Heavenly Demon's Zombie Hunt (8)
Min-gi couldn't believe his eyes. When Ara pressed several of her own acupoints, every zombie gathered on the rooftop was crushed flat against the ground. It was like watching a mage cast a spell in some fantasy game. Or like a Murim game's final boss casually wiping out mobs.
If this had been that kind of game, Min-gi would have just shrugged it off. If it were a Dynasty Warriors-style zombie game instead of Dawn Escape, he wouldn't have been impressed at all. But this was a survival game where you played as ordinary people in a realistic setting. Something this absurd shouldn't be possible.
What the hell? He definitely hadn't installed any mods. Was there something he didn't know about?
Instead of watching the helicopter flying in from the distance, Min-gi checked the chat window. Surprisingly, not many people shared his confusion. Most were simply spamming:
They were just cheering. A few people shared Min-gi's doubts, but meaningful answers were impossible to find amid the endless flood of spam.
Min-gi watched Enry cheering as she boarded the helicopter and Ara calmly looking down below. After seeing the insane number of donations pouring in, he decided there was no point watching anymore and opened the community board. At least there people would actually answer questions.
Min-gi read through the various posts on the community board. Seeing all the positive reactions, he went to Ara's MyTube channel. What he found there was a miracle that no ordinary human should be capable of performing.
This was supposed to be vanilla, no mods? It wasn't a movie. It wasn't cheats. She pulled off these miracles with nothing but pure skill?
Whoa. Insane. That can't be real. How is this even possible?
Min-gi spent the next stretch of time completely absorbed, watching every single video on Ara's martial arts channel. He witnessed the embodiment of countless miracles. When he realized there were no more videos left, he sat there blankly clicking his mouse until he noticed her daily life channel linked in the recommendations.
There were still more videos to watch! What kind of amazing things would be on there?!
With excitement, Min-gi clicked into the channel. The first thing that greeted him was a short video. It was related to Dawn Escape, titled "I'll Grind Your Teeth Down in One Minute."
What the hell happened here? He hadn't seen Ara do anything particularly strange since he'd started watching. Out of pure curiosity, he clicked the video. Less than ten seconds in, he was biting his lip hard.
"In the end, you just need to connect the blue line to the red line. It's that simple."
"You guys are making such a fuss. Watch this. It's this easy. Huh?"
The part where Ara stubbornly did things her own way and kept stalling the car instead of just following the instructions struck something deep in Min-gi's heart.
What was this? Was this really the same person who toyed with zombies like they were playthings? In the martial arts channel videos, she was a cold, flawless martial artist. Why was there only a broadcasting genius who kept stuffing sweet potatoes in her mouth here?
"How strange. Let me try again."
Min-gi quickly closed the video before he said something he'd regret and started browsing other videos on the daily life channel. Surely not every video was like this.
Maybe because the channel was still new, there weren't as many videos as on the martial arts channel. Most of them were exactly what you'd expect from a "daily life" channel. Videos of her playing happily with the fox NPC from Hwaryong Muin. Videos of her going out to eat delicious food with a Heavenly Demon who looked exactly like her. Videos of her dragging her editor, Hansik, into Apis and making him learn martial arts because "an editor should know about martial arts."
If the martial arts channel showed Ara the martial artist, the daily life channel showed Ara the human being. If the martial arts channel felt like watching a movie, this felt like a sitcom. Min-gi liked both sides. After subscribing to both channels, he played another video from the daily life channel. It was a ten-minute clip of Ara just playing with the fox, no subtitles at all.
*
"It's been a while, Seol-ah."
The one who greeted Seol-ah when she entered the world of Hwaryong Muin after finishing her work was Hak Yeong-chung.
"I was worried when someone who used to diligently train Hwasan's martial arts suddenly started showing up less and less."
"I've had a lot of other things going on lately."
Seol-ah wasn't lying. Before she started editing out of pure fan devotion, she could have set editing aside and focused on martial arts. But not anymore. With her life being poured into editing Ara's videos, it was impossible for her to stay logged into Hwaryong Muin for long.
