Chapter 34: Tang Soyeong
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 34: Tang Soyeong
The red-haired man had kicked the dumpling-haired girl to the ground.
They seemed to be in the same group, so why would he do that?
Honestly, it's infuriating, but I'm sure there's a reason.
Maybe she told them to leave her behind and save themselves.
…Still, kicking her was going too far, wasn't it?
The more I think about it, the more pissed I get.
But well, they were crying and running away from me, so I'll let it slide just this once.
Let's forget the details.
Their circumstances don't matter to me.
What I need to know is the fact that the woman fell.
And that, unlike the others, she didn't run away from me but stayed put, sitting right where she was.
She doesn't seem badly hurt, so I guess she must have sprained her ankle.
Either that, or she's just an ordinary person who couldn't understand why her companions were running away from someone as gentle as me.
It's a pain to move twice, so I'll just grab what I need now.
Swish.
I flicked my tongue out, tasting the ground.
Was it around here?
I found a spot where the ground was particularly damp.
Crocodile Monitor-style Dragon's Claws, Eighth Form.
Frantic Ground Dig.
Like a puppy digging for a hidden bone, I furiously pawed at the dirt with my front legs.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
Buried in the ground were various plants and items.
I'd collected some rare-looking things, like a lightning-shaped stone.
It was a storage spot for things I didn't need right away but were too good to throw out.
What I need to get now is...
Ah, here it is.
I gently lifted something that looked like a plant root.
What was its name again? Fo-ti?
When I got hurt, applying the juice from a fo-ti root to the wound would heal it quickly.
Thanks to my title, I didn't need it; my wounds would heal on their own after splashing around in the water a bit.
I'd kept it thinking I might use it for Tus and Pus later, but I guess I'm using it like this.
I also grabbed the spider silk from Pus that I'd carefully stored next to it.
If she wraps the crushed fo-ti in a leaf and bandages it to the wound with the spider silk, she should be able to get up soon.
If I just toss her the ingredients, she'll probably figure out how to treat herself.
Alright, let's go.
It was a bit of a hassle to find the medicinal herb, but the best-case scenario for me is for that woman to get up and run away on her own.
I think it's still too early to get involved with humans.
It's a sad story, but it seems that unless you're an oddball like Baek Yeon-yeong, people are scared of me.
If I'm going to meet people, I need to make a good impression. Maybe it'd be better if I made some clothes to wear.
I'm not ready yet.
This encounter with humans wasn't part of the plan either.
I've already chased them out of my territory, so I could just ignore her and go to sleep, but I'd rather not watch a human die nearby.
This might sound a bit selfish, but please get better quickly and go somewhere I can't see you.
Pat-pat-pat.
To make myself look as small as possible, I crawled on all fours.
Wondering if the sword in my mouth was the problem, I switched it to my tail.
I think I'm almost there.
Yeah, there she is.
The woman I saw was still in the same spot.
...She's not dead, is she?
Looking closely, I could see her chest, smaller than Baek Yeon-yeong's, rising and falling.
It seems she can't move because of her injured leg.
I crept up behind her.
Worried I might startle her, I gentlemanly tapped the ground a couple of times.
Excuse me.
“E-Eek!”
The woman jumped in shock.
She looked at me with teary eyes, her body trembling.
“P-Please don't eat meee....”
No. It's a misunderstanding. I don't eat people.
*
Tang Soyeong had no aptitude for martial arts.
But she didn't care.
The Tang Clan, after all, primarily used hidden weapons and poison rather than honorable combat.
She may have lacked talent in martial arts, but her gift for handling poison was outstanding.
While her poisons weren't exceptionally potent, they had an element of surprise that could take down even masters far stronger than her. For that reason, the people of the Tang Clan intended to make valuable use of her.
Yes, use.
Just as they used poisons and hidden weapons, the members of the Tang Clan naturally used their own bloodline.
The term 'Poison Master' wasn't just some legendary realm.
It was a derogatory term used by those who had become puppets of the clan—no different from a single vial of poison—to mock their own fate.
Tang Soyeong refused to use her unique poisons.
Since that was her very reason for being, it would have been difficult for her to remain unscathed after saying such a thing in the Tang Clan.
Even sharing the same blood, she might have found it hard to keep her life, or she could have been locked in a dark cave, turned into another Poison Master, a mindless pawn.
But that didn't happen to Tang Soyeong.
Because she had secretly cultivated a different kind of power.
The name of that power was knowledge.
Instead of accumulating internal energy, she accumulated a vast amount of knowledge.
As she amassed knowledge that even the Tang Clan elders did not possess, they decided to use her for other purposes.
