Like an Old Tale
Yi Yeok rose with a smile and drew out the Yaojiyu, then drove it deep into the cliffside rock.
"What the hell. You acted like there was some special method, and it just... works like that?"
Crunch!
Yeo Gwi, who had been grumbling, shut his mouth.
The Yaojiyu split the rock as though it were a block of tofu. Glowing, it traced out countless arcs of sword-light. Chunks of stone the size of a child's head, sheared into hexagonal facets, came tumbling away in a rush. What remained was a square hollow, sunk about a foot deep into the face of the cliff.
Yi Yeok didn't pause. Again and again he swung the Yaojiyu, and each swing carved stone away in shards. Before he knew it, he'd cut six feet or more into the rock.
"Nice handiwork. I'll have to put you to work peeling radishes at a restaurant."
Yeo Gwi muttered.
When Yi Yeok had reached about a yard deep, he stopped for a moment and rolled his shoulders in slow circles.
"Taking longer than I thought. The Yaojiyu's too short."
"Why don't you take a break, then?"
At Yeo Gwi's words, Yi Yeok snorted.
"Manage your expressions a little better. Your mouth says one thing, but your face is full of complaints."
"Me?"
"Darling's right. It's written all over you."
Stung by the pinpoint accuracy, Yeo Gwi flinched and stepped forward.
"Step aside, I'll take over while you rest."
He drew his sword, took a deep breath, gathered his focus, and slashed hard at the rock.
CLANG!
"Agh! My wrist!"
Yeo Gwi clasped his wrist, his face twisted on the verge of tears. It was a miracle nothing was broken. True to his nature as an assassin, though, even in that moment he didn't let go of his sword.
"You idiot. Does that look like ordinary rock to you?"
Yi Yeok nudged the sprawled Yeo Gwi with his foot.
"You're in the way, so move. Only the Yaojiyu can do this. No complaints about splitting the work fifty-fifty now?"
Mo Yeong giggled.
"You've known him for years and you still thought that blade was ordinary?"
"Damn it all, that old man gave me this sword as my coming-of-age gift! It's supposed to be a famous blade!"
"Famous by mortal standards, maybe. The Yaojiyu is probably an artifact from the Immortal Realm."
"That cursed old miser..."
Yi Yeok silently went back to carving out the cliff wall. He didn't hurry, but neither did he stop — a steady, unbroken rhythm. Yeo Gwi and Mo Yeong busied themselves hauling off the cut stones and shards, hurling them down into the gorge below.
One shichen later, the last chunk of rock finally crumbled away, and a vast chamber opened before them.
Yeo Gwi, without so much as a backward glance, started to march straight in — until Yi Yeok caught him by the shoulder and held him back.
"Get back."
"My treasure!"
"Idiot. There's no telling how long this place has been sealed. We need to let the air circulate first."
"Do we really have to go through all that tedious nonsense?"
"Listen to your elder, you turtle. Unless you'd like to breathe a few centuries of rotted air and die for it."
A while later, once all three judged that enough time had passed, they entered the chamber one after another.
As expected, the interior lay wrapped in pitch-black darkness. Neither Yeo Gwi nor even Yi Yeok could see a thing. Unless one concentrated for a long while and employed the Eunbaek Soul Convergence, nothing could be sensed at all.
For Mo Yeong, however, the darkness posed no obstacle whatsoever — a benefit of the Divine Cat Battalion's distinctive martial arts. Yi Yeok also recalled hearing that the sect's founder had learned those arts from a cat that had cultivated for thousands of years into a spirit beast. Not that he'd believed it.
"What is this?"
At Mo Yeong's words, Yeo Gwi grew impatient.
"What? What is it?"
"Just... a stele. A wordless stele — not a single character carved on it."
"What? That can't be right!"
"If you don't believe me, light a lamp and see for yourself."
Yi Yeok scoffed.
"Have you ever heard of a thief doing that? You think we carry lamps when we break into someone's home?"
Yeo Gwi groped through the darkness for his pack and pulled out a torch stick.
Fsssht!
After several strikes of the flint, the torch burst into flame. Yeo Gwi held it at arm's length as though the light stung his eyes.
"What the... it's real?"
The room they entered held nothing at all. Only a single stele, looking for all the world like a gravestone, rose from the center of the chamber. And just as Mo Yeong had said, not one character was inscribed upon its surface.
Yi Yeok deployed the Eun-Soul Convergence, but even with his senses sharpened many times over in recent days, he detected nothing. It came down to one of two possibilities: either there was a hidden space the technique couldn't perceive, or there was nothing else here at all.
"Damn it all, this is insane! We went through hell to find this place, and it's nothing but that?"
Then Yi Yeok spoke with a solemn expression.
"This calls for the proper rites."
"Rites? What blasted rites?"
"Think about it, turtle. This looks like someone's tomb. Whoever they were, they obviously weren't a mortal — an Immortal Realm cultivator, most likely. Naturally, we pay our respects first."
Yeo Gwi wore a puzzled look for a moment — then, suddenly, something seemed to click. He flung his torch to the floor and bowed flat before the stele.
"Esteemed Senior, please accept this bow from your unworthy junior!"
Yi Yeok nodded approvingly. Mo Yeong found herself wondering if Yeo Gwi might actually be a genuine idiot.
THUD!
Yeo Gwi struck his forehead against the floor, prostrate.
"Esteemed Senior, since we've had the pleasure of meeting, kindly hand over some gifts!"
Yi Yeok nodded again, looking satisfied.
"That's it. Just a little more! Put more sincerity into it!"
"Please bestow upon me your boundless treasures!"
THUD!
