Those Who Face the Gods (5)
After a simple late lunch with my master Kyrgios, Kim Dokja, Han Sooyoung, and Asuka Ren, I rested briefly before throwing myself back into training.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
After hours of repeating the thrust, I felt I was improving—at least a little.
Electrification is a martial art that turns the body into lightning to attack the enemy.
Even in a world where common sense had already collapsed, I still couldn’t wrap my head around it.
How the hell do you turn your body into lightning?
And you were supposed to gain that enlightenment just by thrusting a million times? That was the question gnawing at me.
Kyrgios kept emphasizing opening the “smallest point.” He said the universe itself began from a single, extremely condensed and restrained “point.”
In the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint webtoon, while Kim Dokja was training the Path of the Wind for two days, Lycaon had told him this:
“You have not the slightest aptitude for the Path of the Wind. No—almost no aptitude for any skill at all.”
So at the very least I had more talent than Kim Dokja. Looking at how much stronger I’d become compared to the others, I probably had talent on par with most of my companions.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Just repeating thrusts means nothing. This world is already broken.
I had to discard the common sense of peaceful everyday life, cram new common sense into my head, then twist that thinking even further to reach enlightenment.
And then a simple, effective training method flashed through my mind.
“Black Tide Torrent.”
Exclusive Skill, Black Tide Torrent Lv.8 has been activated.
Black Tide Torrent consumed my mana to generate water. Normally it produced seawater, but if I focused and burned a little more mana I could turn it into ordinary water instead.
Swaaash!
I created enough water to wrap my entire body except my face, then activated the next skill I needed.
“I will grant a lightning-attribute enchantment to the Ice Dragon Turtle Blade.”
Exclusive Skill, Advanced Enchant Lv.1 has been activated.
Lightning attribute temporarily granted to the holy relic.
Crackle! Snap-snap!
Bright blue sparks leapt from the Ice Dragon Turtle Blade now enchanted with lightning. And then—
CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE!
“Ghhhk…! F-fuck, that stings like hell!”
The water wrapping my entire body electrocuted me on the spot.
Even while being shocked, I kept repeating the thrusts Kyrgios had ordered.
Whether I moved or stayed still, current raced through my whole body—tingling, burning heat, and a body that trembled violently from the electricity.
To keep from surrendering to it, I whipped my sluggish, stiffened flesh onward and continued the training.
The body suffered, but it was a crude, simple-minded method for learning the sensation of turning flesh into lightning so I could master Electrification. A training style that suited me perfectly.
“Hey! Hey! What the hell are you doing right now?!”
“P-Park-ssi?!”
Han Sooyoung and Asuka Ren, who had been watching from the side, suddenly shrieked.
“Training.”
I answered without even being able to turn my head because of the current running through me.
“Who doesn’t know that?! I’m asking why you’re suddenly abusing your own body, you idiot!”
“Han-ssi is right. Who trains in such a barbaric way…!”
“It’s right in front of your eyes, isn’t it?”
To learn Electrification, ordinary training methods and ordinary common sense would never be enough.
How could mere thrusting turn a body into lightning? So I had to go beyond common sense.
At my blunt answer, Han Sooyoung and Asuka Ren gaped, lost for words, and just stared at me blankly.
Yeah. In your eyes this must look incredibly stupid and crude. But from the first scenario onward I’ve trained like this, survived like this, and I’m still alive right here.
What does that mean? It means my way isn’t wrong.
“What in the world are you doing, you bastard?”
“Master?”
At some point Kyrgios had approached and was looking at me as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“Master told me to open the small point by thrusting a million times.”
“…And what does frying your body with electricity have to do with that?”
“I thought I might reach enlightenment faster this way.”
“……Haa.”
Just like Han Sooyoung and Asuka Ren, Kyrgios lost his words, stared at me, then slowly shook his head.
“You too are overflowing with the air of a madman.”
“I know. But this is how I’ve survived here.”
Even now, when I closed my eyes the memories rose.
