The Reincarnated Hunter Sweeps Up All Fortunes - Chapter 20

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 20
20
The battle ended easily.
Or rather.
I’m not even sure if you could call it a battle.
It was closer to a hunt.
‘Good call taking him out first.’
Once Im Daejoo fell, the enemy scattered like sheep without a shepherd. I’d done similar things in the war between the Red Willow Faction and the Black Blade Gang, but at least then my opponents could see me.
Here, even that much was impossible.
I threw Flying Blades from a distance, and the moment confusion set in, I launched surprise attacks. The Damun Sect warriors, their vision stolen by the formations, bolted down paths that didn’t exist and tumbled straight into traps.
The mercenaries, panicking, flailed about until they ended up run through by their own allies—mostly Damun Sect disciples—and bled out.
When I appeared to finish them off, they begged for their lives, pleading desperately, but…….
“You should have lived decently, then.”
“You bas—!”
I mercifully sent them on their way with minimal suffering.
After the battle ended.
The adrenaline slowly drained away, and my heartbeat returned to its normal rhythm.
“…….”
Something felt oddly hollow.
Why?
Usually, after a fight ends the tension falls away, and once the tension breaks, fatigue crashes in, and once fatigue arrives, sleep follows. There was no reason to feel disappointed.
“Ah. I didn’t collect the loot.”
The moment that realization hit, heat flooded my face.
Unclaimed goods belong to whoever picks them up first.
The treasure hunter and the mercenary inside me howled in unison.
Looting is the golden rule after every battle.
“Coins…… coins…… Flying Blade…… coins…… huh? This is a secret technique manual?”
I hadn’t expected much.
Whatever secret techniques third-rate warriors carry can’t amount to anything special.
“……As expected.”
A quick Assessment confirmed it was a third-rate martial art. I registered it as a skill and tucked it back. Payment for the ferryman to the next world.
When I searched Im Daejoo’s clothes, I found silver coins and a small vial.
An Assessment revealed it was Bone-Melting Liquid.
“……Why is this here?”
Anyone who’s read a wuxia novel knows it—just a few drops and a corpse vanishes without a trace. Magic liquid, practically speaking.
Using it for evidence destruction was obscenely expensive, but undeniably effective.
I pocketed the coins carefully along with the vial, then slipped off the Gloves on my hands.
They looked like cheap junk made for hauling cargo, but they were actually useful equipment.
“I’ll put these to good use.”
After looting was complete, I moved deeper into the Cave.
Now the real work began—work befitting a true treasure hunter.
The Cave ran far deeper than I’d expected.
Ding!
[You have discovered a ‘Poison Needle Volley’ trap.]
Ding!
[You have discovered a ‘Bamboo Spike Tunnel’ trap.]
Deeper I went, the more diverse the traps became. They were worlds apart from the simple arrow and spear traps near the entrance—far more cunning, far more lethal.
Some were layered with multiple tripwires; touch even one and the floor collapsed, impaling whatever fell on the bamboo spikes below—a shish kebab trap of the highest order.
With real and false traps mixed together, I would’ve been in real trouble without my Trap Detection skill.
“The Heavenly Distance Divine Throw’s grotto is just child’s play compared to this.”
[Trap Disarming skill activates.]
Click.
[You have disarmed a ‘Blade Rain’ trap.]
[You have gained experience and grown.]
[Your proficiency with certain skills has increased.]
As I moved onward and disarmed each trap, experience accumulated steadily.
I’d traveled quite some distance.
Walking along the cave wall, I noticed something strange.
“……What’s this?”
A talisman was stuck to the wall.
It was not paper, but a talisman drawn in vermillion ink on beast hide.
It looked ancient, yet oddly the color had not faded.
“Assessment.”
Ding!
[Confusion-Underworld Lost Path Talisman]
⌞
Durability: 2 / 100
The nexus of an Array that deceives the five senses.
Upon removal, the Array will dissipate, and the cave will collapse a quarter hour later.
Left untended for so long, its durability is nearly exhausted.
“A quarter hour—that’s fifteen minutes….”
He mentally traced the distance from his current position back to the cave entrance.
Though it felt like they’d traveled far, since he’d been disarming traps the whole way, the subjective time was longer than the actual distance covered.
Fifteen minutes would be more than enough time to dash out.
The Damun Sect corpses would be buried, the Array gone, the cave collapsed—a clean end to everything.
No one would ever know what happened here.
Wasn’t that the perfect destruction of evidence?
“If I remove it now, I’ll be destroying evidence of myself too.”
The countdown begins the moment he pulls the talisman free.
He still hadn’t explored the inner depths. No idea how far back it went. Better to continue inward and remove it on the way out. Im Gang pressed forward.
Detect the trap. Disarm the trap.
Detect. Disarm.
It was repetitive work.
Im Gang knew exactly what they called this kind of repetitive work in dungeons.
‘This is grinding.’
[Skill Point 1 acquired.]
…….
[Your total Internal Energy has increased slightly.]
‘Ahhh. This is why we do it.’
Humming to himself as he advanced, the cave gradually began to narrow.
The ceiling lowered until it nearly brushed his crown, and the passage constricted until barely one person could squeeze through.
And then.
“……Oh.”
He entered a chamber covered in softly gleaming stone.
The room held thick dust settled on tables and chairs, jars, a brazier, bedding yellowed with age—all the traces of someone who’d once lived here.
