Chapter 5: 4. Orthodox Martial Arts and External Arts

Naturally, Iam’s hand never reached Yohan’s stomach.

They say that to learn something and practice it from time to time is a joy.

Not much time had passed since he entered the path of demonic arts, but there was a difference between never having experienced real combat and having experienced it even once.

With just one circulation of qi—cultivation, for short—he had taken a step forward in the history of demonic arts, and that progress had revealed itself clearly.

It was not that the force drawing in qi outside his body had grown stronger. Rather, the very speed at which he could deploy that force had increased, displaying a leap in proficiency beyond common sense.

And Iam felt that increased speed firsthand.

‘—What a troublesome arm.’

Of course, a mere human could never match a Sarkaz’s physical body. But if it became possible, the factor at work would once again be that pulling force.

The speed at which that force unfolded—the rate at which it spread—had increased by fifty percent compared to before, enough for even Iam to misjudge it.

She had assumed that she could easily outpace him with no more than a movement that did not properly put strength into her body. The thought that this might be too much had never even crossed her mind.

But it was too much.

Just brushing against the scream-like vibrations flowing from Yohan’s arm made the minute Originium particles lodged within her body seem to tremble of their own accord.

Clearly.

‘...A vibration that resonates with Originium outside the body... No, it is a movement that treats that as a secondary effect.’

If Iam had not seen the precedent called Kedel,

she would have failed to even think of a way to respond, and that would have been the end of it.

‘If I face it head-on, I will be exposed.’

But Iam’s adaptability to Originium Arts was exceptional. Once she had seen something, she could predict what would happen afterward.

Just as Lee Yohan stitched together Originium malfunctions and called them demonic arts until he grew accustomed to them, she too could devise a means of responding.

‘So I build a wall that prevents us from facing each other head-on.’

Thus, in that instant, she manifested the innate Arts rooted in her bloodline.

[Innate Arts • Pureblood]

[Defiled Earth Bloodline]

[Acquired Arts • Sorcery]

[Fertile Soil Root System]

The moment they unfolded, the mud clutched in her hand became a barrier.

A shield spread out to block and endure Yohan’s vibrations, which made Originium, its particles, and its power flow as they pleased. In response to the man who had answered Iam’s nonaggressive action with an outrageous killing move, Iam decided to subdue him.

In the world of Arts, where human will arranged the power within Originium, the exchange of moves took but an instant.

[Star-Sucking Grand Art]

[Absorbing Child Formula]

Yohan’s arm came down from above, pressing toward her. The hand containing the screams of Originium known as demonic qi met the barrier in an instant.

A collision, followed by a shrieking crack.

At that moment, Iam saw it.

Kiiing!!

A pureblood Goliath who had never revealed her true capabilities in Kazdel saw it.

Lee Yohan’s eyes, dyed red despite him not being a Vampire. The incomprehensible ferocity contained within them. The lingering echo of some emotion that could never be considered the emotion of a single person.

‘As I thought, there is something...’

Wrong.

But before Iam could finish that thought, their mutual interference was already complete: Iam tried to seize Yohan’s hand while maintaining her barrier, while Lee Yohan tried to shove aside Iam’s arm and slam it into the table.

The Originium Arts of a Goliath who controlled earth and ore. The innate Arts manifested only in those of pure blood, and an error that could not even be called the result of Arts—the Originium crystals inside Lee Yohan’s body had produced it. The two faced one another.

The vibrations of Originium, which shaped human thought and will into power, struck each other as though splitting one another apart.

Originium dust, resisting the garbage-like information being crammed into it, roiled within Lee Yohan’s grasp, while Iam’s flawless pureblood barrier blocked it.

Power flowed beyond the cracking sound. As Lee Yohan’s arm pressed down on Iam’s barrier, it bent to its limit, while the arm wrapped in the barrier moved forward even as it was seized, trying to press down on Yohan’s arm in return.

The sounds of tearing and breaking, then the deadlock that followed their collision.

It lasted only a very brief moment, but it was not faster than sound. The crack was clearly audible.

And as that cracking sound reached its peak, what determined the outcome of their exchange was—

Kigigigik!

Iam’s trembling eyes, unable to hide their shock at the change revealed as the barrier was pierced.

Within Lee Yohan’s field of vision was a woman with horns, stone, and long ears. Unconcealable agitation filled the eyes of that exceptionally beautiful woman.

