Chapter 83: Hua Tuo

A few days had passed since they had entered the royal palace of Utgard.

During that time, Lee Jun-Kyeong and his party stayed rather quiet. Their meals had been served on schedule, and while they were occasionally allowed to wander around the castle, that was all they did.

“It’s not like they’re trying to mess with us,” Jeong In-Chang said with a dissatisfied expression.

He continued, “I mean, if there’s nothing going on, then they should let us go. What sort of situation is this?”

He was quite miffed that the giants seemed to be doing nothing. Lee Jun-Kyeong could understand where he was coming from.

It wasn’t something that would make someone feel good to go from moving every day, acting with a purpose, to being locked up for no apparent reason at all.

“Isn’t it good that we have so much time for training thanks to them?” Lee Jun-Kyeong asked Jeong In-Chang.

The two were walking through a garden in Utgard.

Of course, it was only called a garden by the giants. For Lee Jun-Kyeong and Jeong In-Chang, it was more like a forest.

“Well, yes, but…” Jeong In-Chang paused while stopping and then said, "I'd rather just die if we have to stay locked up like this."

“But they let us walk through the garden, don’t they?” Lee Jun-Kyeong responded playfully. However, he had stopped as well.

“Don’t worry,” he said to Jeong In-Chang. "I'll make sure you don't get bored."

Jeong In-Chang blinked. "How?"

Lee Jun-Kyeong was short on time, so he had felt the same as Jeong In-Chang, "I'm thinking about trying out some armed protests."

"An armed protest?"

Lee Jun-Kyeong nodded. “Yes. There’s no way they wouldn’t do something if there were an armed protest or something.”

Jeong In-Chang chuckled. “Are we finally going to break it all down?”

“...”

“Are we not?”

Lee Jun-Kyeong worried about how he seemed in Jeong In-Chang’s eyes. After all, his companion usually overflowed with a sense of justice, but he was seemingly excited with the prospect of destroying everything around them. He took a moment to collect his thoughts.

“It seems this place isn’t to your liking whatsoever.”

As soon as Lee Jun-Kyeong spoke, Jeong In-Chang responded with a sincere expression, “Of course, I don’t. We don’t see any other people, just giants. Also, that giant they call the king rubs me the wrong way… something just feels weird.”

“It just feels like there’s something suspicious about the whole thing,” he continued.

“You could be right, but that’s why we have to have incite the armed protest in order to uncover what’s suspicious, right?”

“So then how are we…”

Before Jeong In-Chang finished speaking, Lee Jun-Kyeong drew Muspel’s Spear from his inventory and grabbed its body.

The giants hadn’t even taken their weapons from them when they entered the royal palace. But in a way, it made sense.

They had even left Fenrir, who had killed giants and fought a fierce battle with their king, alone. It was a sign of their confidence and their arrogance regarding their own power.

As for Lee Jun-Kyeong, he thought it would be good to surprise them a little.

“Let’s fight.”

"Pardon?" Jeong In-Chang asked.

“You’ve never fought with me before, right?” Lee Jun-Kyeong asked.

“I mean, no, but…”

"Do you not have any confidence?"

Jeong In-Chang ended up drawing his greatsword. “You may end up regretting this. It might be difficult for me to win, but I won’t lose easily.”

Lee Jun-Kyeong and Jeong In-Chang looked over at one another and smiled.

"Let’s start."

Lee Jun-Kyeong kicked off the ground and thrust with Muspel's Spear. He appeared about a spear’s length away from his opponent before spinning. Using the force from his rotation, Muspel’s Spear barreled toward Jeong In-Chang.

Then, Jeong In-Chang suddenly heard something.

“Whoever loses has to grant a request.”

“Aaack!”

Because of that, the flustered Jeong In-Chang absurdly gave up the first move.

Boom!

An explosion began in the royal garden.

***

"Ah ha ha ha ha!"

The former leader of the Frost Giant clan, Thjazi, laughed boisterously.

