Toward Seoan
My steps heading away from the Huanzhong Trading Hall toward the marketplace felt as light as feathers.
That was a good deal.
The money pouch in my hand was heavier than I’d expected.
Even after giving half to Cheongha, there was still enough here for me to live comfortably for months.
And the jade token tucked inside my robes would no doubt serve as solid insurance for the road ahead.
So what should I do with all this money?
First, I needed to fill my starving stomach.
I’d barely eaten any mortal food yet.
From now on, I was going to order every meal to the brim and throw away whatever I couldn’t finish in glorious, shameless excess.
And travel? Only by carriage.
Not some rattling freight wagon, either, but a top-class one with plush seats.
As for lodging, obviously I’d be staying at the most expensive, cleanest inn I could find.
If I’d been a man, I would’ve stopped by a pleasure house and spent the night in a blaze of glory.
But with this body, that was impossible, wasn’t it?
I was in the middle of painting a golden future for myself when Cheongha, who had been walking quietly beside me, suddenly spoke up.
“Unnie.”
There was something solemn in her voice, as if she’d made up her mind about something.
I glanced at her and saw that, beyond the veil, her eyes were fixed on me without a trace of wavering.
What was she going to say now?
I’d already given her the money.
Instead of answering, I gave a small nod and waited for her to continue.
“If it isn’t too much trouble… I’d like to accompany you on the rest of your journey.”
She’d said the same thing before.
I’d been pretending not to hear it, but apparently she still hadn’t given up.
…
I stayed silent and began weighing the pros and cons.
Honestly, traveling with Cheongha wasn’t entirely unwelcome.
For one thing, she herself was the owner of a black history archive, so I’d have to deal with her sooner or later anyway. Her fighting ability wasn’t bad, either, which meant I could practically set her loose as an automatic hunter if things went south.
Despite her sloppy behavior, she also seemed to know quite a bit.
And most of all, she was pretty when she took off the veil, which made the whole picture much more pleasing.
If I’m going to travel with someone, it might as well be a cute girl.
That was a truth I was not willing to compromise on.
But the downsides were just as clear.
Her looks were attention-grabbing, and so was the flashy way she fought. On top of that, she clearly had no sense of boundaries, which made her the type to invite trouble simply by existing.
Most of all, I couldn’t stop thinking about the identity she was hiding.
If she really was from some prestigious clan, then it was only a matter of time before she got swept into some disaster….
As I stroked my chin and continued debating, she bit her lip under the veil, anxious.
Then, all at once, she held out the silk pouch hanging at her waist.
“I’ll give you everything I just received as payment, along with all my travel money.”
I stared at the pouch, which swung with a pleasant jingle.
The money from the Huanzhong Trading Hall had been split exactly in half.
If I added that back together and then included the money she had on hand….
The corners of my mouth twitched before I could stop them.
“Wow. So you’re trying to buy me with money, huh?”
I was a little too excited and couldn’t quite control my tone.
For someone born into a capitalist society, this kind of temptation was far too cruel.
It was simply too much money to refuse.
Ugh… who cares about the drawbacks? I don’t know. I’ll take the money.
“…Fine. But there’s a condition. Don’t act recklessly unless I say so.”
“Of course. I promise.”
She accepted my condition with startling ease.
And when it ended like this, wasn’t the next step usually trouble? The classic setup, if you asked me.
When that happened, I’d ditch her without mercy.
I took the pouch and quickened my pace.
“...Our next destination is Seoan. We’re going to a major city first, so I can get more information.”
“A sensible decision.”
Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
See? I really was a genius.
Having a beautiful girl agree with me from the side made my spirits rise even more.
My mood improved along with the weight at my waist.
After all, happiness came from your bank balance—no, from having breathing room.
“Let’s head to the escort bureau!”
I declared grandly and set off toward the bureau.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The road to Seoan was long and tedious.
Even though I’d paid a substantial sum to hire a luxury carriage, the jolting ride left my backside sore.
The journey passed in silence, like a monotonous lullaby.
Outside the window, the scenery repeated itself day after day: roads, trees, grasslands, fields.
There were no encounter events at all—no bandits bursting from the roadside, no dramatic ambushes.
Well, of course. They’d target a shabby freight wagon, not this lavish carriage with a full escort attached.
“This is contradictory.”
I muttered to myself, unable to bear the boredom any longer and feeling my concentration drift.
So even if you had money, you had to deliberately rent some beat-up carriage if you wanted to relieve the tedium?
Honestly, if this were a game, I’d rather just pay more for fast travel.
