Experience Is What Matters, After All
“By the way, Gong Ryun. You bought the Parangjang yesterday. So you can’t have much money left now, can you?”
“Hm? Not really. Even accounting for that, it’s only natural to always keep some emergency funds set aside, isn’t it?”
Even back in his slave days, Gong Ryun had made a habit of stashing emergency food underground at home, preparing for any unforeseen situation. If food had been the most vital resource on the slave planet, then in this capitalist murim the most vital resource was money. Gong Ryun always saved. He felt uneasy unless a certain amount of emergency resources was secured at all times.
Besides, he was extremely frugal by nature and a workaholic, so money simply accumulated on its own.
“Is that so? Then let’s have a look at your account.”
“Eeh?”
“I have to check! I’m worried about how much more you’ve piled up!”
“What do you mean you’re worried about how much I’ve piled up? It’s not like you’re worried about it being empty.”
“Well, because you simply cannot spend money, Gong Ryun. You just keep hoarding it—as if you’re going to buy a building or something.”
Gong Ryun maintained an extremely minimalist life, so Un-rang often nagged him to spend a little. In the early mercenary days Un-rang had outright inspected Gong Ryun’s account once or twice a month to confirm he was spending anything at all. Without that, the man would simply dip bread in salt or crunch dry cereal without milk while working nonstop, running several commissions a day.
He had finally escaped the slave planet only to live like a slave.
Of course Gong Ryun felt a little wronged. It wasn’t living like a slave. His plan had always been to force himself a bit first, gather some surplus capital, and only then freely enjoy the life of an ordinary person.
Still, spare money had piled up quite nicely by now and he was living properly like a human being. With some mercenary seniority under his belt he could take higher-difficulty, lucrative commissions and earn steadily. That was why he hadn’t undergone an account inspection in quite a while.
“That’s exactly why I need to check even more. It’s been a long time since I last looked.”
“Sheesh. Fine. Take a look.”
It was no trouble at all.
*Ding!*
Gong Ryun displayed the balance on his personal device screen.
Un-rang’s reaction was…
“No way! I knew it! What in the world is this money!!! You could buy another whole Parangjang set and still have leftover!!! Didn’t I tell you to spend some money!!”
As expected, the account was plump.
As Gong Ryun’s mercenary rank rose, he had gradually begun receiving high-difficulty, high-pay commissions. Normally a person would work less and train martial arts, or simply rest. Gong Ryun did neither. He just worked. Income climbed, work hours stayed the same, and consumption stayed the same.
In the end his wallet fattened little by little, like a seasonal crab putting on meat.
“But I’ve been spending a lot these days. When I eat I even order drinks and such—those expensive restaurant drinks, I mean. Isn’t that a splendid luxury?”
Just pouring a discount-mart canned drink into a glass, floating a few ice cubes, and selling it for five times the price. Gong Ryun had been flustered by the irrational spectacle at first, but now whenever he felt thirsty he occasionally ordered one, becoming something of a city boy.
“And what’s wrong with saving money?”
“Spend the money you save promptly on secret manuals!!! Didn’t I tell you to learn more martial arts, get stronger, and earn even more!!”
“That’s why I bought the Parangjang, didn’t I?”
“Buy more! Spend all this money!”
“Gah!!! What are you saying!!! Who knows what will happen in a person’s life!!! You must always carry emergency funds!!!”
“Emergency funds my foot!! Learning more martial arts to protect your body is the best emergency preparedness there is!!!”
“Ugh, that nagging of yours, really.”
Ordinarily he would have stuck to the position that emergency funds mattered more. But a life-or-death duel had clearly been good experience. Good experiences had a way of changing a person’s stubbornness.
“Fine, alright then… I’ll try learning more.”
“You’re not listening again!! Hurry up and learn more martial arts… Hm…? What did you just say, Gong Ryun?”
“I said I’ll learn a bit more martial arts. I should stop by the secret manual shop tomorrow or so.”
“Gong Ryun… are you sick? Are you all right? Did you take internal injuries in the duel? There’s no way Gong Ryun would spend so willingly. And you even bought the expensive Parangjang recently?”
It had taken a long stretch of persuasion just to get him to buy the Parangjang.
“After going through real combat experience, I understood. Until now, dealing only with mindless beasts, Geumnasu was enough. But in fights against people I felt the limits of Geumnasu alone. Diversity of techniques is necessary after all.”
For hunting beasts, Geumnasu had been enough. Gong Ryun almost always took beast-subjugation commissions where the creatures charged mindlessly, so he could simply endure with protective inner energy and suppress whatever was right in front of him with Geumnasu—and that was the end of it.
