Chapter 28

Chapter 28

I Installed a Dating App and Girls from Another World Became Obsessed with Me.

Episode 28: Martial Arts (5)

After losing everything due to the First Young Master’s schemes, the humiliations Cheon Yeo-hwa endured were beyond description.

Nevertheless, she considered the anger she felt now to be greater than any of those past experiences.

“What’s the second way, I said!!”

“Snoooore…”

Cheon Yeo-hwa shook Kang Hyeon-u back and forth with a frustrated expression.

But Kang Hyeon-u didn’t wake up, as if he had eaten Mihonsan poison.

Cheon Yeo-hwa glared down at Kang Hyeon-u, seething.

On second thought, it was clear he had brought up the strange topic of how to anger someone just to tease her from the start.

“How dare he play such word games with me…!!”

Outrageous! Too outrageous to bear.

In the end, Cheon Yeo-hwa decided to punish him.

Before being poisoned, Cheon Yeo-hwa, known as the Moon Spirit Witch, who had caused countless casualties regardless of righteous or evil paths, unleashed her Moon Spirit Divine Skill on Kang Hyeon-u.

“Hehe, you’re quite insolent for a lecher.”

Squish, squish, Kang Hyeon-u’s cheeks were repeatedly pinched and stretched like clay.

“Ugh…”

Unbelievable, playing with someone’s sleeping cheeks like a toy.

The earth wept and the heavens turned away from the cruelty of the Moon Spirit Witch.

Just as she was playing with Kang Hyeon-u’s unawakening cheeks, Cheon Yeo-hwa’s complexion suddenly turned pale.

Slap! A sharp pain rose from her reddened cheek, which she had hit quite hard.

‘To be so lax for just one meal and a place to sleep.’

It was an action she would never have tolerated in the past.

Moreover, to even share a tent with a strange man she had only known for half a day.

“Haa…”

How did things turn out like this?

She had changed so much from her past self.

What would her past self and her subordinates say if they saw her being so open with others?

Weakened. Degraded. Changed.

They would denounce her with such words.

Of course, having lost the heir competition, it was undeniable that she could not return to those days.

Then, was there really a need to return to her past self?

‘…A cheap excuse.’

It was a self-justifying excuse.

The instinct lurking within her was telling her.

To kill him immediately and leave this place to build her forces. Even if she had lost all her power, she could start again as long as she survived.

Even if all the animals that drank from a lake died, the lake’s significance did not disappear.

Eventually, new animals would come to the lake to drink.

She was the lake.

A vast lake that would enrich the barren land of the Divine Sect.

The lake only needed to be clear and pure.

Mixing in unnecessary filth was pointless.

‘If I kill him now…’

Would this weak heart, wanting to settle for the present, disappear as well?

Cheon Yeo-hwa stared blankly into the distance, unable to answer her own question, not even remembering when she had fallen asleep.

Chirp chirp

When I lifted my heavy eyelids at the noisy birdsong, I felt puzzled.

It was definitely morning, judging by the brightness outside the tent, but why was I still in this world?

[Remaining matching time: 13:51:34]

“Why… is there 14 hours left?”

Iris was given about 8 hours of leeway for the first match.

So, it was reasonable to assume that I would also be given about 8 hours in this world.

I had arrived in this world around 1 PM, and I had fallen asleep around 7 or 8 PM, so my body should have returned to Earth while I was sleeping.

That was what I had expected when I fell asleep.

But I was still in this world, and there were a full 14 hours left in the matching time.

‘Why?’

Ding

[Tip. Sleep time is not included in matching time for matches with new connections.]

‘Really?’

What was this?

There was no way the app would be this kind.

I was suspicious of the app’s excessive kindness, but it was too sweet of a deal to refuse outright.

Actually, this was something I had been worrying about.

If the time I spent sleeping in another world was included in the matching time, I would have to return to Earth every time I slept, or waste a lot of time.

And if I returned to Earth?

I would have to wait for several days for the matching cooldown.

When my connection level with Iris was 0, the matching time was only about 8 hours.

But it increased to 12 hours at level 1, and with the last meeting, the connection level became 3.

‘If I subtract the sleeping time, I’ve been here for about half a day, so about 20 hours?’

It seemed that the connection level was applied separately for each person, but the increased matching time followed the highest connection level.