“The royal palace must have become a wasteland!”

The reason he was laughing was that he had heard the news from the royal palace, and it was news that something incredible had happened in the royal garden.

Half of the garden had been destroyed, and it had been the humans that he had brought that had done it.

When he had heard that the owner of the Vanargandr had caused all of this, he couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

"It's a pity I couldn't see the chieftain's face,” Thjazi said as he slapped the back of his subordinate who had told him the news.

"…"

And eventually, soon, as one corner of his mouth lifted up, he muttered to himself, “How fun. It was good that I brought them.”

They had met by chance during their regular reconnaissance to prepare for any raids from the Nars, but these humans genuinely were giving Thjazi pleasure.

The relationship between Thjazi and the chieftain was not good.

'In the first place…’

They were from different tribes. Moreover, the current chief didn’t call himself a chieftain, but rather, he called himself a king.

Basically, he had changed.

Despite the wishes of the Frost Giants, a group of warriors, the chieftain seemed to want something else.

‘Could it be war…’

He had gathered iron and summoned warriors.

Giants, as a species, weren’t afraid of war. Instead, befitting a species that lived for quite some time, it was customary within giants to be ashamed of any member who hadn’t experienced war before they died.

However, who was their enemy?

While giants loved fighting and war, that didn’t mean that they would slaughter without reason.

They strived for noble concepts.

Pride.

Honor.

They fought according to their values.

Yet, it seemed as though the target of the chieftain’s war was unclear.

‘I hope you choose your enemies well, Chieftain.’

“Chief Thjazi."

At that time, a subordinate warrior rushed into the post where Thjazi was.

"It's the Nars!"

There was news that the enemy had appeared.

Thjazi held his axes in both of his hands and quickly ran out of the post.

"Let's go!"

***

"…"

"…"

Within a silent room, there were two chairs placed in front of a huge table.

Two sat across from each other in the two chairs, seemingly having a normal conversation.

“...”

However, even without looking closely, there was an apparent strangeness to the scene displayed.

In one chair, there sat a being suitably large enough for the size of that chair. However, as for the other chair, there sat an absurdly small man who seemed utterly ambivalent to how giant his chair was.

Eventually, the colossal giant opened his mouth.

“Whew… it is a great sin to damage the royal garden…” The giant shook his head. “However, it is our mistake in not asking you about your customs as well.”

“We apologize,” the little man responded at the giant’s words. He didn’t stop there.

“I don’t know if you know our people well, but it is customary for our people to train by running wild within a forest.”

"Is that so…"

It was an absurd custom, but there was no way for the giant to have known that.

To the giants, these people themselves were even more unusual. They could see many Chinese people as they lived in Utgard, but the man in front of him was from a completely different country.

He had said that he was from Korea.

“However, I am deeply sorry about my sin of damaging the royal garden…” The little man bowed his head and said sincerely, “...and I will provide compensation for it accordingly.”

"Compensation?"

The giant's eyes shone.

These guests may not know it, but the situation within Utgard was taking a turn for the worse.

All they had left was Utgard, and most of what they had had was stolen by the Nars.

Even more importantly, there was no land or anything from which they could procure any resources.

"What kind of compensation…?"

“We will try to fulfill any request you may have.”

"Hmm."

The giant nodded happily.

“Then, for now, do you think you could start with this?” he responded.

“The reason we had brought you here was, just like the situation we are in right now, there are so many things that we don’t know. This strange land seems to be filled with things unknown. Therefore, please let us know your story,” the giant continued.

“Of course,” Jeong In-Chang answered.

***

While Jeong In-Chang was speaking with the giant, Lee Jun-Kyeong was lying on a soft bed in the room.

The winner of the match with Jeong In-Chang was, of course, Lee Jun-Kyeong.

‘Please cooperate with the giants.’

Lee Jun-Kyeong had asked him to cooperate with the giants, to listen to everything they had asked of him.

To do anything they may want.

