Mission Complete
The moment Im Su-weol staggered out of Gojou's demon lair, she dropped to her knees and broke into loud, unrestrained sobs. Jeong Cheon-o stood awkwardly beside her. Then Im Su-weol shot to her feet and fixed him with a glare through eyes already red and swollen.
"Junior Brother. Don't you feel even a little sorry? Junior Brother Han just saved our lives with his own."
"I—I do feel sorry. But honestly, I still don't get it."
"Tsk. That's exactly why you'll never amount to anything."
Jeong Cheon-o took the insult and just stood there with his mouth hanging open, unsure how to answer. The truth was, he hadn't done anything wrong. Jeong Cheon-o was simply the average cultivator. The concept of sacrifice had never been properly established in his mind, so while he was grateful, he simply could not understand Han Yuhyeon.
"For now, just in case, let's wait a few days. Junior Brother Han might still escape from Gojou."
"Come on, he's already dead. Didn't you see him get snatched?"
"Shut up! You absolute average cultivator."
Faced with Im Su-weol's sudden shout, Jeong Cheon-o clamped his mouth shut. It was a strangely vague insult—calling a cultivator an average cultivator—but somehow it still landed like a real curse.
Even so, Jeong Cheon-o had no grounds to complain. Im Su-weol was at the eighth star of Qi Condensation, and he was only at the seventh.
"We're waiting here. I'll stay put. You go into the village and buy us something to eat."
"…Seems pretty pointless to me."
The moment Jeong Cheon-o muttered that, Im Su-weol's eyes narrowed into axe blades. Terrified, he immediately hopped onto the flying vessel and headed for the village.
Im Su-weol stared at the mouth of the demon lair with a distant look in her eyes. She knew full well that Jeong Cheon-o wasn't the real problem. She was just taking her frustration out on him. After all, she had never seen a cultivator make a sacrifice like that either.
"Haa…"
Naturally, Im Su-weol was no different from any other cultivator—she held the perfectly ordinary belief that you grew by taking what belonged to others. Which was exactly why watching Han Yuhyeon throw himself away had hit her like a cultural earthquake.
What was this emotion, this aching heat burning in her chest?
Had Han Yuhyeon heard her thoughts, he would have named it guilt. But as an ordinary cultivator, Im Su-weol could neither identify, understand, nor accept the feeling.
That she had felt it at all, though—that in itself was something.
Before long, Jeong Cheon-o returned with jerky and dried fish, and together they settled in front of the demon lair to wait for Han Yuhyeon. They agreed to wait seven full days and nights at most. As cultivators they could have gone a month without grain, but Im Su-weol's anxiety had driven her to hound Jeong Cheon-o into buying something—anything—to chew on.
Jeong Cheon-o looked resentful about wasting his time on something so meaningless, but what could he do? If he didn't like it, he should have been a ninth-star Qi Condensation cultivator himself.
Yet not even a few shichen had passed when the entrance to the demon lair suddenly began to shrink. That was the phenomenon that appeared when a lair had been cleared.
Im Su-weol and Jeong Cheon-o, who had been sitting on mats, leapt to their feet at the sudden change.
"S-Senior Sister. What in the world—?"
"I don't know either. Could Junior Brother Han have actually killed the great beast?"
"Does that even make sense?"
Of course it didn't. From what they had seen, Han Yuhyeon had been hard-pressed just dodging Gojou's attacks. They couldn't even begin to guess what had happened inside.
Shiiiiing.
The purple-stained gate of the demon lair began to spiral inward from the center, contracting smaller and smaller.
Then a dazzling flash of light burst forth, and a fierce gale whipped up from where the entrance had been.
Im Su-weol and Jeong Cheon-o furrowed their brows and shielded their eyes against the glare and the wind. Only after the gale died down did they look at the place where the lair's mouth had vanished—and there, to their astonishment, stood Han Yuhyeon. Completely unharmed, no less.
"…Junior Brother Han?"
"Junior Brother!"
Jeong Cheon-o murmured in a daze, while Im Su-weol strode straight up to Han Yuhyeon and seized both of his scale-covered cheeks, as if checking whether he was really himself.
"It's really you. It's really you, Junior Brother."
"Yes, that's right, Senior Sister."
