Chapter 2
From my days in the military to my life as a mercenary, I had crossed countless battlefields.
I fought many people.
I carried out operations against even more.
The enemy changed every time.
Sometimes, it was a corrupt dictator.
Sometimes, it was a rising power that had started a war.
And of course, there were the anti-state armed forces controlling the northern half of the Korean Peninsula.
Mercenaries were willing to fight practically anyone if the money was right.
We didn't exactly get to be picky.
Still, there was one kind of enemy we seemed to encounter especially often.
[Allahu Akbar!]
They were the people who shouted that while spraying bullets with Allah's magic wand and Communication Tool Number 47.
We had a name for people like them.
Fanatical religious militant groups.
I had spent years pointing guns at people like that.
And now...
I had somehow become a member of a group frighteningly similar to them.
Its name was the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
Technically, its official name seemed to be the Sacred Moon Divine Cult.
But lately, even its own followers had started using the name Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
And the martial world had another name for them.
The Demonic Cult.
What a terrifying name.
A single religious leader possessed absolute charisma.
Followers valued religious doctrine more highly than ordinary social rules.
They were openly hostile toward other religions.
They weren't afraid to use military force.
And if something went against their religious beliefs, carrying out violence was apparently considered normal.
In other words...
They were practically the same kind of organization I used to fight.
There were only two differences.
What they shouted...
And what they carried in their hands.
Here, they shouted:
[The Heavenly Demon Reigns, Ten Thousand Demons Bow! The Sacred Moon Manifests in the Heavens, Ten Thousand Heavens Bring Light!]
Then instead of waving around Allah's magic wand and Communication Tool Number 47, they ran around with swords and spears.
Other than that, there wasn't much difference.
At least being the son of someone important was one small comfort.
Everyone called me the Third Young Master.
My name was Cheon Sowol.
I had just entered my twenties.
My only immediate family was my father, the Cult Leader.
My mother was dead.
Besides him, I had four half-siblings.
I might have hoped for relatives on my mother's side, but apparently she had been an ordinary follower who joined the Cult from outside.
In other words, aside from the Cult Leader, my father...
I was practically an orphan here.
Not that...
My father seemed particularly interested in looking after his son.
That was why Cheon Sowol had trained so desperately in martial arts.
He wanted his father's recognition.
Then he ran into the wall known as qi deviation.
After that, he threw himself into alchemy in an attempt to overcome it.
And that eventually led to my current situation.
I calmly began analyzing everything I had learned and remembered during the past week.
The first thing you had to understand in any situation was your current position.
That applied to every battlefield.
Anyway...
What had happened had happened.
And after observing things for the past week, I had reached one clear conclusion.
This was reality.
The version of me who had served as a soldier and mercenary in the modern world was definitely dead.
Cheon Sowol, the original owner of this body, was probably dead too.
He had been caught in an explosion powerful enough to destroy an entire building.
His survival would have been difficult to believe.
Then the conclusion was simple.
The consciousness living in this body now...
Was mine.
I had no choice but to live as Cheon Sowol.
Adaptation was the only answer.
Actually, ending up in a fanatical religious military organization might even be an advantage for me.
I had spent more time dealing with organizations like this than most people.
I understood how they thought and behaved.
I can do this.
After one week of gathering information and studying my surroundings, I finally had enough information to make that judgment.
I could do it.
And when a soldier or mercenary reached that conclusion, there was only one thing left.
Act.
I had the skills.
And I had the experience.
This time too...
I would survive.
Just like I had in my previous life as the King of Survival.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Thud!
The clean and well-maintained training ground behind March Pavilion had been gathering dust for a long time because no one used it.
Today, for the first time in a while, it finally sounded like a proper training ground.
The person who had awakened in this world and decided to live here was testing his body.
After spending a week recovering, I finally started moving properly again.
Just as the physician had said...
My body was in incredible condition.
Every movement felt smoother than it ever had in my previous life.
One-two. One-two. Hook. Step back. Knee strike!
Whoosh! Whoosh! Swish! Thump!
Was this really the body of someone who used to be called a martial artist?
I had always been proud of my physical condition while living as a soldier and mercenary.
But Cheon Sowol's body was something else entirely.
His muscles were perfectly developed.
His reaction speed was excellent.
His body was flexible and powerful.
Everything worked exactly as it should.
Even his lung capacity seemed several times better than that of an ordinary modern person.
That couldn't simply be because I hadn't exercised in a week.
The physician hadn't exaggerated when he said my body had almost undergone a complete rebirth.
Maybe the air here is better.
No matter how hard I pushed myself, I barely got tired.
If someone without internal energy could perform like this, what about real martial artists who possessed it?
I was becoming more and more interested in this place called Murim.
My body was fine.
The movements I had learned in my previous life still felt slightly awkward in this new body.
But I could already feel them slowly becoming natural.
I might need a little more time before I could move exactly the way I used to.
Considering the condition of this body, it wouldn't be difficult.
Body check complete.
Since I had decided to survive here, I needed to examine everything available to me one by one.
The first thing was my body and the skills I had learned in my previous life.
Those were the most important.
When people were pushed into a corner, the last thing they could rely on was their own body.
That was especially true for people like me.
As I continued moving, I reviewed everything I currently possessed.
My experience and skills from the modern world.
Fragments of knowledge and memories about this era.
And language.
