Voyage to the Bottom — 6
I slept well.
When I woke in the morning, Choseol's body moved with a remarkable softness. I had pushed it a little hard, I'll admit. I made ready to leave the room, then took up the lantern at once and walked out of the inn.
I hadn't left so much as a tip, and still the innkeeper treated me with scrupulous courtesy right up until I was out the door. I liked that. If there were a rating to give, it would be five stars. He had also prepared a preserved ration for me — roasted grain flour, the sort of parched meal a traveler carries. With that, I could walk a long way.
The lantern, shaped like a Western gas lamp and somehow brighter than when I had first taken hold of it, went with me as I turned north.
Due north, and then northwest, and Mount Kunlun would come into view. Even so, calling the place Mount Kunlun was like Seoul National University Station in my faded memories: you arrive at the name, and the real Kunlun still lies a long way further in. Where humans lived, where Daoists lived, where immortals lived — the three were kept apart.
The deeper one went, the more staggering the gulf in civilization and technology became. The immortals' realm in particular possessed a technical capacity beyond not only the world in my faded memories, but even certain worlds already living through an age of space — or past that. So entering by the proper method was the simplest course. If I could simply force my way in and meet them, I would. But when I looked through the memories of Daoists and immortals, there wasn't so much as a bolt-hole I might crawl through unseen. A frontal approach was the only choice left.
Planning what I would do next, I walked the midday streets. Strangely, a great many gazes kept finding me. At first I thought it was my height. When I followed the looks properly, though, they weren't on my face or my body. They were on the lantern in my hand.
Going about with a light burning in broad daylight is odd, I'll grant that. Keep an ordinary lantern of this sort lit and you waste the fuel — and it runs hot besides. This one wasn't a light that gave off heat. It could shine on and on and stay cool. And those stares vanished once the sun went down. Not so much because people had stopped finding it strange. There was simply almost no one out walking the night streets. Now and then a drunk passed, or people heading home from work that had stretched into the night brushed by me, faces half dead.
The main road took the long way around, so to get out of the city faster I cut into a narrow lane. I hadn't gone far before people blocked me, front and back.
"Tough bitch. How the hell do you walk all day without a rest?"
"Word is you're carrying a pile of gold. So, regrettable as it is, now…"
"Boss? What's the matter? Hey! What do you think you're—"
Seven men. Three of them kids around adolescent age. Too few. Turn them to gold again this time and they would come at me. Last time there had been plenty of strangers, so they moved exactly as their desires moved them; here they all knew one another, and above all they had something of a hierarchy. It wasn't a fit place to stir up the same chaos as before.
I was turning over how to deal with them when their words suddenly thinned and their faces went slack and hazy. The lantern shone a pale blue, and as if spellbound they came up to me and touched it. They shriveled, the way a person compresses, and slid into the liquid filling it.
A wet thud.
Someone dropped from the roof.
"Ah— ahh…"
No. It hadn't been seven in all. Thirteen, counting everyone. Some had fallen from the rooftops; others were walking slowly toward this spot from a considerable distance. One by one they drew near, touched the lantern, and were sucked inside to become fuel. A little later, even the child who seemed to have been keeping watch was drawn in.
Mm. The cleanup is quick.
The light brightened another shade. So this is why people bother with good tools. No need to do a thing — it tidies itself. Simple, and good.
Hm?
Let me correct that. Fourteen in all.
A faint light showed from a tucked-away corner. I went toward it and found a child with their face buried in their clothes, trembling all over. Like an ostrich out of my faded memories. If you don't look, does the danger go away? I had no particular enthusiasm for cleaning, so I walked on past.
More important was how very convenient the new toy was to use. Even drinking them down like this, I could take warmth and memories. The memories weren't whole, of course — not the way they are when I kill for them — but getting even this much was something. This was definitely good.
Turn it into an object. I hadn't thought of that.
Only a guess, but a person probably couldn't manage it. With this yokai, the ghost story came first, and the creature was born to match it — made, from the moment of its creation, to light a lantern on a night road, lure people in, and devour them. Crush a monster like that down into an object, and what comes out is an object that lures people with light and eats them. So a creature born from a ghost story as its origin has a chance of becoming a useful thing of this sort. And because it is an object, it lends itself nicely to the mistake of thinking a person might use it.
If the chance comes later, I ought to go looking for monsters like this. But not this time. The destination is Mount Kunlun, and the objective is Yuanshi Tianzun.
If Tongtian Jiaozhu Dagon was an invasive species from outside the glass bottle, then Yuanshi Tianzun and the immortals were very likely native life of this one. They might have come from some other bottle themselves. Either way, if they possessed a technique capable of defeating Dagon, who had crossed over from another world, then the odds were high that they too could shift their bodies into another world. That is why I am walking this long road to meet them. Little by little, the moment of meeting draws nearer.
Pale lantern in hand, I crossed the alleys and made for the gate that led out of the city. I was glad to pass through this one quickly.
I pushed through the wilds and crossed city after city. In between, I watched the ones who had taken me in.
Won Hu-gong of the Mount Hua Sect reached Mount Hua first of all. But far from hearing him out, the sect seized him on the spot. From what they said, Mount Hua's situation looked very bad — because from their point of view, Oh Myung-sung, who had taken the Heaven-Defying Demonic Qi into himself and fallen, had originally been one of their own.
