Chapter 11
"I, Heo, come to pay my respects to my benefactor."
As the man in white robes, Heo Injun, bowed deeply, the atmosphere in the room turned chaotic.
"Looks like he's got black hair. He's the White-Haired Divine Physician's benefactor?"
"Did I hear that wrong?"
The fact that the master of Heo's Medical Clinic, Gangneung's greatest physician, was bowing his head to a black-haired man was shocking enough. But what had he just said?
Benefactor?
The patients who witnessed the scene began to murmur among themselves.
"H-hey, sir...? You really mean that barbarian— no, that man is your benefactor?"
Especially the martial artist who had been throwing an absolute tantrum at Geom Mujin had his pupils quake like an earthquake had just hit them.
"That's right. So, Songbaek, you should stop being rude too."
"...My apologies, sir."
"Don't apologize to me. Apologize to this gentleman."
"......"
Songbaek fidgeted and hesitated.
"Hurry up."
But at Heo Injun's firm tone, Songbaek finally cupped his fists and bowed to Geom Mujin.
"I apologize for my disrespect toward your benefactor. I beg you to forgive me with your generous heart."
"Yeah, sure."
Geom Mujin gave a half-hearted reply to the apology.
The words were polite, but there was nothing behind them.
He looked like he was only apologizing because he had no choice, but honestly, this was already pretty decent.
In the martial world, even when someone is clearly in the wrong, the first thing that comes out isn’t an apology but a “not my problem.” And in a place where black-haired people got stabbed before anyone even bothered with that, this was practically civilized.
Of course, the idiots who tried that with me usually lost their heads.
"Please, come inside. Mr. Heo, I’ve been waiting for the day our benefactor would visit again."
"Mm, all right."
Geom Mujin followed Heo Injun’s lead—
"Ah."
—then stopped in his tracks before he could move any farther.
"I’m not planning on taking on such a big son, so there’s no need for you to call me Father or anything."
"...Yes. Thank you."
Songbaek, who had nearly become Songbaek-in-Name-Only, breathed a sigh of relief.
And honestly, same.
He’d almost ended up with a responsibility that brought no pleasure at all.
Patting Songbaek on the shoulder, I stepped inside.
* * *
Poison Demon.
One of the remnants of the Demonic Cult—one of the executive-level figures in the so-called Neo Heavenly Demon Cult.
He wasn’t especially outstanding in direct combat, but his real talent lay elsewhere.
Poison Demon wasn’t a battle specialist; true to his epithet, he specialized in poison, pharmacology, and medicine.
He made great contributions to the cult through drugs that boosted a demonic disciple’s combat power and through research on toxins used for assassination, but if you had to name the most famous thing he did, there was only one answer.
That was the creation of Jamsungdan.
A genius of medicine, he created a drug that martial artists simply couldn’t avoid being tempted by—Jamsungdan.
The Jamsungdan he made spread everywhere, infecting the martial world like a disease.
Those addicted to the drug would, at critical moments, stab their comrades in the back at the Demonic Cult’s command.
-K-khuh... Junior brother! Why...?
-I’m sorry... senior brother... but if I don’t do this, they won’t give me the drug....
Countless masters died in vain, betrayed by the very comrades and senior-junior brothers they had trusted all along.
They barely managed to suppress the disaster, but by then it was already too late.
There were difficulties in tracking down and cracking down on the Jamsungdan already in circulation, but the biggest problem was something else.
The martial world had become addicted not to Jamsungdan, but to a new poison altogether.
-That guy’s skills suddenly improved. Didn’t he take Jamsungdan?
-Even if he hasn’t now, he could still take it later.
-Were the traitors that day really all of them? Maybe there are more users out there who just haven’t been exposed yet.
The poison of suspicion made it impossible to see one’s comrades as comrades.
Relying bonds weakened, and distrust spread everywhere.
The damage was more insidious—and more dangerous—than even the bloodshed caused by a typical fiend.
A fiend could at least be hunted down, but suspicion could not be slain.
To unleash such a vile poison into the martial world.
The phrase “poisonous demon” could not have fit better.
-Hahahahaha! Rot, martial world! Decay and crumble, Jianghu!
Even with death looming before him, Poison Demon’s malice toward the martial world never once faded, thanks to the exploits of the protagonist and his comrades.
-My poison will never disappear until it has wiped out every last one of you martial-world vermin!
Even after exhausting all his poison and having his limbs cut off, he spat venom with his last remaining tongue.
In a way, Poison Demon had dealt a blow to the martial world even more devastating than the final boss.
And that Poison Demon was now sitting right in front of me.
"This is the newly imported kombucha from Yunnan and some canelé. I hope they suit your taste."
Heo Injun held out a teacup and asked.
"...The shine muscat flavor is pretty solid."
In the reception hall, I felt the fizzy carbonation of the kombucha as I stared at Heo Injun.
At forty years old, he had a warm, easygoing face.
The sort of face female patients would probably like.
If you remembered the Poison Demon from before—his face half-melted from handling every kind of poison, his frame reduced to skin and bone—it was hard to believe this was the same man.
"You’ve really cleaned up nicely. For a second, I almost didn’t recognize you."
I’d first met him about two years ago.
Back then, Heo Injun had been completely different from the man he was now.
