Chapter 65
Chapter 65
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 18
>Chapter Title: Kalgeo (2)
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Not far from the valley where the iron marble skirmish had taken place and the mountain where the flag battle was underway, there was another cave.
-Kiririk! Kiririk!
A procession of five carts made its way into that cave.
Warriors wearing red leather belts pulled the carts into the cave illuminated by torches.
The carts that entered the cave came to a stop in one spot.
There, the corpses of numerous boys lay scattered.
“Phew. Is this the last one? Alright, let’s move them.”
The red-belted warriors who had pulled the carts began the task of laying the corpses side by side next to them.
The remaining carts that arrived afterward did the same.
-Thud!
“Pulling them out late must’ve made the bodies bloat.”
One red-belted warrior clicked his tongue as he looked at a corpse swollen from water.
It was a shallow stream valley, but some spots were deep enough to fully submerge the bodies.
At that moment, a middle-aged man wearing a Taoist robe adorned with yin-yang symbols approached and spoke.
“Set that one aside.”
“Isn’t this fine?”
“We can’t work with something like that.”
“Sheesh.”
In response, the red-belted warriors moved the corpse to a cart on the left side of the cave.
As they transferred the corpses to the cart, one warrior couldn’t hold back and vomited.
“Urk.”
The other warriors clicked their tongues at the sight.
“Tsk tsk.”
“As expected of a newbie.”
Of course, they said that, but they understood.
At least the corpses laid out here had few wounds and retained a human shape.
But the ones in the carts were the ‘stragglers.’
None of them were intact.
Crushed skulls were commonplace, and many were missing a leg or had their organs ripped out.
Just looking at them was enough to induce vomiting.
“Ease up, newbie.”
“Y-Yes, sir.”
The warrior who had emptied his stomach finally stood up and replied.
Once the sorting of the corpses was mostly complete, nearly three carts full of stragglers had piled up.
Then, the middle-aged man in the Taoist robe approached the warriors and said,
“Let’s go.”
The Taoist-robed middle-aged man took the lead, and the red-belted warriors pulled the carts loaded with corpses.
The carts traveled along a narrow slope path and only stopped after about half a shichen, at the base of a cliff.
The middle-aged man in the Taoist robe pulled out a handful of something from his bosom.
They were talismans.
On them was written [Chain (鎖)].
The middle-aged man attached the talismans one by one to the dead bodies on the carts and said,
“Don’t look down at the bottom of the cliff when throwing them.”
“Understood.”
The red-belted warriors replied nonchalantly and, with practiced ease, hurled the talisman-adhered corpses over the cliff one after another.
Watching this, the newbie warrior couldn’t comprehend it inwardly.
If they were unusable corpses, wouldn’t it be cleaner to just burn them? Dumping them all here would overflow the bottom with bodies.
Even in broad daylight, it would be too gruesome to descend.
The newbie warrior asked his senior who was carrying corpses alongside him.
“Senior, why not just burn them? Why bother throwing them off this cliff?”
“Just do as you’re told. Why are you so curious?”
“I-I’m sorry.”
The senior clicked his tongue at the dejected newbie who shut his mouth, then spoke in a low voice.
“Listen with one ear and let it go. I’ve heard the stream flowing down from this cliff connects to a tributary under the cave.”
“What does that have to do with this?”
“I said I don’t know. Something about it becoming nutrients or whatever, but for grunts like us, we just follow orders. Getting curious only brings trouble. Got it?”
“.......Understood.”
‘Nutrients?’
What kind of nutrients?
He couldn’t make sense of it at all.
And to think they did this every time the Shiblood Valley trial took place—how many corpses had been dumped at the bottom of this cliff?
Just today, there were over a hundred.
-Chill!
He inadvertently glanced down, and goosebumps erupted across his body.
In the devouring darkness below, something sinister and ferocious seemed to creep upward.
-Thud!
“Gah!”
At that moment, someone grabbed his shoulder.
It was the man in the Taoist robe who had been attaching talismans.
To the startled newbie warrior, the robed man said in a low voice,
“What did I say earlier?”
“Huh?”
“What did I say earlier?”
“N-Not to look down at the bottom of the cliff......”
“Then it’s best you never look.”
“Y-Yes?”
To the flustered warrior, the robed man warned in a meaningful tone.
