Chapter 178: The Truth of the Voice
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 178: The Truth of the Voice
“Gek… gek…”
Seriously, why did she suddenly collapse?
She doesn’t even look that badly hurt.
I stared down at the Terror Bird I had taken down.
Something had felt off, and now I could feel the faint power of Tai Sui.
So that’s why. I thought it was strange that three humans, who looked to be First-Rate martial artists, were struggling so much.
“Grrr…”
Even though the Terror Bird was dead, the aura of Tai Sui lingered.
CRUNCH!
I stomped on its bizarre red eye, and the power of Tai Sui finally vanished.
To think a remnant of that Evil God I saw before was still here.
It would be nice if this was the end of it, but the chances of that were slim.
Seeing as members of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult are gathered here, they must be in the process of cleaning up the remaining remnants.
But they’re still so young, and they don’t look particularly strong. Why were they fighting a creature like this?
…Did they come out on their own, not knowing what they were getting into?
I guess I can find out for sure by asking the humans lying here.
Just as I approached the woman who had just lost consciousness…
“W-Wait!”
I turned my head to the side and saw the man with a stab wound on his chest staggering to his feet.
He seemed to have lost a fair amount of blood, but it didn’t look like it would stop him from moving.
A normal person would have been in danger, but I guess it’s different for a martial artist.
“Grrr…”
The short-haired man flinched at my growl.
Is he scared of me?
In the past, I wouldn’t have understood, but now, I get it to some extent.
At this size, even a hamster would be terrifying.
“P-Please spare Wol-ah!”
He said, trembling all over.
His unexpected reaction piqued my interest.
To act like that when he’s clearly terrified.
Wol-ah.
Seeing his gaze fixed on the woman, it wasn’t hard to figure out that her name was Wol-ah.
But asking me to spare her?
She just fainted for a moment.
You’re the one in more danger, buddy.
You’re dripping blood all over the place.
And you should probably help up the guy collapsed behind you, too.
“You can eat us, that’s fine. But Wol-ah…!”
I’m a lizard that doesn’t cry easily.
Is that why? No tears are coming out.
“Gek gek.”
Why would I eat you?
I may have the body of a lizard, but my mind is still human.
…Of course, I can’t say it’s exactly the same as before.
My values seem to have shifted in strange ways.
Especially the way I lose my mind at the sight of a large pouch—that must be the lizard’s body interfering with my psyche.
But even if my values have changed a bit, I still feel a sense of revulsion at the thought of eating a talking creature.
Of course, if it were an enemy like a Jian Bird or a Human-faced Bird, I could probably eat them without a second thought, but if there’s no grudge, it’s hard to bring myself to harm them.
It’s not about being a hypocrite; it’s just common sense.
Imagine a perfectly grilled slice of pork belly starting to talk to me right before I eat it.
Just the thought of it makes me lose my appetite.
No matter how delicious it looks, eating it wouldn’t be easy.
…It might be possible if I were starving, but that’s not the case right now.
Besides, these humans don’t even look that tasty.
They don’t have much power either.
Should I say they’re like seasoned eggplant?
Actually, seasoned eggplant is at least good for you, so they’re even less appealing than that.
In other words, I wouldn’t eat them even if you paid me.
“Gek gek gek gek.”
“Thank… you…”
Did he actually understand me?
Good.
Since there’s someone conscious, I won’t have to go through any extra trouble.
“Gek gek, gek gek gek!”
I let out the cry of a valiant lizard and did my best to explain.
“I-I see!”
Does he really understand what I’m saying?
Well, I explained the parts he might have missed with hand gestures, so he probably got it.
*
Seo Wol-ah had a dream.
A dream of being enveloped in white fur.
And a dream of stroking smooth, slick scales.
“…What a weird dream.”
She muttered to herself.
“Are you okay?”
She saw a short-haired man shaking her by the shoulder.
Jang Cheong.
And then she saw a man with chestnut-colored hair massaging her knee.
Jo Am.
Orphans, the three of them had been taken in by Baek Yeon-yeong and raised in the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, growing up like real siblings. They were quite talented in martial arts, reaching the First-Rate realm before even coming of age.
“…Did I doze off?”
Seo Wol-ah yawned and looked at them.
To think she’d make a mistake like this.
The herbs had sleep-inducing properties, so she was getting drowsy, but it was embarrassing that she couldn’t fight it off.
And she’d had a strange dream, too.
As she was thinking this, Seo Wol-ah’s eyes fell on the herbs plastered all over Jang Cheong and Jo Am’s bodies.
“…Are you two hurt?”
Her round eyes widened.
Jang Cheong simply tilted his head at her reaction.
“What, you don’t remember? We ran into that monstrous bird. …Did you hit your head?”
It wasn’t a dream.
“No, I remember… but does that mean it wasn’t a dream?”
“Yeah. We were all about to die, but a spirit beast saved us.”
“A spirit beast?”
“You know, the lizard that looked like a dragon. …Though calling it a lizard feels a bit disrespectful.”
A spirit beast that had appeared dramatically the moment they called out the Heavenly Demon’s name.
She had thought it was a dream, but it was real.
That being had saved her from the brink of death.
Seo Wol-ah looked around, but the lizard was nowhere to be seen.
“It didn’t just take care of the monstrous bird; it even put herbs on our wounds.”
“I know, right? For a second there, I thought this guy, Jang Cheong, was going to be split in half.”
“How can you doubt the divine beast? It didn’t even eat the monstrous bird and left it for us.”
“…You were trembling like a leaf at first, too.”
