Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Chapter 25: Karaldin Ding- I woke up to find the sun already sinking low in the west. I wasn’t mistaken. It wasn’t rising in the east, but setting in the west. “Haaam….” Savoring the fading touch of twilight, I yawned softly and sat up. Rubbing my sleepy eyes, I leaned against the bed, blankly pulling at my tangled hair as I thought. What was I doing? After a while of racking my brain, the memories slowly returned. I left the goblin cave in the morning, returned to the inn, and slept like a log. I had played with the goblins for quite a while yesterday, fought right after, and stayed up all night, so it was no wonder I was tired. To top it off, that day was the day I was tormented by Tsarka all night. Ah, I also took a test from Rakas in the middle. No wonder I was exhausted. So, I hugged Emily, who was also sleep-deprived from waiting for me, and fell asleep. Then, I woke up to the sound of the bell ringing outside and sleepily woke Emily up to send her off. Ding- And when I woke up, the bell was ringing again. It was the sound signaling the full arrival of night. I stroked my disheveled hair and muttered softly. “…I just woke up.” This is a complete shut-in’s life. …Well, when I think about it, it’s not so bad. A lazy life free from obligations, how sweet and beautiful it is. Of course, now is not the time to enjoy such a life. I turned my head and looked out the window. The streets were bustling with people as the day drew to a close. They were probably heading home. I don’t know when Emily will be back, but she’ll be here soon. I should at least wash up. I yawned once more and got out of bed. // Emily returned sooner than I expected. After washing up and having dinner on the first floor of the inn, I was chewing on mint when I heard someone approaching the room. Creak. Along with the sound of the creaking hinges, a voice that sounded like it was dying reached my ears. “Huuuh…” Turning my gaze, I saw Emily with her red hair hanging down, staggering towards the bed. “Good work.” “…I don’t wanna work….” I greeted her with a sympathetic heart, and a tired voice returned. Emily laid down on the hard bed and mumbled softly. “I want to be rich….” “Pfft.” At that simple wish, a laugh involuntarily escaped my lips. She was no different from the fantasies I had earlier. “Is guild work harder than housework?” “Ah, it’s not that…” When I asked with a voice mixed with laughter, Emily gave a bitter smile and shook her head. Then it must just be something she says often. She said she had eight siblings, so the amount of housework she had to do must have been enormous. Housework in a world without washing machines is harsh. After lying sprawled on the bed for a while, Emily suddenly muttered as if she had remembered something. “I saw some adventurers today, and they were badly injured.” “It’s just the nature of the job.” It’s almost natural for adventurers to get hurt and die. Even Eira and Mien lost party members. The Mesin Great Forest is a habitat for monsters and a dangerous place that many countries, including the kingdom, have not been able to touch. Adventurers are the ones who treat it like their own backyard, so it was no exaggeration to say that they have a profession close to death. Emily was silent for a moment at my answer, then asked another question. “Lyla, how strong do you think I am?” Did she realize the reality after seeing the adventurers? Her eyes were quite serious. “…Hmm.” That was a rather ambiguous question. Strength is a fairly objective indicator, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t die. In the end, surviving is being strong, that’s what I think. But I should give a proper assessment. “Maybe, if you had a weapon, you could easily beat four or five soldiers, I think.” I had sparred with Emily a few more times on the way to Karaldin. If we fought head-on, she would be stronger than Keir. But she would be similar to Rakas. If the two of them clashed directly, Emily would likely lose due to the difference in experience. Excellent swordsmanship is not always a panacea. “…I’m not very strong.” At my answer, she smiled bitterly again and lay down on the bed. “When I was little, I thought I could just travel the world with a sword.” Emily’s face looked somehow wistful as she said those words. Well, she was a man in her previous life, so she might have longed for such a life. I don’t really like that kind of wandering life. Maybe if I didn’t have the goal of finding my friends, I wouldn’t have stayed in Lakers… I don’t think so, I would have stayed in another brothel or crossed over to the Empire and become a knight. “That would be a bit difficult.” When I nodded realistically, Emily agreed as well. “Yeah, I guess so.” “I might be able to, though.” “Huh?” “No, just kidding.” It’s half true, but I brushed it off playfully. Then Emily chuckled and turned her gaze back to the ceiling. She