Ah, So She Really Is a Demon Immortal
What am I supposed to do with this.
Out of habit, I'd gone looking the moment a neutral NPC popped up on the minimap — only for the thing to take one look at me, start shaking like a leaf, and crumple to the ground. When I scooped it up in one hand, it went completely limp and played dead.
What the hell was this.
The red fruits dangling from its head like flower buds almost reminded me of Cheon Nan-cho, except what grew on Cheon Nan-cho's head was just a regular flower.
I stood there holding it, debating whether those things were edible, while it kept right on playing dead.
It looked enough like Cheon Nan-cho that I figured it might actually respond if I talked to it — same thought, same instinct — but before I could even open my mouth:
Those Drawn Forth Appear!
A misfortune event exclusive to neutral NPCs. The kind where monsters or other neutral NPCs connected to the target show up already hostile. From what I remembered, the target's fame or notoriety decided how many enemies came pouring in — and how strong they were.
See? This is exactly why I don't go around killing neutral NPCs for no reason.
Neutral NPC events were garbage. For every one good event per NPC, you got roughly eight bad ones and one full-blown eok-kka event designed to screw you over. That was the ratio. Trash.
And this one? This one was a good event! Everything that spawned was red! Monsters coming to me while I just stood there!
I gently set aside my past-life memory of screaming about how the devs only put this crap in to pad playtime, and immediately flared my slaughter energy.
"That belongs to our sect! Hand over Immortal Choro— wait, what?!"
The monster leading the charge — all puffed up with killing intent — suddenly started glitching out like a broken NPC. Its eyes flicked between the still-playing-dead neutral NPC in my hand and me holding it, then started shaking like a magnitude-nine earthquake.
"Demon Immortal!!! How is a Demon Immortal—?!"
Ugh, the spit flying out of its mouth was disgusting.
Irritated, I pulled a weapon out of thin air, layered Spoon over it, and swung.
Spoon
Shield and all, the monster shattered.
The ones trailing behind got a faceful of still-steaming blood and meat. Only then did they seem to process what had happened — screaming every which way as they scrambled to run. I immediately floated Chopsticks up behind my back.
Chopsticks
The chopsticks poured down. They were low-level trash anyway, so sticking to chopsticks alone was just me conserving slaughter energy. No telling when the next eok-kka event would jump out — even on a low-level map, you stayed careful.
"Hey. Get up. Why the hell do you play dead the second you see a person?"
"A person? N-no, you're not human! You!"
"What? You looking to die? What's with the random accusations?"
I'm not human, my ass!
"Why is a Transcendent Species sitting around in the Lower Realm?! The Lower Realm has its own laws! Go back where you belong, right now!"
Ahh. Species talk. Got it.
"Yeah, but I didn't come down from the Upper Realm. I transcended here."
"…Then why haven't you ascended?"
"Incomplete transcendence?"
"Eek! Now that you mention it — those bandits earlier called you a Demon Immortal!"
The thing thrashed around in my grip, trying to wriggle free. When I didn't let go, it tilted its head like this wasn't how the script was supposed to go.
"I can't get free…"
"Those things on your head. Can I eat them?"
"Those are my golden core… They're exposed externally, so I keep them hidden when I travel."
"So can I eat them or not."
"A cultivator who doesn't know that directly consuming another cultivator's golden core is taboo… There really is a reason they call you a Demon Immortal…"
"Yep."
"Eek! You actually put them in your mouth! Please spare me!"
Ambiguous. Definitely a neutral NPC — and since I'd just cleared one related event, this one was now a gray dot. The kind where an event could fire any year without warning.
Red dots: kill.
Green dots: don't kill, protect.
Those two were clean binary. Gray dots, though — pure mush. If they came at me, I killed them. If I needed them dead, I killed them. If I didn't need them dead, I left them alone. That was about the size of it.
I rolled the red fruits around on my tongue like I was tasting them, then pulled them back out of my mouth and set the neutral NPC free.
"Astringent…!"
So astringent my whole body shuddered! What the hell was that?! I'd cracked open other cultivators' spiritual roots and golden cores before and none of them had tasted like that!
I frantically dug a honey dumpling out of my inventory — the ones I kept stashed for spiritual energy recovery — and chewed it down until my tongue, which had been going feral from the pain, finally settled.
My tongue settled. My mood did not.
