Chapter 100 - Yeon Youngha

Even in games, once players reached a high level, most spent all their time on boss runs (Boss Time, the time spent killing bosses), dungeon runs, PVP (Player Vs Player), and PK.

It was simply his turn to do the same.

Now...

It was time to hunt only the real monsters.

Dong Bongsu decided to return to the Murim Alliance once he finished surveying the field. Any further searching seemed a waste of time.

But just as he was about to conclude that none of the mobs newly added to this “Zhengzhou field” were boss-class—

[An enemy at least 10 levels higher than you has approached within 20 meters.]

The Spirit Eye's mechanical voice, which had grown somewhat unfamiliar by now, reverberated through his mind.

TAP.

He stopped in his tracks and immediately began checking exactly what lay twenty meters away.

His current position was four kilometers from the Murim Alliance, roughly 25° toward the northwest.

Taverns lined both sides of the street, which was a little over ten meters wide. Even at this late hour, this bustling district was packed so tightly with people that there was scarcely room to set foot. A group of drunks was staggering toward him even now. Yet the number “20” displayed by the Spirit Eye remained fixed. Proof that none of them were prey that would set it off.

He stepped slightly to the left, slipping naturally out of the group's path. That single small step abruptly silenced the warning.

'If moving farther left cut off the warning...'

His prey was to the right.

Dong Bongsu turned his head to the right. Through the heads of the drunks passing him stood a modest two-story building.

Bright Cheer Tavern.

The signboard supplied its name.

He quickly swept his gaze up and down the building, then took a step toward its entrance. Moonlight, along with lamps and torches burning here and there, gave him a clear view of the interior. Like the other taverns and inns, it was packed with people.

[20]

One step.

As soon as he closed the same distance he had moved earlier, the warning returned.

'No doubt about it.'

The person he presumed to be his prey was inside that tavern.

He began estimating the twenty-meter distance by eye.

One meter, two meters...

Twenty meters.

Near the entrance. Yet there was no one there except a waiter. Which meant...?

'Are they hiding?'

Where?

'Just above or below the entrance. But the building's base blocks the space below.'

The enemy was above the entrance.

Dong Bongsu raised his head and looked above the doorway. Naturally, the outer wall blocked his view of the interior. He had no ability to see through walls. Still, the enemy had to be clinging to the tavern's inner wall.

But if someone were clinging there, wouldn't everyone inside normally be staring at them? A person perched above a building's entrance was hardly an everyday sight.

Yet not one of the drinkers inside Bright Cheer Tavern found anything strange. They simply drank, laughed, and chatted. Not a single person even glanced that way.

Dong Bongsu slowly approached the tavern.

19, 18, 17...

The distance shrank.

[2]

“Welcome, sir!”

As the Spirit Eye indicated two meters, the waiter greeted him warmly. The fellow stood less than a meter away. The waiter wasn't his prey.

Dong Bongsu entered the crowded room and turned toward the entrance, pretending to look for a seat. Of course, while making a show of looking straight ahead, he glanced up above the doorway.

'...!'

Little light reached that spot, and the wall dividing the first and second floors cast it into deep shadow. Even so, it was not dark enough to completely obstruct his vision, enhanced as it was by his level-ups.

And yet...

He could see nothing. His eyes could not discern the other's presence at all.

'Is that what they call a Stealth Art?'

In the north, he had occasionally encountered enemies who burst out after hiding underground or camouflaged themselves beneath straw mats and the like. But never anyone this utterly undetectable. To think he couldn't make them out with both eyes wide open...

Without the Spirit Eye, he would never have known anything was hiding there.

'Could mine work that well too?'

What did he mean?

Was he saying he could use a Stealth Art himself?

Yes. In fact, Dong Bongsu had leveled up several times after killing Timur Khan. Naturally, there had been major changes, including several Skills.

Among them was the Skill [Stealth Art].

[Stealth Art Lv.1 Proficiency: 30.0%]

Swords in Murim have no eyes. This is especially true of the swords wielded by vagabond swordsmen who have risen from the very bottom of Murim. To wield such a sword, one must sometimes conceal oneself. The art of concealment is also essential for avoiding such blades.

When activated, the player's body blends perfectly into the surrounding environment. However, moving or using a Skill immediately cancels Stealth Art.

True Qi consumption per second: 10 JP

It wasn't that he hadn't tried it. But he had never checked himself in a mirror, so he couldn't be certain exactly how effective it was.