At that instant, Lee Yohan gained the advantage. When their arms were locked and clashed as though in a contest of strength, superiority was determined by concentration.

But when Iam’s eyes abruptly wavered, Lee Yohan too was puzzled. Then, belatedly, he understood why she had been shaken.

And so he stopped.

Three seconds had passed by the time they reached that point.

‘Internal energy!!’

Even withdrawing the will that constituted their Arts and the strength poured into each of their arms would have taken longer than three seconds.

Yet they slowly withdrew their strength from one another. Feeling the power each had drawn out from Originium make the air hum, they faced each other.

Iam looked at Lee Yohan, and Lee Yohan looked at Iam.

Each holding different emotions.

They merely looked at each other...

...At the end of their mutual interference, when Lee Yohan’s hand had seized Iam’s arm, the Originium particles flowing through her blood had been swept up by his pulling force and gathered in a single place.

As a result, only Iam properly understood that the effects Oripathy had produced as it flowed through her blood vessels and remained in her body and organs had temporarily vanished.

With shock and agitation intertwined, Iam stared at Yohan, but Lee Yohan—

Lee Yohan...

‘Internal energy!!!’

He merely felt the Originium dust that had passed through Iam’s arm and reached his own, believing that he had absorbed Iam’s internal energy...

*

Anyway, that was why

they came outside the bar.

There was no special reason for it.

It had been a brawl, but nothing had broken, and there was nothing to compensate for. Yohan had already paid for his drinks, and Iam had done the same.

So when Iam, her expression stiff, grabbed Lee Yohan’s arm and dragged him away, Yohan accepted it and went where she led him.

There was no killing intent in it, nor any malice. So there was no problem with letting himself be dragged along for now... That was Lee Yohan’s judgment.

‘Besides, there is something I want to know.’

After making contact, his hand had felt rough, as though iron filings had clung to it, but now it was smooth again. Considering that, he had probably succeeded in absorbing all the energy he had drawn from Iam’s body.

His arm muscles felt faintly sore, as if they ached, but that was not important.

It seemed certain that he had taken her internal energy, so he also wanted to hear from Iam what it felt like to have one’s internal energy forcibly stolen.

‘This is absolutely not a stupid judgment...’

Of course, the basis for that judgment was bizarre monster-information assembled strangely inside Lee Yohan’s head. Still, Yohan himself was convinced by his own logic, and it was, whatever else it might be, like an impregnable fortress of reasoning that would not collapse.

As Iam walked ahead, holding his arm and dragging him along, Lee Yohan obediently followed. This time, rather than abruptly unleashing a killing move especially lethal to someone with Oripathy, he merely recited it inwardly.

Absolutely not.

‘Booba...’

Absolutely not, he was not following in order to watch something swaying freely behind her.

Even setting all that aside, merely pressing down hard on the arm of this Sarkaz woman, who looked like she had only just become an adult, had already made his wrist feel as though it might pop out of its socket, all the more so...

That was not why he had gone along with her.

‘Booba...’

In any case, as he walked along in her grasp, her movements, which had initially been slow as though hesitant, gradually sped up.

Lee Yohan saw qi ripple some distance around Iam’s body for an instant, and for some reason, her footsteps headed into an alley without hesitation.

You know the sort of place.

Tiny side paths branching off main roads. Gaps created by shacks haphazardly built from sheets of iron and mud. Places not meant to be roads at all, but which became roads because the people living there kept moving through them...

Iam had already slipped into a place where even he would have trouble finding his way, and Yohan tilted his head.

After they walked a little farther,

Yohan suddenly realized where they were heading and spoke.

"Where are you trying to go?"

"Somewhere without people."

"...Really?"

"Really."

There was no hesitation in her movements, but it was painfully obvious that this woman did not know the way.

She apparently had her own method of finding her way, but the destination was no good. She was steadily walking toward somewhere without people, but she had chosen the wrong place for somewhere without people.

Or perhaps that choice was deliberate... Still, he went out of his way to point out to this Sarkaz that they were going the wrong way.

"A little farther on, there should be a place where those Siracusans rest when they come to manage the hunting grounds."

"—Hm."

"It is the off-season for hunting Sarkaz, so they will not be there now, but people bribed by them will be patrolling around. If you want to talk, around here would be better."

The Lungmen people he had served before had in fact been Lungmen Mafia from Siracusa, and this was a place they had introduced as somewhere they occasionally stopped by on their way to Lungmen.

Yohan recalled a map he had once seen and checked his memory.

