Chapter 71
"Ah, shut up!"
"H-heeek!"
Geom Mujin’s kick sent Sama Ryeong sprawling backward.
"Tsk."
A click of the tongue escaped his mouth.
This is different from the original again.
I grabbed the half-broken Illusion-Forget Mask.
Though the outside was plain, with no decoration at all, the inside was densely covered in intricate patterns.
According to the bastard, this mask was called the Hwanmangtal.
And its function was astonishing: anyone who wore it would lose their memories.
No, more precisely, they’d be placed under an illusion that made them believe they’d lost their memories.
Because of that, I hadn’t been able to squeeze much useful information out of him.
I’d asked about Hwanma’s location, the Neo-Heavenly Demon Sect’s main headquarters, the other executives’ whereabouts, and the maker of Jamsungdan, but—
-Don’t know that, yeh.
-Can’t remember, yeh.
The man calling himself Sama Ryeong answered most of my questions with some variation of, “I don’t know that stuff, yeh~.”
No, hold up. Why the hell is he talking like that all of a sudden?
Maybe his dantian had been shattered, or maybe I’d overdone the truth serum, but his speech had become absolutely ridiculous.
Even in that state, he was still unconsciously baiting people into killing him. What a repulsive bastard.
Thwip-thwip!
Since I had no intention of falling for his little performance, I instead made a bruised-blue flower bloom across Sama Ryeong’s face.
-Agh! Aaaagh! Ryeong hurts, yeh!
-Stop the violence, yeh! Violence bad, yeh!
Setting the speech pattern aside, the bastard really didn’t know much—no, he believed he didn’t know much.
Hwanmangtal was nothing like some memory-wiping gizmo those Western barbarians in black suits used in those disaster-tier movies from part three onward.
This mask didn’t erase memories. It planted the suggestion that the memories had been erased.
So it wasn’t like they could actually wipe the memories clean.
That would’ve been inconvenient if they didn’t intend to use the person once and then throw him away.
They’d need him again next time, after all.
But you still had to prepare for the off chance something went wrong.
In that sense, Hwanmangtal was a contraption that solved both problems at once.
If you couldn’t truly erase memory, then make them believe it was gone.
If you wanted to fool the enemy, you had to fool yourself first.
Anyone wearing this mask would forget everything except the memories necessary for the mission, and a few minimum essentials.
Teacher! Wait a second!
Yes, there was one obvious problem with that.
If you erased memories that way, you could end up unable to function after completing the mission.
"...So that’s why they travelled in groups."
They solved that issue by splitting the memories up.
They’d plant the suggestion to forget, but assign one person the return location, another the instructions for after returning, and another the identities of the comrades involved in the mission.
In other words, they divided the memories so each person only remembered their assigned portion.
Then, even if someone got captured and spilled everything, information leakage would be minimized.
Try to break the taboo seal with great difficulty?
Yeah, and then they’d just make you forget again anyway by planting the suggestion. That was the kind of situation they were going for.
Of course, Hwanma’s seal was not something you could easily break in the first place, but there had been someone here who had butchered through that seal and still bothered to check Hwanma’s arrangement.
"So where’s the So-Myung Mask?"
"Huh? Don’t know, yeh?"
According to the bastard, there was a mask with the opposite effect of Hwanmangtal called Somyungtal.
Normally, they’d combine the information each of them had and return to base to use it.
Somyungtal supposedly lifted the suggestion, but he had no idea where it was.
"Damn it."
Geom Mujin’s brow furrowed.
Hwanmangtal, Somyungtal—these things hadn’t existed in the original work.
The cult bastards had been active back then too, sure, but they hadn’t controlled information to this extent.
The protagonist had often captured cultists and extracted information from them through various persuasive methods—breaking bones, water, fire, the whole package.
Was this also the result of the variable that was me? Geom Mujin guessed it, and he was right.
Hwanma had gone to such nervous lengths to keep secrets because of my influence.
Even at the original point in the story, the Heavenly Demon had died and the Heavenly Demon Sect had already fallen, but it hadn’t been this bad.
There had been more survivors among the Eight Demon Generals besides him, but in this world, Hwanma was the only one left alive.
He was the only one left who could be responsible for reviving the cult.
On top of that, the cleanup after the war had been even harsher, and more of the surviving demons had been put down than in the original.
All of it was the result of the new force known as Geom Mujin being added to the Orthodox Alliance.
When the situation grew harsher, caution naturally increased too, and that led to all these annoying little tricks.
"That son of a bitch. I should’ve killed him during the Orthodox-Demonic War after all."
Thanks to that, capturing the bastard had become even harder than it had been in the original.
"A life-or-death duel between the Great Swordmaster and Lord Hwanma... Personally, Ryeong thinks the Great Swordmaster would win, yeh."