“You might get entranced.”
Entranced? What did that mean?
* * *
It had been about one shichen and two quarters since the flag defense battle began.
With considerable time passed, nearly half the flags had been found by the boys, and battles to defend and recapture them were in full swing.
But within this flag battle, an unexpected variable arose.
It was,
-Kwakwak!
The appearance of the kalgeo, a nightmarish demonic beast.
Already far more ferocious than any wild beast, it was the worst variable for boys whose internal energy was sealed and who had no weapons.
Especially boys searching alone for flags without their groups were being indiscriminately attacked and killed.
-Kwachak!
“Gaaaargh!”
On the middle slope of the mountain, yet another boy fell to the kalgeo.
The kalgeo favored human heads, crushing and devouring them with its vicious fangs every time it caught one.
It didn’t eat any other parts.
As a result, headless crushed-skull corpses were found scattered across the mountain, heightening the boys’ vigilance to the extreme.
“Damn it. What the hell is this? You sure this is from fighting?”
A group that hadn’t found a flag yet discovered a corpse and was aghast.
No matter how you looked at it, this wasn’t the trace of a fight death.
“Even with internal energy sealed, did it really get taken down by a wild beast?”
“Yeah, look. These are tooth marks.”
“No way. Even a beast couldn’t chomp a whole head? Even a great tiger would strip the skull meat off, right?”
A corpse with its entire head missing.
No matter how they saw it, it was incomprehensible.
Mok Yu-cheon, who was with them, had dark circles under his eyes.
‘Haa.......’
This place really was hell.
After losing three boy comrades in a flag recapture battle, the remaining five were wandering in search of another flag.
But in the process, they had seen over twenty corpses.
Only about three seemed to have died in fierce fights over flags; the rest had met bizarre ends.
Ten headless corpses like this one.
And seven corpses that died cleanly.
‘.......Most had their necks snapped.’
Not all had broken necks, but most seemed killed in similar fashion.
It didn’t look like fierce hand-to-hand combat or intense fights, but rather like they were killed without proper resistance by someone.
‘What is it? What the hell?’
Those killed like this seemed to have lost their lives unrelated to the flags.
That was the problem.
Everyone was already straining their eyes for the flag battle alone, yet some unknown things were slaughtering boys indiscriminately.
‘Who the hell is doing this?’
About two hundred zhang east from where Mok Yu-cheon was, on a mountainside, one of the culprits he wondered about placed his hand on the chest of a headless corpse, absorbing its death qi.
It was Mok Kyung-un.
Mok Kyung-un, who had been rapidly absorbing the death qi, soon withdrew his hand.
Then, he muttered unpleasantly.
“It’s weak.”
-Death qi?
“Yes.”
-Of course. Corpses killed by a nightmarish beast like kalgeo are eroded by its demonic energy, rapidly depleting most of their qi.
Mok Kyung-un clicked his tongue at Cheong-ryeong’s words.
Even the qi released upon death was depleting this fast.
It was quite troublesome.
“Hmm.”
He had been moving diligently to kill more boys than the kalgeo and gather death qi, but he was falling behind.
“It’s starting to piss me off a bit.”
Unlike him, who took time to absorb death qi, this kalgeo demonic beast just ate the head and moved on to the next prey.
It should be full by now, yet it kept eating nonstop.
“Feels like eating scraps left by someone else.”
-Hmm.
“What is it?”
-But this thing.......it seems to be eating more than expected.
Mok Kyung-un shrugged and said,
“Guess it’s not full.”
-No. More than that. It should be stuffed by now, but it’s eating quite a lot.
“Maybe it’s in that growing phase.”
-........I see.
“What?”
-It might be just before becoming an adult specimen.
“Adult?”
-Yes. Among nightmarish beasts, some require vast amounts of energy for breeding or maturation.
“Is the kalgeo one of those?”
-Probably?
At Cheong-ryeong’s words, Mok Kyung-un stroked his chin in dismay.
If this thing kept devouring like this, his share would diminish significantly.
Thus, Mok Kyung-un decided to change direction.
“No choice. I’ll take out that kalgeo first.”
He had thought leaving it would sow chaos and benefit him.
But in the current situation, it was just a hindrance.
So, he resolved to kill the kalgeo first.
-How?
