Where There's Money, There's People - 3
The merchants and escorts, who had been sobbing their hearts out for quite some time, finally managed to calm themselves down. To be honest, this was an utterly awkward situation. Anyone unfamiliar with the circumstances might think the officials were bullying these poor civilians into tears. I was meeting these guys for the first time today.
"Alright. Now speak freely. Why are you so obsessed with spirit beasts?"
I opened my mouth in as gentle a tone as possible, lest they start banging their heads and wailing again at any hint of displeasure. Fortunately, civilians going crazy over spirit beasts wasn't a first for me. The Baek-su-mun in Yunnam were even more fanatic about spirit beasts and animals than anyone. Of course, it wasn't right to lump those animal lovers in with ordinary folk, but at least I had some tolerance built up for these sudden outbursts.
"My lord. The truth is... we have been cursed by a monster..."
"What?"
No? Had I really not built up any tolerance at all?
'Yao guai?' My head spun in confusion. Yao guai out of nowhere? What the hell was that supposed to mean?
"P-please, hear us out just a little more! We know how strange this sounds...! But it's that dire a situation!"
"...Continue."
I nodded at the merchant's desperate plea. Fine, let's hear the rest first. If it turned out to be nonsense, I could shut it down then.
"It happened about... half a year ago."
The merchant's ensuing explanation—or rather, lament disguised as one—was long and winding. Like merchants everywhere, these ones from Taewonbu were monsters of cutthroat capitalism, treating fierce competition as a virtue. They'd crush rivals for profit one day and join hands with yesterday's enemies for even greater gains the next. Freewheeling types, that was them—the merchants and their escorts.
But fierce competition leads to bloodshed, and prolonged alliances calcify into entrenched privileges. Unfortunately, Taewonbu had gone through that exact progression.
"Then a caravan from Guangxi showed up. They were aggressively expanding, so... we banded together and crushed them."
A newbie barging into the playground of the old-timers. And not just any newbie, but one charging in like they meant to uproot the fixtures themselves with relentless assaults. The veterans united to beat the intruder down, and the Guangxi caravan slunk back home in tears, or so the story went.
Up to that point, it was just your run-of-the-mill merchant squabble. Caravans rise and fall by the dozens every day—that's the way of the world. But for these merchants and escorts, the trouble was that things didn't end there.
"But that mad bastard! Instead of slinking home after losing, he cursed us out of spite!"
"We started the fight—who's he to complain? He should be grateful we didn't bankrupt him!"
"Merchants win some, lose some! If you dwell on every defeat, you can't make a living in trade!"
The word "curse" must have been a trigger, because even the ones who'd been silent erupted into tearful tirades. Their desperation was so raw it stirred pity. How deep must the grudge run for these limp wrecks to transform into berserkers, howling in rage?
"Isn't it common for the loser to spew curses at the winner?"
But pity aside, their words didn't quite land. A loser's "Gimme the game, you cheaters!" is basically the highest praise in the world. In other words, the Guangxi caravan cursing them on the way out was no different from saying, "I concede defeat utterly. My respects." They should be wearing that curse like a badge of victory, not freaking out over it.
"That's what we thought at first...!"
The merchant jumped in before I even finished, racing ahead with his words. These were veteran merchants, after all—old hands at winning, losing, feuding, and allying for profit. They knew a newbie's curse was just sweet music to a triumph. Unless, that is, the curse actually screwed them over.
"After that bastard left, every kind of disaster started piling up!"
Stubbing your toe on a desk corner while pacing the house? Basic stuff. Spilling tea on important documents mid-sip? Daily routine. Heading out for a pleasure cruise only to get dumped on by a downpour? Par for the course. Stockpiling goods expecting a boom, only for the market to crash? Routine bad luck.
The first couple times, they'd shrug it off as misfortune. But when it kept happening relentlessly, steadily, they sensed something off. And before long, it escalated beyond mere bad luck into catastrophes threatening their lives, families, and caravans.
"My daughter had a nasty cold—coughed for a whole month!"
"My father got sick from fruit imported from the southern barbarians!"
"We nearly got buried in a landslide during a high-stakes trade run—"
"Enough."
The litany of horrors grew more gruesome by the second, so I raised a hand to stop them.
"All that from the curse?"
"If it had only hit a few of us, we'd call it coincidence! But every one of us, from the moment we heard that curse—and we're still suffering! It has to be the curse!"
"And that guy from Guangxi! He was always bragging about being favored by Do-cheol, the madman!"
