A dark night without a moon.
I’m now walking across a wide grassland.
The drunkard who touched me is finally dying, stabbed by spears and swords on the spot while resisting the authorities. He wasn’t the culprit who started the fire, but he was the one rampaging the most there, so.
Above all, the area around the city walls not only burned completely, but part of it collapsed due to deformation from the heat.
They need someone to pin the crime on.
Don’t they?
And his death went differently from my prediction.
I thought he would take the gold and run far away, denying his crime. At least since his body became stronger, I expected he could run away longer than others.
And as more people are caught, the more attention is focused on those caught last.
Among them, if there’s someone with unique hair and skin color?
It’s an easy target.
If they’re an obvious villain. It’s easy to commit the fallacy of hasty generalization.
Especially in an era where the amount of information exchanged is low. Add to that the rumor of having gold, and the spread will be even faster.
Trudge, trudge
Thinking that while walking, the night sky that was already dark turned completely black. Even if stars were visible, I could walk, but the weather is cloudy and there’s not a single point of light in the sky.
Since it’s not such a developed world, the roads are literally just exposed earth on the ground, and there are no streetlights or anything like that.
When I looked earlier, there was just grassland ahead and nowhere to rest. Just as I was considering whether to sit on the ground and rest.
I see a light far away.
Not a light in the sky, but a light on the ground.
Thinking there might be a place to stay if it’s where people live, I headed towards it.
I fell several times because it was too dark, but somehow I arrived at that place.
An old man is holding a small oil lamp.
“Oh my, where are you heading in the middle of a night like this?”
He asks in an extremely hoarse and rough voice. His voice is very unique. Since he asked first, I answered.
“Mount Kunlun.”
“Oh ho, are you on your way to find a Taoist? Looking at your appearance, it seems some misfortune has befallen you.”
At those words, I looked down at my body. My clothes are a mess with dirt and dust from slipping several times while coming this way.
“I have business with the Primordial Heavenly Lord.”
As soon as my words ended, the old man stares at me intently. But I can’t read his expression. He’s making some kind of expression, but my memory gives an incomprehensible sign.
There is light in his body. About the size of Hwangbo Cheon.
In short, it’s that.
“Huhuhu, even the Primordial Heavenly Lord won’t have anything to save you!”
His face distorts, creating a smiling expression. And as his body stretches long, he approaches to devour me.
That’s right. He’s not human.
Considering the fish-people, it’s hard to think that they’re the only unusual creatures. And actually, looking at Supreme Leader Tongcheon’s memories, there are various kinds of monster immortals in this world.
The Great Kraken has a history of indiscriminately accepting them and then challenging Mount Kunlun to a fight. He ultimately lost, though.
In other words, it means it’s a common native creature of this world.
It approached me and bit me. Flesh is cut, bones are torn, but.
So what?
I grasped the light and sucked in the warmth.
“Ah, ah, ah, aah? Aaah? Co-cold.”
Even for a monster, it seems unable to maintain its body shape, as its whole body bubbles up like foam, and parts of the body that shouldn’t come out of their original places, like arms and legs, eyes or ears, protrude.
“What, why is it, so cold. You, aren’t, human? Uh. Huh? Uhh? You, aren’t, a person?”
Come to think of it, I’ve never done anything else to an opponent whose warmth I’ve stolen like this. By chance, there’s nothing around.
And one poor native creature writhing and screaming in the cold with its whole body twisted.
An opportunity for an experiment has arisen.
Before regenerating my body, I grabbed the monster and forcibly shoved myself into the blackened, congealed light. The Great Kraken could control it, so shouldn’t this be possible too?
Crack.
But unlike the Great Kraken, the light just turned to dust and disappeared, leaving nothing behind.
And the monster completely stopped.
Its body keeps bubbling up, repeating regeneration and collapse without stopping, but its consciousness has completely flown away.
It’s useless.
No, it might still be useful.
The light wasn’t created by some tool, but by the monster transforming its own body. Looking at the information obtained from the light, it says it was originally born as a monster that eats people like this.
If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be okay to say it was born to shine light?
Let’s take only the necessary parts.
I grabbed the opponent’s body that had become almost spherical and crushed reality to make it a lantern. Of course, while doing so, I also healed Choseol’s body.
Crunch.
With an ominous sound, the body was compressed and became a portable lantern. At first it looked like an oil lamp, but now it resembles a gas lamp.
I guess my memories got mixed in?
Hmm!
It’s quite bright.
It seems to have a self-luminous function rather than being hot from fire. It would be convenient to carry it like this.
So I hold it and walk again on the path I was going.
Behind me, in the pitch-black darkness, there’s a faintly glowing small crack. Judging by the size of the crack, turning the opponent into a lantern doesn’t seem to be an act of cracking the glass bottle.
It’s the size of a crack that appears when healing a serious injury.
Let’s just say it’s all good.