stared at the ceiling like that for a while, then suddenly opened her mouth again. “…That thing you do, is it a martial art based on absorbing energy?” “Yeah, that’s right. It’s a technique that converts life force into internal energy.” It was a sudden question, but I answered immediately. It was obvious what she was talking about. Even if she seems a little lacking, Emily is also a reincarnator and has a deep knowledge of martial arts. Whether it’s sucking life force, blood, or absorbing essence, martial arts of absorption basically use life force to convert it into internal energy. In terms of martial arts, it’s clearly the path of evil, and it’s obvious that the internal energy absorbed in that way is not pure. But in this world, that impure internal energy exerts great power. Judging from the state of the knights, it’s not that there’s nothing similar to martial arts in this world, but its power doesn’t seem very strong. Even if there is, it’s probably just basic external force using life force. “How long does it take to learn that?” “Hee, learning it is easy, but you have to be prepared to master it. Are you sure you’re okay with that?” As if she noticed what I meant by being prepared, Emily’s face turned red. “Haaah…that’s, a little, too much….” “….” If she really thought it was too much, she would have refused with a straight face. Emily. She says she’s a man, but she’s more lewd than I thought. But since she said she would learn, I was willing to teach her. “First of all, you can’t learn it easily. In terms of here…you need to build a foundation with internal energy for about 2 years to even start.” The Essence Absorption Great Art is not a skill, but literally a great art, so it can be learned easily, but the Yin Demon Art is different. To use absorption skills, you need a martial art that suits it. It was impossible to just absorb it and use it like your own internal energy. The reason why martial artists despised absorption skills was not only because of the method, but also because the pollution of internal energy caused an imbalance in the body and a high risk of the accumulated skill being twisted and going into Qi Deviation. Even in the case of the Yin Demon Art, you couldn’t just absorb essence and use it right away. Internal energy absorbed from others with different properties is like mixing different colors of paint. If you pour blue paint on someone who has only used red, it will take a long time to get the color back. That tendency was even greater the more mixed the absorbed energy was. In terms of danger, the Star Absorption Great Art, which absorbs all kinds of energy without discrimination, had the most impure internal energy, followed by blood absorption, which absorbs impurities along with life force, and then essence absorption, which was the cleanest. I don’t know if that’s the difference in the perfection of the martial art, or if the energy itself is like that. At my explanation, Emily nodded and muttered. “2 years of internal energy, you say?” “I recalculated it based on my standards, so there may be some differences, but it’s probably about that much.” Of course, that’s 2 years based on here. It’s a pathetic amount that would be about three days in that world, but you need at least that much to build a foundation. Even if you fill the rest with internal energy converted from essence, you have to build the foundation yourself. In other words, even if you start learning now, it will take 2 years to take your first steps. “That’s a relief, I’ve saved up that much.” That’s only if she doesn’t have any internal energy. But Emily seemed to have been steadily building up internal energy. I thought she had used it all up learning the Heroic Art, but surprisingly, that wasn’t the case. “…I didn’t think you were so frugal.” “You seem to be looking down on me a lot, am I wrong?” “How could I?” I gave a sly smile and organized my thoughts for a moment. I could tell her verbally, but it would be better for me to directly control her internal energy and move it. The subtle flow of internal energy and the order of the acupoints to operate the skill cannot be understood by explaining it verbally. Besides, it would be troublesome if internal energy was wasted by doing it verbally. Unlike the world in my memory, it was almost impossible to recover the consumed internal energy here. Actually, I’m not very confident in handling other people’s internal energy, but I’ve experimented on Keir while he was sleeping a few times, so it should be okay. It went pretty well then, so it should be okay this time too. After organizing my thoughts, I nodded and opened my mouth. “Okay. I’ll teach you.” “…Thank you.” Knowing what it means to teach martial arts to others, Emily had a very serious expression on her face. // All martial arts start with Qi Circulation and end with Qi Circulation. It is Qi Circulation that processes the accepted energy of nature