The Finest of Heretics
My wretched lot: trapped in the frail little body of a young girl. And frail barely covered it—physically, almost anything I might attempt was best declared impossible.
But Go was different.
Go was, from beginning to end, a contest of the mind, not the body.
The humiliations this hopeless body forced upon me I could accept. But the spirit of Blood Demon Cheon Yujin would never suffer disgrace!
"Damn it...!"
Glaring at the monitor with wide, bloodshot eyes, I slammed my fist down on the desk.
—Thud!
—Eep!
That the blow sounded less than exhilarating—somewhere between pitiful and adorable, no less—was strange, but that wasn't the point.
Seizing my trembling, outstretched hand, I rolled in circles beneath the computer desk for a good while. Had a blanket been spread on the floor, it would have been a masterpiece of a roll, neat enough to wrap a flawless kimbap.
But it hurt! It hurt so much! This damned body! I hate this world...!
The day Bonjwa reclaims my martial arts, I shall erase every desk in this cursed world, replace them all with monolithic all-in-one units, and raise a hell overflowing with herniated discs and scoliosis!
"Ugh......"
Wearing a thoroughly pathetic, tearful face, I shuffled to the kitchen and brought back the brown paper bag. I had meant to hold out longer, but the stress had piled up past bearing. My stash of fries, hoarded untouched ever since Se-ah froze my allowance...!
They say soggy fries are heresy?
"...Hah! Bonjwa is the finest under heaven—and the finest of heretics!"
Exactly! Fries are invincible, and the air fryer is a god.
Mm. Even the finest of heretics has limits; soggy fries were where I drew the line.
The delivered cola was long gone, but Se-ah had bought zero cola for her diet, and that was still waiting. Fries made crisp as new, a zero cola loaded to the brim with ice—I carried them back to my computer. Fries and cola. I felt as fortified as if a heavenly army had arrived at my back.
"...Heheheh."
The moment my mood lifted, this body started leaking its usual fool's giggle. I paid it no mind. Something far more precious was in my hands now.
I scooped up a mighty fistful of fries and, in the grand manner of a hero devouring a whole roast duck fist and all, thrust them boldly into my mouth.
"Aaahm."
Chomp, chomp.
...Anyway, they went in grandly!
The crackle of fried batter spread through my mouth with the salty bite of seasoning, and as the heaped ketchup melted across my tongue, salt and sweet began swirling together in glorious chaos. A supreme happiness I had never once tasted in Murim. Before I knew it, my face had melted into a blissful puddle.
"Hoo-waaaah."
Mm. But still.
In the monitor's black standby screen I could see the reflection of a girl with one cheek bulging like a hamster's—but surely that couldn't be Bonjwa. That thing, wiggling its lips and cheeks as though it had transformed into some tiny hamster creature, could not possibly be Bonjwa. Of course not.
"...Sniff."
Wiping my face on a sleeve so needlessly oversized it swallowed my hand whole, I grabbed the mouse. The standby screen vanished, and the online Go lobby appeared.
I had never meant to get this absorbed, in the beginning....
Thanks to a smooth month of re-adaptation—modern man that I had once been—I could enjoy other games well enough. These days I'd even managed to adapt far enough to watch the occasional stream. There was nothing I could do with this body physically; even external energy training ended the moment my stamina ran dry, which took no time at all. In a situation this hopeless, falling into the internet, a world that required no physical strength, was the obvious next move.
But with me tapping at the computer all day long, my little sister Se-ah's gaze had grown steadily frostier, the way one looks at a freeloading parasite....
"Go is... a refined, artistic pursuit...!"
Was it not the art of arts, when even the immortals, refusing to yield a match, sent the board spinning a full 1,080 degrees? My scheme had simply been to keep a Go board on screen, so that whenever Se-ah told me to ease off the games, I could insist this wasn't one...!
But retreating without a single victory to my name—that, too, would be a warrior's shame. For the honor and the very life of Mano, my eternal opponent across the board, I would seize that one victory if it was the last thing I did...!
With a hawk's eyes I swept the waiting room, hunting for a suitable opponent. Then, suddenly, one name caught my eye.
CloudCraneSage.
CloudCraneSage... as in... Unhak Jinin...?!
At that grandiose name, a shiver came flooding up through my whole body, and there was no suppressing it. This was, this was precisely the sort of name only the lapdogs of the orthodox sects—those mongrel Daoist priests of Wudang—would dare to use!