Han Yuhyeon was flustered. Ever since his face had become what it was, no one had ever tried to touch it. Understandable—nobody wanted to put their hands on something filthy. Of course, with the scales covering him now, it was a little better.
"It's really me, so could you let go?"
"Ah—ah. Right. Okay."
Im Su-weol jerked her hands back in surprise and took a step away. That single step was enough for something odd to catch her eye. Something was wrapped around Han Yuhyeon's calf.
Looking closer, she saw a plump-tailed creature that looked like a raccoon dog. It was stuck so tightly and so still that she almost took it for a raccoon-shaped greave—until she listened carefully and heard a soft little whining sound.
"What's with this raccoon?"
"Ah, haha. I managed to pick up a spirit beast. Thanks to this little guy, I was able to take down Gojou."
Han Yuhyeon struck first, before they could even ask. Of course they would want to know how he had dealt with Gojou.
A spirit beast's power was an unknown quantity. Some possessed formidable combat strength; others were so weak even a first-star Qi Condensation cultivator could handle them. Using a spirit beast as an excuse was a highly effective cover.
"This scrawny-looking raccoon has that kind of power?"
"Junior Brother. If Junior Brother Han says so, then that's how it is. Why are you questioning it? Do you know spirit beasts better than he does?"
Jeong Cheon-o asked with clear suspicion, only to get an earful from Im Su-weol.
Somewhere along the way, Jeong Cheon-o had become the designated punching bag. He hung his head under her scolding. There was nothing more face-losing than getting torn apart in front of a junior brother—but even he had to admit there was no helping it. Right now, Han Yuhyeon was the hero who had saved their lives.
"Ha, haha. Honestly, even I don't fully understand how it all happened."
Han Yuhyeon waved it off vaguely. The truth was, he hadn't expected the dragon to latch onto him either.
When he had finished looting every treasure in the demon lair and tried to leave, the raccoon dog had clamped onto his calf and sealed the lair completely. To be fair, if it was going to transform into a raccoon dog, sealing the lair made sense.
He had half-wondered whether it still wanted to mate with him, but ever since being rejected once, it had stopped those ridiculous advances—so Han Yuhyeon had no reason to stop it. Even as a veteran of Yeonhwa Seonrok, he had barely ever played as a Yongin-jok, so his knowledge was thin. The Yongin-jok bloodline itself was a congenital trait so rare you could almost never roll it; he had only managed it twice in his entire gaming career.
Since this raccoon dog was actually a dragon, traveling together would teach him more about the Yongin-jok. Dragons were, after all, closely related to dragon-humans.
"This spirit beast seems very attached to you, Junior Brother."
"Seems so. Just sort of ended up that way."
"I heard cultivators with spirit beasts that follow them willingly are rare. Junior Brother really is something else."
"You flatter me."
Han Yuhyeon offered the modest reply. As they were casually catching up, Jeong Cheon-o muttered in a vacant voice,
"Wait—so that means we completed the mission?"
Neither Han Yuhyeon nor Im Su-weol had thought of that. But he was right—now that the demon lair had vanished, Gojou had been eliminated.
Of course, the dragon that had been Gojou was still alive, but only Han Yuhyeon knew that. Even if it were dead, there was no one left to argue the point. In practice, the raccoon dog would never transform back into Gojou again, so it might as well be dead.
"I'll give up my share of the reward. I do have a conscience, after all."
"What?"
Im Su-weol immediately raised both hands and renounced the reward, and Jeong Cheon-o's eyes went wide. A vicious gleam flashed through Im Su-weol's gaze.
"What? Don't tell me Junior Brother was planning to pocket the reward for this mission?"
"Ah—n-no. Of course not."
If it weren't for Im Su-weol, he absolutely would have taken it. Han Yuhyeon thought.
Morally speaking, Im Su-weol was correct. But since when had morality been rampant in the cultivation world? If Jeong Cheon-o had insisted on his share, Han Yuhyeon would have had no choice but to give it to him.
But with Im Su-weol pressing this hard, the entire reward ended up going to Han Yuhyeon.
"Then I really feel terrible about this."
"What's there to feel terrible about? Junior Brother Han, you really don't act like a cultivator! At a time like this, you're supposed to say it's only natural!"
Im Su-weol laughed and thumped Han Yuhyeon on the back. Honestly, Han Yuhyeon did think it was only natural. Still, hearing socially competent words like that among cultivators was rare.