People were different. Obvious attacks would not land. They dodged with light footwork and movement arts, threw counters, and the same technique might not work twice.
Through the experience of fighting people, Gong Ryun had felt it clearly with his body. It was time for a new challenge.
This was why experience mattered for a person. You needed experience to know your own shortcomings. And only by knowing the lack could you supplement it.
“Kuheuk… Gong Ryun… I’m proud of you… You’ve finally broken that Geumnasu one-trick stubbornness… As expected, Gong Ryun is the type who delivers when it counts. It just took filthy long…”
“I have learning ability too.”
“Truly a continuous string of joyful events. Gong Ryun winning his first duel, and deciding to learn new martial arts even at the sacrifice of his precious emergency funds.”
“What’s ‘precious emergency funds’?”
“Hehehe, isn’t it truly a happy day. On a day like this, as expected…”
“As expected?”
“Gong Ryun has to buy the meal. Hehehe!”
“Hm?”
“Originally the party of the protagonist is the one who treats. That’s how you accumulate virtue.”
“…”
Gong Ryun stroked his chin and looked at Un-rang with narrowed eyes.
“Looking at it, your account has a lot of money too? As expected, today Gong Ryun should buy…”
“Un-rang.”
“This too is the will of the Tathagata…”
“Un-rang.”
“Ai, why do you keep calling me?”
“Did you go to the pachinko?”
“…”
“…”
A light silence settled.
But Un-rang soon denied it with a carefree air.
“Hehehe. What’s that all of a sudden? I don’t get the context.”
“Your personality isn’t like this. You who usually insist on Dutch pay because you don’t want to burden me, suddenly telling me to pay?”
“There are days when I want to freeload a meal sometimes, hehe.”
“Why today of all days? And not you treating?”
“What, are you stingy about money spent on a friend? This is disappointing, Gong Ryun! How much of a miser are you!”
“It’s not that the money is a waste. Your behavior is just alien. Come to think of it, you suddenly checked my account earlier too. Was there another reason? Did you want psychological assurance that I could pay for the meal after seeing I had a lot of money in my account? Am I stretching it too far?”
“Hehehe. I think the stretch is correct.”
Gong Ryun continued with suspicious eyes.
“…You bought the Haenam Sect footwork at the secret manual shop a few days ago. You said you bought it cheap because of a special sale, right?”
“Huh? Hehe. Why that all of a sudden…”
“Then since you bought it cheap, you had that much money left, right?”
“…That’s right?”
“Then you could have thought of it as windfall money and spent it somewhere recklessly?”
“I could have saved it. Hehehe! I’m not a child.”
“Come to think of it, that day you grabbed the back of your neck quite a bit because of Loro. You must have built up some stress?”
“At that time I grabbed the back of my neck more because of Gong Ryun than Loro…”
“Actually stress might not even be important. A martial artist of your caliber can’t manage stress? What’s important is a pretext. You needed some excuse.”
“Hehe. Excuse for what?”
“Excuse for gambling. Originally gambling addicts don’t gamble because a reason arises. Their mind has already clocked in at the gambling den, then they somehow create a reason and make excuses later, right?”
There had been plenty of gamblers on the slave planet too. They gambled with daily necessities on the line. So Gong Ryun was not ignorant about gambling.
In Gong Ryun’s view, gambling clearly needed some psychological pretext.
Labor alone isn’t enough for a better life.
I’ll win more and feed my daughter full.
The sunset today is really wonderful. On a day like this I should gamble.
A pretext could be anything.
“…Hehe… But there’s no physical evidence, is there?”
“That can be checked by looking at your account. Surely you won’t refuse to show your account when I showed mine?”
“…”
“Ah. Perhaps you don’t want to show it? I understand. Privacy is originally easy to look at others’ but hard to show your own.”
“…Hehehe. Is that so?”
“Then now there’s only circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence that you obtained a pretext to go to pachinko while making some psychological excuse. Pretext can be anything. Thanks to the manual sale you had leftover money. Heart uncomfortable from stress because of Loro… stuff like that.”
“Still it’s only speculation…”
“Perhaps with your personality you used the Buddha as an excuse? Ah, is this too much of a stretch?”
No, this sharp-witted sentient being…?
Un-rang got goosebumps.
He had let his guard down. This Gong Ryun fellow lacked common sense, not intelligence. The reason Gong Ryun looked ignorant was only because knowledge had never been injected into him. Within the knowledge he already possessed, he sometimes showed insight—and the insight that occasionally appeared was surprisingly detailed.
