143 – The "Tang" of the Tang Clan Spells Sugar # 3
"Let us all dance the Nymph Dance of Joy…!"
"Of course…! A splendid idea, it is…! Let's do it…!"
"A dance — as in a dance of celebration…!"
━Hio-ong…! Hio-ong…!
Thump-thump, thump-thump—.
The nymphs began dancing to the song and instrumental accompaniment played by Kwang-kwangi the Ghost Spider.
Defeating the mighty monster known as the Hydra had apparently become quite the badge of honor among the nymphs.
Dang So-hae watched the scene with wide, startled eyes.
"Wait, what? Since when do the Rimbu dance?"
Whenever something joyful happened, nymphs loved to perform what they called the "Dance of Joy."
To me and Seo Yerim, who had spent a fair amount of time living alongside nymphs, it was a familiar sight — but to Dang So-hae, still a stranger to nymphkind, it seemed utterly fascinating.
"And the wicked Grand Master is dancing too?!"
Flinch—pop!
The purple nymph jolted in surprise.
"Why am I dancing…? How utterly absurd — of the 'nothing' variety…!"
The purple nymph stopped mid-dance and turned deathly serious.
Then she addressed Oinoi and Illinoi.
"This is no time to be dancing…! There is an unsettled score between me and you carefree nymphs — let us fight, of the dueling sort…!"
"Muh-heh-heh, precisely so, it is…! This Illinoi's sister Tyrenol has become a Nameless who forgot her own name — we must hurry and restore it, we must…!"
"An excellent notion, it is…!"
Oinoi and Illinoi wrapped the purple nymph in a crushing embrace.
They pressed their foreheads together, and the purple nymph squirmed desperately — "Hyehek…! Unhand me, I say…!" — before her forehead finally touched theirs.
Pishuuuuuuuuung—.
The nymphs' bodies began to glow with a dazzling light.
Watching them, Seo Yerim spoke up.
"Honestly, what gets me is that there's still more left to be surprised about with these kids."
I felt the same way, as always.
Nymphs were such mysterious beings that just when you thought you'd figured them out, they slipped through your fingers again.
Ssssssss—.
The brilliant light faded—.
And at last, Illinoi asked.
"Tyrenol…! Has your memory returned, it has…? We are sisters who grew up in the same ditch water…! Try to recall this Illinoi's name, you must…!"
At that, the nymph in the purple Chinese dress — Tyrenol — spoke as though struck by some great revelation.
"I remember my name…! The Grand Master's name is Tyrenol, the Nymph of Deadly Poisons…! But because people hunted and hounded me for so long, I ended up forgetting it…!"
Tyrenol, it turned out, was a nymph who had settled in China since ages long past.
Because she possessed knowledge of both poisons and medicines, she had managed to live more or less in harmony with the people there.
"This Rimbu Forest was once home to many nymph-friendly sparrows, and there was no finer place for this Tyrenol to dwell — truly favorable, it was…!"
Hearing this, Dang So-hae was enormously shocked.
"The old records say a Rimbu named Tyrenol taught our Sichuan Tang Clan their martial arts and the use of poisons, way back in the ancient Rimbu Forest. So it was true. We used to get along back then."
The nymph Tyrenol had originally lived in harmony with the people of Sichuan.
So why had a nymph like her come to exploit the people of Sichuan instead?
"Muh-heh-heh, this Tyrenol is an old, traditional, first-rate nymph, she is…! But one day, wicked people drove every last sparrow out of Rimbu Forest, and not content with that, they locked Tyrenol inside a crumbling shrine, where I remained imprisoned for ages…."
One day, she said, wicked people had come to Rimbu Forest, burned down the shrine and home that had been built for her sake, and treated her with cruelty.
Then they sealed the nymph Tyrenol inside the shrine, left her there for ages, and simply forgot her.
When Illinoi heard this, she clenched her fists and raged as though the injustice had happened to her personally.
"Glucose, corn syrup, the Tang of Sichuan — there are many 'Tangs' in this world, but none as wicked as the Communist Party, there aren't…! This Illinoi wants to smack that Communist Party silly, she does…!"
Thus tormented by humans, Tyrenol had grown so furious that she forgot her own name — and that was how she had remained until now, a nymph who had lost it entirely.
