Ten Thousand Hours Wagered Away, and the One Person I Can't Throw Away

"Haa... haa... haa..."

After one hell of a run, we had finally managed to hole up inside some building or other, and there we were, still gulping down air. Neither of us could manage voice transmission just then, so Dang Giyeon sidled up and whispered to me in a low murmur.

"What in the world were those things back there? They were definitely not people..."

"Haa... that's the famous Terracotta Army, isn't it. Dolls fired whole out of clay, every last one of them."

"Then wouldn't they break easily? Rather than scurrying off like this, why not simply smash them all and march through?"

"I'd love to, but..."

The truth was, Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum was a fairly simple structure. Like any self-respecting fortress it had an outer wall and an inner wall, with an underground palace at the heart of it all. The bulk of the treasures lay buried from the inner wall inward, and the genuine prizes were enshrined in that underground palace.

The problem was that the terracotta warriors stood guard from the outer wall onward. The deeper toward the center, the more dangerous the clay dolls encircling everything became — and the level of their strength was...

"Even at their weakest they're beyond Second-Rate. When hundreds of them come swarming, just what lifetime were you planning to finish smashing them all in?"

"Oh, come off it. How are those Second-Rate? They're lumps of dirt. Aren't you exaggerating just a little?"

"If you're that curious, go break one and see for yourself. Those things even repair themselves, you know?"

"Your jokes really... are not funny."

"..."

"That is a joke, right...? An endless tide of warriors above Second-Rate — that can't seriously be a thing..."

"..."

When I offered no reply and simply sat leaning against the wall, wearing my finest this-gives-me-a-headache face, Dang Giyeon at last let out a deflated breath, scrubbed at his dry face with both hands, and muttered.

"Ha... is any of this even possible..."

A short silence wound itself around the two of us... and only after I had turned something over thoroughly in my mind did I slowly open my mouth.

"First of all, we need to get in while dodging those things as much as possible... and that's going to be difficult with me hauling luggage around."

"Pardon? You're abandoning me again? Aigoo... how can the Young Master cast me aside so casually..."

"Finish listening to a sentence for once!"

I shouted at him — in a tiny voice, comically at odds with his theatrical fake weeping — and pressed on.

"For one thing, the outer wall doesn't have any safe— ahem, any designated safe zones, you see? So if you stay here, you are absolutely getting caught."

"And you would leave me in a place like that..."

"Please, please stop interrupting..."

"Yes....."

"Anyway, it would make no sense for there to be no door into the inner wall, so you're going to find that door and go in."

"Pardon?"

At his dumbfounded face — the face of a man demanding a more detailed explanation — I continued, unhurried.

"There are a few safe zones inside the inner wall, little huts and the like. Go hide yourself in one of them, and I'll come find you."

"You want me to punch through those things and reach the inner wall first? The invalid here?"

"Ha... I'll draw every scrap of their aggro— ahem, their attention, run them in circles, shake them off, and come along after. You just run carefully."

"Uh... huh?"

In truth, my plan was simple. However far the difficulty had been inflated, the terracotta warriors of the outer wall would top out ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at First-Rate — and at that level, even with every last drop of their aggro piled onto me, I could shake them loose at least once...

"Anyway, when you reach a safe zone, spill a single drop of blood right in front of it."

"Blood? Why...?"

"Hmm......"

The idea was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this: while I dragged the whole Terracotta Army off on a merry chase, one drop of Dang Giyeon's blood left at the safe zone would be all I needed to track it down.

"The real problem is the clay dolls inside the inner wall... Do not, under any circumstances, think about fighting them. Just slip in quietly... quietly, I am begging you."

"Understood....."

Dang Giyeon answered with a face as resolute as a soldier marching to his death, and I gave his shoulder a couple of pats before stepping back out of the building.

Outside, a cluster of terracotta warriors stood bunched together a short distance away...

"Hoo-ya!"

