The Strongest in Murim Through Gacha: Episode 1
1. A Gacha Game?
The Demonic Cult’s forces began to stir.
It was not a common occurrence, but neither was it unprecedented.
Ever since the name Murim came into being, invasions by the Demonic Cult had happened nearly once every century.
As always, it was a matter where the righteous and evil factions would pause their petty turf wars and build a suitable cooperative relationship to drive out the demonic cultists.
A bloody storm would sweep through once, but rising experts with shallow reputations and late-generation prodigies who had yet to earn proper aliases welcomed it instead.
In Murim, clashes of blades happened as naturally as breathing anyway.
How could they not welcome a good opportunity to make a name for themselves against a common enemy—the wicked horde of demons?
But this time, something was different.
The Demonic Cult’s march knew no hindrance, and no one could halt their advance.
Countless martial artists were beheaded.
The righteous and evil factions, sensing the crisis, formed a proper alliance to respond, but it was insufficient.
Unbelievably, it was because they could not overcome the martial might of just a single person.
To some, he was known as the Heavenly Demon.
To others, he was known as the Demon God.
And to the majority of those in Murim, he was known as the Mad Demon, a name filled with resentment and rage.
The titles varied, but they referred to one man.
Gang Sa-ik, the Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
Leading his cultists and setting foot in the Central Plains for the first time, he was the era’s greatest martial artist under heaven, a man befitting the words “under heaven, only I am supreme.”
“Pathetic.”
Before the martial might wielded by this single absolute being, countless renowned masters of the righteous and evil factions were trampled and crushed like withered leaves.
Most of the Nine Sects and One Union and the prestigious families that supported the righteous faction suffered near-annihilation and declared their gates sealed.
The great organizations of the evil faction and infamous leaders knelt before the lord of demonic might, whom they could not oppose.
Neutral forces that did not lean toward either side trembled in fear and shrank back.
The unification of Murim.
In a situation where an unprecedented event in the long history of the rivers and lakes was imminent, the ruler of the Demonic Cult suddenly vanished.
All kinds of rumors spread.
There were stories that he had ascended to immortality after reaching a realm no longer attainable by human flesh, and stories that he had gone into seclusion, disappointed by Murim’s pathetic state where he didn’t even have a proper rival.
Whatever the truth, the righteous faction, the evil faction, and the remaining forces finally had their blocked breaths released.
Jo Gok, the Bloodless Demon and Vice Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
Though incomparable to the Heavenly Demon, the cult leader, under the command of the Bloodless Demon—who possessed martial arts that could be counted on one hand in the world—the remaining cultists established Demonic Cult branch factions in every city of the Central Plains.
“Surely the Mad Demon is dead. He must have temporarily obtained such martial might by burning his life away.”
“If only the Mad Demon is gone, we have no reason to lose to the Demonic Cult’s lackeys.”
“Let’s combine our strength and reclaim our past!”
With the Heavenly Demon gone, the righteous faction that had swallowed tears of humiliation and the evil faction that had been groveling on the ground raised their heads once more.
The launch of the Righteous-Evil Alliance, formed when the evil faction joined the Murim Alliance where the vested powers of the righteous faction had gathered.
And the Demonic Cult’s branches that took root in each region.
Thus, a prolonged standoff continued.
* * *
“But that was the game’s story.”
Hidden Dragon Academy, an educational institution under the Righteous-Evil Alliance.
So Jong-cheon, one of this year’s incoming students, looked at the letters floating before his eyes with bewilderment.
[Expel the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult’s forces from the Central Plains and unify Murim.]
“X-per. So what the hell is this?”
A weekend evening when sleep wouldn’t come and there was nothing to do.
He vividly remembered fumbling through games on his smartphone to pass the time, and installing a game called “Martial Soul” that had appeared in the new releases section.
The intro video was strangely long, and he had grumbled about being unable to skip it.
It was a mobile game based on martial arts where you roughly raised your character and allied heroes to unify Murim, but before he knew it, he had woken up to find himself dropped in a place like this.
‘So Jong-cheon, 15 years old. A descendant of a martial family that wasn’t famous but got by well enough. Hmm… The family was ruined in the war against the Demonic Cult in the past, his father was a warrior of the Murim Alliance but died during a mission. And he entered Hidden Dragon Academy this year.’
Memories that were clearly someone else’s swirled in his mind as if they were his own experiences.
For his consciousness alone to inhabit another person’s body and share their memories was something he had only seen in novels.
Confused as he was, he had no choice but to accept that this was not the Earth he had lived on.
“So… you’re telling me to live on as this So Jong-cheon guy from now on? And the goal is to drive out the Demonic Cult?”
Of course, understanding the situation didn’t make his bewilderment go away.
“Damn! Why me?”
“Hey, what’s with the noise since earlier?”
Someone approached as he muttered to himself in absurdity.
A broad, angular face with small, millet-like eyes.
He was one of the fellow Academy entrants assigned to the same room, destined to spend the next year together.
New students of Hidden Dragon Academy belong to the Yellow Dragon Squad and stay in quarters called the Yellow Dragon Quarters.
And the Yellow Dragon Quarters is basically configured as four people per room.
“You must be deeply moved by the fact that you’ve entered the Academy. It’s not a place just anyone can get into, right?”
Another nearby boy opened his mouth with a grin.
