Secret Cave 2
"So-ryong, take the lead and guide us in the direction those bats flew."
"Yes, Father."
The moment he heard that I had confirmed the swarm of bats taking flight, my adoptive father issued the order at once — put me at the head of the party and have me lead the way. Of course, given the nature of the jungle, someone still had to clear a path ahead, so he assigned warriors of the Beast Palace to accompany me.
"A few of the Fierce Wolf Unit, go forward and open a path in the direction So-ryong is heading."
"Yes, Palace Lord!"
"That way."
"Understood, Young Master So-ryong. Let's go!"
"Yes!"
Following my adoptive father's command, I moved to the very front of the party and indicated the direction. The Beast Palace warriors sprinted ahead and began hacking through the jungle growth with their great sabers, carving out a trail.
— Shwaak! Shwaaak!
As the tall jungle plants and vines were cut away and a path opened, the All-Poison Divine Lord — Grandfather — and the Tang Clan warriors followed right behind.
"We follow So-ryong as well!"
"Yes, Grand Patriarch!"
And so I led the party along the ridgeline of Mt. Namna's northern face, guiding them toward the direction I estimated the bats had risen from — periodically climbing into the sky with Cho to reconfirm our bearing.
"There's a cliff ahead, so swing right and descend."
"Yes, Young Master So-ryong!"
"So-ryong, Father says it's getting dark, so once we reach the cave entrance we'll rest. Hurry."
"Understood, Sister Seol."
I was still directing from the front when Sister Seol relayed my adoptive father's decision — the sun was setting, so we would make camp once we arrived at our destination. Using a cave was certainly better than taking the night dew. I answered her and urged the warriors ahead.
"We'll pick up the pace."
"Yes, Young Master So-ryong!"
— Shwaak! Shwaaak!
The warriors' arms swung faster than before, and the dense jungle opened more swiftly. We pressed on for quite some time. By now we should have arrived with room to spare — yet the cave my adoptive father had anticipated still refused to appear. The sun had already set, making any scattered search impossible.
"It should have been around here…"
— Tsrurr!
Cho, trailing at my side, confirmed that this was the right area as well — and still no cave. I rose into the sky once more and circulated the Cat's Night Vision Art, but the difference between what I had seen from a distance and what I found upon arriving made it impossible to pinpoint the exact location.
"It should be around here, but with the dark I can't confirm it."
I said as much with a helpless look to Hwa-eun and Sister Seol, who had been following right behind me. Sister Seol nodded as if she understood and issued an order to the Beast Palace warriors.
"From here, I'll take over the search. Unleash Rang of the Fierce Wolf Unit."
"Yes, Elder!"
At her word, several wolves the Beast Palace warriors had been leading scattered in all directions. A short while later, a wolf's howl rang out from one side of the jungle.
— Awoooo!
"That way, it seems!"
The howl was apparently a signal that something had been found. We reoriented toward the sound and, after a brief push through the undergrowth, came upon a wolf baying at the dark sky — and before it, the cave my adoptive father had spoken of. Or rather, the place that had once been a cave.
"So-ryong, this seems to be it?"
"Hmm… It does look right. But using it as a cave is going to be difficult."
I called it a place that had once been a cave because the great entrance was completely choked with fallen boulders and rubble. Collapsed rock packed the mouth of the cave solid, and vines that had grown up through the gaps only sealed it further. Sister Seol used her lightness skill to check the top of the rubble pile and reported that there was space enough for bats to come and go — but nothing a person could reasonably crawl through.
"There is a gap, but a person would have a hard time squeezing in."
After a moment's thought, my adoptive father decided we would make camp.
"It's already dark. We camp here."
"Understood!"
It wasn't as if this place had been confirmed as the Five Poison Sect's stronghold yet, and a proper search was better done in daylight. Even circulating the Cat's Night Vision Art didn't make things as bright as noon, and if we were going to rely on the Tang Clan's help, daylight was preferable. We agreed to investigate further once morning came and quickly prepared a resting place at the cave mouth. "Resting place" amounted to little more than cutting grass for a soft bed and lighting a fire, but it would do.
We built a campfire, had a simple meal, and left the watch to the beasts brought from the Beast Palace. I was asleep when it hit me.
C-cold…
A chill dragged me out of sleep, and the first thing I felt was clothes soaked through. Dawn had brought dew, and my clothes were damp with it.
"Ugh… Even in a hot place, dawn is freezing."
I sat up to find that Sister Seol, sleeping beside me, had apparently been cold enough to drag my banana leaf over to herself. Dew had settled thickly across Cho's back as well, where the centipede had been curled up in my arms. I carefully covered Hwa-eun and Sister Seol with banana leaves so they wouldn't take any more dew, then looked around.
What caught my eye was Grandfather and my adoptive father by the campfire, roasting half-dried meat and eating it. Both were masters who claimed they only needed two or three hours of sleep a day — so of course they had woken earlier than everyone else.
"So-ryong, you're awake? If you're cold, come warm yourself by the fire. Being on the mountain's north face, the dew is heavy."
"Yes, Grandfather."
He had sensed my presence and called me over. As I approached the fire, my adoptive father held out a skewer of warm meat he had been roasting.
"Here. Eat this and warm yourself up."
"Thank you."
"Come to think of it, we ought to grant So-ryong a beast of his own. A Beast Palace man without a single animal simply won't do."
