Chapter 77

A night so dark that almost no light showed beyond the window passed, and morning came again. I led Soo, still half-asleep and staring at nothing, out of the room and toward the kitchen.

Soo's body had returned to what it was, but she didn't know how to do anything. From her memories, taking up a rag to clean and running errands was the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠whole of it. She was still only a single digit in age, so not knowing how to do things was perfectly normal. Of course, if I meant to put her to work I could, and in this world there really were children laboring in restaurants, depending on their luck. I had no intention of it. I didn't know how to cook.

I knew the cooking of countless worlds, but the ingredients were always subtly different. Even if you know how to make kimchi, you can't cook it when a world has neither napa cabbage nor chili peppers, can you? This was the same. I did at least know how to prepare ingredients, so the result looked passable enough. Today, for once, it had actually become food, with nothing burned. Honestly, if someone asked about the taste and slapped me for it being completely unseasoned, I would have deserved it. Still, Soo ate it well, and that was a relief.

We were sitting before the hearth, eating breakfast, when I heard someone outside.

I went out and found eight people standing there. One of them was a face I had seen before. When I was first summoned to this world, he had been standing where the hall masters stood. That was not where the guardians stood, so in all likelihood this man was a hall master of some hall as well. His clothes did not make him look like someone who could work sorcery.

"Who are you?"

When I stepped forward and asked, the man whose face I recognized came up and introduced himself.

"I am Gi Jacheon, Hall Master of Cheongung."

A hall master after all. Cheongung—the Palace of the Stream. The name sounded like the Heavenly Palace, but it was written with the character for a stream, not the one for the sky. He was hall master of the office that handled the petty business of the Heavenly Demon Cult's main compound, the one visible far off in the distance. If a maid or an attendant so much as stirred, he would be the man most certain to know. Assuming, of course, that reports actually made it up the chain.

He looked me over from one side and then the other, and spoke.

"I worried, hearing you were a monster that eats people. But aren't you simply a woman?"

I could tell Soo was clenching her fists behind me, but it wasn't really something to get that angry over, was it? I motioned for her to stay still, then answered that the man before me was right.

"I don't eat people."

Just a woman who needed warmth. That ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was all. In any case, from what Gapjae had learned by running about, this man meant to stand against the current Heavenly Demon. So why had he come here?

His eyes flicked to Soo behind me, then came back.

"So it seems. Yes. Do you know of the humans dyed purple? Some third-rate martial nobody, nothing more than a guardian, has climbed into a hall master's seat. Can such a thing be done for just anyone?"

Hehe.

At last, someone had come to make contact because they wanted a Harvester. It had taken longer than I expected. I had thought they would come the moment Eunchun and Byeongil became elders. Still, that they had come at all was something, wasn't it?

I answered him.

"It can be done for anyone. But I limit it to three people a day."

At that, the man called Gi Jacheon stared straight at me. He studied me for a long while, as if trying to read what I was thinking, and then he asked:

"Were those three decided by the Heavenly Demon?"

Straight to the number.

"No. It simply ended up that way as I went along."

If I recited the words of the contract, I could do thousands at once, even tens of thousands, but I did not explain that. A small number was the only number that could be controlled. A lottery burns hotter when it has limits and a ceiling. Ordinarily the currency people spend is money. In this case, the currency was people. When the way out is narrow, obsession comes more easily.

"Three, is it. So that was why it was three. Very well. Then grant your power to these three."

From the seven men standing behind him, he chose three and brought them forward. One stared at me with a tense face. Another gazed blankly into empty air with vacant eyes. They were certain I would grant them power. I could see they thought it only natural that an order would be obeyed. They did not see a monster. They saw someone who simply handed power out.

I had already put on a show of strength for the Heavenly Demon, so I considered turning them away here, just this once. But increasing the number of Harvesters seemed the better choice. I spoke the words of the contract.

The three accepted, and all of them became Harvesters, with purple hair and skin of pure white. Gi Jacheon circled them, looking them over with great care.

"Strange, that I feel no qi at all. One of them was a common man who had not even entered the Qi Refinement realm, and yet his energy vessels are already open. He has not been born anew, though. It is as if he has become the finest state that person could possibly reach."

He muttered on, taking each wrist in turn, reading the pulse or sending internal energy in to check.

He was right. One had been a guardian, one a mere odd-job man, and one a lump of meat raised like livestock. The last, especially, was similar to Choseol. But he had not spent most of his life bound to the heavens and floating in the air, the way Choseol had. In the finer details they differed greatly. Even so, in having been raised by a method that erased a person's self, this man and Choseol were the same.

