The Starving Cardinal
"Hah… hah… haah…."
Woo Shin collapsed at the finish line, his shirt soaked clean through from running like a madman.
Collapsed was generous — he had practically crumpled to the ground.
"Don't sit down the second you finish running! Get up!"
"…Yes, sir!"
At Do-ha's bark, Woo Shin shot back to his feet.
"Hard, isn't it?"
"Ah… no, sir!"
"You can be honest."
"Yes… it's hard."
"If it's hard, get lost. Go home."
"It's not hard at all!!!"
"You're lying."
"…."
Woo Shin's face crumpled into a miserable pout.
What the hell am I supposed to say…?
Admit it was hard and he got chewed out. Claim it wasn't hard and the training was too soft.
"You just ran ten kilometers without a single break. Got any questions?"
"…."
"None?"
"No, sir."
"None? That doesn't make any sense! A guy who came here to learn has nothing he's curious about?!"
"Th-there is!"
As Do-ha blew up, Woo Shin hastily opened his mouth.
The telekinesis was what he was most curious about, sure — but something else burned even hotter.
"Why do I have to run in the first place?"
He wasn't a close-combat type. He didn't use magic, but if you had to classify him, he was closer to a mage than a fighter.
So why the hell was he being forced to run like a brute?
It had been a week since he'd arrived, and not a single day had passed without running. In the afternoons he had to crawl around on all fours with a massive boulder lashed to his body.
That wasn't a metaphor. He literally had to drag the rock along like a turtle, using both arms and both legs.
"To build your stamina, obviously. Yours is pathetic right now. That's what happens when you sit still and put all your faith in telekinesis alone."
"That's exactly my point… why do I need stamina?"
"Oh? Talking back?"
"Ah… no, you said to ask if I had questions, so…."
"You said you wanted to learn the telekinesis techniques I use."
"Yes!!"
The moment telekinesis came up, Woo Shin's eyes lit up again, bright and hungry.
His dream. His ultimate goal. That was why he was here.
"To learn that, you need stamina."
"…Sir?"
Woo Shin tilted his head.
Build stamina to learn telekinesis? That was new.
He trusted Do-ha. The man had already shown him telekinesis far beyond anything he'd known. But he'd never experienced anything like this, so understanding was another matter entirely.
"Explaining it piece by piece would be a pain, so for now…."
"?"
"Run another five kilometers. You got here earlier than I expected today."
"…."
"Finish fast and you've got free time until afternoon training."
"I'll go right now!"
Woo Shin blasted off at a blistering pace on pure physical power alone, no telekinesis whatsoever.
"Even without telekinesis, he's Cheon-oe-cheon, huh? Kid grows fast."
Of course he was curious. Why build stamina?
To learn the Star Absorbing Great Art, you need stamina.
And well-developed muscle throughout the body.
The Star Absorbing Great Art twisted everything inside a person. More precisely, it wrung them dry. Forcibly absorbing another person's energy knotted the muscles and burned through stamina. Beyond that, the energy meridians and blood vessels twisted right along with them.
That was why Do-ha was building both stamina and muscle — so Woo Shin could eventually deploy the art at a stable level. Bulk up the body like that, and the meridians and vessels strengthened on their own. No need for dedicated qi-gong training; the growth came naturally. External martial training like this actually loosened and refined the meridians. It was a method the Beast Palace used often.
Footsteps approached.
"So you've decided to take Woo Shin in after all?"
Han Jeong-soo came up beside Do-ha, watching Woo Shin's receding back in the distance.
A week ago, after taking a multi-hour beating from Do-ha, Woo Shin had liquidated everything he owned, declared he had nowhere else to go, and sprawled out in the yard in a full-body sprawl, refusing to leave.
"Take him in? Please. He kept being a pain, so I'm just teaching him fast to get rid of him."
"Even so, thanks to Woo Shin, the government has been in high spirits lately."
"He hasn't even said he's naturalizing. Why are they excited?"
"Because China keeps watching Korea's every move now."
Would Korea try to coax Woo Shin into defecting? Would he leak Chinese state secrets to the government? And so on.
Woo Shin was China's pride, its shame, and its weak point all at once.
"China has never taken cues from Korea before. First time for everything — so the government is both unfamiliar with the feeling and getting a little full of itself."
"That's not a good look."
Do-ha shook his head at Han Jeong-soo's words. Right now it was pride and satisfaction. Let it go on long enough and it would curdle into arrogance.
"Keep the assemblymen in line for me. If they start getting cocky, drop my name and make them sit still."
"Understood."
Han Jeong-soo nodded. Though, truthfully, he barely needed to step in. Park Seok-jun — city councilman once again — was already grinding the assemblymen under his heel nonstop.
Hunter Baek Do-ha raised Korea's standing.
Hunter Baek Do-ha is the reason you survived the Wave and get to eat and sleep.
Hunter Baek Do-ha is why New Age and the cult have no foothold in Korea.
And so on. Daily, relentless praise.
Which made Han Jeong-soo wonder, idly, what kind of conversation Park Seok-jun and Woo Shin would have if they ever met.
Watching him, Woo Shin's starting to look more and more like Assemblyman Park….
At this rate, were they going to found a Baek Do-ha cult?
Han Jeong-soo snorted at the stray thought.
"Ah — by the way, what do you plan to do about the cardinal?"
