Entity Hunting (5)

Since acquiring this community, there had been exactly two times I'd been truly blindsided.

The first was discovering that the girl I'd assumed was just another run-of-the-mill attention seeker was actually a cold-beauty archduke's daughter.

The second was learning that the Cheonma Death Beam was a miniature railgun wielded by the Heavenly Demon.

And you know what's even more shocking?

That miniature railgun turned out to be straight-up broken overtechnology — flight capable, solar rechargeable, and brainwave-linked.

Wait, Heavenly Demon, is that even legal?

And every single feature it described matched something I desperately needed.

Full auto! Anti-barrage damage!

If I could just get my hands on it, I figured I could melt entities like tofu under a hot knife.

Well, no helping it then.

Setting aside the ridiculous lore and the even more ridiculous name, every other element of the Cheonma Death Beam was exactly to my taste.

This one, I was buying.

I never once mentioned the Cheonma Death Beam by name, but anyone who thought through my conditions would arrive at exactly one answer.

Still, just in case it got buried under the feed, I decided to hedge my bets and prime the pump with my usual alt account.

Great reception.

If public opinion solidified around the idea that the Cheonma Death Beam was the only weapon fit for this trade, I was certain to get my hands on it in no time.

Besides, I wasn't asking for a handout — I'd be paying in infinite water and infinite air, no small price by any measure. A genuine win-win, in the truest sense of the word.

If things kept going like this, what lay ahead was nothing but flower-strewn roads, a bright and proper future, and the first surefooted step of a flawless plan.

That is, if things had kept going like this.

Ah.

A brutal fact struck me square in the sternum.

Dammit, so I couldn't buy the Cheonma Death Beam after all?

Just when I'd gotten my hopes up, now I had to give them up?

Part of me wanted to curse the guy as a clueless lore-hound, but there was an annoying ring of sense to what he said, so I couldn't exactly argue.

Shame, that.

It stung a little, sure, but what could I do — it was the man's identity, apparently.

Even if the world ended, there are things a person wants to protect. Fine, disappointing, but I'd just look at other weapons and…

Excuse me?

Why is the person in question folding this easily?

Weren't you the one going on about identity and whatnot?

Which meant this guy was either a genuinely clueless lore-hound or a complete fraud.

How dare this punk ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠play expert and leave me this confused.

Wait, actually — hold on. Was that CheonmaDeathBeam person the real deal Heavenly Demon?

The one who'd so kindly walked me, a total newbie, through how to use the guide feature?

My life-shock counter had just been updated.

That's three shocks now.

It wasn't some reverse-aging miracle — she'd been fifteen or younger from the very start.

And retirement at twenty?

What was she, some small-town mayor? Why is the position term-limited?

My common sense was cracking at the seams. Wasn't the Heavenly Demon supposed to just be the strongest person in the Demonic Cult or something?

What… is this.

Was my common sense always such a pathetic little creature?

There were words strung together in a single sentence that by all rights should never share one. My brain was actively rejecting what I was reading, but the text on the screen refused to change no matter how hard I blinked.

By shock-ranking standards this was a new all-time number one, but the attacks were coming so fast and relentless that I couldn't even find room to be shocked.

Thank goodness.

Truly, thank goodness…

My common sense wasn't wrong. It was these people who were wrong.

Something about it still felt off, but surely that was no big deal.

"Ugh, my blood sugar's crashing."

I fished a pomegranate out of my inventory and crammed it into my mouth. My poor exhausted brain deserved a little rest.

All I'd done was try to run a little public-opinion campaign for the Cheonma Death Beam, and I'd walked away with results no one could have predicted. My brain was still throbbing from the shock.

But setting my shattered common sense aside, the situation itself was flowing in a very promising direction. The person presumed to be the actual Heavenly Demon was currently positive about trading away the Cheonma Death Beam.

If this kept up, I'd be completing the trade without a hitch in no time…

Son of a— CheonDeb, you absolute—

You could've led with that!

He'd claimed to be from a martial arts world, and while everything after Undine showed up had gone completely off-script, I'll admit that someone of genuine Heavenly Demon caliber probably does live on dew alone, image-wise.

If only she weren't the Fire Spirit Undine's old rival, that is.

Ugh, forget it. Not doing this.

Yanking my heart around like a yo-yo, honestly.

I heaved a long sigh and logged out of the community. I had no idea what the Heavenly Demon actually wanted.

Was this what it meant to be a Heavenly Demon?

Rather than ride the emotional rollercoaster of whether I'd get the Cheonma Death Beam or not, I decided I'd just draft Plans B and C instead. Find a weapon as strong as the Cheonma Death Beam.

With my infinite water, that was entirely doable.

And so, diving back into the barter board to browse, one incoming trade request caught my eye.

I'd given up and was off shopping for alternatives when this request popped up out of nowhere — arriving almost simultaneously with that comment about not needing water and air.

A claim in direct contradiction to CheonmaDeathBeam's own words.

So: the Cheonma Death Beam has a split personality, or it's a scammer.

By today's newly acquired knowledge, the split-personality theory actually had a decent scrap of credibility, but I was inclined to call this one a scam.

Surely anyone could see it. This reeked of scammer.

The problem was, this person had shamelessly shoved verification right in my face.

Could it actually be the real Cheonma Death Beam?

Nah, no way. I've never once seen someone who opens with a self-introduction like that turn out to be legit.

At best it'd be some CheonDeb knockoff.

Hmm.

Forget the grade for a second — even the description was anything but ordinary.

If this wasn't the genuine Cheonma Death Beam, I was going to stop trusting this world altogether.

Fine. So what if the Heavenly Demon had a split personality or whatever. In the end, the weapon itself was the Death Beam.

Food, then.