His cerebral cortex had nearly shriveled away, and his mind did not turn. I had wondered why his expression was so blank. He could not think in the first place. I remembered hearing that when a human suffers too much stress, they can change like this. This one had been kept in that state for a long time. They drove nails through his hands to fix him in place, parasitized him with all sorts of insects so the seizures would exercise him, and inserted a tube into his neck to inject nutrients.

If this world was, even in part, like a realm of immortal cultivation, I could vaguely guess. These were ingredients for elixir pills. Only a hypothesis, for now. It would come to light soon enough.

Light and warmth? Almost none. Smaller than a speck of dust. Of course, even that was fine by me!

Gi Jacheon came and stood before me.

"This is splendid. I will stop by often from now on, so if you lack anything, tell me. I will prepare whatever you need."

Gi Jacheon was saying the same sort of thing as the Heavenly Demon. I could see he thought seizing power would be a simple matter, and that was amusing. He brought his face close to mine, and from right under my nose, looking me straight in the eye, he spoke.

"Only—do not speak of this to the Heavenly Demon."

As expected. This had been done behind the Heavenly Demon's back. Of course. This man, too, meant to drive the Heavenly Demon out. A majority of the hall masters had turned their backs on the Heavenly Demon, and he was one of them. I had to weigh that carefully before I answered. I settled on making it clear that I was not on the Heavenly Demon's side, and opened my mouth.

"The Heavenly Demon made the contract first. I keep my contracts. But if I am not asked, I will not answer."

I would move only on the terms of the contract. I had no intention of doing anything beyond that, so he could see to the rest himself. Folded into those words was another meaning as well: if he did not ask the question straight, I would not answer. Several meanings, packed into a single remark. If he couldn't grasp it, that was his own fault.

Hehe.

"So you will support me, if only passively? A mind that turns like that—you will live a long time."

Chuckling, the man laid a hand on my shoulder.

"Good. Then how do you reckon a day? Is it precisely one full day from now?"

He asked while fiddling with my shoulder. Saying it was exactly twenty-four hours, like a cooldown, would have been a bit much, and it was awkward to explain why a day was the standard at all. In truth there was no such cooldown. There were two standards plausible enough to leave no room for further questions. Sunrise, and sunset. I considered which to choose. If I wanted this man stuck with the more troublesome option...

"Sunrise."

He accepted sunrise without a shred of suspicion.

"If I have need of power hereafter, I shall have to come at dawn. Yes?"

Then, all at once, his face went white and he snatched his hand off my shoulder. He stared at his own hand as if profoundly shocked, and then he looked at me the way one looks at something frightening. Had he, when he set his hand on my shoulder, tried to look inside me with qi? I had not felt a thing. And yet I did not think this body was lacking a sense for qi.

"Pardon me. I will take my leave."

The farewell was barely a farewell at all, little more than a flick of the hand, and he hurried off with the others toward the buildings of the Heavenly Demon Cult. What on earth had he seen inside me? To leave after dropping nothing but a question was cowardly. Honestly.

I went into the kitchen. The moment I did, Soo rushed at me and threw her arms around me. I couldn't tell what fondness had gotten into her to make her act like this. I hadn't thought people grew attached so easily.

I spent the time with Soo. Not simply playing, of course. There were the techniques Eunjae remembered, and I copied them. There was no sword, so I took up a suitable branch and swung it about. The difference between a man's body and a woman's made the movements a little strange, and it was not only that. In certain places there was not enough force to move ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the body by muscle alone. It was not simply a lack of strength. Another kind of power had to push from within. Qi probably needed to flow through those places, but I had nothing of the sort.

Lower dantian, middle dantian, upper dantian. In those three compartments there was no space, no anything. I couldn't tell what was supposed to be what. The feel of other people using qi, and the memory of it, remained, but it would not manifest in the body I occupied. Even when I copied the state of their bodies at the moment they released energy, as if turning on a faucet, not a thing flowed out. From that, it did not seem this body was filled with any special power. Or else all power of that kind was already being spent to contain me. That was a persuasive hypothesis. It would explain why Rebecca Rolf could use a special power through ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her heart, and I could not.

For the sake of the experiment, I spent the whole day copying Eunjae's movements, and the movements of the swordsman from the first world. And I realized one thing.

This counted as exercise.

I could do it together with Soo.