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Translator: thursdays Editor: Sasha
1.
What word in the world matched the least with [zombie]?
I knew that it was a strange question.
But this world was occupied by zombies. As I fought against zombies and practiced martial arts, I naturally had to worry about zombies. So I just realized which word was the worst combo with a zombie.
-Guuuoh!
That was [Hadouken].[1]
-Uwaaa, aaaah!
A zombie in a black robe gathered his hands and fired a Hadouken at me.
I wasn’t kidding. It was real.
I’ll say it again. This [zombie], who had lived as a person of the Murim world, screamed and fired [Hadouken] at me.
“This is crazy—.”
Whoosh!
The Hadouken easily pushed me back. I flew through the air like a tossed wooden stick. What had happened so far already left me dumbfounded, but it didn’t end there.
-Wooooohh!
The zombie kicked the ground with a tap. It was a strange technique for movement. He sleekly activated a lightness skill. As if his body was filled with helium, the zombie soared into the air. In a moment, the zombie flew all the way to right in front of my nose.
Insanity.
“Hey! Wait, this can’t be real!”
I swung the Holy Sword urgently. But before I could wildly cut the zombie, a voice stopped me from swinging.
“Wrong! Don’t swing your sword randomly.”
It was the voice of the Heavenly Demon.
She was looking down at my fight from above the pit.
“Did I not say this? Think of the hunger, death by starvation. Think only of the gnawing in your stomach. If you just swing your sword, the Infernal Heavens Demonic Art is nothing more then a useless shell.”
“B, but!”
The zombie opened its mouth in front of my face. Crack! I barely managed to twist myself away and avoid the zombie’s teeth. I didn’t have the time to fall properly, so I just ended up on rolling on the ground. Was it more angry because I avoided it? The zombie roared and rushed at me again.
“I’m not really hungry right now!”
“Fool.”
The Heavenly Demon shouted as if she was frustrated.
“Can’t you think of the color red in your mind even if it isn’t in front of your eyes? Just because you’re not hungry right now doesn’t mean you can’t remember the feeling of hunger.”
-Guuuoh!
While the Heavenly Demon talked to me, the zombie continued to attack me with its nails. If I was scratched by those nails even once, it would be over for me. If I became infected with the zombie virus, I would become Kim Zombie in the truest sense of the word.
Chaang! Clink!
The zombie’s nails struck my sword with a horrible sound. I couldn’t attack, busy as I was with trying to defend myself. I could taste death.
“If you can’t do this, it is because you aren’t yet used to the sense of hunger. Your stomach is too full. Those who learn the Infernal Heavens Demonic Arts must be able to freely recall their senses!”
A sense of hunger.
Memory of hunger.
“Remember the longest time you were starved for. Go over your senses from back then. Where were you then? What did you want to eat the most? How long had you been hungry?!”
“The longest time I starved for was 3 to 4 days…”
“What? Three to four days?”
The Heavenly Demon was dumbfounded.
“…You mean that the longest you’ve ever starved was for only three days? That’s ridiculous. It has been a long time since the world has become so turbulent, and the harvest has been bad. How could you only starve for three days, unless you’re the child of a noble family?”
“Well, the place beyond the walls were more abundant than the central regions…”
Of course, the Tower, where people from all over the world gathered, was more abundant than the Murim world. Furthermore, it was also a place where you could enjoy modern civilization. There probably were quite a few Hunters who’ve never starved for more than two days.
“Oho. Huh. Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
The Heavenly Demon sighed.
“I see that this isn’t getting through to you. Hunger is the most pressing sensation. That is because it is a pain that cannot be skipped for even a day, a pain that no man can reject. People live to soothe their hunger. There is no difference between the hunger of an emperor and the hunger of the lowest caste. How can you awaken the Infernal Heavens Demonic Art if you don’t even know this?”
No, but…
I lived as an F-class hunter for over 10 years and have gone hungry quite often.
When I bought tteokbokki while living outside the Tower, I counted how many rice cakes there were per serving and only bought from a shop that gave 4 more pieces.
“Enough.”
The Heavenly Demon turned around.
“This was my fault! For a moment, I had hope. As I thought, you are a man who’s only talk.”
I was at the bottom of the huge pit. So, the Heavenly Demon’s figure quickly disappeared from my view. Chaaang! Clink! Barely blocking the zombie’s teeth and nails, I shouted at the already distant Heavenly Demon.
“Heavenly Demon-nim!”
There was no answer.
“Heavenly Demon-nim?!”
Again, there was no answer.
The Heavenly Demon was a warrior who didn’t look back.
“Please wait! Oh my God, it’s not like being hungry is something special! Does that make any sense that you can’t learn martial arts because of that?! Huh?!”
The Hadouken zombie opened its mouth wide again.
Ah.
“Oh fu—”
Chomp!
[You have died.]
[You are regressing to 24 hours ago.]
“—ck!”
I regressed to a day ago and stomped my feet. As I returned, I saw the skill card of Hadouken Zombie, suffered trauma, and received system verification that my ego was maintained, but that wasn’t important now.
“But I also lived through a lot of hardships!”
I was fuming.
Indignant. Wanting to win.
Only those two emotions, like red and blue fireworks, burned in my heart. They went beyond just burning. They blazed.
-Wow.
Bae Hu-ryeong rested peacefully next to me.
-She’s educating you in a very traditional way. Well, she’s teaching you an arcane art, so that’s only right. Zombie. Humans have been eating more since olden times, so they become more simple…
“Fine. So she’s coming at me like this, huh?”
I ignored Bae Hu-ryeong’s words and left the hot spring cave.
“If you come out like that, do you think I’ll cower and surrender? Am I supposed to be thankful? I’m a man who has burned to death! I was scorched from my head down! Do you think I won’t die from starvation?!”
-Uh…
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