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Chapter 72: The Death Gleaner (1)

“Shit...” I cursed.

Its Palm Wind easily tossed me into the air like so much chaff. Just that was enough to leave my mind whirling. Unfortunately, the zombie wasn’t done.

The zombie kicked off the ground using a unique foot art, executed with obvious proficiency. It soared into the air as if it were filled with helium and instantly flew right to me. It was crazy.

“Hey! Wait, wait. This isn’t right!” I hastily swung my holy sword.

Before I could cut down the zombie, the Heavenly Demon’s voice stopped me.

“Don’t! Don’t swing your sword indiscriminately.” She was watching me fight from above the pit. “I told you to think about the hunger and the pain of those who starved to death. Ruminate on what it is like to be hungry. If you just swing your sword, the Demonic Heaven Arts is just an empty shell.”

“B-but!”

The zombie’s maw yawned right in front of me.

I barely managed to twist my torso to avoid the zombie’s bite. I couldn’t properly break my fall and ended up rolling on the ground. Angry that I had evaded its attack, the zombie roared and charged again.

“I’m not really hungry right now!”

“You fool!” the Heavenly Demon shouted, frustrated. “Can you not picture the color red just because it’s not in front of you? How can you not recall what it feels like to be hungry just because you aren’t hungry right now?”

Even while the Heavenly Demon was berating me, the zombie continued to swing its claws. If those claws touched me even once, it was over. I would be infected with the zombie virus and truly become Kim Zombie.

The zombie savagely battered at my sword with its claws. I only managed to block the attack, never mind strike back. I felt like I was going to die.

“If you can’t remember it, that’s because you aren’t used to the feeling of hunger. You’re basically a pig. Those who learn the Demonic Heaven Arts should be able to recall the feeling at will!”

The feeling of hunger. The memory of hunger.

“Remember the time you were hungry the longest. Dwell in that moment. Where were you? What did you want to eat the most? How long were you hungry!”

“The longest time I’ve been hungry was three to four days...” I answered.

The Heavenly Demon was dumbstruck. “What? Three to four days? You’re saying that the longest you’ve ever starved in your life was just around three days? That’s impossible. The world has been lawless for a long time, and famine was rampant every season. How could you have starved for only three days? What were you, the son of a major noble?”

“O-outer murim was more prosperous than the Central Plains...”

The Tower was naturally more abundant in resources than murim, the world of martial artists. After all, the Tower was a place of modern civilization; quite a few Hunters probably hadn’t starved for more than two days.

“There’s just no talking with you. Hunger is the most urgent pain that you feel every day. No one can avoid the pain, so they live to lessen their hunger. The emperor’s hunger and that of the commoners are no different from one another. If you don’t even know this, how will you learn the Demonic Heaven Arts?”

I-I lived hungry for quite a long time. I spent over ten years as a Class F Hunter! I used to count how many pieces of rice cake go into one serving in tteokbokki shops at the Tower. And I only bought tteokbokki at stores that gave me four more pieces!

“Forget it.” The Heavenly Demon turned her back on me. “It’s my fault! I had hopes for you for a moment, but you’re all talk.”

The pit I was in was deep, so the Heavenly Demon quickly disappeared from my sight.

“Lady Heavenly Demon!” I shouted, barely fending off the zombie’s teeth and claws.

I got no answer.

“Lady Heavenly Demon?”

Once again, there was no answer. The Heavenly Demon never backtracked.

“Please wait a minute! For god’s sake! It’s not like feeling full is going to kill me! It’s absurd that I can’t learn the arts because of that!” I screamed.

The Palm Wind zombie opened its mouth wide.

“Ah, fu—”

[You have died.]

[Rewinding twenty-four hours.]

“—ck!”

I returned to yesterday and stomped my feet.

Before my return, I had seen the Palm Wind zombie’s Skill Card, experienced his trauma, and received the Tower’s certification that my ego was intact. But none of that mattered right now.

“Still, I’ve lived through a lot of hardship!” I fumed.

Anger and competitiveness filled my heart with fires of red and blue. Actually, they weren’t just fire—they were an inferno.

—Wow. The Guardian leisurely floated around me. She uses very traditional methods to teach you. Well, she’s teaching you her one and only ultimate art, so that’s the right choice. Zombie, when someone tries to weasel out of everything, they become a weasel like you...

“So this is how she’s going to do it!” I ignored the Guardian and left the hot spring cave. “Does she think I’d be scared and surrender if she treated me like that? Not at all. I was burned to death before! From head to toe! There’s no way I would be scared to die of starvation.”

—Uh... The Guardian looked flustered, which was rare for him. Zombie...? What’s wrong? Hey, just learn the sword from me instead of that Heavenly Demon woman. As a teacher, I’d be much more gen—

“If she tells me to starve, I’ll starve!”

