No. 471 Daeeung Escort Mission (6)
After a short rest, the caravan pushed on over the third and final pass and reached its destination.
"You've all worked hard. Here is the payment as promised."
Escort Leader Kang handed a weighty coin pouch to each of the ronin lined up before him. Those who peeked inside half in doubt found their faces flooding with delight — every last pouch was stuffed full of silver.
Before long the line had dwindled until it was Go Hyeon-woo's turn and mine.
"Here you are. You've truly been through a great deal."
What he handed us, however, was not a coin pouch but four small boxes glowing with a faint light.
And then, moving on to the next ronin as though nothing had happened, Escort Leader Kang went right back to handing out coin pouches. Not a soul in the whole caravan seemed to find anything the least bit strange about it.
Go Hyeon-woo gave a wry smile.
"It's at times like this that it truly hits me. That all of this, so indistinguishable from reality, is in fact an illusion conjured by the dungeon."
"Chilling, isn't it."
What would it actually feel like, I wondered, to become a puppet in a puppet show that repeated for all eternity?
Go Hyeon-woo spoke as he swept a slow gaze over our surroundings.
"Chilling indeed — and in a way, a little sad as well. They were comrades who shared every hardship and triumph with us, yet once the dungeon resets, they slip from memory as though they had never been."
"Not necessarily."
"...?"
Even for dungeons that were not directly linked, the way the Daeeung Escort Bureau flowed into the Daeeung Escort Mission, those bound together in one grand storyline could be shaped, in ways large and small, by the things I did.
For instance—
"Kim A-woo."
The bonds I had built with characters like Jwidori and Eoguri sometimes carried on long after a dungeon ended.
I asked them:
"Yes, brothers. Are you leaving us?"
"We mean to devote ourselves to training for a while. I'd believed our skills would hold up wherever we went, but this journey has taught us more than a little."
"May your martial arts attain great heights."
"Much obliged. Until next time, Kim A-woo."
With that light exchange of farewells, Jwidori and Eoguri walked off without a single backward glance.
Go Hyeon-woo could not tear his eyes from their receding backs for a long while.
"How curious..."
"What is?"
"Those two. Their qi channels don't seem especially strong in themselves, and yet — how should I put it — they give the impression of vast capacity. I struggle to define it."
I flashed a grin.
"A discerning eye, as ever. Someday, those two will be legends."
"Is that truly so?"
"It is."
Jwidori and Eoguri weren't lead-role material, but they turned up fairly often across the related dungeons — super-supporting cast, one might call them. What's more, strength that was already quite serviceable would climb ever more steeply as the story advanced.
"In time they even earn an epithet of their own. Ronin Invincible."
"Ooh...!"
"You'll be seeing them again from time to time, so remember it well."
"As if I could forget?"
Go Hyeon-woo's eyes glinted with interest.
Rrrrumble...
Just then, the sound of something giving way echoed at our ears. With the clear complete, the dungeon had begun its slow collapse and reconstruction.
We had to get out before it was too late — but one last task remained.
"Weren't you curious what was inside those wagons?"
"Of course I was. Though you have a mischievous streak as well, Brother Kim. Why leave that one detail out of the walkthrough?"
"These things are best saved for the end. So — here it is."
The true nature of the cargo.
The Daeeung Escort Bureau's foundations had already been badly shaken by the time we first joined the temporary recruitment — and even so, they had swallowed the added expense to rally ronin and tried, by any means necessary, to move the cargo.
And the demonic cult? They had not only planted agents to work on the bureau, but mobilized the Yanwang Unit, a formidable armed force, in an attempt to seize the cargo outright.
And when the ronin's resistance proved fiercer than expected, they had not even balked at a grinding war of attrition, absorbing loss after loss.
What on earth could the cargo be, that they would go to such lengths?
"...!"
Go Hyeon-woo, plainly aching for the answer, had fixed his every nerve on me.
But before giving it, there was one last thing to show him.
I drew the random boxes from my inventory one after another and gathered all four in a single spot.
"There are seven random boxes in all to be earned in [Daeeung Escort Mission]."
Up to four came from Escort Leader Kang as clear rewards. If the wagons were damaged or casualties suffered, the count dropped accordingly. On top of that, two more dropped as a bonus for defeating the Yanwang Unit Leader, and one from Escort Leader Jo. The vice-unit leader carried no drop item — but grab him by the collar and apply a little pressure, and he would part with a Treasure Map Piece.
"And when you gather four of them and open them together inside the dungeon—"
Click.
The moment I lifted the lid of one random box, jet-black smoke came boiling out. It swallowed the remaining boxes whole, then kneaded itself this way and that, reshaping like dough.
A moment later the smoke cleared — and where the four random boxes had rested, something else now sat. A single piece of porcelain, ancient and cracked in a dozen places, talismans pasted thick across its surface and bound tight with golden cord for good measure.
Go Hyeon-woo's gaze deepened.
"So this is the true nature of the cargo?"
"It is."
"Hmm. Even at a glance, it is plainly no ordinary object. What is it used for?"
"Exactly what the name says."
A Demon-Sealing Vessel — porcelain in which demonic qi had been condensed to its very limit, pressed down, and sealed away. To an ordinary martial artist it was not merely useless but actively harmful; to demonic practitioners who cultivated the demonic arts, however, it was nothing short of an elixir of the ages.