‘I don’t know why the app is being so kind, but at least I won’t have to worry about being pressed for time every match… but why is my arm so heavy?’

I had been feeling an unknown weight on my right arm for a while.

When I turned to see what it was.

“Ugh…”

“…?”

Cheon Yeo-hwa was sound asleep, using my arm as a pillow.

‘No wonder my arm was numb…’

I looked around to see what was going on, but I hadn’t moved from where I had fallen asleep yesterday.

Rather, Cheon Yeo-hwa had rolled over to my side.

As proof, there was quite a bit of space behind her back.

“Talking in her sleep.”

Was she really the Second Young Lady of the Heavenly Demon Sect?

I had been noticing since yesterday, but her actions were a bit clumsy.

‘Should I wake her up?’

I hesitated for a moment, but decided to leave her be.

If she woke up like this, she would definitely make a fuss, calling me a lecher or saying I had revealed my true colors, and I was too tired to deal with that mess in the morning.

Even though my arm was numb, circulating mana would naturally circulate my blood. Using that, numbness was nothing.

“Still, she’s damn pretty.”

Clear and transparent skin, slightly sharp and glamorous eyelashes, and while my black hair was coarse like crow feathers, Cheon Yeo-hwa’s hair was like silk.

Iris smelled like fragrant grass, while Cheon Yeo-hwa smelled like an endlessly soft perfume.

Not the artificial perfume that women usually wear, but a contradictory scent that was both pure and stimulating.

As I watched Cheon Yeo-hwa sleep for a moment, her words from last night came to mind.

-I thought you were an assassin sent by the First Young Master to kill me.

Thanks to that one sentence, the strange things I had felt about Cheon Yeo-hwa began to make sense.

The fact that a woman called the Second Young Lady of the Heavenly Demon Sect was bathing in a lake deep in the forest, wearing worn-out clothes that looked like she had been wearing them for months.

And that she was wandering around near Shaanxi, which was incredibly far from the Heavenly Demon Sect’s base in the Ten Thousand Great Mountains.

All of that could be explained by the one sentence Cheon Yeo-hwa had said last night.

‘A power struggle for the heir, maybe?’

Judging by her peculiar personality, it seemed like she was born with a diamond spoon and had been bossing people around all her life.

“…She seems to have lived a hard life.”

I had also suffered a lot as a war orphan, but at least I had never worried about being assassinated.

And I had never wandered around like a homeless person in a distant land that would take at least half a year to reach.

At this point, I felt a little sorry for the strong-willed Cheon Yeo-hwa.

‘But why does she sleep with her hair in her mouth?’

I was trying to take it out because she was having a real-time hair-eating session, but I accidentally touched her lips.

They felt very soft and moist, which was nice.

“…?”

Unfortunately, that was the trigger, and Cheon Yeo-hwa woke up.

“Oh, did you sleep well?”

“…You.”

Cheon Yeo-hwa lightly dismissed my friendly morning greeting, her voice heavy and murderous.

“Do you remember the terms I set for your company?”

“…Walk ahead, answer truthfully when asked, give chocolate?”

“You remember well. Then answer my question honestly.”

Cheon Yeo-hwa, who had risen from my arm, was holding something familiar in her left hand.

“Which do you prefer, being stabbed or being cut?”

After a commotion in the tent, the two walked through the forest towards Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi, as they did yesterday.

“…”

“…”

Maintaining the same heavy silence as yesterday.

Clearly, the two had grown a little closer after their brief conversation last night.

But for over four hours, they hadn’t exchanged a single word.

Kang Hyeon-u was wronged, and Cheon Yeo-hwa was embarrassed.

At first, she thought he was trying to take advantage of her while she was asleep.

Of course, it didn’t take long for her to realize it was a misunderstanding, but by then he was already battered from her swinging sword sheath.

Even if it was a mishap that occurred while she was half-asleep, it was clearly her fault.

But unfortunately, Cheon Yeo-hwa didn’t know how to apologize to others.

Having only learned about it in theory and never actually apologized to anyone, Cheon Yeo-hwa didn’t know how to start or finish an apology.

In the Heavenly Demon Sect’s law of the strong prevailing, an apology was a weakling’s abject plea to the strong.

For Cheon Yeo-hwa, who would one day become the successor to the great leader, an apology was nothing more than a lowly act she should never commit.

