Chapter 12
"Haaaaah!"
Whoooosh!
Pak!
Thud! Thud!
BOOM!
I had just finished another match and was resting when one of the fights taking place nearby caught my attention.
Two men were exchanging attacks on a platform.
At first, the fight seemed evenly matched.
But as more techniques were revealed...
Victory began tilting toward one side.
The man gaining the advantage was none other than the Arab-looking fighter I knew.
Ma Hapji.
He was steadily overwhelming an extremely ordinary-looking Central Plains martial artist.
Oh.
He was pretty good.
Apparently, Ma Hapji hadn't earned the title Black-Faced Wanderer only because of his appearance.
Compared to an average Central Plains man, he was at least a head taller.
His shoulders were also much broader.
He used martial arts that took full advantage of that physical build.
His long reach and enormous hands gave his attacks considerable power.
I already knew from experience.
People from his region often had impressive physical abilities.
There was a reason their ancestors had once terrified parts of Europe.
"It's over!"
BOOM!
Ma Hapji used the explosive strength of his broad shoulders and threw a powerful punch.
His opponent flew backward.
Thanks to Ma Hapji's longer arms...
The other man's attacks had barely been able to reach him.
The opponent fell outside the platform while clutching his chest in pain.
A clean victory for Ma Hapji.
"Congratulations, Brother Ma."
"Ah, Third Young Master. Thank you. Hahaha. I can finally relax. I've already secured three victories."
"You're ahead of me."
"Don't you already have two victories yourself?"
"Well... the second one was rather strange."
"Hahaha. Thanks to you, your group also lost one competitor. That should make things much easier."
The Iron Mountain Giant Dong Ung had been taken to the infirmary.
He never returned.
Because of that...
My group had only five people left instead of six.
Naturally, that gave me an advantage.
I also gained one more victory during the middle of the competition.
My second opponent hadn't been especially difficult.
Although...
When I first saw him...
I had been extremely cautious.
He was the illegitimate son of a well-known family east of the Heavenly Mountains.
A man from the Won family.
His clothing was neat.
His accessories were tasteful.
His physique looked respectable.
But there was one feature that made him seem more dangerous than ordinary people.
His eyes.
They were always narrowed.
Normally...
People with permanently narrowed eyes were strong.
That was an unchanging law of fiction.
And this man had something else going for him.
"Oh dear. This is troublesome. To think I would meet the Third Young Master in a place like this."
Polite speech.
Narrow eyes.
Perfect manners.
He had practically collected every condition necessary to become a hidden powerhouse.
Naturally...
I became nervous.
But...
"Begin!"
Shake. Shake.
"P-please come at me...!"
The moment the match started...
Things became strange.
His legs began trembling.
He pulled his knees inward.
Both his hands dropped low.
The defensive posture he took was protecting something even lower than his dantian.
A very important area.
His crotch.
The same place I had attacked in my first match.
What does this bastard think I am...?
I understood that a strong first impression could affect later matches.
Still...
Did I really look that predictable?
I never used a trick twice after it had already been exposed.
Unfortunately...
The people watching didn't seem to think so.
"The Third Young Master actually prefers men..."
"Come on. If that were true, why would he attack there?"
"He must have been rejected."
"Ah. So that's why?"
"I heard he's holding a grudge."
Their whispers were incredibly irritating.
In the middle of the match...
I actually took a moment to glare at the people talking.
I would remember their faces.
Anyway...
The fight ended easily.
His defense was completely focused downward.
His stance was awkward.
And he gave me the first move.
There was practically no way for me to lose.
I rushed forward and turned his jaw with a Sutareido.
He collapsed unconscious.
At least he successfully protected his precious masculinity.
Perhaps that meant he hadn't completely lost.
Either way...
The fight had been much easier than the tension before it suggested.
Before leaving, I looked down at him and said one thing.
"You should walk around with your eyes open properly. Seriously."
Sometimes...
Clichés failed.
"So if you win once more, you could probably skip the remaining match."
"I'd rather secure two more wins. Although one of them... Well, there's no reason to injure ourselves unnecessarily."
"Hmm. I noticed people in other groups who already secured enough victories are deliberately taking losses afterward."
While talking with Ma Hapji...
I heard my number again.
"Number 137!"
My turn.
I climbed onto the platform and waited.
This opponent looked more normal than the previous ones.
