Pizza
“Cheon Sojin! Let’s go together!”
From behind the building, Paeng Gayeon came running, waving both hands.
“……”
“Wow, ah—! Running into you here is such a coincidence, isn’t it?”
Maybe she thought she was putting on a perfect performance, but all I could do was let out a dry laugh.
If you meet again less than five minutes after parting, could you really call that a coincidence?
“Paeng Sojeo, why are you following me?”
When her pale hand slyly reached toward my waist, I turned my head and looked at her.
“Huh? Following you? I’m not… We’re just going the same way. I have to head this way too.”
Paeng Gayeon averted her eyes and fidgeted with her fingers.
Her thoughts were written all over her face, whether she realized it or not.
If you’re going to do it, at least make it convincing.
She’d already trailed after me for three blocks, and now she was turning away and pretending otherwise.
“……”
“W-what is it?”
I needed to eat the Gangjindan and raise my realm as soon as possible, so this wasn’t exactly a welcome interruption.
And with her grandfather, the Five Tigers Sword Emperor, backing her, she didn’t seem likely to back down easily.
If saying it would make her leave, she wouldn’t bother with such a half-baked excuse.
Still, there were plenty of ways to shake her off.
“Then go on ahead, Sojeo. I’ll head out later.”
“Huh? N-no… there’s no need for that…”
Paeng Gayeon stared up at me, blank-faced.
Didn’t she say we were going the same way?
Then go first.
“It’s fine. I’ll leave once you’re gone.”
“...Okay.”
After fidgeting for quite a while, Paeng Gayeon let her shoulders slump and walked away in a dispirited manner.
Kwaaaang!
The moment she disappeared from view, a thunderous explosion rolled over from the direction of the main training ground.
Even though the training ground was quite a distance away, I could still feel the faint spread of qi and intent rippling through the air.
Is that an academy student strong enough to use a secret technique?
During the ten-win matches, I’d only faced first-rate students, so I’d never seen anything like it.
At best, it was probably some secret move between the expert and super peak levels, but curiosity was curiosity.
Still, curiosity was one thing, and my feet were already headed for the cultivation room.
I couldn’t mix up the order.
The most important thing was my own strength.
“Sojin!!!”
A voice thick with grief and tears rang clearly from the direction of the main training ground.
The fact that I could hear it this well meant the speaker had infused qi into the shout.
Han Seola?
It was definitely her voice. No way I could mistake it.
Why is she calling for me?
I wondered, but my feet never stopped moving toward the cultivation room.
Not my problem. And I didn’t have time for it anyway.
She’d manage somehow.
*****
Paaang!
The blue-haired girl was knocked backward by the impact and sent flying through the air.
“Cough….”
Thud!
Then, before she could even brace herself for the fall, she hit the floor of the training ground and rolled helplessly across it in a humiliating heap.
Smack!
After that, Ringring stomped hard on her abdomen.
Crude, merciless, and without the slightest hesitation.
“Ghk… ugh….”
Han Seola desperately tried to shake off the foot pinning her down, but the blood point damaged in the first exchange still hadn’t recovered, so she couldn’t escape.
She’d taken a direct hit from Moon Goddess Fist’sMoon Fang Heavenly Fist.
At the sight of Han Seola’s agony, Ringring only grew more delighted and poured even more internal energy into her foot.
“What’s wrong? Angry? Then why don’t you show me that famous secret technique of your Hundred Snow Soar Art? What was it called again? Heon…?”
“Thousand-Year Ice White! Unni!”
Ringring curled one corner of her mouth into a sneer.
It was the kind of expression anyone would recognize as mockery.
Sojin….
“Yeah, that overhyped secret technique is how you climbed into the top hundred, right? But what’s this? I don’t feel scared at all.”
Before long, Han Seola’s eyes were bloodshot, and tears fell one by one like dew gathered on leaves at dawn.
“Hh… hngh.”
“Wow, you’re crying again? You’re pathetic, seriously. Go on, keep crying. Let’s see how long you can keep it up.”
She stamped on Han Seola with all her strength and kicked her over and over.
“Gk… ngh.”
Every time Ringring kicked, Han Seola had no choice but to curl into a ball and endure it.
“You’re completely useless!”
Since the main training ground was in an out-of-the-way place, no one was likely to come here.
Ringring smirked and grabbed Han Seola by the hair, forcing her face up.
“A-ah… it hurts… it hurts! It hurts!!”
“Han Seola. Just say you’re sorry. Say you won’t do it again, and beg me nicely. Then I’ll stop.”
“……”
She absolutely couldn’t do that.
I’m a daughter of the Han Clan.
“You’re really pushing it today, huh? Waiting for someone, maybe? Ah… Jin Sojin? That Cheon Sojin guy?”
Her pupils trembled.
Because Ringring had hit the nail on the head.
“AHAHAHA! Seriously? Are you some kind of psycho? He left ages ago.”
“W-what…?”
She couldn’t believe it.
There was no way.
“I ignored what he said and ran out earlier, so I figured it must’ve been because of something… What? You don’t believe me because I said he’s gone? He had no reason to come anyway. Open your eyes, will you?”
Sojin… why, why aren’t you coming?
Ringring began kicking her again.
Thunk!
“Kk… hhk, s-stop….”
“Then get out! Just get out!! There are plenty of people who want to come here even if you don’t!”
As she spoke, her irritation seemed to grow, and the kicks became more and more vicious.
“...Ngk!”
Seola’s body was becoming more and more ragged.
Sojin… I’m hurting so much… when are you coming? You didn’t leave, did you?
