The Heavenly Demon Rolls Them (1)
Baru suddenly spoke into thin air. “Know some moderation, you fool.”
“Huh? What did I do?” Enry answered in a panic, startled by the abrupt scolding.
Baru made no effort to hide her disdain. “I wasn’t talking to you. My words were for the one standing behind you.”
“Behind me? Who’s—” Enry turned her head, only to freeze at the sight of Ara standing calmly with her hands clasped behind her back. She stumbled backward in shock and landed hard on her rear.
Even in VR, the jolt of pain felt realistic enough to make her wince. A soft snort of laughter drifted from ahead.
“Min-ga. Your dear friend is remarkably sloppy.”
“I can’t deny it. Her sloppiness is plain as day.”
“Someone falls and you just laugh instead of helping?! Is that how it’s supposed to work?!” Enry grumbled as she climbed to her feet, shooting a look at Ara’s smiling face.
It was strange. Nothing about her had changed, yet today Ara looked incredibly cool. Maybe it was the overwhelming scene she had just witnessed—one that inspired instinctive awe.
“So, what did you think?” Ara asked. “Did it spark any interest in martial arts?”
“...Yes.”
It was an undeniable truth. The sight Ara and Geomseon had shown her was more than enough to ignite a fire in Enry’s chest. After watching two wills clash like that, only a pitiful adult who had lost all sense of romance wouldn’t imagine themselves in those shoes.
Ara studied her for a moment, then gave a vague nod. Enry couldn’t read the gesture. It didn’t seem entirely positive.
“By the way, Enry. There’s one thing I’m curious about.”
“Yes?”
“Weren’t you in the middle of that thing called a tutorial? Is it really all right to leave without finishing it?”
“Um… I’m not sure?”
Ara was right—Enry had been in the middle of the tutorial. Originally it should have ended with Geomseon cutting off her head, yet here she was, still alive. The bamboo forest that should have been impossible to escape was now destroyed. The Sword Immortal who should have been her executioner had been crushed by Ara. And strangely, no system window had appeared. Even someone as familiar with VR as Enry had no idea what was happening.
“Does anyone know anything about this?”
She asked the viewers who had come to watch her stream, but their answers were just as lost.
From their perspective, this was an unprecedented situation. A long time had passed since Hwaryong Muin launched, yet the only person ever acknowledged as a martial artist by Geomseon was Ara. She was also the first to break the Taoist magic of the bamboo forest, the first to crush the Sword Immortal, and the first to interfere with the tutorial. No one could predict how this would unfold.
“I have a good idea,” Ara suddenly announced while everyone was still tilting their heads in confusion.
The moment she saw Ara nodding to herself, Enry took an instinctive step back, an unexplained sense of dread washing over her. She didn’t know what was about to come out of Hwaryeong’s mouth, but she was certain it wouldn’t be anything good!
“In the end, the root of all these problems is the fact that you’re still alive, Enry. So the solution is simple.”
“...You want me to die?”
“Exactly. Sharp as ever.”
Ara smiled as she casually suggested something so brutal. I knew something felt off!
“Wait! Hwaryeong! I’m the first person this has ever happened to, right?! We don’t know what might happen next, so at least keep me alive to see how it develops—”
Enry waved her hands wildly, blurting out every excuse that came to mind, but Ara wasn’t listening at all. She approached without a single footstep, like a ghost, and raised her hand. The next thing Enry knew, she was staring at a black screen without even realizing how she had died.
“Hwaryeong, you—!”
Not long after, she revived in some nameless forest and let out a furious cry. The broadcast viewers, however, found her resentment thoroughly entertaining.
“Hwaryeong, no matter how I think about it, what you did earlier was too much.”
“Indeed. How could you kill your friend in a single strike?”
“Right? Even if we revive, you should at least hesitate, shouldn’t you?”
“As expected, that Min-ga has no understanding of human emotion.”
“She’s way too cold. I bet she wouldn’t bleed even if you cut her.”
“As if anyone could cut her in the first place. That’s the kind of person she is.”
While waiting for their food at the inn, Baru and Enry kept nodding at each other’s words, relentlessly attacking her. They had only just met, yet they were already in perfect sync. The way they looked at each other and finished each other’s sentences made them seem like friends who had known one another for decades.
[Maybe it’s because she has a common enemy?]
“What sin have I committed to become everyone’s common enemy?”
Ara believed she had built up a fair amount of goodwill with both of them, so she couldn’t understand why she was suddenly the target of such hostility. What exactly had she done wrong?
“Are you seriously asking because you don’t know?”
“You really don’t know?”
When she grumbled in genuine confusion, both Baru and Enry responded at once. She almost nodded instinctively, but her intuition screamed that would be a terrible idea, so she wisely kept her mouth shut.
“At least she still has a conscience.”
“She does, doesn’t she?”
Seeing them nod in agreement, Ara realized that saying anything else would only invite a prolonged barrage. She let out a deep sigh. How had she ended up in such a pitiful position? In the past, no one would have dared speak to her so casually.
Unable to find the right words while watching the pair openly badmouth her, she simply put her long pipe in her mouth. Whatever they said, she would let it go in one ear and out the other. Better to think about something else.
Hmm. Something suitable… Ah, there was one thing. What she should teach Enry.
...Ha. Just thinking about it made her sigh.