I nodded unwittingly. Yeah, he sounded like a real lunatic. But favored by what? If you're getting favor from a spirit beast, fine—but Do-cheol? That's one of the Four Evils, symbol of greed and vileness. A yao guai through and through.
"Bold of him to go around saying that."
Now I understood the merchants' and escorts' anguish. Cursed by a maniac claiming Do-cheol's favor, and then bam—misfortunes and disasters galore? I'd be foaming at the mouth and bawling too. Horrifying just to imagine.
"...But what does that have to do with spirit beasts?"
Empathy faded as the core question hit. Tragic situation, sure—but why spirit beasts?
"We begged every high monk and Daoist we could find to lift it, but they all said a curse from one of the Four Evils is near impossible without a spirit beast's protection..."
"Ah."
That made perfect sense. I summoned Kki-ing-i and Kki-ong-i, who had been eating outside the inn.
"O-ohhh...!"
"A deer! A pure white one!"
"Eyes like the sea—truly a spirit beast!"
At the spirit beasts' appearance, the curse victims—who'd been yelling "Do-cheol you bastard"—prostrated themselves like worshippers before an idol.
- Kki-ing?
"Lick their heads once."
- Nng.
Kki-ing-i glanced at me as if to say What the hell is this?, but at my curt order, he began licking the prone victims one by one. The reaction was explosive.
"Aaaah! Lord Deer! That glorious tongue on me too!"
"Kuhuhuk, the damn curse is done for!"
"Four Evils? Evil indeed! We bask in the grace of spirit beasts!"
Are they insane?
Watching the fanatics go wild at each lick of Kki-ing-i's tongue was starting to scare me. Half a year under a Four Evils curse turns you into that? Gotta watch out myself.
- Kki-oong...
Kki-ong-i, dragged in mid-meal amid the chaos, eyed Jo Wi-cheo's dongpo pork with lingering hunger. Sorry. They say don't mess with a dog while it's eating—
"The spirit beast shows interest in food!"
"Waiter! Bring every dish this inn can make—make it two of each!"
"Ooh, spirit beast! Accept our offerings!"
- Kki-ong?
Suddenly, offerings rained down on Kki-ong-i.
- Kki-oong!
Kki-ong-i blinked a few times at the frenzy, then realized she was being worshipped like a god. She lifted her head proudly, exuding haughty dignity. Classic Kki-ong-i. Her knack from playing sacred animal at Hengshanpa was still sharp.
Good thing I kept the rest hidden.
Samshik and Buong-i asleep upstairs, Ppiae tucked in my bosom. If I'd brought those three out too, the madness would've been apocalyptic. Lucky the big ones are hard to hide anyway.
"Gaga."
"Hm?"
"...Is it okay to just leave them like that?"
At those words, I turned not to Kki-ong-i, but Kki-ing-i.
"Ahuhuk, our Lord Deer! How it must have hurt when one antler broke!"
"You rude bastards! If Lord Deer licked you, show your devotion by licking Lord Deer back!"
- Kki, kki-ing!?
The teary fanatics were trying to lick Kki-ing-i's broken antler.
They're nuts.
A Four Evils curse really is nightmare fuel. Suddenly, I felt grateful for the five spirit beasts around me.
"But Gaga. Do curses really exist?"
"Who knows. Even I don't."
Ak I-yeon whispered while watching the grand circus around Kki-ing-i and Kki-ong-i, so I murmured back softly.
Of course, in a world of martial arts and spirit beasts, Four Evils existing and curses working aren't weird. Hell, the wokou pirates I saw recently claimed to have seen a dragon—Four Evils are small fry by comparison. But unlike confirmed spirit beasts, the Four Evils are treated as myths even here. Whether that's because they're killed on sight or just don't exist, who knows.
One thing was clear, though.
"At least the worries binding their hearts are gone now."
Real curse or not, coincidence or fate—their misfortunes wouldn't haunt them anymore. From today, they'd believe the curse lifted, and future bad luck would just be that: bad luck. That was enough. The most important thing in the world is mindset, after all.
"M-my lord! If I may, what are the noble ones' names?"
"The male's Kki-ing-i, the female's Kki-ong-i."
"Pardon...?"
"Cool names my fiancée gave them herself."
"Truly magnificent! We couldn't dream up names like that!"
"""Kki-ing! Kki-ing! Kki-ing!"""
"""Kki-ong! Kki-ong! Kki-ong!"""
The same folks who'd prostrated before me in tears now worshipped Kki-ing-i and Kki-ong-i. Utterly unhinged, but as an official easing the common folk's woes, it felt satisfying. Nice and heartwarming.