It was something Seo Wol-ah couldn’t comprehend with common sense.
Even if it was a spirit beast, she had no connection to it.
There were spirit beasts that were friendly to humans, but that kindness was more than repaid by simply saving their lives.
But to give up its own prey…
“Did the spirit beast leave right away?”
“Yeah. It licked us a few times with its tongue and then quickly went somewhere else.”
“…It licked me with its tongue?”
She felt her own body.
Something had felt damp, and now she knew—it was the lizard’s saliva.
“Maybe its saliva has some kind of healing-accelerating effect?”
“……I suppose so, right? There’s no reason a lizard would put its tongue on my chest.”
Even so, she became a little suspicious of the lizard.
But what did it matter?
There might have been a minor issue, but the lizard had saved the lives of all three of them.
Moreover, it had even left them the carcass of the monstrous bird.
They had incurred a debt of gratitude they could never repay.
“The 100,000 Great Mountains is a place you can never fully understand. My goodness, to see a spirit beast like this.”
“I know. At first, I thought I was seeing a dragon. How should I put it… it had an appearance that stirs a man’s heart.”
Jang Cheong couldn’t hide his excitement.
A giant, dragon-like lizard that was friendly to humans.
As a man, he couldn’t help but be thrilled.
And it possessed a power they couldn’t even begin to fathom.
“And its voice was unique, too.”
“Right, its voice was magnificent.”
“Yes. Unlike its appearance, it made a rather cute sound, which was quite…”
“That deep, resonant voice that seemed to come from the depths of a cave… Huh?”
Jang Cheong and Seo Wol-ah looked at each other with expressions of mutual confusion.
“Jang Cheong, what are you talking about?”
“Wol-ah, what are you talking about? A cute sound?”
At Jang Cheong’s question, Seo Wol-ah could only ask back like a fool.
“What?”
“Did you hit your head? Let me see.”
“No, what are you saying? Aren’t you the one who hit his head, Jang Cheong?”
It was a situation where neither could understand the other.
“It was the kind of sound a very soft, squishy creature would make, wasn’t it?”
“Soft and squishy? What on earth are you talking about…?”
Unable to watch any longer, Jo Am chimed in.
“Wol-ah, what we heard was a little different.”
Jang Cheong cleared his throat as if he’d been waiting for this.
“Why have you come to this deep place?”
Jo Am added with a pathetic look on his face.
“…It wasn’t anything like that, but it said something along those lines. In an incredibly low, deep voice.”
“It spoke?”
Was she being haunted by a ghost?
Wol-ah couldn’t understand.
That lizard had spoken?
Hadn’t it just been going ‘gek gek gek’?
Let’s say it could talk.
Shouldn’t their voices at least be similar?
A deep, resonant voice?
The sound she had heard was still ringing in her ears.
“…Fine. Let’s say that’s true. So, the spirit beast spoke? Can you tell me what it said?”
Jang Cheong and Jo Am might be teasing her.
But they wouldn’t distort the words the spirit beast left behind.
“……Should I really say this?”
“What is it? What’s with that reaction?”
Were they trying to hide something from her?
She didn’t care about anything else, but she felt she absolutely had to hear what the lizard had said.
“You’re hiding something, aren’t you?”
“Umm, it’s just that some of the phrasing is a bit inappropriate for me to say.”
“…Aren’t you just relaying what the spirit beast said? Just say it.”
Jang Cheong hesitated for a while before finally speaking.
“Take the carcass of the monstrous bird. However, do not touch the inner core inside.”
Jang Cheong had lowered his voice as much as he could, but he couldn’t imitate the lizard’s voice. Wol-ah set aside her curiosity about the voice and focused on the words the black lizard had left.
“And, relay this to her.”
Jang Cheong glanced around for a moment before continuing.
“Baek Yeon-yeong.”
Baek Yeon-yeong.
The Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
Seo Wol-ah finally understood why Jang Cheong had hesitated.
He was saying the Cult Leader’s name directly.
It was something a follower of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult should never do, but this was an exception.
He was merely relaying a message.
“Tell her that creature’s energy is mixed into this inner core.”
This was the reason they were told not to touch the inner core.
It was a problem the Cult Leader had to see for herself.
Seo Wol-ah nodded.
That lizard clearly had a connection with the Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
That must be why it helped them, too.
The situation finally made sense to her.
“And.”
Jang Cheong wasn’t finished.
Seo Wol-ah listened intently to his words.
“I shall visit your bedchamber…”
Shing.
Before Jang Cheong could finish his sentence, Wol-ah drew her broken sword.
“Are you crazy?”
“No, I’m not the one who said it, the lizard did!”
“You think I’d believe that?”
Swinging her broken sword wildly, she charged at Jang Cheong with fierce momentum.
“How could a lizard enter the Cult Leader’s bedchamber!”
“That’s why I said I didn’t want to say it! And I was just relaying the message!”
A commotion ensued for a while.
Seo Wol-ah dismissed it as a prank by Jang Cheong and Jo Am.
What kind of lizard would dare to think of entering the bedchamber of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult’s leader?
The baseless rumor she’d heard a while back about that small lizard stealing all of the Priestess’s hidden snacks was more plausible.
“…Wait, a lizard?”
As she was pummeling Jang Cheong, the word ‘lizard’ suddenly came to mind.
Nah, it can’t be.
For a moment, she wondered if the lizard she had seen before and the spirit beast she had just seen were the same creature, but she quickly corrected her thoughts.
“That makes no sense!”
“Wol-ah! You hit my bone, my bone!”