Martial Arts Exchange (1)
Martial Arts Exchange (1)
Bubble, bubble.
The pot was boiling. Beneath it was a magic circle emitting flames, much like a modern gas stove.
Orion, confirming the soup was fully cooked, removed the magic stone to extinguish the fire. Dojin, who had been eyeing the scientific phenomenon created by magic, turned his gaze to the pot Orion brought over.
"Here! Enjoy your meal."
"An elf traditional dish, but it uses fire."
"So what, did you think elves were primitive people who couldn't even use fire?"
"That's not it... Isn't it dangerous to light fires in the forest?"
"That's only for humans who can't even light a single fire on their own. Elves have known how to use magic since the time humans were rubbing sticks together to make fire."
"Ah, is that so?"
Dojin suddenly wondered about her age. The way she spoke made it sound as if she had seen humans since such primitive times...
'Probably not.'
What she mentioned, rubbing wood to make fire, is a story from millions of years ago. No matter if she's an elf, she probably hasn't lived for millions of years.
If she had lived that long, there's no way she'd still be working as an adventurer around the 20th floor.
"How does it taste?"
"...It's good."
"Right? I told you, there's no human who dislikes elf cuisine."
If it weren't for Orion staring at him with an uncomfortably intense gaze, it would have been even more delicious. Sadly, Dojin wasn't the type of arrogant person to blurt out such words.
After all, the so-called ingredients were just freshly picked vegetables and fruits boiled with a bit of meat, right?
It was a simple stew that would be strange to find tasteless. Though such a stew, after several decades of experience, tends to develop a very special flavor.
"Orion."
"Yes. Please speak."
"Speaking of which, why did you come to this city?"
"My, asking a lady's secret isn't very mannerly."
Orion looked at him, her eyes sparkling at his question. Seeing that she seemed prepared not to let it go if he eagerly tried to pry into that secret, Dojin shook his head nonchalantly.
"No, I was just curious... If you don't want to tell, you don't have to."
"Is that really okay?"
"Sure. A beauty is more charming with a secret or two."
"A beauty? Hehe."
Orion seemed quite pleased with Dojin's compliment, as she refilled his almost-empty bowl with more stew.
Even if it was a simple fruit stew, Dojin, who was gradually getting full, slowed his eating pace and opened his mouth.
"It's just, as the leader, I have to judge whether any danger might come to the party. Understand?"
"You think I'm the type to put the party in danger."
"That's not what I mean, but if you turned out to be some elf princess who ran away because the Great Forest was boring, assassins might come to kill us to erase the memory of your disgrace, right?"
"Princess...? Pfft, Leader, you really don't know anything about elves, do you."
"...Was I that obvious?"
Orion listened to Dojin's explanation and then, glancing slightly at his hair, eyes, and appearance, realized that he too was an outsider like herself.
Traditionally, outsiders have a way of understanding each other. Although outsiders aren't discriminated against in this city because of that, the subtle differences that emerge...
"Don't worry. Not only am I not a princess... even if I were, I wouldn't bring harm to the party. On the contrary, I'm more suspicious of you, Leader?"
"...Me?"
"Yes. A suddenly appearing up-and-coming adventurer, sword skills that reek of formal training despite not knowing your origin. Looks suspicious to anyone, doesn't it?"
He hadn't expected her to think that way. Dojin silently scooped up the stew while meeting her gaze.
"Yeah. Suspicious. Very suspicious. Was I a spy?"
"What's the reality?"
"Hmm. Well, I'm not a spy."
A secret he hadn't told anyone from this world. The fact that he himself was an outsider who fell from another world.
He didn't reveal it. Not only did it seem unlikely to be believed, but he also didn't know how outsiders were actually treated here.
"Coming here was... an accident of sorts."
"An accident?"
"Yeah. Every day was boring, I wished for something to change... but I never imagined I'd become an adventurer hunting monsters in a dungeon."
"What did you do originally?"
"As you said, wielding a sword."
Dojin recalled Earth with a distant look in his eyes. The madman father who dedicated his entire life and even his own child to restoring Joseon swordsmanship, whom he'd likely never see again.
Thanks to that dedicated life, he could live well now like this... but Dojin had various grievances.
He had considered running away from home if things got bad, but he never expected to leave Earth itself in this way.
"Wielding a sword... So you were from a knight family? Or a famous dojo?"
"The latter. It was, for a time, the most famous dojo in the country."
"Ohhh, isn't that incredibly impressive? Aren't you sorry to leave it?"
"Aren't I sorry?"
Dojin looked at Orion's eyes as she said that. Seeing her gaze, she seemed genuinely to wonder if he didn't find it regrettable.
How to explain this? Dojin, having taken a spoonful of soup, thought of an explanation suitable for an elf.
"For example... let's say you were born as the child of a blacksmith."
"...An elf blacksmith?"
"Yeah, there must be some, right? Though probably not very celebrated."
"There are... elves are wary of metal and fire. But blacksmiths are an absolutely necessary profession."
"Then, if you couldn't inherit that craftsman's work, would you feel sorry?"
