Voyage to the Bottom — 3

No. This is a little faster than I expected.

Just before. While the sun was going down, the man known as Vice-Leader of the Five Sacred Mountains Alliance had been hard at work testing the Moxie Sacred Sword. It seemed all he had to do was pour his qi into it. He lengthened the blade and shortened it, made it thick and made it thin, and the Vice-Leader, unexpectedly, had the way of it down in no time. If you already know how to use qi, the method isn't all that difficult.

That night, he used it to cut down every last one of his own men around him.

Yes. He couldn't master his desire, and he did the thing at once. I had thought he would at least draw a little nearer to Kunlun, or haul them off to somewhere his own power held, before he made his move. Too fast, isn't it.

After he had cut the people down with the Moxie Sacred Sword, he tucked the sword against his chest and drew a blade. Then he kicked the side of the carriage to pieces. Splintered wood drove into my body, and the Vice-Leader came up to me where I lay soaked in blood, said he had no need of witnesses, and cut my throat.

Blood sprayed. My head came away from my body.

I could have taken his warmth on the spot and made a monster of him, but this time I didn't. When my severed head struck the ground, I found people still pressed to the earth, barely alive. He simply seized my head and my torso, flung them far from the road, and was gone.

I lay there a long while. Insects gnawed at the body, and a wild beast, drawn by the smell of blood, came near, so I regenerated. The moment I set my head back in place and pushed myself up, a large creature came into view. A tiger. Out of the dark the beast emerged, baring enormous fangs, and looked me over as if something about me were wrong. I had no interest in beasts, so I ignored it, and it too slunk away into the dark of the forest. A relief that it didn't rush in to eat me. I still don't know whether I can regenerate if I'm eaten.

I brushed the dirt and the insects from my body and made ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for where the people were, hoping someone might still be alive.

The carriage we had ridden in is burning, roaring with flame. I look around. The man called Vice-Leader is nowhere to be seen. He must have left this place.

From the wreckage, I can roughly tell what he meant to do. He's arranging it so the tale will run that I broke out of here, slaughtered the people of the Five Sacred Mountains Alliance, and fled. In mountain country where beasts like the tiger I just saw roam at will, a thing like a corpse doesn't last long. Even so, he seems to have fitted the logic together, just in case. He means to say that I cut them down with the Moxie Sacred Sword. Where there is no one left to set a lie right, a lie is bound to become the truth, and in the space between the two, something vanishing without a soul the wiser is an ordinary affair. The trouble is that the one cast as having done it is me.

A situation, cooked to a truly delicious finish, sits right before my eyes.

I went and sat down in front of a person who was dying with resentment written across their face.

"Hello. Humankind."

In an instant the face turns to one seized by terror. Oh? Did this one see me die? Ah. Now that I think of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it, this is the person whose eyes met mine when my head was cut off. It must be frightening. On the other hand, whatever I say now will carry weight.

"If things stay as they are, you will die. But if you make a contract with me, you can come back to life in a whole body."

At those words, they hesitate. So I left the one who was hesitating, sought out the others still alive, forced them awake, and put the same question to them.

One, two, three, four. Five. Six.

One of them died in the middle of speaking, so that one doesn't count.

"I'm sorry, everyone. I can make a contract with three people a day. Five of you are alive right now. Two, I cannot save."

I can see the bodies of the living flinch. Yes. Numbers are easy to grasp, and for that very reason they seep all the more easily into the heart. That is exactly why swindlers bring numbers out when they have something to say. Even a meaningless number, the moment you lay it down, takes on the force of persuasion.

I speak the words of the contract. And then I added what came next.

"Accept, and it stands as the contract. Only—up to three."

First come, first served, with a limit on the time.

In truth, there is a way for every one of them to live. If someone here contracted on the wish to save all the people dying in this place, they might well gain a supernatural power capable of saving them. But I don't say that. Because what I need are people who can carry a grudge, and carry it far.

"I—I'll do it."

The man who had been farthest away said it then.

"Good."

When I let myself pour into him, he turned like porcelain, and then his whole body cracked apart the way earthenware made of clay will crack, and from inside he was born again—a man with purple hair and skin of a stark, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠vivid blue. People whose lives hung in the balance do end up with skin like that, I see. A strange sight, but alive, at any rate.

Four remain. Two places. A contest of nerve.

Then the man who had changed first walked up to me.

"What is it you want?"

"I believe humankind ought to choose for themselves the things they wish to do. And if I may ask a favor—the people who died here. Please make them graves, at least."

It sounds as though I have a personality, doesn't it? As though I respect the dead? I am not saying it for their sake. I am saying it to lower their guard against me. No real constraint in it at all—only a request that they do what ordinary human decency already requires. Doesn't it sound like nothing so bad? In reality, it is already settled that their warmth will be taken.