I twirled my index finger through the air and headed their way. Crrang— With a sound like a shelf of dishes collapsing, several terracotta heads went flying. And the clay figures — apparently taking their comrades' beating rather personally — charged at me in one mass, weapons raised.

Once I had confirmed the aggro had settled squarely on me...

"Hoo-ya! Hoo-ya! Hoo-oo-ya!"

I kept snapping off Finger-Flick Art the whole way as I tore through the outer wall.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, my own little chase scene was still filming...

"Hmm... there doesn't appear to be an entrance anywhere."

"And what are we to do now?"

"If there is no door, then we simply make one, no? Step aside for a moment."

Namgung Han, having scoured the far side for ages for an entrance that refused to exist, drew her sword and waved Dang Jihyeon back.

Dang Jihyeon pressed a hand to her forehead at the sight — a sight so reckless, so hopeless, so uncannily reminiscent of one particular someone...

"Ha... they do say birds of a feather flock together..."

Having gotten that one lament out of her system, she walked around behind the woman and braced for the crossbow bolts sure to come flying.

Hoooooo......

From behind her, Dang Jihyeon heard a long, slow breath drawn in — and in the next instant, beneath a pressure like Mount Tai dropping onto ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her skull, she spun around.

"What the—?"

Gangi of such ferocious, eye-watering blue coiled around her sword and packed itself tighter and tighter — and the moment her arm swept through the air, KWA-AAAAAANG— the wall in front of her came down.

Earlier, when she had thrown a dagger at this very wall as a test, it had done little more than chip the surface without leaving even a proper crack. Watching that same wall collapse in the space of a heartbeat, Dang Jihyeon stood slack-jawed in open admiration.

"Wow... so this is the Namgung Clan's Young Clan Head..."

She turned around and abruptly thrust a thumb ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠up into the air.

"The rear, then, I leave to you!"

Skreek-kreeeek—

Namgung Han fainted, smile still on her face — and from somewhere behind them, precisely where crossbow units had to be waiting, an ominous sound rang out.

"Ha... this is the Namgung Clan's Young Clan Head...?"

Dang Jihyeon scooped up the woman — one shot fired, one instant collapse — and hurried through the breach into the outer wall.

KU-OOOOOOM—

At the thunder rolling in from far away, I — still deep in my endless sprint — muttered through a face scrunched into a full-bodied scowl.

"Couldn't that bastard Dang Giyeon hold out five minutes? What did he go and poke this time? Honestly, at this point even a perfectly innocent man would deserve a thrashing."

Grumbling all the while, I wheeled around to face the terracotta warriors again...

"Well... no one's watching, after all."

Then, toward the clay dolls still hurling themselves at me all the same, I extended my hand, closed it into a fist, and gave the technique its name.

KWA-KWANG... KWANG— KWA-KWANG— When had they massed in such numbers? Terracotta warriors — easily a hundred of them, likely more — were caught beneath the rain of blood and began shattering, every last one.

And when the downpour of blood finally stilled... clatter... clatter...

Smashed beyond any recognition of their original shapes, the warriors lay strewn like a cargo of crockery someone had flung off a cart — and yet, stubborn things, they clattered where they lay, trying to pull themselves back together.

Watching that, I muttered, "Oh, come on. That's just cheating."

Muttering it, I had the blooddrops scattered across the ground gather up every broken shard into one mass — and flung the whole thing back out over the outer wall.

"Go ahead, spend a hundred days hunting for a door... there's no way back in."

Recalling how I had swum the mercury to cross over earlier, I snickered and set about searching for the door leading to the inner wall.

Doing my best to ignore the trembling in my hands, I fished out a strip of jerky and gnawed it rubbery as I searched, until—

"Ooh... up close, it really is a magnificent thing."

Before me stood a colossal door, its surface carved in lavish, extravagant relief.

"Then again, it's from the inner wall onward that things get truly dangerous..."

The dirt lumps from before had been mere rabble. But the inner wall, where general-grade units would soon begin to appear, would turn any careless brawl into a situation with genuinely no way out — so, heaving sigh after sigh, I pushed the door open.