He assessed the objects, but found nothing worth taking. Even the stone itself would be the same, unless he pried out whole sections or cut pieces free.
That wasn’t the point anyway.
A chest at knee-height beside the bedframe.
Im Gang’s gaze locked onto it. His treasure hunter’s instinct and his Treasure Detection skill were reacting like madness toward that chest.
A golden dot.
“……Unique!”
His heart began to pound.
In his past life, items were classified into seven grades.
Among them, the golden dot signified Unique—treasures infused with properties or granted special effects.
Even then, Unique-grade artifacts were rare enough that top-tier hunters fought wars over them.
There was a grade above it—Epic—but he’d never seen one.
Well.
To be precise, he’d seen one from very far away.
He only knew what they looked like—the kind of thing held by guild masters or kept in national treasure vaults.
By the standards of this world, the kind of thing the Nine Sects and One Gang or the Five Great Families possessed.
The topmost tier, something there were only a handful of among the transcendent schools that had dominated a province for centuries and shaped the entire face of the martial world.
“But…… isn’t this somewhere between Unique and Epic?”
Im Gang narrowed his eyes.
Looking again, it wasn’t a pure golden hue. The light seemed slightly dimmed, as if faded. It was an ambiguous color between Unique and Epic.
His brow knitted involuntarily, but he soon shrugged. What did it matter?
This wasn’t his past world.
Im Gang slowly knelt before the chest.
There was a lock, but disarming it with his skill was trivial.
Click.
The lock gave way and he lifted the lid. Im Gang’s eyes widened slightly.
“What?”
There wasn’t just one item in the chest.
There were two.
A martial arts manual and a sword.
“……Two items between Unique and Epic?”
Im Gang’s chest tightened and his eyes began to redden.
Was this what emotion felt like?
Had spring finally come to his life? Was he really about to leave this wretched drifter’s existence and become a master who could shake Hangzhou, perhaps all of Zhejiang Province?
With a trembling hand, he reached for the manual first.
‘Assessment.’
Ding!
[This is the Demon Slaying Blood Sutra Sword, an advancing-rank martial art.]
“……The name is a bit ominous, isn’t it?”
His elation faded quickly.
A chill ran through him.
A flying blade strikes your chest and embeds itself there. But don’t worry — in the martial world, those who practice Demonic Arts are called Demonic Practitioners and are hunted by both righteous and evil factions alike, branded as public enemies of the jianghu.
……Or rather, no.
Often, martial arts with ominously demonic names aren’t actually demonic at all.
The old martial artists of the jianghu must have all suffered from adolescent delusions, naming their techniques while the Black Flame Dragon nested in their right arm.
Besides that.
I’ve never seen Demonic Arts before, but this doesn’t carry that particular feeling they have.
What feeling do Demonic Arts have, you ask?
My master said you just know when you see it.
The manual whispers like a secret in your ear about omnipotence, pleasure, ecstasy — having everything within reach.
“The senile old fool.”
Thinking of my master, who’d gone senile in his late thirties, made my chest swell with emotion.
……Ah. He’s in his forties now.
Anyway.
Instead of wasting time thinking about my master, I should finish the assessment.
[Demon Slaying Blood Sutra Sword]
⌞
A Buddhist-lineage advancing-rank martial art in which one slays demons and writes sutras in their blood, transcending the karma of slaughter through repentance, thereby elevating the sword’s enlightenment.
“……Buddhist? Here?”
Im Gang rubbed his eyes furiously.
A Buddhist-lineage technique with such a bloodthirsty name—if the Shaolin Temple heard this sword art’s name, they’d probably clutch their heads and cry out.
What wicked monk dared name it something like this?
“But…….”
One thing bothered Im Gang.
Why a sword technique if it’s Buddhist martial arts? Buddhism—the Dharma schools led by Shaolin—has precepts called the Ten Commandments that must be observed.
One of them is the Killing Precept, which forbids taking life.
But a sword is a weapon designed specifically for slaughter, and they created a martial art using it?
“And what’s with this absurd contradiction?”
One must repent for the karma of killing, yet is told to slay demons and write sutras in their blood.
It’s contradiction piled upon contradiction, spinning like a carousel gone mad.
Hmm…… I don’t know.
Im Gang stopped thinking about it. Whether it was Buddhist or anything else, what mattered was that it wasn’t Demonic Arts. It was Super-Pinnacle martial arts, a rank above Pinnacle.
“Between Unique and Epic, so of course it’s good……?”
Im Gang suddenly froze. The moment he brought the Demon Slaying Blood Sutra Sword closer to read it, the ambiguous color shifted to pure golden radiance.
Wait, why is it……?
* * *
The Damun Sect Leader’s expression hardened as he read the urgent dispatch that had arrived. After he tugged the ceiling cord several times, Chong-gwan appeared moments later, his face drenched in sweat.
“Sect Leader, you called for me.”
“Tell the Vice Sect Leader to take the warriors and withdraw everyone immediately.”
“……?”
“They’ll understand what you mean. Go and tell him now.”
“Yes, understood.”
As Chong-gwan rushed off, clutching his jiggling belly.
The Damun Sect Leader turned the dispatch over in his mind.
‘This has become troublesome.’
Of all things, a Demonic Cult practitioner had been discovered.
And in the Hangzhou area, no less.
It happened half a day after the martial artists had departed to search the grotto.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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