Enemies Meet on a Narrow Bridge
"Hey, Naemgung! Your relief's here — you just gotta hold out five more minutes."
"Call me Naemgung one more time and you might actually die."
"Namgung... Ye-rin!"
CLANG!
Weapon pressed down on her colleague's crown, Namgung Ye-rin briskly dusted it off as though it had picked up something filthy. Against an ordinary civilian, that blow carried enough force to split a person clean in half, from crown to hips — but her colleague, an awakener through and through, simply rose with nothing worse than a slightly swollen lump, and Ye-rin clicked her tongue.
"So heartless. Treating a colleague who showed up a whole five minutes early like this. Heartless, I say."
He grumbled in a prickly tone, gingerly kneading his reddened crown.
"Oh, yeah? Then take over five minutes early. We've already burned four minutes on this conversation."
"...Whoa! But seriously, isn't this incredible? The Indefinite Gate really is something else. I'm seeing faces I've only ever seen on TV."
This little shit pivots right past it, no shame at all.
Still, credit where it's due — he did come keep me company before my shift. Decent of him.
"...Well, fair enough. Everyone's pouring their hearts out, in this sweltering midsummer heat."
With the unspoken promise that she'd let it slide just this once, Namgung Ye-rin followed her colleague's gaze beyond the cordon. A massive fissure of unstable violet hung condensed in the empty air, and each time it shuddered, a prickling pulse of mana rolled off it and crashed against her skin — enough to set even a hardened hunter's nerves on edge. It looked for all the world like a dam on the verge of splitting under the crush of overflowing water, and every glance at it carried a faint, creeping sense of dread.
An Indefinite Gate was a fissure that appeared with vanishing rarity — a gate that could become anything. With bad luck it would spew monsters by the horde; with good luck it would open into a dungeon flush with resources. In a word: a random box. Even the newest magitech, fused with otherworldly science, could not predict what waited inside — and because the worst case meant another Cataclysm, the great guilds worked in partnership with the government to raise defensive lines until the gate's nature was fixed.
The guilds holding that line today all ranked among the nation's top ten: Iron Blood, Sungmuryeon — and Ye-rin's own, the Aegis Guild.
Just then her colleague smacked his lips at the Sungmuryeon members, dressed head to toe in ancient Chinese battle garb to match their guild concept.
"Here we are getting screwed with guard rotation while the Sungmuryeon kids must be over the moon. Even if this thing only becomes a dungeon, that's a jackpot — but if it turns out to be a passage linked to another world? Imagine how land prices would rocket."
"Ugh, this country, for real. The whole world changes and the land-grabbing never does."
"Think about it. How hyped must Sungmuryeon be, if they sent even Kang Mu-jin out here? That's a man who'd sooner die than post his golden boy somewhere without any career mileage."
Kang Mu-jin — the young genius Sungmuryeon treasured above all else, a Mount Hua Sect Martial Arts Awakener. The guild's youngest executive, rumored to be the very man the guildmaster was grooming as his successor, and that Kang Mu-jin had arrived as on-site commander. Sungmuryeon, having clinched the preemptive bid under the pretext that the gate had appeared beside guild property, was clearly sparing no effort on this operation.
For some reason, facing a man her own age left Namgung Ye-rin feeling oddly outmatched, and she kicked at the pebbles beneath her feet.
"Even Iron Blood's guild master stopped by for a bit. Kim Jinhu — a 1st-Generation Hunter. Kyaa, that was my first time seeing a 1st-Generation Hunter in the flesh. My legs were shaking the whole time."
Tsk, tsk. A walking hunter otaku.
Namgung Ye-rin flashed her colleague a grin and said it in passing.
"1st-Generation Hunter? I've already met one. We even talked, so, whatever."
"...Seriously? When? Who? No, wait — you didn't just see them? You actually talked?"
Peeling her eyes away from her colleague's rapturous reaction, Namgung Ye-rin lifted her wrist and checked her watch.
"Five minutes. Take care out there?"
"Hey, Namgung! Namgung! Namgung hyung! Hold on! At least tell me the story before you go! Hey — hey, you...!!!"
Having repaid every grievance she'd ever endured with flawless interest, Namgung Ye-rin strolled out of the cordon, chuckling to herself.
Walking beneath the blazing sun, she found herself thinking back to the industry's great senior she'd met a month ago.
Hunter Cheon Se-ah.
She'd made her glorious debut in the very first Gate incident, holding up Mapo Bridge — the refugees' only escape route — as it threatened to collapse. Since then, her name had appeared on every major battle in modern history without a single absence: a legendary 1st-Generation Hunter. A heavyweight among heavyweights, known until now only through rumor and footage. One of the heroes who had ended the Gate crisis.
Ye-rin had always assumed such a person existed only within painted heroic sagas. Someone from an entirely different world — a person without a single flaw or worry to her name.
But that same senior, Cheon Se-ah —
...had a little sister with a wounded heart.
The girl rescued from a dungeon — the one who'd proclaimed herself "the Blood Demon, greatest under heaven." When Cheon Se-ah had come for her, she'd explained that the "little sister" was no Returnee at all; the Gate incident had wounded her heart so deeply that she'd become "like that."
And fair enough — it had been that kind of era. Ten years ago she'd have been too young even for elementary school. Of course it had broken her. The government's agents, too, had confirmed she was no Returnee, though it had somehow sounded like a desperately rehearsed excuse, and Ye-rin's unease had never fully died. But after seeing the string of zeros stamped on the deposit Cheon Se-ah had wired in gratitude for finding her missing sister, her trust rating had nowhere to go but up.