“You probably heard my name when rooms were assigned, but since we’ll be seeing each other constantly from now on, let’s introduce ourselves properly. I’m Jang Ja-gun. From Diancang.”
“I’m Cho Yeong-ho. I’m from Shaanxi Province, and I’ve mastered the Lightning Blade Technique. You’re the first Diancang martial artist I’ve met. I’ll ask you for a spar later.”
“Haha! A spirited friend. Let’s do that if we get the chance.”
The two boys, having exchanged greetings, soon turned their heads toward Jong-cheon.
Though he was in an absurd situation, he didn’t know how to return to his original body right away, so he decided to play along with these guys for now.
Fortunately, fragments of the original owner’s memories remained, so a self-introduction wasn’t difficult.
“Phew, I’m So Jong-cheon. I’m from Gwangju Province, and I’m 15 years old…”
“If you’re entering Hidden Dragon Academy, of course you’re 15.”
“You didn’t need to mention such useless details.”
Come to think of it, there had indeed been such a restriction for admission.
Except for a very small number of exceptions who gained entry separately through special examinations, all new students basically entered at age 15.
‘Tch. To these tiny little brats…’
Though this body’s owner was also 15, his original age was nearly double that.
Feeling embarrassed at being scolded by much younger brothers, he roughly patched together his introduction and closed his mouth.
“So we have the So and Jang clans, I see. Ahem! Well, then…”
Having heard the introductions, Cho Yeong-ho let out an unnecessary cough and turned his head toward one side of the room.
The other two naturally followed his gaze.
“Uhh… young lady over there, what might your name be?”
A girl leaning against the corner with her eyes closed seemed to give a sidelong glance at the voice calling out to her, but then closed her eyes again without a word.
“Ahem! A taciturn young lady.”
“I think we were just ignored.”
“Ugh…”
The boys spoke comfortably among themselves but seemed to find it difficult to do so with the opposite sex; they all glanced around awkwardly.
‘What a funny place, though. Same room as a girl?’
Given the era’s setting, gender relations should be quite conservative; it was a little unexpected that they would room together regardless of gender, even if this was Murim.
‘She’s so pretty that even a decent actress couldn’t compare. At 15, they’re at an age where their blood boils; won’t some troublemaker appear? “Martial artists are just martial artists, so we probably don’t distinguish by gender.” Is that how it is?’
The nameless girl possessed a rare beauty; even just leaning against the wall with her eyes closed, she looked like a painting.
‘No, now’s not the time for this.’
So Jong-cheon, who had unknowingly fallen into admiration, avoided the children and went to the opposite corner to sit down.
Unbelievable as it was, this was reality.
He didn’t know how long it would last, but for now, he had to live under the name So Jong-cheon.
‘Setting aside stuff like driving out the Demonic Cult, there’s no way to get out of here right now, so I’ll have to live as a student.’
Hidden Dragon Academy was an educational institution of the Righteous-Evil Alliance that trained martial artists to oppose the Demonic Cult.
Because of its strict selection process, it wasn’t a place anyone could enter, but once affiliated, it also wasn’t a place one could withdraw from just because they wanted to.
‘You can enter of your own free will, but you can’t leave.’
In the entrance examination, So Jong-cheon had barely cleared the minimum threshold.
Searching through his memories, there had been 208 successful candidates; though exact rankings weren’t revealed, he was probably ranked below 200th.
‘At least, it seems bonus points were added for his father’s merits.’
Had it not been for the record that his father, a low-ranking warrior of the Alliance, died during a mission, he might not have been able to enter this place.
Since he didn’t particularly have any means to survive even if he went outside right away, for now it seemed he would have to play the role of a martial artist under the academy’s student status—something not in his destiny.
“Phew…”
He let out a sigh at the feeling of having been forcibly conscripted into the army.
‘It’s worse than the military. A martial artist… in a world where you might suddenly get stabbed to death at any moment?’
He had merely launched a game to kill time, only to fall into a Murim world; not knowing how to return, he was simply going out of his mind.
‘It’s definitely the game’s world, but still. They just tossed me a goal to drive out the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult and expect me to build strength through ordinary training? There’s no game system assistance or anything? They should at least give me the ability to survive in this brutal world!’
As he grumbled, something in his head reacted to his thoughts.
[User connection confirmed.]
‘Huh?’
With a strange sensation of sentences being engraved in his mind, someone’s voice was heard.
[Issuing daily login reward.]
Along with that, a small disc-like shape appeared before his eyes and began spinning on its own without him touching it.
He stared blankly, and before long, an arrow appeared on the stopped disc, and a simple picture floated up.
“…A silver ingot?”
[Reward: 400 silver!]
The disc disappeared.
So Jong-cheon, who had been staring blankly into the air, came to his senses.
‘What? Four hundred silver? What just happened?’
A semi-transparent window, like a game screen menu, floated in a corner of his vision.
‘Is… is the game system really being applied here?’
Three small windows with text.
[Info] [Draw] [Inventory]
“Ha, it’s real.”
So Jong-cheon let out a hollow laugh.
The moment he thought about pressing the part labeled Inventory to check, the picture of the silver ingot he had just seen appeared along with the number 400.
‘A silver ingot. It seems to be the currency used in this game system.’
This time, he activated the word Draw next to it.
[Hero Draw] [Treasure Draw]
The window grew slightly larger, and two new slots appeared as if asking him to choose.