How Surprised Will the Viewers Be When They See This?
A single, crucial realization hit me.
There's no way I can clear this.
To clear the dungeon, I had to push into the palace at the center of town and smash the black orb waiting inside. That was the only way.
But I'd barely managed five zombies. Breaking through a palace packed with thousands of them? Completely impossible.
Of all the dungeons that could have come up, why this one?
With guns, the Zombie Kingdom was one of the easiest dungeons around. Without them, it was a nightmare. My luck was truly rotten.
Find an exit first.
I couldn't clear it, but I could still escape. I just needed to find an exit.
Even top-tier Superhumans usually hunted for an exit when a dungeon was too hard. There was nothing shameful about it.
Hide first.
More urgently, I needed somewhere to hole up. Wandering around in daylight was suicide. The smart play was to wait for nightfall, then search for an exit under cover of dark.
I tried to slip into the building right beside me, but I couldn't find the entrance. I wandered for a moment looking for it—
And walked straight into a zombie horde.
"Grrrrr—!!"
"Kwaaaaargh—!"
There were far more of them this time. Close to fifty, by the look of it.
Face gone white, I started walking. It felt like I was sounding an alarm just by moving.
But at that pace, I never stood a chance. The zombies closed the gap in seconds.
I'm screwed.
My back hit a dead-end wall. I'd been cornered at the end of an alley. Worst possible outcome.
"Sinhye? I think I'm actually going to die here."
I deliberately called out to my clone.
She said nothing. She just kept filming me from nearby.
Why doesn't a single one of them go after the Cheonma?
She had to have some kind of trick. Of course, I had no idea what it was.
Either way, I was in a life-or-death crisis. I swallowed hard without meaning to.
S-she's not seriously going to just stand there, right?
The Cheonma would step in. I had to believe that.
I gripped my sword tight. At least the tip wasn't shaking.
And then the zombies came for me.
"Kwaaaaargh—!!"
"Uwaaaaargh—!"
Have you ever watched dozens of zombies charge at once?
The moment I saw it, every thought in my head vanished. My mind went completely blank.
One of them was already right in front of me.
Even then, all I could manage was a stunned expression.
But the sword moved on its own. More precisely, my body recreated the movements it had been drilled in.
Seogeok—!
I took the nearest zombie's head clean off.
Its neck hit the ground with its tongue still hanging out.
Another one lunged right after.
The sword moved on its own again.
Puk—!
This time I thrust. The blade punched straight through the zombie's eye.
From the right, a zombie's arm came swinging at me.
Without pulling back from the thrust, I swept the sword sideways.
Seogeok—!
Seogeok—!
The eye-stabbed zombie's head came off—and in the same motion, the arm and upper body of the one beside it were sheared clean through.
Shit.
Honestly, I still wasn't in my right mind. My body was just moving on its own.
Strangely enough, the results weren't bad.
My body kept going.
Seogeok—!
Seogeok—!
Puk—!
I cut a zombie's thigh. I cut a zombie's waist. I stabbed a zombie's throat.
I didn't know anything anymore. I just moved the sword without a single thought.
Was this what they called a state of no-self?
I sank into that trance and let the sword work. My body moved with it. Running was forbidden, but moving my feet was fine.
"Kwaaaargh—!"
Fit—!
Something nicked my arm. I barely felt it. I must have been that amped up.
Of course, I put a hole straight through the head of the zombie that had scratched me. A satisfying little bit of payback.
Puk—!
Seogeok—!
Seogeok—!
How long did it go on?
"Hah. Hah. Hah."
My breath was scraping the top of my lungs. I felt like I was going to die. I wanted to just collapse and rest.
But I couldn't. The horde was still coming for me—
Huh?
I looked ahead, gasping.
There was nothing in front of me.
Nothing but zombie corpses, piled everywhere.
"Hah. Hah. Hah."
I looked at the sword in my hand. Then back at the corpses.
It didn't make sense.
Did I… kill all of those?
I couldn't believe it. I knew I'd gotten stronger. I just hadn't known it was this strong.
Of course, I couldn't go any further. I still felt like death. My inner energy was down to a scrap.
But ordinary me had just cut down dozens of zombies in one go. The viewers who eventually saw this footage probably wouldn't believe it either.
I glanced at the Cheonma.
She was still holding the camera in the same pose—but the look on her face had changed.
How to put it? She looked like a parent about to cry from pride at her child's growth. It was so funny I laughed out loud.
