What Is a Great Hero?
Episode 3
The ominous poisonous herb growing beside the altar looked like a woman’s hand.
I hadn’t wanted to walk the same road as that thing, but I had no choice.
It felt like someone had built a single path and then mocked me with, Go on, do whatever you want.
What a disgusting feeling.
The reason something like this was growing here never did come up, but it was the Self-Blood Herb cultivated by the Blood Sect.
Eat it raw, and it would grant a bit of internal energy in exchange for pain like your flesh was being burned alive.
Normally, the Blood Sect would mix it into something and feed it to beasts, or use it for torture. But I had no other choice.
“……”
My hesitation lasted only an instant.
Then I opened my mouth wide and bit into the herb that looked like a human hand.
The tang of blood spread across my tongue, and I felt a small surge of internal energy roar through me. Then—
“Krr…gh!”
Pain flooded my entire body.
*
Before I knew it, dawn had passed and the sun was rising over the mountains.
After hauling myself up the cliff, I brushed the dust from my body.
“Hah… finally made it. This is human victory.”
My hand was still trembling, as if the pain from the poisonous herb hadn’t faded yet.
Of course climbing up was twice as hard as going down.
Still, it was the only choice.
In the original story, the protagonist went down into the ravine, but I thought differently.
I also didn’t want my legs wrecked by the impact of a fall, but more importantly, I had to clear my name as soon as possible.
That idiot only realized this later and tried to undo the false accusation, but by then everyone involved was already dead.
That’s how the snowball starts rolling.
I couldn’t let that happen.
I didn’t even have a Sword King backing me up, so I had to get the first move right.
If I wanted to survive in this hellish jianghu, there was no other way.
Honestly, I was worried I might already be a little late.
Tap.
Tap-tap.
That was why I’d taken only the minimum amount of internal energy I could and hurried onward.
I can’t let things get any harder than this.
After wandering the woods for a while, I finally followed the road toward Jinwan Village.
By the time the sun was high overhead—
“Kyaaaaaa!”
A shrill scream rang out.
I wanted to ignore it, but the woman’s cry came from the middle of the main road.
When I turned to look, she was in the middle of cutting down a man who looked like a bandit.
“T-The youngest one!”
“Stay calm!”
Wagons stood between a group of bandit-like men and a lone woman, all of them locked in a standoff with swords drawn.
A woman in purple silk with a spider-shaped hairpin in her hair gripped her sword and stepped back.
As I drew closer, I saw bodies scattered all around, proof that the fight had already been brutal.
Three men were taking on one woman.
So they were already in action.
As soon as she spotted me, the woman cried out pitifully.
“P-Please help me, Great Hero! These wicked villains are attacking us!”
“W-What the hell are you talking about, you bitch?”
“These evil bandits killed my family and are trying to violate me too!!”
“This crazy bitch is insane!”
A rough-looking bandit drew his sword and rushed at the woman.
The instant a sharp slash flew toward her—
Clang!
“To block that….”
I yanked the sword from my waist and intercepted the strike.
Ghk…
My arm screamed in pain.
I still wasn’t back to normal, and forcing out a sword strike like that made my body creak.
Not to mention I hadn’t been able to disperse all the force from the impact.
“Thank you, Great Hero….”
“No need. Helping a woman is only natural. Are you hurt?”
I put on the gentlest expression I could manage and smiled broadly.
“Y-Yes… thanks to you.”
And just as I expected—
She hurried over and moved behind my back.
This was my only chance.
“What is the meaning of this?”
The bandit roared and swung his blade around furiously.
The others behind him trembled with anger too, as if they were about to explode.
Just as the bandits were about to say something else—
“You filthy bastards! Great Hero, they’re absolutely horrifying! They tried to violate me… Please, help me.”
Her silk clothes were torn roughly at the top and bottom, and she looked utterly exhausted.
I ignored the bandits completely and smiled at the woman.
“There’s no need to listen to the likes of them. Rest assured, young lady.”
“Ahh… so Great Hero really is a righteous warrior of the martial world…!”
The woman clasped both hands together and shook her head in emotion.
“I’m sorry, but while I handle two of them, could you take care of just one?”
“One person…? It’ll be difficult, but I’ll try.”
“Thank you, young lady. Just buy me a little time.”
The woman looked triumphant as she drew her sword.
“You trash! The time has come for you to pay for your crimes!”
“What now? Even at this point, running away would—!”
She raised her blade fiercely and leaped forward.
Thud—
No, she tried to leap forward.
That was as far as her intentions got.
“How…?”
“W-What is this…!”
Gasps of disbelief leaked out from both men and women alike.