Mount Hua was deeply unstable. First, Yu Jo-yeong, the sect leader who had led them, was dead, and not long after the martial tournament that decided the Leader of the Five Sacred Mountains Alliance. He had won, and become Alliance Leader, only to be assassinated a matter of days later. And the one who killed him was Oh Myung-sung, given over to the Heaven-Defying Demonic Qi and fallen.
In truth, Yu Jo-yeong had ambushed Oh Myung-sung after hearing that his own daughter had been murdered by him. On the day of the attack he shouted, demanding to know why Oh Myung-sung had killed his daughter. But Oh Myung-sung had not killed her. Someone had fabricated a false rumor, and Yu Jo-yeong had fallen for it. His daughter does seem to have been dead by then, so if a father who had lost his child lost his reason to rage, I can understand why the lie took.
At any rate, deceived by someone else, Yu Jo-yeong began a fight that meant nothing. When his martial skill proved inferior to Oh Myung-sung's, he seized Goo Mil-mil as a hostage and very nearly finished Oh Myung-sung off. But at the last extremity, Oh Myung-sung came into his harvest. Every wound regenerated, and he struck Yu Jo-yeong down.
Afterward, when Oh Myung-sung lived and went to the monk and told the truth, no one believed him. All that remained was the story that the Demonic Cult had corrupted him, and that the sect leader had been murdered. So when another person appeared who had fallen in the same way, the people of Mount Hua erased Won Hu-gong as if he had never existed.
Yes. They killed him. And until the moment he died, Won Hu-gong cried out that his junior brother had been murdered by Jeong Chil-jin, and begged them to settle the grudge.
The gaze didn't continue past that, so I can't say clearly what Mount Hua will do. But if I read the faces I saw through Won Hu-gong's eyes, the ending will not be a good one. They wore the look of people who wanted nothing to do with a troublesome affair. His wish will most likely be trampled flat and disappear.
Cheon Baek of the Mount Tai Sect, meanwhile, was the exact opposite. He returned to Mount Tai saying that even looking like this, there was a truth that had to be told, and he met an elder, and he told them what he had lived through. The elder of Mount Tai comforted him and helped him hide his appearance. Skin gone a stark blue is hard to conceal, whatever you try. They trusted Cheon Baek's word completely, and meant to lay their grudge against the Mount Song Sect in Mount Tai's name.
For the record, the sect leader of Mount Tai led his disciples out to subjugate the Demonic Cult and still hasn't returned. When he comes back, this current may break — but from the reactions around him, he is an upright man, the sort who would rage all the harder if he were going to rage at all.
I would like even a small crack to open in the Five Sacred Mountains Alliance, and beyond it in the Murim Alliance. Along that crack, eyes will turn away from Kunlun.
And last, the Mount Song Sect.
The Leader of the Five Sacred Mountains Alliance is a man of Mount Song, and the Vice-Leader, Jeong Chil-jin, is of Mount Song as well. He lost in the midst of the fight at the Alliance Leader tournament, and even went blind — but when Yu Jo-yeong, the man who ought to have become Leader, died suddenly, the seat fell to him. He then came under the Murim Alliance and rose high within it. But a blind man is a blind man. Most of the work was carried out by the Vice-Leader, Jeong Chil-jin. Easy enough to see where the real power sat.
And that Jeong Chil-jin returned to Mount Song carrying the Moxie Sacred Sword. He told them that I had slaughtered the people there with the Moxie Sacred Sword, and that when he clashed with me and it would not be decided, I fled.
Sama Baek was furious. But the people of Mount Song believed Jeong Chil-jin rather than Sama Baek. And Sama Baek now had blue skin — a shape truly convenient for framing someone.
That, from the real power of Mount Song — and a blue-skinned man saying the words are a lie. No need to say which side is the more convincing.
The people of Mount Song rushed in to kill Sama Baek. But unlike Won Hu-gong, he wasn't caught and killed. He escaped Mount Song unharmed. And that day, there came to be one man who meant to take his revenge on Jeong Chil-jin.
For the record, I am sending the Heavenly Demon Divine Art even now. Sama Baek's sense of self is strong, so I don't know whether the memory will take properly. If it did, he will have gained the strength to take that revenge.
Mount Hua fell silent. Mount Tai rose to stand against injustice. At Mount Song, a lie became fact outright. Even the Five Sacred Mountains Alliance, only one part of the Murim Alliance, is like this.
And I remember a report the Heavenly Demon received, long ago — that someone presumed to have come from the authorities was watching the Heavenly Demon Cult. Now the Heavenly Demon Cult is gone, and only one vast armed body remains: the Murim Alliance. In the martial world, aside from the Murim Alliance, no great armed power is left.
According to my faded memories, in ancient China a warlord became a new nation with ease. A risk, isn't it? If they have any common sense, they will try to divide it and break it apart — a few memories glint with that thought.
I don't care what becomes of the martial world. The authorities may keep a senseless silence, or they may step in with sense. Either is fine. I don't need to set the board the way I used to. I only need to reach Kunlun.
So, please. I hope there is no one standing in the road.