There's No Way I'm Dying a Pathetic Death in a Place Like This
In that instant, something felt off to Yi Yeok — a wrongness his senses, honed by the Eumhon Sinbaek Gyeol, caught like a splinter in the mind.
"Something's coming. Everyone, hide!"
The group scattered, each vanishing behind whatever cover the terrain offered. A long while passed, and nothing happened. Yeo Gwi opened his mouth to complain, then hastily clamped it shut.
Someone was flying through the sky, stepping on a sword. The sight was so bizarre that Yeo Gwi had to slap a hand over his mouth to keep the gasp from escaping.
Only after the figure had disappeared did the three emerge from hiding, staring off in that direction for a long time. Yi Yeok thought that if he'd had a technique like that, he never would have let the woman from the Guryeong Sect slip away.
"For the first time in my life, I'm thinking becoming a cultivator might not be such a bad idea."
"Obviously!"
Mo Yeong answered his muttering with a sly grin.
"So, what now? Are you really going to just wander around searching at random?"
"What choice do we have? If we keep moving, we're bound to run into someone we can ask for directions eventually."
"There are no ordinary people inside the Celestial Realm of the Sky's Center. It's nothing but cultivators out here. What happens when one of them decides we've trespassed into their territory and tries to kill us for it?"
"Eh, they might surprise us and turn out friendly. It's not like cultivators do nothing but fly around. I'm sure some of them crawl along the ground like the rest of us."
"You hopeless fool."
"Relax. Every problem has a way of working itself out the moment you actually collide with it. Unless you've got some brilliant alternative?"
Yeo Gwi opened his mouth to answer, but Yi Yeok quickly cut him off.
"Don't say let's go back. This time I really will throw you."
Yeo Gwi shut up.
* * *
Three days later.
Not one of them said it out loud, but every single one of them knew it with perfect clarity.
They were lost.
There wasn't even a trail a beast could use, let alone a path fit for human feet. Warped, unnatural vegetation stretched in every direction, and the canopy grew so thick the sky was barely visible — they couldn't even orient themselves by the sun.
By some mercy they hadn't run into any yaosui, though they did cross paths with ordinary beasts several times — beasts several times larger and far more vicious than anything found in the normal world. Not that any of it posed the slightest threat to the group.
Yi Yeok's expression grew darker by the hour, and Yeo Gwi whined about turning back. Only Mo Yeong kept smiling, her spirits untouched. Wherever Yi Yeok went, apparently, was fine by her.
Around midday, the three of them arrived at the foot of a sheer cliff. It looked every bit as deep as the gorge they'd crossed to get here.
Yi Yeok cleared his throat and, for once, spoke with genuine seriousness.
"You've all heard the stories. The storytellers in the market say that people who fall off cliffs often stumble into great fortune."
Yeo Gwi's face asked what nonsense this was going to be.
"Want to try falling off one? You might find treasure, or meet a fated master, or — worst case — maybe even find our way out of here."
"You lunatic. A few days lost in the woods and your brain's completely gone."
"Uncultured turtle. All stories are, by nature, reflections of reality. If such things never actually happened, they could never have been made into stories in the first place."
Mo Yeong nodded along.
"So then — who's going first? Yeo Gwi, you should try it. You've fallen off one before. You're the only certified falling expert among us."
"Since when does the world have a damn falling expert?"
Yi Yeok addressed the protesting Yeo Gwi with grave solemnity.
"Listen well, falling expert. In my years of professional thievery, I've learned that people hide their valuables where nobody thinks to look. Say, a privy. A cabbage field. A sheer, towering cliff face."
"Insane. You're insane."
"Think about it. Even a shameless bastard like you is too scared to go check out a cliff."
"Who's scared? I'm just saying there's no chance of anything being there."
"Same thing. And since *nobody* thinks there's a chance, doesn't that actually raise the odds that something valuable is there?"
Yeo Gwi stroked his chin. Yi Yeok pressed on, dead serious.
"Look. Come here and examine the cliff face closely. For something carved by nature alone, isn't it suspiciously smooth? There's no question a human hand touched this. And on top of that, water flows in front of it and mountains wrap around it on both sides. That, my friend, is the classic Azure Dragon on the Left, White Tiger on the Right. You don't know feng shui, do you? I studied under an old master."
Yeo Gwi's face remained thick with suspicion.
Yi Yeok's voice rose with theatrical indignation.
"You damn turtle... You don't trust me? What do you know about feng shui, huh? Do you know the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches? You don't know a damn thing. While you were out there murdering people and playing at being a thug — yes, fine, I was stealing too, but *still* — I spent my spare moments reading books and building real knowledge."
Yeo Gwi chewed over Yi Yeok's words for a long moment. Then, at last, he turned away.
"I'm going to go take a piss."
Yi Yeok did not let his solemn expression crack until Yeo Gwi had pushed his way into the brush and vanished from sight.
"Was that real?"
At Mo Yeong's question, Yi Yeok's face broke into a grin and he snickered.
"What do you think? I've got nothing better to do than mess with the turtle."
Mo Yeong let out a short "Ha."
"And here I was thinking it actually sounded convincing."
"Well, there's no way forward like this. No helping it. I suppose we'll have to head back and find a map."
"Honestly, I wouldn't mind being trapped out here with you for the rest of my life."
"Oh yeah? Then I'll leave *you* behind and go."
"Th... meanie! I meant I want to be *with* you! Yeo Gwi can... well, we could shove him off the cliff and be done with him."
"A word of advice — stop wasting your feelings on me."
Mo Yeong pouted.
"Are you really going to live your whole life like a block of wood? Even if you become a cultivator someday, you'll take a Dao Companion eventually, won't you?"
"Ridiculous. If the whole point of the path is attaining true freedom, what in the world is a Dao Companion for? How is *that* supposed to be true freedom?"
Just then, with a rustle of undergrowth, Yeo Gwi reappeared. His face was set with an unreadable, steely resolve.
"I've decided."
"Decided what?"
"There's no answer going on like this. But turning back and coming all this way again doesn't sit right with me either — and who knows, maybe we'll find a way out down there. So I'm going to trust your story for once."
"My story? Which story?"
Without answering, Yeo Gwi walked to the edge of the cliff and stood there.
"This body is destined to become the greatest Sword Immortal under heaven. There's no way I'm dying a pathetic death in a place like this."
Only then did Yi Yeok realize — Yeo Gwi had taken his joke completely seriously.
"Whoa, hold on—"
"Here I go!"
Yeo Gwi flung himself off the edge and plummeted toward the depths below. Yi Yeok cried out in horror.
"Turtle! You — YOU ABSOLUTE LUNATIC!"