Some of Cheon Sowol's memories had transferred to me.
Thanks to that, I could understand and speak the language.
I also vaguely remembered some people.
The memories weren't very detailed.
Still, they were enough to function normally in everyday life.
Based on my short conversations with the people around me, I could also estimate the general level of civilization.
This seemed similar to medieval China.
It wasn't a world that perfectly matched real history.
I was only estimating based on clothing, architecture, and customs.
The name of the current dynasty was unfamiliar to me.
But judging from the fact that the rule of the nomadic peoples had ended, this world resembled the history I knew to some extent.
I need to understand the era before I can decide what is possible here.
During my time in special operations, we were trained to operate anywhere in the world.
Because of that, we studied history, culture, and the humanities.
That knowledge was proving extremely useful now.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Step. Step. Step.
"Young Master, aren't you pushing yourself too hard on your first day?"
I stopped throwing punches through the air and turned away from the wooden training dummy I had been striking.
A familiar yet still somewhat unfamiliar voice came from the pavilion.
It belonged to Jin Woon.
My bodyguard.
And apparently my only close subordinate.
According to Cheon Sowol's memories, Jin Woon was the son of the guard my father had assigned to my mother, who had originally joined the Cult from outside.
His family had served ours for generations.
At one time, Jin Woon had apparently belonged to a warrior unit directly under the Cult Leader's Palace.
Now, he was continuing his family's duty instead.
Perhaps because he had taken care of Cheon Sowol since childhood...
Cheon Sowol's feelings toward Jin Woon were special.
Almost like a brother.
Jin Woon seemed to feel the same.
"Ah, Jin Woon. It's been a long time since I've trained. I just wanted to loosen up."
"You should still be careful."
"Fine. I'll take a short break."
"Here."
"Thanks."
Jin Woon approached with a bright expression and handed me a towel.
He also gave me water.
The way he carefully looked after me made him seem more like a personal attendant than a bodyguard.
Judging from everything I had seen...
He was probably the only person here who was completely on my side.
"Your movements were sharp and efficient. Have you learned a new martial art?"
"Huh? Ah... Yeah. I thought learning something new might be better than trying to recover the martial arts I lost."
"Hmm. The movements were extremely simple. It looked like a martial art designed for actual combat."
"Well... apparently it's a martial art used by soldiers in the Western Regions."
"Really? How did you learn such a martial art?"
"I found it by accident while looking through books related to alchemy... Hahaha."
"Then that too must have been a fortuitous encounter. Congratulations on learning a new martial art. It is all thanks to the Sacred Moon's protection."
"Th-thanks! Sacred Moon! Right, the Sacred Moon! Hahaha."
I had simply been warming up using martial arts from the modern world.
But Jin Woon, being a martial artist himself, immediately recognized that the movements were practical.
He had plenty of real combat experience.
What I had shown wasn't even my primary combat system, Krav Maga.
It was mostly simple MMA-style movement.
Still, I had casually added the explanation about it being a military martial art.
Modern militaries did actively use MMA training, after all.
More importantly, I was planting the idea in advance.
It would make future things I showed him easier to explain.
"You look much better like this. It has been so long since you stood in the training ground, Young Master."
"I haven't been here much lately."
"Have you finally given up alchemy?"
"Yeah. I don't think there's an answer there. Even recovering like this was probably just luck... No. I mean, it was probably thanks to the Sacred Moon's protection. So I'm done with it."
"I'm relieved. Honestly... when I first heard you had left your room, I thought you had gone back to the alchemy chamber. Forgive me, but I am happy. I, Jin Woon, always believed you would someday return to your former self. This too must be the will of the Sacred Moon."
"Right. Sure. The Sacred Moon."
Fortunately, Jin Woon didn't investigate the origin of my martial art too deeply.
Instead, he was simply happy to see me training again after becoming obsessed with alchemy.
And apparently, whenever an explanation became inconvenient, adding "the Sacred Moon protected me" solved everything.
It reminded me of the word Inshallah.
Muslims often used it when there was no clear answer to something.
"God willing."
It solved practically everything.
Jin Woon looked perfectly normal from the outside.
But occasionally, he was unmistakably a religious fanatic.
"Also, I still believe you will succeed even in 'that place.' Until that day, I, Jin Woon, will remain here and faithfully wait for your return."
Despite the situation, those words were sincere.
There was enough loyalty behind them that I felt I could trust him.
But one question remained.
The physician had mentioned it before.
And now Jin Woon was saying it again.
They kept talking as though I would soon have to go somewhere.
"That place."
I wanted to know what they meant.
Cheon Sowol's transferred memories were incomplete.
"Uh, Jin Woon? When you say 'that place'...?"
"Yes...? Ah. You said some of your memories were damaged by the shock. I am talking about the Dark Demon Well. In one month, Young Master is scheduled to enter the Dark Demon Well."
"The Dark Demon Well?"
I tilted my head at the unfamiliar name.
It sounded important.
Why wasn't it present in Cheon Sowol's memories?
Maybe he had deliberately avoided thinking about it because he hated the idea so much.
Seeing my confusion, Jin Woon gave me a simple explanation.
"Yes. The Dark Demon Well."
Then he added:
"The place known as the furnace that remakes people into Demonic Warriors."
A chill ran down my spine.
A furnace that remade people.
I had definitely heard something like that before.
