In earnest!!!
Though it seemed impossible to find anything in this vast ruin, Seoun thought it couldn't hurt to try. Carefully, he covered the half-burnt, splintered wooden door resting on top of the iron gate and opened the gate together with it.
"Ungh!"
Having barely propped the wooden door up on the iron gate, now open at a 90-degree angle, Seoun dusted off his hands, took a look around, then crawled inside and shut the gate behind him.
As soon as the iron gate closed, the charred wooden door on top of it fell into place, sealing it shut.
Relying on a ladder, he descended into pitch darkness, unable to see even an inch ahead, but it didn't take long for his feet to touch the ground.
Pulling a lantern from his subspace, Seoun lit it and found himself staring at a basement far larger than the mansion's living room.
"Amazing."
The basement was filled with large chunks of meat hung from the ceiling by strings to age, and stacks of wooden barrels—barriques—commonly used for aging wine.
Having lived off nothing but dry jerky for days, Seoun's eyes immediately went to the hanging meat.
-Gulp!
Back on Earth, he wouldn't have given such unsanitary-looking meat a second glance, but after 20 days of chewing on rock-hard jerky, even that meat was enough to awaken his appetite.
"Maybe just a little taste?"
He cut a bit from one of the hanging meats using his dagger, brought it to his nose, and his eyes widened.
The salty, cured scent was incredibly similar to ham—a smell Seoun knew well.
Without thinking, he popped a piece into his mouth and began to chew. The soft texture and sharp saltiness instantly made his mouth water.
"Ah… If only I had a bowl of rice…"
After stuffing nearly half of a head-sized chunk of meat into his stomach, he stored the rest in his subspace and began exploring the area.
Past a spacious storeroom and a narrow corridor, he came upon a long, straight path.
Aside from being slightly damp, the underground space was quite well organized and didn't even smell bad. However, Seoun's expression darkened.
At the end of the corridor were prison-like rooms with iron bars, and devices whose use was obvious just by looking at them—enough to harden his expression.
"Torture devices."
Knives of all shapes and sizes, branding irons, tongs, and chairs designed to restrain people revealed the twisted tastes of the mansion's owner.
Seeing such devices hidden beneath a seemingly pristine noble's home reminded Seoun of infamous nobles back on Earth known for their bizarre behavior.
"No matter where you go, there are always lunatics."
Uncomfortable, Seoun left that unsettling area and returned to the spacious room where he had first arrived. He began practicing Mujeolgwon to shake off the unease that had filled his mind.
The simple movements of Mujeolgwon gradually brought beads of sweat to his body.
Though he hadn't studied many martial arts yet, Mujeolgwon was clearly different from other techniques.
Unlike the typically static movements of other martial arts, it placed the body's center in the upper body and emphasized lifting the heels—an unusual detail. It resembled modern martial arts from Earth more than ancient martial techniques.
Despite being a fist-and-kick style, it emphasized mental aspects, with every form focusing on positioning and preparation before engaging an opponent.
"Yeah… It's similar to Jeet Kune Do."
Though he'd never formally learned it, Bruce Lee was an iconic figure.
He had watched many videos and had a fair understanding of the philosophy behind Bruce Lee's martial art.
Mujeolgwon shared much of that philosophy.
It stressed constantly being aware of distance and adjusting to the opponent's weapon, attacking before being attacked as the ideal strategy.
Many forms aimed not at defense, but at interrupting or neutralizing the opponent's attacks—and even destroying their means of attack altogether.
"Easier said than done."
Seoun's grumble was only natural.
It's one thing to fight unarmed against an unarmed opponent, but going bare-handed against swords or spears is no easy task. If someone's swinging a weapon to kill you, throwing your fist at it feels like a shortcut to losing a limb.
Sure, there were techniques—striking the flat of a blade to neutralize it, pushing away a sword, dodging a spear's tip and closing the distance—but Seoun knew well that knowing and doing were worlds apart.
Still, he couldn't just sit around grumbling forever.
He had to make the most of his safe time underground in these ruins, precariously within the range of the magnetic field.
After a long while of swinging his fists and imbuing them with inner strength, the floor of the underground was soaked with Seoun's sweat.
"Haah… haah, hoo! I think I'm starting to get it now."
By physically working through the movements in his mind and deciphering the meaning behind the techniques, he was finally starting to grasp the essence contained within Mujeolkwon.
"So learning through the system doesn't mean it truly becomes yours."
The game's system was certainly overpowered. It reduced years—or even decades—of training into mere seconds or hours. But that was all. What was gained in that way wasn't given to the user completely.
It didn't convey the realization or experience that came from using the techniques firsthand.
"Still, it's definitely broken."
Sweating from the heat generated by his intense movements, Seoun took off his upper garments and pulled out a small wooden box from his subspace.
"Looks like it's finally time to use you."
When he opened the wooden box, a refreshing scent wafted out along with the appearance of a green-tinted elixir.
He had always imagined an elixir to be a dark, murky color, so the unexpectedly vibrant green hue of this pill felt strangely off-putting.
"Well, I guess if it was refined from herbs, this makes more sense…"
It felt a little gross, but that was all.
Sitting cross-legged, Seoun put the pill into his mouth, but it didn't melt away magically and go down smoothly.
'This thing's really dry.'
Even after absorbing all his saliva, the elixir remained unpleasantly dry. He forced it down with difficulty, then tried to remove the bits stuck between his teeth with his tongue.
'What a waste… if the effect gets reduced just because of this—Huh!!'
At first, there was no noticeable difference after he swallowed it. But then, a hot surge of energy suddenly erupted from within his stomach.
As if it might burst out of his throat, the searing heat climbed up his esophagus, forcing Seoun to clamp his mouth shut and close his eyes.
