The Madman Plunders the Fortuitous Encounters (2)
Once I was out of the cave, I touched the crescent-shaped rock and hid the entrance to the secret cave again, restoring it to the way it had been. The clothes I had worn while absorbing the internal energy were fouled past any hope of use. I changed, then sat down where I was and sank into thought.
Do I head back from here? Or... do I collect a few more fortuitous encounters while I'm at it?
I had already devoured the elixir, which meant there was no putting the original story back the way it had been. I had half a mind to simply sweep up every fortuitous encounter the original had to offer. The trouble was that even the one I had just taken was difficult to make entirely my own. If I could spend the time letting my body assimilate it, that would be one thing. Carrying on a journey as I was now, I could hardly claim the whole of it.
I had eaten an elixir worth twenty years of internal energy, and yet the actual rise I felt in my dantian came to only about ten. The other ten years' worth, which the dantian had failed to contain, was scattered all through my body. If I didn't sort it out within half a year, every bit of it would evaporate and be gone.
I'll need a new way to regulate my qi arts, too.
My new qi arts put out more power, but they drank a matching amount of internal energy. Set against the gain in output, the cost was almost laughable, and with my internal energy grown as well, it didn't show for now. The moment my realm climbed higher, or I began using powerful martial arts, it would hit the bottom in no time. If that were the only consideration, the sensible course would be to return to the main house and enter closed-door training. The problem was that, as I stood, qi arts were all I had.
To put it simply, it was like owning a computer built to the finest specifications and using it for nothing but browser flash games. I lacked the techniques that could spend this enormous power at its highest efficiency.
"Coming back later would only be a hassle. I ought to go now..."
They say if you're going to pull a horn, pull it all at once. Putting the matter off, only to set out along the jianghu road all over again, would be nothing but trouble, so I turned my feet at once toward the next fortuitous encounter.
Before I set out in earnest, I wanted to put my luggage in order, so I made for a fairly large village a little removed from Mount Hua. I took a suitable inn and waited on the cook's dishes.
"Here you are. Dumplings and Dongpo pork."
"Thank you."
I regretted the words the moment they were out. This was exactly the sort of thing Soye had scolded me for. As a rule, people of the murim don't use honorifics unless they are facing a superior. I had meant to follow suit, but after a lifetime of decades spent growing up in the Eastern Land of Propriety, there were still corners of it that sat awkwardly with me. I couldn't quite help myself.
I was eating with that thought in mind when the inn grew noisy.
"There's a hair in the food! What are you going to do about it?!"
Every world has its nightmare customers.
I had been rather hungry, so I kept stuffing food into my mouth while I listened to the man and the innkeeper.
"W-well... at our shop, we..."
"Ah! That's none of my concern. I'm telling you a hair came out of your cooking. Don't tell me you think I, Go Hwang, the Tiger Hero, would lie about a thing like that!"
Unable to contain his rage, the man slammed the table. It could not bear the tremendous force. It split clean in two and collapsed.
"H-hiek! N-no, of course not. How could we ever doubt the Tiger Hero? You needn't pay for the food..."
"Tsk. No, no. I've taken harm from your cooking, haven't I? Then... naturally you ought to compensate me for emotional damages as well. Wouldn't you say?"
"Wh-where did you pick up a sham like—"
"Ha!!!"
Figures. He's seen this trick somewhere.
The man drove his foot down in a martial stomp and roared, and everyone in the inn but me was seized by the pressure. Puffed up at how thoroughly he had overwhelmed the room, he put on an even more arrogant face and raised his voice.
"This Tiger Hero is telling you he'll forgive your crime, and you find even a single apology that difficult?!"
"Aigo, Tiger Hero! I was wrong. I'll give you as much money as you want, so please, just spare my life..."
At the innkeeper's words, the man smiled a smile sickening to look at.
"You should have done that from the start. You kicked away the chance I gave you once, so I'll add a charge of insolence and set the price accordingly."
"Y-yes!"
"Let's see... For the likes of you... a thousand taels ought to do."
"What?!"
"Hah... a thousand taels..."
"Old Heo's finished. How's he supposed to come up with a fortune like a thousand taels?"
At the sum that left the man's mouth, the innkeeper was the first to start in shock, and after him came the guests, murmuring a pity mixed with sympathy. Stunned by the figure, the innkeeper clutched the pant leg of the man who had been about to leave and began to beg.
