Hall of Myriad Poisons (1)
In my past life, after sharing a bed with quite a few older women, how could there have been no almost-relationships?
I had even been in something of a situationship with a fairly famous actress.
She was three years older than me. After a broadcast, she would message me from time to time, and we had even met privately for dinner.
At first I simply thought that was just her personality.
But after our second dinner, at a wine bar with a lovely atmosphere, the noona—pleasantly tipsy on wine—asked me,
"Bru, you wanna date Noona? Noona likes you, you know?"
"What!?"
A heavy fastball. No—a nuclear fastball.
Back then I was still a relatively small YouTuber with a hundred thousand subscribers.
Flustered, I asked for a few days to think it over, and my final answer was an apology.
"I'm sorry, Noona. I'm just a hundred-thousand-sub YouTuber, and on top of that I'm a regular person. You're a celebrity. I'm just some ordinary guy who streams the things he likes. Someone like me dating you… I don't think it would work. It would be disrespectful to you…"
She looked at me for a long moment, then spoke with a disappointed expression.
"That's… a little disappointing…"
"I-I'm sorry. For answering like that…"
"No. It's not the rejection that's disappointing. What's disappointing is that the person I like has so little confidence in himself."
I had thought she was disappointed at being turned down. Instead, she was disappointed in me.
It felt like being hit over the head with a hammer.
"Even a broke guy with nothing to his name is cool if he has a vision, a dream—and if he's working toward that dream. If you felt bad because you're nothing special right now, you should have said something like, 'I'll become the world's greatest venomous-creature YouTuber. I'll make sure you never regret choosing me.' Even if it was completely ridiculous, if you'd said something like that… it would have been cool…"
Recalling that old memory, I stood facing Noona in front of the pavilion I had called her to and asked my question.
She had, after all, seemed to be asking me to present a vision.
"I thought about it for a long time yesterday. About how I have a Ten Poison Body—how I can only accept ten kinds of poison. You said that was the highest realm an untalented ordinary person could reach, didn't you?"
"Th-that is…"
"So I had this thought. If my body can only accept ten kinds of poison, what if I filled those ten with the poisons of the Ten Legendary Poisons of the Central Plains?"
"The Ten Legendary Poisons!?"
"Yes. If I filled all ten of my poisons with those of the Ten Legendary Poisons… would that give you enough certainty about me, Miss Hwa-eun? If I promise to fill my Ten Poisons with the venoms of the Ten Legendary Poisons of the Central Plains—what do you say?"
Just as Noona had advised me in my past life.
I went for it.
Whatever the reason, I couldn't get rejected without even managing a confession, could I?
At my question, Noona's ears slowly turned bright red. Her head turned slowly to the side, and she asked in a slightly flustered voice,
"D-do you even understand what you just said?"
"I don't!"
I answered honestly.
How would I know? I was just saying I'd fill my Ten Poisons with the Ten Legendary Poisons.
Then came Noona's explanation.
"That path will be extraordinarily hard and difficult. And it won't be something accomplished in a year or two. Ten years, twenty years, thirty years—no, it may be a challenge that spans an entire lifetime. That is what you just proposed."
I-it takes that long? You said even if it was ridiculous, I should just go big, Noona!
Just as I was thinking I had failed after confirming that the tastes of past-life Noona and present-life Noona were different, she slowly nodded and answered.
"Very well. Young Hero So-ryong. I heard you are fifteen years old. Three years until you come of age and a wedding can be held. If, within those three years, you succeed with even a single one of the Ten Legendary Poisons… that will be enough certainty for me. Even one alone would be more than enough to show me the possibility."
This is actually working?
Noona's answer was an okay.
Just as I was thanking the Noona from my past life who had given me a sage's advice, present Noona suddenly stood up and began putting distance between us at a rapid clip.
I was completely thrilled, but I couldn't just let her leave like that.
There were still things I needed to take care of in this situation.
I quickly called out and stopped her.
"Miss!"
Her retreating footsteps halted. Still facing away from me, looking in another direction, she answered,
"Ah, is there… still something you wanted to say?"
She seemed embarrassed, but I still couldn't send her off like this.
The little centipedes would be hungry, and I still needed to perform the curse-lifting disguised as her treatment.