And above all —
"I'm third-raaaaaaate!!!"
Because whenever she pictured that girl standing buck-naked on a desk, shrieking at the top of her lungs —
"...Mm. Yeah. No way she's a Returnee."
That thing... the Blood Demon?
Still, she really had been cute. A slightly pathetic kind of cute, admittedly — but cute. The way she toddled along on that tiny body had been enough to make a heart ache.
Yeah. About as small as that hooded girl lying melted right over there —
"...Huh?"
A girl lay collapsed on the roadside, melting. "Melting" was the only word for it — she was plastered flat against the scorching pavement like a wad of discarded gum. Between her protective coat's climate control and an awakener's superior physique, Ye-rin herself barely felt it, but this was the dead heart of summer, hot enough to fill the streets with heatstroke and dehydration cases. And a thick hoodie in this weather? That girl was a walking casualty.
Yanking out her portable canteen, Namgung Ye-rin hurried to the child's side —
"Uh, uh? You're—"
The instant she got a look at the girl's face, she froze, words failing her. They say even a tiger comes when you speak its name — but why in the world was Hunter Cheon Se-ah's little sister sprawled out here like this?
"No time for that. Her condition first—"
Swish — snatch!
In that instant, the girl's hand darted out and snatched the canteen clean away.
"B-, Bonjwa... does not... glug, glug... accept aid from the... hngh... from the despicable Orthodox factions... PUHAHHH!"
Staring at the canteen — drained to the last drop, wiped spotless — Namgung Ye-rin felt reassured all over again.
Right.
There is no way this thing... is the Blood Demon.
Bonjwa. The Blood Demon, greatest under heaven — Cheon Yujin.
My fatal mistake was underestimating the frailty of this cursed body. On my first outing I had walked only briefly, riding in Se-ah's car nearly to the destination — so I had not known. To collapse within sight of the Sungmuryeon Guild because my drained stamina could no longer shoulder the weight of sweat-soaked clothes...!
What manner of creature in this world gets slammed beneath a thousand-pound weight for the crimes of low stamina and a slightly heavier shirt?!
In truth, I had grown so inured to this brand of injustice that I had ascended to a plane where the humiliation barely registered.
But...!
"Um... I'm... glad you, um... enjoyed the water... mhm."
That ponytailed girl, staring at me with strangely hollowed eyes. Those eyes alone were humiliation enough — but the true problem was that a deeper disgrace still lay ahead.
They say you meet the transfer student at a street corner, sprinting with bread in your mouth — and your sworn enemy on a one-log bridge.
Bonjwa's Kill List, Rank 2.
A top-priority extermination target rivaling Unhak Jinin — no, surpassing even her! The most diabolical wench alive, nearest of all to the rank-one seat held by the Heavenly Demon...! The hound of the Namgung clan, first family of the despicable Orthodox faction... Namgung Ye-rin!
"As an oppa, I'm third-raaaaaaate!!!"
"Third-raaaaaaate!!!"
"Third...!"
Like a lion's roar bellowed from the depths of a cavern, that day's moment of shame smashed through my mind and echoed on.
"Hgh, hnngh, HGYAAAAAAAAH─!!!"
"Uh, uh-uh-uh? A-are you okay?"
A full month had passed, and still the mere memory of that day had me flinging whirlwind kicks at my blanket in my sleep!
Fortunately, this once, I had accepted no aid from the despicable Orthodox faction — I had robbed the water bottle with the divine art of Chinna, the Seizing Grappling Hand, and preserved a shred of face. I seized it by my own skill. By no definition did I accept help...!
Bonjwa. The Blood Demon, Cheon Yujin. The iron-blooded demon who could slaughter a man and raze his entire clan without a flicker of emotion. Having now fatedly crossed paths with my nemesis once more, how could I possibly let it slide!
I thrust both hands up to my chest, aiming for the upper gate, and rammed both feet hard into the earth, settling into my opening stance.
"Um. That cute — no, that bizarre stance. What is it supposed to be?"
The murim is vast, vastly vast, its heroes and its martial arts as numberless as the stars strewn across the night sky. Even for one bereft of internal qi, there exist any number of arts that run on the external body alone. Long ago, one of the Shaolin Temple's warrior monks crippled his own dantian in pursuit of enlightenment and, tempering nothing but external power with stubborn devotion, forged a single fist art.
That art was the Fierce Tiger Fist.
A Fierce Tiger Fist honed to its zenith splits boulders and snaps great trees without a whisper of internal qi! I drove a seismic stomp into the ground with my left foot and loosed the Tiger Thunder Roar, gathering the raw strength of my entire body into a single point — like a tiger's roar, a crash of thunder torn through my throat!
"HAAAAAAAAGH─!!!"
Tiger Cannon Chain Strikes
"Th-, this is...!"
BADABADABADAM!
My outstretched fists hammered strike after crushing strike into the vital points strung across her entire body, and Namgung Ye-rin's face twisted between shock and agony. To have swallowed the Fierce Tiger Fist's chain blows dead-on, without missing a single one — she was as good as dead already!
Convulsing, unable to endure the pain a moment longer, Namgung Ye-rin slowly crumpled — and left behind her final words.
"...M-, Meow-Meow Punch? You're... too cute... my heart..."
...It was a first victory that brought no joy whatsoever.