Chapter 5: Day 5

“Hmm.
She’s not a disciple of the Golden Spirit Gate…”

The girl’s body was covered with the dung of the porcupine monster.

The old man called it the Thousand Poison Hedgehog.

The girl exuded a terrible stench that made one want to unconsciously pinch their nose just by approaching her, but the old man examined her as if nothing was wrong.

“Is she food?
No, that’s not it either.”

The old man muttered to himself as he examined the girl for a long time.

The girl, who was gagging while hanging in the air with an intangible rope around her neck, was still looking at the old man with frightened eyes.

Just what.

‘What is this monster!’

The girl shouted inwardly.

The cause of her hiding in the dung pit, the porcupine monster.

Where did this monster, who turned that monster into blood with a wave of his hand, come from?

No, rather, where the hell was this place for such a monstrous old man to suddenly appear?

The only information she could know was.

‘This old man called the porcupine monster…’

He called it the Thousand Poison Hedgehog.

Thousand Poison Hedgehog.

That was clearly not a fantasy-like name, but a martial arts-like name.

Then, was this world a world related to martial arts?

Could it be..

‘It’s not a xianxia world, is it?’

If this was really a xianxia world.

Chills!

The girl unknowingly shivered.

She didn’t even want to imagine it.

If she, who had nothing, had really fallen into a xianxia world, she wouldn’t have to think, worry, or imagine to know the end.

She would know it.

Meanwhile, just as the old man was looking over the girl, who suddenly shivered and revealed a more intense ‘fear’.

“Tsk, it seems I’ve wasted too much time.”

The old man clicked his tongue after glancing around.

At the same time, the old man took out a small boat-shaped statue from his bosom and threw it into the air.

Bang-!

With a loud noise, a thick cloud of smoke burst out.

Then the statue thrown into the air turned into a huge boat.

A very simple form of a boat.

The strange thing was that such a boat was floating in the air.

“Still, to be in the Golden Spirit Gate’s breeding ground, there must be something.”

The old man muttered that, glancing at the girl again, and threw himself onto the boat.

The boat the old man boarded, as if floating on a flooding sea, rocked greatly once and moved forward.

In the blink of an eye, the boat escaped the forest and crossed the high sky.

Underneath it.

Dare!
How dare you touch the Golden Spirit Gate’s things!

Catch him!
Kill him!
Be sure to capture that guy!

Dozens of people wearing the same clothes dyed in gold… no, yellow, emerged from all directions and chased after the old man.

Someone chased after the old man on a single sword.

Someone chased after the old man, relying on the undulating ground.

And someone was shooting fireballs or steel pillars at the boat the old man was riding.

It was reminiscent of magic in a fantasy world.

Considering the word ‘Thousand Poison Hedgehog’ that the old man mentioned, this was definitely a world that would appear in a martial arts novel.

Magic-like power.

Martial arts-like words.

Combining those two.

‘I’m f*cked.’

The girl muttered inwardly.

It was the worst.

No, the word worst was not enough.

Really.
If the thought she had was correct.

This was among all the web novel genres she had read so far…

‘It’s xianxia.’

It must be a xianxia world.

As soon as she realized that fact, the girl fainted, foaming at the mouth.

Drip!
Drip!

“Ugh….”

At the sound of water droplets coming from somewhere, the girl’s eyes opened.

‘Where am I?’

As soon as her eyes opened, a strange ceiling came into view.

Long stalactites were densely packed on the ceiling.

The girl realized that the place where she opened her eyes was a cave.

Furthermore, she unknowingly got up, startled by the damp and eerie chill felt from her back.

But.

Clang!

“Ah…?”

Something like a suppressed groan escaped from the girl’s mouth.

Her body wouldn’t move.

It wasn’t because her nerves were paralyzed or anything, but simply because her whole body was bound by hard and heavy chains.

Was it fortunate that she could at least roll her eyes?

The girl, whose whole body was restrained by chains, inevitably rolled her eyes and looked around.

Boil boil.

In a huge pot not far away, something unknown was boiling over.

Strangely, even though there wasn’t even a small campfire under the pot, the contents inside were boiling.

In addition, various human corpses and things like beasts were lying around, dissected.

Chills!

This was definitely not a normal place.

The moment she belatedly realized that fact, the girl felt a chilling fear rise from her spine.

‘I, I have to escape.’

But how?

The chains that bound her body were hard and heavy.

Even if she was lucky enough to break one chain, there were dozens more just like it restraining her body.

But, she still had to get out of here.
No, she had to escape.

Otherwise, she would end up like the dissected corpses lying around the cave.

The girl tried.

No, to be more precise, she struggled.

She struggled.
And struggled.
And struggled again to break these chains that bound her body.

However, it was useless.

For a mere girl who had nothing, who had no skills or knowledge, the possibility of breaking these strong, hard, and heavy chains was zero.

‘F*ck, hell after hell, and hell after that hell.’

At the too pessimistic situation she was in, tears welled up in the girl’s eyes.

Drip.

The tears that welled up in her eyes ran down her cheeks and fell to the ground.

“Hehe, are you awake?”

The moment a teardrop fell to the ground, the old man’s voice echoed from not far away.

“S-Save me.”

When did he appear?

Where did he come from?

She didn’t know.
No, such things didn’t matter at all.

Right now, she just.

“P-Please save me.
Please save me.”

The girl just begged for her life.

The girl didn’t want to die like this.

