Extreme Orthodox Kung-Fu are actually Demonic arts.

–Thomas More, Utopia

----------------------------------------

After finishing my breathing exercises, I opened my eyes to see that the reception room was still empty except for me.

‘…Is Watson not here yet?’

Checking the clock, I realized that not even two minutes had passed since I started my breathing exercises.

-Rustle!

As I stood up, a small amount of foreign Essence escaped from my acupoints and dispersed into the air.

A faint floral scent brushed past my nose and disappeared.

The source was the energy of the Lily Swordsmen, which had burst from the Indulgence Talisman and seeped into my meridians, resulting in internal injuries.

When I had detonated the Indulgence Talisman earlier, the large amount of Lily Essence that ravaged my body was mostly expelled through the acupoints I opened while walking here.

However, separating the energy that had penetrated deep into my body was not as easy as I thought.

Lily Essence mimics the vitality of plants, quickly taking root anywhere, making it extremely difficult to remove once it clings to the meridians.

“Still, it’s much better than before.”

It’s fortunate that the Forbidden Palace is overflowing with elixirs.

If not, I wouldn’t have been able to recover from my injuries this easily.

What would have happened if I hadn’t received the Poria & Red Fleeceflower Pill in time?

By now, I might have had a severely Bad Trip due to the erosion of the Lily Essence and the interference of the King’s Specter.

Although my internal injuries aren’t fully healed, experiencing this once made me realize the need to always carry potent elixirs or pills.

‘It would have been nice if I could smoke.’

I had extracted some of the expensive elixirs from the blended tea gifted by Sir Harcourt and mixed them with tobacco leaves.

If I had brought a pipe here, I could have recovered from my injuries more efficiently.

It’s a shame that I have to rely on other means since smoking is not allowed in the Forbidden Palace.

At least, there were more than a few gains from this incident.

If I had suffered like this and gained nothing, it would have been quite frustrating.

Though my mouth feels idle without a pipe, I should organize the current situation before the ball begins in earnest.

To summarize the tangible gains from detonating the Indulgence Talisman, they are as follows:

1. I gained Her Majesty’s favor. For now.

This is undoubtedly the first thing to mention.

Stopping Father Brown’s rampage, which could have caused a diplomatic conflict with the Vatican and further with Italy, must have earned me some favor with the Sword Queen.

Though I briefly incurred her wrath by throwing Sir White Heather, the debate with the fake deacon and the revelation of the Indulgence Talisman’s truth allowed me to take the lead in the relationship.

If I use secrets as bait to gain necessary help without angering Her Majesty and slowly build trust, she will become a powerful card in the fight against Moriarty that I will face someday.

And next―

2. The interest and support of the many martial artists gathered at the palace cannot be overlooked.

One of the main reasons for attending this Kung-Fu gathering was to engrave the name of Little Heavenly Demon Sherlock Holmes into the minds of the Big Names of the martial world, so this is also an expected achievement.

Of course, the method was different from what I expected.

Just having various strong figures from home and abroad remember my existence, which is still only evaluated as a mere Super Junior, will provide a foundation for me to operate more broadly as a consulting detective and a martial artist.

In fact, before my regression, I didn’t place much importance on interacting with notable figures.

However, losing important opportunities due to Moriarty’s schemes taught me that I shouldn’t neglect efforts in this area.

The Moriarty in this world probably isn’t extremely wary of me yet, so I must complete my own network to obtain quality information from both the upper class and the underworld.

Important information of the Orthodox sects stays among the great gentlemen.

I plan to obtain the key to their world at the royal Kung-Fu gathering.

If I were to mention achievements other than the two gains mentioned earlier.

3. This was a bit unexpected, but through an unforeseen incident, I revealed a means to check the Zion Clan.

As a proper practitioner of Demonic arts, being unable to live without having to be conscious of the Zion Clan’s existence, this was quite a welcome development for me.

It’s true that practitioners of Demonic arts are shunned in most countries, but they are only socially condemned and legally punished when they commit crimes such as harming others with their learned Demonic arts.

In that sense, the Inquisitors and Exorcists, who ignore local laws and dismember people just because they learned Demonic arts, then cover it up with their backing, were very troublesome for me.

‘They’re an opponent I have to face eventually. It was a good choice to prepare countermeasures in advance so they can’t touch me first.’

I haven’t used them so far because I was concerned about others’ views or couldn’t fully make the experience of practicing Demonic arts in the Mind Palace my own, but I have learned various Demonic arts besides the Lionheart Method.

Most Demonic arts in the martial world are derived from Orthodox Kung-Fu through the principle of Paradox, so if one has a sufficient understanding of a specific Kung-Fu, they can be used without separate training.

