Chapter 12 - Level Up

“It just worked. Like this.”

It happened at that very moment.

A strange, mysterious white light poured from Dong Bongsu’s body.

Holy light.

It was an intensely sacred radiance, utterly unsuited to Dong Bongsu. The sight seemed like something he could never have experienced in his life, yet he had experienced it before.

He had seen this light in the virtual world of MURIM ONLINE.

“So this is leveling up.”

At last, he had achieved his first evolution in this New Murim Online.

“...”

Silence fell over the alley as he leveled up. But it did not last long.

“E-eek!”

The thugs recoiled in terror. Jangho’s death—a man they could never have hoped to handle—and the brutally white light that had just flooded the alley had reduced them to this state.

TAP.

Dong Bongsu took a step toward them. As though moving in time with him, the thugs took a step back. Or tried to. There was not even room for that single step behind them. This was a dead-end alley.

Was he smiling?

Dong Bongsu’s lips parted slightly, revealing white teeth. He began advancing again.

The first to fall into his clutches was Do Paldu, who was still clutching his broken arm in agony. Dong Bongsu raised his foot high and brought it down on Do Paldu’s neck.

CRACK. CRUNCH.

With the horrible sound of his neck bones shattering, Do Paldu departed this life.

“Get him! Get him! Get him!”

Having watched Do Paldu die so helplessly, the terrified thugs rushed Dong Bongsu together in a desperate bid to survive.

Dong Bongsu’s response was simple and direct.

He casually raised a hand to chest height.

Something smoothly materialized in his hand, like footage of a flower budding played at hundreds of thousands of times its normal speed. Except it was a blade rather than a flower.

A saber sprouted from his Inventory and bloomed in Dong Bongsu’s hand.

Like the dagger from earlier, every weapon in his Inventory had been secretly purchased or pilfered while helping Machil with his work as an armory servant.

SWISH.

His saber mercilessly sliced through the air.

THUNK.

The saber lodged halfway through the neck of the thug charging at the front. It had been so long since he last swung a weapon that he had failed to sever the neck cleanly in one stroke. Dong Bongsu immediately abandoned the saber and drew a dagger.

Holding it with the blade pointed down, he plunged straight into the thugs’ midst.

THWACK! SLASH!

“A-aaargh!”

With every movement of his dagger, another thug’s artery was severed, sending blood spurting like a fountain.

Dong Bongsu knew nothing of martial arts as practiced here, but when it came to fighting, he was a master. He was a formidable fighter who had mastered almost every combat discipline on modern Earth.

He excelled not only at bare-knuckle fighting and joint locks, but also at the Eighteen Martial Disciplines. Naturally, the range of weapons he could wield was immense. If circumstances required it, he even had the ingenuity to turn every nearby furnishing into a weapon, like the Chinese film star Jackie Chan. That was Dong Bongsu.

Most importantly, he lacked the greatest hindrance in a fight.

Mercy. He had none. Under any circumstances, Dong Bongsu would use whatever means necessary.

Cheating? Dirty fighting? Cowardice?

Such concepts had never existed for him in the first place. If he could subdue and kill his opponent, none of that merited consideration.

“Aaaargh!”

Dong Bongsu’s cruel dance seemed unlikely to stop until every thug was dead.

THUD! THUD! CRUNCH!

The brutal dance of slaughter finally stopped only when one last man remained.

Once his dance of death ended, nothing remained at the scene but corpses, blood, and its coppery scent.

“Uhhhh...”

Dong Bongsu held his dagger to the last thug’s throat and pointed with his other hand at a corpse sprawled behind him.

“What did that bastard do?”

“D-do you mean Jangho, sir?”

Though trembling violently, the thug answered at once. He thought he might be spared. Even knowing it was futile, he refused to let go of that slender thread of hope.

“Yes. What did Jangho do?”

“H-he was a member of the Black Society...”

“The Black Society? What’s that?”

“It’s o-one of the Unorthodox F-factions that rule Fengyang’s back alleys.”

Dong Bongsu could guess what an Unorthodox Faction was from the name. These thugs were merely punks. The Unorthodox Factions were probably far more professional gangs. In modern terms, they would be organized crime syndicates.

After asking the thug a few more questions about the Black Society and the Unorthodox Factions, Dong Bongsu killed him. The thug died without getting out so much as a plea for his life. Since he would never have been spared anyway, he could hardly feel too wronged.

With the job done, Dong Bongsu put all the corpses into his Inventory. Then he stripped off his clothes and used them to roughly wipe the blood off the ground. Next, he took out the white cloths he had prepared in his Inventory and wiped up all the remaining blood.

