Surprisingly, What You Shouldn't Do in a Tomb
Click. Click.
The sound of nail-biting echoed through the room.
A man with an extremely anxious face was gnawing on his thumbnail hard enough to draw blood.
"Of all times…"
Even if he had aroused a little suspicion, everything had been flowing along without anyone catching on.
He pictured the party that had met the Eon clan's blood relatives earlier and then headed underground.
"A troubleshooter? What business does some unorthodox riffraff have coming all the way out here…"
They had tried to solve the missing-corpse problem within the clan themselves, but when there was simply no answer, Eon Wol-yeong had risked danger to go outside and bring this person back.
Word was his skills were good enough that one of the Ten Great Merchants of Beijing recognized them.
"Even so, the moment that coffin opens, they'll all die."
His voice, ground out through clenched teeth, was thick with killing intent.
Of course, if that happened, the entire Jinju Eon Clan would be turned upside down.
It seemed about time to leave this place.
Earlier than expected, but the hour to join the great cause had arrived.
"I wanted to prepare a little more… Tch."
Still, there was regret.
If only he'd had a bit more time, he could have prepared it more perfectly.
To think it would be ruined so absurdly.
"Dan Mujin from Beijing, was it? You'll pay the price with your lives."
Wiping the blood that had run down his nail, the man in Jinju Eon Clan attire muttered coldly.
But he did not know, at the time.
That the unorthodox riffraff he had heard of somewhere was in fact classified as a high-level threat by a certain organization.
"In the most miserable way possible!"
Since the client said the corpses were disappearing, we had no choice but to check whether it was true.
We settled into the gloomy basement, examining the coffins one by one as we began our watch.
As time passed, a chill colder than the night air seeped into our bodies, as if we had walked into a morgue.
On top of that, an inexplicable stench grew stronger—not the damp smell rising from a deep cave, but something closer to the unique corpse odor the dead bodies themselves gave off.
I couldn't take it anymore and pulled out the handkerchief Moyong Cheonghye noona had given me, pressing it over my nose.
Sniff.
Instead of the rotting-corpse smell, a subtle lotus fragrance lingered faintly at the tip of my nose.
Something about it calms the mind. Maybe it's the Moyong Cheongjin inside me feeling that way.
Sniff.
As I tested the effect once more, I felt a strange gaze from beside me.
"…What are you doing?"
I turned my head to see Ilhong staring at me as if looking at something bizarre.
"It's a misunderstanding."
"So what kind of misunderstanding?"
Her eyes seemed to demand an explanation for why I was burying my nose in a handkerchief a Moyong family woman had given me at a moment of parting and sniffing it.
Come to think of it, this is impossible to explain. I can't exactly say it was because of another personality inside me.
"Clearly you must have some history with the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden."
My experimental spirit must have looked like I was longing for an old lover.
She had said before that she wouldn't ask about the circumstances, yet now Ilhong was pouting her lips and showing interest in my past.
"Here."
"What's this?"
"My handkerchief."
It was a crude, sturdy, coarsely woven handkerchief with no pattern.
Since the one Moyong Cheonghye had given was expensive silk, she was telling me to save it and use hers instead.
I'd heard that women of the Central Plains always carried such handkerchiefs, but still.
"Tsk tsk. A grown man carrying around something like this."
"Hey, seriously."
At my joke she kicked my calf in annoyance.
I've rarely received handkerchiefs from women in my life, but these days my luck is exploding.
"But she looks like she needs a handkerchief more than I do."
I pointed at Jo Harang, who was looking around in all directions with slightly moist eyes as if on constant guard, and said so.
At first she had tried to act composed, but as time passed she seemed to be falling apart a little.
"She's pretty funny too. In Liaoning Province she didn't flinch even when a Blood Cult expert popped out and fought them head-on."
"Right?"
I thought how different the things people fear really are.
Even a small pebble falling nearby made her shoulders flinch in surprise.
"Eek."
Like a tiger with its tail between its legs.
Ilhong and I both shook our heads at the same time.
There is no scaredy-cat like that scaredy-cat.
"Sh-shut up!"
Oh, my muttering must have been heard.
Still, she had the energy left to get mad.
"But it is a bit creepy, boss."
"Yeah, maybe because it feels a bit like a mass grave."
Spaces filled with the dead always seemed to put the living in a strange mood.
Plus, according to our client Eon Wol-yeong, there were only traces of people leaving this place—no traces of anyone breaking in from outside.
As if the corpses had risen and walked out on their own two feet.
So as someone who had come after hearing that, it was true that it felt a bit eerie.
Of course, Jo Harang over there was making an unusually big fuss that didn't match her usual confidence.
"Boss, why are you taking out jerky in a place like this? Can you even get that down right now?"
We were all doing this to make a living, but when I pulled something to chew on from my chest she looked disgusted.
"Ilhong, do you know what you surprisingly shouldn't do in a tomb?"
"What is it?"
"Resurrection, of course."
Wouldn't it be awkward for everyone if they suddenly came back to life?
No matter how much anything can happen in the Murim, surely the dead don't resurrect.
Thinking that, I took a big bite of the jerky.
But then the greatsword woman hurriedly panted and quickly tapped my arm—tap-tap-tap.
"Ah, what."
She pointed wordlessly at a coffin in the dark corner.
"Th-the coffin just moved a little, I think."
It didn't look like it had moved to me.
"Harang, from now on don't go around calling yourself the Tiger of Mount Song."
Really. The Hohyeop-do in her hand would cry.
"Ah shit! It's real! It moved a little just now!"
"Hey, just drop the 'Tiger' character from your old nickname. Just go with Minor Blade. Minor Blade."
"No, look! That!"
