning properly.”
“So you’re breaking through the blockage?”
“Precisely. I merely open the blocked path and help the body’s natural power flow once more. Therefore, if the disease has completely overtaken the body and the recovery power itself has been lost, my technique becomes useless.”
“Hmm.”
Thirin nodded. It sounded plausible.
“......”
She suddenly recalled what Rina had told her.
“Now that I think about it, the Salvation Sect doesn’t receive the interest of the Myriad Gods, so they don’t receive divine punishment either.”
Thirin continued.
“When you think about it, it’s strange. The Myriad Gods don’t seem like the type to be that generous.”
The Myriad Gods were fickle and impulsive.
Thirin could recall a certain god who had flown into a rage.
‘Who was it again? The mistress of moonlight and the hunt? Getting that angry over a slightly risqué figurine—talk about being narrow-minded.’
She had flown into such a rage over a mere variation in reproduction. There was no way she would tolerate a human freely traipsing through her domain.
‘Then…’
The reason the priestess before her received no divine punishment had already been explained.
“Natural recovery power is an inherent human strength, so helping it doesn’t infringe on the Myriad Gods’ authority? That’s why it’s allowed?”
The priestess nodded at Thirin’s words.
“Correct.”
She smiled softly.
“The medical arts of the Myriad Gods reverse what human power cannot. Reattaching severed arms, reviving rotten flesh, restoring shattered bones… What I do is not that.”
The priestess continued.
“What I do is simply help the inherent healing power and life force that humans possess to awaken.”
“Hmmmm……”
Thirin tilted her head. It was the kind of explanation that seemed to make sense and yet didn’t—like wordplay that somehow wasn’t wordplay.
She let out a small laugh.
Whatever. It didn’t really matter.
“Well, I roughly get what you’re saying. That’s that. Now can we please get to the main point?”
At Thirin’s words the priestess’s expression grew serious.
“As I said earlier, I know nothing about you, sister.”
“......”
“I cannot even begin to guess how you were able to extinguish divinity and claim its core, or what the source of that power might be.”
Thirin looked into the priestess’s eyes. The smiling green irises caught the firelight and glowed strangely.
“Therefore, first I must examine your body.”
“......”
For some reason, the words gave Thirin a strange feeling.
‘...Something about that sounds off.’
Something off. Like she had just heard something lewd.
The priestess added,
“...Please refrain from strange imaginations. I mean that I must see the source of your power.”
“Ah, no. I didn’t imagine anything strange. Nope. Not at all.”
The priestess spoke calmly, as if Thirin’s blasphemous thoughts were beneath her notice.
“Please assume a comfortable position.”
“......”
Thirin thought for a moment. A comfortable position to reveal the source of her power.
She flopped straight down onto the blanket she had spread beside the campfire.
Lying Posture Technique. Thirin’s method of qi circulation.
“......”
“Ah, should I have stayed sitting? Was that too rude?”
“It’s fine. Just stay as you are.”
Saying so, the priestess knelt beside her.
“!”
Thirin flinched in surprise.
The priestess leaned in until their bodies were nearly touching, then abruptly placed her hand on Thirin’s lower abdomen.
‘This is definitely something…!’