Have You Ever Killed Anyone?
I pondered the various incidents and their priorities before reaching a decision.
[I need to make some medicine.]
"Medicine. What. Kind?"
"Tonic? Poison?"
[Both.]
There's a saying that poison and medicine differ by a hair's breadth. Depending on how you use it, it can be poison or medicine.
What I'm planning to make now is a drug that acts on the human mind. It will target those lost in empty words, bizarre behaviors, and hallucinogens, snapping them awake from their delusion in an instant. With it, I'll dismantle the True Truth Cult from the inside, bit by bit.
[I'll wipe out the places where those things I just saw are happening.]
"Wipe out? What. Does that. Mean?"
"I. I know. All. Sweep. Away. That's what it means."
Let's see. First, I need to capture that woman. When Gwang-jeong and Su-jeong arrive next, I can just tell them. Once I've secured the woman for the ingredients, the rest is simple work.
As I pondered how to extract the maximum materials from her, I suddenly recalled Heart Immortal's warning.
Among the eight Great Immortals, the one whose thoughts were hardest to read had been brutally honest with me. He said that if the Dark Heavenly Realm weren't in this state—if I weren't the sole disciple of the Immortals and Great Immortals, if I weren't facing the Aberration King—he never would have taught me these things.
Not out of worry that I'd misuse what I learned, but concern for my mental health.
To borrow a famous quote: "If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
A drug that touches someone's mind requires peering into their deepest recesses, harvesting ingredients from there. Depending on the target, the strength varies, but a mind drowned in a single emotion is like a swamp that grabs and never lets go of anyone who approaches.
Heart Immortal feared that approaching such a dark, sticky existence for medicine might contaminate my own mind, leading me down a path of no return.
Back then, I fully understood his concern. After all, the target I planned to make it from was an aberration.
After using my Spiritual Eye as reconnaissance and bomb drones, I tried applying modern warfare tactics I'd remembered to the Dark Heavenly Realm.
What caught my eye most was weapons of mass destruction. The Spiritual Eye bombs killed plenty of aberrations, but I needed something more revolutionary, more powerful, with greater lethality.
Not something that exploded and was done, but something that lingered, steadily eroding their forces. A weapon that inflicted endless agony, sidelining them from the front lines.
Aberrations kill lives, corrupt spirits, devour spirits, and grow stronger by merging with them. Focusing on that merger, I explained an idea to Heart Immortal.
His face grew grave as he listened, then he taught me the formula.
It was a drug that touched the spirit, breaking down aberrations from within after they'd swallowed and fused with it. To make it, I'd have to enter their minds for ingredients, risking my own sanity.
I promised not to make it right away, but...
The experiment came not by my choice, but by force.
Fights with aberrations were always fierce, but sometimes they'd launch a total war. When they threw everything at killing me.
They swarmed the skies and earth, bombarding me—only to be obliterated by the countless Spiritual Eye bomb drones I'd made. Herding them for the kill was quite profitable.
After five or six such total wars, the thinking aberrations put their heads together for a strategy. To tie my hands—which struck down any aberration indiscriminately—they took captured Immortals hostage or as meat shields.
It probably would have worked. They were all Immortals I knew well.
No Immortal in the Dark Heavenly Realm didn't know me, and I knew them all. Thinking perhaps we were the last, they desperately taught me everything they could. Like a tiny village where everyone knows even the neighbor's spoon count, we prayed for each other's safety.
I remember it. The quiet smiles of Immortals who took their own lives to avoid being a burden—and to deny the aberrations this tactic. Even as I screamed for them to stop, even as aberrations tried to prevent their deaths, those who'd chosen death with their own will scattered into nothingness.
Seeing lines of Immortals vanish as if they'd never existed... seeing all those who'd fought beside me smile at me—telling me they were fine, to do my duty—as they faded...
Something in my head snapped, or perhaps vanished. I'm not sure.
When Heart Immortal's sharp slaps brought me back, my cheeks stinging, I held a perfectly completed vial. Heart Immortal, uncharacteristically pale, stared through me. A flicker of terror in his eyes.
He quickly schooled his expression when he saw mine, but...
There was no time to feel hurt that he looked at me like some dangerous other. The drug I'd named "Aberration White Phosphorus Round" was flawless—even fit for the Aberration King.
"Master? Why. Like that?"
"Why. Like that? What. Thinking?"
Hwa-jeong and Pung-jeong's words made me blink and exhale deeply.
All in the past now. Calming the turmoil from recalling those Immortals who died for me, I was about to list the needed ingredients for Hwa-jeong and Pung-jeong.