"Not... really, no."
"See?"
Just as blacksmiths aren't celebrated in the Great Forest where elves live, in 21st-century modernity, a human cultural asset who's good with a sword holds no value beyond being a spectacle.
"Ultimately, that's what it is. In our country, being good with a sword doesn't bring any good things."
"So, Dojin, do you think coming here was actually fortunate?"
"Fortunate?"
He fell into thought for a moment. Then, recalling the things that happened in this other world, he smiled slightly.
Humans are truly contradictory beings; there comes a time when even past memories they hated learning and were reluctant to boast about are accepted positively.
"Yeah... I think it was fortunate."
Even though while learning swordsmanship, he thought he'd never use skills like these in his life, when actually wielding a sword in this other world, he felt proud.
"That's fortunate."
"...What is?"
"That your life so far didn't become useless."
Her words were arrogant enough to be fitting for a long-lived elf to utter. Words only elves, living eternally and able to pity all other races, could speak.
Dojin chuckled, haha, and drank his soup. Perhaps because he was thinking of Earth after a long time, the taste of the soup didn't register well.
─What are you doing, get up already.
A sharp voice stabbed deep into Dojin's ears. Dojin pushed himself up on trembling, shaky legs.
The hand gripping the sword was swollen and bruised, dripping blood, and without strength in his grip, the sword swayed wildly.
The man before him seemed displeased with this sight, clicking his tongue and glaring at Dojin.
─Pathetic, collapsing from just that much?
"Ha, but..."
─Long excuses!
Craaack!
The man swung the steel rod in his hand. It was an object too thick and heavy to block with a sword, and Dojin ultimately lost his grip on his sword.
Simultaneously, clubs wielded by men around him began flying in, pounding his body. Dojin curled up, protecting his vitals.
But protecting vitals doesn't mean there's no pain. Dojin grunted, enduring the pain.
─Grip your sword.
Whenever he tried to grip his sword upon hearing the man's command, a club would unfailingly fly in and strike the back of his hand. When he clenched his fist in pain, the exposed vital points were invariably struck.
Getting hit in the vitals made him choke, nausea surged, and when that opening appeared, he'd be hit by clubs again...
When an inescapable vicious cycle repeats, you naturally want to give up everything. Dojin felt that way back then too.
'Why was that?'
When I had a live blade in my own hand.
With one swing, I could end all this pain.
I couldn't do it.
'Well, even if I tried, I'd have been subdued anyway.'
Dojin escaped that hellish situation during middle school. By the time he could now hold a sword and stand against his father.
─What are you doing. Get up.
"It's hard... Father."
─Don't whine.
His father was a person with an antiquated mindset—one that would make a group of people studying modern sports science collectively gasp—believing that extreme situations lead to great growth.
Dojin grew up under such a father and learned the sword. But he never got to use that sword anywhere.
When Dojin won the national championship medal in middle school.
─That's enough swordsmanship.
"Huh? But..."
─I didn't teach you that sword for playing kids' games like that.
"...Then when did you teach me to use it?"
─In real combat.
He was a figure who shouldn't have been born in the 21st century. Having grown up under such a father, there was no way Dojin could grow up normally.
The fact that he still attended school normally and didn't become a madman swinging a sword was all thanks to his mother.
"You mustn't become a madman like that old man."
"Mom, but..."
"It's okay. Mom will take care of everything."
Between a father too antiquated.
And a mother too modern.
He, who simultaneously possessed antiquated notions and modern thoughts, was forged.
"...Ah, damn."
Dojin held his head as he got up. It was a dream. Just as discharged soldiers dream of the military their whole lives, the memories of his father that filled most of his life clung stickily to him even in this other world.
"Today is... right, hunting day. With Seoyun... at least I'll get some rest."
He got up, did simple exercises to loosen his body, and immediately ran into the city. This too was one of the habits his father left him.
It was a shadow he could never shake off.
"Martial arts exchange?"
"Yeah..."
The words Eunha approached me with after returning from magic stone grinding in the dungeon were something I never thought I'd experience in this other world.
The dojo she's being taught at, Ho-beop-gwan, is the most famous martial arts dojo in the city.
Hoyeon, the master of Ho-beop-gwan, generously taught people the unique martial arts of the beastkin race, so even those with no lifelong experience in martial arts could easily access the secrets of martial arts as long as they paid.
Therefore, the martial artists Hoyeon could summon would be plentiful...
"Why me?"
"W-well, it seems a few beastkin from her hometown are visiting this time..."
"Hometown? Why?"
"They want to know how skilled human adventurers are as martial artists. I've already decided to participate, but it seems there's a shortage of adventurers willing to join."
"Right, adventurers are hunters who kill monsters, not martial artists."
"But Dojin, you learned swordsmanship, right? So I was asked to see if it might be possible..."
I pondered for a moment, then nodded. I happened to be greatly interested in beastkin martial arts at the time.
I wondered, what kind of martial arts would beastkin, with physical abilities surpassing humans, create?
"Okay. I'll participate."