"Arrrgh! I can’t take this!"
Thwack-!
A grown-ass man calling himself in the third person?
It was an atrocity Jesus and Buddha alike would never have tolerated, so I kicked him without hesitation.
And since he looked like he was about to get away with three hits if I won, I graciously let him off with one.
Sure, he was a demonic cult bastard, but he actually did have eyes in his head.
"Kyaaang!"
That cute little cry made my leg twitch again, and I barely held it back.
Come to think of it, even the name Sama Ryeong didn’t seem like his real one, so why the hell was he calling himself Ryeong in the first place?
"...Huff!"
For the moment, I raised sword qi into my fingertip and sliced through the Hwanmangtal.
Mujin Sword Style.
Gwichal Sword.
Jusa Haegeom.
Shiiik—!
The sword qi cut horizontally through the mask.
When Jusa Haegeom split it apart, the patterns engraved on the inside vanished like a seal being stripped away.
"How about it? Remember anything now?"
"Huh? Remember what, yeh?"
"Fuck."
I caught the falling mask and asked, but from Sama Ryeong’s still-utterly-infernal speech, I could tell it was useless.
The Hwanmangtal spell had definitely been erased, but the bastard’s condition remained exactly the same.
I could guess why.
What I’d just cut away was the spell inside Hwanmangtal.
The suggestion placed on him was an indirect spell that had passed through the mask, so my strike had no effect on it.
But if I were to slice him open directly, the problem was that the suggestion wasn’t really a spell—it was closer to a kind of technique.
Something like that had no meaning even if I cut it with Jusa Haegeom.
"D-Ddutyah...?"
Then Sama Ryeong let out a strange groan.
It wasn’t because he’d suddenly become a master of demonic arts.
Drip—
A pinkish liquid began seeping from his nose and ears.
It was a mixture of brain fluid and some of his melted brain matter.
So it’s come to this.
Looking at him, Geom Mujin stayed calm.
-Hey, there’s about an eighty percent chance his brain and surrounding acupuncture points are damaged, and he might turn into an idiot... yooo...
He’d already heard about the side effects from Dang Seorin once before.
If that happened even from the proper dose, then what the hell was this bastard going to become after being forced to gulp down the rest in one shot?
Spurt-!
Blood exploded from his seven apertures, following the brain fluid out.
"Ddu... dduuu... tyaa....!"
Sama Ryeong desperately reached out with shaking hands, but the hand that took his was—
Swish—
Surprisingly, Geom Mujin extended his hand toward Sama Ryeong’s.
"!"
"!?"
Both the one who had reached out, Sama Ryeong, and Sodam, who had been perched in a tree watching the show, wore stunned expressions for an instant.
Geom Mujin, that bastard.
Was he feeling pity because a man was dying after all?
Even if they were enemies, they thought he was mourning another’s death, and that he should be called a hero—
Snap-!
The hand he’d extended folded in all fingers except the index and middle fingers.
The hand he made like that was a pair of scissors, set completely beneath the authority of the bundle of cloth.
"I can’t let that slide."
Yeah, right. As if.
A demonic cult bastard had to be toyed with until the very end to be truly satisfying.
"Kraaaagh..!!"
Realizing he’d been toyed with, Sama Ryeong coughed blood and collapsed.
"Kkiuuh..."
Sodam shook its head at its master’s horrible personality.
* * *
"In your next life, don’t bother being born."
I sparked a flame at my fingertips and flicked them.
Fwoosh—!
The thrown spark struck Sama Ryeong’s corpse and devoured it in an instant.
The flame of samadhi fire created by my internal energy didn’t give off any smoke even as it burned the body.
Crackle—! Crackle—!
Though Hwanma’s unexpected trick had left me with a dead end, it hadn’t been a complete waste.
Among the memories the suggestion hadn’t managed to erase, there were still a few useful ones.
"Sodam, come here."
"Kii!"
I lifted the little one in one arm and settled Sodam on my other shoulder before turning my head.
"Yunnan Province, huh..."
His eyes pointed toward Yunnan Province.
The next destination had been decided.
* * *
A dark forest where even the moonlight was hidden by clouds.
"Hah...! Hah!"
A man was running like a madman, pounding the ground with frantic strides.
Every so often, as he ran, he looked back.
Shashashak—!
There were around ten-odd figures chasing him.
He’d tried to shake them off by any means possible, but the silhouettes knew nothing of giving up.
"Damn it!"
How long had the chase gone on?
The man’s feet finally stopped.
Thud—
There was a cliff right in front of him; there was nowhere left to run.
One by one, figures clad in black, bamboo hats, and capes stepped out from the darkness.
"That’s as far as you go."