"It was So So-hee who rescued this Tyrenol from her imprisonment…! And so this Tyrenol taught So So-hee the handling of poisons and the powerful art of Nymph-fu, she did…!"
Now I understood how So So-hee and Tyrenol had come to join hands.
It also made sense how Tyrenol, once freed, had gone on to swallow the Tang family whole.
Dang So-hae, however, scowled deeply.
"Because So So-hee brought this creature home, our family has been fleeced of a fortune by the Rimbu every single year. This whole villa was built with our family's embezzled money!"
Figures.
Illinoi, naturally, could not have cared less, and asked Tyrenol instead.
"Why didn't Sister Tyrenol come straight to America, she wonders…? Did she fail to listen to the tales of this Illinoi in America…?"
"This Tyrenol heard news of a woman who ate garlic and mugwort and turned from a bear into a human, she did…! Surely the nymph Callisto, who became a bear, must be nearby — that is what I thought…!"
Figures.
Having heard the tale of Ungnyeo, Tyrenol had thought of the nymph Callisto and wandered from place to place trying to reach Korea — and somewhere along the way, she had simply settled down in China instead.
At that story, Oinoi cried out brightly.
"This Oinoi also believes that Ungnyeo is certainly Callisto, she does…! She may even still be alive to this very day, she thinks…! Nymphs live longer than palm trees, they do…!"
Koreans had a legend that they were descendants of Ungnyeo and her son, Dangun Wanggeom.
But if Ungnyeo's true identity was Callisto, the Animal Nymph cursed into the form of a bear, did that make us Koreans the descendants of a nymph?
It was an exceedingly strange thought.
Then again, if she truly was a nymph, she might well still be alive.
Nymphs did seem to live for an absurdly long time, after all!
━Hoo, hoo…!
Bonbon Calinoi, perhaps finding it marvelous that her sister Callisto was being discussed, spread her wings left and right and went toddling back and forth across the room.
Watching her, Seo Yerim remarked,
"Say, something just occurred to me. You '-noi' nymphs were all born in summer or autumn, right? '-ol' nymphs are winter-born. So Tyrenol must have been born in winter too."
"That is so…! Kore Yerim…! Rich and knowledgeable about nymphs both — a truly nymph-friendly Kore, she is…!"
Nymphs named themselves according to different conventions depending on the season of their birth.
Nymphs born in spring had names ending in "-ris" or "-s"; summer and autumn nymphs ended in "-noi"; and winter nymphs ended in "-ol."
"Then what about Callisto?"
Seo Yerim's question was a deeply fundamental — and important — one.
I had been curious about it too, though it was the kind of question I'd hesitated to ask outright.
It was Oinoi who provided the explanation.
"Great nymphs who reached adulthood through mysterious means sometimes give themselves brand-new names, they do…! Callisto, and Daphne, and Echo — they are all like that…!"
Ah — so that was why the names of the nymphs in mythology felt slightly different from the nymphs I knew.
Apparently, once they came of age, nymphs sometimes bestowed new names upon themselves.
How utterly fascinating!
Pop—.
At that very moment, someone arrived at the villa.
It was So So-hee, dressed in a purple suit.
"I heard there was a problem. When I saw poisonous miasma boiling up around the villa and Rimbu Forest, I figured it couldn't be anything good."
Having received Tyrenol's message, So So-hee had returned to the villa.
She said she'd come straight back the moment the first survey by the Argonaut wrapped up.
"Judging by the scene, the laboratory ran out of control, did it. This Sichuan villa served as the Grand Master's private retreat, but it was also an experimental site for controlling rifts. The grounds were well suited to it."
Rimbu Forest, where nymphs were said to have dwelled for untold ages.
Precisely because it was such a place, mana that made rifts prone to opening had spread everywhere throughout the forest, making it an ideal location for experiments in opening and closing rifts.
According to the official account, one such experimental site had gone haywire for unknown reasons, opening a T-Rank Rift, and a hydra known as the Poison Dragon had all but burst forth from within it—.
But So So-hee seemed to find something about the story hard to swallow.
"The experiments were under perfect control. They don't just run wild on their own. And a T-Rank Rift opening in a place like this? Impossible. Someone caused this problem deliberately."
As she spoke, So So-hee was staring at the hydra head lying twitching on the floor.
