Chapter 123
Thirty unknown characters versus seventy.
The thirty that had joined my side attempted defense and counterattacks, but they were overwhelmingly outnumbered, so their efforts weren’t very threatening.
Soon, their counterattacks petered out, and the seventy characters surrounding the thirty relentlessly launched offensive after offensive, trying to completely destroy the very foundation of the engraved memories.
“Twenty-five, twenty, fifteen.”
Amid the chaotic clash of characters, the ones that had already been inscribed quickly lost strength and shattered.
At this rate, defeat seemed inevitable.
Of course, I wasn’t about to just sit back and watch that happen.
“Alright, got it.”
I hadn’t been idly watching the characters disappear.
I had analyzed this strange phenomenon—and even found a solution.
“No one’s playing a prank. Each character has a faint will embedded in it, along with some unknown power.”
People often say that the calligraphy of master scribes can sometimes feel alive.
So, what about perfectly crafted characters?
The answer was the situation I was facing right now.
“They probably resist because I’m not their creator.”
In other words, this was happening because I wasn’t the owner of the characters.
But that didn’t mean I could become their owner, either.
So I had only two options:
Give up.
Or borrow.
“I’ll borrow them without permission for now, and ask the owner for approval later if needed.”
How?
Like this:
“I’ve prepared something delicious, so eat your fill and stop fighting.”
The characters were like guests.
And if guests were upset, it was probably because they felt slighted.
So I used my divine power to let them eat as much as they wanted.
I shaped it into something so delicious that they had no choice but to consume it.
“That’s right. Eat well.”
Contrary to my worries, the characters abandoned fighting and devoured the divine power greedily.
I had borrowed a little from my experience cooking bamboo shoots for Geumdu, and apparently, it worked.
Anyway…
“So this was the power they were holding onto.”
I had a slight headache ever since I began memorizing the characters.
But now, after offering divine power to the guests, the headache disappeared completely.
This proved that the power the characters held directly affected my upper dantian.
The reason my memories kept disappearing and I kept forgetting what I had memorized was exactly this.
“Eat plenty.”
I poured divine power into the characters without reserve, as if feeding hungry beasts.
They probably didn’t realize that once their meal was over and they vanished from my consciousness, the divine power they had consumed would remain fully embedded in their forms.
And things went exactly as I expected.
Tilt?
The character that finished eating first tilted its form as if alive, then resumed attacking the other characters.
And following that lead, the rest of my characters began their long-paused counteroffensive.
However…
The ten characters left on my side were no longer overwhelmed.
More precisely, even if they were damaged, they would no longer fall to the enemy’s side.
Thanks to the divine power I had imbued them with, they became even stronger.
Wow!
I could almost hear the cheers in my ears.
This time, the few characters launched a full counterattack against the many.
The battle had turned in an instant.
“Ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty.”
The number of allied characters, once down to ten, quickly recovered to full strength.
Yet their momentum didn’t wane; it only grew stronger.
Forty, fifty, sixty…
“Seventy.”
The situation had completely reversed.
Now we had seventy, and the enemy only thirty.
“At this rate, they’ll all naturally come to my side.”
But an anomaly occurred the very moment I was confident of victory.
Pushii…
I heard a strange hissing sound, like air escaping my ears.
“What?”
I barely had time to wonder.
The thirty enemy characters that had been swirling around my mind disappeared, as if choosing self-destruction rather than capture.
“No way…”
I quickly opened my eyes and looked toward the stele.
And I saw it with my own eyes.
The thirty characters that had vanished from my mind were also completely gone from the stele’s surface.
“They really hit me where it hurts.”
My head throbbed again. I couldn’t help but click my tongue at the ridiculous situation.
I never expected they’d prevent me from taking all the characters.
The ingenious method left me speechless.
“So I have no choice but to give up?”
It felt a little frustrating.
I still wanted to investigate further, but there was no denying that these were extraordinary characters.
As I grimaced at the thought of possibly having to abandon them, Pii!