"Yes. You still need your treatment, don't you? Stay just one shichen longer before you go."
"…"
Stuck between coming and going, Noona slowly walked back and sat down near me—still looking everywhere but at me.
Time to begin the treatment.
As a pet owner, I offered the one line you are absolutely not supposed to say, trying to put her at ease.
It was all I had.
"Our kids never bite, so you don't need to worry. All right, kids. Go to Mom instead of Dad."
The little centipedes still remembered being held by their own mother—who wore Noona's face—in last night's shared dream. Without any resistance, they climbed onto Noona's body.
I could feel them breathing more deeply than usual.
Then came Noona's startled voice.
"Ah—Dad? W-wait, Mom!?"
Startled by the words "Dad" and "Mom," Noona—now flushed red not just at the ears but across her cheeks and the nape of her neck—looked up at me with wide eyes.
"No, that doesn't mean anything else… They're just kids, so…"
It really didn't mean anything else.
The Azure-Spotted Centipede, which had lived three hundred years, formed an inner elixir, and thereby become a spirit beast, had been watching the events unfold inside the girl's body.
And so, the moment it entered the shared dream again in the middle of the night, it rejoiced greatly.
"T-truly magnificent, Benefactor!"
It had told him to leave things to it—and yet this great man had resolved the matter through righteous means.
It remembered how the girl's heart had pounded madly at the Benefactor's words.
That meant she had already surrendered.
So of course it had no choice but to bow deeply in gratitude.
Now the children would be able to absorb, whenever they wished, the energy flowing from the inner elixir that had melted into the girl's body.
The Azure-Spotted Centipede thought that while greedy people were many, righteous ones were few—and that it was truly fortunate.
"Haha, well, a man needs guts and grit…"
At the Benefactor's joking words, the Azure-Spotted Centipede offered its thanks again and again, and said that if there was anything he wished of it, it would help without fail—before it resolved its lingering regrets and ascended to the heavens.
Its regrets had now been resolved. Had the inner elixir been whole, it might have been different—but it had nearly melted away completely inside the girl's body, and could no longer hold the spirit in place.
If the grudge had been deep, it might have clung to the body still. But with the grudge gone, it could feel itself slowly being pushed out of the girl.
Today would probably be the last time.
"Is there anything I might do for you? Today is my last day. Even in this state, if there is anything within my power, I will see it done before I go."
The Benefactor looked at it steadily.
Sensing a powerful desire in those eyes, the Azure-Spotted Centipede flinched and trembled.
Then came the Benefactor's apologetic voice.
"Ahem… There is one thing, actually…"
One thing, the Benefactor said.
Feeling that gaze sweep over its body, the Azure-Spotted Centipede grew flustered.
Desire this strong… it felt as though he wanted something of this girl's shell.
Lust.
He seemed to be weak to that sort of thing.
It had thought him righteous, but something felt off.
Just as the Azure-Spotted Centipede was fretting over whether he might ask to share the pleasures of cloud and rain with its dream-self, the Benefactor spoke.
"Um, if you could just take that off once…"
Just as expected—he was asking it to undress.
Thinking it had no choice for the sake of its daughters, it was about to undo the knots of its clothing when—
"I need to take the clothes off?"
"Sh-should I not? But if you don't take them off, how…?"
"Can't you simply return to your form as the Azure-Spotted Centipede?"
"Pardon?"
What on earth was he talking about?
Then the Benefactor explained with burning eyes.
"The truth is, I've never once seen that enormous Azure-Spotted Centipede. To see it properly, the kids would have to grow first. So before that, I just wanted to see it even once—in a dream, at least. A giant centipede… I can barely stand the wait. The kids still have a long way to grow, and if I get a look at the fully grown form beforehand, it should help with raising them too. Would that be all right?"
Startled by the sudden request to see its true form, the Azure-Spotted Centipede nodded blankly and slipped free of the girl's body it had borrowed.
Then came an explosion of delighted exclamations.
"Whoa! I-it's real! Can you swim too? When you walk, the rear legs step in the tracks of the front ones, right? Can I touch you? How strong is the venom? The eyes—you can actually see with them, right? And the antennae, of course—?"
