Baek Woo Jin opened his eyes a full day after receiving the Drunken Immortal’s treatment.
He grimaced at the dull pain in his side.
He must have possessed a body on the verge of death just like last time.
“……”
He scanned his surroundings with a hazy gaze.
Dense trees, lush undergrowth, and a clear bright sky.
His first word as he took in this refreshing natural scenery for the first time was a curse.
“Ah, fu*k.”
Baek Woo Jin died.
When the Drunken Immortal checked, his soul had already left his body and departed from the world.
And the soul now inhabiting this empty body was that of a man who had been kidnapped into a strange world while reading a web novel.
“Life really is full of surprises, huh?”
No matter how he thought about it, this time he truly felt wronged.
Even if he made a hundred concessions, he could chalk up the first transmigration to his own karma. After all, he had unleashed a tirade of 5,700-character-long curses, so it was understandable that the other party might have been offended.
“But this is really too much.”
He cursed inwardly. It wasn’t even a tirade, just a simple remark that he couldn’t continue reading because the author had ruined the immersion by forcibly adding nonexistent tags to ride the popularity of currently top-ranked works.
The result was what he faced now.
“He sent me here to make me feel the immersion that I found to be lacking. Hah, what a bastard.”
His feeling of immersion? It shot up dramatically. Everything that happened from now on became his own business, so he couldn’t help but be deeply involved.
“I should have checked the author’s name, I’m an idiot…”
If he had at least checked the author’s name before reading, he would have quit the novel site altogether.
“Whew.”
He took a deep breath to calm his mind.
Self-blame and despair lead a person’s mind into a bottomless pit. If one stops at a reasonable point, it turns into reflection, but if not, it becomes poison.
This was Moorim (the Martial World). Here, if you picked a fight with a master at an inn, your head could be cut off, and if you climbed a mountain or sailed on a boat, you might meet bandits or pirates who threatened your life.
Since this frightening world had become his reality, it was time to figure out how to survive rather than wallow in regret and despair.
What point in time is it now?
To avoid confusion, he slowly began to recall Baek Woo Jin’s memories, which he had pushed to one corner of his mind.
The heroines’ leaving relay followed starting with his fiancée, and amid all this, he took on a third-rank bandit subjugation mission which ended in a crushing defeat and retreat.
Embarrassing scenes flashed by one after another.
“Ah.”
Recalling it wasn’t difficult. After all, this was the most positive part of the beginning, the part that made one look forward to the future.
Indeed, it was an immortal who saved the protagonist when he fainted.
In the novel, it was an immortal who had come down to the mortal world for a while and he saved the protagonist after he fainted from running away in panic.
He was a sword master who had reached the heavenly realm with just a single sword hundreds of years ago. Although it was not clear why he had come down to the mortal world, the Immortal barely managed to save the protagonist who was on the brink of death. After a few words were exchanged between them, he was moved by the protagonist’s righteous nature and taught him martial arts, in the hope that the latter would use them for good before he returned to the heavenly realm.
“Probably, the author’s intention here is to make the heroines fall into regret and obsession.”
The protagonist who became strong overnight, and the heroines who started to regret looking at him. This was the foreshadowing for the trend of regret, obsession, and deterioration that was selling like hotcakes these days.
“It’s terrible, really.”
Originally, this novel began with a harem and pure love. If the author had steadfastly written a growth-oriented martial arts fantasy with a weak but righteous protagonist supported by his fiancée, childhood friend, and other heroines who healed his heart and helped him grow stronger, it would have appealed to readers who enjoyed harems. However, the foolish act of unnecessarily inserting elements of regret and obsession caused the few readers it had to abandon it.
“Ugh, I don’t know.”
Anyway, from now on, he was the protagonist. Since he had no intention of moving according to the author’s intentions, there was no reason to recall the cancer-inducing contents of the novel and clutter his mind.
“Still, I need to secure my fortuitous encounters.”
The protagonist Baek Woo Jin was praised as a prodigy who would revive his family along with his brother due to his outstanding physique from birth. The only reason he had struggled without even reaching second-rank level until now was that his family’s martial arts were completely incompatible with him.
