Yang Family Estate
"Ha-ha. Miss, where are you in such a hurry? It’s dangerous for a young lady to wander around here alone. Let our Hanseonsaehyeop guide you. I’m Jang Dan-il, the eldest of the Hanseonsaehyeop."
Four men in black martial robes.
They called themselves the Hanseonsaehyeop, but their eyes didn’t inspire much confidence.
Ugh, look at that. Those are lecherous eyes.
They were the worst of the bunch a moment ago, the ones who had been staring at me with the stickiest, most disgusting look of all.
"Thank you for the kindness, but I’m fine. So could you please move out of the way?"
"Ha-ha. No need to worry, miss. You’re not putting us out in the least, so don’t fret. Hey, you lot, what are you doing? Why aren’t you escorting the young lady?"
"I already said I’m fine."
"Now, now, don’t be like that. Just accept our kindness while we’re still speaking nicely."
With that, he reached for my wrist.
But I saw it clearly, and before his hand could get there, I slapped it away.
Thwack!
"Aaaagh!"
Huh? Thwack? A scream?
I’d only hit his hand. And yet his arm went limp and dangled uselessly.
"You bitch! How dare you hit our brother!"
Then one of them lunged for me, reaching out to grab hold of me.
So I slapped that hand away too. This time I did it gently.
Thwack! Thud!
And yet again, there was that hollow, drumlike sound as his arm snapped back and he toppled over.
No, seriously. I held back. Is this what Iron Body Weight-Adding Force is supposed to do? It’s mastered, sure, but this strong?
"Brother! You little bitch! You repay kindness with betrayal! This is all your own fault! Draw your swords!"
The remaining two widened the distance between us and drew their swords with a hiss, pointing them at me.
For crying out loud. I’d never even handled a kitchen knife properly, let alone a sword.
When I just stood there without drawing a blade, one of them twisted his face in anger and shouted again.
"You insolent brat! So you think you don’t need to draw your sword? Fine! Don’t regret this later!"
Then he charged at me and swung his sword down hard.
And in that instant, one thought flashed through my head.
If Iron Body Weight-Adding Force works this well, then maybe Golden Dragon Body is pretty amazing too?
I’d already maxed it out in character creation, and with the boost from Iron Body Weight-Adding Force, my physical abilities had gone even higher.
Besides, the sword he was swinging looked terribly slow, just like the hands of those two who’d tried to grab me a moment ago.
So somehow, it felt like I could do it. And because of that, I slammed the back of my hand hard against the blade.
Taaang! Thunk!
"Gah!"
And absurdly enough, his sword snapped clean in two, with the broken half stabbing into the floor.
Wow. It really worked. Am I insane?
What was even more amazing was that my hand, the one that had struck the blade, didn’t hurt at all.
Not a trace of fear in me, even now.
"W-What is this…."
"Are you going to keep going?"
"You’ll see!"
Then the one whose sword had broken and the remaining man, who’d been hesitating, hurried out of the tavern, dragging along the two with dangling arms.
"Ooooh."
The tavern patrons stared after them, murmuring in admiration.
I felt awkward all of a sudden, so I quickly slipped out of the tavern myself.
Once I was outside, the place I’d found myself in became much more real.
The tavern stood in what looked like a bustling commercial district. A market street, maybe. Something like that.
Quite a few people were moving through the area, and among them were some armed with swords, spears, and other weapons.
The one thing they all had in common was that every single one of them gave me a quick, furtive glance as they passed.
Did I overdo the customization?
This kind of attention is seriously suffocating. How would I know what it feels like to get looks like this?
I was about to head somewhere less crowded when it suddenly occurred to me: did I really need to do that?
Why should I hide myself?
Sure, weird guys might keep flocking to me like this. It’d be a pain, too.
But that didn’t mean I had to run around like a criminal.
Even if I was moving to another place, there was no reason to act pathetic about it.
So I straightened my back and walked on slowly, as if nothing were wrong.
Besides, this was the world I’d have to live in now. A place I’d need to clear.
So if I was going to do it, I might as well do it properly.
That seemed better than being forced into it by somebody else.
Maybe because I’d changed my mindset, the looks on me were still there, but they felt a little different than before.
People who hurriedly looked away when my eyes met theirs.
That hadn’t happened a moment ago. Back then, they’d kept glancing at me over and over.
I see. I need to be a little more confident.
There’s no reason for me to lower myself.
As I walked, I kept looking around.
It seemed the language patch was working automatically, because all the signs on the street were written in Chinese characters, and I could read them without any trouble.
Well, I’d just had a conversation without any issues too. Though whether you could really call that a conversation was another matter.
Either way, this looked like the starting point of the game.
A city near Kaifeng. If that was the case, then the guide I knew should still be valid.
"Excuse me."
It was a shop piled high with odds and ends, and an old man sat in the middle of them, smoking a cigarette.