As soon as he began circulating his energy, the wild surge that had been rampaging upward calmed down and naturally followed the path guided by his inner power.
Running through every meridian in his body, the energy completed its cycle through the Im-Dok-Yangmaek and returned to his Danjeon (energy core), where it settled and filled him with calm, steady power.
"Hoooh."
Exhaling a long breath, Seoun opened his eyes, now filled with deep focus.
After fully absorbing and stabilizing the overwhelmingly powerful energy—far greater than anything he had before—he felt as though the world had changed.
He realized just how meager his previous energy had been, how small his Danjeon was. Now, with it fully filled and reinforced, his confidence soared.
"This is real martial arts."
Every technique in martial arts was devised with the assumption that the practitioner possessed inner power.
A thrust with a long sword could easily break one's wrist without inner strength, and a palm strike to the chest might do nothing but provoke the enemy.
Martial arts techniques were created under the premise that they were to be practiced with inner power, which made them fundamentally different from typical external styles. Compared to straightforward combat techniques, many seemed impractical.
If one weren't using inner strength, then martial techniques would be hard to apply in real combat.
Once again, Seoun was reminded that martial arts without abundant inner power were just incomplete fragments. He picked up his discarded shirt and stood up.
"Map!"
It was about time for the next magnetic field zone to be determined.
"Hmm… just barely inside again. Jackpot."
Jackpot—a slang term often used when the magnetic field zone happened to land on the spot one was guarding in the log.
Luckily, the ruined area Seoun was currently in was again within the next magnetic field, buying him another full day.
"Survivors!"
Seoun went to check the current list of survivors—and his eyes widened at the final name.
-Ding!
-10/100
…
…
Jang Do-cheon → Jang Do-cheon (Suicide.)
"That guy… just how dangerous was his training for him to die in under two weeks…?"
Even after witnessing firsthand the destructive martial might that turned a mansion into ruins in an instant, Seoun still couldn't shake the belief that Jang Do-cheon was the strongest among all players.
If such a man could die after only two weeks of training, he couldn't even begin to imagine how dangerous that training must have been.
"Well, I made it into the Top 10… but it doesn't feel great."
Since he was the one who had recommended that dangerous training to the person in question, he couldn't shake off the uneasy feeling.
Moreover, hadn't that person bestowed upon him an incredible stroke of fortune?
"Well, it's not like they'll really die… Even if we meet again someday, they won't have grounds to blame me."
With those uneasy thoughts, he put his palms together and muttered quietly.
During the day, rather than doing anything in particular, Seoun opened one of the many barrels piled up in the barrack and drank a bit of what appeared to be wine.
It wasn't that he was satisfied or enjoying himself just because he made it into the top 10.
He simply bought himself a bit of time thanks to luck, but he had a strong feeling that the moment the next magnetic field shift caused the ruins to vanish, his final battle would begin.
Until now, he had fought tooth and nail to survive and conserve his strength — but now, it was time to fight with all the power he had stored up.
Of course, the odds weren't great, but compared to the beginning, he had grown immensely.
'And luck has been on my side until now, too.'
Hoping that such unexpected fortune would continue to follow him to the end, Seoun drank from the wide bowl filled with wine.
"Phew! Whatever this is, it tastes pretty good. Hmm… subspace."
Wondering if it would work, he put one of the barrels into subspace, then smiled in satisfaction and murmured,
"Considering this belonged to someone who lived in a mansion like that, it's probably top-quality stuff. When else would I get to drink wine like this?"
He didn't know if he'd be able to bring it back to Earth, but trying didn't cost anything.
Taking his final bit of leisure time, Seoun got plenty of rest and food and, for once, slept with a peaceful mind.
***
[Ding! You are outside the restricted zone. You may take damage outside the force field.]
The sound woke Seoun from sleep, and he summoned the map.
"Hmm… Still quite a bit of time left. Since the notice just came up, I probably have another hour or two."
Thinking back to how the force field usually shrunk at midnight, and how the next field's location would show up about two hours before that, he figured it must be two hours before midnight.
"Whew!"
Consciously exhaling, Seoun sprang to his feet.
The burnt, collapsed door shook as if reacting, then fell backward with a thud.
At the same moment, Seoun burst upward to the surface and started running forward, glancing back at the approaching force field.
He calculated the timing of the field's arrival to avoid encountering other players until the very end, and his pace quickened as he moved in tandem with the force field.
"Huff, huff. About two kilometers, maybe?"
Two kilometers. Even for someone recently discharged from military service, running that far at this pace was no easy feat.
But in just a little over 20 days, this world had changed Seoun a lot.
Most notably, the energy settled firmly in his lower abdomen made light running effortless.
Draped in a jet-black cloak in the dead of night, his form was hard to spot with the naked eye.
Above, the sky was blanketed in dark clouds, completely erasing any trace of the giant moon.
Just as he felt sweat trickling down his back with the heat, the force field chasing closely behind came to a stop.
Finally, Seoun reopened the map, lightly moved his body, and caught his breath.
'Now the real fight begins.'
Of course, the remaining combat zone was still quite large. But that only applied to ordinary people. As soon as the field shrank completely, powerful waves of mana struck Seoun from all sides.
The mana surges, enough to make his whole body tingle, rivaled the magic that had instantly turned a mansion into ruins last time.
At the same time, he felt a sensation like needles pricking all over his body.
'Is this… killing intent?'
The presence he had only vaguely imagined until now was closing in on him, squeezing his entire being.
'Incredible.'
Just as that thought crossed his mind, a thunderous sound rang in his ears.
-BOOM!
Alongside the crashing of trees falling in the nearby forest, a furious shout echoed.
"Namsagwang!!!"
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