—Oh, boy. He’s blown his top. Ah, he really can\'t see anything when he gets like this. Damn, that’s weeks down the drain, the Guardian muttered.

From that day onward, I began my hellish journey. After lying to the Hunters that I was going to find the items needed to clear this stage, I left alone and went as far as I could from the hot spring cave. Then I cooped myself up deep in a snowy mountain and did nothing.

The Guardian looked at me with cold, lifeless eyes. He knew what I was trying to do.

—You nutjob... You’re just going to stay here until you starve to death, aren’t you?

I nodded. “Yes, I am.”

—God. Everyone else should know how crazy you are. Phewwwww! I’m the only one who knows. I would give anything to not be a ghost, the Guardian lamented.

He was noisy.

—Zombie—no, Gong-Ja, please, I’m begging you. I don’t care if you’re so pissed off that you dedicate yourself to your training, but why are you making me suffer too? I have to sit here and watch you the entire time.

“Ah, you’re so noisy.”

—Let me ask you something: how many days do you plan on holding out here?

I was in a small cave somewhere on the mountain. It was different from the cave where the Heavenly Demon and the others stayed. Obviously, there were no hot springs or grain pills; it was just a cold, dark cave.

“I don’t know. I’ll have to start with 112 days.”

—What?

“I saw it in the Heavenly Demon’s trauma. One time, she didn’t eat anything for 111 days and only held out by performing Qi Alignment. So I’m going to endure 112 days at least.”

—What kind of fucking hippy-ass horseshit are you ta...

The Guardian cursed at me for about a minute. But no matter what he told me, it wouldn’t affect me, so it was meaningless. Besides, I was already in the lotus position.

He then tried to persuade me. Perhaps he thought that swearing wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

—You can’t last more than a hundred days even if you try! the Guardian shouted. Look at the weather right now. It’s cold! It’s damn cold! If you don’t cover yourself with aura, you’ll freeze to death. How are you going to use it for one hundred days straight? However hard you try, you’ll only be able to last twenty days at most.

—Besides, Gong-Ja, fasting for more than one hundred days isn’t just about starvation. You haven’t starved like that, have you? If not, then you have no idea.

“Have you done it before?”

—Yeah, I know because I did fasting training like the monks back in the day. For a few days, I felt hungry and thought I was gonna pass out, but you can’t feel anything after that. That isn’t starving. It’s just mental training. Mental training!

“There’s the answer,” I nonchalantly said. “I’ll starve until the fifteenth day and then repeat it.”

The Guardian opened and closed his mouth several times.

—What?

“I won’t eat anything for 15 days—that’s when I’ll be the most hungry. After that, I’ll commit suicide and stay on the 15th day. That’ll keep me hungry.” I looked at the Guardian. “I’ll repeat it until 112 days pass. How’s that? I won’t run out of aura, and I’ll still feel hungry. It’s the perfect solution.”

—...You crazy motherfucker... The Guardian’s jaw dropped to the ground. Just learn from me... Don’t take that weird cult leader as your teacher. I told you my martial arts are better. If you need a teacher, learn from me. What in the world is driving you to this madness—!

“I’m going to learn the Demonic Heaven Arts perfectly.”

A fire was burning in my heart.

“Do you know why the Heavenly Demon fell into despair and this world, the Heavenly Demon Chronicle, ended? It’s all because she felt like there was no point in surviving anymore.”

When the Murim Alliance\'s leader had been confined to his deathbed, the Heavenly Demon had muttered to herself, “The world has no meaning.” That was it. If a world was considered a novel, her muttered words would be the last line written on the last page.

All of the characters’ many lines of dialogue meant nothing. How they moved, where they went, or what they felt had no meaning. It was all pointless even if hundreds or even thousands of sentences were used. At that point, the novel and the world was dead. The novel was as good as blank paper, and the world was doomed. That must have been what the Indoor Librarian meant when he spoke about discontinued serialization.

I didn\'t want this world to end like that. That wasn’t how I wanted the story of the Heavenly Demon to end.

I looked outside the cave at the endless expanse of snow. “...It’s easy to live like the Fire Emperor. Since I have a killer skill, I’d have no problem convincing myself that I’m the best. When I win, it’s because of my skills. Other people do worse than me because they’re idiots, and I don’t need to worry about idiots. I can just pick the stages that are easy for me to clear. Whatever happens, I sneer and stay cynical...”

I trailed off.

I circulated my aura throughout my body and began my fast.

“It sounds cool. It does. Although cynicism isn’t childish, people who live cynically are childish.”

I starved.

“Idealism might look cheesy, but people who try to live ideally aren’t.”

I didn’t eat for a day.

“I’m also human, so I have to live.”

I starved for two days.

“Then the answer to how I should live is obvious.”

I fasted for three days. And on, and on.