Well, that explained it — the guy claims he doesn't need water or air, doesn't say he doesn't need anything else, and comes sniffing around for something.

Come to think of it, it made sense. Plenty of people had air to spare, and water could well be plentiful too.

The problem was, calling what I had "food"…

Why had I only ever traded water and air until now?

Because the entirety of my food supply amounted to, at absolute best, pomegranates.

Look, it's a little sad, okay? Infinite water! Infinite air! Infinite pomegranates…

Who on earth gets excited about buying pomegranates?

One pomegranate does not fill a stomach.

The inventory description did claim it was packed with nutrients, but for whatever reason the pomegranate replenished slowly, and a single one wasn't enough to sustain even me.

Case in point: I myself had to keep picking two or three at a time and eating them in a rotation.

And fruit was, frankly, a weaker category than proper food no matter how you sliced it.

…But what if I just, say, limited the information a bit?

As long as I didn't spill the TMI — that it regenerates slowly, that being fruit it fills you up less — I could still trade pomegranates for the Cheonma Death Beam.

Yet something about it nagged at me.

Guilt was part of it, sure — but honestly, the Cheonma Death Beam didn't feel important enough to warrant that, since I seemed to have a few viable substitutes anyway.

So I decided to just be honest.

If it didn't work, so be it; if it worked, great — either way, I'd find out.

Huh?

My worries evaporated in the span of a heartbeat.

This wasn't "acceptable" territory — this was off the charts into "actually wonderful," radiating the desperate willpower of someone who would absolutely not let this deal slip away.

Er… um… well, if it's good, it's good!

"Wooohooo, lmao!"

The trade completed, and pomegranates now sat in my inventory.

"Ahh, finally. No more of that damn wall-hardtack."

Liberation at last from those round little food pellets that tasted of nothing — not even bland, just outright sawdust.

Truth be told, with fewer than five pieces of hardtack left, I hadn't so much liberated myself as been liberated — forcibly. Any later and I'd have had to roll the gacha on wild animals and plants that might've already caught the zombie virus.

A virus that infects plants too. Genuinely terrifying stuff.

And to get pomegranates at such a razor's-edge moment — I really was a lucky son of a gun.

Infinite resources deserve to be praised, don't they?

"Pomegranate."

At the utterance of that sacred name, a cold sensation, and a crimson fruit dropped into my fingertips. For someone like me — holed up in a cave for weeks, keeping apocalyptic social distance on account of the zombie virus — that vivid splash of red alone was already overstimulating.

"Oooh… mouth's watering."

Word was a pomegranate took almost a full day to regrow, but for someone who could survive a week on a single seed, that hardly mattered.

Unlike the hardtack — which was nothing but raw calories — these things were jam-packed with essential nutrients. I figured I could hold out on them for months.

But setting all those trivial concerns aside, the most important thing was the taste.

Didn't someone say satisfaction is born from deprivation? The less you have, the more you want.

So imagine, after days and days of nothing but dry, sawdusty wall-hardtack, what juicy, exploding, sweet-and-sour pomegranate would feel like.

Just anticipating it was driving me insane.

"Hoo… calm down. Savor it. Slowly."

If ever there was a time to act like a professional, it was now.

I sat myself down cross-legged, lightly scored the rind with one hand, then plucked a single glistening seed from within and placed it on my tongue.

Chew, chew.

The juice burst with a pop. A maddening wave of flavor flooded my entire mouth. I'm telling you, truly—

"Soft… and bouncy…"

Barely restraining myself, I plucked the seeds out one by one, stuffing my cheeks full. A succulence I had never once experienced in all my life as an eater wrapped around my tongue.

It was like inhaling the scent of acacia blossoms…!

"Ahh… this is… this is the food of the gods."

What sat in that cave that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠day was not a Heavenly Demon.

Just one humble, devout believer.

Cradling the pomegranate in both hands, I bowed my head low.

"Ah… Pome-Amen."

Praise be.

The believer's prayer concluded, it was time for the holy sacrament — one more seed plucked and eaten.

There was no particular reason for the praise; I just felt like I deserved a little something back.

"Mmh…! Delicious!"

Delicious every single time.

Sweet and tart enough that I wanted to raise both hands and both feet in surrender.

…

I froze.

Right in the middle of cherishing the pomegranate, painstakingly plucking and eating it seed by seed, a strange feeling crept over me.

What is this?

It felt like I was missing something — something really, really important.

Was this a past-life memory? Was I a priest in my past life?

It bothered me a little, but only a little, and after the briefest pause my mouth came right back around demanding more sweetness — well, that's that and this is this, pomegranate first—

"Huh…?"

And then, at last, the true nature of this unease dawned on me.

"Why do I have two arms…?"

Two hands, even. Two whole arms.

I clenched and unclenched them, and the sensation was perfectly reproduced, down to the last nerve. Arms and hands attached so naturally that my months of missing one felt like a dream.

The memory of my arm being bitten off not long after the zombie virus appeared, the memory of sawing it off myself — every detail was still vivid. Why, just recently I'd even given myself a quiet little pat on the back for getting used to one-handed living.

And yet here were hands and arms, sitting in place as if all of that simply didn't matter.

I stared at the pomegranate in my other hand — the only conceivable culprit — looking back and forth between it and my newly grown arm. And then I noticed it: a pinky finger, still slightly undergrown.

I fixed my focus on that pinky and ate more pomegranate on the spot.

The unmistakably stunted pinky grew. No pain, no sensation at all.

"Oh dear… oh dear oh dear…"

Cold sweat broke out down my back.

All I'd wanted was something — anything but hardtack — sweet and sour to eat.

But this thing, it seemed, was a little bit dangerous.

"So THAT'S why nobody wanted to sell it…!"

Cheonma Death Beam — what a great trade that turned out to be.