The Outer God Needs Warmth-Chapter 120: Sailing to the Bottom (5)

A dark night without the moon.

I am currently walking across a vast meadow.

The drunkard who had touched me earlier is now dying, stabbed by a spear and a sword while resisting arrest. He wasn’t the one who started the fire, but since he was the most unruly at the scene, it makes sense.

What’s more, the area around the castle walls wasn’t just completely burned; the heat caused the walls to warp, and parts of it even collapsed.

Someone needs to be blamed for this, right?

Don’t you think?

And how he died turned out differently than I had expected.

He had planned to take the gold, deny his crime, and escape far away. I thought that, at the very least, his physical strength would allow him to run away longer than others.

And as more people get caught, the last ones to be apprehended gather more attention.

What if that person has distinctive hair and skin color?

An easy target to identify.

If that person is a clear villain, it’s easy to make the mistake of generalizing too quickly.

Especially in an era with little information exchange. On top of that, rumors spread about the gold he carried, and the speed of that spread is even faster.

With heavy footsteps, as I kept thinking about this, the already dark night sky became completely black. If only the stars were visible, I could keep walking, but the sky had no light, perhaps because the weather was cloudy.

Since this is not a world of advanced civilization, the roads are simply dirt, exposed to the ground, and there are no streetlights at all.

Earlier, I saw that the meadow stretched out ahead, and there was no place to rest. As I was thinking whether I should sit down on the ground and rest, I saw light in the distance.

Not the light from the sky, but from the ground.

If it was a place where people lived, I would be able to find a place to stay, so I headed towards it.

It was so dark that I stumbled a few times, but somehow I made it to the spot.

An old man was holding a small lantern.

“Hey, where are you heading at this late hour?”

He asked in a rough, grating voice. His voice is quite distinctive. Since he asked, I answered.

“To Kunlun Mountain.”

“Oh, are you heading to see a Taoist? Judging by your appearance, something must have happened.”

At his words, I looked down at my body. I had tripped a few times on my way here, and my clothes were a mess, covered in dirt and dust.

“I have business with the Primordial Heaven Lord.”

As soon as I finished speaking, the old man stared at me intently. But I couldn’t read his expression. He was making a face, but it seemed unreadable to my memory.

There’s light in his body. About the size of Huangbo Cheon.

In short, that’s it.

“Heh heh heh, even the Primordial Heaven Lord won’t be able to save you!”

His face twisted as he made a laughing expression. His body elongated as he approached to devour me.

That’s right. He’s not human.

When thinking of beasts, it’s hard to imagine that they are the only peculiar creatures. And when I look at the memories of the Tongcheon Sect Leader, there are many different kinds of monsters and immortals in this world.

Daegon recklessly accepted them and even fought against Kunlun Mountain. He lost in the end, though.

In other words, they are common native creatures in this world.

That creature came up to me and bit me. Flesh was cut, and bones were torn.

So?

I held the light and absorbed the warmth.

“A, a, a, aah? Aah? C-c-cold.”

As the monster seemed unable to maintain its form, its body bubbled up as if foaming, and parts of its body that shouldn’t have been there, like its arms and legs, began to emerge from places where they shouldn’t be.

“What? Why, why is it so cold? You, you’re not human, right? Huh? Huh? Huh, you’re not human?”

Now that I’ve taken its warmth, I’ve never done anything else to it before. There’s nothing around.

Then, the poor native creature was writhing and screaming, trembling from the cold.

I now had an opportunity to experiment.

Before healing my body, I grabbed the monster and forcefully shoved myself into the blackened light. Since Daegon could control it, it should be possible, right?

Crack.

But unlike Daegon, the light turned to dust and vanished, leaving nothing behind.

And the monster completely froze.

Its body didn’t stop; it continued bubbling up, regenerating and collapsing repeatedly, but its consciousness was completely gone.

It’s useless.

No, maybe it’s not entirely useless.

The light wasn’t something created by a tool, but the monster’s own body had transformed and created it. Looking at the information from the light, it seems it was born as a monster that devours people this way.

In that case, it’s fine to say it was born to shine light, right?

Let’s only take what’s necessary.

I grabbed the almost spherical body of the creature and shattered the reality so it could become a lantern. Of course, I also healed Choseol’s body at the same time.

Crack.

With a gruesome sound, the body was compressed, and it became a lamp I could carry. Initially, it looked like a lantern, but now it resembles a gas lamp.

I wonder if my memories are mixing in.

Hmm!

It’s pretty bright.

It’s not hot like fire, but it seems to have the ability to glow on its own. It would be convenient to carry it like this.

So, I took it and walked back on the path I had been on.