When I spoke to him, he first glanced over with a listless expression, then his eyes flew wide open.
"Goodness gracious! For a moment I thought a goddess had descended from the heavens! What brings you here!? Are you looking for something? Need anything at all!?"
His attitude changed in an instant. The old man was smiling so broadly his face practically split open.
"I heard there’s a place called the Yang Family Estate around here. Which way should I go to get there?"
"The Yang Family Estate? That’s easy enough. Go straight down the main road until you reach a tavern. It’s called Dahong Tavern, and from there turn right— no, wait, this is hard to explain with words. Hey! Old lady! Come here for a second!"
The old man shouted inside, and an old woman came out wearing a look of irritation—only to gasp in surprise the moment she saw me.
"Keep an eye on the shop for a bit! I’m taking this young lady to the Yang Family Estate and coming right back!"
The old woman kept staring at me in amazement, then exploded in anger the moment she heard him.
"You fool, where do you think you’re going and leaving the shop unattended! Have you lost your damn mind?"
And then she began scolding him to no end.
In the end, the old man got a thorough earful and, looking embarrassed, gave me the directions to the Yang Family Estate again.
Geez. I feel bad about this. Why did he try to play the good Samaritan for no reason?
Anyway, now that I knew the way, I headed there at once.
In the game, the Yang Family Estate had a chain quest.
A quest that ran through seventeen linked stages, and at the end you could earn a valuable mid-to-low grade elixir.
That was why, in the guide I’d read, the Yang Family Estate quest was the first one I was supposed to do.
Right now, I needed an elixir first. Only then could I nurture this pitiful dantian and use inner energy.
But now that this was no longer a game, I wasn’t sure whether the chain quest would still exist.
In my current situation, even getting my hands on a mid-to-low grade elixir would be a pretty difficult task.
Still, the old man gave me good directions, and following his instructions, I safely arrived at the Yang Family Estate.
It was a fairly large manor, with towering gates and a plaque hanging above them. The words on it read: Yang Family Estate.
Knock knock.
I knocked on the gate, and after a moment I heard footsteps from inside before the doors creaked open.
"Hah."
The man who stepped out stared at me in shock and sucked in a sharp breath.
"Excuse me. I heard the Yang Family Estate was looking for help, so I came."
"H-Help? Ah! Are you here to look for the young master!?"
"Yes. That’s right."
The seventeen-stage Yang Family Estate quest was about finding the family’s missing third young master.
Having read through the entire guide, I knew exactly where the third young master was.
So getting the reward should actually be easier now. Since this wasn’t a game.
"P-Please wait a moment. I’ll go call the chief steward. Ah, no, wait! Please come inside!"
With that, the man flung the gates wide open.
Thanks to him, I was able to go inside and soon meet the chief steward.
"I was told you’ve come looking for the young master…."
The chief steward, too, went a little slack-jawed when he saw me, then hastily composed himself and said that.
"Yes. I heard that if I find the third young master, I can receive the Yang Family Small Rejuvenation Pill."
"What? Who told you that? The Yang Family Small Rejuvenation Pill is a precious item. I can’t just hand it over carelessly."
"Pardon?"
What? Why? No, that’s supposed to be the reward, isn’t it? Why was that suddenly off the table?
"However… if you are a young lady, I can speak to our family head and see whether it may be given to you. So first, please bring back the young master."
What was that? Why had the story suddenly changed?
Was it always like this? I didn’t remember seeing anything like that in the in-game screenshots.
Anyway, it sounded like the matter was settled, so I left the Yang Family Estate.
If this were the game, I’d have had to complete all seventeen stages.
Bring back this or that, listen to someone’s request to find a clue, then listen to some other weird person’s request to find another clue….
That’s how games work. They have to make quests somehow.
But not now. I already knew where the young master was.
The problem was that it meant I’d have to fight.
Could I really do that? Judging from what I’d done earlier, I didn’t seem weak… but still….
Just as I was thinking that, I spotted a group of men approaching from that side.
And the two leading them were faces I knew.
The same guys from earlier, the ones calling themselves something-something-sehyeop.
All together, there were seven of them.
"Great hero! It’s that bitch! She’s the one who did this to our brothers…."
"I know, so shut up already. Ahem. You bastards. I’ll give you this much, though—you’re even more talkative than I expected. I’ll praise you for that. Heh heh heh."
Ah. This was a seriously annoying situation.
In other words, you could call it a tedious, pretentious situation.
It was obviously revenge. Since the first batch couldn’t handle me, they’d brought someone stronger.
"You there, bitch! I won’t waste words! Even now, if you—"
"Yeah, yeah, enough. Words aren’t necessary. If you’ve got something to say, let’s talk with swords first."
I didn’t know how formidable that smug bastard was.
But compared to those so-called Hanseonsaehyeop punks, he didn’t look all that much stronger.
Maybe twice as strong, at most?
Then this was actually perfect. It’d be a good chance to see how far I could really go.