His body was solid.
He was about my height.
And judging from his muscles, he clearly trained diligently.
The only notable weakness...
Was that he looked too ordinary.
"I am Jeong Yeop of the Jeongwol Fist Sect from Taecheong Peak."
"Cheon Sowol of March Pavilion."
"Begin!"
Unlike my previous opponent...
Jeong Yeop immediately focused.
He took a proper stance.
As expected of someone from a fist sect...
His posture was clearly designed for hand-to-hand combat.
He spread his feet in a stable horse stance, turning his body to reduce the target area.
If I move around his side properly...
I could probably attack his crotch.
Apparently, he briefly had the same thought.
His eyes flicked downward.
He tried to pretend he wasn't worried.
But he clearly was.
I calmly studied him.
Don't worry.
I almost wanted to reassure him.
I wasn't going to attack there this time.
There were plenty of other places to hit.
Tap-tap-tap!
Whoosh! Whoosh!
I finished examining his stance...
Then moved in.
I started with light jabs.
Nothing was better for measuring distance and watching an opponent's reactions.
If a few jabs alone could finish things...
That would've been convenient.
Unfortunately, Jeong Yeop wasn't that easy.
As expected of someone from a fist sect...
His eyes were sharp.
He repeatedly pulled his head back, letting my fists pass by barely the width of a finger joint.
Whoosh!
He didn't forget to counter either.
After noticing the rhythm in my jabs...
He timed one of my withdrawals and fired a heavy punch.
I leaned backward and avoided it.
Then I watched several more of his attacks.
He's a counter fighter.
His martial arts seemed specialized in reacting to incoming attacks rather than initiating them.
His sense of distance was excellent.
His physical ability was good enough to avoid my punches.
Then the answer was simple.
Destroy his sense of distance.
Take the distance he'd measured...
And suddenly change it.
I stepped far backward and reset.
Then I moved again.
Tap-tap-tap!
I charged while repeatedly throwing the same jabs.
Jeong Yeop reacted exactly the same way.
Again...
He avoided my fist by barely a finger joint.
After watching him do it twice...
I was certain.
This was the answer.
Whoosh!
Snap!
I threw another jab.
But this time...
Just as my fist reached his face...
I suddenly opened my hand.
The distance changed instantly.
Jeong Yeop thought he had narrowly avoided the punch.
Instead...
My fingers continued forward.
This time I wasn't aiming for his other kind of "balls."
I was aiming for his eyeball.
One of the nastiest techniques in modern fighting.
An eye poke.
Poke!
"AAAAARGH!"
I opened my fist and drove my fingers toward his eye.
The pain was impossible to describe unless you'd experienced it yourself.
Like the crotch...
The eyeball couldn't really be trained.
It was an extremely vulnerable point.
Honestly, throwing sand was probably more efficient because it worked from farther away.
But if you wanted certainty...
Direct contact was better.
The wet feeling against my fingertip told me I'd landed it properly.
It's been a while since I felt this.
Jeong Yeop immediately lost his stance.
Both hands flew to his face.
A natural reaction.
His center of gravity moved upward too.
Should I attack his crotch now?
No.
I'd already shown that once.
Even if there was only a one-in-a-thousand chance he'd prepared for it...
There was no reason to take the risk.
Instead...
I lowered my body and shot forward.
I practically skimmed across the ground toward his legs.
I wrapped both arms behind his knees...
Then pulled.
BOOM!
Double-leg takedown.
A very common wrestling and modern MMA technique.
It worked perfectly.
Jeong Yeop was clearly a striker.
Then taking the fight to the ground was the obvious answer.
Actually...
Maybe every martial artist in this world was technically a striker.
Whatever.
Before he could recover from landing headfirst...
I climbed on top of him.
After a takedown...
Fast follow-up was essential.
So I started punching.
WHAM! WHAM! CRACK! WHAM!
Ground-and-pound.
Jeong Yeop's face quickly became covered in blood.
Everything happened in seconds.
It looked simple.
But the sequence actually combined several techniques.
Eye poke.
Takedown.
Ground-and-pound.
No.
Four techniques.
I'd mixed in a downward vertical elbow between the punches too.
"S-stop!"
After several more blows landed on Jeong Yeop's face...
A Dark Demon Corps warrior rushed in and shoved me away.
Another fairly easy victory.
I now had three wins.
