Chapter 18
Chapter 18
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 18
Chapter Title: Third Leg - Companions, Ghost Valley (3)
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The battle was not long.
No, it ended so quickly that it could be called instantaneous.
Shiiik-.
The human-faced spider, precisely bisected into three parts, lay dead.
Its body was melting in patches through the exoskeleton, and its head was crushed as if struck by something heavy.
The melting wounds were from failing to withstand Dang Hwa-seo's poison despite bearing the name of spirit beast, and the bisecting cuts were, naturally, Mok Ri-won's doing.
Dang Hwa-seo steadied her breathing with a deep inhale, absorbing the lingering poison of the human-faced spider from the air.
'Excellent.'
It was almost the first time she had savored such thick poison since fleeing.
It had taken time to adapt, but in the end, it bolstered her inner energy.
And that was not all.
The human-faced spider was undoubtedly a spirit beast with poison glands.
If she extracted and refined just those glands, they would make for quite a fine spirit pill.
As her thoughts continued, Dang Hwa-seo let out a chuckle.
'While resenting them so much, I still make full use of their martial arts.'
It felt contradictory somehow—pouring out resentment toward her clan yet fully utilizing their techniques.
But Dang Hwa-seo felt no self-loathing over it.
She knew better than anyone that they were not opponents to face with pointless pride.
'Use everything available.'
Having sorted her thoughts, Dang Hwa-seo looked toward Mok Ri-won.
"Eup!"
Mok Ri-won, having already sheathed his sword, was staring at her with sparkling eyes.
Even with the blood poison reed clenched in his mouth, Dang Hwa-seo somehow sensed what he wanted to say.
'It'll be the same old talk about prestigious clans' martial arts.'
How had he been after learning she was from the Tang Clan?
He had unleashed a barrage of maddening questions for a full three hours.
This would surely be more of the same.
'The blood poison reed is working overtime.'
Dang Hwa-seo smiled brightly.
At that, Mok Ri-won flailed his arms before thrusting up a thumbs-up.
There was one reason.
Just as Dang Hwa-seo predicted, he was once again in awe of her martial arts.
"I get that you want to make a fuss, but let's hold off for now. Don't we have things to collect?"
"Eup!"
"I'll extract the inner core and poison glands. Wait for me over there by the cave entrance."
Mok Ri-won scampered toward the cave mouth.
It was baffling how even his running silhouette revealed so much emotion, but Dang Hwa-seo shook her head at the sight and got to work.
*
Stepping out of the cave, the familiar musty, foul air greeted the two.
While resting seated at the entrance, Dang Hwa-seo showed Mok Ri-won the inner core she had retrieved from the previous cave.
Exactly the same size as the one Mok Ri-won had consumed just before arriving here.
"I'll give this to Young Hero Mok."
"Eup?!"
Mok Ri-won jolted in surprise, body twitching.
Then he waved his arms about, looking as if pangs of conscience struck him.
In such a situation, fussing over conscience was so very him.
Dang Hwa-seo giggled and forcibly placed the inner core in his hand.
"The poison gland is enough for me. In truth, for my body, the medicines refined from such glands are more helpful than inner cores. Besides, we wouldn't have even found this spirit beast without Young Hero Mok, would we?"
He was too pure—too pure by half.
Any martial artist worth their salt should know to claim their rightful share, yet his soft heart made her worry he'd get swindled out there.
"Understood? In matters like this, calculations must be thorough."
"Eup…!"
Emotion seemed to well up on Mok Ri-won's face.
At the sight of his eyes even glistening, Dang Hwa-seo unwittingly thought of something.
'...Stray dog.'
Like a mutt whose tail wagged eagerly at a mere scrap of snack.
An rude thought.
Judging it so, Dang Hwa-seo quickly banished it.
Then, as Mok Ri-won kept sparkling his eyes, he spat out the blood poison reed and spoke.
"Thank you, Little Sister! This favor, I could spend my whole life repaying and still fall short! Always with a heart full of gratitude…!"
"With a heart?"
Blink, blink.
Unable to recall the rest, Mok Ri-won pondered briefly before answering thus.
"I'll become a splendid hero!"
Indeed, nothing beat returning greater goodwill for goodwill received.
Dang Hwa-seo burst into laughter at the absurd reply.
"Enough of that—let's get moving. From here on, we truly must hurry."
"Eup!"
Mok Ri-won already had the blood poison reed back in his mouth as reply.
The two resumed traversing Residual Blood Valley.
*
The mood was electric from the unexpected gains.
