2. For Now, Survival Comes First
It took quite a long time to adjust to her new body.
She had even tried to find her way back to where she belonged, but so far there was no method to be found.
Nearly a week of fretting and worrying had transformed what was already a slender frame into something closer to a skeleton. The thought that she might simply starve to death if she kept spiraling in despair finally pushed Cho Yeong to make up her mind: she would survive here first, one way or another — wearing the face of a beauty blessed with an enormous chest.
This is so inconvenient.
At first it had been fascinating, in a strange way — a part of her body that should have been there simply gone. But fascination quickly gave way to frustration once she tried to actually live in it. It was anything but convenient.
Once again Cho Yeong climbed into the mountains with her cloth bag — sewn together from the clothes of the dead — slung over her shoulder, and pressed her palm against a spirit fruit tree.
Judging by the amount of qi she could feel coursing through her, Cho Yeong estimated she was somewhere around the first level of the Qi Gathering stage. She hadn't been at this when she first fell into this world — the spirit qi within her had grown only because she'd been eating spirit fruits to stay alive.
Reaching the first level of Qi Gathering meant her spirit root had bloomed. What kind of spirit root it was, she had no way of knowing. And the odds were fairly high that it wasn't a good one.
With a clean, sharp crack, the tree shuddered, and red spirit fruits came raining down by the handful. They tasted like sweet-and-sour apples.
Crunch!
Cho Yeong bit into a spirit fruit and began her late start to the day. Today was the day she would head for the Black Moon Ginseng colony.
According to the exploration she'd done of her surroundings, this really was the world of Biseungdo, that hardcore cultivation MMORPG. Following the paths she remembered had turned up the lake, the spirit fruit trees, the fever-cooling herbs, the fever-kindling herbs, and on and on. Which meant the Black Moon Ginseng colony she'd planned on from the start had to exist as well.
And sure enough, climbing Ascension Mountain, she found black moon ginseng blooming in riotous clusters around the midpoint of the slope, exactly where she'd expected.
"What a relief. I can gather it before the flowers bloom."
Black Moon Ginseng was a spirit herb unlike any other ginseng. Most ginseng grew stronger in spirit qi the longer it aged, but the Black Moon variety had a single, precise window when its potency peaked.
The night of the full moon, when it drank its fill of lunar power. That was the perfect day to harvest it.
And today happened to be the full moon. Cho Yeong sat down before the ginseng, nibbling spirit fruits as she waited, until the sun sank past the western ridge and full night settled over the mountain. The moment the brilliant moon rose, the black moon ginseng's leaves began to pulse with a radiant green light.
"Now!"
She moved from plant to plant, harvesting as she went. First she dug a circle into the earth around each one, gripped the exposed upper roots, and pulled — pop. True to its name, Black Moon Ginseng was a deep, utter black, and these, having soaked up the full moon's spirit qi, were blacker than ever.
By the time her bag was stuffed full, Cho Yeong straightened up and rubbed her aching back.
Why did I set her chest so big, anyway? she thought. Not that it matters — possessed of this character or not, there's no streaming here. Honestly, I hope I go back to reality in this exact body. Then I could blow up without a virtual avatar at all.
"Better hurry back, then."
Cho Yeong hurried back to the cave where she'd first fallen. The reason for the rush was simple: once night fell, the Feast of Blood began in Biseungdo — and a full moon's night was worst of all. Yokai bloated with yin energy roamed everywhere, devouring any cultivator weaker than themselves, converting the spirit qi they swallowed into demonic energy to fuel their own advancement.
Even in the game there were guide posts warning players not to wander around at night. Of course, anyone at the fourth level of Qi Accumulation, Great Perfection, could hold their own against most yokai in single combat — but she was nowhere near that.
Inside the cave sat the cold ashes of an old campfire. Cho Yeong had gathered several dead branches on the way back; she tossed them onto the old fire pit and spread her palm.
Basic technique of the Qi Gathering stage — a burst of fire hurled from the open palm. Perfect for lighting a campfire.
Sitting before the crackling flames, Cho Yeong focused on the eerie sounds drifting in from outside.
-Hyooooooo!!
That cry, most likely, belonged to a five-tailed fox yokai. She'd run into one in the game, once. She had died that time. Still, the lesser foxes that announced themselves with noise were the tolerable ones. If a nine-tailed fox were anywhere in the vicinity, she wouldn't even dare light a campfire — those were beings that crept up without a sound or a whisper and swallowed cultivators whole in a single gulp.
And the presence of lesser foxes nearby meant the absence of a nine-tailed fox. They never encroached on one another's territory. An unspoken rule.
Wrapping herself in a thin blanket patched together from rags, Cho Yeong drifted toward sleep. If I streamed with this body, my viewer count would explode. And with that useless thought trailing behind her, she slipped under.