That put me almost completely through the first trial.
As Ma Hapji said...
Because Dong Ung had been removed and my group now contained only five people...
Three victories guaranteed me at least second place.
"Wh-what vicious techniques..."
"Wasn't that Sangbak Wrestling just now?"
"Sangbak? You mean wrestling?"
"It also looked somewhat like Mongolian wrestling."
"Huh. So he didn't attack the crotch this time."
"Tch. Why do I feel disappointed?"
"I definitely don't want to fight the Third Young Master."
"Same. He destroys every kind of ball he sees."
As soon as I stepped down...
The live commentary began again.
But this time...
The mood had changed.
This much criticism wasn't bad.
And even better...
They had conveniently mistaken my wrestling for Sangbak Wrestling.
That gave me another excuse.
If I continued using wrestling techniques later...
I could simply call them Sangbak Wrestling.
I should remember that.
"Good work, Third Young Master. Another very innovative method. Hahaha."
"What about you, Brother Ma?"
"I won again. Three victories. Hahaha. I intend to defeat one more opponent, then rest."
"I wish you victory. I think I'll rest first. I'll deliberately forfeit my next match and focus on the final one."
"Hmm. You won't stay to watch my next match?"
"I already believe you'll win easily."
"Hahahaha. I was joking. You worked hard. I noticed a resting area deeper inside the cave. It should be enough for a short break."
"Thank you. Then..."
After a short conversation with the overly friendly Ma Hapji...
I headed toward the place he had mentioned.
There would be one match while I was gone.
From what I had observed...
If you didn't appear on time, you automatically lost.
That was fine.
I would rest...
Then concentrate on my last match.
But just as I was heading deeper into the cave...
CRACK!
BOOOOM!
"OOOOOOH!"
A strange sound stopped me.
It was too sudden.
And far too interesting to ignore.
I turned around.
Everyone was looking toward one particular platform.
One martial artist was lying on the ground.
Another stood tall above him.
I recognized the fallen man.
The narrow-eyed martial artist I'd knocked unconscious earlier.
Now his tiny eyes were open as wide as they could go while he glared angrily at the other man.
That meant the standing fighter belonged to my group too.
"Brother Ma. What happened?"
"Ah, Third Young Master. I thought you were going to rest."
"I heard that sound."
"Hahaha. You should have seen it."
Ma Hapji pointed toward the platform.
"That fellow charged in with tremendous force. The man opposite him used that momentum against him and launched a knee into him."
"He leaned almost half his body backward, then drove up his rear knee."
"Hmm. A very strange martial art."
"Is it over?"
"Apparently not."
The noise I heard had probably been the knee smashing into the man's head.
Still...
The squint-eyed martial artist wasn't finished.
He wiped the blood from his mouth and stood again.
The other man calmly waited for him.
Then he took a stance.
Step. Step. Step.
He clenched his fists.
One arm stood upright.
The other folded inward.
His body turned slightly.
I stared.
I've seen that stance somewhere.
The man's skin was dark.
His eyelids were thick and sharply defined.
I thought for a moment.
Then the answer came easily.
Southeast Asian.
Not entirely.
He looked mixed.
He had the darker skin commonly seen in Southeast Asia...
But some of his facial features resembled those of the Central Plains.
As those two feelings of familiarity overlapped...
Something began forming in my mind.
"Damn it! I won't lose pathetically twice!"
Tap-tap-tap!
Whoosh!
The narrow-eyed man charged.
But the Southeast Asian-looking fighter easily avoided his palm attack.
The moment the palm passed through empty air...
Swish.
The other man moved diagonally.
Then...
Step! Step!
WHAM!
CRACK!
He stepped on the squint-eyed man's knee...
Leaped into the air...
And smashed his head between a knee and an elbow from above and below.
If the earlier sound had been a small watermelon cracking...
This one was definitely the large version.
BOOM!
The narrow-eyed martial artist immediately lost consciousness.
The fight ended.
Silence filled the Dark Demon Well.
Everyone seemed stunned by the strange martial art.
My reaction was different.
My mouth fell open.
Because to me...
That martial art wasn't strange at all.
The man's movements were incredibly familiar.
And the moment I saw that final technique...
The answer became obvious.
Muay Boran?
The martial art I knew.
The one he had just used.
The ancient fighting art that would later become known in the modern world through Muay Thai.
