Why Use a Sword? — 2
Figures in pitch-black garb, faces veiled in cloth, throw both arms overhead and roar it. But live on the continent and that cheer ought to be ten thousand years, not a thousand. I can't see why they're hailing him the way one hails a king — and a king sits beneath an emperor.
Have I wandered into an army? There's a drilled, razor angle to every swing of their arms, and when the cry turns to ten thousand demons bowing, all of them fold at the waist and prostrate themselves.
Then they rise, flail their arms, wave their hands, and bow to the floor again — and they do the whole sequence twice.
This is hardly an idol concert, yet the moment someone appears across from me they throw themselves into it with everything they have. A woman, oddly thick with muscle? No. A man. As if the sex hormones had slipped out of balance: the pelvis juts strangely, and he looks like someone who began to change and stopped halfway, or is still in the middle of it. He is a man. A man dressed as a woman?
"Are you the Chaos of the Four Seasons, the one said to have led the Martial God?"
The voice sits quite high. It is still a man's voice. He doesn't seem to be forcing it, and yet an awkwardness clings to the sound all the same.
In my memory, the faded man marvels at it — a primordial, ancient Heavenly Demon, have they lost their minds? A primordial ancient Heavenly Demon. Ah. Right. They're talking about him. He belonged to the Sun Moon Divine Cult. The faded man never actually laid eyes on that work, so the knowledge itself is badly fragmented, but I do know this much: the man appeared as a mid-boss, and he died. A man who trained in a eunuch's martial art until his sexual identity came apart.
But the Martial God? Martial God. The air in here feels like a murim tale. Who is that?
I turn over every Harvest I can remember. First I set aside the ones from settings that make no sense, and the ones who aren't human. Set the first world aside and there aren't so many of them anyway. The most plausible person.
"Do you mean Eunjae, by any chance?"
A murmur rises around me. They say I am not the one they had in mind. I took a guess, and it seems I missed. Have I ruined this?
Then the man in front of me lifts a hand, and in perfect order they shut their mouths and bow their heads. Tremendous presence. This doesn't look like a society that would readily permit an outfit like his — though if this isn't the world Eunjae came from, the culture could be something else entirely.
"That is the Martial God's true name. Very few know it. From the look of you, you haven't called up something wholly absurd."
With that, the man in women's clothes comes up to me. Closer, it shows even more. He's working to hide it under the robes, but the frame of the bones still comes through — the part that can't be hidden. Feminization has gone some distance, and still I can see the limit no amount of it will carry him past. Why would someone like this have summoned me?
"The Chaos of the Four Seasons. A monster out of legend that appears before the despairing, pours forth an energy beyond all description, and vanishes. But in the days when the Martial God was still called the Heavenly Demon — when villains styling themselves the orthodox sect ambushed him and dealt him a grievous wound — they say he met the Chaos of the Four Seasons, and came away with a new body and a power beyond mortal reach."
He extends a finger blanched white with powder and points it at me.
"Ghost dwelling in that child's body. Are you the Chaos of the Four Seasons?"
If that was Eunjae, then yes. But here, I deny it.
"No. I don't have a name like that."
The name the faded man carried is one I can never seem to use, no matter how I try, so I gave up on giving myself one. A name isn't much of a hindrance to obtaining warmth, in any case.
"But if you're asking whether I was the one who granted Eunjae the thing someone called a blessing — yes. That's right. I did it."
I don't lie. As always, I tell the truth. Someone did call it a blessing. What actually happens is different: I pour myself in, and it changes. That someone called it a blessing remains a fact. It matters that I leave myself a way out, in just this fashion.
"You speak exactly like the wretch this seat knows. The very same stench of a filthy swindler."
He knits his brow all at once and takes one step back. Oh? Did I slip? Startled, I search his face — and he snaps his fingers.
About a second passes. Something squirms inside my head. A living thing, touching the brain? There's the sound of an insect crawling, and it stirs the brain and feeds me pain. Revolting. A many-legged bug creeps along the inside of my skull, prodding as it goes — frontal lobe to occipital lobe, and on to where the spine begins, and there it bites into the bundle of nerves. It hurts. Mm. So what. Set beside the cold, this is nothing. I look at the man, thinking it's my turn to answer, and the ground rushes up to meet me.