"What the hell. What kind of cosplay is this? You bastards dressing up like some foreign knife-wielding hillbillies?"
The man gaped in disbelief at the sight of the black-clad figures.
Whoosh...
"......"
"......"
At his words, the atmosphere around them dropped like a stone.
"Do you even know who I am, you dare—"
"Twin Scythe Blade Ghost, So Gu-nam. A demon from the cult, skilled in martial arts that use dual sickles. During the Orthodox-Demonic War, he butchered thirty-five righteous fighters and made a brief name for himself at the start, but once the war dragged on, he started laying low and didn’t produce any notable achievements after that. Even after the war ended, he survived and hid among commoners. For a while, he kept hidden well, but he couldn’t suppress the demonic madness in his nature, and recently he massacred two small villages, finally drawing attention to himself."
"......"
So Gu-nam—silenced by the black-clad man reciting his information in a flat stream—went speechless for a moment.
"That’s about all I know. Any additions?"
"Heh... heh heh..!"
But only for a moment. His shoulders shaking, he burst into laughter.
"Fine, you left out the important part."
So Gu-nam brought both hands behind his lower back.
"That I slaughtered every idiot who came looking for me, even after they knew who I was!"
Kwaaaang-!
Gripping a pair of sickles crusted with dried blood, he charged.
"Sword Fang Hunting-Head Formation! Deploy!"
In response, the black-clad men all drew their swords and scattered.
In an instant, they occupied the eight directions around So Gu-nam.
"A sword formation? You pathetic clowns!"
So Gu-nam’s eyes glittered with killing intent as he swung his sickles.
Kriiiing—!
The rotating sickles in both hands made a bizarre sound and unleashed razor-sharp winds.
"First Fang!"
"Haaat!"
The black-clad men swung their swords to offset the cutting gust.
"Second Fang!"
With the defense complete, their swords surged toward So Gu-nam.
"As if!"
Clang-clang-clang!
So Gu-nam knocked the blades aside as if they were laughably insignificant and unleashed another storm of blade wind.
"Third Fang, Fourth Fang!"
At the command of the black-clad man standing at the center of the formation, the others kept their swords moving.
Their blades tore through the wind and pressed the attack ever tighter.
"Khmm...!"
As the exchanges passed the tenth round, So Gu-nam found himself groaning before he knew it.
Slash—! Swish—! Thunk—!
Small injuries kept accumulating across his limbs.
At first, he’d thought it was nothing, but true to the name “fang,” the black-clad men’s swords hounded him like the teeth of a savage beast.
It was like wolves slowly, bit by bit, tearing apart their prey.
At this rate...
He felt it then.
If he kept fighting like this, those teeth would rip him to pieces and kill him.
I survived this long...!
The seasoned man spun his eyes and mind rapidly, searching for an opening.
His eyes flashing, So Gu-nam injected a surge of demonic energy into his left hand.
A long blade of sword qi was layered over the edge of one sickle.
He hurled that sickle straight ahead.
Kriiiing—!
The sickle flew wrapped in a violent storm of blade wind.
Its target was the black-clad man coordinating the sword formation.
"Hahaha! What are you fools doing? Protect your damn leader!"
As he sneered, three black-clad men crossed their swords to block the sickle.
Because of that, someone was forced out of position and the encirclement broke.
It wasn’t hard to break through a formation that had lost half its members.
"Get lost!"
He wrapped the sickle in sword qi and swung it in a wide arc.
"Ghk!"
"Ngh...!"
The remaining black-clad men blocked the demonic sword qi but were shoved backward.
So Gu-nam didn’t waste the opening and bolted.
He had no intention of wasting time with clowns like this.
He would survive no matter what, kill commoners, and live at his leisure—
"The leader..."
Just as he was about to sprint into the forest, the black-clad man commanding the formation muttered under his breath.
"What are you going to do? I’m not the leader."
"What?"
"Because of your little remark, our leader is very offended."
So Gu-nam was momentarily puzzled by the mocking tone in the voice.
Flash—!
Deep in the forest, a small light glittered.
Whoosh—!
So Gu-nam saw it, but the light flew in at the same moment it flashed.
Papapapuk-!
"Kuhk!"
Arrows sliced through the darkness and pierced his elbows and knees.
So Gu-nam’s legs buckled on their own.
"One-eye...d..."
He turned toward the direction the arrows had come from.
As the clouds parted and moonlight fell again, he could see them.
Creaaak—
A bowstring being drawn toward him, and the one-eyed archer pulling it taut.
"I’ll pierce that filthy mouth of yours for insulting him."
"W-wait—"
So Gu-nam opened his mouth in a hurry, but at the same moment, the arrow left the string.
"Kuhk..!"
Fired like lightning, the arrow pierced his mouth and buried itself in the ground.