Soo's Jianghu — 6
A few days later.
At last, a person came to the house.
There was only one small problem. That person was a harvester — and a harvester I knew very well.
"Judging by the movements, that's the Heavenly Demon Divine Art the Martial God used. But there are no formulas, and you're only copying the motions. You won't learn the Heavenly Demon Divine Art that way."
I had been exercising when the Heavenly Demon, who had been watching me for days now, spoke. Soo, halfway through mimicking my movements, fled in a rush for the kitchen. There was no need to run. Why was she like that?
"Hello, Heavenly Demon."
I let the branch fall from my hand. I was only exercising to keep this body maintained, and more to show Soo than for my own sake.
"Is all the busy work finished?"
At the Future Hope Church I had always waited to be answered, but here I acted a little more on my own. Staying completely passive is good for catching someone off guard, yet there are far too many other moments when I have to let a thing go. Of course that, too, requires the right environment. Even so, I had a feeling this place would allow it.
"Yes. It's all done. Thank you for attending Jeonyang's funeral."
An unexpectedly human greeting. I had only kept the basic courtesy anyone living in a society is meant to keep. Even at the funeral of someone you hardly know, once you are there, you watch your words and your conduct. That is simply how it is.
The Heavenly Demon came and stood before me.
Skin a stark, vivid blue. The whites of the eyes black. Yellow irises burning dark violet at their centers, and purple hair besides — an appearance that stood out, beyond any doubt. Set those features aside, and she was a beauty. But the alien parts were greater, so to anyone unused to a person like this, she might well look like a monster. It had happened in truth. People who lived in a closed world, seeing someone of a different skin color, would pin the name demon on them and refuse to treat them as human.
Even so, the clump of words glowing inside the faded man's memories was rather dreadful.
What was that even supposed to be?
"Let me ask you one thing. On the first day of Jeonyang's funeral, why did you bestow a blessing on a person?"
She had received a report and already finished one investigation, so now she was asking me. A question of intent was something she could learn only by asking me.
Hehe.
A blessing? Becoming a harvester — so that was how she thought of it. Through a gaze I could not see, she had faintly glimpsed what I was, and yet she did not know what state she herself was in. Which also meant she found herself difficult to grasp. So I chose my words, and let the misunderstanding go on.
"Before humanity used currency, people bartered. I don't have any money."
I said nothing but the facts. True in the first part, true in the part that followed. But my reason for making that person a harvester was something else, and that I did not say. Take another person's question and understand it crooked; let your own answer stay vague. That is an easy way to deceive someone. They line the two answers up and arrive at the conclusion themselves, don't they? And a conclusion you have drawn on your own is, as a rule, hard to take back.
The Heavenly Demon stared straight at me.
Then she asked something else.
"Set against the traces the Martial God left while thrashing, you live far too quietly, doing nothing at all. Why did you come to this world? What do you intend to do from here?"
Hmm.
Now that was a proper question. She was asking about my essence. So I decided to answer with the truth.
"I came to this world for warmth. And as for what I mean to do from now on, I'll answer like this. I want to do only a little of what humanity calls a blessing. I don't want too much."
Yes.
Warmth had been, from the very beginning straight through, the value I pursued. The Heavenly Demon saw it as me having gained warmth by being with Soo. So, to make that mistake an easy one, I answered that I didn't want the work of making many harvesters — as if making harvesters were a job. It connected to what I had done before. I had exchanged the act of making a harvester for goods that were bought.
Well? Doesn't it look as though I paid in labor?
"You're like an immortal who appeared in order to grant wishes."
An immortal. In this world, that was the word used in place of a god. A transcendent being was explained by calling it an immortal. But I shook my head from side to side.
"I'm not something like that. You were the ones who said it, weren't you? Violet Radiant God, Chaos of the Four Seasons. But I'm not great enough to be called a god, and I'm not without rules enough to be called chaos. I'm just... something like a human who became a monster."
And at the very end, I tossed out a little bait she would have no choice but to catch.
The Heavenly Demon knit her brow.
"'Like a human.' You say it so easily."
Pleased, I asked.
"Oh? You didn't know? I was human once. I can't count how long ago that was, but yes. That's right. I was human."
The Heavenly Demon looked startled. Yes. I didn't know what I truly was either, but I knew how my words would sound. Hearing that I had once been human, she would take it like this.
A monster that had gone a little past human.