"Good, it's working, it's working! I think it's working! One more and we've got it!"
"Esteemed SeniooooOOOR!"
THUD!
Silence settled over the chamber where the stele stood.
A moment later, Yeo Gwi rose with a bewildered expression.
"What? Nothing happened?"
"Moron. You actually believed that? Of course it's a tr—"
Grrrrrrrmblll.
At the sudden rumble, Yi Yeok's mouth snapped shut.
The wall behind the Wordless Stele split clean down the middle, and a soft radiance spilled out from within.
Yi Yeok, utterly dumbstruck, managed to find his voice.
"Of course... right, of course I believed in you completely, turtle. Just as you believed in me, I believed in you. That's all."
Yeo Gwi cackled and strode into the newly opened space. The other two followed. The walls of the new chamber gleamed a deep jade green, as if carved from polished gemstone. Night-luminous pearls sat atop pillars scattered throughout, filling the interior with soft light.
Mo Yeong leaned in close and whispered at Yi Yeok's ear.
"What, it was actually true? How did you know all that?"
"...That turtle. I don't know about anything else, but his luck is absurd."
"Huh? So you didn't know either?"
Yi Yeok snorted.
"Well, I once heard our old man tell a story much like it. I was young, so I figured it was just a bedtime tale he'd made up for me."
Yi Yeok surveyed the scene before him with a complicated look in his eyes.
"I was certain it was pure fiction. Turns out it was real."
Yi Yeong turned to Mo Yeong.
"Kitten. Your sect's founder learned her arts from a cat that lived for thousands of years — don't tell me that's true too?"
Yeo Gwi let out a whoop, his eyes gone wide and round.
"Treasure!"
Throughout the chamber, gold and silver ingots, jewels and pearls, and every manner of ornament lay heaped up like small hills.
"Thank you, truly, thank you! You thieving bastard, I'd believe you even if you told me you'd brewed soybean paste out of red beans!"
Yi Yeok said airily,
"Naturally. I am a man of insight who has mastered the workings of heaven and earth — who can even see through the fickle nature of the human heart."
And then he too looked around. He wasn't indifferent to treasure either, but somehow, an uneasy feeling gnawed at him.
"I'm certain of it. This isn't a treasury — it's a tomb."
Mo Yeong was right. Yi Yeok nodded.
"Seems that way. This is just the entrance."
Yeo Gwi scrambled over in a fluster.
"Where? Where? Where do I bow next?"
Yi Yeok and Mo Yeong sighed in unison.
"Turtle. Let's grab a reasonable amount of what's here and head out."
"What? Won't there be more inside?"
"Oh, certainly."
Yi Yeok said this while eyeing the hoard already piled in his own arms.
"Think about it. Getting this far wasn't easy, but there wasn't a single trap meant to harm us. Isn't that suspiciously careless? It's a warning. It's telling us to take what's here and go. There's bound to be something far deadlier deeper in."
"Then that means there's something even more precious in there!"
"Probably. But there's no knowing whether fate means for you to have it. Greed invites calamity. If you drop dead in a tomb, who's going to bury you?"
Just then, a small dagger caught Yi Yeok's eye.
When he picked it up, it was far lighter than an ordinary blade. Looking closer, it appeared to be forged from Sky-Mist Stone.
Yi Yeok turned the dagger over in his hands, examining it. It was a rather finely made piece.
"What is it? What's that supposed to be?"
"Want it?"
Seeing that the dagger was made of stone, Yeo Gwi's face fell with disappointment, and he drifted away.
Yi Yeok smirked and tucked the dagger into his waistband.
"Even if we only take what's here, how are we supposed to carry it all?"
Yeo Gwi's face crumpled.
"Among the treasures of the Immortal Realm, they say there are artifacts that can hold Mount Sumeru itself — treasures that embrace heaven and earth."
Mo Yeong added,
"And I've heard the Seongdo Immortal Sect has a technique called the Universe in the Sleeve. Even without such a treasure, it lets you carry any number of things with you, however many."
"What good does that do us right now?"
Yeo Gwi snapped. But Yi Yeok's eyes glittered.
"Worth cultivating for that alone, it seems."
Yi Yeok turned to Yeo Gwi.
"But you're right — for now, at least, it's useless talk. Don't get greedy. Take only as much as we can carry, and no more."
"Where are you going?"
"Now that we've found the place on your father's map, locating the Yangcheon Sect will be simple. You two pick out what's worth taking while I run a quick errand."
Then he asked Mo Yeong,
"What was that fat cow's name again?"
"Good heavens, you came all this way without even knowing your target's name? Song Chui."
"The world is a strange place. What a horrendously tacky name."
Yeo Gwi spoke up.
"You're leaving us and going alone? Now?"
"Turtle, you leapt off a cliff and got a nosebleed, nearly wrecked your wrist swinging that sword, and cracked your forehead bowing. Can you really move right now?"
Yeo Gwi fidgeted.
"And on the way here you insisted on driving the carriage all by yourself, nearly plunged us into a bottomless gorge, and then spent the last three days exhausting yourself chasing us with that worthless lightness skill of yours."
"Still..."
"Leave it to me. If there are any healing pills, I'll grab those first. They'll help with the injuries — and we might need them at the Nokhyeon Sect later, too."
Yeo Gwi stared at him with eyes that said, What's gotten into the money-grubber? Mo Yeong wore a similar expression.
Leaving the two of them behind, Yi Yeok turned and walked away. Before he went, he added one last thing.
"Turtle, remember my words. Don't go any deeper, and don't touch anything carelessly. Take it from a senior thief — carry only what you can answer for."