Dark Clouds - 1
The investigation continued until the sunset painted the sky. The strange folk were scattered far and wide, with no apparent pattern to their distribution. Sometimes a dozen of them would cluster in a village square; other times, an entire street in the market district would pass without a single sighting.
But the most bizarre thing was that normal people were conversing with them as if it were nothing.
"How about a dumpling? Special price today."
"Waves of acne's lingering fragrance. Tiger in silk fabric!"
"If I sell any cheaper here, I'll starve to death..."
Jang Cheon watched the man quietly. Once the odd fellow had wandered off, he approached the vendor, feigning ignorance.
"What did that guy just say?"
"Oh, Mr. Jang? He bought some pork dumplings. Would you like one too, sir?"
"That was a pork dumpling? Looked tasty enough."
"We use prime wild boar meat—real good flavor. Mr. Jang over there buys 'em every day."
"Hm. Give me one, then."
"Here's your order!"
The pork dumpling cost three copper coins. Jang Cheon bought one and popped it straight into his mouth without hesitation.
Cheon Sohyang gasped in horror, clutching at his robe.
"Wait! Ajussi! You can't just eat that like it's nothing!"
"What, you eat dumplings with chopsticks instead of your hands? Try a bite. Not bad at all."
"No, that's not—!"
Jang Cheon understood her concern but stopped teasing. He trusted Heuk-yo's power completely. Not even the Dang family's Formless Poison could kill him.
"No trace of poison or curses. It's not the food or water. Must be those outer gods they mentioned."
In remote mountain villages, weird things happened sometimes—wells poisoned, folks eating toxic herbs en masse. That could explain such symptoms. But tasting it himself pointed elsewhere. These people weren't poisoned.
That left the magistrate and the monk as suspects. He could storm in and cut them down, no questions asked. Overthinking headaches wasn't his style; if he were alone, he'd have done just that.
But Jang Cheon knew he wasn't alone anymore.
"What would you do?"
"Me?"
Cheon Sohyang blinked in surprise. Jang Cheon spoke gently.
"Yes. This is your journey through the jianghu too. The world is vast—you'll run into injustice now and then. What do you want to do?"
"Hmm..."
The girl scratched her head at her master's words. She hadn't expected that. Back when she'd first headed to Hobuk, she'd wrestled with such dilemmas. Fleeing to Seongdo, too. She'd always puzzled it out alone, sometimes landing in hot water. Being asked now brought those memories flooding back.
She missed those days. Terribly.
Because...
"Follow your heart. I've got your back, don't I?"
She'd desperately wished someone would say that to her. And so the girl felt an odd happiness. Those painful times seemed to fade away.
"Can't we just... send them back?"
"Send them back?"
"If those outer gods are like some kind of yokai, maybe there's a way to control them? Like when you saved me, ajussi. I'm fine now, right?"
She recalled that memory. The place she'd been drawn to, entranced by the outer god, had been filled with oddities: a bizarre altar, corpses, and that ominous book called the Incarnation Ritual Scripture.
"Just tell 'em plainly: 'We don't care about you, so go home.' Something like that."
"You're right."
Jang Cheon knew it more fundamentally. Even without the wriggling Void Soul in his robes now and then. His sword and his soul were linked. The method came from a series of procedures he'd found in Geumroe-ok.
The connection wasn't one-way. Which meant these people were part of the ritual happening here.
"Let's see if that works, then."
"We gotta scout it out, right? Like what I learned in the Demon Extermination Squad..."
"There's an easier way. No need to complicate it."
He knew nothing of rituals, but ways to sniff out their locations? Plenty.
Jang Cheon strode ahead purposefully.
Meanwhile, the foothills of Yeonggang hid many secret spots. The mountains rose sheer as if carved by axes, crevices in the rocks swallowing all light.
Bi-hyeol. A hidden cave, unseen by the eye.
One such cave hosted unholy deeds.
"......."
Three altars hewn from stone. Hastily made, their shapes were crude, edges jagged and menacing.
