Chapter 75
The Heavenly Demon had gone back.
I turned my eyes to the child, who was still staring down at her own arm with a stunned, vacant look. The arm that had swollen so badly she could barely bend it had shrunk to less than half its size. No—not shrunk. It had simply gone back to what it had been.
If I meant to erase the traces the previous cult leader's daughter had left, this was the only way. The Heavenly Demon would very likely have known at a glance whether the worms were still there, so I had blinded him by making the child into a Harvester.
The previous cult leader's daughter had said it was only natural for a person's body to contain worms. She said it, and in the same breath produced a medicine that drew them out. That she carried such a thing at all meant that, inside the Heavenly Demon Cult, a body full of worms was simply how things were.
Ordinarily, one would condemn it. But planting something in the flesh to watch those who stray, and to punish them, is extraordinarily efficient. Once it becomes a culture as taken for granted as it is in the cult now, the revulsion thins. You can even force those who have not undergone it to submit. What people take for granted is sometimes deadlier than poison.
It is like the Faded Man's world, where the state, in order to control its people, assigned every adult a serial number and recorded each person's unique characteristics. Grow accustomed enough to having your freedom infringed upon, and you forget you ever lost it. By any sensible measure you cannot trust a government office, and yet you permit them to take your freedom from you. Isn't that absurd?
The Heavenly Demon Cult is the same. They accept without a flicker that worms are put into their bodies, and that running means dying because of those worms. And if the worms do not agree with the body and the person dies, then it simply cannot be helped. This child, too, had been marked to die for failing to fit the present order.
She was born in a village under the cult's rule. Anyone born in these parts, I am told, is by tradition educated in the Heavenly Demon Cult and then sent back out. Tradition, of course, is only a polite word for the exploitation of labor.
Come here, and after a brief education in letters you are put to work at once as a maidservant. You labor for about fifteen years. The exceptional remain. The rest return to their villages. The work is mostly the kind that takes a great deal of strength—laundry, scrubbing every corner, waiting on the girls of higher standing. After you have been here about two years, the worms go in.
But because it is simply how things are done, no one thinks it strange. They are taught, rather, that only once the worms are inside you do you become a proper person of the Heavenly Demon Cult. And that teaching twists into the logic that it is right to use, however you please, anyone younger than yourself who has not yet passed the two years—because for those two years you yourself suffered for exactly that reason. Passing on, unchanged, the injustice one has suffered: that is what humans do.
I can't be the only one who has to endure it.
It is the same everywhere. But this child was unlucky. She had labored for two years and risen in rank, only for the worms to reject her body. Because of them she swelled, and her whole body itched and ached. Even so, she had to keep working. Otherwise she would die. Among the children brought to the cult, one or two are executed as examples, and the cult makes the children do the killing with their own hands. They declare that this person is useless to the Heavenly Demon Cult and have them stoned to death. So that no one can hide inside the crowd, they make them step forward one by one to throw. Throw too weakly, and you are dragged out alongside the condemned.
An efficient way to drive a person mad. You could also call it the process of adapting, if one means to live inside the Heavenly Demon Cult. The child who had adapted worked desperately. But anyone could see at a glance that her appearance had been ruined past recognition. She was still young, and yet she knew what would become of her. She also knew that no matter what she did, she could not escape death.
She had resigned herself, unable to avoid dying, when she was suddenly dragged away by a hideous monster. That is everything this child has lived through, up to now.
If the worms inside a person of the Heavenly Demon Cult were suddenly gone, whom would they suspect first? Even if I had grown attached to this child—so easily? One must not grow complacent before a clever person. It may already be too late. So, praying I had not been found out, I sat down in front of her. Now that I knew she could speak, I had to do what needed doing.
"The name of this body is Choseol. Please tell me yours."
A greeting. Of course I already knew the child's name, but there is meaning in saying such things to each other, isn't there?
"I'm Soo."
The Faded Man's memories glitter, as if laughing, and drag up the title of some work or other. To toy with someone else's name.
I stepped closer, took hold of her old, threadbare clothes, and changed them for new ones. The moment the clothes changed I felt something crack, faintly, but it was not a fissure large enough to see. I would have to use this power carefully. It comes with a great many conditions, and I cannot rewrite the world at will the way someone who alters reality could. Still, it is something. Better than having nothing.
Then I rose. Behind me the child hurried to dress.
"Will you follow me?"
"Yes!"
A good answer. I stood at the entrance and waited, and when Soo came running, fully dressed, we walked together.