Thud. My body folds at a strange angle and I drop to the floor. What? Ah. An unconditioned reflex — is that what this is? Of course. If it can stimulate the brain, it stands to reason it can reach the signals running down the spine. Its legs rake the nerves, the body loses its balance, and I seize.
Mmm. A bug. So it's a bug. There's a light? Hehe. It's right in front of me, perfectly placed for the taking, so I take its warmth.
Crack-crunch. Ah. That was a mistake.
A bug twisted into something grotesque bursts free, wrecking my head completely on the way out. Right — take only the warmth while it's still alive, and this is what you get. A monster. It isn't eating anything, and still it keeps growing. What becomes of the conservation of mass, then? The question surfaces in a corner of my mind. The bug writhes madly and turns into an asymmetrical, nonlinear body, which is to say it has become a shape with no use. For a different reason, though, it doesn't live long at all.
"Cult Leader!"
"O Supreme One!"
The people around me cry out in alarm, but the hand of the man in women's clothes is faster. In an instant, black energy gathers into his palm as if inhaled, and a line of mingled black and red scores itself across the empty air. The line cuts the bug to pieces. He flicks the hand he'd held like a blade's edge, shaking it off — so he killed it bare-handed. Strong. And I'm meant to lead an opponent like this in the direction I want? Isn't that far too difficult? Even so, I still have to add to the Harvests. What else is there to do?
I get to my feet. A will that deserves no name but killing intent pours in from every side, as if detonating.
Crunch. A great fissure splits the place where my head had been. When it vanishes, a woman with purple hair is standing there. That's me. I open my mouth in the head I've made anew.
Judging by what the man in women's clothes just did, I know the bug was put there to control a person. Of course, I don't particularly mind. Honestly, it's someone else's body. No different from a status effect stuck to your avatar in a game. I had wondered whether the ailment would clear, but it saw itself out, so that's a relief. While I was at it I looked for more, and there's no light besides that one. Only the one. It was a shocking sight, to start with, wasn't it? Seizing the initiative with it now ought to make everything easier from here.
"The petty games are finished now, aren't they? Then, before we move on to the matter of a contract, let's introduce ourselves."
What I mean is that slipping a bug into me ranks as a petty prank, and I am letting it pass. For the record, I am an expert at reading faces. Whether my meaning landed — the man in women's clothes twists his expression, faintly. He is deeply uncomfortable, and tense. Hehe. Well then. Let me come at the arts-and-athletics crowd from the literary side. The murim counts as arts and athletics, doesn't it? Surely they haven't given up on language class.
And I take one step. The fissure is slowly knitting shut, but the limit is close. Mishandle this and this place, too, could shatter the way the first world did. What I can still regenerate is probably one time more. Dangerous as it is, I've decided to act as though I'm certain of myself here. If this is Eunjae's world, it is a world very much like a murim novel — and the ones before me, especially, are the sort who look up to the strong and submit. Show them too weak a face and I'll be the one taken for a fool.
"This is my name."
I look at the man in women's clothes as I introduce myself.
"Heavenly Demon."
He answers with exactly one word, as if no other name were required. Around us, people begin offering titles — Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, the Mountain-Cleaving Grand Lord, and others besides. Most of them are forms of address recounting feats the person before me has accomplished. After a little time, the man in women's clothes raises his hand, and in an instant every mouth around us closes. To a human it would be a thoroughly threatening sight. To me, it only looks like several warmths gathered in one place.
Now it's time for the consultation proper.
"Is that so? The rite you humans call a greeting is finished, then? Now, the point."
Telling them, in effect, that what they just did is worth nothing at all, I say the thing I actually need to say.
"I will give myself to you. In return, later — once you have brought everything to its end — I will take all you possess then. How does that sound?"
I hold my hand out to the man in women's clothes. No. A moment like this ought to be said another way.