It had been severed by Ang-ang-i's powerful slashing technique, the Zjeuji Slice — and yet it moved as though it were still alive.
Look closely, and you could see tissue regenerating outward from the severed stump. Left alone for long enough, an entire hydra might well be born again from this single head.
The problem was that the venom this thing carried was so potent that no one could touch it carelessly.
"Even this Tyrenol, Nymph of Deadly Poisons, cannot lay a finger on such a powerful miasma, she cannot…! The Poison Dragon Hydra carries venom potent enough to slay the gods themselves, it does…! Meddle with it wrongly and disaster will follow, it will…!"
It was a poison beyond the reach of Tyrenol, nymph of deadly poisons, and beyond the reach of the Sichuan Tang Clan, masters of toxicology.
And yet they could hardly leave a head carrying such a thing lying about.
"If we leave the hydra's head here, this Rimbu Forest will be contaminated by the miasma, it will…! And if the hydra revives in full, something terrible will surely happen, it will…!"
At Oinoi's warning, Seo Yerim crossed her arms.
"Want me to burn it?"
Seo Yerim's flames were fierce enough to incinerate even the Magma Giants that fed on fire. A hydra head would be reduced to nothing without a trace, surely.
But So So-hee shook her head.
"I'd rather secure it intact if possible. The hydra's venom signifies violent destruction, yes — but it's also the wellspring of its undying regeneration. If we could study this creature…."
I remembered that So So-hee's mother suffered from an illness of unknown cause.
No doubt So So-hee was thinking of her mother right now.
Poison, after all, could become medicine.
Just as the Nymph of Deadly Poisons and the Nymph of Medicines were sisters, poison and medicine took on entirely different natures depending on how they were wielded.
If they could study the hydra, they might create medicines that could cure countless diseases.
Which would, in the end, mean saving a great many people.
"In the back of the laboratory beneath this villa, there's a specially engineered containment vessel. If we can just get this head inside it, we can stop the miasma from spreading. The problem is…."
So So-hee's voice trailed off.
Soon Seo Yerim picked up where she'd left off, as if explaining in her place.
"The basement is in even worse shape. The mana down there is twisted into something hideous. All the miasma flowing through this place has drained downward. The basement's in a state worse than a T-Rank Rift."
Just as water always flowed to the lowest ground, the heavy miasma kept sinking ever downward until it had pooled in the villa's basement, they said.
"Seeing it will be faster than explaining it. Everyone, follow me."
We followed So So-hee toward the entrance leading down to the basement.
A violet miasma was churning there like a surging river — so thick that even Dang So-hae turned her head away, muttering, "I feel like my nose is going to twist right off my face…"
Seo Yerim asked So So-hee.
"So So-hee, can you go in? Among S-Rankers, you've got the strongest resistance to poison, don't you? Look, if we leave it like this, another rift might open. And if a hydra pops out then, it's a genuine catastrophe."
"Every last wisp of this is hydra venom. At this concentration, even I can't go in. And the reason the rift went haywire — its cause — is bound to be in this underground lab. Someone has to go inside and activate the purification system."
The answer to everything we'd been discussing pointed toward this basement.
But walking into a miasma-choked underground laboratory like this was suicide — no different from dousing yourself in oil and stepping into a furnace.
And yet—.
It was also something that someone, without fail, had to do.
"I'll go."
By the time I came to my senses, the words had already left my mouth.
At that, Seo Yerim jolted so hard she practically leapt off the ground.
"Ha Ildo, are you insane? The miasma is flowing like a river down there! It's deep enough to come up past your waist! Even standing all the way out here, if your concentration slips for a second, you'll pass out…!"
"But somebody has to do it. And we can't afford to waste time."
The situation we faced was a desperate, do-or-die crisis in which I could expect no help from Keongkeongi the Dog-Squirrel, Kwang-kwangi the Ghost Spider, Ang-ang-i the Honey Ant, or Calinoi.
Which meant that Ha Ildo the human had to step forward — didn't it?
At that very moment, Oinoi spoke up.
"This Oinoi…! Knows of a way to guard against the hydra's poison to some degree, she does…! Alone, this Oinoi would struggle, but… with the help of the nymph sisters and the Kores, it might just be possible, she thinks…!"