Chapter 23
Chapter 23
************************-
Translator: uly
Chapter: 23
Chapter Title: Bing Baek-seol's Legacy
************************-
A fragrance brushed the tip of my nose. Not an ordinary scent, but a pure white aroma that felt clean and refreshing deep into the soul.
In the solemn atmosphere, I could see a corpse leaning against the ice. A middle-aged woman with skin as white as jade.
Her wrinkles were deep, yet not overly so. It was like, how shall I put it, time itself had frozen still-everything serene and tranquil.
"...Madam?"
I called out, wondering if she might still be alive. But she gave no response. There was no presence whatsoever, none that a living person should have.
I reached out cautiously. The moment my fingertips touched her, the middle-aged woman crumbled away. The debris turned to white snowflakes and swirled past me.
"...Ah!"
I yanked my hand back in haste, but even what remained became snow and was drawn outside. When I opened my eyes amid the howling blizzard, everything had already vanished.
Nothing was left. It felt like a dream. But as proof that someone had been there, I spotted something in the corner.
A strange sword housed in a worn scabbard.
And a booklet lying nearby, along with an antique wooden box.
"......?"
The white ice shard discovered in the wooden box was utterly different from the other fragments.
I couldn't touch it. Merely brushing it caused my fingertips to necrotize. I pulled my hand away quickly, but the chill had already seeped all the way to my wrist.
This was no ordinary object. Now that I thought about it, the wooden box itself was exquisitely carved, fit for something precious.
It felt like special metal had been used just to craft the box. I turned my attention to the booklet.
The unfamiliar script was mostly smudged. Parts of the pages were torn, leaving sections illegible.
But one thing stood out clearly. Amid the damage, a name gleamed particularly white.
"Bing Baek-seol..."
Bing Baek-seol?
...Could it be that Bing Baek-seol?
The famed member of the world's Ten Great Masters who vanished long ago? The North Sea Ice Lord Bing Baek-seol, whose infamy shook the Five Outer Palaces?
I hurriedly scrutinized the booklet again. Piecing together preceding and following lines, I painstakingly deciphered the obscured parts.
This was a martial arts manual. No doubt about it. The opening briefly outlined the circumstances.
Bing Baek-seol had fallen here after an ambush. The enemy went unnamed in detail, but they seemed to have been notoriously vile three hundred years prior-scathing curses against them peppered the manual.
[My filthy, reeking, grotesque nemesis-merely mentioning them...]
Bing Baek-seol had tried to escape at once. But she couldn't.
Her wounds from the assailant were grave, and the spirit medicines she carried would turn to poison without proper refinement.
As she lay wasting away, she found a book and brush on a tumbled human corpse, or so it was written.
Coincidence upon coincidence formed Bing Baek-seol's legacy. At the end, she made an earnest plea.
[I have imparted all, save one thing. The entirety is recorded here-let the fated inheritor claim it all, and deliver but that one piece to the Ice Palace.]
Formulas and stances.
Detailed explanations in an admonishing tone.
Before me lay the complete legacy of the North Sea Ice Palace, devoted solely to transmitting the manual.
Finally, I reached for the sword.
"...Ah!"
The white, frosty blade emanated chill qi on its own. Surely a sword famed among famed swords.
Who would have thought I'd encounter pinnacle ice arts in a place I'd wandered into by chance. For now, I tucked their possessions into my bosom.
The first thought that arose was how to handle them.
Fortunately, sealing the wooden box's lid blocked the chill at once. The sword was the same. Shrouded in its shabby, crumbling scabbard, no one would suspect it a famed blade.
On the surface, just odd, unrecognizable items. But the martial arts manual carried a tinge of regret.
[Heed this: no man can lay hands on this art.]
The martial art left by the North Sea Ice Lord was one only women could cultivate. She wouldn't have lied in her own complete manual.
So, what to do with it. Well...
Take it to the First Demon.
I've received so much from her already. Bringing it all might make her a little happy.
The body was gone, but I paid simple respects. Having gained something, I bowed deeply where her remains had lain.
If fate connects us, delivering the manual to the North Sea Ice Palace wouldn't be amiss. But not right now.
The Five Outer Palaces lie far from the Demonic Cult.
To approach them, one must cross the Central Plains instead.
A distant land. Absurdly remote. Too far to easily monopolize its political gains.
The necrotized tip of my arm regenerated belatedly. It seemed this spirit pill temporarily halted even Heavenly Tribulation's stirrings.
I understood now why the manual warned of its dangers repeatedly. With that, I turned on my heel.