Dang Hwa-seo was thrilled with the poison gland tucked away, and Mok Ri-won was buzzing from an experience straight out of legends.
Just escape Residual Blood Valley like this, and it was done.
Lost in visions of that joyful future, the two overlooked something crucial.
This was Residual Blood Valley.
The site of the massacre twenty-odd years ago, where countless commoners perished.
And since the massacre, no group had set foot here.
The village they reached still preserved the horrors of that time intact.
"...."
Mok Ri-won's excited expression darkened.
Dang Hwa-seo was no different.
The gruesome traces, enough to reveal what had transpired just from a glance, twisted her face.
'Horrific.'
Utterly unlike the martial artists' corpses she had seen before.
Ruins.
The rotting shanty village was best described thus, smeared entirely in blackened, congealed blood.
And not just that.
The corpses were all turned to white bones facing away from the village center, as if failed in flight, with some embracing or back-carrying others amid the scatter.
A one-sided slaughter site—that was the apt description.
Dang Hwa-seo frowned deeply as she surveyed it all, then looked to Mok Ri-won.
"...Young Hero?"
Wondering if the sight shocked him, she called out, but no reply came.
Mok Ri-won simply took it all in with a sunken face.
Step-.
Mok Ri-won took a step forward.
For some reason, Dang Hwa-seo felt she shouldn't stop him, so she quietly followed.
'What is he doing?'
Mok Ri-won closely examined the bones, then scanned the surroundings.
He checked traces of unknown origins, half-collapsed shacks, rusted farm tools scattered here and there—surveying the village thoroughly.
Yes.
Mok Ri-won was now vividly reconstructing in his mind what had happened here.
Recalling the tales of Residual Blood Valley that Mok Seon-o had additionally shared when he turned thirteen.
-Did you save the commoners there?
-…We saved as many as we could. But not everyone.
-Then…
That day's Mok Seon-o had smiled bitterly.
Mok Ri-won knew it was rare for the ever-upright hero to wear such an expression.
It came when lamenting what his own strength could not resolve.
-Know this, Won-a. There are those in the world backed into cliffs with nowhere left to flee. They've run and run, seeing no path to survival, until they wish only to give up.
-Were those commoners like that?
-Yes, they were folk who fled to the mountains without even crops to pay in taxes. They had nowhere left to go.
-Evacuation…
-We couldn't. Or rather, they didn't want it. No place left to run to.
He had been young then.
Thus, the question that arose.
-Couldn't they have fought back…?
-I must teach you this too.
-Yes?
Mok Ri-won recalled Mok Seon-o's words that day, gazing at the falling leaves in the front yard.
-Not everyone in the world can resist the hardships they face.
-Why?
-Because they are the weak. Resistance itself demands strength, leaving them only to wail. Yet…
-Yet?
-…Even for such pitiable folk, the world does not lend an ear to the weak's cries.
*
Mok Ri-won endlessly surveyed the village, scrutinizing each trace one by one.
'This must have been a clothier's.'
Clothier—apt, perhaps.
Ragged scraps of hide and cloth barely qualified, yet their displayed decay suggested as much.
Turning his head revealed a counter that seemed for accounts.
Beneath it, black, dried matter indistinguishable from its original form.
Likely fodder or herbs.
Perhaps even local currency.
At the clothier's center lay a skeleton with neck bones elongated in flight.
Likely the owner, guarding his humble shop.
Mok Ri-won stared long at it before moving to the adjacent butcher's.
Certain it was a butcher despite no meat scraps, thanks to the skeleton sprawled there.
The butchering knife clutched in its hand, and hooks on the wall for hanging meat—undeniable.
'This commoner tried to protect his shop too.'
Mok Ri-won's steps continued.
Past shacks that served as shops, to homes, then the outskirts.
Dang Hwa-seo watched him with worry.
The man's footsteps, painting the tragedy in his mind, showed no sign of stopping, until the woman finally spoke.
"Young Hero Mok, enough now…."
Enough—time to leave.
She understood his heartache for the tragedy, but lingering in sentiment would derail all plans.
She was about to say as much.
Step-.
A sound came from afar.
Blatantly artificial—unmistakably footsteps.
The two martial artists with keen senses turned toward the source.
And they beheld.
"A child?"
A little girl.
Incomprehensible, yet there she was before their eyes—peeking from behind a building.
Thud-!
The girl fled.
So swiftly her features weren't discernible.
But what did that matter.
Mok Ri-won turned toward her.
Dang Hwa-seo blocked him.
"Wait—it's suspicious."
Dang Hwa-seo stared him down squarely.