That was how she had been taught, internalized, and lived.

In the first place, Cheon Yeo-hwa wasn’t so incompetent that she had to apologize to others.

Her judgment was always correct, and subordinates who couldn’t follow her orders had to kneel before her, begging for their lives under the guise of an apology.

However, after being tricked by the First Young Master’s scheme, she couldn’t be sure what was the right judgment anymore.

She wasn’t even sure if apologizing to him now was the right thing to do.

‘I grabbed his arm while he was asleep, and I hit him with the sword sheath because of my own misunderstanding, but…’

Should she apologize?

Then how should she do it?

Should she kneel like her subordinates?

No matter how much she thought about it, that didn’t seem right.

Then should she just say sorry?

‘…Is that really enough of an apology?’

Trying to smooth things over with just words might seem even more offensive.

Then should she give him a gift that would appeal to him?

But all she had was a sword and a worn-out robe…

Slap!

‘I, I must be going crazy. To even think about offering my body!’

Cheon Yeo-hwa chastised herself for even having such thoughts for a moment.

Even if she became the leader, she had no intention of marrying a man.

And she certainly had no intention of offering her body.

Yet she was having such indecent thoughts about a man she had only met a day ago!

Wasn’t that no different from being a courtesan?

“Jeez, what was that? Why did you suddenly slap your cheek?”

“…A bug appeared.”

“A bug?”

A martial artist woman that slapped her own cheek so hard just because a bug appeared?

Kang Hyeon-u couldn’t understand, but he didn’t want to pry since she said so.

Cheon Yeo-hwa chewed on her lip, watching Kang Hyeon-u walk ahead again with an indifferent expression.

If she didn’t say it now, she felt like she would never be able to say it.

“…Are you alright?”

A word as heavy as a thousand pounds barely escaped her throat.

“What?”

“I was wondering if you were hurt when I swung the sword sheath…”

As proof, Kang Hyeon-u’s face was swollen in places.

Even though Cheon Yeo-hwa was a young lady of the Heavenly Demon Sect, where the law of the strong prevailed and crazy people gathered, she realized she had gone too far this time.

He had saved her and provided her with delicious food and a warm place to sleep.

“I, I… I think I should apologize to you…”

Cheon Yeo-hwa ended up bowing her head without finishing her sentence.

Kang Hyeon-u chuckled at her reaction.

“What, were you silent all this time because of that?”

Cheon Yeo-hwa nodded her head, still bowed.

She didn’t want to show her flushed face.

He would probably tease her again.

“You’re being surprisingly considerate in a weird way. I didn’t think you cared about such things.”

Kang Hyeon-u seemed to understand Cheon Yeo-hwa a little better.

“I’ve already forgotten about it, so don’t worry.”

“…Really?”

“Yeah.”

Surprised by her unexpected reaction, Kang Hyeon-u spread out a mat nearby.

“Let’s have lunch.”

Cheon Yeo-hwa, who ate the cream pasta that came out for lunch, widened her eyes and made a fuss.

Apparently, women in other worlds like pasta too.

A gorge near Xi’an.

Although the major evil sects had all been driven out of Shaanxi due to the presence of the Mt. Hua Sect and the Zhongan Sect, there was a third force that had secretly established itself there.

“Lord.”

“What is it?”

“I found it.”

In the past, after failing to conquer the Central Plains twice, the Heavenly Demon Sect changed its strategy and decided to establish secret branches in the areas where the righteous sects and families were located.

The risk of being discovered increased, but all of this was to prevent them from uniting under the name of the Martial Alliance before the Heavenly Demon Sect’s great conquest in the future.

Even if the righteous sects discovered the location of the branch, it didn’t matter. There were no traces of the Heavenly Demon Sect here anyway.

All members except the lord had not learned demonic arts. They had learned martial arts from evil sects or imitated some martial arts from righteous sects.

This third house of the Heavenly Demon Sect’s Shaanxi branch was where the First Young Master’s subordinates were stationed.

They were tasked with searching for and assassinating the Second Young Lady, who had fled to the Central Plains, in cooperation with the First Young Master’s forces in other branches.

“It’s the white wolf.”

At the report from the member, who was covered in black clothes from head to toe, the lord smiled.

A grotesque smile covered in scars.