Even the Heavenly Killing Star is sitting still just fine—that woman is a disgrace to the Purple Micro Star.
I clicked my tongue inwardly and looked where she pointed.
"…Huh?"
There, a coffin lid was really being pushed open as a corpse rose up.
At the scene where common sense was collapsing, my thoughts froze and I couldn't utter a word.
In the silence of everyone, the corpse slowly raised its pale body.
Could it be that in this Murim, corpses can resurrect too?
As I was blaming my narrow wuxia knowledge, Jo Harang screamed at the top of her lungs as if to say that wasn't it.
"Hiiiiiik!"
Even in the Murim, resurrection was crossing the line a bit.
I also followed her in screaming a bizarre scream.
"Wome, shit!"
The dead aren't scary.
What's scary is always living people.
That was the advice I'd given back in my troubleshooter days when a subordinate found a corpse and trembled in fear.
The dead can never harm us. So I'd said it with a confident face.
But it seemed that common sense didn't apply in this Murim.
We were currently under a fierce attack from resurrected corpses.
Swish!
A hand-blade thickly emitting corpse stench sliced through the air, tearing it.
A face pale to the extreme. No—a mug with not a drop of blood left in it. Whitened eyeballs, and a nose and mouth that didn't even gasp for breath.
Swish! Thud!
The corpse that had hopped out after opening the coffin lid swung both arms fiercely. It was a sharp footwork and hand technique with not the slightest movement to protect its own body.
"Ilhong, what are these things! Why are corpses alive and using martial arts…!"
I swung my staff to barely deflect an attack stretching toward my neck and shouted urgently.
What the hell were these things' identities.
"J-Jiangshi! They seem to be the Jiangshi I've only heard about!"
Those Jiangshi that hop around in old movies?
"Th-these bastards! They don't die even if you stab the heart!"
Jo Harang, who had stabbed her greatsword deep in, shouted in a horrified voice.
"Well, they're corpses! They're already dead!"
"Then how do you kill them!"
"Th-that I don't know either! This is too old a story even in the literature…!"
In the past there had been groups causing disturbances with corpses like this, and the Murim Alliance's force teams had gone out and smashed them.
So recently the secret arts for making Jiangshi were known to have been lost, yet they had suddenly resurrected in the Jinju Eon Clan's basement—Ilhong was losing her mind.
Slash!
The heavy greatsword cut through the wind and smashed into the Jiangshi's neck.
It was so hard that even an expert's strike didn't sever it at once; the head dangled.
Jo Harang bit her lip hard and struck once more, and only then did the head separate and roll across the floor.
Then the movements stopped abruptly and one Jiangshi slumped down.
"I-I killed it! Mujin! You have to blow off the head!"
"That's similar to living people."
It was a silver lining in the misfortune.
Based on that not-so-new strategy, we defeated the Jiangshi one by one as they opened coffin lids and poured out.
"Hyaaa!"
And the scaredy-cat from just now was nowhere to be seen as Jo Harang let out a powerful shout and displayed a storm-like saber technique.
Rough wind pressure swirled everywhere, slaughtering the Jiangshi.
She advanced while slicing arms, legs, and torsos.
"Oh, so you've resurrected. Tiger of Mount Song!"
"If it's a being that can be killed… I'm not scared anymore!"
Ah, so that was the principle of her behavior.
She was specially afraid only of ghost-like things that couldn't be dealt with physically.
Thud.
But then a corpse buried in the most lavishly decorated coffin snapped its eyes open.
It pushed the coffin lid open with a rustle and rose, flashing an ominous murderous light toward us.
"What the hell is that now. This is driving me crazy."
This Murim—nothing is ordinary.
Some bastards shoot blood like bullets. This time dead people rising one after another.
"Mujin, that one feels different somehow. It looks ominous."
She was feeling something similar to me. Unlike the surrounding Jiangshi, this corpse was emitting a strange aura.
Living experts cowering before a single dead corpse.
"Hya!"
But since it had flesh that could be cut, Jo Harang took courage and leaped in, swinging her greatsword fiercely.
A clear blue trajectory cut through the darkness.
The blue saber aura smashed down on the thing's crown with terrifying force.
Clang!
But amazingly, instead of cutting flesh, a sound like metal clashing rang out.
A strange Jiangshi that had stretched out a hand and caught Jo Harang's blade.
Its dead white eyeballs blinked as they sought the one who had swung the greatsword at it.
And it emitted red eye light.
"Eek!"
For a corpse to block a high-level expert putting full force into a greatsword swing perfectly.
"D-die!"
Jo Harang, flustered, unleashed killing moves. Saber qi flashed from all directions, but again it blocked with strange movements and rather pressed her.
And in the midst of that fight, as the corpse's clothing tore and its blood-reddened body was revealed, Ilhong shouted in shock upon seeing it.
"C-could it be a Blood Jiangshi? That might be an Asura Blood Jiangshi! Everyone be careful!"
I didn't know what it was, but the name was ominous so it wasn't an ordinary Jiangshi.
I quickly joined the pressed Jo Harang and swung the Hell Blood-Slaying Staff fiercely.
Wham!
A blow that seemed to crush the skull slammed into the Jiangshi's head. But rather my palm went numb and tingly.
Even after hitting the head dead-on, the Blood Jiangshi counterattacked immediately as if there was no damage at all.
Papapak!
Even as the Heavenly Killing Star I couldn't counterattack immediately after getting hit like that—it was truly unbelievable durability.
"M-Mujin! What do we do! I can't cut this thing properly!"
Strange. A being with a physical body but that couldn't be cut like a ghost.
"Damn it."
Thanks to Eun Hwaran I thought a proper commission was finally coming.
But it seemed this time too the path of hardship was clear.