Because a luxurious blade had pierced through the woman’s body.
With eyes full of confusion, she looked up at me.
“Why… would you….”
Without a word, I pulled the paralysis needle from her neck.
I had a feeling, but she really did jam a paralysis needle straight into the cervical acupoint…
She must have planned to take me out along with them.
The woman was one of the Blood Sect’s members from the unorthodox alliance, the Great Black Union.
Her martial arts weren’t particularly impressive, but she had a nasty reputation for attacking people with exactly this sort of method.
I’d been half-suspicious based on her clothes, and sure enough, I was right.
It was better to eliminate poisonous weeds before they spread.
As for her name… well, there was no need to know it now.
I searched her robes and pulled out every bit of valuables I could find.
She was even carrying a medicinal pill.
It was a red pellet etched with horizontal lines: Self-Burn Pill.
It was mass-produced junk, but in a situation like this, it was still useful.
If I’d had more time, I might have played with the woman a little longer, but getting to the village was urgent.
The bandits, thinking they’d survived, bowed their heads and gave me a martial salute.
After a brief conversation, it turned out they were rookie merchants who had only learned a little martial arts.
“Thank you! Really, thank you so much, Great Hero!”
“Don’t mention it. When someone’s life is on the line, I can’t just walk past.”
Seeing their courtesy, I returned the salute.
I still wasn’t used to that.
“You are truly a great blessing to the martial world, sir!”
“Great Hero, you’re our lifesaver! But how on earth did you know…?”
I couldn’t tell them I already knew who she was, so I gave them an appropriate answer.
“It was nothing. They said her family had all been murdered, but the only sword with blood on it was the woman’s. I knew right away she was lying.”
“Ooh…!”
They kept peppering me with questions as if they were fascinated.
“Could you perhaps be at the level of Returning to One’s Original Nature…?”
“No. As you can see, I’m just an ordinary person with no internal energy at all.”
There was no need to tell the truth.
“Truly?”
The merchant’s eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open.
He really did look like a vicious bandit.
“Yes. I just got lucky just now.”
“So that’s how it is. We can’t sense even the slightest trace of qi….”
For some reason, they seemed delighted, whispering back and forth in front of me.
Rattle.
Rattle-rattle.
The wagon jostled loudly.
I settled into a cross-legged position and kept refining my qi.
Since the merchants wanted to repay me, I accepted their kindness both to settle the effects of the medicine working through my body and to make use of the ride.
I cleared out the medicinal residue quickly, and after that it was time for breathing meditation.
My body was such trash that I still couldn’t circulate qi through every meridian, but I had experience from a different life.
Even so, I couldn’t understand how someone with a body this worthless had become one of the top ten masters of the world.
I could only conclude that the Sword King had an exceptional talent for teaching.
After lightly completing a small circulation, the next step was to condense qi in the dantian.
While operating Ilwol Eumyang Singong, I was generating highly refined sun and moon qi.
Unlike other martial arts, this one needed not just internal energy but above all the purity of the qi.
Because Ilwol Eumyang Singong achieves harmony and balance through opposing energies, the purer the energy, the more explosively it responds when stimulated.
Still not enough.
“We’ve arrived.”
Just as I was deeply absorbed in training, the merchants knocked on the door.
After stepping down from the wagon, I found myself in a quiet open lot.
“Where is this? This isn’t Jinwan Village, is it?”
Clack.
Before I knew it, the men had drawn their swords and were aiming them at me.
“Mister, since you helped us earlier, we won’t kill you. But hand over that sword and everything else you’ve got.”
“We don’t get a chance like this often. Consider it us returning the favor.”
“Heh heh… this should make up for some of the money we lost on the trade run.”
So they really did live up to their looks?
Or maybe, like merchants, they simply trusted reason above all else.
There was no doubt the sight of the expensive-looking sword I’d brought out of Jin family territory had clouded their judgment.
Those confident expressions—there was no question they thought I was an ordinary man.
Just moments ago they’d been calling me Great Hero, and now they’d degraded me to mister. Power really was a strange thing.
“……”
“Mister, I’m saying this nicely, so hand it over already. I don’t want to stain my hands with my benefactor’s blood either.”
“That’s right. Hand over everything you’ve got and get lost while we’re still willing to let you live.”
That was right. This was the martial world.
The purest, most orthodox kind of martial arts novel.
And I’d forgotten that…
This was a place where they’d steal the nose right off your face while your eyes were open.
Clack.
I drew my sword without a word.
*
I trudged into the village.
As expected of a fairly large settlement for the area, it was full of life and bustle.
Then first…
I heard a familiar woman’s voice.
“Y-Young Master Sojin? You’re alive…!”
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