He had steadily developed his Inventory ability ever since discovering it, but he still could not freely control liquids.

A short while later, he had wiped away the blood so thoroughly that, while the result was not perfect, no bloodstains could be detected by sight. There was probably no way to confirm the presence of blood without spraying forensic chemicals used in modern investigations, such as luminol reagent or hydrogen peroxide. Surely nothing like that existed in this world yet, so this was enough to make it a perfect crime.

In a place like this, where techniques such as martial arts defied the laws of physics, it would take at least several hundred more years for investigative methods and forensic science to develop that far. Perhaps it would never happen.

Soon, the scene was clean.

No one would ever know a bloody fight had taken place here.

Now it was time to go back to being the mute, Horse-Mute Sam.

Having thoroughly finished cleaning up, Dong Bongsu took a fresh set of clothes from his Inventory, changed, and led Yeoro out of the alley.

Their walk resumed.

Upon reaching Mount Fengyang at the end of his walking route, Dong Bongsu disposed of all the bodies. If he had possessed the substance this world called Bone-Dissolving Powder, he could have done it much more cleanly, but he was fine without it.

Dong Bongsu was more of an expert at this sort of thing than anyone.

He did not need much to dispose of corpses. Even if he had possessed something like Bone-Dissolving Powder, he would not have used it. If it was that effective, it would also make an excellent weapon. Why waste it on mere corpse disposal?

Soon, the bodies were buried somewhere secluded in the mountains.

Yeoro watched it all from right beside him, utterly unconcerned. To her, Dong Bongsu was a terrifying beast, but also a reasonably familiar master who fed her.

Dong Bongsu stroked her muzzle once, then headed back the way he had come.

He had learned several important things today.

First, the existence of the Unorthodox Factions.

He had been looking for prey somewhere between martial artists and ordinary people to help him level up, and had unexpectedly found it. His targets were decided. It was bad news for the Unorthodox Factions, but good news for ordinary people. Starting today, the Suicide Plague would disappear.

The next things he had learned concerned what happened when he leveled up.

First, all his existing injuries healed the moment he leveled up. The injuries the thugs had inflicted before Jangho appeared had now vanished from his body without a trace.

That information could be put to considerable use. Did it not mean he could afford to take a certain amount of risk if he was on the verge of leveling up?

He had yet to test it, but perhaps even damage to his heart or brain could be healed.

The next feature was the light. That light which had filled the alley the moment he leveled up—holy light.

This, however, was a drawback. The light was merely dazzling to look at and carried a strong possibility of attracting danger. A hunter hidden among his prey had to be ordinary. Only when he looked just like everyone else, indistinguishable from them, could he become the finest hunter.

The moment they realized Dong Bongsu was different from them, they would reject him. That would put him in greater danger. His killing methods using the Inventory were no exception. No one could be allowed to discover them.

He therefore realized he had to level up at the end of a hunt, or somewhere occupied only by his prey. Somewhere beyond anyone else’s sight, at that. One wrong move could expose his true nature.

He would have to be even more careful from now on.

He still knew almost nothing about this New Murim Online. Everything that had happened today had struck without warning, at moments he had not anticipated.

If Jangho had been more cautious, or just a little stronger, he could have been in serious danger today.

It would no longer be easy to get by with his camouflage of muteness alone. He had to grow stronger, faster.

Today had confirmed that.

He turned and began descending the mountain. There were many things he had to check as soon as he returned. He needed to review what had happened today and examine the abilities he had gained from leveling up.

Leveling up meant exactly what it said: his level had risen. Put simply, he had become stronger.

In fact, Dong Bongsu could already feel it. Reaching level 2 had made him stronger. His body felt lighter than before, and he had more strength. He could not quantify it precisely, but he was definitely stronger.

Just what other abilities had he gained?

NEIGH!

Perhaps Yeoro was curious too, for she put in a word of her own. Let’s hurry back.

Dong Bongsu stroked her muzzle once more, then made his way quickly down the mountain.

A holographic message floated before his eyes. The flickering hologram was broken and torn in places, making its exact contents impossible to discern.

[A Critical Error has... occurred in the MURIM ONLINE system. It should not interfere with gameplay, but... ...]

“A critical error, huh.”

This was getting more and more interesting.

Dong Bongsu’s lips parted slightly, revealing gleaming white teeth. In the real world, he had never had anything to smile about, but here, every once in a great while, something gave him reason to smile. Only once in a great while, mind you.

His steps toward the Danri Family estate grew faster and faster.