Why Use a Sword? — 9
When night fell, the child sickened — listless, fading by degrees. There had been worms in the body, after all, and swallowing medicine to vomit them out was never going to set anyone right on the spot. If anything, a backlash was only natural, given how long the parasites had been living there. A great deal of blood had come up as well.
I watched the child in silence, thinking that if death came of this, I would simply take the warmth. A small hand was also clenched tight in the hem of my clothes. So I sat down beside the child and looked out through the eyes of the four Harvesters.
First, Gapjae.
I had wondered whether the sight of the previous cult leader's daughter had set some scheme turning in him. Sure enough, the moment his watch ended, his feet carried him somewhere other than his own room. According to the memories of the four, he was bound for the finest of the ten halls.
The halls are named Sun, Moon, Mountain, Stream, Bamboo, Pine, Turtle, Crane, Deer, and Elixir Herb — the Ten Symbols of Longevity, written into the names themselves. The halls have rankings too, the way Seoul's districts carry a hierarchy everyone knows and no one quite admits. The surprise is that the highest is not the Sun, but the Elixir Herb.
Why?
The making of medicine has been a lucrative trade since ancient times. Of course, one writes pharmaceutical and reads a drug put to other uses. They even say humanity's first crop was not grain but a hallucinogen, which rather settles the matter.
Gapjae went there. He called someone over, claiming he had urgent business to lay before the hall master, and he did in fact meet the man. The hall master was middle-aged. The moment they were face to face, Gapjae sold the information he had gained at dawn: that the previous cult leader's daughter had come in.
The hall master turned the words over, then asked what he wanted. Gapjae demanded an elixir pill capable of raising him to a realm called the Golden Elixir Stage.
The faded man's memories flare bright. He flies into a rage — who goes and buries xianxia inside a murim story? They are both Eastern fantasy, are they not? It seems to me closer to the Investiture of the Gods and that family of tales. Hardly worth such a fit. I press the memories rising in my head back down.
The hall master said he would give the pill only if Gapjae became his hands and feet. Gapjae nodded and agreed. At that, the hall master summoned someone to bring an elixir with a most peculiar name, and handed it over.
Gapjae took the pill and studied it closely. It looked like a lump of meat leafed in gold. All at once he turned his anger on the hall master — wasn't this a pill with which one would be lucky merely to reach the Crystal Realm?
The hall master answered that the real thing would be given once the next task was brought off safely, and then, as if nothing remained to be said, he drove Gapjae out. Gapjae left shouting that it had better be handed over once the next job was done. The hall master, of course, did not answer.
And yet, astonishingly, as he made his way back to his own room, a smile rose to his lips. He had gotten what he wanted, he muttered. Demand what is difficult, then accept what is easy. That was the trick.
He returned to the room, swallowed the pill, and sat in lotus position. Something seeped from the pill into his flesh with uncanny speed. From the body's response, I could tell it was not nutrients soaking in. Those would have had to pass from the organs out into the flesh; instead, the moment it was inside, an unknown force seeped straight into the body.
What I had not expected was this: the tips of the light, steeped in black-violet, turned white. The light grew, and covered that place over.
A sharp crack. Flesh twists out of true.
Gapjae's body improves — slightly.
Oh. A medicine that acts upon the light.
Yes. Of course. This is a world with the art to take aim at me and summon me here. Even so, I was surprised. A technique like this.
As the light grew, the warmth grew a little as well. I want that. I can increase the warmth further, and then take it. A medicine of this sort is very likely not the kind that works better the more of it one eats. If volume alone would do, they would only have to make a great deal of it, wouldn't they? Since they don't, each elixir must have its limit.
This world.
I had assumed that, being nothing more than a world out of a murim tale, the only technique worth obtaining would be the one that summons me. But I will need to wander it a little further and gather a great deal of information. Carefully, so the world does not break, if I can help it.
Heehee. Yes. It really is a good night.
Eunchun and Byeongil are asleep, and Jeonyang, drunk on the power he has gained, is trying himself against the Heavenly Demon. The place is a lonely one, well removed from the building where he lives. There he spars with the Heavenly Demon, leaping about as if he were very nearly flying through the air.
Wondrous. Swing a blade, and violet sword-qi flies. Take some strange step, and he crosses a great distance in a single instant; stamp the ground, and out comes a technique identical to the one Byeongil used. The more Jeonyang's strength grows, the more tremendous the Heavenly Demon's power appears.
