Ashes and the Red
“Yeonhwa! Risotto for table three is up! And we’ve got takeaway customers lined up, so check the Baedal-ui Hojok jade plaques first!”
The servers and cooks alike were rushing through the dining hall in a blur, all of them too busy to spare a breath as they hustled to greet the customers.
“Here you go—your Baedal-ui Hojok order: risotto and garlic baguette! Take it and run before it gets cold. If it goes soggy because you were late, Master’s not going to let it slide, trust me!”
Most of the orders were for martial artists heading out to the countless Hyeol-mun that had suddenly appeared all over the place. No one knew how many of those people venturing into those uncanny gates would ever come back.
Ring-a-ling~
“More orders coming in! This one’s takeaway too—one whole pizza, Gorgonzola, and—”
Ring-a-ling~
“Delivery request! Four fried shrimp, three bottles of Moruito, and—”
There were so many orders the servers and assistant cooks were receiving that it was impossible not to think there must be just as many Hyeol-mun out there. Yeonhwa couldn’t stop worrying. It wasn’t only that everyone was busy; it meant that while she was merely exhausted as if she might die, there were people out there who were actually dying.
In the inner kitchen, Jangro Suksu was swinging his wok like a hunter bringing down a massive wild beast.
The flames bursting from the stove already looked beyond what any human should be able to handle. Yet Jangro Suksu commanded that fire with absolute ease, driving its fierce heat deep into the ingredients and forcing out a searing, unforgettable char.
“Master, isn’t the heat a little too strong? The pan’s going to melt!”
“When the poisonous miasma of calamity is clogging the meridians, do you think mere cooking heat is enough to pierce through it and wake martial artists up? If it’s not hotter than that, it’s useless!”
Then, as the creaking door of the tavern opened, the noisy dining hall was swallowed by a sudden, eerie silence.
The five warriors of Jeongmyeonghoe had arrived. They didn’t look like victorious heroes, but like ghosts stripped of every color and draped in the gray despair of the dead.
Yeonhwa approached them carefully.
“Welcome back... Are you all all right?”
Even at Yeonhwa’s question, Jeongmyeonghoe gave no answer. Kang Jeok-woo, with blood and ash crusted together across him, set his dark-slashed Red Thunder Blade down on the table with obvious effort.
“Mugung Hyeoptak... is gray too...”
Do Hajin’s weak voice froze the air. Even the tavern’s warm lights, which should have been the brightest, seemed to him like a cold heap of cinders.
Jangro Suksu gave Yeonhwa a short order.
“Yeonhwa, prepare the fiercest, strongest thing you’ve got. For people whose senses are dying, you need something that can ring in their skulls.”
Yeonhwa understood her master’s intent and set out the hottest chili oil and thick, sticky cheese she could find.
Jangro Suksu tossed a block of bacon as thick as a forearm onto the cutting board. With a sharp pak!, the weight of it flattened the slab. Then, like a swordsman drawing a blade, he swung his cleaver and sliced the bacon into even, thick strips.
As soon as he threw the meat into the heavy heated pan, a sizzling hiss filled the kitchen, and a rich, nutty aroma of beef and fat spread everywhere.
Then he added the rice and poured in the broth, turning the wok in smooth circles.
With every rotation, vibrations laced with inner power sank through the bottom of the pan and deep into each grain of rice. At the end, Jangro Suksu cracked in three egg yolks.
The moment the golden yolks blended with the white cream sauce and thickened, he scooped up a ladleful of the red chili oil he’d prepared in advance and poured it over the top like a waterfall.
Fwoosh—!
The flames leapt up at once, and the spicy fragrance of the chili oil seized the cream’s heaviness in an instant.
Strong was governed by flow.
With short, precise flicks of the pan, Jangro Suksu coated every grain of rice in sauce. This was a lifeline for warriors being swallowed by the energy of the Yeon-ok—food to bring them back, food to restore life.
From a corner of the tavern, Cheol-ya—who had been quietly wiping his sword—lifted his head and looked at Jeongmyeonghoe.
He rose and walked over to their table. Then he dropped into the seat opposite Kang Jeok-woo and, skipping all courtesy and preamble, spoke in a low voice.
“What did you see in the Hyeol-mun?”
Kang Jeok-woo raised his head and looked back at Cheol-ya. Any warrior who knew of the Yeon-ok would immediately recognize the man who moved through it as though it were his own home.
“...You’re Cheol-ya, then. We saw the Blood Cult meddling inside the Hyeol-mun. And the core of the gate had somehow changed into something black and writhing.”
“That wasn’t an ordinary Hyeol-mun. It was a trap the Blood Cult made by cutting off part of the Yeon-ok. Most of the countless Hyeol-mun appearing now are things they’ve brought about. And—”
Cheol-ya pointed with a finger at the black fissures branching along Kang Jeok-woo’s blade.
“You felt it, didn’t you? That vile energy of the Yeon-ok. A curse that strips away every sense. The feeling that it’s eating you alive from within.”