A sound pierced my ear. I turned to see Geumdu standing next to me, watching intently.
He looked completely satisfied, as if he had finished his meal.
“You enjoyed your meal, huh?”
Seeing Geumdu so happy slightly eased my complicated feelings.
But then the unexpected happened.
Pii!
Geumdu grabbed my pant leg.
At first, I thought he just wanted more bamboo shoots.
But his expression still looked content.
“Follow me?”
Pii!
Only then did I realize that was what he meant.
Geumdu glanced at the stele, nodded cautiously, and led me along.
“There must be a reason he’s acting differently.”
Geumdu had no reason to behave strangely without cause.
I obediently followed him.
Pii!
He led me to a spot a little away from the stele, near the wall we had descended. There, he pointed to the ground below with his front paw.
Pii.
“Dig here?”
Geumdu still spoke in a way I couldn’t understand, but this time, I immediately grasped his intention.
He brought me here to dig.
“Could there be more fragments of the stele?”
I hadn’t seen any other pieces lying around.
Still, having followed him this far, I decided to trust him and follow his lead.
Pook! Pook!
The ground quickly yielded.
The intangible gloves I’d taken out of the pack proved invaluable, allowing me to dig without dirtying my hands.
When I had dug down roughly to the waist level of an adult, I felt something.
Click!
Something brushed against my fingers.
I carefully pulled it out—it seemed like a piece of wood.
“What’s this?”
Worried about damaging it, I carefully dug it out.
And when I removed it from the earth, I was astonished.
The piece of wood, covered in dirt, bore clearly engraved characters—the same as those on the stele.
One, two, three, four, five.
Five characters in total.
Three of them were the ones that had just vanished from both my mind and the stele.
But that wasn’t all.
Pii!
“Dig more?”
Following Geumdu’s instruction, I dug further.
Nine more wooden pieces were found, revealing twenty additional characters.
Altogether, I now had ninety-three characters.
Though seven still remained missing.
“Where are we?”
I hurriedly committed them to memory and secured them with divine power, making sure they couldn’t vanish this time.
“Good thing we acted quickly.”
Seeing characters faintly disappearing even from the wooden fragments, I breathed a sigh of relief that we weren’t too late.
I couldn’t help but praise Geumdu.
“You really did something great.”
I lifted him into my arms, stroking his head.
He closed his eyes and enjoyed it. I asked:
“How did you even think to prepare this?”
He looked slightly embarrassed and scratched the large bump on his head, then explained everything.
Pii!
He said he had been unable to recall events outside, as if someone was interfering.
After hitting his head on a rock, he vaguely remembered, though it hurt.
Pii!
So he had watched me prepare the sticks and followed my actions.
To avoid hitting his head again due to forgetfulness.
Pii!
“Fools get hit twice by the same trick, right?”
Pii!
Geumdu tapped his small head with his paw and nodded proudly.
Today, he deserved recognition.
“You’re better than me.”
He hadn’t just been digging; he had prepared all this in advance.
Honestly, I didn’t expect such foresight.
“Next time I encounter the Netherworld characters, I won’t be fooled again.”
Geumdu was right.
Getting caught by the same trick twice is foolish.
The second time, one should even counterattack.
Geumdu had executed an excellent countermeasure.
Anyway…
“What exactly are these things?”
I turned back to the stele.
Characters that weren’t physically inscribed but seemed alive when I merely thought of them.
I had never imagined such a thing.
“I need to go back and ask about this.”
Perhaps Shuhyeon had returned by now.
Even if not, Choohaeyeon might know something.
“Gilan, bring more sticks.”
I retrieved the extra sticks I’d stored in my pack, knowing we’d need more on the way up.
“Master,”
Gilan, who usually only spoke when necessary, addressed me.
“Go on, what is it?”
“May I offer a suggestion, if it’s not rude?”
I nodded.
Finally, he wanted to share his thoughts, and I saw no reason to stop him.
He suggested:
“Why not carry it by putting it inside me?”
It was a clever idea.
I couldn’t help but clap at it.