“Han Seola. Say you’re sorry. Say you won’t do it again. That’s your last chance. That great hero you’re imagining isn’t coming. He left already.”
There was no way.
Sojin couldn’t have abandoned me and left….
Ah, no, wait! H-he probably couldn’t hear it! Sojin was far away from here….
The world went dark around her.
“I’ll give you ten seconds. This is Moon Fang Heavenly Fist. In your current state, you can’t block it, can you? Look forward to it.”
W-what do I do? Th-then I…?
The thought of being beaten again made her body tremble.
It had been unbearable pain.
“Five seconds left.”
She hated pain.
…But she couldn’t bow her head either.
“Three seconds.”
What was she supposed to do?
Please… help me….
“One second…. It’s over—!”
As Ringring’s fist blazed with light, someone shouted loudly and stepped in front of her.
“Stop it!!”
Just as she was about to lose consciousness from fear, the last thing Seola saw in her fading vision was…
a golden-haired girl.
********
I shut myself away in the cultivation room and threw myself into Ilwol Eumyang Singong without a moment’s rest.
“……”
Blue energy rippled around my body and dispersed into the air.
For an entire week, I ate and slept little, spending every waking hour on cultivation.
Thanks to the Gangjindan, high-purity Ilwol qi had steadily accumulated in my dantian.
Even without the heart chamber of a successor, this level of progress was a miracle in its own right.
The mindscape was free, so in my right hand I held the moon, and in my left, the sun.
Since Ilwol Eumyang Singong was a martial art that achieved harmony and balance through opposing energies, the purer the qi, the more explosively powerful it became under stimulation.
Just a little more…
The qi remained unstable, changing shape from moment to moment.
For a long while, yin energy on one side and yang energy on the other moved as if they were trying to devour each other, and then…
at last, they achieved balance.
Done.
All that effort wasn’t wasted.
Before long, as the fifth flower bloomed within my dantian, I slowly gathered my energy, shook out my body, and rose from my seat.
“Phew.”
My whole body was brimming with vitality, and my skin and hair shone with a healthy sheen.
Since I was human too, rapid progress in martial arts naturally satisfied me.
It’s definitely a lot better than before.
Of course, because it was martial arts already ingrained in the body, progress had to be quick, but even accounting for that, this was a remarkable pace.
The moment I clenched my fist, the veins of my body roared and the Ilwol qi concentrated in my hand in an instant.
“Good.”
I could probably take down Namgung Jin with ease now.
Now I should start practicing footwork.
Ilwol Eumyang Singong had a special, peerless movement technique that began from the yin-yang and five elements….
Rattle—
Thud—
“Uung… ouch!”
What the hell?
The moment I opened the door to the cultivation room, a golden-haired girl pitched forward and slammed her head into the floor.
The sound was loud enough to make me feel bad for her.
“Ah…! So, Sojin-nim, hello? Good morning.”
Startled by the impact, Paeng Gayeon shot to her feet.
Good morning?
When I turned my head, the sun was already sinking behind the mountains.
Apparently she’d been asleep long enough to leave a white smear of drool at the corner of her mouth.
“Yes, that’s right. Good morning. …Paeng Sojeo, what brings you here?”
“W-well, I was just passing by and got tired for a moment, so I was resting.”
“……”
“It’s true.”
Did she really think I’d believe that?
That kind of thing was so very Hebei Paeng Clan.
She looked down at the ground and stamped her feet in embarrassment.
Easy to read, this one.
It had already been more than a week since I’d gone into the cultivation room, so if we were meeting now, the timing must have lined up somehow.
There was no way she’d been waiting the whole time.
Paeng Gayeon kept shifting her weight and twisting her fingers together.
Annoying.
At this rate, she’d still be silent an hour from now.
“Paeng Sojeo, did something happen?”
Maybe the Five Tigers Sword Emperor had come looking for her again.
“Huh? Ah… y-yes.”
“Sojeo, aren’t we the comrades who saved the village together? Don’t hold back. Just say what’s on your mind.”
“C-comrades? R-right. Comrades… I-I tried making one, but….”
Paeng Gayeon reached into the space between her breasts.
What she pulled out from her bosom was…
What the hell was that?
“Huh? T-this isn’t it?”
On closer inspection, it was a completely smashed rice ball.
No, at this point maybe it was better to call it pizza.
She’d just crushed it against the floor when she fell face-first, squashing it under her chest.
“Is this for me?”
“……”
She looked at the rice ball in her hand with an odd expression, like a raccoon that had drunk spun sugar.
The cultivation room was full of Bigu Dan, and Paeng Gayeon must not have known that.
This is going to take a while.
“I was hungry, so this works out. I’ll eat it. Thanks.”
“Eh? W-wait a moment, Sojin-nim…”
Crunch—
Rather than wasting time wrestling with her, it was better to finish quickly and head to the training ground.
I wanted to start practicing my footwork as soon as possible.
Munch—
It tasted exactly like what it looked like.
I didn’t know what she’d put in it, but… it had the profound taste of life’s bitterness.
I didn’t particularly want to eat it again.
“It’s tasty. Sojeo, do you still need something?”
“Ah, n-no. …But was it really good?”
“……”
I nodded silently.
Sometimes a harmless lie was necessary.
“I’m glad.”
She smiled, bright and fresh like a spring blossom.
*
*
*
Stars glittered across the dark night sky.
Since this was the small training ground farthest from the academy, there wasn’t a soul around.
The Wind God Step, the lower movement art of Sun and Moon Step, begins from the yin-yang five elements…
“That’s pretty good.”
I hadn’t even started yet—what was this nonsense?
And then someone slowly walked out of the darkness.
“You’re…?”
##