Fateful Encounter (1)
Fateful Encounter (1)
I opened my eyes.
A moist taste lingered in my mouth. My vision swayed with every turn of my head, as if I'd flung myself into a hammock. My fingertips brushed against pine needles, and long branches and thick stems tangled my legs.
I carefully raised my hand and touched my cheek. When I pinched it, I felt pain, and the sensation on my hand was incredibly vivid. I wiggled my arms and legs, and it seemed I wasn't injured anywhere. Directly ahead, a sharply defined crevice caught my eye, as if carved by a blade, and a thick, long stem connected me to it.
When I turned my head to the side, all I could see was fog. I recalled the vast sea of fog I'd seen from the cliff. I was, quite literally, swallowed by dense fog.
I couldn't gauge how deep the bottom of the cliff was. But judging by the desolate wind blowing around me and the height of the mountain I'd been walking on, it was entirely plausible that I'd luckily snagged a ledge halfway down.
"Hoo...."
Worried the branches might break, I carefully stretched out my legs and extracted myself from the pine tree.
Thinking about how I'd nearly fallen to my death a moment ago, a cold sweat broke out unbidden, and my body trembled involuntarily at the thought of dying in an even more pointless way. Fortunately, the distance between the pine branch and the crevice wasn't far.
The tree growing through the rocks held its ground stubbornly, not swaying in the slightest despite supporting a grown man's weight. I scanned the pitch-black entrance in the cliff, picked up a loose stone, and threw it down the cliff.
I waited for a sound, but none came.
The bottom seemed much farther away than I thought.
I looked around again. There was no path to the side, only a narrow space jutting out just wide enough for a person to stand and walk.
And a shadowed cave greeted me, as if beckoning me inside.
Given its location, there was no chance of a large beast living there. So I stepped forward confidently.
"What's this?"
As soon as I stepped inside the cave, a far wider interior than expected greeted me, but at the same time, something caught my foot. It stopped my movement with a heavy weight, like sodden old fishing nets dragging in a harbor, and the sunlight seeping through the cracks in the wall ruthlessly revealed the obstacle's outline.
It was a human skeleton. The clothes were tattered and the face crushed—how long it had been there I couldn't tell—but the posture against the wall kept the shape of someone who had collapsed from exhaustion, and the entire body was stuck to the stone wall from moisture.
I shoved aside the leg blocking my way like a drunkard's, and went in further.
The faint sunlight filtering in from outside dimly revealed the interior. From the depths, I could hear water dripping. Getting closer, I found a stream of water flowing at the cave's end.
I carefully scooped up a handful and sipped. It left no gritty taste in my mouth and went down smoothly. I felt sure it was drinkable water, and figured the corpse over there hadn't died of thirst.
Looking to the side, there was a separate room inside the cave. A crack, formed similarly to the entrance, let me move between the rooms, and on the floor, marks shaped like human footprints were pressed into the stone. In one corner sat a large chest.
There was also a long iron stake and a worn-out rope, but I couldn't figure out their purpose, so I set them aside for the moment.
This room also had a hole letting in light, and by that light, I opened the chest.
"Oh...."
A laugh escaped me. The chest was stuffed full of round, pill-like objects and an old book. The preservation was something else; the clumps of dirt were bone-dry, and the book resting on top was also in surprisingly good condition.
I could roughly guess what those pills were just by looking. No way spirit medicine would be stacked up like that, so they had to be bigu pills.
I stepped back outside. The skeleton was still there. Clear water flowing ready to drink, a chest full of bigu pills, and an old book.
"Seems like I'm not meant to die."
A fateful encounter.
The kind of story where you jump off a cliff and stumble upon a fateful encounter.
The titleless book's cover told me nothing, but its author must have been an extraordinary person. Probably a reclusive master who secretly wrote a martial arts manual, worried that the lineage of his powerful martial arts would be severed.
Who could it be?
A master renowned in the martial world,
or an unorthodox faction like the Demonic Cult.
It could even be something utterly wicked.
What did it matter what kind of martial arts it was? A black cat or a white cat, it only matters if it catches mice. As long as the martial arts is strong, that's all that counts.
Since I was in a place where strength decides everything, I just wanted to get my hands on the strongest power,
and this manual contained exactly what I wanted.
I sat down heavily at the entrance and opened the manual.
[I am the right hand of the Heavenly Demon. Sex Demon Cheonpung.]
"Sex Demon?"
I frowned and shot a glance at the skeleton for a moment. No gaze or expression looked back from the bones, so it was a meaningless gesture.
