Don't Interrupt the Looting
"…You son of a bitch. Next time I see you, I'm punching a hole straight through your solar plexus."
Having fully regained consciousness, Jincheon spat a curse at the version of himself from a parallel world who had dumped him in this godforsaken place.
Hoo. At least I've cleared the dangerous hurdle.
He had no idea how much time had passed, but he had succeeded in fully healing his body.
This planet's energy is different from Earth's, so adapting took time.
Unlike ordinary Murim martial artists who used Inner Qi, Jincheon wielded a power of a higher order entirely — Tushinryeok, the Battle God Power. This force could not be obtained through mere internal energy cultivation methods. It was the art of harmonizing the power of the soul with cultivation technique, refining the energy of the great natural world into a pure "One."
"The energy of the great natural world" sounded grand and magnificent, but in truth it was a jumbled mass of all sorts of miscellaneous forces. That was why absorbing nature's qi without proper method would contaminate one's Inner Qi and tank its efficiency to extremes. There was a reason Murim practitioners refined and accumulated their energy through careful cultivation methods.
Jincheon could forge the entirety of nature's energy into a single pure force — but this planet's energy differed in nature from Earth's, and adapting it had taken a considerable amount of time.
My body is fully recovered, but my Tushinryeok is down to a pitiful trickle.
That couldn't be helped. He had burned through most of his Battle God Power just to restore his body. A few years of continuous qi circulation training would probably restore it all, but—
Time to get out of here.
Driven by the desire to experience, explore, and live this new world, he began releasing the Turtle Breathing Technique.
And those giant robots — I absolutely have to pilot one!
He hadn't gotten a long look amid the shelling, but those few seconds of giant robots locked in combat had been seared into his mind. The childhood dream of climbing into a robot and piloting it had become reality. How could anyone sit around taking it easy in a situation like that?
Having released the Turtle Breathing Technique, Jincheon began moving his arms, clawing his way through the dirt.
Pak!
Once he managed to thrust an arm free, he grabbed hold of the ground beyond and hauled his body out of the earth. Dirt cascaded off him in a dry rattle. A few light hops in place shook the soil from every inch of his body.
First things first — find water.
His entire body was caked in filth, yes — but he needed water for other reasons as well. No matter how skilled a martial master, water and nutrition were non-negotiable. Ordinarily, his Tushinryeok could sustain his body at peak condition for over a year without food or drink — but with that power scraped to the bottom of the barrel, he had no luxury of patience.
Grrrgl—
Already starting, huh…
He didn't know how long he'd been under the Turtle Breathing Technique, but by his internal sense of time, roughly four or five days had passed. On top of that, a body that had transcended the human species through multiple rounds of Hwan-gol-tal-tae was beginning to demand calories just to maintain its musculature.
Jincheon surveyed his surroundings first.
I was so focused on the landing technique when I jumped that I didn't get a look at anything else.
He had no idea where water might be, but it had to exist somewhere. A forest this vast couldn't form without a water source.
Which means the water is just hidden by the forest — somewhere deeper inside.
Of course, this was a different dimension, a planet unlike Earth. Common sense like that might not apply here.
Doesn't matter. I'll just spread my sensory field and find it.
Jincheon settled into a cross-legged seat and spread his sensory field using what little Tushinryeok he had.
One kilometer. Nothing.
Three kilometers. Nothing.
Five kilometers. Nothing.
Eight kilometers. Nothing.
Ten… found it.
Flowing water, somewhere between nine and ten kilometers out.
Northeast. Somewhere in these ridiculously vast mountains. The forest of mushroom-shaped trees — nothing like Earth — radiated the unmistakable feel of an alien world. Under normal circumstances, he'd be marveling at scenery no Earthling had ever seen—
If I hadn't gotten shelled, I'd be leisurely soaking in the sights of a brand-new world right now.
But survival came first. Jincheon clicked his tongue inwardly and set off toward the water without further delay.
The smell of water.
As he drew closer, the scent of water drifted on the air. Picking up his pace at the thought of finally drinking—
Aaaaaaagh~~~~~!
"Hm?"
A child's sharp scream rang out from the direction of the flowing water.
What was that?
At the same time, a faint, metallic scent reached him — the kind only animal-level olfactory senses could detect. It was a coppery smell he'd never encountered in his life, and the mystery of it only made him more determined to head toward the scream.
Better stay hidden for now.
Moving carefully through the underbrush, Jincheon slipped past several massive trees that blocked his view — and found a streamside clearing where five aliens stood wearing suits studded with metal plating. One-piece suits of futuristic design, seamless from boots to collar.
"Aagh!"
And before them, a blue-skinned boy lay sprawled on the ground, blue blood spattered across his leg. Judging by his build, he looked about middle-school age — maybe a freshman in high school at most.
"This little shit runs like hell."
"Worked out for us in the end. He's spreading the blood scent all on his own."
"Hey! Bring the stake!"
The suit-wearing aliens — a mismatched assortment of different species with no uniformity among them — gathered around the boy. A hulking alien over two meters tall, its mouth split into a triangular gash, drove a long metal stake into the ground with raw force. Then it clamped a shackle-like restraint around the wounded boy's ankle and lashed him firmly to the stake.
"Huuuuhh! Please, save me!"
The terrified blue-skinned alien boy knew exactly what role he'd been assigned, and he wailed in pure panic. Jincheon recognized the boy's role just as clearly.
Bait.
In the old days, when a man-eating beast fled into the forest after attacking someone, people would stake out livestock like cattle to lure it back. The boy before him was playing that exact part. And anyone could see it wasn't voluntary.