Excuse me, Mountain God Spirit. Pardon the intrusion. I was introduced and came...
A death spirit hesitated, phasing through the wall. An elderly man in his 80s, in a gray fedora and suit.
As I looked, he quickly doffed his hat and bowed.
Introduction? Jo Mal-ja, right?
Th-that's right. My close friend Jo Mal-ja told me.
As expected.
I heard there's a price for your help. I don't have aged mountain ginseng or such, but I have something else. It might help even you, Mountain God Spirit. There's a chest handed down in my family—
The death spirit swallowed dryly and continued.
Inside that chest, there's something you could use well.
[What's your basis for thinking that?]
Y-yes. I'll explain.
The death spirit nodded eagerly.
So, my ninth-generation grandfather found the chest when he was young. Strangely, the lid wouldn't open. As he struggled with a crowbar, a monk who seemed enlightened appeared and pointed at it. He said it's a gui-mul with strange power no ordinary person should touch. Though closed now, when the time comes and it opens, many will suffer.
Hmm. A gui-mul chest with a "mouth," eh.
[Go on.]
I heard a few curious folks tried opening it before. As the monk said, the time must've come—the lid opened on touch. But inside was nothing. When it closed again, only the opener collapsed dead...
A man-killing chest. That sounds—fascinating. I want to see it.
So, since you're no ordinary person, Mountain God Spirit, perhaps you could take and use it...
The death spirit glanced at me hesitantly.
What do you think?
Hmm. I have plenty on my plate, but I can spare time to check what that chest is and its power.
* * *
Choi Du-cheon, doctor at Happiness Nursing Hospital, waited in the most secluded room of a high-end Korean restaurant.
'No way Kim Byung-gi knows... Nah, impossible.'
Kim Byung-shin. The nickname Choi Du-cheon gave Kim Byung-gi. Of course, he'd never said it aloud. That would've gotten a bullet in his head.
Whenever ignored by Kim Byung-gi, he'd mutter inwardly, 'Kim Byung-shin! Die, you bastard!' But to avoid drunken slips, he never exceeded his limit around him—spitting out drinks secretly to stay sober when needed.
Swallowing his pride, bowing obsequiously, Choi Du-cheon harbored a cherished dream. Pay off debts, open a private clinic in a prime spot—properly prepared this time—hear "Director," live without groveling.
Stuff thick wads into his wife's face, who nagged about living expenses, kids' academy fees, tutoring—'You lucked out marrying a doctor, huh?!'
Tired of her whining about friends' stares after the hospital failed, he'd smack her a few times. Make the kids, who fled to their rooms like rats when he got home, taste discipline.
'Today's meeting is the great first step toward that!'
Choi Du-cheon clenched his fist.
'Heaven helps the diligent. This meeting is the fruit of my efforts!'
A long-time nurse mentioned Kang San's update, perking his ears. The payers asked about him for five years, then stopped.
Finding who paid Kang San's bills was easy—a few calls connected him to the top.
He'd jumped for joy, nearly drawing complaints from downstairs.
'But what to discuss?'
He'd blurted, "Kang San awoke!" to their query, cursing his mouth. But after a brief silence, they set a meeting. Shocking.
'What's so special about that patient...? Wait, could it be? Kang San's a hidden child of theirs?!'
Choi Du-cheon blinked rapidly at the sudden thought.
'Yeah, possible. Not a political marriage—a passionate night with a true love! Child conceived then. Family opposed fiercely, lovers parted. Woman raises kid alone. Contact cut by family meddling, then Jeong Kyung-rok learns of half-brother, tails him, runs him over—blames chauffeur's accident. Keeps checking if dead or alive... Dang, my idea, but it fits.'
Instead of exercise or reading in precious break time, typical Choi Du-cheon—watching trashy dramas with slaps, kimchi fights, pajeon flinging in Goseong.
'And calling me today... to specially entrust the young master?'
Lost in his deduction, he missed the door opening quietly behind.
"Choi Du-cheon."
"Gah!!!"
He nearly toppled forward, barely steadying.
'S-scary.'
Turning, a stern middle-aged man in silver-rimmed glasses stood.
"Hello."
Choi Du-cheon shot up, hand out. The man eyed it, ignored, sat opposite.
"Choi Du-cheon. No need for long talk. Straight to business."
"Y-yes?"
Still hand extended, dazed, as the man spoke.
"Have you ever killed anyone?"
"?!"
Choi Du-cheon's eyes bulged at the utterly unexpected question.