"No child could be here. Residual Blood Valley fell twenty years ago, and as even you sense, Young Hero, it's choked with deathly qi and poison—no commoner could enter."
"Something's off."
Mok Ri-won silently regarded Dang Hwa-seo before spitting out his blood poison reed.
"But it was clearly a girl."
"More like it 'might' have been."
Mok Ri-won's brow furrowed slightly.
"What do you…."
"What did we see before entering this place?"
"…A spirit beast."
"Exactly. A spirit beast. One that shouldn't be here."
Dang Hwa-seo shared her deduction, born from the eerie signs now felt.
"Merely twenty years—not nearly enough for a spirit beast to spawn and grow so large. Before seeing that girl, I thought it had simply migrated, but…."
That girl just now.
It pointed to one clear fact.
"…Someone may have brought the spirit beast here. To guard this place."
"That would mean…."
"It might not be a girl. Or even human. Just like the spirit beast."
Dang Hwa-seo thought.
Someone hid a secret here, one best left undiscovered.
"If not human, then what?"
"I have my guesses."
Dang Hwa-seo's gaze turned to where the girl vanished.
"This land is steeped in deathly qi and poison. Nothing but human corpses remain. And among them, something took human form."
Mok Ri-won realized what she meant.
"…A jiangshi."
She was saying.
That girl might be a jiangshi born from this ghost valley's unique conditions.
*
The standoff dragged on.
Dang Hwa-seo inwardly prayed he wouldn't indulge his peculiar curiosity this once, while Mok Ri-won, deep in thought, avoided her gaze.
Tense moment.
Dang Hwa-seo, eyes squeezed shut in prayer, saw it go unanswered.
"…I must go."
"Young Hero Mok, please!"
"It might truly be a girl who wandered in by mistake."
"She'd have asked for help then!"
"She might see us as foes."
"…Enough!"
Dang Hwa-seo shouted, thinking.
'I must be firm.'
Not impossible, but a mere 'not impossible' possibility.
Yielding to his stubbornness here risked needless peril.
"We must leave. We've already slain the human-faced spider—if we stay, we might encounter whoever brought the spirit beasts here! No, that girl-shaped thing appearing could be bait itself!"
Obviously, processing spirit beasts was worlds apart in difficulty from capturing and relocating them alive.
One mustn't rule out at least peak Pinnacle Realm, or even Transcendent Realm experts.
"Young Hero Mok, romance is fine, but always remember: in the jianghu, beware most the elderly, women, and children."
"…."
"Answer me!"
Mok Ri-won's lips remained sealed.
Even Dang Hwa-seo, ever indulgent of his stubbornness, felt her temple throb this time.
About to press further.
"Little Sister's words are morally right."
Mok Ri-won spoke.
"But wrong for a hero."
Halt-.
Dang Hwa-seo's body froze.
Exasperation birthed a hollow laugh.
"What…."
"Little Sister, I've always wondered one thing."
Mok Ri-won walked slowly past her, toward where the girl vanished.
"You know what you say—I do. Nothing more fearsome than villains in weak guise. None more vicious. You're right to warn vigilance."
"Young Hero M…."
"But then, doesn't it get strange?"
Mok Ri-won halted as he spoke.
"A hero protects the weak. Shields the weak. That's what a hero is—so if I heed you, it means heroes must beware the weak."
Mok Ri-won poured out his thoughts.
No recent musing.
This quandary had plagued him since vowing to become a hero, absorbing the jianghu's axioms from Beggar King.
"A hero protects the weak. Yet heroes must beware the weak. Then…."
A stubborn riddle.
"If we shun chivalry toward those we must aid, whose chivalry is it for?"
Mok Ri-won looked at Dang Hwa-seo.
A wry smile.
Dang Hwa-seo halted.
She had retorts aplenty.
This was a special case unfit for such words; yours could advocate for villains; romance doesn't save lives, etc.
Yet Dang Hwa-seo swallowed the dozens surging forth.
Because it was irrefutable truth.
She herself had been saved by such truth.
Unable to voice them, she licked her lips, sighed, and posed another question.
"…Over nine in ten chance it's not human."
"That leaves one in ten possibility."
"You're gambling limbs on nine-in-ten odds."
Dang Hwa-seo's fists clenched.
Irrational even to her own ears, yet she asked.
"…If it's a trap—what then?"
Mok Ri-won's eyes widened.
Then curved like crescent moons.
He understood her permission.
Infuriatingly, even now he shone radiantly.
"No matter."
As expected.
"Facing such threats is heroism; we cultivate strength for that."
Truth again.
"That's why we hone our martial prowess, isn't it?"