The greatest of the knowledge she accumulated was related to spirit beasts.
Even before the sudden mass appearance of spirit beasts, the Tang Clan had been the faction most interested in them. After all, powerful spirit beasts produced powerful venoms.
The reason she, a mere Second-Rate martial artist at best, could participate in this expedition representing the Tang Clan was thanks to her past achievements. She was one of the few talents capable of handling a subadult Dilophosaurus.
Of course, sending her to the 100,000 Great Mountains was a gamble.
They could lose both Tang Soyeong, who was weak but knowledgeable, and the precious subadult spirit beast all at once.
That was when the council of elders turned their attention to a man named Namgung Yeon.
Through information obtained from a spy named Cheongmurin, they acquired various details about Namgung Yeon. He was known as a Second-Rate martial artist, but that was the result of deliberately controlled information.
Upon learning his true identity, the council of elders made the decision to send Tang Soyeong and the subadult spirit beast.
There was more to gain than to lose.
As long as Namgung Yeon was with them, she wouldn't die easily.
That is, assuming she could control the Dilophosaurus.
However, she ended up losing the Dilophosaurus.
She was nearly killed by beasts that attacked suddenly.
If she hadn't used the smoke bomb she carried, she would have surely been bloodied.
Now, all she had left was a little food, a few hidden weapons, and some needles.
In that situation, she encountered a being like something out of a myth.
At first, she was terrified.
She realized it possessed an immense amount of internal energy.
Moreover, it wasn't internal energy accumulated in an ordinary way.
She could sense at least four inner cores, and even the energy of Gongcheongseokyu.
Having fallen defenseless before such a spirit beast, how could she not be afraid?
To make matters worse, she had also injured her leg.
She couldn't move.
Not until the spirit beast returned.
“P-Please don't eat meee....”
She said in a terrified voice.
Her heart pounded.
Swish.
The tongue of the spirit beast watching her flickered.
The moment Tang Soyeong sensed death and closed her eyes, something fell in front of her.
Peeking through her barely open eyes, Tang Soyeong saw a plant root.
Fo-ti.
And it was at least a hundred-year-old fo-ti at that.
The spirit beast stomped on it a few times with its foot, then offered her some silk-like thread and a leaf.
That precious fo-ti!
Normally, Tang Soyeong would have said something like that.
But given the situation, all she could do was tremble.
Is it telling me to apply it?
“Grrrr....”
“I-I'll apply it!”
It's scary.
With trembling hands, she applied the fo-ti juice to her swollen injury.
As time passed, the pain gradually subsided.
A question arose in Tang Soyeong's mind.
Why is it treating me?
Could it be... like how they use tea-leaf-fed pork in cooking, is it trying to make me taste better?
No, Tang Soyeong decided to entertain a more hopeful thought.
This spirit beast has no intention of harming me.
The tail holding the sword was waving back and forth, which was very unsettling, but if it was going to eat her, it would have done so already.
Even if this was just a simple whim, it was better than being eaten without being able to do anything.
At least she could do something.
Tang Soyeong slowly raised her head.
She faced the being before her.
A large body. Sharp claws.
She had no idea why it was making such an expression, but it was a smile that wasn't quite a smile, one that felt incredibly eerie.
As Tang Soyeong slowly examined its appearance, a piece of information flashed through her mind.
It was a story related to a legend that existed in the Tang Clan.
There is a spirit beast. It is the ultimate poison, incomparable even to the Jinjo.
It is called by many names.
The Ancient Being, Tailed Death, the Oldest Death.
It is an overwhelming being that symbolizes death and violence, the very existence the Sichuan Tang Clan so desperately coveted.
Tough armor that easily deflects blades. Twenty claws said to be sharper than a sword forged from a meteorite. Sharp fangs that can effortlessly pierce even a Strong Protective Aura. A deadly poison stronger than a Jinjo's.
Gomodo (古氂屠).
The being before her resembled the Gomodo of legend.
Of course, there were differences from the descriptions in the legends.
Its body was slightly smaller, and its skin color was different.
She could just let this moment pass quietly.
Parting ways might be the best conclusion.
But Tang Soyeong did not.
Was it because of her mindset as a scholar, or the thought that the spirit beast before her might be the very being she was searching for?
“E-Excuse me!”
Tang Soyeong called out to the spirit beast as it was about to return to where it came from.
“Are you, by any chance, Hero Gomodo?”
*
Wee-woo, wee-woo.
A siren went off somewhere in my mind.
A human who stops me in a situation like this.
My brilliant brain is working.
She's crazy!
Ugh, I gotta get out of here, fast.