I Shall Deign to Eat It
Jeon Dae-in accepted the painting in a daze.
It was a toad drawn in ink. A plump, rotund creature, its mouth stuffed full with a bundle of copper coins.
'Why— is that not a Golden Toad!'
Jeon Dae-in's eyes lit up at once. The Golden Toad, the beast of wealth and fortune. For an immortal to paint such a thing for him — surely it meant the immortal was bestowing the blessing of riches upon him. The terror he'd felt mere moments ago all but forgotten, the corners of his mouth curled upward of their own accord.
And in that very instant of smug contentment —
the toad in the painting wriggled its body.
"Hyaaack—!"
Jeon Dae-in nearly dropped the painting. The toad on the paper was heaving its bulging belly up and down as if it were genuinely alive. An ink drawing, breathing.
The rumors had been true.
Jeon Dae-in's hands trembled. A trembling he couldn't tell was from gratitude or fear. To lay hands on such a divine treasure. With this single thing, the prestige of the Byeokun Sect would—
"And one more piece of advice."
The man spoke, utterly indifferent.
"Don't be so pleased with that thing as a toad of fortune. Look closely. It's bitten off more blessings than it can carry — it can't even hold itself up anymore."
Only then did Jeon Dae-in look at the toad again.
It was true. The coins in its mouth must have been too heavy, for the toad was sprawled belly-down on the ground, groaning. Its jaws laden with blessings, yet crushed flat beneath the very fortune it had gathered — utterly unable to move. What had looked so auspicious only moments ago suddenly seemed sinister.
"You're exactly its match."
Jeon Dae-in's smile froze.
"Blessings, you see, become curses when they pile too high. If you don't handle them with care, you can end up crushed to death beneath your own good fortune."
"……"
"Greed for wealth is a face that invites disaster. That seat of yours — didn't you take it by pushing someone else out of it? Keep that up and you won't last long. And especially… before too long, you'll take one big hit. Be careful around women."
A chill ran down Jeon Dae-in's spine.
How could he possibly know? Seizing the elder's seat by shoving out his predecessor, the things he'd done these past few years blinded by money — he had never breathed a word of any of it to anyone. And yet this immortal was laying it all bare, as though he'd peered straight through the whole of Jeon Dae-in's past.
'Truly, an immortal…! He sees not only my past but my future as well!'
Half chilled, half awestruck, Jeon Dae-in swallowed dryly.
"Take it and go. And don't ever come back."
The man waved his hand dismissively.
"If you show up again… well. I might not stop her next time."
As he said it, the man's gaze flicked briefly toward the woman.
Jeon Dae-in grasped the meaning instantly. If he came back, there was no telling what that madwoman would do to him. Sweat trickled cold down the length of his back.
"Th-there will be no need! I will never — never come again!"
Clutching the toad painting to his chest as if it were his most precious treasure, Jeon Dae-in scrambled into his palanquin in a flurry.
The palanquin descended the mountain at three times the speed it had climbed.
The courtyard fell quiet once more.
She watched the palanquin shrink into the distance.
'…Was sparing him a mistake?'
The thought crossed her mind unbidden. She knew his sort all too well. The kind who fled with their tails between their legs in terror, only to start nursing venom the moment they returned to their den.
It was called cutting the grass and tearing out the roots. An old saying: when you cut down weeds, pull them up by the root. Just as weeds left rooted return thicker the following spring, a danger left alive always comes back. Had it not been said — raise a tiger and you invite calamity?
It was what her father had always taught her. Mercy, he said, is the poison of the Demonic Path.
There was only one clean solution. To take the old man's head silently, before he ever set foot off the mountain.
She had learned the art of it — spilling not a single drop of blood onto her own collar — before she'd even turned fifteen.
Just as she arrived at that all-too-familiar conclusion —
she stopped short.
……Wait.
What had she just been calculating?
Future trouble, she'd thought. But what future trouble? Even if the old man returned nursing a grudge, the edge of his blade would be aimed at that man. Which meant that moments ago, she had been weighing whether to sever in advance a root of calamity that would fall upon him.
Since when… had she begun worrying about that man's back?
She hurriedly dragged a plausible justification over it.
It was only natural. That man's power was a piece she had marked for herself. Merely guarding it, so that what she had decided to claim would come to no harm. Yes, that was it. Cold calculation. Nothing but calculation—
"Hey, you there."
The man, who had been painting all the while, suddenly spoke.
She flinched. Could he have seen through her just now?
"…What."
"How long are you planning to stay here?"
Her heart lurched.
"…What?"
"Well, I thought you were a guest, but it's been days and you haven't left. I mean, it's fine if you stay. Just earn your keep."