‘You mean anything?’

Jeong In-Chang was clearly perplexed.

‘No, you just have to pretend like you’re cooperating. Well, it doesn’t really matter what you do. It would be nice if you could get some information from the giants.’

‘But…’

‘I believe in your ability to react to the situation and handle it.’

At that point, the giants, who had noticed the disturbance in the garden, arrived.

The giants had tried to take both of them, but they had no choice but to focus on Jeong In-Chang.

“It looks like you haven’t been hurt all that severely.”

When the giants had arrived, Lee Jun-Kyeong looked as though he was bleeding dangerously at first glance. It was a wound that had been deliberately caused by receiving Jeong In-Chang’s blow with his greatsword.

Although the giants had been deceived, it didn’t seem enough to deceive the old man in front of him.

“It looks like I’ve made a fool’s errand,” the old man remarked.

“Please heal me,” Lee Jun-Kyeong responded.

"I heard that you are Korean, but your Chinese is quite good,” he said.

Tap, tap, tap.

He lightly tapped Lee Jun-Kyeong's body. Lee Jun-Kyeong’s wounds, which were still bleeding freely, clotted in the blink of an eye.

It wasn’t just that either. The wounds started to heal at a visible rate.

Although it wasn’t as quick as what would have happened if he had poured a potion over them, it was still a great increase in recovery.

"Thank you,” Lee Jun-Kyeong said as he looked over behind the old man’s back.

There was Jang Si-Eon, with whom he had built up a rapport for a while, smiling.

“Hehe.”

Although part of the reason that Lee Jun-Kyeong had intentionally gotten wounded by Jeong In-Chang was to avoid wasting time interacting with the giants, more importantly, the man in front of him was the main reason.

"It is an honor to meet you, Hua Tuo."

Hua Tuo.

He was the reason why Lee Jun-Kyeong had come to China, and the reason why they had gone through all that hardship.

They had come to China to find this person.

“Do you know who I am?” the old man, Hua Tuo, said as he tilted his head.

“Oh, no, I don’t.”

“If that’s the case, then it seems as though you had heard about me from Si-Eon.”

“It’s not like that, but don’t you think it would be nice if we got to know each other from now on?”

“What a foolish young man,” the old man clicked his tongue.

“Let’s go,” the old man said to Si-Eon. Then, as they were about to leave the room, Lee Jun-Kyeong interjected as he blocked them from taking another step, "The treatment is not over yet.”

The old man turned and looked over at him.

“Hua Tuo, do you really want to leave behind a patient without fully treating him?”

“...”

Hua Tuo's face contorted.

"No matter how you look at it, there doesn't seem to be any problem with you."

“It’s not an external wound.”

Lee Jun-Kyeong rolled up his wrist.

“I didn’t know that Hua Tuo could make such judgments without so much as even thinking about measuring one’s pulse,” Lee Jun-Kyeong said while smiling.

However, his smile didn’t reach his eyes.

"It was my mistake."

Hua Tuo didn’t seem to be in a good mood, but he soon approached Lee Jun-Kyeong again and began to measure his pulse.

“Even after taking a second look, it seems as though there aren’t any issues. Then, if you’ll excuse us.”

Hua Tuo soon turned around and left the room.

"…!"

Lee Jun-Kyeong stared at the door where the old man and Jang Si-Eon had left, bewildered.

He had come all this way to China and had found him.

‘Is it possible that he hasn’t acquired the skill yet?’

No, that didn’t seem to be it.

He could obviously feel mana emitting from Hua Tuo, and that meant that Hua Tuo was a Hunter. Moreover, the skill that had healed his wounds was an advanced skill that even most healers couldn’t easily do.

No, he was sure that the old man was the right person. However, there was no way that he couldn’t have noticed anything even after measuring his pulse.

It couldn’t be.

There was a reason why the name, Hua Tuo, had spread throughout the world.

"Just how…"

This time, Lee Jun-Kyeong had no choice but to panic.