I don’t know how wandering martial artists stand doing this every day.
I glanced across at Cheongha, who was seated opposite me.
Apparently unaffected by the carriage’s bouncing, she sat ramrod straight and dozed off in small, tidy nods.
At least talk to me.
After staring at her for a while, I untied my bundle, took out Nightfall Soul-Absorption Technique, and started reading it slowly.
Fortunately, it didn’t seem to make me carsick.
This is really crude.
It turned out the actual story content, once I read it, was surprisingly short.
In fact, most of the book was stuffed with useless setting fluff.
This wasn’t a novel so much as a pile of text.
It was exactly the kind of setting compendium some middle-school chuuni would write.
Which actually makes it better for roleplaying.
So was that why the culprit had become so obsessed with the concept of the monster itself, rather than the story?
Yeah, this one’s getting burned.
I had my suspicions, and sure enough, they were right.
Unlike Wolhameiingyeong, where all I had to do was copy the movements exactly as written, this wasn’t a book I could get anything useful from by reading it.
I’ll do it tonight.
I quietly closed the book and tucked it back into the bundle.
Once again, the carriage fell into silence, and before long I drifted off as well.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
That night, the journey dragged on so long that we ended up camping by the roadside.
Thanks to sleeping so much during the day, I couldn’t seem to fall asleep at all, so I crouched in front of the campfire and stared into the flames.
Come to think of it, I used to do this all the time in the mountains.
Staring blankly into a fire really was the best kind of blank staring.
Thinking about my old life in the mountains brought a strange, nostalgic feeling with it.
When I looked around, I saw that even late at night, a few of the escort swordsmen were still keeping watch.
As professional escorts, they didn’t pay much attention to me, their employer.
Just as planned, I carefully took two books from my bundle: Wolhameiingyeong and Nightfall Soul-Absorption Technique.
The former was practically my mother’s keepsake, so I intended to keep carrying it with me, but not the latter.
I set Wolhameiingyeong aside and, without hesitation, threw Nightfall Soul-Absorption Technique straight into the campfire.
Destroying it had been my purpose from the start.
After reading such a shoddy piece of trash, I didn’t even have a shred of lingering attachment left.
Crackle, crackle.
I watched the roaring flames with a relieved heart, and something felt wrong.
The paper manual wasn’t burning at all. It sat there untouched, not even a speck of soot on it.
“What the hell?”
Alarmed, I poked at the manual with a branch and shoved it toward the hottest part of the fire.
But the result was exactly the same.
If anything, it looked like the flames were bending around the manual and burning everywhere else instead.
“How does that even make sense?”
I didn’t have time to care that my suppressed speech had come spilling out in full force.
I pulled the book out of the fire.
I even poured water on it, and when that did nothing, I tried cutting it with my sword.
Not a single scratch.
How was this possible?
It was clearly made of ordinary materials—actually, worse than the binding of most books.
After a long series of failed attempts, I got tired and tossed it back into the fire.
I distinctly remembered carrying it out as a child and getting it soaked by rain.
Maybe the passage of more than ten years had granted it some special power?
Physical methods were hopeless.
Then what about mystical power?
While I stood there with my arms folded, deep in thought, a quiet voice came from behind me.
“Unnie. It’s late. Aren’t you going to sleep?”
“Eek!”
I nearly had a heart attack.
Startled, I turned around and found that Cheongha, now without her veil, had quietly come up behind me at some point.
I was ruined.
I’d told her I was collecting manuals for a reason, which meant she absolutely couldn’t catch me trying to destroy one.
I hurried to gather it up, but it was already too late.
Cheongha had come right up close and was looking back and forth between me and the manual in the fire.
I forced myself to stay calm, coughed awkwardly, and launched into an explanation no one had asked for.
“You weren’t asleep? I was just burning this to purify the evil energy lingering inside it. Fire has long been a symbol of purification, after all.”
At my clumsy excuse, Cheongha’s eyes widened.
Apparently not suspecting anything, she nodded and looked back at the campfire.
“I see. So that’s what you were doing.”
Did she buy it?
I awkwardly pulled the manual out again, pretended to inspect it for a moment, and then thrust it toward her.
“Cheongha, what do you think?”
She was a manual fanatic, after all.
If I handed it over like I was doing her a favor, maybe I could avoid suspicion.
Just as expected, her expression brightened, and she took the book at once.
Standing beside her while she quietly focused on the text, I let out a secret sigh of relief.
Only the chirping of insects filled the silent camp.
After a little while, Cheongha closed the book.
I swallowed dryly and focused, not knowing what she would say next.
