“Like he’s being left out. That’s not the vibe in our unit.”
“Heh heh... absurd.”
Maybe my words sounded funny.
Seohwan clutched his mask and snickered.
“Right... so you’re dead set on teaching that guy a martial art somehow.”
“Yeah. If I have to, I’ll drag a tank up here and smash that so-called sealed hall.”
“A tank? I don’t know what that is. But going in from the outside will be impossible. However...”
“However?”
He hesitated a little,
then finally opened his mouth.
“There isn’t no way at all.”
“...!”
It hadn’t even been ten minutes since he’d said there was no way.
And now he was changing his tune.
“You bastard. So you were lying earlier?”
“I wasn’t lying. There is a way, but it’s a way I absolutely cannot carry out.”
“?”
“...I have no method to open that hall. But others might.”
Others?
“They may know how to open it.”
****
Others, huh.
Among the beings I’d met inside this Gate, besides Seohwan—
“You mean that master of yours? The one you said I’d have to risk my life just to look at?”
I hadn’t seen him directly.
But that terrifying purple aura in the shrine at the mountaintop—
he came to mind.
“No. My master would certainly be one of them, but there are plenty who would know how to open the hall without going that far.”
Good—so he didn’t mean the master.
“I’m a lowly member of the Heavenly Mountain Martial Hall, but there are higher-ups.”
“Then what are you waiting for? Take me to them right now...!”
“...”
“?”
Even though I stood up and urged him to move,
he hunched as if conflicted.
Ah.
Come to think of it—
‘This guy... he asked me not to touch anyone else, didn’t he?’
Seohwan was a bottom-rung member of the Heavenly Mountain Martial Hall.
Those higher-ups might indeed know the method.
But being higher-ups, odds were they were stronger than him.
And yet he’d asked me not to lay a hand on them.
Which meant...
“Those higher-ups of yours. There’s some kind of problem with them, isn’t there.”
“...!”
At that,
Seohwan looked at me with anxious eyes.
“...Damn. I let that slip.”
“Since you slipped anyway, how about you say a bit more.”
“...All I meant was that they might know. I never said I’d guide you to them.”
Well then.
That pretty much confirmed there’s a problem.
“Aw, don’t be like that.”
“Did we not agree before coming in here? That you would not lay a hand on them!”
“Who said I’d lay a hand on them? I just want to see their faces.”
“No!”
He reacted unusually sharply to that.
“They cannot move anyway. They won’t be able to help you!”
“I don’t know why they can’t move, but who knows? Maybe if I take a look, I’ll figure something out.”
“Ha ha... and how am I supposed to trust you.”
Hmmm.
By opening up about Gwangil just now,
I’d earned a slightly better image in Seohwan’s eyes.
‘That’s probably why he slipped.’
But at best it was only a “slightly better image.”
He was still the one being strong-armed by me.
I understood why he couldn’t trust me easily.
“If you really want to see them...”
Then,
with a tense face, Seohwan said this:
“Accept a geumje.”
“A geumje?”
He reached out and placed his hand on my shoulder.
[A Geumje is being proposed.]
A message window popped up.
[Geumje]
[Subjects of the Geumje – Shin Youngjun, Seohwan]
[Condition (Shin Youngjun) – You will commit no hostile acts against the disciples within the Heavenly Mountain Martial Hall.]
[Condition (Seohwan) – You will guide Shin Youngjun to the disciples of the Heavenly Mountain Martial Hall.]
[If you fail to fulfill the specific condition offered by the other party,]
[a severe penalty will be imposed.]
[Penalty – 50% of all stats will disappear.]
[Exception – If a disciple of the Heavenly Mountain Martial Hall initiates a hostile act first, you will not receive a penalty for violating the condition against that specific disciple.]
[Caution!]
[If you accept the geumje, no one can release it for at least one year.]
[Do you accept?]
A geumje.
And it would last at least a year.
“If you accept this geumje, I’ll acknowledge you and take you to them.”
The terms were pretty brutal.
If you broke it, fifty percent of all stats would evaporate.
For someone like me who had nothing but stats, that was especially lethal.
“Of course you’ll refuse. There’s no reason to accept a geumje this severe just to meet them.”
“I accept.”
“As for that giant, give up and—what?”
[The Geumje has been established!]
[Once a geumje is formed, it cannot be broken under any circumstances, even by mutual consent!]
“Y-you’re serious!”
When I accepted lightly,
Seohwan flinched in shock.
“I told you—they can’t move. They won’t be able to help you!”
“You only know that if we go see them.”
“I clearly told you it’ll be pointless even if you go!”
“That’s for me to decide.”
According to him,
if Gwangil wanted a martial art that could control his Madness,
in the end we needed the help of those who supposedly couldn’t move.
The penalty was nasty, sure—
“But if I got scared of that crap, I’d have died a long time ago.”
“...!”
If there’s a way to get stronger, you accept some risk.
Living that way is why I’m still breathing.
****
“Unbelievable... It’s not even your own problem, and you accepted a geumje like it was nothing.”
“If it’s my squad’s business, it’s no different from mine. I can throw this one body at it.”