I have learned to overcome the aftereffects through Master’s guidance and personal research, and have repeatedly trained to maximize the twisted power unique to Demonic arts, so my proficiency is entirely different from that of ordinary martial artists.

If a crisis arises, such as encountering an unexpected formidable enemy, I would have to use Demonic arts to carve a path, but I personally want to avoid the misfortune of being relentlessly pursued by the Lily Swordsmen afterward.

Therefore, I needed to become someone the Zion Clan shouldn’t touch.

The act of pretending to hand over secrets to the Sword Queen in front of the Inquisitor was all a setup to prepare for this.

Ultimately, if I can establish a good relationship with the Pope, who entrusted me with solving a case before my regression, and who is the head of the Zion Clan in this world, Leo XIII, I won’t have to be conscious of the Lily Swordsmen anymore.

One thing that bothers me is that Leo XIII in this world has been secluded somewhere in the Vatican, immersed in training for several years.

Before solving the case involving the Baskerville family in the past, I met him as an interesting old man, but what sort of character will he have in this world where the whole world has turned into the Murim?

If he’s not a fanatic who tries to tear apart and kill every Demonic arts practitioner he sees, there might be room for negotiation somehow.

‘One more thing, there’s still a secret more important than the Indulgence Talisman…’

After directly experiencing the energy of the Inquisitor and the Essence sealed in the Indulgence Talisman, I thought it would be difficult to turn them completely into enemies.

If I don’t use all available means, whether threats or deals, to tame them, they will inevitably point their swords at me someday.

Honestly, I’m not sure if I should call this a gain, but through this incident, I gained unexpected insight into the Kung-Fu of the Zion Clan.

‘I never imagined that the Kung-Fu created to kill those who learned Demonic arts would be another form of Demonic arts.’

Honestly, the other truth I discovered today felt much more stimulating to me than the secret of the Indulgence Talisman I learned a while ago.

Unlike other martial artists, as a Demonic arts practitioner who has accumulated purer inner strength than other Orthodox martial artists through the supreme Demonic arts, I could see through the secret hidden in the Lily Essence.

The energy I cultivated has a completely different nature from the commonly known Demonic energy, but it is undoubtedly obtained through practicing the Demonic Lionheart Method.

And the internal energy of the Zion Clan warrior injected into the Indulgence Talisman was also entirely different from the Essence of a typical sect disciple.

Something that a person should naturally possess was excluded, making it reminiscent of a plant that has absorbed natural energy for a long time.

In some ways, it can be seen as having a corner very similar to my inner strength, and such unnatural power cannot be obtained without practicing Demonic arts.

It means that, although wrapped in plausible doctrines, the Zion Clan warriors were not much different from the Demonic practitioners they claimed to exterminate.

Should this be called a contradiction, or should it be called a paradox?

Upon careful consideration, it didn’t feel like something greatly deviating from reason.

Demonic practitioners and demons refer to those who step into the Demonic path to pursue power, declaring themselves as non-human.

So, the power to subdue them being born from another non-human who walks the opposite path and gives up being human might be extremely natural and reasonable.

‘The claim that the Lily Essence, which devours Demonic energy, is the holy power of the heavens was nonsense.’

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, Demonic arts for Demonic arts.

Devouring the demons born from humanity’s heart is not their virtue.

The splendid lilies that bloomed in the Grand Hall were the product of a gap created by worship and blind devotion to God.

This too is just another demon that blooms when a person gives up being human.

As Thomas Henry Huxley, known as Darwin’s Bulldog, said, Kung-Fu are nothing more than trained and organized violence.

Trying to understand Kung-Fu by dividing them into good and evil based on shallow human standards only deepens confusion.

Good and evil reside in the heart of the one holding the blade, not in the blade itself.

However, there would be no point in revealing the truth about the Lily Essence to the outside right now.

I decided to bury the discovered truth deep in my heart for now.

Of course, this doesn’t mean I will forget it all.

Someday, this realization might help me.

For now, I must allocate my limited resource of thinking power elsewhere.

The immediate tasks are mainly three.

One is, of course, to finish healing my internal injuries.

The second is to come up with a way to deal with the thief of the royal decree I will encounter at the upcoming ball.

And the last is to devise a surefire strategy to pass the ‘trial’ of the Forbidden Palace that will come before I engage in duel chess with the Sword Queen.

Especially regarding the trial, as I have repeatedly warned Watson over the past month, if I let my guard down even a little, I will immediately face the outcome of being expelled from the palace, so I need to stay alert.

“It’s going to get really tiring from now on…”

It was then.

One minute after finishing my breathing exercises, my capillaries began to activate in earnest.

“Cough.”

A metallic scent, as if I had swallowed molten iron, rose up my throat and filled my mouth.

“Darn it.”

As I coughed and covered my mouth with my hand, dark red blood stained it.