Chapter 160
Chapter 160: End of Act 1 (3)
First, she lowered her skirt to her knees.
"All the way down. Want me to rip it?"
At the leader's threat, the young girl swallowed her tears and lowered both her skirt and undergarment completely.
The scent of a virgin stimulated the leader's nose. The eyes of the other bandits around them also turned blood-red. They knew well that once the leader finished, their turn would come.
"Kneel."
She knew exactly what those words meant.
She closed her eyes and this time placed her knees on the dry ground.
Rustle, rustle.
She heard the sound of the leader removing his lower garments.
She steeled her heart once more. Telling herself it couldn't be helped if she wanted to survive this lawless era.
That's when it happened.
Thud.
A strange sound rang out.
Thud-thud-thud-thud.
Then some hot liquid splattered onto her naked lower body.
"......!"
A soft robe wrapped around her entire body.
Screams began to echo.
"L-leader!"
"Y-you bastard! Who are you!?"
"Guh, gwaaak!!"
Splat, thud-thud-thud.
She hastily brushed off the robe that had wrapped around her body.
But there was already nothing she could confirm with her eyes. She could only see the back of some tall man.
Without even turning around, he extended his hand and spoke.
His hand was completely red, covered in the bandits' blood.
"Give it back."
"......Th-thank you."
She barely managed to express her thanks as she placed the edge of the robe in his hand.
He wrapped the robe around himself again and walked forward.
Then he stopped in front of the horse the bandit leader had ridden and mounted it without hesitation.
"These bastards were riding a damn good horse. Serves them right to die."
The thin voice and youthful face of the man—no, the boy—indicated his age was at best the same as the girl's. Yet he was unhesitant, and somehow......
He looked strong.
Clop-clop. Stop.
He drove the horse a few steps before stopping.
Whoooosh.
"......!"
No wind had blown.
Yet some of the dried provisions the bandits had collected floated into the air as if swept by wind and were sucked into the folds of the boy's robe.
"I'll repay you later."
The villagers found themselves nodding simultaneously without realizing it.
The boy grinned and took up the reins again.
"Excuse me, what is your honorable name?"
The girl asked, rushing forward while hastily pulling up her lower garments.
The boy spoke with his back still turned.
"My name is......"
The boy said his name, but it scattered in the wind. None of the villagers could properly hear his voice. But the girl right behind him heard his name.
She opened her mouth again.
"Where are you going?"
"North."
"North? You mean north? There is......"
"Right, the Central Plains. I'm going there. To keep my master's dying instruction."
The boy drove his horse away without another word, disappearing into the distance. Wind continued to swirl around him like a whirlwind. As if he were the master of the space around him.
"The Central Plains......"
The girl clenched her hands tightly with a desperate heart, as if wanting him to take her along, but no one pulled her forward. Not yet.
Order had collapsed, but the world ultimately survived.
And those living within it also remained.
Whether the source of that hope was good or bad was unknown...... but hope was still alive and breathing.
***
New Beginning - New Murim (1)
My eyelids are heavy. Infinitely heavy.
Only after putting in effort for what felt like an eternity could I barely open my eyes. Having been cut off from light for so long, everything looked hazy white. The fact that this place was dark contributed to my inability to see anything even more.
It wasn't just my vision.
My head was foggy too. Numb as if I'd been hit hard with a hammer, unable to function properly.
I lay still and focused my mind.
'Who am I?'
I started from there. I tried to retrace my memories step by step from the beginning. But the memories wouldn't come back smoothly, like a videotape with broken film. Something must have gone seriously wrong somewhere. My foggy head kept interfering with my memories returning. It seemed my brain had suffered quite severe damage.
I didn't rush. Though I couldn't remember, my instinct told me that's what the original me would have done.
I lay there for a long while, pondering carefully from the beginning of my memories to the very end. Still, nothing came to mind.
At that point, I stopped thinking about memories and tried to get up.
Throb, throb.
My body wouldn't listen, like a dog beaten and stretched out in the sweltering heat of May.
It seemed I'd taken severe damage not just to my head but to my body as well.
If I were ambushed in this state, I would die just like that. Another instinct, different from before, commanded me to be alert to my surroundings.
I wriggled my fingers to feel the texture of the floor and flared my nostrils trying to detect scents.
Even though neither my brain nor body had returned to normal, I continued to strive to survive.
A day passed like that.
Two days went by.
.....
....
...
..
.
I couldn't know exactly how many days had passed, but quite a long time had elapsed.
I finally......
