Chapter 31
"Bitch, barbarian bitch, whore, dog, fucking bastard. That’s what the adults called me... pick whichever one you like."
I was still reeling from words that sounded like they’d come from another world entirely when something clicked.
Huh?
"You’re a girl?"
"....."
The child just stared up at me, expression blank.
That was answer enough.
I felt like I’d just been smacked in the back of the head with a toy hammer.
Her face had been hidden by that scruffy hair, so I’d never imagined she might be a girl. I’d wiped the grime from her face and even cleaned her arms and legs with a wet cloth, but her body was so gaunt it had been hard to tell one way or the other.
She’d put on weight back when she was living off blood, but the sword had sucked out her strength, and the flesh had gone with it.
Meanwhile, when I glanced at Heo Injun, who was looking at me with an expression that said are you kidding me?, it was obvious he’d known all along.
If you knew, you could’ve said something.
"....."
As I grumbled to myself, the child looked back and forth between us.
Both Heo Injun and I seemed to understand why.
"...Physician Heo, why don’t you go first? Looks like the kid’s been waiting."
I jabbed Heo Injun in the side with my elbow.
"M-me?"
Heo Injun’s pupils shook as he was suddenly tossed the burden.
This death-zone of a multiple choice question—no, if I counted the first one, it was a six-way death-zone—would send anyone straight to hell no matter which option they picked.
The child, not even understanding what any of this meant, waited innocently for their choice.
Because of that, cold sweat was already streaming down the backs of the two adults.
"Even so, that wouldn’t be proper. Didn’t Sword Master rescue this child? Of course Sword Master should choose first. That’s the way of the jianghu."
But that lasted only a moment before Taiji Fist struck!
Taiji Fist was one of those civilian martial arts that had spread even among ordinary people, not just martial artists, as a kind of health exercise.
Over the past few days, spending time with Geom Mujin—the strongest of the Seven Martial Stars, no less—had noticeably improved his skill.
Using the technique of turning force against force, he tossed the problem right back at me.
"Ugh—cough!"
I flinched at the unexpected counterattack, but Geom Mujin had deep internal power—years of experience, if you like.
This level of crisis was something I could handle with ease.
"The past is the past. Better to start fresh, so it’d make more sense to give you a new name."
If every choice led straight to hell, then I just had to make a new choice!
That’s the vibe you get from a little bit of seasoned experience.
"Th-that sounds like a great idea!"
Heo Injun brightened and immediately chimed in.
"A n-new name...?"
At the words new name, light finally entered the child’s eyes, which had been murky as 140p video quality.
Looks like she was interested.
"Then hurry up and give her one."
"......"
"Me?"
Just like that, I’d become the target of all the attention.
Damn it. Just because the two of you are staring at me like that doesn’t mean a good name is going to pop into my head instantly.
There’s an old saying: spilled water cannot be gathered back into the basin.
For us mighty Koreans—the world’s superior race—it comes from an anecdote about a Central Plains barbarian named Jiang Taigong.
Jiang Taigong was famous around town for doing nothing but fishing all day long.
But the reason he was famous wasn’t because he was good at fishing.
It was because he was bad at it.
People pointed at him, calling him insane, because he fished with a straight hook instead of a bent one, but he left behind these words:
-Heh. I’m not fishing for fish. I’m fishing for time.
And so the Lord of Time kept casting his line, for a full seventy years, and thoroughly messed with everyone’s heads.
-Gyaaah! I can’t live like this anymore!
The only victim of his madness, his wife, eventually couldn’t take it anymore and ran away from home.
Maybe the shock of going from idler to old man living alone had finally pushed Jiang Taigong into serious mode.
At that time, the world was in the era when King Zhou of Shang was busy being a total tyrant with Daji.
There was a hero who bravely rose against him.
-I...I think tyranny is bad, um...
He would later become King Wu of Zhou.
Jiang Taigong judged that Wu would be the one to end the chaos, so he became his strategist.
-Hey, you. Become my lord. Let’s flip the whole damn thing over.
-Huh? Sir, who even are you...
-Just do it.
-Y-yes...
Heroes recognize heroes.
And so Taigong and Wu formed the dream team and launched a dynastic revolution.
-If we win, it’s a revolution! If we lose, it’s treason, okay?!