Originally, once the reward came in, he had planned to give a hundred low-grade spirit stones each to Hyeon Yong-gang and Jeong Cheon-o. Hyeon Yong-gang was dead and couldn't receive them anyway—and now Jeong Cheon-o wouldn't be getting any either. Jeong Cheon-o's expression shifted in an instant to that of a dog that had just watched its chicken fly away.
Honestly, once he claimed the rights to the Yeong-ha-san mine, a hundred low-grade spirit stones would be nothing—but there was no need to play the philanthropist. Come to think of it, Jeong Cheon-o had always had a way of wasting time without securing any real gain. It was almost a little sad.
"Then let's go, Junior Brother Han."
"Yes."
Im Su-weol seemed so overjoyed that Han Yuhyeon had come out alive that her eyes curved into crescents as she glued herself to his side.
Han Yuhyeon was already close with a beauty like Baekri-wan, but even she never pressed this physically close, so he found it thoroughly disorienting.
"Junior Brother Han has a nice body. Mm. Is it because you've been training a Soft Body Art?"
"Haha…"
Im Su-weol laughed as she pressed her hands against his back and shoulders, testing them. While Jeong Cheon-o piloted from the front seat of the flying vessel, Han Yuhyeon and Im Su-weol chatted away. Every so often Jeong Cheon-o glanced back, his eyes full of pure envy.
"Grrrr."
Jeong Cheon-o wasn't the only one uncomfortable with the flirting. The raccoon dog wrapped snugly around Han Yuhyeon's calf felt the same way.
But Im Su-weol had no idea the creature's sounds meant irritation, and cooed over it as she reached to stroke its head. Of course, it whipped its head aside and bit down hard on her finger.
"Ow!"
"Ah, I'm sorry. This little guy only listens to me."
It had bitten hard enough to draw blood, but Im Su-weol didn't mind. A wound like that would heal for a cultivator within half a day anyway.
"Ahh, it's fine. Spirit beasts are naturally wary of cultivators. If you're going to keep it with you, you should probably get it an artifact that conceals its spiritual energy. Unscrupulous cultivators—no, ordinary cultivators—might set their sights on it. Cultivators like Junior Brother Jeong, for example."
At her words, Jeong Cheon-o answered from the pilot's seat in a voice full of grievance.
"Why am I suddenly getting dragged into this?"
"Because among all the cultivators I know, Junior Brother Jeong is the closest thing to average."
"Kh…"
Even Jeong Cheon-o couldn't refute that. He let out a strangled sound and turned his gaze forward again.
When they arrived at the village chief's residence in the Yeong-ha-san mining settlement, the three cultivators—minus the late Hyeon Yong-gang—climbed down from the flying vessel.
The village chief was already waiting to greet them with a radiant face. Of course he was. They would already have known Gojou was gone. The moment the great beast vanished, the oppressive heat that had choked the air had disappeared all at once.
"Honored cultivators, you've truly worked so hard! To think you actually defeated Gojou!"
Technically we didn't defeat it—the Gojou that tormented all of you is currently the raccoon dog stuck to my calf. Come to think of it, dragons really were multi-talented.
When they transformed into a desired form, they could copy some of that form's abilities. If this raccoon dog ever learned to transform into a human, smooth communication would become possible from that point on.
"Please, come inside at once! We must discuss the reward! How long has it been since I've felt a breeze this cool!"
The village chief who had looked half-dead when they first met was now fully alive, practically glowing with excitement. Reward, though? What reward was he talking about? Han Yuhyeon spoke cautiously.
"Didn't we already settle the reward with the mine?"
Surely he wasn't about to try substituting some other reward at this late stage. He couldn't possibly be that insane—not in front of cultivators.
"Do you think I don't know how terrifying cultivators are? How could I pull a cheap trick like that? This is naturally an additional token of our gratitude for cultivators who resolved the matter so cleanly. Ah—come to think of it, there were originally four of you…"
"He fell during the mission."
"Aigo, so that's what happened. May the deceased rest in peace—no, that's something only commoners say. Please, come inside first."
The village chief fussed and opened the door. He didn't seem like a mortal ignorant of cultivators' high standards—so just what kind of "additional token of gratitude" gave him the confidence to speak so boldly? Han Yuhyeon was curious to find out.