"That's not the only reason, is it?"
When Hak Yeong-chung asked with a loose smile, Seol-ah blinked and nodded. No matter how much time editing took, if she still had the same passion for Hwasan's martial arts as before, she would have made time. Cutting back on sleep was routine for her, after all.
But Seol-ah had completely lost her passion for Hwasan's martial arts. To her, it had only ever been a means to gain Ara's recognition. Now that she was one clue away from learning the Heavenly Demon Divine Art directly from Ara, there was no reason to keep studying Hwasan's arts.
"So you no longer intend to learn Hwasan's martial arts."
"I'm sorry."
"No, it's fine. These things happen."
Hak Yeong-chung, who had once been so passionate about creating someone who could master the Purple Mist Divine Art, gave a surprisingly relaxed answer instead of the sharp reaction Seol-ah had expected.
What? He seemed much more at ease than usual. Did something good happen? Or had the other Hwasan members grown rapidly?
Well, if it was passion for Hwasan's martial arts, those people had far more of it than she did. That must be it.
"It's a shame. With your talent, you would have mastered the Purple Mist Divine Art in no time."
"You think so?"
"Of course. You had talent."
Even hearing that she had talent, Seol-ah couldn't feel purely happy. It was clearly just empty words. If she truly had talent, she would have met Ara's requirements instantly.
When Seol-ah gave an awkward smile, Hak Yeong-chung's eyes curved into crescents.
"Is something troubling you?"
"Huh? Ah, yes."
"Would you like to talk about it? You may no longer be my disciple, but we still have our past connection."
Seol-ah hesitated at Hak Yeong-chung's question. She was desperate right now. Just one more step. One single step, and she could receive the Heavenly Demon Divine Art from Ara. But that step felt impossibly far, and she had no idea how to cross it. She wanted to find any way to close that gap, even if it meant selling her soul.
Hak Yeong-chung wasn't someone who used the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, but he was still a skilled martial artist. As the saying went, all paths lead to the same destination. Maybe he knew something about establishing one's will. Maybe he could help her find the sky.
Just as Seol-ah was about to ask her question, a message from Ha-rin arrived.
Why was this person at her doorstep? When she asked in confusion, Ha-rin's annoyed reply came back.
Ah. She remembered now. She'd gotten tired of answering every little question one by one and told him to come over so she could teach him everything at once. Had that much time already passed? Sigh. Interrupting at such an important moment. What a troublesome person.
Honestly, she wanted to tell him to go back, but if she did, he'd only be more annoying later. She had no choice.
"I'm sorry. Something urgent came up. I'll consult with you again later."
"...Understood."
After saying goodbye to Hak Yeong-chung, Seol-ah exited the VR capsule, threw on whatever clothes were lying on the floor, and went outside. She looked nothing like the flustered mess she'd been when meeting Ara before.
*
"Now then, it seems you've finally grown accustomed to observing the world."
Quite some time had passed since Ara began learning Taoist magic from Baru. Ever since escaping the world of the dead with Enry, she'd been doing this every day for several days straight.
What she'd learned from Baru so far wasn't how to use Taoist magic itself, but how to see and interpret the various energies flowing through the world. In martial arts terms, it was learning to interpret principles on her own and follow them—an essential foundation more important than anything else.
At first, she'd streamed while learning. She figured if she did anything alone, the viewers would cause an uproar. But the process of observing the flow of the Dao sounded like complete nonsense to viewers who couldn't see it themselves, so everyone complained about how boring it was. They told her to do something else, play Apis, or go hunt zombies.
Even though these people came to watch because they liked her, streaming was ultimately just a hobby. She couldn't give up her own learning just to entertain others. So she'd ignored all the complaints and pushed forward. The people who wanted to watch stayed, and those who didn't disappeared. Occasionally some idiot would start spouting nonsense, but when she consistently ignored them, they left on their own.
"Then shall we learn how to actually use Taoist magic?"
And at the end of it all, the time had finally come to witness the results.