Taking the house where I am now as the center, the Heavenly Demon Cult's buildings lie to the south, and the ruins I visited yesterday to the northwest. To the east a long cliff runs on, and beyond it pillar-like mountains of rock rise without number. No—if I am to describe the terrain properly, I should put it this way. Forest lies to the north and west, and to the east and south those pillar-like rock mountains thrust up above the water. That is why one cannot see far, and surely why the cult's buildings stand in a place like this.
I mean to go down beneath the rock mountains. It bothers me that, after I left the place where I was summoned, I traveled by boat. I cannot simply go straight down, though. The cliff is far too steep. Climb a long way north from here and the slope eases until it meets the water. The trouble is that I have to pass through the forest.
What could possibly happen?
I walked with Soo. Perhaps because the body has changed, my pace is quick. I even hop along quite well. It is terribly funny that Soo only has to jump for our eyes to meet at the same height. Choseol is around twelve, but in height she is much like an adult woman. I do not know whether this is fully grown or whether there is more growing left to do, but it is strange for a child of only eight to jump all the way up to an adult woman's eye level. That is how greatly the body strengthens once one becomes a Harvester.
If, as the Faded Man's memories suggest, this is a place like a xianxia realm, then we are very likely at the very bottom—a world where transcendent beings one could never approach, no matter how one leapt, run rampant. But when I analyze the memories of Harvester Five, it does not seem to be that kind of world. The terms are probably only similar. At worst, it would mean they exist in a world these people cannot even perceive. That, in its own way, suits me.
Could they withstand me? If I poured myself out, could the world bear me up? Or are they so strong that even I could do nothing—strong enough to kill me? Either would be fine. If they have substance, we are certain to meet.
Thinking that, I entered the forest with Soo, who was beaming and bounding this way and that. The vegetation is not particularly unusual. If anything, it is strange how similar it is. It is not much different from the plants I saw in the first world, or from those in the world the Faded Man knew. Leaves green, stems brown. There are differences, of course, but the resemblance is uncanny.
A faint memory of the Faded Man surfaces. Something about how, when a host star's temperature is similar, the chance of green is high—but I loathe words I cannot understand, so I ignore it. Knowing a word and being able to understand it are entirely different things. Still, I would like to see, just once, a world where the light is so dim that the plants spread out in purple, or, conversely, a world so bright that plants grow in masses of something close to yellow.
All ninety-two worlds are alike. At least, in the regions where Harvesters live, there are places without a single plant. For reference, there were one hundred and seventeen when I arrived here. But twenty-five of them handed me their warmth and vanished forever from their worlds, and that was that.
In any case, Soo and I reached the water without any great danger. No—I had not thought of it at all on the way. Our house. It sits at a far higher altitude than I expected. This is practically the same as having come down a mountain. When did we climb it? I will just tell myself the body is getting healthier.
I glanced back at the house once, then, as planned, crouched at the water's edge and studied it. It is clear. Look closely and the bottom shows through perfectly. Plants grow thick beneath the surface, and the fish moving under them catch the eye. When I look at the warmth, there is a considerably enormous creature somewhere nearby. Hoping it would come closer, I lifted a finger, dipped it, and licked. It is not salty. A freshwater lake? I had thought it might be a bay where the sea had eaten into the land and come inland, like Ha Long Bay. If this is inland, it is an awfully remote place.
While I was gathering geography like that, Soo came up behind me. She peered this way and that, then tried to dip her hand and taste the water as I had. I moved to stop her, and then I didn't. It is better to try what one can try. When I quietly watched her, she looked back at me as if to ask why anyone would taste such a thing.
"Drink carelessly, and worms get inside you."
When I told her the truth, she sprang back with a look of pure revulsion. And yet, the way she is shaking all over—she isn't frightened out of her wits, is she? Ah. Right. A mass of worms had burst out of her body along with a great quantity of blood. Looking back through the memory of that time, the worms were called the Three Corpses. What they had given her then, though, was a tiny pill. They must be small when they go in.
She was shaking so hard I thought she might break, so I caught hold of her. After I looked at her for a long while, the trembling finally stopped. She is still unsteady on her feet. Taking a child who can barely walk, passing beneath the cliffs, and going down under the cult's buildings would be difficult. A burden, this one. But what can I do?
I caught her up and settled her on my back. She clings strangely close. The weather itself is mild, but this is a season hot by day and chilly by night, so midday now ought to be quite warm. She is a child. It can be that way.
I started back up. I had not noticed on the way down, but it puts a considerable strain on the body. It is not a sharp hill. The path descends gradually, almost like level ground. Is that why? I could train with this.
Ah—training reminds me. Can I use martial arts as well? Once we are back up, I should try it. I remember every method Eunjae used, and conveniently there is a Harvester right beside me on whom I can test them.
I am lucky.