Chapter 18: 18. How Hard He Thrust His Hips

[Walking on Empty Air]. A movement technique in which one’s martial power commands the heavens, freeing one from the constraints of whatever lies beneath one’s feet.

Here, a merchant was suspended in midair without so much as a foothold.

Judging by her expression—her face twisted in agony and her labored breathing—she seemed to be in tremendous pain.

Was that because powerful martial arts came with equally grave risks? Of course not.

The merchant’s art of levitation was not particularly profound.

The cause of Sima Yeon’s choking in midair lay elsewhere.

The external cause, having effortlessly lifted a robust adult woman with [Void Grasp], looked at Sima Yeon with indifferent eyes.

"There are two people who failed to keep their promise to me."

"Cough! S-save... me..."

"One stands before my eyes, while the other died after branding an unforgettable mark upon me."

Cheon Hwayeong smiled bitterly and poured liquor into the cup Ryu-o had left behind.

Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle.

The small cup soon filled to the brim, expensive liquor worth a gold coin per bottle spilling over and running down its sides.

Watching the cup that was full yet somehow not full, Cheon Hwayeong smiled as if amused.

"Will you tell me?"

When Cheon Hwayeong withdrew her power, Sima Yeon fell to her knees and greedily sucked in the sweet air.

The mind that had so nimbly sought a way out before would not work properly this time.

"Ghk!Cough! Cough! Haa... haa... W-what... cough! What am I... supposed to say...?"

"Is this cup full?"

Even through eyes blurred with tears, Sima Yeon could see that the cup was not merely full but overflowing.

She could only know that Cheon Hwayeong did not want the obvious answer.

From this point on, the instant she gave a wrong answer or even took a wrong breath, Sima Yeon would die while performing [Walking on Empty Air].

The answer to the first question was...

"It is empty..."

Cheon Hwayeong looked down at the crown of Sima Yeon’s head as she lay prostrate.

Her scalp tingling under Cheon Hwayeong’s gaze, Sima Yeon squeezed her eyes shut and prayed with all her might that she had answered correctly.

"That’s right."

Having prayed her way into the right answer, Sima Yeon was presented with a second question.

"Then what should one do when a cup is empty at a pleasure house?"

"...Naturally, it should be refilled."

In contrast to Cheon Hwayeong’s indifferent eyes, the corner of her mouth crooked upward.

"You know well. Then you know the next answer too... Seat that man beside me. This time, I shall keep him clutched in my hand so he cannot go anywhere."

"Th-that is..."

Cheon Hwayeong tipped the bottle over the brimming cup.

Contrary to the laws of the world, the liquor that should have flowed downward turned to vapor and heated the room.

Bubble, bubble.

As though Cheon Hwayeong’s insides were boiling just as fiercely, the scent of liquor and the hot air constricted Sima Yeon’s throat.

Then the door opened, and fresh air flowed into the sweltering room.

Creeeak! Bang!

"If that man is the boy named Jang Ryu-o..."

Arin, who had opened the door, sat facing Cheon Hwayeong, who was radiating a savage aura.

"You die today."

Clear energy and viscous energy collided within the room.

Rumble, rumble, rumble.

An utterly chilling sound, impossible to believe it came merely from two opposing energies colliding.

One of them alone was enough to leave her life hanging by a thread, but there were two...

Sima Yeon could only gasp desperately for breath.

"Eeeek!"

Cheon Hwayeong snickered and greeted her warmly.

"This old hag is having the time of her life. Your face has positively blossomed in no time. Do you like that young man so much?"

Rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble!!

Arin likewise warmly greeted someone she had not seen in a long time.

"If you do not close that mouth, I will send you to join the Right Protector."

Rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble!!!

An unknown, filthy emotion welled up within Cheon Hwayeong at the sight of Arin holding her head so high.

"That man tasted quite good... Calling me big sister, he thrust his hips so hard... Heh heh heh... Perhaps because he is young, he was so vigorous..."

In that instant, one wall of Chwihyangru exploded outward.

BOOM!!!!

"I’ll kill you."

"I’ll take him in."

This was from not long after Ryu-o had arrived at the labyrinth.

**

Ding!

[Transmigrant Title Activated! Agility +3]

An absurdly triggered anomaly. I had no idea why, but the goblins were now plainly visible to me.