How had she survived for three years in the hell where she first opened her eyes?

How had she survived in the hell she faced again after escaping that hell, in the midst of those monsters?

The girl.
She hadn’t survived so tenaciously to face the terrible death of being dissected alive by a mad old man.

Therefore, the girl.

“P-Please save me!
Please!
Please save me!
F*ck, save me!”

She just begged the old man for her life.

She didn’t worry that the other person wouldn’t understand her words.

Although this was a f*cking xianxia world, completely different from the modern world, she could understand what the other person was saying.

Then, wouldn’t the other person also be able to understand what she was saying?

Like that, the girl desperately begged for her life.

And the old man watched that silently for a few minutes.

“Quiet.”

Kurrrr-.

At the old man’s short remark, the cave trembled.

The girl quickly shut her mouth.

A heavy and eerie silence instantly descended on the cave.

The old man, as if he liked that silence, chuckled and said to the girl.

“Don’t worry too much.
Why would this old man kill you?”

Chills-.

The old man looking down at her.

The moment their eyes met, the girl felt a different kind of fear than before.

Those were not human eyes.

It wasn’t simply a metaphorical expression like the eyes of a madman or a murderer.

Literally.
As a physical phenomenon, those were not ‘human’ eyes.

What kind of human eyes had pupils that were vertically slit, filled with thick blood, and had black lines beyond them?

The girl realized that her crotch was wet.

The moment she met the old man’s eyes, the girl unknowingly wet herself from irresistible fear.

The girl, who was just silently trembling and had wet herself, made the old man chuckle again.

“If you wet yourself in front of this old man one more time, I’ll make you beg to be killed.
The same goes for crying.”

Hiccup!

The old man, who laughed like a kind old man next door, uttered such terrible words that didn’t match that laugh at all.

The girl desperately curled up at the old man’s words.

Desperately trying to hold back the tears that were about to burst out.

Somehow.
Trying to avoid displeasing the old man even a little.

The old man, as if he liked the girl’s desperate actions to survive, chuckled again and said.

“Still, a few drops of blood.
No, a few pieces of flesh, no no, an arm or a leg should be fine, right?”

What is he saying?

You said you wouldn’t kill me!

At the old man’s words, the girl shouted inwardly.

“Yes.
A leg.
Let’s do a leg.
A leg should be fine.”

The old man’s eyes turned to the girl’s leg.

In the old man’s hand was a sword that exuded an eerie aura.

The old man moved that sword towards the girl’s leg.

“Tell me.
Do you prefer the left leg?
Or the right leg?”

The old man grinned like a madman, trying to cut off one of the girl’s legs.

Behind that old man, a sound of someone clicking their tongue in displeasure echoed.

It was such an unexpected timing.
And the sound echoed at such a sudden timing.

Even the old man, who could be called the owner of the cave, didn’t realize the existence of the person who clicked his tongue.

The old man jumped in surprise at the sound of someone clicking their tongue from behind.

“Who is it!”

Kurrrr!

The old man turned around, shouting with a roar.

What was reflected in the old man’s eyes was a young man who had just reached the age of majority.

The young man had his hair, which reached down to his waist, tied up.

He was wearing pure white clothes, and on his chest was a strange pattern of dozens of intertwined snakes.

However, other than that, there was nothing special.
He was just an ordinary young man.

“Oh, you’ve come.”

The old man, who was probably three times older than the young man, suddenly bowed with a servile expression.

Just who.

‘Who the hell is that young man?’

She unknowingly had that question, but the girl soon solved the question she had.

This was a xianxia world where crazy monsters were swarming.

And in the xianxia world, there were people called cultivators.

What were cultivators?

They were those who dreamed of immortality and continued their training to become immortals.

Just because they looked young didn’t mean they were young and weak.

Just because they looked old didn’t mean they were old and powerful.

Even if they looked young, a monster that had lived for thousands of years might be sleeping inside.

Even if they looked old, they might have lived for less than a hundred years.

Considering that, it wasn’t strange for the old man to act so servile towards the young man.

“I just heard a strange sound.”

As the young man spoke, picking his ear, the old man broke out in a cold sweat.

“Would you like to say it again?
What were you going to do?”

“Th-That is….”

Even at the young man’s urging, the old man couldn’t open his mouth.

The old man clearly remembered what he had just tried to do.

And the old man recognized and acknowledged that the action he was trying to take was an action that should never be taken.

“This is why lowly wild beasts are no good.”

“P-Please spare~!”

The young man muttered as if he was unpleasant.

The old man, like the girl, desperately tried to beg for his life from the young man.

However, the young man’s action was one step faster than the old man’s begging.

Puff!

As the young man flicked his fingers, a gruesome sound echoed as if something was piercing into the old man’s body.

“Gaaack!”

The old man’s body fell with a suppressed groan.

Thump!
The old man’s body, which fell with a thud and rolled on the ground, was constantly gushing out red blood.

The young man frowned as if the old man’s blood was dirty, and then walked in the air and stopped in front of the girl.

“Is this the child.”

The young man looked over the girl with eerie eyes.

Certainly, the young man’s eyes, unlike those of the now dead old man, were those of an ordinary human, but.
When the girl met the young man’s eyes, she somehow felt a more ominous fear from the young man’s eyes than from the old man’s.

Like that, the young man, who had been examining the girl for a long time, exclaimed in admiration.

“Huh!

How can this be?”