I stopped staring at the skeleton and shifted my focus back to the book. Just because he was a Sex Demon didn't mean I should be prejudiced. Didn't it say he was the right hand of the Heavenly Demon? He might have wielded terrifying demonic arts capable of toying with any woman in the martial world, or sorcery that absorbed the inner energy of those he assaulted.
Filled with even greater anticipation by the phrase 'right hand of the Heavenly Demon,' I turned the page.
[I managed to arrive here fleeing the pursuit of the Murim Alliance, but my injuries are severe and I will not live long. However, fearing that the lineage of my secret teachings will be severed, I leave these words behind. If someone finds this place, I hope they will carry on my will.]
I nodded and moved on to the next paragraph.
[Bedroom Arts
The foundation of the Bedroom Arts is the training of the fingers and the lower body. Lower body training is an essential requirement for the practice of lightness skills and must not be neglected, and merely mastering the supple use of the fingers and learning a woman's body will bring you one great step closer to the Sex Demon's secret teachings.
Furthermore, the movement of the hips and....]
I flipped through the pages quickly. In a place where no one else existed but me and a skeleton, 'performing Bedroom Arts' was just a pie-in-the-sky fantasy. After several pages, I was able to move on to the next section.
[Inner Energy Cultivation Method]
"Yes, this is it."
A cultivation method is the core of martial arts. To use powerful martial techniques, you need vast inner energy, and the better the cultivation method, the easier it is to gather. Just what kind of cultivation method did the man called the right hand of the Heavenly Demon possess?
Was I about to experience the secret teachings of the Demonic Cult?
[Those who learn demonic cultivation methods can accumulate inner power easily, but demonic energy tends to leak out and repel women. Therefore, to avoid raising suspicion, I learned the basic cultivation method of Shaolin, and I will describe that method here.]
"......?"
Was this bastard crazy?
He learned Shaolin's cultivation method just to avoid arousing suspicion from women?
I glanced at the skeleton again. But there was no way it could answer, no matter how many confused looks I threw at it. Realizing the futility of arguing with reality, I skimmed the Shaolin basic cultivation method section once more and moved on.
[Lightness Skill]
I glanced outside.
Since I had to get out of the middle of this cliff, this was an essential skill to learn.
[Dark Moon Step (暗越步)
The fact that you came to this cliff means you either have a talent for lightness skills or have suffered an unexpected accident. The Dark Moon Step is a lightness skill specialized in climbing high walls and cliffs. With it, you can escape this cliff, and it is a movement technique designed to allow easy access to the women living in castles and mansions. It is also highly useful for stealth, as it can erase your presence and move you a fair distance in a short time.]
This was the most useful entry I'd read so far. At least I could get off this cliff just by mastering this alone.
But wouldn't it be a loss to come all the way here and only learn an escape technique?
I moved on quickly.
A guy this obsessed with sex would surely have learned some kind of sorcery to seduce women. Whatever it was, it would undoubtedly be a solid help in navigating the harsh life of the martial world ahead.
I skipped past the methods for erasing your presence,
playing dead,
fleeing from strong opponents, and reading faces to grasp psychology, and finally found a section in this book that described something resembling actual martial arts.
[Golden Capturing Hand (擒拿手)]
[To prevent resistance from your target, mastery of the Golden Capturing Hand is essential. By utilizing a body trained in both the Golden Capturing Hand and the Bedroom Arts, you can easily subdue scoundrels, or the husbands, fathers, and brothers of women, and escape. If your opponent sneers upon seeing the Golden Capturing Hand, I strongly recommend you never fight them and run away.
Here, I have described the basic training method and advanced courses of the Golden Capturing Hand, so I hope you will master this technique without fail and put it to good use.
For a Sex Demon, survival is victory.]
".....This is just a crazy rapist son of a bitch."
I turned to the next page.
There was a drawing of someone practicing the Golden Capturing Hand, and after that, nothing. I flipped through the empty pages once, then stared at the skeleton.
I looked back and forth between the book and the skeleton several times, then stepped out onto the cliff outside the cave.
Thick fog surrounded me on all sides.
There was no path out beyond the fog.
I couldn't even see the bottom, and I had no confidence I could jump down or climb back up.
I was thrilled, thinking it was a fateful encounter...
But it turned out to be some crazy bastard who just went around raping women, relying solely on the Golden Capturing Hand, a lightness skill, and his own technique.
"....Fucking hell."
Cursing here changed nothing.
All I could do was inherit this Sex Demon's secret teachings and train, or slowly starve to death on bigu pills.
Dalkeurak.
The skeleton tilted with a sound.
I clicked my tongue and stepped back into the cave.
What can you do.
Guess I'll train.