"Kerruk? KERRUK!!!"

Apparently thrilled that they had taken down their prey in one blow, the goblins raised their clubs high and began dancing strangely.

Rolling my eyes to look around, I saw four goblins closing in on me from both the front and back.

I had no idea how they could see from underground, but I gripped my sword tightly and prepared to charge.

Praying that my head would come out of the ground...

When one goblin grabbed the hem of my pants and tried to yank them down, I crushed its face beneath my foot.

Crunch!

"Kerruk!!"

The goblins were visibly flustered as the headless corpse kicked about.

I stretched out my arm, stabbed the goblin before me through the neck and killed it, then braced my other hand against the ground and pulled my head free.

Stab!

"Kehk!?!"

Pop.

"Phew!"

It was not as though I had been unable to breathe, but it felt as if my airway had finally opened up.

With a goblin still skewered on my sword, I slashed diagonally through the remaining goblins.

Crunch!

The goblin pierced by my sword died with its neck hanging loose, while the goblin in front of me died with everything from its shoulder to its heart shredded apart.

The last one behind me...

"KEEEEK!"

I calmly watched the one charging at me with its club raised.

The goblin’s clumsy movements were crystal clear. It slowly swung the arm it had raised high in a diagonal arc.

As I swung the flat of my blade, my sword collided with its club.

Feeling my wrist shift out of alignment, I exerted force as though setting it back into place.

My wrist trembled, and a sharp vibration ran up through my elbow and shoulder before racing down my spine.

My arm swung at tremendous speed...

Shrrriiiick!

Ding!

[Transmigrant Title Activated! Vitality +3]

A bright sound rang in my head.

Splat!

The charging goblin could not even utter a dying scream. It became chunks of flesh and collapsed on the spot.

"Whew..."

Could this even be called swordsmanship...? I decided I would simply call this method the Bug Sword.

After shaking the blood from my blade and picking up the torch, I checked my surroundings.

It seemed no more enemies were coming.

For some reason, I could see less of the labyrinth while standing than I could from beneath the ground.

What the hell was that?

For now, I decided to change locations and investigate.

I cut off the goblins’ ears and put them into my subspace inventory.

The one that had become minced meat was unfortunately a lost cause, but... damn.

Avoiding the goblins that might come investigating the commotion, I walked toward the blue dot.

And since I wanted to do what I was about to do somewhere at least relatively clean...

**

After walking for about ten minutes, I found a somewhat wider space.

After checking the surroundings again, I knelt down.

What I was about to do might look a little stupid.

I drew in a breath, squeezed my eyes shut, and slammed my face into the dark, uneven floor.

"Hup!"

Thunk!

...Absurdly enough, it worked. My neck passed straight through the floor.

Unfortunately, the title did not activate.

My foolish fantasy of smashing my face into the ground tens of thousands of times to inflate my stats was dashed.

It seemed that once it activated, it would not give me anything after that.

Still! I could turn my neck normally, and rolling my eyes did not make them scrape against the dirt.

I really needed to start accepting this as normal...

I tried to look around, but since I had gone in face-first, my field of view did not move freely.

After pulling my neck back out...

Swoop!

"Ah... I really hate this."

Still, no one was around to see me, so I gritted my teeth, placed both hands over my chest, and...

"Hup!"

Taking the position for a suplex with no opponent, I drove my neck down into the ground.

Thunk!

Fortunately, doing it the other way around did not activate it, so my head did not crack open.

The view before me was astonishing.

The tiger-stripe-like things must be the labyrinth walls... To look in the direction of the blue dot I had memorized, I moved my feet like a crab.

It was humiliating as hell, but if I could use a map hack, was this not more than worth it?

Right here, then right, then le—

Perhaps because of the angle, I could not see perfectly clearly...

But beneath the floor was so pitch-black that I was afraid to peer too closely into it.

What would happen if my entire body fell through the floor...? I was far too scared to experiment with that right now.

I pulled my neck out again.

Swoop!

This time, I approached a wall and checked my surroundings once more.

After confirming there were no monsters, I violently slammed my face into the wall.

Thunk!

It worked! It worked, but... all I saw was darkness. There was nothing special.

Apparently, the view through walls differed from the view through the floor.