Not quite as wrecked as he had been in his Poison Demon days, but he’d looked like a total burnout.
"Haha, well, I really was a mess back then."
Heo Injun gave an embarrassed smile.
"The clinic has improved a lot too."
Geom Mujin turned his head and looked out the reception hall window toward the clinic grounds.
The buildings were clean, the female attendants and physicians were moving briskly, and they were tending to the patients lying on the beds.
It was hard to believe this had once been a ghost house with no one in it at all.
"All thanks to you, Benefactor... no, Sir Geom."
With no one else around, Heo Injun changed the way he addressed him, just as the two of them had agreed beforehand.
It would be troublesome if their relationship were made obvious.
"Thanks to Sir Geom, I was able to focus on being a physician again. Once I reopened the clinic, patients started seeking me out again."
Well, this was Gangneung territory, and the Heo family had run this clinic for generations; on top of that, he had the skill to back it up, so of course people would come.
"And earlier... thank you."
"For what?"
"Songbaek. You let it go so generously."
Heo Injun had, in his own indirect way, experienced Geom Mujin’s martial prowess quite clearly.
So he knew.
If Geom Mujin had wanted to, he could have turned Songbaek into ground meat.
In that sense, Songbaek had used up at least ten years’ worth of luck.
"You mean the martial artist guarding the entrance? It looked less like a simple employment arrangement and more like he worshiped you. Were you close?"
"Not really. He was doing martial training, got into a fight with a bear, and ended up on the brink of death. I treated him, and after that he insisted on repaying the favor by becoming the gatekeeper."
"What? A bear?"
I stared at him, dumbfounded.
So those scars I saw in spots were from fighting a bear.
From what I’d just felt of that Songbaek’s qi, he was only on the edge of first-class.
"What an insane bastard. He’s barely first-class, and he fought a bear?"
People who don’t know better assume that once you become a first-class martial artist, you can take down any wild beast without much trouble. Reality is different.
A first-class martial artist can only reliably handle a boar in a one-on-one, yasha-style fight.
If you want to kill a bear or tiger, you need sword qi—and even then, if you get hit by a mountain cat’s punch or a teddy smash, you can still get sent straight to hell.
Do the top predators of the wild look like jokes to you?!
"...He’s still young, so maybe he’s a bit too full of blood and fire."
Heo Injun seemed to share my thoughts and awkwardly covered for him.
"Come to think of it, that guy saw my hair and blocked me like Zhang Fei at the Battle of Changban...."
Suspicion flashed in Geom Mujin’s eyes.
"N-no, of course not! How could I ever... to Sir Geom, no less! I’m not that kind of person."
Heo Injun waved his hands frantically, clearly sensing the look that seemed to ask whether he’d dared declare a no-black-hair zone when his benefactor was black-haired himself.
"Really, I swear!"
"You swear? Fine, I believe you."
"Phew...."
When the suspicious gaze finally lifted, he let out a relieved breath.
"Anyway, has anything unusual been happening lately?"
"Unusual...? In what sense?"
As I prompted him, Heo Injun tilted his head.
"You know, the usual stuff. Some suspiciously suspicious people showing up late at night. Tempting you with lines like, ‘Do you desire power?’ That kind of thing."
That’s usually how hidden masterminds make contact.
"Huh? Hahaha, Sir Geom, you really do say the funniest things."
But Heo Injun only laughed, as if he’d heard a pleasant joke.
Judging by that reaction, he doesn’t seem to be lying.
Then where the hell had the Jamsungdan come from?
The mystery only deepened, but that didn’t mean I could just resort to force with Heo Injun.
There was a more certain way to ask him, but—
"But I don’t see the child from earlier."
Geom Mujin looked around and asked.
The one who could tell at a glance whether Heo Injun had become a Demonic Cult plant or not was nowhere in sight.
"If you mean Yul, she should still be in the training yard. I sent someone to call her, so she should be here soon...."
Thud-thud-thud—!
From outside came the sound of little feet sprinting at a rapid pace.
Bang—!
"Uncle Mujin!"
Along with that bright, cheerful voice, the door was flung open roughly and a girl rushed inside.
She had the same light green hair as Heo Injun, tied up in two buns.
And if he said she was in training, that seemed to be true, because she was carrying a wooden sword in one hand.
"Yo, haven’t seen you in ages. Yul."
"Yes! It’s been reeeally, reeeally long!"
Even as she said that, the girl didn’t stop moving and launched herself straight at Geom Mujin.
Boing—!
"Whoa—!"
Responding to the trust in her eyes—that he would absolutely catch her—Geom Mujin quickly stood and caught the girl.
"What if you got hurt doing that?" he scolded, though not too harshly, lifting her easily in his arms.
"Hehe! If it’s Uncle Mujin, then it’s fine!"
Even after the mild rebuke, the girl, dangling with her legs swinging as he held her under the arms, grinned from ear to ear as if she couldn’t be happier.
"Besides, Daddy can’t lift me up this high like Uncle Mujin can!"
"Cough...!"
A heat-type little girl dealing a critical hit straight to Heo Injun’s chest without even needing a breath.
This girl was Heo Injun’s only daughter, and the spark that would eventually give rise to the Poison Demon—Heo Yul.