Walking into the sea dragon’s belly of my own free will, impersonating a constellation at Geumho Station, threatening people with a gun, holding the monster wave alone at Chungmuro Station, leaving the party for a while to storm the Tyrant King’s base and wipe it out—all the insane things I’d done came flooding back.
“In this world, if you don’t approach things in a crazy way, it gets filthy hard.”
Normal methods made growth filthy slow, and the gap between me and my companions wouldn’t have been that big.
If that happened, all I’d be able to do was trail after Kim Dokja like the rest of them. That wasn’t the way I wanted.
“This world after the scenarios began is no different from hell.”
A world where a single moment of carelessness got you killed, where one small mistake meant the comrades around you dropped dead, where even the slightest slip in an ongoing scenario meant death.
This place was already a living hell. No—the entire universe was a living hell.
“We made it through the fifth scenario without too much trouble. But no one knows how long this momentum will last.”
I wasn’t sure “without too much trouble” was the right phrase here, but I still felt we’d come this far relatively comfortably.
Of course, I’d nearly died several times along the way.
“In this insane world, to keep myself alive and protect the people around me, I have to abandon existing common sense and do crazy things.”
The official main scenarios I’d seen in the webtoon went up to the tenth. I’d already passed half of them.
Once this sixth one is over, we jump straight to the eighth scenario.
The main scenarios I still knew numbered three.
Eighth Scenario: The Strongest Sacrificial Lamb
Ninth Scenario: Dark Castle
Tenth Scenario: The 73rd Demon King
Those three. And do you know which of them is the worst?
Two of the remaining three are sacrificial-lamb scenarios.
In the eighth, either the strongest incarnation dies, or half of the remaining 100,000 incarnations in the Seoul Dome die.
In the tenth, either the one who becomes the Demon King dies, or the Demon King kills everyone else.
Truly shitty scenarios, every last one of them.
I rolled my eyes toward Kyrgios, who was quietly watching me, and opened my mouth.
“Master. I know I’m doing crazy things. Honestly, what normal person would fry their own body with electricity?”
“……………….”
“But I’m not some genius the world should fear, and I didn’t start with insane wealth either. I’m not the incarnation of some famous constellation. In this Star Stream world I’m just an ordinary ‘commoner.’”
Even if I’d become a constellation before the fifth scenario began, in this vast Star Stream—no, in this universe—there would still be beings who had achieved as much as I had.
And those would be the real geniuses. Geniuses who built true Stories with nothing but their own strength, their own talent, their own power, without leaning on webtoon knowledge the way I did.
“For a commoner like me to live long in this world and get even a little stronger, I need shortcuts. With normal methods I can never catch up to beings who have lived tens, hundreds, thousands of years longer than us.”
“So the shortcut you chose was frying your body with electricity.”
“Yes.”
“Your tongue is truly silver.”
“Heheh! That’s me!”
“That was not praise, you thunderstruck brat.”
After listening to me for a long while, Kyrgios let out a small sigh, pressed a hand to his forehead, and spoke.
“In my later years I take two disciples, and both of them give me nothing but headaches….”
“Dokja and I haven’t even been your disciples for half a day yet. Why are you talking like that?”
“You are showing the conduct of a madman who fries his own body with electricity, and that girl has no talent.”
“…Come on. Our Dokja can’t be that talentless, right?”
“I declare it. She has none.”
At Kyrgios’s firm words I flinched.
…In the original, Kyrgios only gets disappointed in Kim Dokja’s lack of talent after two weeks. Why already…?
I dismissed the water wrapping my body, stopped thrusting, and looked at Kyrgios.
“How did you know Dokja has no talent?”
“I have taught several disciples before, and during my time in the First Martial World I saw all kinds of martial artists. Among them were even a few who became constellations. Rather, let me ask you, my disciple. Did you truly think someone who has lived countless years would not know?”
“…………….”
“The reason I said you had the qualifications was because you at least possess more talent than other commoners. The reason I said Dokja did not was not because she is weak, but because I saw through her talent.”
