Chapter 5 : Conception

Chapter 5: Conception

Was it possible that he still hadn’t logged out?

That question suddenly crossed his mind, but it vanished far more quickly than it had appeared.

This agonizing pain coursing through his entire body?

It was a vividness he could never feel inside a game. If sensations like this had been possible to implement in-game…… Dong Bong-su would never have logged out in the first place. He would probably still have been hunting even now.

He strained his eyes harder to check the holographic letters. At that, the swollen corners of his eyes split open and blood trickled down. However, only the pain increased; his vision did not improve.

‘Then.’

If his eyesight wouldn’t cooperate, he just needed to increase the amount of light.

Dong Bong-su turned his gaze toward the window where moonlight streamed in. A brilliantly bright full moon came into view, illuminating his eyes, and the contents of the translucent hologram window put a decisive stamp on this unreal situation.

[The device malfunctioned abnormally, causing the logout to fail. Would you like to attempt disconnection again?

Yes or No]

A device error?

Dong Bong-su felt puzzled. Could it really be that this hyper-realistic scene, these intensely stimulating smells, and the numbing sensations tightly constricting his entire body were all the result of a machine error?

He couldn’t understand it.

He needed to check for himself.

Without much hesitation, Dong Bong-su raised his hand and inserted it into the hologram.

Beep-.

As he saw the ‘No’ button distort, the operator’s emotionless voice was engraved into his mind.

Wooooong.

— You have selected ‘No’. Then, we will return you to Murim Online. One, two, three…….

The crackling mechanical noise slammed into Dong Bong-su’s head. At the same time, it felt as though his brain were being torn apart, and he gradually lost consciousness.

Within his fading awareness echoed the Murim Online operator’s emotionless voice.

— Then, we wish you an enjoyable time together with Murim Online…….

● ● ●

Machil had not been in a very good mood for the past few days—more precisely, for the past two weeks. To say the least, it was enough to say he felt like going crazy and flipping out.

He was already busy to death just with his work as a Military Hireling, yet he had also been saddled with an annoying task, so it couldn’t be helped. Even now, he was heading to the stable carrying Sosam’s breakfast gruel.

“Ah, in this big Danri Family, am I the only one who can clean up that bastard’s shit? Why do I always have to do this fucking dogshit work?”

Two weeks earlier, on the day Sosam had gone with him to the weapon shop to receive equipment, he had made a mistake and suffered a serious injury.

If the business had been finished, he should have just gone home properly, but instead he had wandered around the bustling streets in the evening and ended up meeting with disaster.

According to what he had heard from one of the bystanders at the time, Sosam had suddenly stepped in front of Pang Doryang. Pang Doryang was the bodyguard warrior of Dan Ri-hui, the second daughter of the Danri Family Head. Dan Ri-hui was such a headstrong hellion that even Dan Ri Cheon-u, the Family Head himself, found her difficult to restrain. Considering that Sosam had blocked the path of her bodyguard, it was nothing short of miraculous that he was still alive now.

At the time Sosam was being beaten to a pulp by Pang Doryang, Machil was indulging himself thoroughly in the flesh of that courtesan bitch at the Bongyang Inn. After venting his pent-up lust and returning to the family estate in high spirits, he discovered Sosam collapsed on the ground, drenched in blood. He slung him over his back and carried him back to the estate.

When he first dumped him in the stable, Machil had thought Sosam was already dead. Startled in the moment, he had simply left him abandoned in the stable and gone out.

Yet, when he went to the stable the next day, Sosam was awake.

At that moment, Machil had thought, Damn, this bastard really is stubbornly hard to kill. To come back to his senses in just one day after being in that state.

However, that ended up being bad news for him instead.

“If that bastard Mabyeonsam had just died right then, it would’ve been way better. Fuck.”

Because Sosam was stubbornly clinging to his miserable life, Machil was stuck taking over his work until the bastard fully recovered.

Finding a new Horse Stable Hireling would have taken only a few days. On the other hand, judging by Sosam’s current condition, it looked like it would take at least another month before he fully recovered.

An even bigger problem was that, as a result of that incident, Sosam had become an imbecile. Not only could he not speak, but his memory also seemed incomplete. Whenever he occasionally woke up and Machil tried talking to him, he seemed unable to recognize him at all and said nothing. Thinking there might be something wrong with his tongue, Machil checked, but there was nothing abnormal about it.

Perhaps the shock of the incident had caused aphasia. It might even mean that Sosam would be useless no matter how much he recovered.

“Damn it! To think that this Lord Machil has to wipe the ass of some brain-dead bastard.”

Today again, every single task Sosam should have done fell to Machil. Not only that, but the family estate had also dumped the entire responsibility of treating Sosam onto him as well.

The work of a Horse Stable Hireling was grueling. No one knew that better than Machil. Until Sosam came here over ten years ago, he himself had been the Horse Stable Hireling.

Taking the horses out for walks, cleaning up horse shit, and tidying the stable were nothing. The most exhausting task was occasionally accompanying members of the Danri Family on outings as a Horse Attendant.

A Horse Attendant was, in common parlance, a “human footstool.” In short, when members of the Danri Family mounted their horses, the Horse Attendant would crouch beneath them and serve as a stepping platform. It was an exceedingly troublesome and infuriating task. If one was assigned to someone relatively decent among the family, it was bearable, but if one went on an outing as the Horse Attendant for a human piece of trash like Dan Ri-hui…….

