A strange alley.
“Ugh… Did I drink last night? No, right? What’s going on?”
I blinked blankly. The sky is unnecessarily blue.
“… What is that sll?”
A pungent odor pierced my nostrils, making sit up. I looked around, trying to find the source of the sll, and then it hit .
“Oh, crap.”
That sll was coming from ? Did I get so hamred last night that I forgot even that?
Suddenly anxious, I started recalling mories.
Na: Lee Seo-jun. Age: twenty-four.
What day was yesterday again? As I thought harder, realization struck.
“When did I start keeping track of the date?”
I quickly gave up and got to my feet. Surprisingly, my body felt light. Definitely not in the condition of soone who drank a lot the night before.
“What the heck.”
Then I noticed my clothes were odd. Did we have clothes like this at ho? They looked filthy enough that even if given for free, I wouldn’t want to wear them.
I was slowly starting to realize sothing was really off. Well, more like acknowledging a fact I had been sensing for a while.
“Wait, seriously…?”
I walked straight into the alley to figure out what was happening. If I had fallen into a novel or a different world, I at least needed to know what was going on.
As I turned the corner, I heard strange sounds.
“Ah, you’re really fierce, huh?”
“Stay still before I carve a hole in your belly!”
“Ahhh…!”
I turned my frozen neck. Damn it, a cri scene was right in front of . What’s worse is that I locked eyes with those criminals.
“What’s up? Get lost, kid.”
“Uh, okay.”
I quickly lowered my head and stepped back. Fortunately, the criminals seed to decide to let this poor civilian go without shaking down.
As I hurried away, clutching my racing heart, I thought, ‘What kind of idiot carries a sword that big?’
The sword was bigger than a person’s forearm. Plus, the clothes those criminals were wearing looked like they belonged to a much earlier era, definitely not modern fashion.
I could easily picture characters from martial arts novels dressing like that.
Online art courses
If I hadn’t woken up in a drama filming set, it was obvious what my current situation ant.
Whether this was from a novel or so other world, I had fallen sowhere. Given the vibes, it seed like a martial arts setting. I tried to recall the novels I read, but I’d only read about a hundred of those and couldn’t pinpoint which one it might be.
Online art courses
Hold on. Is this just a wild dream? Just as I was trying to process that, screams pierced my ears.
— Aaaahhh! Please save ! I beg you!
I froze in my tracks. The shrill cries were gripping my heart like a vice.
“Well, crap.”
How could I possibly take on those guys carrying swords? That’s crazy. Am I really going to risk my life to save soone whose face I don’t even know?
Yeah, that’s insane. It’s craziness…
“Sigh… damn it!”
With shoulders back, I yelled. By now, my feet had moved on their own and, of course, I locked eyes with the criminals again.
Right, a real hero would do this, right? This dream is just a total cluster.
“Kid. Even if I let you go, you just co back around.”
“Are you feeling a bit dizzy or sothing?”
The two n smirked. anwhile, in a desperate act to latch on to sothing, a woman, half undressed, crawled over and grabbed onto my pant leg.
“Th-this hero…! Please help … Aaaah!”
Thud!
The woman knocked her face on my knee and fainted. The thugs stared at , utterly dumbfounded.
“What the heck are you doing?”
“Listen, kid, don’t trust won. If you save them, they’ll stab you in the back.”
Especially if I was fighting and got a knife in my back, that would be a real disaster. There’s no guarantee that woman isn’t with these guys.
I felt a twinge of guilt, but hey, if I apologized afterward, it’d be a win-win.
Having experienced a betrayal like that myself, it made uneasy to leave the woman behind without checking.
“Wow, so you really are just a total lunatic?”
A guy wielding a sword larger than my forearm stepped forward. I tried to steady my fast-breathing lungs and assud a stance.
Naturally, I didn’t know any martial arts; it was more like a boxing stance I had seen sowhere before.
Online art courses
“Man, I’ve seen all sorts of weirdos.”
The thug swung the sword with a flourish. I could see it. That blade was definitely coming down to split in half.
Everything unfolded in slow motion, and I bizarrely found myself in shock.
Swoosh!
“Uh…?”
But my body wasn’t moving as fast as my brain wanted it to. My belly split open, and guts spilled out.
“W-what…?”
Should I be thankful that my body wasn’t cut in half?
Face suddenly eting the ground, I convulsed with burning pain coursing through .
“Ugh…”
It hurts like hell. That singular thought consud my mind.
It has to be a dream. It definitely should be a dream.
My consciousness wandering in the wrong place snapped in an instant.
*
“…What a ssed-up dream.”
An unfamiliar ceiling greeted . So it really was a dream? I an, falling into a martial arts world out of nowhere doesn’t make sense.
Online art courses
I chuckled to myself as I propped myself up.
“Ugh…!!”
Nope, it really hurts like hell. It felt like my stomach was being ripped apart as I rolled on the floor.
“Ugh… what kind of idiot am I?”
“Ugh… What the hell?”
“Don’t you dare do anything reckless. If your wound bursts, you’ll really die this ti.”
Raising my blurry vision amidst the pain revealed a small figure looking down at . A kid looking about twelve or thirteen hovered nearby.
“Ugh… ugh… I thought I was dying…”
I wiped the drool off my face and scanned the kid.
“…Hey kid, who are you?”