"And the wagons had been loaded to bursting with these."
"I see. Even one would be extraordinary — packed full, no wonder the cult came charging with fire in their eyes. And they will never give up the pursuit, I take it."
"Never."
On this escort mission, Go Hyeon-woo and I had been the ones guarding the cargo, so even the Yanwang Unit had been forced to fall back. They were men who would not balk at death in service of their goal — but when the gap in strength grew too extreme, charging in meant nothing more than a dog's death.
That said, this was, quite literally, only a temporary retreat. The cult's assaults would keep coming — and next time, they would arrive with a master strong enough to handle Go Hyeon-woo and me with ease.
Go Hyeon-woo murmured, half to himself.
"Then the Demon-Sealing Vessels will end up in the cult's hands after all."
"That's how the story goes. We can't intervene in everything, from first to last."
"With that many vessels, raising an armed force would be no trouble at all... but would that truly be enough for them?"
The demonic cult had already lost the Great Righteous-Demonic War, been torn into countless factions, and sunk beneath the surface — which was precisely why the vessels had been wrested from them in the first place. His question was this: even building a fresh armed force from such a weakened position, could it really turn the tide?
I shrugged.
"Of course it wouldn't."
"Then what is it they hope to achieve?"
"Here's where you've got it wrong — they don't need an armed force. They need a focal point."
"...!"
Go Hyeon-woo's eyebrows shot up as though something had just dawned on him. He had fixed so hard on the sheer number of vessels that his thinking had tilted entirely toward using them to build an armed force.
"But what if the demonic qi of all those countless vessels were funneled into one single person?"
"...A master of monstrous caliber would be born."
"Exactly. Remember the Black Snake Gang?"
We had slipped in, worked a loophole, and made off with nothing but the vault's contents — but the Black Snake Gang's story proper ran like this: Black Snake and White Snake seized control of the gang and abducted the young people of the region to cultivate the cult's grand art. Even half-finished, that art had already granted him a body next door to immortal — he hadn't budged an inch no matter how many times Inferno Fist landed flush on him.
Yet his ultimate goal, too, had never been to make himself stronger.
"It was to perform the grand art upon the master they intended to complete."
"I see. The picture is coming into focus now."
The demonic cult, scattered and scheming in secret across every corner of the Central Plains. What they yearned for was one and the same: the return of a single supreme master who could bind the fractured cult back into one.
"...The Heavenly Demon."
"That's right. And the dungeons tied to this are gathered under a single banner—"
The Feathered Serpent Altar and Temple, among others, were bound together in one grand story: the Advent of the Feathered Serpent through a ritual of human sacrifice. Hence the related dungeons, taken as a whole, were called the [Advent of the Feathered Serpent] series.
In exactly the same way, the dungeons that included the Black Snake Gang and the Daeeung Escort Bureau were gathered under one name—
"—the [Return of the Heavenly Demon] series."
We came out through the teleport portal, and Shin Byung-cheol dropped his concealment to greet us, jaws stretched wide in a yawn.
"Yaaawn — there you are."
"What time is it?"
"Half past six."
This dungeon took longer to clear than the ordinary kind, so even though we had entered the previous afternoon, it was morning by the time we finished. Even so, we had come out a little earlier than expected.
I traded a look with Go Hyeon-woo, and we nodded at almost the same instant.
"A bit of breathing cultivation, then breakfast, then straight to class — perfect timing."
"One Small Heavenly Circuit should just about do it."
"Are you two actually insane...?"
Shin Byung-cheol could only gape at the training maniacs' over-the-top behavior. They had spent the entire dungeon run in one pitched battle after another, and the moment they stepped outside, they wanted to circulate their qi? And then straight into class, with mentoring on top of that?
Go Hyeon-woo answered with grave dignity.
"The road to mastery is long, and longer still. This, too, is but one stretch of that long journey. Is it not so, Brother Kim?"
"Escort Leader Go speaks nothing but wisdom."
At my hearty agreement, Shin Byung-cheol shook his head slowly.
"Unbelievable. You two finish each other's sentences like a matched set. Must be nice."
"Haha, don't be like that. We've brought news that should please you too, Brother Shin."
"...What is it? No, wait — what might that be, esteemed customers~?"
The news that pleased Shin Byung-cheol was all but predetermined, and his tone turned honeyed at once.
Just as expected, what emerged from Go Hyeon-woo's inventory was a single E-rank random box, won from the Daeeung Escort Bureau clear.
"Thank you for your trouble since the small hours, Brother Shin."
"Oh my, esteemed customers, you're too kind. Thank you. Thank you kindly."
Shin Byung-cheol rubbed his palms together briskly, a smile spread across his whole face. Then he snatched up the random box and, gripping the lid, asked:
"...Open it right now?"
"When you open it is your affair, Brother Shin... but are you sure?"
Hadn't he torn one open the moment he received it last time, only to pull an F-rank wooden cup?
But Shin Byung-cheol grinned, brimming with confidence.
"Aw, that last one was just my bad luck burning off — this time's the real deal. Watch close. I'll show you something spectacular... Is it glowing?! Rainbow light! Golden light!"
Shin Byung-cheol flung the random box open with all his might.
Click.
"..."
Shin Byung-cheol stared down at the teacup, both eyes blinking.
I gave his shoulder a few quiet, consoling pats.
"Your collection grew."
"My life."
[157] The Support Ate it All