In that instant, her mind went completely white.
All that lofty deliberation from moments before — the calculations, the strategy, the feelings — scattered to the winds. And what sprang out in its place, absurdly, was an excuse.
"…Wh-when have I ever freeloaded? I've earned my keep. I drew water from the well yesterday."
"That was water you drank."
"…I-I also split firewood."
"You split three and quit halfway."
"……"
She found herself speechless.
She was the Young Lady of the Demonic Cult. The daughter of the Heavenly Demon. A woman whose mere name made the whole martial world hold its breath. It was she who had, with a single glance, just reduced the elderly elder of the Byeokun Sect to near incontinence.
And that same woman was now.
Being pressed for her board by a mountain hermit painter, desperately defending herself with a count of three logs of firewood.
"…Eh, whatever."
The man picked up his brush again and said it as if it were nothing.
"Stay if you want. But handle your own meals. I'm not diligent enough to paint your food for you too."
She began to snap something back, then stopped.
Instead, without quite knowing why, the corners of her mouth softened.
The man who held a divine brush capable of turning the world upside down was standing there complaining that painting one extra bowl of rice was too much trouble. So utterly at ease that the ice-thin tension of moments ago might never have existed.
Only after laughing did she realize it.
That this was the first time she had laughed at this man's side.
And that the laugh had sprung from no calculation whatsoever.
"…Why are you laughing?"
The man paused his brush and glanced at her, his brow slightly furrowed as though something displeased him.
"Hard to focus on a painting when someone's giggling right next to you."
She flinched. Her careless laugh had been caught. To be seen in such an uncomposed state — as the Young Lady of the cult, no less.
She quickly gathered her expression. Then, as if to reclaim her unraveling dignity, she forced a coolly frosty smile.
"Heh heh. It is nothing."
"…?"
"They say the flood dragon, though it lies dormant in a marsh, will one day gain its clouds and ascend to heaven. I merely did not expect those clouds to be wearing such a placid face."
She was satisfied with her own eloquence. A reply worthy of the Young Lady of the Demonic Cult — dignified and profound. Surely that ignorant scribbler of paintings couldn't hope to grasp such depths.
The man stared at her for a moment.
Then lowered his eyes back to the brush and muttered.
"…I swear I'll never figure you out."
"What?"
"Nothing. Just tell me when you're hungry. I won't paint yours for you, but I won't stop you from stealing bites off mine, either."
Her dignified aphorism thus quietly shattered in midair.
"……"
The frosty smile she had been wearing froze into something awkward.
"…Stealing bites?"
She turned the words over in her mind.
I won't stop you from stealing bites off mine. Which meant that just now, this man had classified her — the daughter of the Heavenly Demon, the Young Lady of the Demonic Cult herself — as some charity case poised to stick her spoon into another person's rice bowl.
Her brow trembled faintly.
"…And what, precisely, do you take me for."
"Hm? A hungry person."
"I am—!"
She flared up and raised her voice, then caught herself and hastily reassembled her dignity. A Young Lady of the cult does not raise her voice. She forced her tone back down into frosty calm.
"…I am not the sort who covets what belongs to others."
"Sure. Then just don't steal any."
The man waved his brush, entirely unbothered.
"Though you were swallowing pretty hard when I was painting my food earlier."
"…!"
Her face flushed red in an instant.
Caught. Earlier, when the man had painted a steaming bowl of white rice and eaten it — her stomach, after days of proper meals forfeited on this mountain, had churned helplessly at the smell. She had turned her head away and forced herself to endure it. She hadn't imagined that man had seen.
"Th-that was—"
"Ah, no shame in it. Is being hungry a crime?"
The man spread out a fresh sheet of paper.
"Want some?"
She opened her mouth. To say no — that she would accept no such charity.
Or rather, she intended to say it.
She had already chosen the sentence in her head. A single frosty, dignified line: I am not so destitute as to accept such pity. An ice-cold refusal worthy of the Young Lady of the Demonic Cult.
But then.
Growwwl—!!
At the most exquisite possible moment, her stomach betrayed her.
Silence fell.
And it had been a very loud, very resonant sound — one that made its case emphatically. Even the songbirds seemed to have paused mid-note.
The man stared at her, brush still in hand. She, wearing the coldest expression in all the world, fixed her gaze on a single point in empty air, pretending the sound had not been hers. As though her stomach and she were entirely unacquainted.
But there were only two people on this mountain.
"…Paint it."
After a long while, she said through gritted teeth.
"I shall deign to eat it. Consider it a special favor."
"……"
The man started to reply, thought better of it, and simply moved his brush.
Truly, he would never figure this woman out.