Virtually Invincible

"Sorry, but precisely because I have Louise, I can't take on dangerous work."

After a brief silence, Luo Hongyun still shook his head. The hand that kept unconsciously stroking Louise's hair betrayed his inner turmoil.

It was an impossible choice. Without work, he couldn't afford to raise Louise. If he worked, he wouldn't be able to look after her. And if something happened to him, Louise would be left worried sick-or even without a soul to turn to.

"No, Uncle Luo, I think you misunderstood. I meant teaching me combat. I want to hire you as my combat instructor. That should be fine, right?"

Xia Xu looked at him with a smile.

Hiring Luo Hongyun as his bodyguard right now had never even crossed his mind. He hadn't intended to ask for that in the first place.

Luo Hongyun had already been unwilling to take on combat-related work. Now that he had a daughter, all he probably wanted was a peaceful life.

Trying to get him to work as a bodyguard now would take more than forty-five affinity points. Even twice that might not convince him. A hundred might do the trick-assuming a hundred was the maximum.

But simply hiring Luo Hongyun as a combat instructor should be fine. After all, he would only be teaching, not personally fighting.

He probably would have agreed once his affinity rose a little higher anyway. Now that he needed money to raise his precious daughter, there was even less chance he would refuse.

This was his only specialty. Teaching combat would be much easier than doing odd jobs or manual labor, and it would leave him plenty of time to spend with his daughter.

"Just teaching combat?"

Luo Hongyun was visibly tempted.

"Yes, a combat instructor. Ten thousand a month, provided you do your best to teach me everything you know."

Xia Xu nodded.

Learning to fight himself might take a little longer, but he could never have too many ways to defend himself and stay alive.

Knowing that this world held dangers, and that he would frequently be involved in various storylines, he would have to learn how to fight sooner or later. Relying on himself was always more dependable than relying on anyone else.

"Isn't that salary a little high?"

Luo Hongyun hesitated slightly.

These days, even martial arts schools only charged twenty or thirty thousand a year at most. There was no need to offer him ten thousand a month just to teach combat.

It wasn't that he thought it was too much. He simply didn't want to owe anyone a favor.

Any debt could be repaid, but a debt of gratitude was the hardest of all. Especially for someone like him, whose only specialty was fighting, repaying a favor often meant risking his life-or losing it altogether.

"Consider it protection money. I'm sure you've already figured out that I'm living here because I hoped you could keep an eye out for me."

Seeing that Luo Hongyun was about to speak, Xia Xu raised a hand to stop him and continued, "Don't worry. If any danger does come, it'll be aimed at me. I'm not insisting that you protect me, either. I just hope you'll help when you're confident you can handle it. If you aren't, just call the police for me."

Luo Hongyun fell silent again for a while. "...I need to know where this danger is coming from."

Originally, he hadn't minded Xia Xu living next door. If danger arose, he would generally have lent a hand anyway.

His skill gave him courage. He simply didn't want to fight anymore; that didn't mean he feared danger or combat.

But things were different now. He was no longer alone.

"Would you believe me if I said I don't actually know either?"

Xia Xu shook his head with a helpless, wry smile, then took out his phone and showed Luo Hongyun the screen. It displayed that morning's news bulletin.

"It couldn't have been a rabid stray dog."

Luo Hongyun frowned after just one glance, reaching the same conclusion as Xia Xu. "You think you'll suffer the same kind of attack?"

"Exactly. It's hard to explain why, but my chances of being attacked may be much higher than anyone else's. And I suspect this might not be a normal creature."

Xia Xu paused, then asked, "Uncle Luo, you're a retired special forces soldier, right? Have you ever encountered anything like this? Or any other creatures that were out of the ordinary?"

Luo Hongyun was an elite among soldiers, after all. He might have had access to far more than Xia Xu did, so Xia Xu wanted to use this opportunity to gather information and figure out what kind of world this really was.

Unfortunately, he was disappointed. Luo Hongyun merely shook his head. "I've never encountered anything like that. I have heard people mention some unusual incidents in certain war-torn areas over the past couple of years, but those were all unsubstantiated rumors. I never saw anything myself."

"What kind of unusual incidents?"

Still unwilling to give up, Xia Xu pressed him.

Luo Hongyun said seriously, "Apparently, there are people who can match me in close combat."

"?"

Xia Xu repeatedly studied the hint of disbelief on Luo Hongyun's face before finally confirming that he wasn't making a dry joke.

He seemed to take it for granted that no one could match him in close combat. Someone who could was an unbelievable anomaly.

Yet from their interactions over the past two days, Xia Xu could clearly tell that Luo Hongyun wasn't an arrogant man.

"Uncle Luo, are you an ordinary human?"

Hesitating, Xia Xu looked Luo Hongyun up and down again.

"If I'm not human, what else would I be?"

Luo Hongyun gave a wry chuckle.

Xia Xu clarified, "I mean an ordinary human. You haven't trained using some secret martial arts manual, taken any special drugs, or anything like that?"

"Read fewer martial arts novels."

Thinking Xia Xu wanted a shortcut, Luo Hongyun couldn't help laughing. "Do you really think martial arts and internal energy exist in real life? That you can cultivate by sitting in meditation, or quickly grow stronger by taking miraculous elixirs?

"If you want to learn combat, put those unrealistic fantasies out of your mind. There's only honest training and proper nutrition."

"No, I just... have a slightly better understanding of how formidable you are."

Xia Xu spoke earnestly.

He truly had gained a new understanding of Luo Hongyun's strength. That five-star talent-especially his dual five-star talents in armed combat and combat-was probably far more terrifying than he had imagined.

For someone who was neither arrogant nor conceited to instinctively find the existence of a worthy opponent unbelievable, just how much strength and how many victories would it take to forge that confidence?

He had asked whether Luo Hongyun was an ordinary human because he suspected that Luo Hongyun might have trained using some secret martial arts manual or traditional fighting art, taken special drugs, or undergone some advanced technological modification. Any of those could have pushed him far beyond normal human limits, explaining why he found the idea of someone matching him so incredible.

But that didn't seem to be the case. That left only one possibility: Luo Hongyun had likely never lost in close combat, perhaps even overwhelming every opponent he had ever faced. Countless victories had forged the absolute confidence embedded in his subconscious.

That was terrifying. For something like that to happen, even if he wasn't the world's best in one-on-one close combat, he had to be among the very best in the country.

Perhaps this modern technological society placed greater emphasis on powerful weapons and equipment, teamwork, and numerical superiority, but there was no denying that this was still an achievement that put him above almost everyone else.

And... in a city in the Xia Kingdom, he might well be virtually invincible.