Kyrgios turned his head toward Kim Dokja, who was still repeating thrusts alone, and continued.
“The reason I told you both to thrust a million times was also for Dokja’s sake. Even the dullest dullard will gain at least a tiny bit of enlightenment if they swing a blade a million times.”
“Ah….”
So that was the deep meaning behind the million thrusts…. Anyway, our Dokja really was on the talentless side.
After glancing at Kim Dokja for a while, Kyrgios heaved a deep sigh, shook his head, and spoke.
“Well, enough. You go back to thrusting.”
“Yessir.”
“…Answer shortly and cleanly.”
“Yup.”
“…………….”
Thwack!
“Gyaaaah! That fucking hurts?!”
Kyrgios’s knuckle-rap exploded against my forehead. Even with my current stamina stat at 80, the pain punched straight through it. I clutched my forehead and rolled on the ground.
Kyrgios looked down at me quietly and spoke with a pitiful expression.
“Rolling on the ground over a single knuckle-rap. How pathetic.”
“Master, you’re ridiculously strong!!”
“What did you say?”
“Our master is the best! Our master is the strongest! Our master is fucking awesome!”
“…There will not be a second time.”
“Thank you, sir!”
Kyrgios looked down at me sprawled on the ground with a pitying gaze, then walked toward Kim Dokja. Probably to give her a few pieces of advice.
“…Sooyoung, Asuka. I think my head’s about to split open.”
“Does it hurt that much?”
“I’m not joking. For a second I really thought my skull was cracking in two.”
If my head had been a watermelon, it would have split cleanly or shattered into pieces.
“…Haa. My overall stats are at 80 and it still punched damage through them.”
Truly worthy of one of the strongest transcendents.
I forced strength into my body lying on the ground, stood up, and picked up the sword I’d dropped.
Han Sooyoung watched me quietly, then tilted her head and asked,
“What, you’re already going back to training?”
“Yeah. How else am I supposed to hit a million? Even at one thrust per second it still takes 1,000,000 seconds.”
For reference, assuming one thrust per second, completing 1,000,000 thrusts would take 11 days, 13 hours, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds.
Also, in the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint webtoon, the male Kim Dokja had thrust 918,000 times by the day he talked with Kyrgios after two weeks.
And Kim Dokja might have finished the full million thrusts.
There was no line saying he completed a million, but knowing Kim Dokja, she would have steadily thrust until she hit the number.
If Kim Dokja worked hard and forced herself to achieve it, then it was only proper that I achieve it too.
Of course, when I factored in checking on the Seoul Dome situation, looking after the party at the royal capital Veronica, and beating up the disaster kids, the schedule was going to be extremely tight.
So I went back to repeating the thrusts Kyrgios had ordered. When evening came we all ate dinner together. After more time passed and night fell, while Han Sooyoung, Asuka Ren, Kyrgios, and Kim Dokja went to sleep, I stopped thrusting, carved a marking into the ground, and activated Hiraishin no Jutsu toward the marking at the royal capital Veronica.
Ripple.
“…Aigoo, my whole body aches.”
After more than half a day of thrusting, frying myself with electricity, stopping, frying myself again, and repeating the training, every joint and muscle screamed.
I was about to start walking while tapping my sore lower back and shoulders when—
“W-waaah!”
“Huh?”
A scream came from beside me. I turned my head and found a small person who had fallen on their butt and was staring up at me with a startled face.
“What’s their problem? First time seeing spatial movement?”
I left the little person alone and set out to find my companions in the royal capital Veronica.
After searching for a bit I discovered they were inside a house at the center of Veronica. I walked over and knocked on the door.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Do You Want to Build a Snowman?”
“No.”
“Ok….”
Crunch.
Taking the permission(?) from inside as my cue, I forced the door open and stepped in. When I politely opened the already-open door and entered, Lee Jihye stood there blinking at me with a startled face.
“…W-what? Oppa, how did you open that door?”
“It was open?”
