The Melancholy of the Poison-Dispelling Poison Freak
An ordinary morning.
Gong Ryun opened his eyes. The familiar feel of blanket and pillow greeted him.
Clear sunlight cut through the window and spilled into the room.
The sun seemed especially bright today.
From the San-gong-cho plant inside the room rose a sharp, phytoncide-like scent that, today of all days, struck his senses with unusual clarity.
San-gong-cho. The scent of San-gong. Home. The smell of home.
Mother. His late mother.
Ah.
Gong Ryun understood at once.
Today was a depression day.
An inn.
The first floor of a mixed-use building — commercial space below, residences above — a quiet, out-of-the-way place that locals dropped into now and then.
At that moment a nightmare scene for any martial artist was unfolding inside.
"Wh… what the fuck… what the hell is that…!!!"
"What am I even looking at right now…?"
"So that's the thing I've only heard rumors about…!! Seeing it in person is just too horrible…!!!"
The people inside the inn were in an uproar — whispering, trembling, recoiling in fear.
And at the end of every stare sat one man.
Alone at the bar, he was knocking back strong liquor without pause.
Everyone kept a fixed distance from "that," hanging far back, terrified even of brushing against it.
A man drinking. In itself, the most ordinary of everyday sights.
His looks were merely average — nothing about him that would put anyone off.
What the inn's patrons feared was what he held in his arms.
That man, handsome enough to pass for some orthodox young master, was drinking with a flowerpot clutched tight against his chest.
The pot was large enough to fill both arms, and the plant growing from it was nearly the size of a small sapling. Its identity was famous enough that little more needed saying.
It was San-gong-cho.
A perennial that looked like a halfway cross between cannabis and an orchid.
The man cradled that devil's weed as if it were precious and kept sipping his drink, as though the San-gong-cho itself were his drinking companion.
With such a distant expression. With such longing eyes.
He stroked the plant tenderly, as if it were treasure.
At that hellish, devil-spawned spectacle the inn's people recoiled in horror.
"That's fucking 'that plant'!!!"
A decent citizen shook from head to toe in pure terror.
The guests around him could not hide their unease either.
"Good gods, by the Martial God… how can he keep that plant so close…!"
"My eyes feel like they're rotting just looking at it!"
"In broad daylight, of all things…"
"Is it even safe for us to breathe?"
"I already turned on my respiratory martial art, just in case."
Of course they half-knew the truth. A single potted San-gong-cho could not produce the effects of Sangongdok.
But terrifying was still terrifying.
It was no more persuasive than someone saying, "This lump of plutonium is nuclear bomb material, but it hasn't been processed into a bomb yet, so it's safe!"
It was absolutely not something you brought into a public place.
And even granting a hundred concessions — if he had simply held the pot quietly, people might have dismissed him as a nasty attention-seeker and moved on.
Unfortunately, the man's antics did not end there.
Pluck.
He tore off a San-gong-cho leaf. And then…
Crunch.
He ate it.
"Kyaaaa! He ate it!!!"
"He actually ate it!!! He's eating it as a drinking snack!!!"
"How many is that already!! Looks like he's already polished off about half the leaves still on it!!!"
"At this rate he'll eat the whole thing!"
"I'm too scared to live!!!"
"Look at that! This time he floated a leaf on top of his drink! Like a garnish!"
"It's poison booze! A poison cocktail!"
The audience watching this live plutonium-eating show let out gasps of pure shock.
On any ordinary day this would have been merely bizarre.
On an unorthodox rural planet, madmen and mad incidents were daily life — this might have passed as spicy entertainment and nothing more.
But the man was far too famous for anyone to simply look away.
He was the one who had been so hot lately…
"It's the Poison-Dispelling Poison Freak!!! Anyone can tell it's the Poison-Dispelling Poison Freak!!!"
"This is my first time seeing him in the flesh!!"
"Kyaaaaak!! The Poison-Dispelling Poison Freak is acting up again!!!"
"So the rumor that he's a druid who communes with San-gong-cho was true!!"
"He's got a pot of that plant! I knew it — there really is a Sangongdok factory underground! Don't tell me it's under this fucking building?!"
"What?! I was a regular here!!"
People could only stand and watch the dangerous celebrity's performance the way one watches a fire — from a distance.
And why not… if you poked him and ended up getting terrorized for it, what then…
Then a savior appeared at the inn.
A vacant-looking android pushed open the door and walked in.
"Gong Ryun! What in the world is this! The rumor's already everywhere — that's why I came!"