But more sinister still was the scene atop them. The left and right stood empty, but the center held a young man laid out.
In life, he'd surely been handsome. Fine features, sturdy build.
Now, all that was for naught. Eyes bulging wide, he lay dead.
And before him, a mumbling voice droned on without cease.
Three Crude Altars
"Hey there."
"......"
A hesitant voice echoed in the dark cave. Someone entered from the mouth.
Glancing around warily, as if expecting eyes on him, he crept inside.
The world of the jianghu and the imperial realm were worlds apart. He wasn't a martial artist. Hiring a sorcerer openly could cost him his head.
Yet, he swallowed hard.
He set down the bundle from his back. Already, the cloth inside was soaked through.
A faint fishy stench.
"H-Hey. I brought it, like you said."
"A young man's spleen and liver......"
Another voice. Now he saw: someone sat before the altar. Broad-shouldered, yet unnoticed till now.
Black robes blending him into the gloom, like a shadow come alive.
A monk.
One hand in a ritual mudra, he inspected the offering from the middle-aged man. All the while, he muttered incantations—blasphemous words in some unknowable tongue.
"Unknowable chants in an alien tongue..."
"You... did well..."
What had he confirmed? If there were lines left to cross, they'd long since been trampled.
The monk remained impassive, unperturbed. The middle-aged man, though, wavered.
But he steeled himself, eyes on the altar.
"I did everything you asked. This'll bring my son back to life, right?"
"......"
"It has to. If you've deceived me, I'll report to my division commander, and the full might of imperial law will—"
The monk offered no reply.
He knew this man. At least, as he'd been at their first meeting. Inept but kind. Weak-willed yet upright.
But now?
"The magistrate... has done admirably..."
Did he know what he'd offered wasn't mere carrion? The monk's cryptic words hung, his dark gaze shifting to the altar.
The young man's corpse. Eyes still wide in outrage.
Suddenly, it blinked.
"Ugh! Uuuughhh!"
"Ga-myeong! Ga-myeong, it's your father! Ga-myeong!"
The middle-aged man scrambled to the altar. No room for thought.
A voice he'd thought lost forever. Hope worth more than gold.
But alas, his son didn't respond in kind. No cry of joy, no reunion embrace. Instead, bizarre babble.
"Can't sell cheap if you come every day? Gimme a pork dumpling!"
"D-Dumplings? I'll buy you some."
"Not yet......"
The monk blocked the magistrate, poised to bolt.
The corpse fell silent again. Only the dazed father and the ominous monk remained.
"Not... fully awakened yet. Be patient......."
"How long!"
The magistrate's voice cracked with sobs. He teetered on collapse.
This wasn't what he'd wanted. Somehow, he'd stumbled into this abyss.
"Days remain at most. Tend it well even after I go..."
"Y-You're leaving? That person you mentioned?"
"Matters to attend... The Divine Fishing rite needs only one more week......."
The monk grumbled. He could gauge it in his mind's eye. By now, even the stubborn fools at headquarters had abandoned him.
A supreme order he must obey. Yet a millennia-old shame none could know.
He'd once been part of the world's most intransigent sect.
"However."
After committing the sin of abandoning his post, no return.
A faint smile as he drew a bamboo hat from his robes.
"When you meet Buddha, shoot the Buddha."
"Th-That..."
"Farewell..."
He vanished into the gloom with eerie grace.
The bundle on his back hummed faintly. A Divine Artifact, granting powers beyond petty resurrection mimicry.
He knew such things better than most. Compared to this, the Great Black River's divine fish was mere carp—bigger, bulkier, but mindless.
Could something stripped of intellect even be called divine?
"O prisoner at the bottom of the Infinite Prison."
No answer, even called by name. The seal hadn't fully broken.
Had it, it would've appeared to him first, the monk was certain. The artifact had been with him, after all.
"Eternal sinner, grant me your oracle..."
But the jet-black half-sword in the bundle lay silent, buried in talismans and sutras, offering no response.