"Setup's done."
"Good. Everyone get behind the camouflage netting and spray the scent-killers."
Having secured the boy, they sprayed themselves down and started backing away to a distance.
"Ghk! Khh! Ngh!"
The boy, who had cried himself raw with despair and terror, grabbed the leg of a retreating insectoid alien — all sharp, elongated exoskeleton — and couldn't even manage a proper sob.
Crack!
"AAAAAAAGH!!"
But the alien simply stomped on the boy's wounded leg with its other foot. Blood burst from the wound along with the scream.
"Nice scream. Every animal in the area's gonna come running."
The alien that had crushed the wound stepped away from the boy, who had released his grip in agony. Just as it moved to follow its companions—
"Feeling good about flexing on a kid?"
"Huh?"
A voice spoke from behind it.
Crunch!
And that was the last sound it ever heard in this life.
"Wha—?"
"Kerakk's down!"
Hearing something off, the aliens turned to find their comrade's corpse — neck not merely broken but ripped clean off — and screamed, dropping their poles to draw their guns.
"What the fuck is that guy?!"
"Don't know, just fucking kill him!"
The pistols and rifles they drew roared with a harsh metallic report unlike any Earth firearm. The man who had torn off the insectoid alien's head — Jincheon — flung aside the long, thin corpse that was useless as a shield and dove toward the opposite side of the boy.
The rounds they fired in pursuit punched eye-sized holes clean through thick tree trunks. Weaving between the trees, Jincheon judged that the trunks offered no real cover — the moment he ducked behind one, he launched himself upward. Without using his hands, he scaled the tree on bare feet alone and vanished among the mushroom-spread branches and leaves.
"Where'd he go?!"
"Run a bio-scan!"
"You idiot! This is the White Shriek Forest! Magnetic fields kill the scanners!"
Faced with Jincheon's instantaneous disappearance, they scanned the surroundings in a panic and quickly scattered behind tree cover.
The firepower is several times stronger than twenty-first-century Earth weapons.
Pistol and rifle rounds punching clean through tree trunks too thick for a man to wrap his arms around.
But not so fast I can't handle them.
A body refined beyond the very concept of "rank" through multiple Hwan-gol-tal-tae reconstructions. Tushinryeok circulating through him, however faintly. With that, he could deflect their bullets with ease. Not that he planned to fight them head-on.
I've got a weapon of my own now, after all.
Jincheon raised a pistol — a long rectangular slab of metal fitted with a trigger and grip — and took aim. He'd looted it from the belt of the alien he'd just killed.
I'd need a few shots to zero it properly, but…
The pistol showed clear signs of heavy use. Unless the previous owner had some perverse hobby or a visual impairment, the sights would already be zeroed dead-center.
Jincheon waited in silence. The moment all four aliens peeked their heads out from behind the trees at once, he squeezed the trigger. Firing in rapid succession, crushing the recoil with raw strength, he put a round through each of the four aliens' heads with precision rapid-fire.
Bullets buried dead-center in their foreheads or punching clean through, the aliens crumpled lifelessly.
A gun in a civilian's hands could kill a Murim master — but a Murim master with a gun was dozens of times more lethal. Because martial arts granted superhuman spatial awareness. Plus the raw strength to control recoil.
"Been a while since I felt recoil. Missed this sensation."
Among his twenty-first-century memories, one of his favorites was the kick of a trigger pull. Even after arriving in the wuxia world, he hadn't been able to forget the feeling — he'd even modified a broken pirate pistol and used it.
Dropping back to the ground, Jincheon addressed the boy, who was watching him with a mix of hope and despair through labored, pain-filled breaths.
"Hang tight a second. Killing enemies and then looting them is just common sense."
Then he began rifling through the corpses of those he'd killed, stripping the clothes off an alien whose build roughly matched his own.
"Th-this isn't the time for—!"
"KRAAAAH!"
Just as the boy started to protest, the hulking alien with the triangular-split mouth roared and surged up behind Jincheon, swinging a fist. Unlike the others, this was the only one still carrying a bullet lodged in its head.
"Aaaah!"
The boy knew exactly how monstrous that alien's strength was, and he screamed in despair. But Jincheon half-turned his upper body and casually caught the fist — a fist half the size of his own face — with one hand.
"Ghk!? Kuhuuuk!"
"Interesting anatomy. Still alive with a bullet in its head. Different brain structure, or just a skull that hard?"
No — he hadn't merely blocked it. His fingers crushed down on the oversized fist, and the sound of bones pulverizing filled the air.
"Kk-kk-kkagh!"
"Well, I'll figure that out eventually. But you know what?"
Jincheon yanked the hand gripping the fist toward him. As the alien's eyes dropped below his own, he drove a knee up into its jaw. With a wet crunch of shattering bone, the triangular-mouthed alien's neck snapped violently backward. It hit the ground, twitched once, and went limp.
"……."
Watching Jincheon beat the triangular-mouthed alien to death with raw strength, the blue-skinned boy forgot his pain for a moment and simply stared, mouth hanging open. He had just watched someone toy with and kill a Kelkata — a race of low intelligence but top-tier physical prowess in the known universe — like it was a child.
"Rule number one: you don't touch a man while he's looting. Got it?"
Jincheon, who had no idea what he'd just killed, tossed out that bit of dogshit philosophy at the already-dead corpse and went back to rifling through the bodies.
Rurururururu——
"Ah, shit. Now what?"
"……!"
But unlike Jincheon, who was merely annoyed by the strange cry that interrupted him, the blue-skinned boy's face froze solid with terror.