“Huh? No way? I definitely locked it….”
Lee Jihye turned her eyes to the door, saw something, flinched in surprise, then looked back at my hand.
“Ah, what the hell! Oppa broke the door and came in!”
“Huh? Really?”
I deliberately widened my eyes in surprise at the doorknob in my hand, then crumpled it, crumpled it again, and turned it into a single small iron ball.
“No evidence now, right?”
“…There’s a witness standing right in front of you, Oppa?”
“Cola?”
“Deal.”
After bribing Lee Jihye with a simple soda, I reached the place where the party was resting.
“I’m back.”
“Oppa?”
“Jinwoo hyung?”
Our two cute little ones heard my voice, jumped up, and welcomed me warmly.
“Why are you already here?”
“Sneaked out, that’s all. How’s Veronica? Nothing happened, right?”
“Yes, it’s been peaceful here, Jinwoo-ssi.”
Gong Pildu greeted me with a lukewarm expression while Lee Hyunsung beamed with an honest smile. Seeing them welcome me so gladly, I chuckled and plopped down on a nearby chair.
Then I looked around the room, searching for Min Jiwon.
“Where’s Min Jiwon?”
“That unnie is in the next room.”
“The next room?”
“Yes. It looked like she was talking with her sponsor for a bit.”
“Is that so?”
At Shin Yooseung’s words I stroked my chin for a moment, then stood up from the seat and headed to the next room where Min Jiwon was.
Rattle.
“Min Jiwon.”
“Wha—?! J-Jinwoo-ssi?”
I opened the door without her permission. Min Jiwon, who had been sitting on the edge of the bed, looked at me with a startled face.
Seeing that she was conscious and seemed to have no problems, I let out a sigh of relief.
“Huu… Good, looks like there’s nothing wrong.”
“…I’m sorry, Jinwoo-ssi.”
“It’s fine. You didn’t do it on purpose, and you know what you did wrong, so I’ll let it slide this once. But be careful from now on. You almost got yourself into real danger.”
“Yes….”
At my words Min Jiwon lowered her head with a gloomy expression. I approached her and spoke.
“So what are you going to do now?”
“Pardon?”
“You’re the king of a faction. If you’re here, what happens to the members of your faction still in the Seoul Dome?”
“Ah, my sponsor said they would contact them separately about that.”
“Really? In Seoul the seventh main scenario will probably proceed on its own, so tell them to be careful.”
“Yes. Thank you, Jinwoo-ssi.”
Min Jiwon looked at me and smiled gently. I scratched my cheek, stepped right in front of her, and continued.
“You roughly heard about the scenario from our companions, right?”
“Yes. I heard we stand on the side of the little people and stop the disasters.”
“More precisely, we have to kill the King of Disasters.”
“…Our overall stats dropped a lot when we became little people. Can we stop those disasters with just us?”
“We can stop them well enough. But the King of Disasters is absolutely impossible with only you.”
“You’re very direct.”
“I’m just stating facts. The King of Disasters summoned the shadow of their own sponsor here. My companions and you, who still lack status, will have your knees go weak just from looking at that thing.”
I spoke while recalling the shadow of Yamata no Orochi that had appeared in the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint webtoon. In reality the party had been thoroughly cowed by Orochi’s shadow and lost their will to fight.
And they’d all coughed up blood from its true words, too.
After briefly recalling the webtoon scenes, I looked down at Min Jiwon, who was quietly gazing up at me.
“Kim Dokja and I are currently training to hunt that King of Disasters. So you stay here, help the party, and protect the royal capital Veronica.”
“Fufu. I may not look it, but I am still the king of a faction. I’ll protect this place until you and Dokja-ssi return.”
“Good. Thank you. And don’t worry too much. They’ll probably stay quiet for a while. In a few days they’ll start advancing little by little.”
“Jinwoo-ssi is always so confident.”
“That’s my strong point.”
After we finished speaking we quietly looked at each other for a moment. While looking at Min Jiwon I recalled the image of her being brutally crushed by a demon count in the Dark Castle, and I gave her one piece of advice.
