Episode 13
"I’m not exactly sure myself, but according to the rumors, a Goema has recently appeared."
"What? A Goema?"
Geom Mujin blurted out in surprise.
Goema.
They first appeared during the righteous-demonic war.
The Righteous-Demonic War that, five years ago, had set the martial world ablaze.
The orthodox sects and the demonic cult.
Both sides had thrown everything they had into that war.
Honestly, it was hard to imagine the earlier Righteous-Demonic Wars people talked about had ever reached this scale.
That war brought about all sorts of changes, and the Goema were one of them.
As the name suggested, Goema were tied to the demonic cult.
Unlike orthodox martial arts, demonic arts were methods that strayed from the proper path and rapidly built power through crooked, wicked means.
Those who practiced demonic arts were commonly called demons.
If orthodox martial arts were a tower painstakingly built from the foundation up, demonic arts were a tower thrown together in haste, unstable and ready to collapse.
That was why demons were usually violent, cruel, and psychologically unhinged.
No wonder eight or nine out of every ten bloodbaths in the martial world were started by demons.
The Righteous-Demonic War transformed those demons into something new.
That was the appearance of the Goema.
You want to know the difference between a demon and a Goema?
They might seem the same, but they’re very different.
A demon is still trapped inside the frame of a human being.
If demons were humans wearing human skin while committing acts like cannibalism or bed-chamber cultivation, then Goema were those who had shed that human skin altogether.
Demons, already being eaten away by the demonic nature of their arts, were then exposed to the madness of war.
Normally, that would have only driven them into qi deviation, turning them into killers who slaughtered friend and foe alike. But here, a new change emerged.
The demonic nature intensified by the madness of war affected not only the mind, but the body as well.
- Kwooooarrr!
The skin turned green, the face twisted like a yaksha’s, and the muscles swelled grotesquely.
- Awooooooo!
The snout stretched out like a wolf’s, razor-sharp teeth and claws emerged, and the entire body became covered in fur.
Demons whose bodies had been bizarrely warped, until in the end even their humanity—and the frame that held it—collapsed.
Those were the Goema.
In simple terms, they’re monsters in martial-world form.
So someone had just casually stuffed a bunch of monsters into the original work and then acted like it was no big deal.
Anyway, apparently one of those things had shown up.
"For now, I should go check on the patients."
"I’ll go with you."
"Huh? No... all right. Yul, you hurry back inside."
"Okaaay..."
Heo Injun, who had been about to stop Geom Mujin, quickly remembered who he was and nodded.
So there really were survivors.
Leaving behind a dejected Heo Yul, we started walking.
* * *
During the Righteous-Demonic War, I had seen Goema before.
Seen them? Please. I’d even fought a few.
From my experience, Goema were a serious pain in the ass.
They had enhanced physical abilities, sure, but the real headache was that some of them, though rare, awakened special powers.
Some blew fire from their mouths; others used camouflage like chameleons. They pulled out all kinds of absurd crap.
That was why, in the early days of the Goema, plenty of people got wrecked by those special abilities.
But the Righteous-Demonic War ended with the orthodox faction’s victory, and the demonic cult was destroyed.
After that came the massive cleanup campaign against Goema and demons.
They were too dangerous to leave alone, and demons were basically potential Goema waiting to happen.
Like I said before, I’d also pitched in with the cleanup.
Even so, there was no way to catch every last Goema and demon.
If it was an obvious Goema, fine—but on this vast Central Plains, once a person decided to hide, finding them was a hell of a task.
And even the beggar dogs from the Beggar’s Sect don’t have infinite manpower.
The ones who survived the cleanup must have hidden themselves all over the Central Plains.
Among them, there’d probably be Neo-Demonic Cult remnants, the main villains from the original story.
"Aigoo!"
"Physician! Physician! Come take a look at my back over here!"
The medical hall we visited with Heo Injun was a madhouse.
Physicians and female physicians were scurrying around, treating the martial artists who had returned from the Goema hunt.
"Hey! When exactly are you going to treat me? I’ve been waiting for half a shichen already!"
Then one martial artist shouted, pointing at his wounds.
When you’re hurt and in pain, it’s only natural to feel wronged, but these physicians and female physicians kept telling him to wait.
Unlike the others, he had no family to care about him, so the sorrow of the unmarried martial artist, age forty-five, reached its peak.
"We’re treating the critically injured first, so please wait."
"You bastard, how many times are you gonna keep saying that—urk!?"
He was about to swing a fist at the parrot-like repetition when his body suddenly froze.
Somehow, a needle had appeared in his neck.
"Fighting is forbidden inside the medical hall."
Heo Injun, who had approached behind him, pulled the needle out, and the martial artist collapsed unconscious.
"This one’s only lightly injured, so apply some wound medicine and bandage him up, then put him aside for now."
"Yes!"
The female physicians dragged the martial artist away and tossed him aside.
"Doctor, how did you do that just now? You put a martial artist down with a single needle."
The young physician’s eyes sparkled.
"Was that maybe the pressure-point method used by true masters?"
Physicians worn down by patients like this all dreamed of it at least once.
The sight of jabbing a needle into some obnoxious patient’s acupoint and subduing them instantly!
What Heo Injun had just shown them was the romance of every physician alive.
"Nope. I just coated the needle with an anesthetic and a sleeping drug."
"......"
The man who once ravaged the martial world with poison in another possible world was exactly that kind of guy.
It was only natural that the anesthetic and sleeping drug effects would be on another level, too.
Another childhood dream quietly died.