It was Un-rang.
Without a shred of fear he tromped straight up to the Poison-Dispelling Poison Freak and shook him by the shoulder.
"How much have you even drunk! Look at all the bottles rolling around!"
The inn's patrons marveled.
"As expected of a Shaolin monk — his connections run wide! To know that freak!"
"He might get poisoned by Sangongdok and he still walks right up…!"
"Ahh… is he looking at the human being rather than the Sangongdok…? Is this the Buddha's grace? Ah… why is there a halo…"
Leaving their reactions behind, Un-rang threw an arm around Gong Ryun's shoulders and hauled him up.
"Gong Ryun. Looks like your depression has flared up. Are you all right, Gong Ryun?"
"Mom…"
"What was that, Gong Ryun?"
"I miss Mom… hhnnngh… waahhh…"
"Oh dear. Your condition looks especially bad today."
"Why… why did you live like that, Mom… whyyy…"
"Gong Ryun. Pull yourself together. Ah, what am I supposed to do with you."
About once every month or two, Gong Ryun spent an entire day like this, swallowed by depression.
He himself did not fully understand the mechanism that triggered it. On the days it hit, he simply drank himself senseless and grieved for home, helpless to do anything else.
On mild days a little alcohol and a long sleep were enough.
On the rare severe days, he buried his head in the San-gong-cho and became completely insensible.
And every time, the one who looked after him was Un-rang — nearly the only person who knew Gong Ryun's circumstances.
Un-rang tried the most effective remedy he had used so far.
"Come on! Gong Ryun! Let's take a commission! Let's work! The high-paying labor you love so much!"
Giving him something to do usually helped a little.
Leaving him curled in a corner only made things worse.
Still clutching the San-gong-cho tight, Gong Ryun staggered out on unsteady feet.
Moooooooooo!!!!!!
A bovine bellow rolled across the land.
This was the gray plain outside the city.
What filled the eye was a herd of red bulls charging from far off, bearing down hard.
Their formal name was the Galactic Red Bull — the animal that had thrived on this planet second only to the Galactic Ostrich.
Like the ostriches, they charged in herds.
They would eat almost anything, but what they loved most was dirt. They chewed and swallowed soil to take in the moss, root plants, insects, bacteria, and minerals inside. The swallowed earth was ruminated through several stomachs so every last nutrient could be absorbed.
In the end they became muscle bulls — keeping a powerful build without ever eating meat.
And every so often those muscle-bound creatures went mad as a group and stampeded.
Their breeding rate was lower than the ostriches', so their numbers were not as overwhelming, but each individual was strong enough that meeting one could hurt quite a bit.
So mercenaries were hired to cull them on a regular schedule — a difficult commission that only mid-rank or better fighters could take.
And while culling them, one also obtained meat. Their flesh was superb. The marbling was simply magnificent. They had originally been released for food stock in the first place. Galactic Red Bull head soup was a city specialty.
For reference, names beginning with "Galactic" meant a life-form widespread throughout this galaxy — Galactic Mole, Galactic Ostrich, and the like. Most were highly adaptable, hardy creatures that thrived without trouble on many planets.
By contrast, names beginning with "Cosmic" meant a species from beyond this galaxy — from an outer galaxy. The only extragalactic life-form discovered so far was the Cosmic Locust, so every "Cosmic" name referred to that race and its variants: Cosmic Hydra, Cosmic Arachne, Cosmic Termite, and so on.
Moooooooooo!!!
Blocking the path of those muscle bulls thundering closer across the shaking ground were the mercenaries who had taken today's commission.
"Mother said she didn't like beef… It was just that beef was rare on the planet… I was too young to understand…"
Gong Ryun, of course, was among them — muttering gloomily into empty air without pause.
Today's client, a middle-aged bald man, watched him and spoke anxiously to Un-rang beside him.
"Un-rang. Is that friend of yours really all right? I know you recommended him, but he looks pretty unstable."
"No need to worry, boss. Has my talent recommendation ever been wrong?"
"Well, true enough… but still, he looks in terrible shape. Is he injured or something?"
"Not at all. He's simply in a state of mental illness."
"Ah. Mental illness, is it? Well, that can't be helped. Not murderous impulses or anything, I hope?"
"Depression. About one day every month or two he gets like this."
"Is that all? I thought it was something worse. He's just a decent young man, then."
True to a rural unorthodox planet where one or two mental illnesses counted as basic cultural literacy, the client raised no further objections about Gong Ryun.