The next morning, Cho Yeong picked up a blunt, round stone. She wrapped her qi around the edge of her hand and shaved the stone away, and before long it had a wicked point. She carried it over to the cave wall, where a row of tally marks had been scratched — a count of how many days she had survived here. She drew one more beside the rest. Sixteen now.
Today, she intended to visit the Gate of Ascension at the far edge of Biseungdo. It was a place that had never existed in the original game. She'd stumbled across it while out searching for the Pain-Quelling Herb, and the instant she laid eyes on that gate, the game announcement she'd seen just before she died came rushing back to her. Perhaps that gate was the only way back to her old world — that was what Cho Yeong had come to believe.
Keeping her body carefully hidden, she crept close to the Gate of Ascension and poked just her head out to survey the scene. Cultivators and wanderers milled about the area, but none of them had noticed her. And then — of all things.
Two cultivators crossed paths, exchanged a few unhurried words, and then the head of the one on the left simply burst.
“……”
The victor had already drawn a talisman that blazed furiously in midair, and a mass teleportation of spirit qi began. The cultivator who had killed a person as casually as swatting a fly strolled away with his hands clasped behind his back. The goblin-like guardian standing watch over the gate witnessed the whole thing and said not a word.
Those insane bastards.
Her reason for coming near the gate today was simple: the Pain-Quelling Herb grew here, and here alone. The problem was that it grew right beside the gate — she had to approach the guardian to get it. Until now she'd been too terrified to try, convinced that stepping close meant death. But watching just now, it seemed dying wasn't on the table. They kill people right in front of it and nothing happens. She only had to steer clear of the murderous lunatics she'd just seen.
How long did she wait? By the time the last of them drifted away from the gate, dusk had already fallen.
Cho Yeong approached slowly.
The guardian, arms crossed as it stood in imposing silence, rolled only its eyes to look at her.
Then it turned its gaze back to the distant mountains. Not a single word was offered.
Cho Yeong inched forward and began carefully digging up the spirit herbs around the guardian's feet. Ground into a fine powder and taken properly, the Pain-Quelling Herb dulled pain beautifully. Of course, there was no guaranteeing she could carry it back to the real world with her. She gathered it anyway, because it was an herb she absolutely needed to survive the fourteen days that remained here. She could get hurt, after all. If she died, then going back meant nothing either.
Watching the guardian's every flicker of expression out of the corner of her eye, she dug up a fistful of the herb and bolted straight back to the cave.
"Hoo. I thought I was going to die."
Despite the chill of the vanished sun, she was soaked head to toe in sweat. She had been far more wound up than she'd realized. Tomorrow morning, she thought, she would go down to the lakeside and finally wash — and with that, Cho Yeong took a step toward the mouth of the cave.
That was when it happened.
Shaaaa—
A strange, alien presence. Or rather — the atmosphere itself had gone wrong. Every hair on her body standing on end was, presumably, a survival signal. A primal scream to run from this place, now. But the crimson glint that burned in the darkness a heartbeat later made it brutally clear that running was already too late.
Wh-what? Why—?
As the clouds peeled away, the darkness before the cave lifted with them. And what emerged was this:
A colossal frame. Sable-black stripes rippling through magnificent yellow fur. Vertically slit golden eyes. Long, vicious fangs. And whiskers trembling with barely contained fury.
A Ch-Changwi... why is a Changwi here...?
There, before her eyes, stood a Changwi in the form of a giant tiger. No, no. That's impossible.
A Changwi was a being stronger than even a nine-tailed fox. But the two of them almost never encroached on each other's territory. If a Changwi was here, it meant every single fox yokai in the region was already dead.
The Changwi licked its lips and smacked its jaws, and its voice — to her disgust — came out split and rasping, like torn silk. Cho Yeong shook where she stood, then lowered herself slowly to the ground. She pressed her forehead down and spoke through chattering teeth.
"I-I pay my respects to the king... the k-king of the mountains."
In the game, the moment you met it, you were eaten. There was no option to bow. But this place was the game and also a reality where she could truly die. And somehow, it felt as though this was what she had to do — as though only this could buy her even a sliver of time.
"H-how could I possibly refuse."
Chwaaaak!
The Changwi's jaws yawned open, wide and savage.
Cho Yeong squeezed her eyes shut. If she just knelt there, she was going to die. What good was any of this if she died before she made it back to the real world?
This is it, she thought, and her mind raced at lightning speed. There has to be... something...
Not that. Not that either. But in the game, for certain—
The Changwi's murderous fangs were within a hair's breadth of her skull when, in a flash, the answer came to her — and Cho Yeong screamed at the top of her lungs.
"If you eat me, you will regret it!!"