"Hnngh-cha!"

Eyes nailed to the ground, both palms shoving the door forward — and the instant it swung wide, a human silhouette stood directly in front of it.

"Huh? What... didn't I tell you to go wait in the safe zoi— huh?"

A terracotta warrior in magnificent armor brought a sword stroke flashing down at me.

"Oh, shit—!"

Sword qi came screaming at my head with no warning whatsoever; I flinched backward in alarm, and a few strands of my hair sheared away and drifted off into the air.

"It throws sword qi too? No, seriously, fuck... the inner wall's minimum is Peak Realm?"

I truly have no idea how they managed it, but at the sight of a thing made of dirt spraying sword qi in every direction, I laughed — hollow and helpless at the sheer absurdity of it.

"Hehe... fuck. How does shit like this even exist..."

One small mercy: the imperial crowd, having hogged every good thing from wherever, put out impressive power — but look at their actual martial arts, and more often than not they turned out hollow, all show and no substance, like a punching bag that thunders and holds nothing inside.

WHUNG— WHUNG— WHUNG—

The one whirling its sword around in front of me was no exception to the imperial house's defining trait: nothing more than a low-ranking grunt who happened to be holding the sharpest sword in the world.

"Thought so. I panicked when it started spitting out sword qi... for nothing."

I danced a brief round with the moronic pseudo-golem, then sent its head flying.

KWANG—

"Where do you get off swinging that at me, you insolent—"

Fwoong—

"Gah! You godforsaken thing!"

Naturally, I had overlooked the small detail that a doll's body keeps moving even after its head is gone — and so it did manage to lay a gash open on my arm.

Once I had finally hurled the terracotta warrior that had landed a hit on me back out toward the outer wall, shut the door again, and taken stock of my surroundings...

"Sniff... sniff sniff. Tsk... he's gotten himself a long way off, hasn't he."

Following the scent of blood wafting in from somewhere far off, I crept along like a common cutpurse, warily eyeing everything around me.

How long did I walk...? The moment I found the hut reeking of blood and stepped inside—

THWACK—

A fist blossomed against my jaw out of nowhere, and I sat down hard, the world swimming.

"Hwah...? Young Master? What brings you—"

Even though I was the one who had just eaten a completely unprovoked punch, there was Dang Giyeon, wearing a face more bewildered than mine as he asked me that — so I seized him by the collar and shook.

"You little bastard! Just die... just drop dead right now!"

"Hkk-hkk... Young Master, if you would only let go..."

"I played tag with hundreds of them to save your one miserable hide... went a round with a doll that fires sword qi... and you repay me by clocking my jaw? Just die right here!"

"It... it was a mistake! I thought one of those dolls had chased me inside, so..."

I kept my grip on his collar and shook him for a good long while, and only when my anger had finally burned itself out did I let him go.

Only then did he break into fit after fit of coughing, and then...

"Young Master, by the way, there was some things in here?"

...and he began fishing out, item by item, the things he had found inside the hut.

"What... did you find a legendary blade or something?"

"Nope? No legendary blades, but there was plenty of this."

The moment I saw what he produced with such an unreasonably proud face, my expression hardened all over again.

"A pickaxe...?"

"Yes! If you take this and just whack one of those terracotta warriors..."

There he was, spouting nonsense while pressing a pickaxe into my hand. The thought did flicker through my mind — should I just cave his skull in with it? — but the words that came out of him next left my mouth hanging wide open.

"Whack them, and they don't get back up?"

"There was a method like that?"

As I stood gaping, dumbstruck by this brand-new gimmick surfacing in a place I had combed a good hundred times across ten thousand hours of play—

"Pretty impressive, no? The Tang Clan's finest talent is standing right before you!"

Watching him plant his hands on his hips, puff out his chest, and bellow with laughter, I found I had no choice but to quietly reevaluate Dang Giyeon — deep down, where he couldn't see.