"What cardinal?"
"Pardon?"
"Hm?"
Han Jeong-soo tilted his head. Do-ha tilted his right back. What cardinal was he talking about all of a sudden?
"The one we captured before. We've been keeping him locked up on minimal rations… he's half out of his mind now."
"Ah!"
Do-ha clapped his hands. Right. He'd completely forgotten about that one.
The excommunicated cardinal who had summoned Valac. At the time, Do-ha had sealed his pressure points while he was unconscious and brought him back. Then he'd handed him off to Han Jeong-soo with orders to lock him up and feed him almost nothing.
"Completely slipped my mind."
"Shall I just dispose of him, then?"
"No. I should meet him."
Do-ha shook his head. He'd been ready to write the man off as useless and be done with him — but on second thought, he might still be useful.
A rusty iron door groaned open, hinges screaming with age. Every time it moved, it made that sound.
"He's in here."
"Wow. Not a single speck of light in this place."
Do-ha stepped into the prison holding the cardinal and let out a low whistle of appreciation. Most prisons at least let in some sunlight. This one had nothing but a ventilation shaft for air circulation — no windows at all. Not even underground, and still no windows. First time he'd seen that.
"What is this place, exactly?"
"New Age used to use it. For locking up traitors."
New Age had been completely wiped out of Korea, so the site had been abandoned.
They walked deeper in. Another iron gate. Another rusty shriek. The layout was genuinely prison-like.
"There."
Han Jeong-soo pointed to the smallest cell at the far end. The cardinal lay there with a chain around his ankle.
"Damn… look at the state of him. You are feeding him, right?"
Do-ha barked a dry laugh at the cardinal who didn't even have the strength to sit up. Beard and hair grown long and wild, flesh wasted away until he was practically just skin stretched over bone. Like a man left out to dry.
"Every three days: five hundred milliliters of water, two pieces of bread, and one bowl of gruel. When he looked truly bad, I brought a mage in to heal him — just barely."
"Nice work."
Do-ha clapped Han Jeong-soo on the shoulder, genuinely impressed. Just enough food to keep him breathing, and just enough healing to keep him from dying. Frankly, that was more than a cult cardinal deserved.
Do-ha gathered true qi at his fingertip and pushed it into the cardinal.
"Hey. Wake up."
Months in a lightless, mold-reeking hole with almost nothing to eat — of course the man had no energy left.
"Nngh…."
As the true qi flowed in, the cardinal slowly opened his eyes and pushed himself upright.
"Hey. You recognize me?"
"…Give me food…."
"What's wrong with him?"
"As I said — he's half gone."
Not every two days. Every three. Minimal rations. The cardinal had starved until he'd become a fool who only knew how to beg for food.
For the first month locked in here, he'd screamed death threats every day. By the second month, he'd switched to soft persuasion — let's talk. By the third, his words had dwindled and he'd started asking to be killed. From the fourth month on, all he wanted was food.
Do-ha crouched down, looking at the seated cardinal.
"Hey. What's your name?"
Come to think of it, he didn't even know the guy's name.
"Food…."
"Tell me your name and I'll give you something to eat."
Do-ha pulled a strip of jerky from his subspace. Canteas loved the stuff, so he always kept a couple pieces on him.
"Halordale…."
"See? You can do it."
Smiling, Do-ha tossed a single piece of jerky through the bars.
"Why… only this…?"
"I never said I'd give you the whole thing."
"…."
"If you don't want it, I'll take it ba—"
The cardinal lunged and stuffed the jerky into his mouth before Do-ha's hand could reach it.
"Listen, Halordale. From now on, answer my questions properly and I won't give you jerky — I'll give you real food. Good food. Until you're full."
"…."
At the words until you're full, drool spilled from the corners of the cardinal's mouth. He didn't nod, but the look on his face was as good as agreement.
"Word is the Pope is going to summon Anubis again. Where do you think that'll be?"
That was why he'd come. Halordale had been locked in here for months and had been cast out of the cult long before that — but his power was summoning. A man whose magic was otherwise garbage had climbed to cardinal on summoning alone. Which meant he would know something about summoning Anubis.
"Anubis… they failed in Egypt…."
"Exactly. They failed then, so they're trying again. From what I hear, the Pope has been spending most of his time in Iceland, Norway, Sweden. Sometimes Denmark or Finland. Do you know where they're planning to summon Anubis?"
With each question, focus slowly returned to the cardinal's empty eyes. He was turning the gears, remembering who he was and why he was here.
"You're… Baek Do-ha."
"Memory's back, huh?"
"…."
The cardinal, lucid again, let out a long, heavy breath. Seeing Do-ha made rage surge up for a moment — but there was nothing he could do. He'd already lost the fight. Screaming in this cell would only waste what little strength he had left.
"The Pope… is trying to summon Anubis? Who told you that?"
"A cardinal."
"So you've met another one."
"There was a guy named Germa who stole abilities. He's dead now."
"Germa… been a long time since I heard that name. Climbed all the way to cardinal, did he… impressive, for a brat."
"So. The answer?"
"Do I know where they plan to summon Anubis? Of course I do. Or rather — thanks to the places you just named, I can make a solid guess."
Halordale nodded. Iceland, Norway, Sweden — northern Europe — for summoning the Egyptian god Anubis. There was only one reason for that, and only one place that made sense.