“Min Jiwon.”
“Yes?”
“When you clear the Peace Land scenario you’ll get 300,000 coins. Use those first to raise your overall stats to the maximum, then raise the levels of the skills you have as high as possible. After that, inherit your sponsor’s Story. Then you probably won’t have any big problems for a while.”
“……………….”
At my advice Min Jiwon blinked her eyes and quietly looked up at me.
“Why are you staring at me so hard?”
Curious about her silent gaze, I looked down and asked her the question.
Min Jiwon parted her lips, then slowly lowered her head a little and opened her mouth carefully.
“…Jinwoo-ssi, why are you so good to me?”
“……………?”
I tilted my head at Min Jiwon’s question. Then I answered her honestly.
“Because I feel goodwill toward you.”
“……!”
I quietly looked down at her as her body flinched once, then closed my eyes and honestly spoke the evaluation of her that lived inside me.
“At our first meeting I thought you were a surprisingly clumsy queen. But when I calmly explained that your actions were wrong, you accepted it and helped me, Kim Dokja, and my companions several times. The way you keep your loyalty and try to repay kindness was very appealing. Of course the fact that you’re beautiful also played a part.”
“…I-I see. You’re… really very direct….”
Her face flushed red as she hung her head low. I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“I’m originally gentle toward women who feel goodwill toward me. Of course I’m merciless to enemies.”
“Fufu. I heard you’re either dating Dokja-ssi or about to start dating her. Is it all right for you to seduce me like this?”
“Sorry, but my original dream is a harem. Of course Dokja and Sangah-ssi won’t like it.”
“Oh my? Then does that mean I have a chance too?”
“If you have the confidence.”
At my words Min Jiwon squeezed her eyes shut, then stood up abruptly from the edge of the bed with a face full of resolve.
Swoosh.
Then Min Jiwon wrapped her slender arms around my neck and pressed her entire body against me.
“…Then what if I act like this?”
“You’re asking something too obvious.”
At Min Jiwon’s provocative look I grinned and placed my arms around her waist and back. Then I slowly pulled her into an embrace until our faces were close.
Just before our lips met we looked straight into each other’s eyes and spoke.
“But are you confident? For reference, to become my woman you need to have a certain amount of strength.”
“You looked down on me. Even if I don’t look it, before the world changed I was a famous actress in Korea. I don’t feel satisfied until I get what I want.”
“Will that confidence work here too?”
“If it doesn’t work, I’ll make it work. If I need coins I’ll gather coins, if my stats are lacking I’ll raise my stats, if my skill levels are low I’ll raise the skills, and if I inherit my sponsor’s Story the way you just advised me and become stronger, wouldn’t that be enough qualification?”
“The thinking is excellent. But you have to show it as a result. Can you do it?”
“Of course.”
Then we closed the remaining distance between us and pressed our lips together. This was already the third woman’s lips I had claimed since coming to the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint world.
“Haa… You’re aggressive.”
Min Jiwon licked her glistening red lips with her tongue, her face flushed. I smiled gently and spoke.
“Sorry about that. But the woman in front of me is quite charming.”
“Fufu. I didn’t say I disliked it. So I’ll definitely become strong. At least strong enough that Jinwoo-ssi will acknowledge me.”
“I’ll wait for that time. Then let’s say goodbye for now. It’s about time I headed back.”
“…Still, leaving right away like this makes me a little sad.”
“I have a monster of a master. If I leave my post too long he’ll definitely notice. Next time I’ll try to make more time.”
“I understand. And thank you. At least for giving me a chance.”
“Yeah. Work that much harder for it. I’ll be waiting.”
“Yes!”
At my words Min Jiwon smiled brightly. I stared blankly at her beautiful face for a moment, then said goodbye to her once more and stepped out of the room.
After that I said goodbye to the companions who were slowly preparing for bed outside, then activated Hiraishin no Jutsu once more toward the clearing where Kyrgios was.