Checking the corpses strewn between ice waterfalls yielded nothing special. In one spot, I even found a man's body sprawled beside a book, much like before.
Truly a place where a fall sealed one's fate. Its height was staggering-even a middling expert would perish for certain.
Now then, time to head out again...
I snapped off a tree branch. Luckily, my fire starter remained safe in my bosom.
Though shredded to rags unfit for clothing, its pockets still served faithfully. I blew on the smoldering embers inside and lit the branch's tip.
Now it was time to leave.
With light secured and the path scouted once, there shouldn't be...
"Number 30! Number 30! Where are you?! Are you really dead?!"
A voice echoed. I peeked out through the exit gap.
I saw a woman clutching a flame, howling in fury. From her mask to her voice, she resembled someone familiar.
"Number 30! Number 30! R-Really dead?! Say something if you're there! Dang... Aaaah!!!"
Her piercing scream spurred me into action. I burst outside and yanked her from the bloodsucking bats tearing at her.
We retreated back to the ice waterfall alcove. Number 20, mangled in mere moments, gasped for breath.
"Hah, bloodsucking bats... Wh-what, so many..."
"Why did you come?"
"Why come? To settle my debt! A whole day passed with no sign of you...!"
A day had passed?
I glanced back at the ice waterfall. Now that I recalled, a strange sensation had gripped me the instant I entered.
I peered into the ice cave from before. The eerie sense of time frozen in the air had faded away.
The mysticism emanating from Bing Baek-seol's departed corpse, perhaps.
I turned to Number 20.
"You nearly died, Number 20."
"You're one to talk. Your clothes are shredded to bits—what even happened to you?"
"Why did you come?"
"I told you, to repay the debt. I can't do that if you're dead, and that's why."
"...Just for that?"
"Do I need more of a reason?"
Number 20 growled.
"I'm warning you now—don't even think of dying until I've settled every last bit. I hate owing anyone!"
"...Pfft."
"Why are you laughing?!"
"I just laughed."
This woman was, well...
She wasn't quite right in the head either.
I gripped my sword. We had one more torch now, and one more warrior at my back.
The path lingered in my body's memory, so I could break through soon enough.
For now, it was best to wait until those raging things outside calmed down.
"We should wait here until the bloodsucking bats settle."
"...Fine. I knew you were in here, but were there really that many...?"
Number 20 finally looked around.
"What is this place anyway? An ice waterfall? There are weird spots everywhere. Are all blood light stone areas like this?"
"It seems so."
I held off on mentioning Bing Baek-seol for now. Number 20, ever the wanderer, leaned against the wall.
She bore minor scratches all over as well. A small mercy was that there were no bites.
Her wrist wound stood out, swollen slightly. With no salves on hand, bandaging would have to do.
I tore a strip from my rag of a sleeve.
"Hand it over."
"...There is no need to bother."
"It is better wrapped. Blood is still seeping out."
She hesitated, then offered her hand. I wrapped the cloth carefully around her wrist.
I sat beside her. Gazing upward, Number 20 sighed.
"There is no way up there... right?"
"If you've mastered Ghost Spirit Step to its limit, maybe."
"Is there really no other way that's possible?"
"If it were, you wouldn't be torn up like this."
"What kind of answer is that?"
Number 20 shot me a glare from beneath her mask. She fiddled with the wrist wrap.
"You're shredded, but there isn't a single scratch visible on you."
"I have a special constitution."
"What kind?"
"It heals quickly, though it is quite painful."
"...Something like that actually exists?"
Actions spoke louder, so I drew my sword, sliced my wrist lightly, and showed her.
She recoiled at the sight of the wound healing in an instant.
"Are you a monster?!"
"I'm way too feeble for that."
"...You're still stronger than me."
"This came from barely surviving death's door as well."
Number 20 fell silent. Distrust filled her eyes, showing she wouldn't buy it easily.
She reached out, tracing the scar on my cheek.
"Then what is this?"
I touched the cheek scar idly. Come to think of it, I had forgotten about it.
After too many days without a mirror, I had even forgotten my own face, and even this cheek scar had slipped my mind.
"It's an old wound from before my constitution awakened."
"How did it happen?"
"It was from a liquor bottle my father chucked at me when I was a kid."
"...So you're not from a nice home either, huh."
"You neither, Number 20?"
"There was no nice or nasty for me; my first memory was inside a brothel."
Number 20 hugged her knees.