Remembered everything from when I was one year old and first said "Mom, feed me," to becoming Sosam and opening my eyes in the stable. And even becoming Dong Guang-chuan and fighting Yeon Yeong-ha.
Most importantly, I found myself.
I am......
'Dong Bong-soo.'
Recovery wasn't limited to just memories.
I could lift my eyelids much more easily than when they first opened.
I didn't stop there.
I tried lifting my head.
Creeeak.
I could hear it. The creaking of my neck was quite awkward, but my neck, my head lifted.
Thud.
I turned my palm and pressed it against the floor. The floor's chill transmitted through my hand, making me shiver. It was still quite awkward and my muscles were fairly stiff, but movement was possible.
I pushed against the floor with my hand. My upper body lifted with difficulty.
Now I bent my legs and pushed against the floor again.
"It works. Now."
Though it took great effort, I ultimately stood up.
My whole body was still trembling, but there was no major obstacle to performing minimal movements. The problem was that I was incredibly hungry.
If it weren't for stats, even moving this much would have been impossible.
Screeeeeeech-
A suddenly piercing shriek.
A sound I'd heard sickeningly often.
From what I'd determined over the past several days, this place was a cave.
The smooth ground surface and echoing resonance, water droplets falling from the ceiling.
Most decisively, that sound.
The cry of a bat.
Dong Bong-soo's gaze turned in that direction.
Woooong-
A Super True Energy Wave shot out, and the bat instantly lost its way, swaying and plummeting. I wasn't yet able to attack freely enough to kill, but for now, disrupting the bat's sound waves was sufficient.
Thud.
Without a moment's hesitation, I caught the falling bat and put it in my mouth.
My body was so weakened that eating it raw might be taxing, but that was a later problem. First, filling my stomach was the urgent priority.
The sound of chewing echoed through the cave for a long while.
"That's better."
Though only a little, once I consumed nutrients, all my physical abilities recovered somewhat.
I examined my body here and there, doing stretches like warm-up exercises. Though my body didn't need such things, it wasn't unnecessary either.
After finishing a brief workout, I checked the New Murim Online system.
"As expected......"
It was incredibly broken.
The hologram was also full of errors. It seemed there were now fewer properly functioning parts than broken ones, but......
It persisted.
The system confirmed my survival and welcomed the fact that I was alive.
Having confirmed my body was fine, I could finally look around the entire cave interior without blind spots.
The cave was extremely vast. Large enough to tell without measuring.
My brain quickly estimated the rough size. At least fifty meters high, with a diameter easily in the hundreds of meters.
Most notably, the peculiarity of this cave was that various jewels and gold artifacts were scattered carelessly throughout.
From that, I could easily guess how the owner of this cave viewed those treasures. 'He, she, or it' collected them but didn't consider them important at all.
Like trash in a garbage dump.
Tap-tap.
I wasn't the only one who thought that way.
I had little interest in those countless treasures.
I passed them indifferently and walked toward the passage at the cave's end. There was only that one path.
I walked along that path for a long time. The cave was unbelievably larger than I'd thought. Was that earlier cavity just one room of a massive underground fortress? I passed through more than ten such rooms, but still couldn't find a way out.
'Who could have possibly made such a cave?'
Perhaps modern science from that world could do it sufficiently. But if it were an architect from that world, they wouldn't have designed it with such poor aesthetic sense.
'This was definitely made by some other existence.'
'Was the Heavenly Demon who summoned me here the culprit?'
"......!"
While walking for a while with such thoughts, I suddenly stopped at a certain point.
Because I saw something.
It startled me at first glance. Probably the owner of this cave or one of that owner's minions.
I laughed without realizing it.
I've been laughing often lately. Tremendously loudly and satisfyingly at that.
"Heh heh heh heh, Heh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
[Crackle, cr-cr-crackle.]
The mechanical noise of the New Murim Online system stimulated my ears.
[Crackle, the activation conditions for Spirit Eyes...... cr-crackle...... have been met, and Spirit Eyes will automatically...... crackle, activate...... crackle......]
[......An enemy with a level difference of 10 or more from you...... cr-cr-crackle...... has approached within 20 meters...... crackle...... 19, 18, 17......]
"Heh heh heh heh."
I was still laughing.
"Is this a grand welcoming gift left by the Heavenly Demon? Interesting. If it's a gift......"
I paused briefly, then walked forward again.
"I should enjoy it and taste it deliciously."
***
I......
Survived.
And......
This world where I exist is the New Murim.
Now it begins again.
I am Dong Bong-soo.
One who absolutely never knows surrender until the end.