“Can you help?”
-You said you could do it alone, yet even you can’t handle this, mortal?
Cheong-ryeong snorted and said,
-Fine. Lure it out of this cramped space.
Mok Kyung-un then picked up the wooden doll containing her, formed hand seals, and chanted a spell.
“From the linked source, nine returns to origin—Release (解)!”
-Sssrrrr!
A large shadow emerged from the wooden doll, and atop it, Cheong-ryeong slowly revealed herself gripping her pipe.
Now outside, she stretched languidly and said refreshingly,
-Still, being free is far better than being confined. Whew.
Cheong-ryeong took a puff from her pipe and exhaled a long stream of smoke.
To her, Mok Kyung-un said,
“Can you pinpoint where it is? Or if you can take it out from the front line, that’s fine too.”
-I was planning to anyway. Wait here.
-Pat!
Cheong-ryeong soared into the sky.
Unlike the Demon Monk, with her superior rank, she could move over a vast radius even without possessing a body.
She flew higher than the treetops and scanned the surroundings.
Her blood-red ghost eyes slowly swept over the entire mountain.
‘Hmm.’
But as she looked around, Cheong-ryeong raised one eyebrow.
She thought something so obsessed with eating humans would be easy to spot, but contrary to expectation, the kalgeo wasn’t in her ghost eyes’ view.
If it was on the verge of becoming a monster beast, its demonic energy should overflow—strange.
‘Where the hell did it go?’
Not in this vicinity?
Thus, Cheong-ryeong flew even higher.
In case the kalgeo had moved farther away.
As she surveyed,
-Flinch!
Her gaze locked onto something.
‘Ha!’
An exclamation escaped Cheong-ryeong’s lips.
While inside the wooden doll, she couldn’t sense external energies, so she hadn’t noticed.
But now, it was impossible not to see.
No, even without her eyes and ears, overlooking this immense presence would be the oddity.
From the distant cliff she stared at, incalculable screams of agony echoed.
She immediately descended.
Mok Kyung-un asked,
“Did you find it already?”
-No. It’s not visible. More importantly, follow me quickly.
Mok Kyung-un couldn’t hide his puzzlement at her somewhat excited voice.
Regardless, Cheong-ryeong flew ahead as if guiding him.
Mok Kyung-un followed her.
* * *
It wasn’t far.
About two quarters away, it was a cliff deep in the mountain’s boundary face.
Looking at the ground,
‘Wheel tracks?’
The slope was covered in wheel marks from carts.
Puzzled, as he proceeded,
-Flinch!
Mok Kyung-un’s steps halted momentarily at the ferocious energy emanating from ahead.
‘What is this......’
Since opening his ghost eyes and sixth sense, he had become sensitive to such things—why hadn’t he noticed until now?
Doubting, he scanned the surroundings.
Then, he spotted something.
‘Ah......’
Talismans affixed between the cliff and trees, and carved incantations.
These were suppressing the leaking ferociousness from escaping outward.
Yet, with so many talismans, the fact that such immense ferociousness still seeped out nearby—what could be there?
Reaching where the wheel tracks ended, he saw Cheong-ryeong sitting at the cliff’s edge, smoking her pipe.
-Can you see it?
At her question, Mok Kyung-un’s skin crawled.
-Kyaaaaaaa!
-Kwaaaaa!
-Save meeeee!
-Please! Please!
Endless screams rising from below.
With the screams, ferocious energy assaulted upward as if frustrated at being unable to rise, stinging the skin.
-Look closer.
Mok Kyung-un approached the cliff edge and peered down.
“Aaah.”
It was like an endless abyss.
Incalculable grudges mingled into boundless malice and ferociousness spewing forth.
Even with talismans plastered across the cliff, anyone with weak mental fortitude might lose their mind just from looking.
-Mortal. Do you know what gu poison is?
“.......How could I not.”
He knew almost everything about herbs and poisons.
Of course, he’d never seen gu poison directly, but he remembered hearing about it from Grandfather.
A forbidden art derived from the Southern Barbarian regions: dozens or hundreds of venomous creatures confined in a jar, lid sealed until only one survives.
That ultimate survivor is called gu poison (蠱毒).
“Why do you ask?”
Cheong-ryeong smirked and said,
-There’s gu poison down there.