"I had no parents. I was sold off young, so I have no memories of them. Since I had no folks, how could I know what was nice or nasty? But still, selling a kid? No decent human does that. Have you ever been to a brothel?"
"No."
"For real?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Why indeed.
I pondered. There was only one reason I had never gone.
"I had no money."
"...It wasn't because of 'no interest' or whatever?"
"The interest was there. I was curious about what they were like."
"And if you had the money?"
"I probably still wouldn't have gone."
"Why?"
"I had a sick little sister. All my money went to her. I earned it all and sent it home, so even brothel cash would have gone the same way."
"...You had a sister? You joined the Blood Demon Squad just to make money for her?"
"I had one. She died, so there is none left now."
"......."
Number 20 fidgeted with her fingers and spoke haltingly.
"I had someone too. Not a little sister, but an older one."
"What happened to her?"
"It was kind of like yours. She isn't dead, but she might as well be, since she doesn't know me anymore."
"......."
"She wasn't my blood sister anyway, but we just clicked and talked tons. She cared for me ever since I was little. She was barely three years older, but she always led the way."
Number 20 cast her eyes down.
"Brothels have endless chores. Young girls who are sold in start with grunt work. You learn step by step, and once your body ripens, you start pouring drinks. Most of the pay is skimmed, but you manage to stash some away."
"......."
"Mine was the same. She sold laughs and sold her body... Yeah, she was a courtesan. She was really popular, with callers galore and good coin too."
"I see."
"You don't have to chime in."
Number 20 stretched languidly.
"We were five years apart, but she was so damn steadfast and grown-up. She was always smiling, my idol. Do you know what she did for me?"
"......."
"She bought me out before I could be enslaved properly and handed me a sword, since I had loved moving around ever since I was a kid. She got me into the Demonic Arts Academy. I owe her heaps—way too much, so much that it feels kinda suffocating. Once I grew up, I realized the true weight of it. My ransom wasn't chump change. I wanted to repay her, and picturing feeding her once she was free, I swung that sword with everything I had."
"......."
"Do you know how a courtesan leaves on her own? You either pony up the brothel's price tag, or you croak out as a corpse. She picked the first option. She hoarded steadily despite the insane sum, and she finally scraped together her own buyout. But... the Madam wouldn't release her, claiming she was still a pretty flower who was good for ten more years."
"......"
"The brothel boss pulled strings. Swiping her savings outright would break house rules, so they came up with another ploy. Before letting her go, they told her to take one last john for a fat pile of cash. She balked, but for my sake... she accepted. She said it would buy us better days."
Number 20 shrugged.
It was supposed to be a laugh, but there was no laughter in it.
"Can you guess who that 'last' client was? It was the Soul-Capturing Madman, Shim Sa-hyeon."
"The Soul-Capturing Madman..."
"Yeah. The Cult's top-tier lunatic. He is an expert-tier martial artist, but his paws are so vicious that even rogue sects shun him. He bought her, and the next time I saw her, she was a vegetable. The cash went straight to the Madam, while the brief uproar simply fizzled out as an 'accident'."
"......."
"She is my family. She's a vegetable, but she is still breathing. I tried reclaiming her, but even that failed. The Madam stonewalled me under the guise of 'protection'. Only I know that she deliberately dumped her on Shim. I babbled until I was hoarse, but there were no takers."
"......."
"The brothel barred me, warning that if I showed up again, my head would roll. The Madam's 'consolation' was a single silver scrap. That was the tab for stealing my kin. Even so, I still snuck back to peek after that."
A sound of teeth crunching against a lip echoed softly.
A trickle of blood seeped from under Number 20's mask.
"And do you know what came from her room? It was just men's grunts coming from my vegetable sister."
"......"
"...It's just a story."
It was a filthy, ugly, and reeking tale.
I looked elsewhere, finding myself unable to meet her eyes.
"...What of your sister now?"
"That was half a year back, and she is still in that Crimson Seal Pavilion. Why did I join the Blood Demon Squad? It was for her—to gain the power and cash needed to yank her out. Once I hit the Blood Warrior Squad, the power will flow. Snatching one soul from a brothel will be a piece of cake then."
"......."
"...But the truth is, I..."
I could feel Number 20 forcing her voice to sound brighter.
"Nah, forget it. I've blabbed far too much. Keep it zipped once we get outside. If you leak my plan, it will be a disaster. I only told you because you seem close-mouthed. Got it?"
"...As if I would ever say anything."
I rose to my feet.
"It is time to go, Number 20. Let's get out of here. The sun is dipping, so we can slip past the bloodsucking bats easily now."