-You reactionary bastards! Do you even know who I am—!
-Shut up!
-Waaaaah! I’m a miserable fool being toyed with by Daji!
Incredibly, their chaotic revolution succeeded.
-You moron... from now on, Zhou will... rule the world...
And that was how the Central Plains passed from Shang to Zhou.
Hard to believe that kind of result came from some carefree loafer who’d spent his life eating and loafing around.
After taking down Shang and receiving the state of Qi from King Wu, Jiang Taigong was returning home in fine clothes when his runaway wife—no, his wife who’d fled the house—appeared before him.
She’d only belatedly heard that Time-Grandpa Coin had hit the jackpot.
She begged Jiang Taigong, just this once, just once!
Jiang Taigong then dumped a basin of water onto the ground and gave her the coldest of cold shoulders.
-Spilled water can’t be gathered back into the basin. Go back.
Hearing that, his wife was ashamed of herself and eventually returned home. Or rather, she was probably more afraid of the blue-glinting spears and blades behind Jiang Taigong’s back.
Anyway, the lesson from that story about spilled water was this:
Patience is the answer—no, wait, that’s not it.
Just as you can’t gather spilled water back up once it’s hit the ground, you can’t take back words once they’ve been spoken.
Since I’d said it out loud, I now had to come up with a name that sounded halfway decent.
...Though actually, I can gather spilled water off the floor.
I could totally do it with Telekinetic Grasp or whatever.
So maybe let’s just rewind for a second?
Hnnng...
Too proud to actually say that, Geom Mujin fell into thought.
I couldn’t just slap some random beast-style name on her like I had with Sodam.
Kkeek?
Somewhere, I could feel my bonded spirit beast twitch, but I ignored it.
What kind of name would suit a vampire child?
Vampire... vampire...
Vampire made some hazy memory in my old brain rise to the surface, something that had no business existing in this world.
The group of lunatics who fought against the Japanese-era mob that had been operating with money extorted through wholesale looting from Joseon...
I’m not nostalgic.
Then...
"...Naejugo."
At last, the name came out of Geom Mujin’s mouth.
"How about Naejugo?"
"Huh? What do you mean, ‘give what’?"
"The name is Naejugo. It means you should become a good vampire."
I was probably going to have to cut some bamboo soon and make her a gag.
Despite his confidence in naming things, both Heo Injun and the child reacted terribly.
What did a good vampire have to do with Naejugo?
"No, how is a person’s name supposed to be Naejugo..."
"......"
Heo Injun let out a sigh, and the child pressed her lips together and stared at him.
Why were they reacting like this?
Was it really that bad?
What’s wrong with Naejugo?
The light that had entered the child’s eyes for a brief instant seemed on the verge of sinking back into the abyss.
With the instincts of a child who’d spent her whole life locked in a cage, even Naejugo was awful to her.
"All right, fine. Fine. Let me think again—"
Grrrrr...
Just as I was finally about to throw up my hands, her belly growled.
"Ah... ahhh...!"
The owner of that stomach—the child—looked flustered and helpless.
She’d been on an empty stomach the whole time, even if she had been hooked up to fluids, so it made sense. But that wasn’t how the child saw it.
She couldn’t show that she was in pain.
She couldn’t cry.
She had to endure hunger.
The bad children who broke the rules were punished by being hung upside down from the ceiling and beaten.
Even if blood rushed to their head, even if their nose was stuffed shut by the blood that burst out and they nearly stopped breathing, the beating never ended.
The child, who had been punished for breaking those rules long ago, watched Geom Mujin’s face carefully.
He had saved her, yes, but if he found out she was a bad child, he might punish her too.
Geom Mujin patted her head with a light thump-thump.
"First things first, we need to get this kid something to eat."
At the word eat, the child lifted her head.
Food?
Her gaze passed over Geom Mujin and landed on Heo Injun.
Food wasn’t far away.
Brightly, her eyes locked onto the food—Heo Injun’s throat.
She couldn’t do that to her savior, Geom Mujin, so she shifted targets to the person beside him instead.
"!?"
Heo Injun reflexively took a step back, but Geom Mujin moved in front of him as if to shield him.
"Ahem."
"......"
"Physician Heo is the one who’s been taking care of you. That won’t do."
At his reprimand, the child’s eyebrows bent inward in grievance.