Of course such insights were not always correct. Cases of missing the mark—like thinking someone was a Demonic Cultist simply because they used Yeokcheon Magong—were the majority. But that too was only lack of injected knowledge, not lack of intelligence.
It was just that Un-rang had let his guard down because of Gong Ryun’s usual dense appearance. He had overlooked Gong Ryun’s understanding of him. To freeload a meal he should have prepared a more plausible excuse.
Observing Un-rang’s expression, Gong Ryun continued speaking.
“Well, Un-rang. No matter how much you’ve left the temple, you wouldn’t just go to a gambling den using the Buddha as an excuse. I apologize.”
Un-rang’s conscience was stabbed deeply.
“Well, a crazy act of using the name of the god you believe in to fulfill your own desires—you wouldn’t do that.”
Stab. Stab.
“Even a non-believer like me couldn’t dare imagine doing such dog-shit scumbag acts, so there’s no way a Buddhist believer like Un-rang would. Ah, or are you not a Buddhist believer but a non-believer? Or was the temple for Un-rang merely a space of restraint and annoyance? Ah, perhaps…”
“Gyaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!! Stooooop!!!! Fine!!! I went!!! I went to the pachinko!!! Enough already!!!!!!”
Un-rang finally clutched his head and confessed.
At the same time Gong Ryun, as if he had been waiting for it, roared at full volume.
“I knew it!!!!!!!! You bald monk!!!!!!!! I knew it, you bastard!!!!!!!!”
Clank clank.
Gong Ryun seized Un-rang by the neck and shook him violently back and forth. Un-rang’s head clanked like a piggy bank being rattled.
“Is that CPU the same CPU!!!!! The bug-ridden CPU that blows earned money into pachinko machines!!!!!!!!!”
“Gyaaaaah!!!!! It wasn’t my fault!!!!! It wasn’t my fault, I say!!!!!”
“What kind of bullshit is that!!! Did someone grab your wrist and threaten you to bet money!!!!! You blew it yourself!!!!!”
“No!!!!! That second pachinko machine from the left!!!!!! That one was clearly going to hit!!!!! It hadn’t come up 777 for a long time!!!!! Mathematically it had to hit!!!!! I observed it from the side for three hours!!!!!! It was clearly the timing for 777 to come out!!!!!!!”
“You crazy!!!!! How much did you bet!!!!! How much did you put in there!!!!!”
“How could I hesitate on a machine where the jackpot was confirmed!!!!! Of course betting until it hits is common sense, isn’t it!!!!!”
“Kyaaaaah!!!!! Crazy bastard!!!!! You’re a real crazy bastard!!!!!!!”
“But I didn’t bet everything!!!!”
“Didn’t bet everything my ass!!!!! Speak straight!!!!! Speak straight I say!!!!!!”
“Kyaaaaah!!! Gong Ryun!!! Release the Geumnasu from your hands right now!!!! What are you doing right now!!!!!!”
“Speak right now!!! Why did you freeload a meal from me today!!!!! Because you have no money right!!!!! How much did you blow that you don’t even have meal money!!!!!”
“Release Geumnasu!!!!! No really my neck will be cut off!!!!!”
“Don’t tell me these past few days you’ve been freeloading meals from all the acquaintances you know!!!!!!!”
“No, why is your intuition sharp at times like this…!!! Uwaaaaah!!!! My neck!!!!! That’s right!!!!! I blew my entire fortune!!!!! I don’t even have food expenses!!!!!!!”
“You bastard, this is why I can’t recognize you as my older brother!!! How are you any different from Loro!!!!!!!”
“Whaaaat!!! That I can’t accept!!! I am the older brother!!!!! It’s common sense for a person!!!!!”
“Don’t talk nonsense!!! How are you a person!!!!!! Is someone who blows their entire fortune on a pachinko machine a person!!!!! I can’t accept it!!!!!!”
“No!!!!! This racist!!!!!!!”
Now Un-rang was also grabbing Gong Ryun’s hair and thrashing about.
A shabby fighting method of taking each other’s vital parts hostage. Embarrassing to call them martial artists or adults. Originally that was how close guys fought.
“This bastard grabbing hair?!! Do you even know how important that is!!!”
“It’s less important than the neck!!!!!”
“An android neck can just be rewelded!!! Human hair can’t be welded, you smooth baldy bastard!!!!!!!”
“Gyaaaaah!!! Not just racist but baldness discrimination too!!!!! Unbelievable!!!!!!!”
In the end the two fought for a long while with loud voices until they were kicked out of the shop.
Afterwards Gong Ryun lent Un-rang money to use as living expenses for the time being, in exchange for making him chant “I am bald.”
It was truly a day that could drive a person insane.