The Incompetent Hero and the Giant Root Pill (2)
A tremendous rumor was currently sweeping through Sichuan Province.
Word had it that a single soldier from Yeom Kingdom had raised hell at the Sichuan Tang Clan — and that he had fought the clan head himself to a draw. Few people put much stock in the latter claim, but the former had spread far and wide as established fact.
The Ox hour, the very night I arrived at the Sichuan Tang Clan.
I was wandering the streets alone like a lone wolf prowling the dark — or at least, that was the poetic version. The truth was, I was headed for Maradang.
Why drag myself out alone at this ungodly hour to go to Maradang? No special reason, really…
Earth Cleaver.
Green Lotus Divine Palm.
Screeeeeech!!!
The two techniques collided, and a thunderous roar tore through the air. In the middle of that chaos, Dan Seolpung looked me dead in the eye and said:
"The Ox hour. Come to Maradang alone."
…What did he just say…?
BOOOOM!!!
After the techniques crashed together, the whole thing fizzled out in a messy, halfhearted finish.
I had already gotten a solid read on his skill, and once he had named Maradang as the meeting place, there was no reason to keep fighting. I sheathed my sword. Dan Seolpung, for his part, seemed to have sparred with me solely to deliver that message — he dissolved the palm of qi he had formed and let it go.
After that… well, they treated me like a guest, more or less.
They did not throw me out, but after the stunt I had pulled at the Tang Clan, their martial artists kept giving me some pretty pointed looks. Still, they had watched my spar with Dan Seolpung, and he himself had said nothing particular about me or Baekryeon, so no one came looking for an open fight. If there was a silver lining, that was it.
"Welcome, Hero Cheonu. You have only just arrived in Sichuan, and already you have shaken the entire province to its foundations."
When I reached Maradang, Ilyeon was already waiting to greet me — even though I had never told a soul I was coming.
"What is your connection to the Sichuan Tang Clan?"
"Hahaha… Come inside first. Someone is already here waiting for you."
Already here waiting. I did not need him to name names to know who that was.
I followed Ilyeon down into the underground chamber I had visited earlier that day. Dan Seolpung was there, waiting for me.
"You are late."
"That is rich, coming from the man who dragged me out to a dump like this in the middle of the night."
"You came alone?"
"Yeah. You said to come alone, so I slipped out quietly by myself."
Dan Seolpung nodded and sat down on a battered old chair. I followed suit and settled across from him. Once he confirmed we were both seated, Ilyeon fetched another chair from upstairs and joined us.
"All right. How about you start by giving me some background."
"Ah… Allow me to handle that. In truth, our Haoman is a secret intelligence organization of the Yeom imperial family. Everything about us is kept under the strictest confidentiality, but… Sichuan is a rather closed-off region, which makes operating here quite difficult."
"So you latched onto the Tang Clan?"
"L-latched on… We merely received their cooperation."
Same difference.
"Then did you spill my story too? That I already knew about Maradang?"
"Heavens, no. As I said, we only requested the Tang Clan's cooperation so that Haoman operatives could blend into Sichuan. Even the clan head himself knows nothing of our actual activities. In fact, I only learned that you had come to Sichuan with people from the Tang Clan after you had already left, Hero Cheonu."
"Hmm… I find it hard to believe that man just gave you free rein out of the goodness of his heart."
"We share certain intelligence that even the Tang Clan's own information network struggles to obtain. That is the extent of it."
Fine. I would buy that for now.
I more or less understood how Dan Seolpung had pinpointed this place and designated it as our meeting spot. The real question was why he had called me here at all.
"I summoned you here for two reasons. The first concerns your compensation."
"What, take the money and get lost?"
"And who was it that refused that offer?"
That would be me.
So he actually intended to compensate me properly.
"The second concerns intelligence I commissioned these people to investigate."
"Intelligence?"
"Ah, for reference — this is information Hero Cheonu already knows. You were, in fact, the first person to see it."
"I already know it? And I was the first to see it?"
What the hell is he talking about? The only intelligence I gathered here was…
"…The Beastman Alliance preparing for war?"
"Correct. It is rather an amusing coincidence, actually. What the clan head requested was intelligence on the Beastman Alliance. In the course of gathering that information, we uncovered evidence that they were selling Geogeonhwan to nations beyond Yeom Kingdom's borders. And at the same time, Hero Cheonu happened to be searching for information on Geogeonhwan — so the two lines of inquiry overlapped by pure chance."
Amusing, my ass. There is nothing funny about this, you bastard.
"Why commission an investigation into the Beastman Alliance?"
"The other great families and sects do not seem particularly concerned, but their movements have been far from ordinary. Our Tang Clan also carries the blood of the sacred beast Imugi, which makes us a beastman lineage ourselves. Because of that, the Beastman Alliance has frequently reached out to us. In fact, if one were to name the place in all of Yeom Kingdom with the second-highest beastman population, it would be Sichuan."
"And the first is Cheonsan, the Beastman Alliance's stronghold?"
"Precisely."
At some point Ilyeon had slipped away; he returned now with tea and set it before Dan Seolpung and me. Dan Seolpung took a natural sip, wetting his throat.
"Contact from the Beastman Alliance is not something that began in my generation alone. It happened under my predecessor, and his predecessor before him. But at some point, their advances simply stopped. I found it hard to believe they had simply given up. Their efforts to bring the Tang Clan into the fold went back a very long time. If their contact vanished without a word, there could be only one explanation."
"…They no longer had a reason to recruit you."