"Pfft."
Even that little laugh put some life back into me.
This wasn't the time to stand around. I had to move.
Using the sword as a cane, I forced myself forward. My muscles felt ready to tear, but I made myself walk.
This time, luck was with me—I found a building entrance.
Here?
Creak.
I eased the door open.
The interior of what looked like an inn greeted me. Probably a high-end establishment in its day.
There was just one problem. There were zombies inside too.
"Kwaaaaargh—!"
I sighed at the sight.
Just this one, then I rest.
At least the fear was mostly gone. If that counted as progress, I'd take it.
I barely managed to put the zombie down. It left me with a few more cuts, but I didn't lose. Small mercies.
"Aigoo, I'm dying."
Thud.
I sprawled flat on the floor, arms and legs out. I was too exhausted to do anything else. Moving further was impossible.
I'll just burn time like this.
My plan was to lie there until sundown, then find an exit and get out.
I must have been out of my mind.
Regret hit me all at once. If I'd known a solo dungeon run would be this brutal, I should have thrown a fit and refused the Cheonma no matter what.
If I'd just flopped on the floor and staged a protest, it might have worked…
Of course, I'd been too embarrassed to try it. But I was starting to think I needed to put that option back on the table.
At the very least, solo clears are off the table. That has to be fixed first.
With four people, we would have cleared this already. Spray the palace with gunfire on the way in, smash the black orb, done. With time to spare, we could even have looted the treasures inside.
I should say something right now.
Strike while the iron is hot. I was about to open negotiations with the Cheonma.
"…Hey!"
But she had her eyes closed, circulating her qi. I stopped mid-sentence.
Fine. I'll wait until she's done.
Come to think of it, I'd burned through all my own inner energy too. With so little of it to begin with, it had run dry almost immediately.
I forced myself upright, settled into a lotus position the way she had, and closed my eyes.
Fill the tank first.
A full store of inner energy would at least cut the fatigue.
Qi began pouring into my body almost at once.
Huh?
You're not supposed to let your mind wander during circulation. Every bit of focus should stay on the flow of energy.
But right now, I couldn't help it.
W-what is this?
An enormous volume of dense qi was flooding into me.
If the qi I'd felt on Earth was a weak, watered-down americano, this was pure espresso—so thick it would be hard to drink. And it just kept coming, without pause.
Holy shit!
The Cheonma had said Earth's qi was thin. At the time I'd just thought, Oh, okay, and moved on.
Feeling it for myself was different.
This is real qi!
The dense energy raced through my meridians. There was so much of it I could clearly feel every channel filling to the brim.
I snapped my focus back and started moving the energy. Sit still with this much pouring in and I'd risk qi deviation.
Qi began to flow like a waterfall.
From the dantian it rose in a clean arc—past my side, through my chest, collarbone, neck, all the way up toward my head.
It didn't quite reach the crown, which was a shame. But even this much was incredible.
Then the energy descended again—neck, chest, side—and returned to the dantian.
In an instant, I'd completed a full circulation.
My eyes flew open.
"Is this for real?"
Everything I'd spent was already restored. One full cycle had been enough. And my inner energy had jumped dramatically beyond what it was before.
This has to be at least ten times more efficient than Earth.
An hour of cultivation here was worth ten hours back home.
My eyes met the Cheonma's.
She was looking at me and smiling—a little surprised herself, by the look of it.
I nodded at her, then closed my eyes again.
This wasn't the time to chat. I needed every scrap of cultivation I could get.
In short: it was grinding time. I wasn't about to waste this opportunity.
How much time had passed?
I'd been circulating qi in a complete haze. When I finally came back to myself, everything around me was dark.
I pulled out my phone and checked the time.
About twelve hours?
I'd never focused on a single thing for that long before. It was strangely impressive.
My body feels like it could fly.
I felt light. I stood up and bounced on the balls of my feet, hopping into the air.
So this is what inner energy can do.
No wonder martial arts put so much stock in raw internal power. Exaggerating only a little, my body felt as light as a feather.
I checked myself over and nodded.
Condition: peak. In this state, clearing the dungeon actually seemed possible.
Wait a second.
Thinking about it, there was no real need to hunt for an exit and run.
Power was surging through me—and with it, confidence.
I changed the plan.
Finding a randomly appearing exit was a pain anyway. Better to just push straight for the palace and clear the place.
Yeah. Since we're already here—let's clear it.