"Yes? Yes… of course… Pardon? The legs… uh, I never really thought about it……"
After thoroughly groping the Azure-Spotted Centipede's true form for quite some time, the Benefactor offered his thanks with a thoroughly satisfied look. As it faded away, the Azure-Spotted Centipede felt a new unease settle in its heart.
Will my daughters really be all right?
The Benefactor's eyes and hands had been anything but ordinary.
Somehow, he seemed to like its centipede body even more than the beautiful girl's shell.
I didn't know exactly what Noona had told them the next day, but the elders of the Tang Family were overjoyed.
They beamed through the entire meal, and afterward, while we were drinking tea, they suddenly acknowledged me as their son-in-law.
"Well then, Young Hero—no. So-ryong. I've heard the story from Hwa-eun. From this day forward, you are our son-in-law."
"Pardon? But the three years…"
"The wedding can only be held once you come of age, so of course that stands."
"No, that isn't what I—"
"Oh my, a son-in-law. Welcome once again, So-ryong. I am your mother-in-law."
"Hahaha! Now that Hwa-eun's match is settled, only good things await our Tang Family."
Noona had clearly said I needed to succeed with even one creature within three years, yet the elders were speaking as though I were already their son-in-law.
I looked at Noona with eyes that begged for an explanation, but she simply sipped her tea with composed calm, her cheeks faintly flushed.
What is this? Is she telling me to read the room and play along?
Ah! Maybe she's worried the elders would make a scene if they heard there were conditions attached, so she just made it sound like she'd accepted me outright?
In that case, I should play along so she doesn't end up in an awkward position.
In this era, if the Family Head—her father—was pushing the match, and she said she absolutely refused or that there were conditions, that would earn her a thrashing.
Besides, until I reached the legal age of adulthood in this era—eighteen—no wedding could be held. And if I succeeded in the meantime, our conditions would naturally become a non-issue. That seemed to be how they intended to handle it.
Noona would also keep evaluating me as she watched me strive toward that result. So I answered quickly, reading the room.
"Yes. I look forward to your guidance, all three of you."
And so that rather bewildering situation came to an end. The people of the Tang Family, being of an impatient nature, began introducing me to the Tang Gate and starting my martial training that very afternoon.
Now that I was family, they said, my education had to begin at once.
The grandfather known as the Myriad Poison Divine Lord sat down with brushes, an inkstone, and a great pile of books, writing on paper as he explained.
"The three most important things in the Tang Gate are these: the Art of Using Poison, Poison Arts, and Poison Crafting. Remember them well."
"The Art of Using Poison, Poison Arts, and Poison Crafting."
"Indeed. The Art of Using Poison teaches the types of poisons and the methods of employing them. Of course, detoxification is included as well. So do not be lazy—study diligently. The Tang Gate uses poison, and if you do not understand poison, you may well harm yourself."
"I understand, Grandfather."
"As for Poison Arts, I will induct you starting tomorrow, so keep that in mind… And Poison Crafting, as you know, is the work of creating poisons. Using toxins gathered from poisonous herbs and mushrooms, or from venomous creatures such as poisonous insects and snakes, one either creates new poisons or prepares existing ones into forms convenient for use."
This was the explanation I had been waiting for, so I listened carefully.
I knew nothing of the Art of Using Poison or Poison Arts, but the part about crafting poisons from venomous insects, snakes, and other poisonous creatures—that was what I had been waiting for most of all.
To manufacture poison from venomous insects and creatures, breeding facilities were essential, and I was curious what this era's facilities looked like.
On the way here, the Family Head had shown the greatest interest in my breeding techniques and had said he hoped I would further develop the Tang Gate's facilities. I had been imagining what they might look like ever since.
"Look at those sparkling eyes. Would you like to see them for yourself?"
"Yes, Grandfather."
Whether he had heard about it from the Family Head or not, Grandfather asked if I wanted to go take a look. I answered at once, and he smiled as he spoke.
"Good. Then shall we go? I will show you the Tang Gate's Hall of Myriad Poisons. Follow me."
"Yes, Grandfather!"
The Tang Gate's Hall of Myriad Poisons.
My heart was pounding.
The name meant a place where ten thousand kinds of poisonous creatures had been gathered.
I couldn't wait to find out what venomous creatures awaited me there.