“Why on earth are they incompatible?”
The martial arts of the Shaanxi Baek clan that came to mind focused on extreme speed, the Baek Seom Sword Technique. While it was his first time with martial arts, from his experience in the fantasy world, there was nothing in the swordsmanship or internal energy cultivation method that suggested it would be incompatible with somebody, unless one had an unusual constitution that made it difficult to learn martial arts.
“Just for the convenience of that bastard author.”
It was clearly a setup to make the protagonist learn new and unique martial arts that only he could master.
Now that his soul had changed, it was possible such a setup no longer applied. When he recalled and simulated a few moves of the Baek Seom Sword Technique in his mind, he thought he could use them proficiently without any problems.
“Well, the more the better after all.”
The more cards you held in your hand, the better. The martial arts of the Shaanxi Baek clan were renowned in Moorim, but they could hardly compare to the divine martial arts of an immortal who had reached the heavenly realm with just a sword.
While he was organizing his thoughts, he heard a rustling sound from the bushes.
The sound of someone pushing through the underbrush. It was clearly not an animal but a person.
He’s here.
The man, or rather Baek Woo Jin, turned his eyes in the direction of the sound with a dazed look on his face. As if he had just woken up.
According to the description, an old man dressed in white robes…
The person who emerged from the bushes was indeed an old man. However, he looked completely different from the description.
The sight of him covered in dirt, wearing shabby clothes, and carrying a bag that was larger than himself, made him look like a struggling herb gatherer rather than a sword master.
“Have you woken up?”
The man, or rather Baek Woo Jin recalled the protagonist’s response from the novel and repeated it.
“Did… did you save me, Elder?”
“Right.”
Even the way he spoke was different from the description. The novel described his voice as grand and majestic as if he could gaze upon the whole world, but the old man’s thin voice did not match that at all.
“I owe you my life. Pardon me, but may I ask for my benefactor’s name?”
“Hmm, though it is forbidden to reveal my identity to mortals, I will make an exception for you.”
Despite his scruffy appearance, the old man continued speaking with a deliberately solemn expression on his face.
“I am the Drunken Immortal, an immortal of the heavenly realm.”
“…”
“I descended briefly to this world after discovering a herb essential for brewing wine and came across you.”
Shit. No way.
This was completely off track.
…
Little was known about the immortals in the novel. The only one who appeared, the Sword Immortal, taught the protagonist martial arts and then returned to the heavenly realm, never to be seen again.
However, they all ascended to the heavenly realm by shedding their mortal bodies. Immortals possessed a mysterious art called heavenly arts and created mystical tools known as treasures.
Though he was disappointed that the immortal before him wasn’t the Sword Immortal and looked far too shabby to be an immortal, that disappointment was fleeting.
An immortal is an immortal.
…
No matter what, anyone who transcended human limits and reached the heavenly realm was extraordinary.
It was clear that learning anything from him would be of great help in living in this world.
That’s why, when the Immortal asked why he was left to die in this forest, he burst into tears. Then, with a voice full of resentment, he began to recount the events that had befallen his predecessor Baek Woo Jin as if they were his own experiences.
“Hoo, your fiancée had a secret affair with another man?”
The fiancée who had promised a future with him turned out to be a wicked woman who frequently had illicit relations with another man.
“No way, your childhood friend who vowed to be with you forever used you?!”
The childhood friend turned into a heartless woman who used and tormented him in every possible way to be with his brother, Baek Moo Hyeok.
Was that too much?
He wondered if he had gone too far. He just kept spilling everything out as it came to mind, but what could he do?
It needs to be dramatic to be effective.
The more dramatic the story, the more it captures attention.
Even housewives watching soap operas get furious at the outrageous actions but can’t stop watching until the end.
The heavenly realm. How boring it must be?
In a place perfect for idle leisure, where would they have heard such a wild story?
“Th-This…! How could such vile creatures exist!”
Seeing him rise in anger, Baek Woo Jin who was still lying on the ground and sobbing cheered inwardly.
Everything is going according to plan.
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