I drew slaughter energy, chopsticks in hand, and checked the neutral NPC again, and as I checked—
"…Why did it turn green."
Affinity had gone up.
What. So now I couldn't kill it.
"I'm called Choro… Because I'm an immortal living in this forest, other cultivators call me Immortal Choro."
"You're doing introductions? Here? Did you not see the ones running away screaming 'Demon Immortal'?"
"Those bandits were thieves who come into this forest to steal spiritual energy. Without me opening the path for them, they would've just ended up as fertilizer anyway. And you're not a bandit, Demon Immortal."
"Mm. My name isn't Demon Immortal, it's Yu Hee. Family name Yu, given name Hee."
"Then I'll call you Yu Hee!"
"Uuuh…"
I confirmed Choro's realm was Early Golden Core, then looked down at this weirdly high-energy little thing. Why was it acting so familiar all of a sudden.
Turning green did prove there wouldn't be any eok-kka events… or wait. If affinity hadn't gone up, did that mean a quest had spawned?
"Got something to ask of me, Choro?"
The way it locked up solid told me everything. Not a friendly NPC — a quest NPC. Fresh career change. If I'd known it was a quest NPC, I wouldn't have bothered with the name exchange.
Either way, the Humanity Clones used to stab me with guilt every time I tried to skip quest text, so these days I didn't even need the prodding — I just didn't skip the backstory anymore. According to the long-winded explanation that followed, Choro was the master of this forest.
Had been, anyway, until a few decades ago when some demonic sect invaded. Using the restrictions left behind by a late master and personal techniques, Choro had laid a law over the forest that made people lose their way. Great plan. Except Choro had gotten lost in it too, and had been wandering ever since.
"So? Want me to wipe out that demonic sect? Or just erase the whole forest?"
"Please take me out of this forest, Yu Hee."
Oh. Just an escort mission!
"Don't you worry!"
Because an escort mission meant keeping the escort target alive as long as possible while grinding every monster that came looking into paste for points — no, for slaughter energy. Obviously!
Just keep the target close and the monsters came to you. No more squinting at the minimap hunting them down!
"I'll get you out of this forest safe and sound!"
With that blank face and those eyes glittering with an ominous blood-red light, Choro quietly started regretting the choice of escort — a regret Yu Hee was completely oblivious to as she scooped up her new quest NPC, parked it on her right shoulder where Cheon Nan-cho used to sit, and started walking.
Alone, Choro could have blanked every trace of presence with personal techniques and the forest's restrictions, which was why the cultivators currently occupying the woods had never managed to find their target.
But the moment contact was made with another cultivator, the rest of them came swarming in almost instantly.
The incomplete Transcendent Species who called herself Yu Hee.
The shameless cultivators who had forgotten their master's grace — the same breed as those bandits — called her Demon Immortal.
Late Golden Core. A little cruel with her hands, a little too fond of playing around, sure — but not enough to earn the title Demon Immortal. Or so Choro had thought.
Yu Hee proceeded to demonstrate exactly why other cultivators called her that, slaughtering every cultivator who tracked them in while Choro sat on her shoulder.
Red light-streams blasted from the halo at her back and reaped the lives of weak cultivators. Weapons of every shape and kind pulled from midair shredded anyone who got close.
This wasn't a fight. It wasn't combat. It was a massacre, pure and simple.
She killed the ones who ran. She somehow found cultivators who should have been lost under the master's restrictions and killed those too.
Anyone watching would have thought she was the one who'd been tormented by this demonic sect, not Choro — Yu Hee's methods were that excessive, that relentless, that vicious.
A Demon Immortal, so probably a demonic cultivator.
But sitting on her shoulder, Choro couldn't feel any spiritual energy from Yu Hee's body. No golden core either.
And yet the presence of a Late Golden Core cultivator was unmistakably there.
Distracted by all of that, it took Choro a long time to notice something was off.
Yu Hee was walking in circles. The same stretch of ground, over and over.
"Yu Hee, are you lost?"
"Hm? No?"
"Then why do you keep going around the same place?"
"Because that's how the monsters find us? Ah — found another one."
With that blank expression, the moment their eyes met, the cultivator spun around and fled for dear life. Yu Hee chased it down, tore it apart, left not a single drop of blood or scrap of flesh behind, reduced it to red slurry, and absorbed the whole mess into her slaughter wheel. Watching that, Choro finally nodded in understanding.
Ah. She really was a Demon Immortal.