He said this because every Beast Palace member had an animal of their own, and they all slept hugging theirs like a warm sleeping bag. I had been sleeping with Cho in my arms, but Cho was rather cold — centipedes being cold-blooded, after all.
Grandfather smiled and spoke up.
"He could just sleep holding Hwa-eun, yet the boy is so careful. The wedding can come later, but even if a child arrived before then, he wouldn't be scolded too harshly… No, wait — the Tang Clan is short on heirs right now. He'd be praised for it. Of course he would."
"Kehk… Keck…"
At Grandfather's words, the greasy meat I had pulled from the skewer and bitten into slid down the wrong pipe. I spat it out in a dramatic fit of coughing, and Cho crawled over to me, resting its head on my knee. The adults smiled.
"Ah, those ones are female too, aren't they? So, So-ryong — is that one yours, then?"
"Well, granting him a beast would be difficult because of those creatures anyway. There's no telling how an animal would behave around them out of fear."
— Ts, tsrurr…
The adults' sudden, mortifying talk of pairing me with our eldest daughter left me frantically waving my hands, about to protest that Cho and I were parent and child —
— Tak! Tak. Taktaktak…
From the cliff above, as if a pebble had come loose, the sound of stones tumbling down from the rock pile reached us. In the quiet of dawn the sound was sharp and clear, and every gaze turned that way. In the brightening half-light, we all looked up at the cliff above the rubble.
And then —
Grandfather, the All-Poison Divine Lord, who had been staring up at the cliff with the rest of us, suddenly cried out with a look of shock.
"Hm? Th-that is—?!"
He shot upward in a burst of lightness skill, racing toward the top of the collapsed rock that Sister Seol had checked earlier.
"What is it?"
"What's up there?"
My adoptive father and I exchanged looks, still trying to figure out what had set Grandfather off, when his voice called down from the rock pile he had just scaled.
"Beast Palace Lord — you should come see this."
He was summoning my adoptive father. Sensing that Grandfather had found something, I launched myself up the rocks after him. The spot where Grandfather stood appeared to be where the crack in the collapsed cave entrance began. He had one hand pressed to a point on the rock; then he lifted it and spoke.
"Look here, Beast Palace Lord."
"This is—?!"
"A handprint?!"
In the pale light of dawn, where Grandfather had taken his hand away, a mark in the shape of a human palm was revealed. On the rock face of the cave wall, a vivid red imprint that looked exactly like a person's hand stood out clearly. And when the vines hanging over it from above were pulled aside, characters still sharp after a hundred years came into view.
Here, the Five Poison Sect is sealed for eternity.
Writing left behind by the ancestors of the Tang Clan or the Beast Palace, without a doubt. My adoptive father and I both let out a breath of awe at the revealed characters.
"Ohh!"
"So this was the place!"
It certainly felt as though the site we had come looking for — the final stronghold of the old Five Poison Sect — was the real thing.
"Indeed. This does appear to be it. This mark is likely our clan's Crimson Carp Divine Palm… To think our ancestor trained it to such a level…"
"Haha. An extraordinary realm."
In other words, a single palm strike had cracked the rock face and sealed the cave entrance. I had always thought the Tang Clan only had underhanded arts involving hidden weapons and poison — this was unexpected.
A hundred years ago, they might have been a pretty impressive family after all?
While I was thinking that they might have been a rather decent house a century back, the two of them continued their conversation.
"We'll rest for now, and once it's light we'll look for a way in. If that doesn't work, we'll have to clear the stones from the entrance."
"I suppose we must."
It seemed we had come to the right place, but those boulders at the entrance meant the warriors were going to have a rough time of it. I was about to leap down from the rock pile when —
— Jiiiiiii!
A noisy static-like racket suddenly filled the air above our heads, like the noise of a bad audio feed. The moment he heard it, my adoptive father's voice turned urgent.
"Damn it! The bats are coming back!"
The source of that strange sound was the returning bat swarm. Dawn had come, and the bats that had gone out hunting at dusk were on their way home. I turned my head and saw them — a black mass of bats streaming across the brightening sky.
"Fall back!"
At my adoptive father's shout, I realized that the entrance Sister Seol had checked — the one the bats used — was right in front of where we were standing. Just as he said, I immediately launched myself downward. Get caught in the middle of a returning swarm and we'd be surrounded. Bats weren't dangerous animals, but having them throng thickly right in front of your face would still be unpleasant. I wasn't fond of bats either, so I moved as my adoptive father ordered.
Snakes, lizards, and millipedes are cute, but bats have wings and fur on top of that — they're just not my thing.
Contrary to our worries, though, the black swarm of bats swept past us and headed up the cliff. At the sight, my adoptive father shouted toward me.
"So-ryong! There must be another entrance. Take that child and go up the cliff — check it out!"
Apparently the entrance wasn't the one Sister Seol had mentioned, and "that child" meant Cho. I called out to Cho at once.
"Understood! Cho! Let's go!"
— Tsrut!
At my word, Cho swiftly coiled around my body. A moment later Cho's body floated upward, and as we rose into the middle of the bats' flight path, the vast black wave of the swarm split in two and streamed past on either side of us.
I was staring blankly at the bats dividing like a black current high in the sky when —
— Tsrurr!
Cho's cry reached me.
"What? Did you find something?"
Following the direction Cho's antennae pointed, I saw the bat swarm that had split around us rejoin into one mass and pour into a great gaping hole open in the cliff face above the cave.
A hundred years, it seemed, had opened the old Five Poison Sect's entrance in an entirely different direction.