“What? You don’t even know to be grateful?”
The kid kicked my foot lightly with his toe.
“Ugh…!”
I twisted my body. The pain from what he touched made my head feel as if it were blanking out.
“What the…!”
“What? What?”
“Ow…”
I straightened up groaning. Through the gaping hole in the ceiling, I t the pitch-black night sky.
‘The sky?’
Only then did I realize I was lying in a decrepit house that looked like it would crumble with a single tap.
“…Where is this?”
“My place.”
“Where is your place?”
“Close to where you passed out.”
The kid clicked his tongue.
“Think logically. You think I’d drag you far? I nearly died carrying you this far.”
“…You make a fair point. But you are surprisingly strong for a kid. I guess it wasn’t easy dragging a full-grown man.”
“What? Ugh!”
The kid burst into laughter, then started mocking .
“A full-grown man? Is there hair on your little friend down there? You don’t look that much older than I am.”
“What? Is that so? What are you, so kind of ancient sage at such a young age?”
I casually inspected my own body. Of course, I wasn’t checking for hair down there; I just wanted to see what nonsense this brat was on about.
“What the…?”
Small. And short.
It wasn’t exactly like a child’s, but there was definitely a size difference from the hands I’d been used to as an adult.
“Seriously? What is this, ‘Detective Conan’ or sothing?”
Even though my body had shrunk, my brain was left intact! This is totally absurd!
“I don’t know, damn it.”
Life. I guess it’ll work itself out sohow.
*
Yeah, no it didn’t.
About ten days later, I finally stretched my stiff body. My wounds weren’t completely healed, but I could definitely say I was almost there. It was abnormally fast recovery.
How did I even recover?
Sure, skin would heal, but what about my innards? Can you really stick those back in and survive? Don’t people usually die from infection after that?
As I pondered this, I let out a sigh.
“Sigh… I don’t get it. This whole thing of getting younger makes even less sense.”
At my muttering, the kid responded.
“Still saying that? Isn’t it getting dull?”
“No, seriously, I’m not joking about actually getting younger.”
“Your nonsense has reached peak levels.”
“Shut it, Chun-bong.”
“……”
What kind of na is Chun-bong? As I looked at my self-proclaid savior, he flushed bright red.
“…I should’ve just left you there.”
Chun-bong sighed and grumbled.
“Anyway, don’t do anything reckless and just lie down. That isn’t a wound you get healed in ten days.”
“I’m healed already.”
“Right. It’s a miracle.”
Leaving Chun-bong behind, who was staring at my body, I sank into thought.
‘What’s really miraculous is being here.’
Through conversations with Chun-bong over the last ten days, I was sure of one thing: This wasn’t a dream. It was a solid reality and I was in the martial arts world.
Online art courses
‘But here’s the weird part.’
Three days ago, out of boredom, I started poking Chun-bong in the side with my toes and he yelled at .
“Dude! It’s nearly twelve! Can’t you let get so sleep!”
What is this? It’s not like I’m hearing so Fireball being cast in volcano sect or sothing. Twelve? Is he serious? If this were a logically written martial arts novel, they wouldn’t use “twelve” but rather “子時.”
Online art courses
(TN: 子時 => hours of rat)
“I don’t recall reading any martial arts novels that have that…”
Online art courses
So, isn’t this not from a novel? Did I just drop into so weird cult of martial arts world?
Online art courses
“Hey, Lee Seo-jun.”
“What?”
“What do you an ‘what?’ If you’re awake, shouldn’t you be helping out with the food bill?”
Chun-bong waved his finger from a half-collapsed door.
“Co on. I’ll teach you how to survive in the back alleys, dude.”
“By the way, are you really a guy?”
“…You idiot.”
Chun-bong quickly stepped back to cover himself. This misunderstanding was really bad.
“I-I’m not looking!”
“Suspicious!”
“Forget it; let’s just go. It’ll be interesting to see how well you manage.”
*
“Speaking of which, was there anything else at the place I passed out?”
I ask while chomping on so steaming dumplings.
“There wasn’t.”
“Oh, really? That’s unsettling.”
What happened to that woman? I took another bite of dumpling while quietly saying a prayer for her.
“But seriously, there are no at dumplings?!”
“…Dude, I’m stuffed.”
“This tastes horrible!”
So basically it’s called a dumpling, but there’s nothing inside—just so dough lump.
“Ha! If it’s like that, you should just steal next ti. I’ll keep my eyes on the lookout.”
“Should I?”
“What do you an ‘should I’? Just shut up and eat!”
I got smacked. For a brat, that hit hard. Is this what a martial arts local tastes like?
Online art courses
“Ugh, when’s my martial arts skill gonna land from the sky? I really need to beat those thugs next ti.”
Online art courses
As I grumbled, stuffing the remaining dumplings into my mouth, Chun-bong stared at with a blank expression.
“Huh? What?”
“Want to teach you martial arts?”
Online art courses
“Cough!”
I coughed out a dumpling that had lodged in my throat. Chun-bong’s cheeks puffed in surprise as I squeezed his face.
“Seriously?!”
“It’s nothing special. It’s just a form of the Three Calamities Sword Technique.”
How a kid from the back alley knows martial arts isn’t the important part. What mattered now was the timing.
Online art courses
“Thank you, master!”
“Shut up.”
Reviews
All reviews (0)