"I—I'll do it. I can't... die... yet."

This time it was the man who had been passed over for dead, his head buried under a mound of sand. He too came out with blue skin.

Three remain. One place. Choose late, and the odds fall. Six in ten. Five in ten. Three in ten, and three parts more.

I add a little more goodwill.

"From here on, the number of people I can save is one."

Let them choose properly. Who goes first. Who dies. And who takes the heaviest weight of guilt onto their back, and does the work.

While the time passed, one person died. And so the odds rose again. But I don't explain that. I am leaving them, on purpose, to boil and reduce.

The carriage that had been roaring with flame is nearly burned out now. In the midst of the failing light, a man raised his hand.

"Me. I'll... make the contract."

He regenerated. And one person was left behind.

The Five Sacred Mountains Sword Sect. The Five Sacred Mountains Alliance, for short. Five schools joined their strength to make it: the Mount Hua Sect, the Northern Mount Heng Sect, the Mount Song Sect, the Mount Tai Sect, and the Southern Mount Heng Sect. Of those who lived, one is of Mount Hua, one of Mount Song, and one of Mount Tai. Among them, the man of the Mount Song Sect stands in a rather important place. He is the junior brother of the Alliance Leader, the blind swordsman, and of the present Vice-Leader as well. He will have a great deal to say. And he will hold a certain right to be heard.

I went up to the fire that was all but gone and, looking at the three who still had not properly come to their senses, made this request.

"You'll help make graves for the dead, won't you?"

A night packed full of darkness. I took my place behind the light. This is staging. And into it I poured a single drop of malice. Now look, with your own eyes, at the corpses of people who were once your comrades. Who in the world was it that made them this way? So that I might set their priorities to my own taste, I asked them to bury the dead. And every one of them agreed.

In the meantime, there is still someone alive. Who, exactly, is going to take the blast? And emotion is contagious.

I deliberately went to a spot close by the road where the corpses lay strewn, took up a blade I had picked up somewhere, and dug at the earth with all my effort. Some followed me and helped. Others gathered the bodies.

"Ah—ah—aaaah. Aaaaaaah! Why! Why, damn it all! Jeong Chil-jin! You worthless piece of trash, a bastard without a match under all of heaven!"

And in the end, we met someone who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was still alive. Or rather, we met someone who was dying. A small greeting, and that person died. As it happened, they had been close. Emotion burst. A scream tore out of them, wailing tangled with rage, and the Vice-Leader's name leapt free of it. And those who had survived looked at one another.

Yes. That's right. Meeting someone who is dying hurts more than meeting someone already dead. You know that well.

And by the time the howling had subsided and everyone had been laid in the earth, the faces of the survivors were a ruin. The hatred wavering in their eyes, especially, is very much to my liking.

That was when a man of the Mount Tai Sect, Cheon Baek, came up to me.

"Why did you save us?"

Someone cooler-headed than I expected.

"My purpose is to reach Mount Kunlun. Riding in the carriage was comfortable, since I didn't have to walk. Being bound didn't trouble me, and I kept quiet because I assumed that once we arrived at Mount Kunlun, everything would come to light."

That is what I told him. Of course, had we reached Mount Kunlun, it would have come out that I am a monster. But I didn't lie. Strictly speaking, it was the truth. Still, it sounds as though I had some tie to Daoist masters, or to immortals, doesn't it?

"But things have turned out like this."

Then a man who had been standing behind, Won Hu-gong of the Mount Hua Sect, came forward.

"Why didn't you help us? Someone like you—when that bastard used the treasure, you could have helped!"

A person who throws his anger first at whatever stands in front of him. Give him a reason that's easy to grasp, and it becomes easy to understand.

"As you can see, this is all there is of me. For the most part, this flesh can regenerate. And three times a day. One chance to a person—the granting of a chance to regenerate a body. I said as much to a man named Yu Dae-jeong, but I cannot use the Moxie Sacred Sword."

Of course, my having the power to regenerate and my being unable to use the Moxie Sacred Sword are entirely different matters. But set side by side like this, it sounds as though I have no ability to fight at all. And by adding the name of Yu Dae-jeong, sect leader of the Southern Mount Heng Sect, whom I met before, I raise the credibility of it. Think about it coldly, and that too is only something I said. Can you build a logic that would hold? Can you?

"The treasure can't be helped. I will go on to Mount Kunlun. You of humankind may do as you please. Then—goodbye."

Once more I cast the suggestion that I am not a person, and just like that I leave them and go. I tossed it out so that later, when they have met other people and come to speak of me, a misunderstanding will be mixed in with the telling. So that it will be hard for anyone to catch me by the ankle.

I walk in the direction where Mount Kunlun lies. The way is long. But I won't be bored in the meantime. Three more people to watch have been added.