After Heo Injun had coordinated the physicians and female physicians and finished organizing the chaos, Geom Mujin, who had been quietly observing the situation, asked, "By the way, are these guys from the demonic side?"
Their looks, one and all, were absolutely not those of the orthodox path.
"Yes. They’re disciples of the Cheongsa Sect, a demonic sect here in Gangneung."
"I see."
So why had people who weren’t even orthodox gone out to hunt a dangerous Goema?
To kill Goema and set the martial world straight?
To protect ordinary folk from danger, just in case?
Not a chance.
There was only one reason they’d gone Goema hunting.
Because it was profitable.
I said Goema were basically monsters in martial-world form, didn’t I?
Just as you could get materials from a monster after killing it, the same went for Goema.
Their bones, hides, and blood, warped by their monstrous bodies, could be used as materials for divine weapons or elixirs.
Very rarely, you could even get an inner core.
Turning human bones and skin into weapons, or refining blood to drink it, would be monstrous blasphemy—but Goema weren’t human.
They’d lost their humanity and even their human shape, so how could anyone call them people?
Once the usefulness of Goema became known, these formerly extermination targets turned into something like golden goblins for martial artists.
That’s also why I bailed on the cleanup campaign.
Not just the leadership, but the entire expedition force had gone crazy over the potential value of Goema.
Not everyone was like that, of course, but in the end the cleanup campaign got pushed to the back burner.
For the record, the windbreaker I always wore was actually made from Goema hide.
It was a handy all-purpose item: slash-resistant, fire-resistant, water-resistant, and wind-resistant all in one.
I’d grabbed it as my trouble-pay before skipping out on the cleanup campaign—no, rather, as a way of lightening the load for those leadership guys who were too busy juggling everything else.
The Cheongsa Sect must have gone hunting for the same reason: the profit to be made from Goema.
"I heard they were especially given the chance by the strongest sect in Gangneung, the Taeho Sect, and went hunting first. To fail, though—that’s a shame."
"Given the chance?"
Geom Mujin let out a snort.
Having a turn order for Goema hunting was already ridiculous, but to call it giving someone a chance...
Was there any word in the martial world less suited to the idea of yielding?
At the first opportunity, martial artists would even dig food out of their own family’s mouths if they thought it might be useful.
And yet, yielding? Yeah, right.
"The Cheongsa Sect guys were just used for reconnaissance."
"Reconnaissance, you say?"
"Right. When you’re up against an unknown enemy, nothing matters more than information."
You pretend to offer a chance to a sect weaker than you.
Then the sect, blinded by the prospect of profit, goes out hunting on its own.
Meanwhile, you observe from the back and gather information about the Goema.
"Those guys may be whining about their injuries, but they should actually be relieved they came back only this badly hurt."
If the Goema had turned out weaker than expected and the hunt succeeded?
Then the Cheongsa Sect would probably have met Anubis all together today.
Since they’d still have suffered losses, big or small, all you had to do was wait for that moment and swoop in from behind.
"It’s a method the big sects use all the time."
The same applied to the orthodox sects.
Did you really think greed had no place there?
"Huh... so that’s how it is..."
Heo Injun was floored by the methods of these benefit-chasing scumbags who pursued profit to the extreme.
"I can guarantee it—the Taeho Sect will be going after Goema soon enough."
Once they had the information, there’d be no reason to drag their feet.
"Now that I think about it, there’s something I’d like to show you, Sword Unrivaled."
Heo Injun led Geom Mujin into a side room set aside nearby.
Inside were the bodies of the martial artists who had lost their lives during this hunt, temporarily laid out.
"Take a look at this."
Heo Injun pulled back the cloth covering one corpse.
When the body was revealed, Geom Mujin narrowed his eyes.
"This is the body of someone who died today?"
"Yes."
The martial artist’s corpse had dried out like a mummy.
Not just this one, either—the others were the same.
Even if you left something in the desert for a month, it wouldn’t dry out like this.
"According to the Cheongsa Sect disciples, it seems they were attacked by a Goema."
"Looks like they got hit by something like a draining technique."
I examined the corpse carefully.
I’d seen plenty of Goema until now, but this was the first time I’d seen one kill people like this.
The ones I knew just bit, tore, and fed.
Was there ever one like this in the original story?
Hmm...
Damn it, it had been too long since I’d tried to dig up those memories.
There was no way I could remember details that specific.
"Hmm?"
Then I spotted something on the dead man’s lower back.
There were two tiny holes pierced there.
And the spacing between them was so neat, it looked exactly like...
Fang marks?
"Heo physician, doesn’t this look like fang marks to you?"
"Yes, though they’re closer to an animal’s than a human’s."
"!"
At that moment, a current flashed through my mind.
Fang marks and a body dried out to the bone.
There was only one thing that could explain the connection between those two.
"I know what the Goema are."
"You do!?"
Geom Mujin’s eyes lit up.
A little tune went off in his ears—badum-badum, badum-badum, badum.
"Yeah. The true nature of the Goema is vampires."
Or, in the language of those western nose-hoarding barbarians—vampires!
"Huh? What-kind?"
Heo Injun’s face turned strangely complex.
It was the kind of expression you make when someone is going on enthusiastically about their own field of expertise, and you understand absolutely none of it.
Back in Geom Mujin’s hometown, they’d call that, What the hell is that, you nerd?
It wasn’t exactly the kind of expression you should make to your benefactor, but there was nothing for it.
To someone from an age of barbarism and ignorance like Heo Injun, the concept of vampires would naturally be unfamiliar.
Probably.