If it really worked that well, though, it might prove quite useful in actual combat.

But that wasn't what mattered right now.

Why.

'Why is an expert of that caliber hiding so secretly in a place like that?'

An assassination?

The thought crossed his mind, but it was probably wrong. What important figure would appear in a place like this at this hour in Zhengzhou? If one were going to appear, wouldn't they have arrived long ago—and likely somewhere else?

Then what else could someone do while hiding there?

A dark shadow within the shade. Shade... darkness...

Something that had to be done while concealed in the dark.

Several possibilities came to mind, but if it wasn't assassination, there was one other answer.

'Covert protection.'

Under these circumstances, anything else was unlikely.

“Excuse me... sir. Would you be willing to share a table?”

There were no empty seats, nor did any seem likely to open up soon. Naturally, the waiter asked whether he would share. It was a common business tactic found everywhere. The waiter could hardly have been unaware that the tavern was full. He had probably led him inside intending this from the start.

But whether he shared a table or not, finding a seat was of no importance to Dong Bongsu right now.

'Who is it?'

He wanted to find the person worth guarding by an expert hidden in the dark. Surely that person was the true “event mob” newly introduced to this field.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Ignoring whatever the waiter said, Dong Bongsu simply roamed through the tavern. The distance reported by the Spirit Eye fluctuated with his movements.

Sometimes, however, the changes did not correspond to his distance from the entrance. That meant there was another expert inside.

'Just as I thought...'

It had to be the person protected by the expert hiding above the entrance.

Following the Spirit Eye's warnings, Dong Bongsu narrowed down his target. The waiter kept asking whether he would share a table, but that was no concern of his.

His eyes swept dispassionately through the tavern.

The hairy fellow sitting over there, the scrawny man with narrow eyes farther back, the fat drunk right in front of him spouting nonsense.

None of them.

His eyes continued scanning everyone within the Spirit Eye's range.

He saw “something.” Yes. Something.

It was difficult to describe it any other way.

Dong Bongsu had never seen such a being, in either his previous life or this one. It was utterly unlike Tang Wu, Eulji Tae, or the Weapon Monster, all counted among the Twenty Great Masters under Heaven. It was also unlike Jong Jihang, whom he had seen recently. Above all, it was unmistakably different from Dong Bongsu himself... some kind of being.

That being sat alone in a corner of the tavern, chin propped on one hand. Its posture naturally fixed its gaze in one direction.

At Dong Bongsu. It was staring intently at him, as though it had been waiting for him.

That being was unmistakably a woman, despite being dressed as a man. She looked very young, and she was beautiful. Perhaps her innocent smile made her seem all the more so.

Yet facing that childlike smile sent goose bumps over Dong Bongsu's entire body. An electrifying sensation unlike anything he had felt in his life gripped him from head to toe.

It—or she—rose and approached him.

The Spirit Eye informed him that a powerful enemy had come within two meters. And there she stood, two meters in front of him, smiling brightly.

Dong Bongsu's expression grew even more languid.

'She's seeing right through me.'

There was no doubt. She had recognized him.

And he had recognized her.

He couldn't tell exactly what she was.

But he clearly understood that she was a being to whom common sense did not apply. As though something had suddenly appeared within New Murim Online... some kind of...

'Bug.'

She opened her mouth and spoke.

“This is our third meeting, but you still make me terribly nervous every time.”

Third?

Dong Bongsu couldn't understand her words.

He never forgot anyone he had seen even once. Yet she was saying this was the third time. And she couldn't be lying. He couldn't read her, but he could feel it.

It was the truth.

“It's nice to meet you. I've told you twice already, but I don't think you'll remember, so I'll tell you again. Make sure you remember my name this time.”

She had already told him twice...

That was consistent with what she had said before. But Dong Bongsu still couldn't remember her.

“Yeon Youngha. My name is Yeon Youngha.”

Yeon Youngha.

It was the first time Dong Bongsu had heard her name. Yet strangely, he also felt as though he had heard it before. If he had heard it, then he had heard it. But a feeling that he might have heard it?

It was a truly unfamiliar sensation for him.

So he said,

“What are you?”

In a secluded gorge somewhere in Yunnan, rare flowers and exquisite plants grew in profusion.

A short old man with sharp eyes examined the flowers, his hands clasped behind his back.

Alone in that gorge, so vast its end was nowhere in sight, he strolled at leisure, admiring the breathtaking scenery.