I walk towards Mount Kunlun holding a lamp that brightens the dark night.
The path is clearly visible.
With this, I can safely walk even on a moonless night without a single starlight.
* * *
As time passed, the dark sky faintly began to light up, and the sun rose beyond the horizon.
As the morning sun rises, I can see the appearance of the lamp I’m holding. It looks similar to a black gas lamp, but instead of fire inside, a strange liquid is rippling, and light comes from there.
And the body of the gas lamp, which I thought was similar to steel, is more like leather than iron in texture.
The feel of holding the handle part is quite soft, so I thought leather might have been added, but it was just the body.
It should be fine to say it’s something like a treasure.
It’s fine if I can use it.
As I kept walking, wide fields appeared on both sides. Perhaps because it’s still spring, most are dry.
And beyond the farmland, a large city began to appear.
I hope they won’t block the way in this city at least.
Thinking that, I headed towards the entrance of the city. Maybe I should create gold and hand it to them? I don’t want to drag it out too much.
Oh?
I entered surprisingly easily. Unlike the previous city where they blocked me, they just let me in without particularly stopping me, to the point where I wonder why they blocked me before.
I don’t need to use the gold pieces I made just in case.
After entering, before crossing the city straight towards Kunlun, I looked for an inn. I can forcibly restore my body condition, but what if the glass bottle breaks before reaching Mount Kunlun?
Choseol’s body is a human body.
Even if what’s inside is me, it needs rest.
Actually, I was planning to rest once in the previous city…
I made them go around without even resting, so it took more time. Since they stole my time, I made them pay the price.
In reality, it wasn’t such a big price, just a small commotion occurred and ended.
Remember failed choices well, and let’s achieve our goals step by step.
Current goal: Rest.
I chose a decent inn referring to the memories of Taoists who had stayed in this area, then entered it.
And at the entrance, I ordered one day’s lodging and two days’ worth of preserved food, threw a gold nugget, and said I don’t need change.
The inn person smiles brightly and supports me.
Desire is visible in their eyes, but unfortunately, it’s not a desire that crosses the line like killing people and taking things.
It feels like they want to get on my good side and eat well, so it’s extremely wholesome.
I followed that person to a room upstairs. The interior is quite clean as seen in the memories. Unlike places that commonly come to mind as hotels or motels in faded man’s memories, it’s a slightly smaller room. Of course, there’s no place to wash inside.
Still, it’s a fairly decent place for the price in this area.
After unpacking, I asked the person I gave the gold nugget to for a place to wash. They guided me to that place as if they had been waiting.
There was only hot water and towels, but that’s enough for me.
So when I came out, the area around my clothes had changed slightly from when I entered the washing place. Since there was nothing worth stealing even if they searched inside, I put on my clothes without worry.
The only thing that could be stolen was the lamp made from the monster, but they left it alone, perhaps thinking it was an item from the inn.
I was about to let it go, but the light was flickering strangely brightly, so I looked closely.
Something like a man’s face that wasn’t there until just now is in the light-emitting part, and it’s slowly melting.
Aha.
That’s interesting. I roughly guessed what happened. But I pretended not to know and returned to my room holding the lamp.
As soon as I entered my room, the man I gave gold to earlier asked with a bright smile if I liked the bathroom, and brought me a meal.
When I praised that it was good, he left with a big smile.
Honestly, I thought this person was most likely to have entered to steal.
Hmm.
I guess not. It seems someone who saw me giving gold earlier snuck in and became fuel.
Let’s just say it’s all good.
I ate proper food for the first time in a while and rested well at the inn.
While resting well, I organize the current situation.
Unlike me walking step by step, Won Hugong of Mount Hua Sect, Cheon Baek of Mount Tai Sect, and Sa Mabaek of Mount Song Sect are heading towards their sects at tremendous speed using something called qinggong. (tl/n: in wuxia also called light steps/light body skill, a technique of running+jumping)
I didn’t think much of them being martial artists, but it seems they’ll arrive at their sects faster than rumors spread.
I had hoped they would fight with Murim Alliance people or Heavenly Religion Taoists on the way to their sects as I expected.
If I had been a little smarter, I wouldn’t have made this mistake…
Then creating an easy-to-understand target in the previous village won’t be very effective.
Anyway.
The distances to Mount Hua, Mount Tai, and Mount Song from here are similar, so there won’t be much difference in arrival times.
The faded memory faintly glows saying why Mount Kunlun is in the middle rather than at the western edge, this isn’t the martial world I know.
It’s glowing after a long time.
Whenever such memories come up, I think this, but the geography is completely different from ancient China in the faded man’s memories. So it’s meaningless to think based on that memory, but why does it glow like this?
While watching from their perspectives the three who will soon arrive at their respective destinations, I rested Choseol’s body thoroughly.
Once I enter Kunlun, there won’t be time to rest anymore.