On a bad day, one’s head could roll.

He hadn’t yet been sent out on an outing as a Horse Attendant, but wasn’t it always possible that he could be summoned at any time? And so, no matter how much he hated it, Machil had no choice but to diligently tend to Sosam until he recovered.

While Machil was grumbling to himself for this and that reason, he arrived at the stable located at the eastern edge of the estate. Just before opening the stable door and going in, a thought suddenly crossed his mind.

‘Should I just kill that bastard?’

Whether Sosam lived or died, no one in the estate would care anyway. If a new Horse Stable Hireling were quickly brought in, it would be far more beneficial for Machil as well. Wouldn’t that be the best way to escape this current path of hardship?

Machil’s beast-like eyes stared at the stable door, flashing red for a moment before settling down again.

“Forget it, forget it.”

Killing someone was easy enough.

There had even been a time when some beggar bastard who used to panhandle kept grabbing at his ankle, so he had stomped him to death.

The problem was simply that the risk involved in killing Sosam was too great. If he made even a slight mistake and got caught by any of the family’s warriors, his own head could end up rolling.

“Lucky bastard. Our Mabyeonsam, you fucking son of a bitch.”

In the end, he decided to endure about a month of inconvenience.

Killing trash like Sosam was easier than snapping an ant’s waist, so it was something he could do anytime later, wasn’t it?

Creeeak.

When he entered the stable, Sosam was sleeping as usual. He was lying comfortably, his chest tightly wrapped with filthy twisted straw rope. Seeing that sight made Machil’s temper flare up again. While he was suffering like this because of him, that bastard was sprawled out, sleeping so peacefully.

“Ugh. You moron bastard! Wouldn’t it have been better if you’d just died back then? Why are you pointlessly staying alive and making things such a pain for people? Ugh!”

Machil practically tossed the bowl of gruel onto Sosam’s chest. The bowl wobbled, spilling hot gruel. The filthy straw rope wrapped around Sosam’s chest became even filthier.

Not caring in the least, Machil figured he had done everything he needed to do and walked straight out of the stable.

Even though the hot gruel seeped through the straw rope and must have scalded his wounds, Sosam did not wake up until Machil had left.

Was he sleeping so deeply that he couldn’t easily feel pain?

No.

Sosam—no, Dong Bong-su—was already awake. The moment Machil left, he quietly raised his upper body.

“It seems my recovery keeps getting delayed because of that bastard.”

The filthy straw rope was rubbing against his wounds, causing them to fester.

It was a bacterial infection. At this rate, the wounds wouldn’t heal quickly. That was why, whenever he loosened the rope, Machil would come and wrap it tightly around his chest again. So Dong Bong-su timed it to Machil’s visits—he would bind the rope around his chest before Machil arrived, then loosen it again once he left.

That wasn’t all. In many ways, Machil was a person who did nothing to help Dong Bong-su. Even now, he had caused hot gruel to spill over wounds that hadn’t yet fully healed, which would only make the healing process take even longer.

“Has it been two weeks now?”

It had already been two weeks since Dong Bong-su had awakened here. During that time, he had been gathering information about this place. He still couldn’t fully understand the language, and since Machil was his sole source of information, he couldn’t grasp everything accurately.

The first thing he had figured out was that he had become another person, and that this person’s name was Sosam or Mabyeonsam. It wasn’t because he understood the language, but because Machil had called him that repeatedly.

The second thing was that although the people here used Chinese and Chinese characters, this place was not China.

Martial arts.

Techniques that had only been possible in imagination, in movies, in novels.

Over the past two weeks, Dong Bong-su had witnessed martial arts living and breathing vividly in this world.

Every morning, he would wake to the resounding noise of warriors training at the drill ground far beyond the stable. At first, he didn’t know what it was, but later, when he peered through a hole in the door, he was shocked.

He was a man whose emotions rarely wavered over most things. Even so, what managed to astonish Dong Bong-su was precisely the martial arts of this world.

People flying through the air, moving so fast they were hard to follow with the naked eye, swords and blades moving with disciplined precision. It was like a live-action version of Murim Online. If so, then those techniques must also be martial arts.

Lastly, there was the fact that he hadn’t been able to completely “log out.” No—more precisely, he had logged out, but certain parts of the game system were still being applied.

Even now, far off before his eyes, tiny letters were floating.

“Murim Online.”

No, Murim.

The real Murim.

Heh.

Heh heh heh.

A world where martial arts truly existed!

And he couldn’t escape it?

For the first time in his life, Dong Bong-su laughed sincerely.

Uncontrollable peals of mad laughter burst endlessly within his mind.

Because it felt so good.

The ultimate hunting ground he had always dreamed of—perhaps even a battlefield.

Hadn’t he crash-landed right into such a place?

Murim.

A blood-soaked world of ruthless iron and steel.

Heh heh heh heh ha ha ha ha!

A place without dreams or hope.

What a blissful world this was.

For a long while, Dong Bong-su laughed like that.

Inwardly, inwardly. Without anyone knowing.

And so, without anyone in the Central Plains realizing it, an unprecedented demon was being conceived within a shabby stable.