Behind me, in the black darkness, a faint crack was glowing. Based on the size of the crack, it seems the act of turning it into a lamp was not just like cracking a glass bottle.

It’s the size of the crack that appears when a serious injury is treated.

Good things are good.

Holding the light that brightens the dark night, I walked toward Kunlun Mountain.

The path is clearly visible now.

With this, even a night without stars can be safely traversed.

As time passed, the dark sky slowly began to glow, and the sun rose beyond the horizon.

When the morning sun rose, the lantern I was holding became visible. It resembled a black gas lamp, but instead of fire, strange liquid was swirling inside, with light emanating from it.

The body of the lamp, which I thought was similar to steel, was more like leather than iron.

The feel of the handle was quite soft, so I thought it might have been covered in leather, but it was just the body itself.

It’s not a problem if it’s something that resembles a talisman.

If it’s usable, it’s fine.

As I walked on, large fields appeared on either side. Since it’s spring, most of the fields are dry.

And beyond the farmland, I started to see a large city.

At least in this city, I hope they won’t block the road.

Thinking this, I headed toward the entrance of the city. Perhaps I’ll make some gold and give it to them? I don’t want to waste time, though.

Huh?

I was surprised at how easily I got in. It made me wonder why they had blocked the road in the previous city—there were no such issues here, and I was just let in.

It looks like I won’t have to use the gold pieces I prepared, after all.

Entering, I quickly crossed the city and, before heading toward Kunlun, I looked for a place to stay. I could force my body to recover, but if the bottle breaks before I reach Kunlun Mountain...

Choseol’s body is human.

Even though I’m inside it, I need to rest.

Actually, I was planning to rest in the last city, but...

I couldn’t rest and had to go around in circles, which delayed me. Since they took my time, I made them pay.

It wasn’t a big price, though. Just a small commotion that ended quickly.

I’ll remember the failed choice and proceed steadily toward my goal.

Current goal: rest.

Referring to the memory of the Taoist I met nearby, I chose a decent inn and entered.

I ordered a room for one night and two days of provisions, handing over a gold nugget, saying I didn’t need change.

The innkeeper smiled broadly and provided the service.

Though his eyes showed desire, fortunately, it wasn’t the kind of desire to kill and rob.

He seemed more intent on pleasing me for a good meal, so it was quite innocent.

I followed him upstairs to the room. It was cleaner than I expected. Unlike the hotel or motel I imagined from faded memories, it was a bit smaller, though there was no place to wash.

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Still, it was a decent enough place for the price in this area.

After unpacking, I asked the man who had taken the gold for a place to wash. He seemed to have been waiting for this and guided me there.

It had only hot water and towels, but that was enough for me.

When I came out, I noticed that my clothes had changed a bit around the washing area. There wasn’t anything worth stealing, so I relaxed and put on my clothes.

The only thing that seemed like it could be stolen was the monster-made lantern, but since it was probably an inn’s property, it was left alone.

I almost moved on, but the light flickered strangely, so I looked at it carefully.

Inside the light, a man’s face appeared, something that hadn’t been there before, slowly melting away.

Aha.

Interesting. I had a vague idea of what had happened. But I pretended not to know and took the lantern back to my room.

As soon as I entered the room, the man who had taken the gold smiled and asked if I liked the bathroom, bringing me food.

I complimented him, and he left, grinning.

Honestly, I thought he was the most likely to have tried to steal something.

Hmm.

It wasn’t him. Someone who had seen me give him the gold must have sneaked in and turned into fuel.

Good things are good.

I had a proper meal for the first time in a while and rested deeply at the inn.

As I rested, I organized my current situation.

While I walked, the original disciples of the Huasan Sect, the Taisan Sect’s Cheonbaek, and the Sungsan Sect’s Samabaek, were using footwork techniques to rush at tremendous speeds toward their respective sects.

I hadn’t thought much of them as martial artists, but they seemed to be getting to their sects faster than expected.

As I hoped, I anticipated a fight with members of the Murim Alliance or Taoists from the Heavenly Church while heading toward the sects.

If I had been a bit smarter, I wouldn’t have made this mistake...

If I had, creating an easy target in the previous village wouldn’t have been as effective.

Anyway.

The distances between Huasan, Taisan, and Sungsan were similar, so their arrival times weren’t that different.

The faded memory of Kunlun being at the center, not at the western end, faintly glowed.

It’s been a while since it shone.

Every time this kind of memory resurfaces, I think about how the geography is completely different from ancient China in my faded memories. So thinking based on those memories is meaningless, but why is it glowing?

As I watched the three of them, who were about to reach their destinations, through their eyes, I rested deeply inside Choseol’s body.

Once I enter Kunlun, there will be no time to rest anymore.