"Exactly. And as you have already heard, they harbor deep hostility toward Yeom Kingdom. If they have absorbed enough power that they no longer need to court the Tang Clan, their next move is simple."
War.
To vent their rage at the kingdom that had driven them into Cheonsan — to burn everything in Yeom Kingdom to the ground.
"So I commissioned them to investigate. And today was the day I was to receive the results."
"And Hero Cheonu arrived today as if by perfect timing. One might almost call it the guidance of Heaven."
"What a curious coincidence."
Looking at it this way, it really was an uncanny coincidence. Uncanny enough that I was starting to think maybe I ought to just crush the Demon King's fragment while I was already in Yeom Kingdom.
Well… going back and forth would be a pain anyway, so I was going to crush it regardless.
"Which brings me to a proposal."
"?"
"I do not believe you are a native of Yeom Kingdom."
At Dan Seolpung's sharp observation, the first person I looked at was Ilyeon.
"Was it you?"
"It was not."
"Then how did you know?"
"Your sword. Is that the Sword King's blade?"
Uh… how the hell did he know that?
I stared at him blankly. He shrugged and answered my unspoken question.
"Among the records preserved by the Tang Clan, I have seen a sword technique remarkably similar to yours. The fundamental forms of the sword — the horizontal cut, the vertical cut, the thrust. A basic sword art refined with stubborn, single-minded intensity to its absolute limit. From that foundation comes a sword qi of extreme practicality, capable of answering any situation. The Sword King Secret Arts. Though it is strange. The Sword King Secret Arts I know are rooted in perfect fundamentals paired with explosive qi manipulation to support them. You do not appear to use qi at all."
"Ah… there is a story behind that on my end."
I averted my eyes. He did not seem to consider it important; he simply nodded and steered the conversation onward.
"In any case, I have heard that the Sword King was a man of the Western Continent. It stands to reason that you, who inherited his sword, are also a man of the West. Your conduct itself has many aspects difficult to reconcile with someone of Yeom Kingdom."
"…"
If he had already figured out that much, there was no point in clinging to the mask and the wig. I took them off and set them on the table. Dan Seolpung looked at my real face and gave a short snort of laughter.
"Surprisingly handsome."
"I am a pretty good-looking guy, yeah."
"…To continue — your identity as a soldier of the Yeom imperial family also appears to be a temporary status you acquired through a chance encounter with Haoman here. Once your business in this land is finished, you intend to return to the West at any time, do you not?"
Actually, no.
I came here to wreck a fragment of the Demon King.
I felt a little awkward, but I did not bother correcting him.
"I do not know why you seek the Taeyanghwan, but I will have one crafted for you. In exchange, cooperate with us."
"Taeyanghwan…? Sorry, but what I am looking for is…"
"Hm? You do not know? Originally, Geogeonhwan is something that branched off from a pill called the Taeyanghwan."
"…?"
Hold on. I was looking for Geogeonhwan because it supposedly makes your junk bigger.
But Geogeonhwan is a derivative of something called the Taeyanghwan?
"Ah, you did not know? I had assumed you were already aware."
"All I know about Geogeonhwan is that it makes that part of you bigger."
"Hmm… Then allow me to explain. The original form of Geogeonhwan — the Taeyanghwan, or Sun Pill — was a legendary elixir coveted by any martial artist who practiced yang-attribute internal arts. At first it was merely one among many such pills… until someone discovered a common trait among those who took it: most of them possessed formidable virility and considerable size in a certain department."
"…How the hell did anyone even find that out?"
"Do not ask me. I do not know either."
Terrifying. The world of murim.
"In any case, the discovery that the Taeyanghwan enhanced the user's virility and physical endowment became established fact, and martial artists with a keen interest in that particular field — along with high-ranking bureaucrats — began to take a great interest in it. However, the ingredients required to craft a Taeyanghwan are rare, and the process itself is laborious. More importantly, for ordinary civilians who are not trained martial artists, the sheer volume of energy is excessive — it damages the body rather than strengthening it."
Well, that tracks.
"And so a diluted version was created, engineered to extract only the effects of enhanced virility and increased size. That is Geogeonhwan — the Giant Root Pill."
"Oh…"
But if that is the whole story, Geogeonhwan does not sound all that dangerous.
I distinctly heard that taking it makes the thing grow, and then you ejaculate yourself to death on the spot.
"That said, even Geogeonhwan is not free of side effects. Overdose, and the excess yang energy forces the user to expel every drop of their essence — and they die."
"Ugh."
"For that reason, both the manufacture and sale of Geogeonhwan are forbidden. The Taeyanghwan itself may only be crafted for personal consumption — producing it for distribution among the general public is likewise prohibited."
So that was the story.
…Wait a second.
"Hey. Ilyeon."
"Yes?"
"So you people at Haoman already knew all of this?"
"We did, yes."
He nodded without a shred of shame.
What is with this bastard and that shameless attitude?
"You absolute sons of bitches. You knew and you still put me through all that hell? You looking to die?"
"You said you were looking for Geogeonhwan! You never said anything about the Taeyanghwan!"
"They are the same goddamn thing!!"
"…In any case, as I said earlier — if you require a Taeyanghwan, I will have one made for you. In return, cooperate with us to…"
"Stop the Beastman Alliance's war?"
"Precisely that."
I had no reason to refuse. There was nothing for me to lose.
"Fine. But there is one thing I want to ask."
"What is it?"
"Why meet in a place like this, quietly, and alone?"
Dan Seolpung fell silent for a moment at my question. Then he answered.
"I believe there is a traitor within the Tang Clan."