“What a crude set of ideas.”
Thud. My heart dropped.
No matter how much of a black history artifact it was, I had written that thing myself.
Hearing such a blunt review from someone else stung.
I forced a smile and suppressed the instinctive retort that tried to leap out of me.
“R-right?”
“Yes. That monster only uses evilness and never emphasizes the good side of darkness. How despicable.”
“Huh?”
“Still, the ending where the protagonist gathers his strength to defeat the monster was impressive. More than that, the way he awakens while carrying the sacrifice of his comrades in his heart felt very much like Amheuktacheongeom.”
After that, her review spilled out like a broken dam.
She judged the characters in the book, offered her own interpretation of the monster’s wall, and even recited a few lines she called memorable quotations.
She looked exactly like an overexcited otaku.
Ah, so… she’s a fan of Amheuktacheongeom, which means she started by trashing anything else, huh?
Not my taste, though?
That was a line I’d seen a lot in my previous life.
Watching her passionately chatter away made me snort with laughter.
Otaku really were all the same, wherever you went.
“And above all, the scene where, after falling into despair, he faces the brother who died first in the abyss, and the brother instead tells the protagonist, ‘Believe in the truth you chose’… that was quite moving….”
“Yeah. Right. Great.”
I cut off her long-winded commentary in a hurry.
I’m embarrassed! I can’t listen to any more of this.
Besides, that was just something I’d copied straight from a scene I’d seen somewhere else!
I hurriedly changed the subject.
“More importantly, what do you think? Does it seem useful?”
At my question, Cheongha’s expression quickly turned serious and she nodded.
“I see. You were trying to analyze how that man read the manual and obtained such power.”
She opened the book again and murmured gravely.
“I think… I might understand it a little.”
“Really? Is it different from the one you have?”
“Yes. I’d say the foundation is different, wouldn’t you?”
There it was again—an otaku reaction if I’d ever seen one.
When I brought up the manual she possessed, her eyes sparkled.
“Can you show me?”
The moment I tossed out the question casually, her expression changed in an instant.
As if she’d just heard something she wasn’t supposed to hear.
She looked terribly embarrassed.
“Unnie… Um, just so you know, it’s fine between us, but you really shouldn’t say that to other people.”
“Huh?”
“To a martial artist, the principles of martial arts are like their life itself, the sum of their entire existence. Asking to see another person’s manual is basically the same as asking to share the achievements they’ve spent their whole life building.”
It was that serious?
“But you showed me your manual the first time we met.”
“You had no idea how much resolve that took on my part! And even then, I only showed you the cover, so it was possible.”
By then, Cheongha was looking at me with worry all over her face.
“You’re really ignorant about these basic things sometimes, unnie. Even if you did live alone up in the mountains….”
“But I can show mine whenever I want.”
I casually picked up Wolhameiingyeong from the ground and waved it around.
I-frame balance, Jack-O Challenge.
Honestly, if Cheongha would do them for me, I’d only be grateful.
Her excellent proportions were as much a blessing upon the martial world as my own peerless beauty.
At my calm words, Cheongha’s face turned red in an instant, and she hid her face behind the book.
“Y-you. S-saying something like that. Seriously….”
Hmm. That’s a nice sight.
Cheongha really was fun to tease.
Anyway, thanks to her, I’d learned one thing about the etiquette of the martial world.
Namely, even if you met someone who possessed a manual, it would be maddeningly difficult to get a look at its contents.
Still rolling her eyes and fanning her flushed face, Cheongha, to whom I spoke lightly, was a lost cause by now.
After all, even if I kept Nightfall Soul-Absorption Technique, burning it or cutting it wouldn’t change a thing. It would just be dead weight.
“Then keep that one for now. You never know, right? Since both books are related to darkness, maybe they’ll have a good effect on each other.”
“Huh? You mean I should keep this?”
“What’s the issue?”
If Cheongha ran off with it, that would be a problem, but she didn’t seem like the type.
And even if I kept it, all I’d do was stare at it and kick my blankets in embarrassment at my own cringe-filled past. It wasn’t as if I could actually learn martial arts from it.
Rather than hoarding it until it became worthless trash, it was far wiser to give it to a companion and hope for some kind of power-up event in return.
Unaware of the calculating thoughts in my head, Cheongha looked at me with a deeply moved expression and bowed her head.
“I’ll definitely repay your trust, unnie.”
“You really don’t have to go that far.”
I waved it off and gathered my things.
From that day on, Cheongha grew noticeably warmer toward me.
…I didn’t accidentally set some weird flag, did I?