Kazdel.

Leithanien.

Siracusa.

Lungmen and Yan.

There could not be any mistake in their locations or the social standing of their people.

So the purpose of the place where he was staying was probably not far off either.

As he nodded, recalling what he had seen in Ska Eye’s room, Iam seemed to deliberate for a moment before stopping and rolling up her not particularly long sleeve.

Was she going to show him the handprint he had left?

As he thought that, Iam spoke calmly.

"Then shall we do it here?"

"Hm?"

The short blade in Iam’s other hand plunged deeply into the skin on the back of the hand Yohan had grabbed.

Pshk... A sound rang out.

"Huh?"

Iam’s body trembled faintly. Yohan blinked at the action that had unfolded in an instant. As he blinked and considered what was happening, he finally understood.

Holding a small dagger in her other hand, Iam had forcibly stabbed it into the back of her own hand.

It was the part he had grabbed. As though the blade would not go in easily, she forced it in, then turned her hand upside down before him. Several small, clumped spirit stones fell out.

"...?"

His qi sense recognized them.

Those were clumps of qi that had dissolved into Iam’s blood and circulated through her body.

Then why had they clumped together? Why had she tried to show him that? Had she cut open her arm to show him that several rocks seemed to have grown inside her body already?

That could not be it.

‘...The Star-Sucking Grand Art!’

Then the reason she showed him this was—

It could only be the Absorbing Child Formula he had used before!

"Spirit stones..."

"Spirit stones?"

He knew.

He knew that spirit stones were formed when qi, which was close to a gaseous substance flowing through the atmosphere of this world, condensed and became solid.

Even now, his qi sense could perceive the area around Iam’s body as she wrapped a bandage around the split skin. He could feel the vibrations of the qi flowing around her, and he had been feeling them for some time.

Was that not precisely why he had believed he could practice proper martial arts in this world?

‘I do not know exactly, but in this world, qi seems to flow through blood vessels instead of meridians. And people seem not to know how to handle it.’

No, it was more than that.

According to his observations, the people here could not properly handle qi, yet they kept inhaling it with every breath. As a result, unable to dispose of qi properly, they let it accumulate and accumulate until turbid qi pooled within them.

When that turbid qi pooled to the point of becoming solid, people here called it Oripathy and feared it.

But according to his diagnosis—

it was simply qi deviation.

‘An unavoidable problem caused because they do not know the proper method of handling it... I see.’

He had seen people insert spirit stones into themselves to forcibly increase their qi, and he had heard of people who overloaded their qi beyond their capacity and recklessly used heretical arts until stones grew inside them. It was clear.

That was the conclusion he had reached after observing that woman who had strutted around calling herself a mercenary before—the one who was not a Vampire but resembled a cockroach—and her companions.

His judgment, that was—

the law governing this primitive, barbaric world. (It was not.)

And so the reason this woman had dragged him out of Kedel’s bar became simple as well.

"Have you recognized the value of my cultivation method?"

"...A cultivation method. Is that what this Arts is called?"

"Arts? It is different from those heretical tricks. This is orthodox. It is not like the external methods you people use."

"..."

This woman, who had supposedly been looking for a guide to travel through eastern Kazdel, had recognized his worth after they had exchanged a bout of Kazdel-style roughhousing.

He possessed a supreme art.

He possessed martial arts armed with logic beyond anything the people of this world could imagine—martial arts capable of overcoming the problems the people of this world faced!

—In other words, what Iam desired was to become his disciple and be taught this supreme art...!

‘...I do not actually have much real power yet, so perhaps I acted too recklessly. I should reflect on that. If I can just get through this, I should restrain myself more from now on...’

Thud.

‘Thud?’

As he reflected and considered how he ought to proceed in the future, he heard the sound.

When he lowered his gaze from above, where he had been stroking his chin, he saw a woman kneeling before him.

Lee Yohan’s mouth fell open for a moment.

Iam seemed to hesitate, then placed one hand over her chest, as though attempting to offer him the utmost respect.

Naturally, instead of etiquette, all he saw was her breasts being pressed down. Yet in that posture of utmost courtesy... she spoke.

"One more time."

"More?"

Holding out her bandaged hand to him, she looked at him fervently as she spoke.

"Please do what you did earlier one more time."

When her eyes looked up at him, he could not help but become certain.

"...Stop the stones inside me."

Thinking that he might be taking in a disciple stronger than himself, he looked down at Iam...

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