Cheol-ya drew a jade plaque from inside his robe and set it down on the table as if tossing it there.
“This is a sacred token that reacts to the energy of the Yeon-ok—the Black Moon Jade Plaque from the Black Moon Hall. It should neutralize at least some of the energy clinging to you.”
The jade plaque, filled with black moonlight, resonated with Jeongmyeonghoe’s energy and emitted a dark red vibration.
The strange man they had met on the forest path after escaping the brink of death in the Yeon-ok—the musician from Heuk-ak-sa. As he left, he had tossed this black plaque to Cheol-ya.
Someday, you’ll need it. Especially you, who stand so close to the Yeon-ok.
Back then, Cheol-ya had dismissed it as the rambling of a wandering eccentric. But now the jade plaque on the table was vibrating as if it were screaming, proving that his words had been no nonsense at all.
Seo Han-muk tightened his grip on the spear in his hand and asked, “So we were just dancing to their tune?”
“It wasn’t a waste. The method was just wrong.”
***
“Yeonhwa, bring it here!”
At her master’s words, Yeonhwa lifted the steaming plate of freshly made carbonara risotto.
Even from a distance, the air around the plate was sharp enough to sting her nose, saturated with pungent black pepper and chili oil. Carefully, she carried it over to Jeongmyeonghoe’s table.
It was risotto so absurdly rich it was almost obscene, yet so spicy it made the tongue throb.
Kang Jeok-woo’s numbed taste buds screamed as the fierce heat hit them.
“Spicy.... I can feel it.”
He muttered it as he took a huge bite. A faint flush also rose at the corners of Do Hajin’s gray-tinged face.
As the meal neared its end, a thin, sharp melody drifted in from outside the tavern. It was a grotesque tearing sound, utterly unlike the sound of Heuk-ak-sa’s seven-string zither.
Dring—drurung... dririring!
The shriek of strings snapping as though the instrument might split apart seeped through the cracks around the door. Just hearing it made the eardrums ache, and the air itself trembled in time with the sound, blurring the vision.
“They’re here.” Cheol-ya rose, sword in hand.
Outside the tavern, in the dark, the messenger from Mu-hyeon-gok revealed herself.
From between the black long robe, a woman stepped into view, her fingers slender and white as jade. Those lovely fingertips brushed across the zither strings once more.
Drururung—
She was the musician of Mu-hyeon-gok, the Blood Zither Immortal. Each time her fingers moved, space itself seemed to tear with a sour, metallic rip.
“Foolish Jeongmyeonghoe, and you as well, black seed—warrior Cheol-ya, who bears the Black Blood Qi.”
Her voice, like the trembling of zither strings, filled the air around them in a quiet, seamless wash.
“You foolish, ignorant things. Don’t wander pointlessly through the Hyeol-mun any longer. Come now into the true layers of the Yeon-ok ruled by Mu-hyeon-gok. I, the Blood Zither Immortal, extend the invitation, and there you will find what you lost.”
Ting-ring—
With one hard strike of the zither, Blood Zither Immortal ripped the space in the front courtyard apart like paper, opening a massive entrance to the Yeon-ok. Manhon Yeon-ok. The real hell, where tens of thousands of wandering souls swirled in a vortex. She had dragged that hell all the way from Hanzhong in Shaanxi to Xining in Qinghai and opened it there.
“The Blood Cult... can already control the Yeon-ok? What is to become of the Central Plains...”
Seeing that scene, Jangro Suksu let out a quiet sigh.
Kang Jeok-woo adjusted his grip on the blade and looked at Cheol-ya.
“What will you do, Cheol-ya? Are you going to set foot in that hell too?”
Cheol-ya answered by stepping toward the Yeon-ok first.
“If I’ve been invited, there’s no reason to refuse.”
“Hajin. You stay here.”
“I—I want to go too!”
Whoosh.
Thud!
Jangro Suksu hurled a pot down in front of Do Hajin to block him and said, “It wouldn’t be amusing to reduce the number of people who get to enjoy the food.”
“R-right, Hajin. If you go now, you might get snatched up before you can even see properly.”
But Do Hajin’s resolve stood firm as well.
“I’m... I’m part of Jeongmyeonghoe too! That’s what it means to be Jeongmyeonghoe—doing my part even if I’m like this!”
“Hajin...”
“Kid... all right. How could I stop a guest who says he’s going?”
Neither Yeonhwa nor her master could stand in the way of Do Hajin’s straight, unwavering steps.
The five warriors of Jeongmyeonghoe and Cheol-ya.
The warriors who had rekindled the feel of life with the blazing food of Mugung Hyeoptak now threw themselves into the deeper layer of the Yeon-ok designed by Mu-hyeon-gok.
“Come back alive! I’ll make something even tastier next time, so please!”
Yeonhwa’s shout rang out beyond the door as it slowly closed.
The door of Mugung Hyeoptak slammed shut in the wind.