"W-wait a moment! Great Hero!! Even so, a fortune of a thousand taels—how could I—"
He never got the next words out. Go Hwang, the man who styled himself the Tiger Hero, had seized him by the collar and hauled him into the air.
"Khh—khak!"
"Hey. Looks like you still think I'm an easy mark. I gave you two chances, and you're still refusing me?"
"Kh—khak, th-that's not it, I swear..."
"Shut up!"
Go Hwang hurled the innkeeper aside and opened his mouth.
"The price for spitting on my goodwill twice is five thousand taels! And..."
He swept the inn with one long look, then shouted.
"Every last one of you here, carve this in good and deep! This place sits under my management, the Tiger Hero's, so don't you dare show your faces!"
With that absurd, unreasonable speech finished, Go Hwang walked out of the inn. In the place a storm had torn through, the first sound to rise was the innkeeper's wailing.
"Aigo!! Aigo!! How in the world am I supposed to come up with five thousand taels...?!"
Five thousand taels. At Korean rates, that's something like two hundred and fifty million won?
Demanding two hundred and fifty million won over a hair in the food was a preposterous, unfair bargain, but not one person could talk back to Go Hwang. Because that was power, and that was the murim. Even a third-rate martial artist was a monster no ordinary person could begin to compare with. This man called Go Hwang looked to sit a line above even that, so for people who had never learned a single martial art, the word resistance had been wiped from their minds long ago.
Done with the thought, I spoke to the server who was carrying the food.
"Bring me one bottle of top-grade Dukang wine."
"Yes."
Tsk. I meant not to get involved, but I can't just watch a thing like this and walk on.
I had sworn to live this life thinking of no one but myself, and still I couldn't ignore a scene like this and pass it by. I saw the server, wine in hand, coming toward me.
Information first...
"Your top-grade Dukang wine."
"Thanks."
I took the Dukang wine from the server and, using hearing sharpened dozens of times over, made for the table that had been arguing about Go Hwang the most animatedly of all.
"So that bastard... who is he?"
"Mind if I join you for that?"
"Join us, my ass! We're talking among ourselves, so mind your own business and get lo—"
Bang!
The man's eyes changed the moment they landed on the top-grade Dukang wine in the hand I had brought down toward the table.
"No need to be so cold. Let's take our time and talk while you taste this top-grade Dukang."
"T-top-grade Du... Dukang wine...?!"
"Well? May I join you?"
"O-of course! Ask us anything!"
"Then explain that bastard's identity to me, piece by piece, starting from the beginning."
"Yes. It must have been about ten years ago. When that bastard first appeared in this village..."
The gathering of information went smoothly.
"This the place?"
Just as I had heard at the inn, a cave of considerable size lay at the foot of a mountain a little way from the village. None other, they said, than the place where Go Hwang and his crew stayed. I smothered my presence as far as I could, slipped into the cave, and used my internal energy to take the enemy's count.
Eighteen... no. Nineteen?
In the village they had said the bastards numbered about twenty. Spread my internal energy as wide as I might, one of them simply would not appear.
No movement... Are they all asleep?
Just in case, I leaned in to look deeper into the cave, but it ran deeper than I had expected, and I couldn't make them out.
"At this rate, it's worth trying that."
With the plan settled, I moved into the woods, gathered a great deal of firewood, and set it at the mouth of the cave. Standing before the wood, I roused my internal power. Violet lightning crashed down on the firewood in the process, and the pile caught and began to burn.
"This is what they call carbon monoxide poisoning."
I had decided I would not feel guilty. From what I had heard, these were garbage bastards enough that it wouldn't matter if they died. Followers of Go Hwang in name only—judging by what they did, there was nothing strange about treating them as bandits.
I was gazing into the fire, watching the flames that would pack the cave with carbon monoxide, when I felt an unidentified presence rushing toward this place. Certain that the one I had been expecting had arrived, I turned my head to meet the man who had come. I tipped my head back at a crooked angle and offered him a greeting.
"Welcome."
"Who the hell are you! What are you doing here?"
"Me? Hmm... right!"
"...?"
"The one who's taking every last one of you to hell."
"W-what did you say?"
"Can't pound that into your skull? Come at me, you son of a bitch."
And so my first real fight in this world of the murim began.