"Just a little..."
Maybe just a little would be okay.
"Tsk."
"......"
But when Geom Mujin’s expression turned firm, the child’s shoulders sagged dejectedly.
* * *
Putting the naming issue aside for the moment, I headed out to Gangneung Market.
"Cheap! Real cheap! Dirt cheap!"
"Aagh! You crazy bastard! You pissed yourself out of nowhere!"
"That’s why I said it was cheap!"
The market buzzed with lively energy the moment I stepped inside.
You’re wondering why I came here all of a sudden?
I’d come to buy ingredients for the child.
At first I’d just fed her simple food like chicken soup, but she could barely keep anything down.
Maybe because of whatever had happened when she became a monster demon, her body just wouldn’t accept normal food.
-Ueek...
Everything she swallowed came right back up.
Even while she was doing that, she kept sneaking glances at me and trying to pick through the vomit to eat it back up, so I had to stop her and go out shopping.
What do you feed a vampire who can’t eat regular food?
That was obvious.
I’ve always wanted to try feeding vampire soup made with fresh blood.
It was the same kind of feeling Earthlings get when they want to make otherworlders eat extremely spicy stir-fried chicken ramen.
Still, I hope the butcher here isn’t garbage.
As I looked around for a butcher’s stall, thinking that, someone caught my eye.
"Ooooh, please, sir, spare a coin~"
"If you give these poor beggars even one little coin, may you live long and be reborn in paradise~"
Clang—clang—
Wandering through the market, a bunch of beggars sang while shaking little cymbals.
"Hey! Stop getting in the way of business and take this, then scram!"
"Thank you kindly~"
"Hehe, looks like we’ll feast today!"
The merchants tossed the beggars food or coins.
It wasn’t because Gangneung was especially generous.
Are those Beggars' Sect members?
I looked at the beggars’ waists.
There were knots tied there, but not just ordinary knots—Gae-bang knots, marking them as members of the Beggar’s Clan.
From the fact that each man had only one or two knots, they were newly minted rookies, just out of the rank called Mugyeol Beggar.
They weren’t much to Geom Mujin, but merchants saw things differently.
If they were just random beggars, you could beat them down and chase them off, no problem. But once those beggars gathered in groups of a hundred or a thousand, the story changed.
If even one of them got hit and came back, the other ninety-nine would all swarm that shop and start begging.
The day’s business would be ruined, and they’d come back the next day too!
And the day after that, and the day after that as well.
Beggars, who had no homes or proper occupations and more time than they knew what to do with, had nothing to lose.
When a crowd of beggars hung around, it wasn’t just bad for appearances—the sanitation was the absolute worst.
The barbarians of the Central Plains had a habit of relieving themselves casually right on the street.
And if you called them out on it, they’d get furious and blow up at you, which was somehow also part of their charming little culture.
It was such an old tradition that even Confucius’s stories from some two thousand years ago mentioned it, and it was still alive and well in Geom Mujin’s era.
So in other words, beggars carrying on that proud Central Plains bloodline could just piss and shit right in front of a shop without a care in the world.
If half of a hundred people, fifty men, all started pissing at once, the front of the store would turn into a yellow sea.
And if you tried to use force, well, the beggars knew martial arts too, so there was nothing to be done.
From a merchant’s point of view, the Beggar’s Clan were truly nothing but a bunch of damn beggars.
The beggars who had been lingering around the shops and taking handouts came closer.
"Oh, sir! If you’d just spare a coin..."
"Get lost."
"...Yes, sir. Forgive my insolence."
The beggar who had been about to beg from Geom Mujin lowered his head at the look in his eyes and moved on.
He didn’t like Beggar’s Clan beggars.
"....."
As the beggars passed by, Geom Mujin turned to look over his shoulder.
Should I catch those bastards or not?
Watching the beggars disappear into the crowd, I hesitated.
The reason was simple: those bastards had just slipped something into my sleeve.
Not pickpocketing. Sleeve-stuffing.
Their skill was pretty damn smooth.
"What did they put in there?"
Letting out a dry laugh at the absurdity of it, I took the object out of my sleeve.
It was a piece of paper folded up tight.
I unfolded it.
Daois Coming
"Oh, shit."
The four words written on the note sent chills racing down my entire body.