But there is something strange. The Heavenly Demon's movements and Jeonyang's are not the same. Not motions sprung from a single root — entirely different movements. Come to think of it, the Heavenly Demon as he is now is said to be wholly unable to use the Heavenly Demon Divine Art. Which means he knows other martial arts.
The words Sunflower Manual surface out of the faded man's memories, but I am not certain of them, so I set them aside. I had thought this was murim, and yet there are elements one would call xianxia mixed in. Then it would be no surprise if other things were mixed in as well. I must not fit this world to knowledge that does not belong to it.
The Heavenly Demon and Jeonyang sparred until just before sunrise. Jeonyang fainted, so I could see no further — and still, the information I had gained was considerable. I think I can obtain a great many things from this world.
Morning.
The child who had moaned through the night is asleep now, breathing soft and even.
"I took you for a monster. And yet you behave like a person."
I was turning over what to do with the child when the voice came, all at once. I looked that way, and there stood the Heavenly Demon, still every inch a man dressed in women's clothes. Honestly, it is funny — the outfit is nothing like what I saw at dawn through Jeonyang's eyes.
"Is this child yours?"
If he thinks me like a person, then I ought to make him feel that the thought is right. I mean to try my hand at the question of who the child belongs to.
"Indeed. Everything within this Heavenly Demon Divine Cult is mine. Well? Do you pity the child?"
A lie, here — claiming I find the child pitiable — would only draw suspicion. Which is more believable, after all? Not that a thing one took for a monster merely happened to show a human side. No: that the one who believes himself a monster should prove to have possessed humanity all along.
"No. This one can't even eat properly, and hardly moves."
The Heavenly Demon leaned against the doorframe.
"You keep it dearly enough, for all that. And you have things I never gave you."
He indicated the blanket covering the child. True enough. But this is not particularly important. In truth, the Heavenly Demon is not taking it so seriously either.
"This child has warmth."
I intend, so far as it goes, to say only what is true. The Heavenly Demon stares straight at me.
"An imitation of a person. Revolting. Is there something you want?"
An imitation of a person. In other words, I look like a person. Don't I? Excellent.
Heehee.
Very well, Heavenly Demon. Then I shall be greedy.
"I'm treasuring this because it is yours. May I keep it?"
At my words his face said, at first, well, of course — and then doubt crossed it as he looked from me to the child, and he gave a bitter smile.
"Then it is yours. Take it."
"Wow — warmth!"
I never said I needed the warmth of people. He reached that conclusion on his own, so from now on it will be difficult for him to doubt it. A monster that longs for human warmth. Is that how I appear? Then it is a success. Of course, with everything that has happened, the suspicious looks will not cease. But the degree of that suspicion will have fallen a great deal.
And I have gained a hostage of the easy-to-understand sort. A man like this may not care that it is a hostage, but there is a wide difference between there being such a person and there not. When one holds a means of control for the moment things go wrong, the mind rests considerably lighter. Doesn't it?
"Ah — and I'll need food, and a warm blanket. The child with no name is in pain."
Each time I speak, the Heavenly Demon's gaze softens a little further. The disgust growing on the other side of it troubles me, but that can be tuned as we go.
Just then the child flinched and trembled. Unsteadily, they pushed up from the bedding, looked from me to the Heavenly Demon and back, startled, tried to rise — and sank down again where they were. There is no strength yet.
I caught the child and laid them back upon the blanket. I was patting them when the Heavenly Demon, leaning on the pillar by the entrance, asked me:
"A child with no name, you say?"
"They can't speak."
The Heavenly Demon looked startled. From that, he must not have known the particulars.
Ah. Now that the parasites are gone from the child's body, this may be dangerous. Many things still have to happen if the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult is to fall into chaos.
Well then. Once, here. I ought to let him see what it means to become a Harvester.
I took hold of the child and sat them up. Looking into the face that looked back at me, swollen tight, I asked:
"I will give myself to you. In return, later — once you have brought everything to its end — I will take all that you have. What do you say?"
I hear the Heavenly Demon murmur, very softly, that it is a spell. Strictly speaking, he is right. It is an order. I am ordering a Harvester.
The child hesitates. So I made it simple.
"If you wish to become mine, accept."
Slowly, the child nodded.
Yes. Good.
I made the child a Harvester.
I drew the blanket over her and turned to the Heavenly Demon. His eyes were very wide. Of course. The meaning of those words — not merely the granting of power, but the power to heal as well. Difficult to grasp, unless one has seen it. Now that he knew what a Harvester could do, he would do well to use it properly.
"Three people a day. And it can't be used on the same person again. Be careful."
The Heavenly Demon nodded, his expression dark.
A satisfying morning.