through the mind technique, and it is also Qi Circulation that changes the body through the accepted internal energy. Like all knowledge, martial arts is not simple at all. If I were to grab a clueless child here and teach them, I probably wouldn’t be able to. Humans have three hundred and sixty-five acupoints. The theory of martial arts begins with understanding each of these acupoints. If you don’t understand the location and properties of these acupoints, you can’t even take the first steps in martial arts. Even the properties of the acupoints change depending on the person’s constitution. The energy that a person accumulates in their body is always changing in nature. The 365 acupoints that exist in the human body contain different properties, and each time they pass through these acupoints, the energy accumulated in the body gradually changes in nature. The nature of internal energy varies depending on which acupoint it passes through, and it changes again depending on which order it follows. The possibility of that change is almost infinite, and martial arts is the work of creating this almost infinite change in internal energy. That’s why the human body is called a microcosm. Because it contains all the changes in that small body, it is given the grand name of the universe. Finding a single path in the infinite crossroads is Qi Circulation, and the destination of that path was martial arts. This is why martial arts is called martial learning. Knowing all those changes is impossible unless you are a god. Therefore, martial artists always valued their martial arts as much as their lives, and pursued better martial learning throughout their lives, even over dozens of generations. They gradually added their own martial learning, which they had cultivated throughout their lives, to the knowledge of their predecessors. If the theory of martial arts starts from the acupoints, the practice of martial arts starts from breathing. Breathing is the process of accepting the pure energy of nature into the body without any Qi Circulation, and you cannot learn martial arts without going through this process. You can’t just start Qi Circulation without any energy accumulated in your body. The beginning and end of martial arts is Qi Circulation, but the foundation for that beginning is breathing. Therefore, the mind technique for accumulating energy through Qi Circulation can be said to be the next step after breathing.

The stages after accumulating a certain amount of Qi in the body through breathing exercises are circulating Qi and practicing internal energy. If you don’t know your own acupoints in this process, it’s impossible to learn martial arts. Because only God knows what awaits at the end if you circulate Qi through the wrong acupoints. Therefore, before performing External Qi Circulation, I recited the path of the Yin Demon Art to Emily. “First, it starts from the Sea of Qi.” I made Emily memorize all the paths of the Yin Demon Art and tested her thoroughly. Even if we could only exert insignificant power, the knowledge in our heads was definitely not insignificant. // When Emily memorized all the paths, I nodded and replied. “Correct.” “Whew….” Then she let out a sigh of relief. The sun had completely set, and the moon was rising in the sky. But there would still be time to do External Qi Circulation. Even if it’s transmitted verbally, the feeling of internal energy directly passing through the acupoints can only be known through direct experience. Although some internal energy would be consumed, Emily was my friend from a past life. I could do this much for her. I made up my mind and spoke to Emily. At the same time, Emily also opened her mouth. “I will definitely repay this favor-” “Then take it off.” “….Huh?” Oops, bad timing. Looking at Emily’s expression, it was half serious, half bewildered. I was telling her to take it off because I had to adjust my internal energy directly. She must have misunderstood…it seems clear. “O-okay. I, I understand.” But before I could say anything, Emily blushed and took off her clothes. Her skin, slightly darker than mine, was still white, and her breasts were pertly raised. “….” “P-please be g-gentle….” Emily. I think the heart of a man would have already been thrown across the River Styx by the time you said that line. And, she doesn’t seem to hesitate at all when taking them off. It was such a quick decision that I didn’t even have a chance to explain the misunderstanding. As expected of Emily…. I cleared my throat once and corrected Emily’s misunderstanding. “That’s not it, I told you to take it off for the External Qi Circulation.” “…Huh?” Then Emily’s expression turned blank. Her appearance felt somehow cute, and I wore a faint smile on my lips as I continued. “But if you really want to, I can’t help it. I’ll deal with you after it’s over.” “…Eh?” ———= Author’s Notes ———= It ends ambiguously. I’ll post another chapter.