Truth is—
a big part of it was that the geumje’s condition was to not be hostile to them.
From the start, I had no reason to pick a fight with these guys.
‘They’re probably a kind of monster... or something like that.’
At least so far, they hadn’t attacked humans.
Even Ariel, who killed my soldier, I was using out of necessity.
No matter if they were beings from another world—
there’s no reason to be hostile to someone who’d never harmed my squad.
Especially when he’s pretty damn useful.
“Hoo... I don’t know if this is right.”
After we entered the Gate,
Seohwan had permitted me to only walk certain parts of the shrine.
“There.”
Now he was pointing beyond that.
An area he’d forbidden me to approach.
We climbed higher up the mountain.
There stood a broad shrine hall.
We went inside and followed his lead.
‘...!’
A room there—
held more than ten beastkin lying down.
“...Are they sleeping?”
“I don’t know.”
His tone was curt.
Maybe he was sulking because he’d led me to these people.
I asked just in case.
“You must know something, at least roughly, right? For the record, I really don’t intend to be hostile to you. I can’t help unless I know anything.”
“Embarrassing as it is, I’m not lying. I truly don’t know.”
“No way. How does that make sense?”
“There’s a reason.”
He sighed.
Then he raised a hand to ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) the mask on his face—
clack.
And took it off.
Under the mask was—
“The final battle against the demonic horde that ravaged my homeland... took place here at Heavenly Mountain.”
A far more boyish face than his usual vibe.
Ears like those of a mouse.
And—
“In that battle, weak as I was, I didn’t last long before I fell.”
“...”
A massive scar ran straight across the middle of his face.
‘So that’s why the mask.’
The wound was so big—
his nose was nearly cleaved in two, and one eye looked slashed down to the eyeball, sight completely gone.
A wound so severe it was a wonder he was alive.
On a face that still looked young, it looked even more grotesque.
“After taking a blow from a demonic beast, I lost consciousness. When I woke... as you can see.”
“The world had perished.”
“Yes. Everyone but me has been like that ever since.”
They’d been like that ever since?
Laid out as if asleep.
This Gate should have existed since the day of ruin.
“Then how did they eat, or get nourishment...”
“Why do you think I taught that bald man martial arts.”
“Ah.”
Right.
He’d agreed to teach Monk Seungju martial arts in exchange—
for monster corpses.
“That bald man was far from qualified to receive my teachings. But... I had no choice.”
“...”
The Seungju I met was a decent man.
But that was after he’d trained his mind through Seohwan’s martial arts.
Before that, well—to put it simply, a hopeless monk.
Seohwan must’ve been pretty frustrated to have to pick someone like that.
“After I made that deal, I roughly cooked the beasts’ corpses and fed them.”
“Cooked?”
“Mm. One of our Heavenly Mountain traditions. The youngest handles all the cooking...”
“What kind of crappy toxic tradition is that.”
“Thanks to that, I pride myself on knowing basic cooking. Only the basics, though.”
This wasn’t a military unit.
Who knew they’d have a rotten tradition like that.
Ah.
I’m the one who’s a soldier.
“Is it that strange that I cooked?”
“Not really. It’s just—I’m a chef.”
“...A chef? You’re a cook?”
Right, I hadn’t explained my job yet.
“Even in another world, is it normal for a cook to lead around this much power...? No, a cook commanding a Celestial Execution. In our world even third-rate street storytellers wouldn’t touch that as a plot.”
“Ahem.”
Anyway—
it seemed only humans without resistance to mana turned into monsters by eating monsters.
So these guys had survived by feeding on monster carcasses.
“I’ll have to take a look first.”
“...Mm. We have a geumje, so it doesn’t matter.”
As I stepped up to check the condition of the nearest man,
Seohwan watched me with clear distrust.
“Aren’t you a cook?”
“For now.”
“I doubt there’s meaning in a cook examining the sick when he isn’t a healer.”
Good grief.
Now I’m being looked down on as a chef by someone from another world.
A bit ridiculous,
but he didn’t try to stop me.
I moved in and checked the condition of the man in front.
‘He’s enormous.’
He called Gwangil to mind.
No—bigger than even him, a massive hulk of a man.
His body was shaggy with an almost burdensome amount of fur.
Despite the fierce impression, his head had cute, catlike ears.
So unbalanced it was almost comical.
‘A tiger man?’
[Ingredient Appraisal (Enhanced)]
[Primate – Beastkin – Felidae – Hoin]
[Cheonho]
“It’s Senior Cheonho. The eldest senior brother of our Heavenly Mountain Martial Hall... and to me, like a father.”
The look in Seohwan’s eyes as he gazed down at him wasn’t ordinary.
Meant he was truly precious to him.
‘No status ailments?’
I checked with Ingredient Appraisal,
but contrary to my expectation that they’d be under some ailment,
there were no notable status conditions.
But then—
“Huh?”
“What is it? Don’t tell me you actually found something!”
In short, there was no status ailment.
However—
there was something stranger.
[Sealed...]
[Target Hazard Level – 9↑]
[Time Remaining Until Seal Release – 235,928,309...]
“What the hell is this.”
Sealed?