Wasn't that so?
"You were human? You? That... thing?"
At the end, the Heavenly Demon pointed at me with her index finger. She truly pointed at me. I was looking at myself through a sight that could not be shared.
"Nothing remains of it now but faded memories. One day, I suddenly became a monster."
I had stayed in a cold, dark place until I went completely mad. And then I saw the light. I was a sea lying beneath the surface. As it turned out, I was a monster with no form.
"Thank you for calling me. I mean that."
So I did not say that it had given me a chance to obtain warmth. Whether my words were difficult to understand, the Heavenly Demon stared at me for a long while.
"Is there a reason you think of yourself as a monster?"
Oh? She was asking about that part?
I had thought she would tell me to limit the number of harvesters, or not to make them carelessly. A fundamental question, instead.
"I have no sense of shame, no sense of deference, no sense of right and wrong, and no sense of compassion. That is not a person."
I do not hate my own wrongs. I do not humble myself before others, or yield to them. I do not sort right from wrong. I do not look on another person's misfortune and find it pitiable. Rather, I am glad, because it is an environment in which warmth arises. Not upright people — a society full of people who are not moral. The more a society is like that, the more people kill people. And to my delight, the chances of obtaining warmth grow.
At my words, the Heavenly Demon let out a short laugh.
"Isn't your standard for a person too high?"
So I answered like this.
"Yes. That's why I like this world."
I was telling her that every one of them would live by dying and by killing.
The Heavenly Demon stared straight at me. Soo, hidden behind a kitchen pillar and watching me, was breathing in ragged gasps as if she were choking, which meant some formless energy was being given off. I couldn't feel it. Nothing but a waste of strength.
"All right. I understand. I think I know a little about you."
Ah — Soo was panting for breath. She must have drawn that energy back. In other words, she had pressed me with her questions, and when I did not waver, she had judged me in her own way. A technique only someone accustomed to force would use. You might call it thuggish. But the simpler it was, the more simply it worked, and all the more for anyone who could feel that energy.
"Will you be staying here from now on?"
The Heavenly Demon took one step back, looked around, and asked. I considered how to answer her.
Hmm.
All right. Speaking the deliberation itself would seem human.
"I'm thinking about it."
"Thinking?"
I pointed at Soo behind me. The moment I looked at her, the child broke into a bright smile — and then, as the Heavenly Demon's gaze followed, she startled and ducked back behind the pillar.
"This isn't a very good environment for Soo to learn in, is it?"
The Heavenly Demon looked from me to Soo and back, and an expression of understanding came over her.
"You speak as if you were that child's parent."
If I seemed too much like a person here, what I had said about becoming a monster would lose its force. I thought of myself as not a person, at the very least, didn't I? And depending on how I expressed that, the one who heard it would take it differently — especially someone like the Heavenly Demon before me, who believed she had dug down into my essence.
"She's a thing you gave me. Since I've received her anyway, if she's going to grow the way she's raised, shouldn't I raise her so she performs at her very best?"
I was saying, to the very last, that I saw the child as an object. But to the Heavenly Demon, who had watched me from a distance these past few days, it must have looked thoroughly absurd. From every angle, we would have seemed to be living as a family.
"I see. So that's how you think of it. Then I'll teach her."
What?
No — what?
What was that, all of a sudden? The Heavenly Demon herself? Why? And when she referred to herself, hadn't she said this seat? Now that she was a woman, was she changing characters?
I blinked and looked at the Heavenly Demon, and she smiled, just slightly.
"And while I'm at it, I'll keep an eye on you, too."
Aha.
Somewhere, I must have slipped. This was why I didn't like talking too much with a clever person. I had thought I was leading her along well enough — had she caught a contradiction somewhere? I had spoken only facts, so there shouldn't have been any truly large one. Still, my intention had been folded in, and somewhere the front and the back may have failed to match. The fortunate thing was that something like this did not change the sound of my heart. Thinking of Soo, I had no reason to refuse, and refusing here would have been strange.
"All right. Do as you like."
"Good. From now on, I'll come during the hours you two train. See you tomorrow, Choseol."
With that, the Heavenly Demon waved to Soo and turned away. She showed no intention of hiding that she had been watching me. She was saying outright that she knew when we usually exercised.
What in the world was the Heavenly Demon thinking?
Just then, out of the faded man's memories, a word began to glitter and shine.
Had this memory finally grown old, and broken?