It was too early to be disappointed. I pulled my head out, wrapped one arm around my shoulder, and charged into the wall.

Thud!

Fortunately, nothing broke, and my arm did pass through the wall... but only my arm went in, and I could not move any farther forward.

Is my strength too low? There’s resistance...

I considered looking for a thinner wall and trying again, but if I got stuck halfway through and could not move, that would be a starvation ending.

I took out a shovel and lightly dug at the ground, but all that came up was ordinary dirt and stone.

The floor was ridiculously hard too, and the shovel bent slightly.

What the hell am I? Why do I have an ability like this...?

"Hmm... No pointless thoughts. For now, I should be satisfied with this much."

At any rate, I had gained free stats and a map hack.

Let’s see, the route is... right, right, le—

A sudden sense of déjà vu. A flash of realization in my mind!

"...!!!"

That was right. I had to memorize it in reverse.

"Ah... so left, left, right? Left..."

Resting a hand on my chin, I muttered to myself as I headed toward the next floor.

**

I did not know whether the first group of goblins I encountered had simply been unlucky, or whether I had been lucky to discover a bug.

The goblins I ran into from time to time appeared one at a time, or occasionally in pairs.

I was still only on the third floor, and about four hours had passed so far.

I remembered the guildmaster’s voice, low with concern when I entered.

[In the worst-case scenario... please at least bring back the body.]

Four hours to the third floor... I might be able to bring out a living person rather than a corpse.

Today was the middle of the month, a day when no variables should possibly arise.

Then why did I feel so uneasy?

Maybe my thoughts kept wandering because I was walking through the relatively quiet third floor of the cave levels.

After shaking my head and focusing only on my goal, I found myself at the entrance to the fourth floor.

The moment I was about to approach the portal...

"E-excuse me! D-did you come alone?"

A brown-haired woman sprang out from behind a nearby rock.

"Hey! I-if you came alone, then with me..."

I held my sword out in front of me and spoke.

"Do not come closer."

The woman flinched and took a step back.

Furrowing her brow with an expression of utter injustice, she shouted.

"I-I’m not a criminal! I just... I got separated from my companions... and somehow ended up like this..."

"Then wait for your companions. I have somewhere to go, so move aside."

Her face turning pale, the woman fell to her knees and began to beg.

"Please, I’m begging you! I-I’ll beg like this! No matter how long I wait, my companions do not come! M-my food is almost gone too! Yes! Just this portal!! If you would only cross this portal with me and help me find my companions, I will definitely reward you—"

"Sigh... All right. Come here."

The woman’s face brightened, and she trotted eagerly toward me.

"Thank you! Thank you so much!"

I handed her the torch.

"Here. Hold this in your other hand, then put your hand into the portal."

"Yes! Of course!"

I held my sword in my right hand and took the woman’s right hand with my left.

Wiggling her fingers, the woman put her hand into the portal with a bright expression.

Along with the sensation of teleporting, the woman yanked my hand hard and raised the torch over her head.

In that split second, my master’s teachings came to mind.

Following what my body remembered, I jumped by flexing only my ankle, rode the force pulling me, and wrapped my legs around the woman’s waist.

"!!!"

Recalling the time I had slammed my head into the ground, I drove my forehead into the woman’s nose.

Crunch!

Fortunately, our faces did not fuse together.

"Urgh..."

Thud!

As the woman fell backward, I shoved my hand into her mouth and pinned her beneath me.

"Mmph! Urgh! Ngh..."

"Shh. Stay quiet and I’ll let you live. If you understand, blink twice."

The woman with the crushed nose blinked both eyes.

After taking my hand out, I spoke to her.

"Second Young Lady of the House of Duke Velatus."

The woman’s eyes fluttered as she clenched her teeth around her broken front tooth.

"Fuck... Are you a high-ranking adventurer sent to rescue me?"

The instant I heard her flat, nasally voice, irritation surged through me.

"Answer me and I’ll let you live. Did you kill every person you encountered on the third floor?"

It was possible not to see anyone in the labyrinth, but even when I had looked toward the blue dot, there had not been a single person there.

The woman, her eyes crazed, giggled.

"Hehehe! No? Are you the Scarless Fox?"

"...Are there others like you on the fourth floor too?"

"..."

...I steadied my breathing and drove my sword into the woman’s throat.

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