Furious beyond even my earlier cursing of desks and the world, I shouted.
"Hypocrite of the orthodox sects...! Know that this day next year will be the anniversary of your death!"
I clicked in without delay, and the scoundrel had the sheer audacity to greet me first.
Ratatatat!
As expected—for moments like this alone, even this cursed body did not betray me, following along obediently! As always, I hammered the keyboard with flourish to seize the early advantage.
So word of Bonjwa had already leaked to the orthodox sects... Well, so it goes; rumors of Murim travel faster than a galloping horse. And they were already spreading slander that I was a weakling, no less—typical of the hypocritical orthodox sects, so utterly earnest about their war on public opinion! Back in Murim it was the same crowd, doing nothing but peddling nonsense: that I tore out and ate the hearts of children, that I craved nothing but the blood of maidens.
Unruffled, I thundered back at the orthodox dog who dared stand unbowed before Bonjwa himself.
Hmph. The Go I had played until now had been mere amusement, nothing more. I simply hadn't been serious. But with an opponent whose name reeked of the orthodox sects to anyone with eyes, I could hardly let it end as casual play. A true child of Murim always keeps a few coins' worth of skill hidden! The hour had come at last to reveal the true strength of Blood Demon Cheon Yujin.
Though we no longer stood beneath the same sky... watch from the far side of the world, Mano. Bonjwa shall defend your honor and your life...!
Tap, tat-tat!
"—GAL!!!"
Tap, tatatat!
"—G-Gal...!!!"
Tap, tat-tat... between sobs.
"—G-Gaaaaal...!!!"
Tap, tap... THUD! Thud-thud-thud!
CloudCraneSage has left the room.
Beep, creeeak.
"Oppa! I'm home! Seriously, not even coming out to say hi... yep, gaming in your room again? ...Huh? Oppa? Are you crying? Huh?"
It was summer.
That evening.
A chill crawled up my spine, and I shuddered, lips trembling. It wasn't only my lips. Even the spoon in my hand quivered faintly, and so I had to shake with terror like a third-rate warrior standing before a supreme grandmaster. Torn between a reality I could not believe and my sense of betrayal toward my little sister Se-ah, I barely managed to pry my trembling lips open.
"Th-This is... dinner...?"
The table was covered in... nothing but grass...! I am not a rabbit. No—even a rabbit would surely tire of this much green!
To tolerate such an absurd, unrealistic, immoral state of affairs was beyond possibility!
"—GAL!!! This... this isn't din—"
"It is dinner."
"Eep?"
"...Oppa, you ate nothing but hamburgers and fries all day today, didn't you?"
I, a mere freeloader living under her roof, deflated on the spot. Winning with facts—how utterly underhanded. Had Se-ah been a vile orthodox sectarian all along...? If Se-ah, sovereign ruler of this household, belonged to the orthodox path, then the demonic path was ending service as of today. Feeling the dream of a world under the Demon Emperor scatter, as futile as a setting sun, I picked my spoon back up.
"Oppa. Spoon."
"Spoon...? Eep!"
I jolted so hard I nearly flung the spoon across the room. Knuckles facing down, fingers clenched tight as if throwing an uppercut, the spoon trapped inside my fist. This damned body...! The moment my focus slipped for even an instant, it went and did something fit only for an infant! Clutching the spoon like a baby, I gnashed my teeth at the surging humiliation.
"Pfft. You're so cu— NOT cute! Not cute at all, sorry, Oppa."
The instant I fixed her with a sulky glare, Se-ah apologized right away. Lately I couldn't shake the feeling that my treatment was growing harsher by the day—surely that wasn't just my imagination....
Only after I kept up the sulking did Se-ah finally raise one finger and open her mouth cheerfully.
"Okay, okay. We'll eat like this today... mm, tomorrow let's go out for pork cutlets. You're still not up to going out on your own, Oppa, but with me along you'll be fine."
"P-Pork cutlets?"
"You've been crazy about fried food lately."
It was my body that was broken, not my mind, so I had no aversion to going out. I simply avoided it, wary of what this stimulation-sensitive body might do. I had a suspicion Se-ah had developed some strange misunderstanding about me because of that, but the vision of a thick, golden pork cutlet rose in my mind and wiped it clean away.
"I'll... go!"
And the next day.
"S-Se-ah...?"
"What are you doing. Get inside."
"S-Se-Se-Se, Se-ah......?"
"Unnie, I'm here for my checkup, just like I told you yesterday!"
Se-ah.........?