Let No One Enter
"I'm going to step out for a bit, so wait here for me, alright?"
Only after the formation faded away did the door reveal itself, and it was copper, by the look of it, gleaming a deep red and radiating a quiet, overwhelming grandeur.
The sight left every one of us crushed under its weight.
"Whoa..."
"This one does surprise me a little."
We marveled like that, picking over the door from this angle and that.
"By the way, A-woo, how did you know there was a formation there? I never sensed a thing."
Namgung Han asked with a puzzled face, and I answered with a shrug.
"Call it instinct. I've always had a good feel for these things... and this time it seems my gut was right on the mark."
......
"Truth be told, I'd picked up a thing or two somewhere along the way, so I had a rough idea already..."
Namgung Han and Dang Jihyeon were still staring at me with eyes that plainly said they believed not a word of it, and just as I was starting to squirm under their gazes—
Clap.
"Now, now, everyone! Shall we go in and have a look?"
Dang Giyeong clapped his hands to claim our attention and tugged at the door as he spoke, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
"However we managed it, we found the entrance... so that's as good as done, isn't it?"
With those words, he pulled the door.
.........
Astonishingly, nothing happened.
The door refused to give so much as an inch, and a flustered air crept over Giyeong's face. "Huh... it seems this thing opens some other way."
He had just let go of the utterly immovable door and was about to rise when—
"Step aside. I shall try my hand at it."
Namgung Han waved him off, took the door handle in her own grip, and pulled with a sharp battle cry.
"Hnnnnnngh!"
Screeeeeech—
Only when the blood had risen clear to her face did the door finally let out a tremendous groan and begin to rise, slowly, upward.
Giyeong cocked his head at the sight and muttered. "No... why is that opening..."
Opened or not, open it had, and she turned to us with a triumphant grin. "In we go."
She hopped down through the opening first, and I clapped a hand on Giyeong's shoulder as I passed him by.
"A squad leader of the Sichuan Dang Clan, and your strength is awfully flimsy..."
...I said, and followed in her wake.
He looked genuinely aggrieved. "That's just that lady being strang—... Whoa."
Giyeong came tumbling in after me with a yell, and the moment he set foot inside, a gasp of wonder escaped him at the scene before his eyes.
The copper corridor was lined at short intervals with flames that had yet to die, and the passage was so immaculately kept that its immense age was almost impossible to believe. Wide-eyed, we all slowed and drifted deeper in.
Even Dang Jihyeon, who had been wearing a sullen scowl not five minutes before, was peering about with both eyes shining like a child's.
"Qin Shi Huang's might must have been truly something to behold..."
"So it would seem. Night-luminous pearls I could understand, but lamps that still haven't gone out..."
I sidled up to Jihyeon, who was still drinking it all in with astonishment written across her face, and spoke in a low voice.
"You know why the lamps never go out? They caught countless mermaids and rendered the poor things into lamp oil."
"Where in the world would you find mermaids? I'm not a child, you know."
"It's true... I read somewhere that the mermaids' vengeful spirits still wander these halls to this very day. That's the only reason I mentioned it."
"Oh, come on! Enough already."
"It was not mermaids but the oil of some whale-like creature, in fact. Muyeong is only saying it to tease you, so pay it no mind."
"Tch... no fun at all."
I was in the middle of clicking my tongue at Namgung Han for cutting my fun short when we realized we had arrived, without our noticing, at the end of the corridor.
The space had opened up all at once, and at either far end before us stood two doors, each roughly the size of the one we had opened to come in.
On the blank stretch of wall between them, letters were written in red—
The Place Where the Emperor Rests
Let No One Enter
"Hmm... 'Let no one set foot within the Emperor's resting place.'"
The words read as much like a warning as anything, and for a long moment we all simply stood there, staring blankly at the wall.
Don't wake him? Ah, shit. Looks like they raised the difficulty on this one too.
Normally the inscription read "Welcome," or at worst "Come in, but tread carefully." Even on Hell difficulty it went no further than "Entry is not recommended."
This, unmistakably, said you must not enter, and I clicked my tongue inwardly.
Tch... I never ran into this because the Demonic Cult route never brings you anywhere near Shaanxi. Aigoo, you idiot... of course the dungeon difficulty scales up too. You should have seen that coming...
Just then a voice shattered my brooding, and I came back to myself to find—
"Well then, let's head in, shall we? Heave-ho!"
—Giyeong flinging a door wide open without a moment's warning. I hurriedly pulled him back.
"Hey! Hold it right there!"
"Pardon? Are we not going in?"
"And how long do you think this will take, going in empty-handed? Today we head back to the inn, buy preserved rations at the very least, and we enter tomorrow."
"Ha... a shame, but that is only sensible."
The truth was that I already knew better than anyone how long clearing the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang could take, so I hauled the still-grumbling Giyeong and Namgung Han back to the inn.
The next morning.
"If we end up trapped in there for more than a week — the Dang Clan, the Namgung, the Zhuge, Mount Hua, anyone at all — send for reinforcements."
After passing those instructions to the deputy leader of the White Heaven Squad who had followed us in yesterday, we stepped once more into the mausoleum.
Once again we stood before the two doors we had seen yesterday and talked things over.
"Two doors means two parties, so we do have to split up..."
"Is that not a simple matter? I go with that fellow Dang Giyeong, and you go with Jihyeon. If we are weighing martial strength, that is the proper split, no?"
"Ha... Big sis, let's just split man-and-man, woman-and-woman."
"Would it not be better for me to take the injured one with me?"
"Injured or not, if that bastard draws on his strength with the resolve to burn his martial arts away, he's stronger than the White Heaven Squad's leader... If we're planning for the absolute worst, this is the right call."
Truthfully, I only said it to keep the visibly anxious Giyeong at my side, but either way, the split was decided as I proposed.
"Then let us meet again inside, if we can manage it."
With the matter settled, Namgung Han waved and led Jihyeon into the left entrance, and I turned to the man at my side—
"Shall we head in as well, then?"
At the sight of Giyeong grinning, slit eyes half-curved, I pulled the door open with that uneasy feeling still sitting in my chest.
"Sigh... right. Let's go."
Creeeak—
Unlike the door above, this one had apparently been oiled, for it swung open far more smoothly than expected, and beyond it stretched a long, dead-straight corridor.
"Ha... another corridor, huh."
At the disappointment written all over his face, I began, "There's no telling what traps might be waiting in here, so we should at least be a little caref—"
"Huh? Young Master, this bit of floor gives a little?"
The spot beneath Giyeong's foot sank a fraction, and then a rumbling began.
Krrrrk-krrrk—
At the sound of something enormous grinding against stone, I cursed him.
"You little shit!"
As the floor drove upward toward the ceiling, Giyeong and I screamed and bolted.
"AAAAAAAH!"
The floor kept climbing until our heads were all but scraping stone, and just as it reached that point—
"Y-Young Master! I c-can't use lightfoot—!"
He groped toward me, gasping for breath, and I spat another curse, seized him, and clamped him under my arm.
"You useless piece of..."
How long did we run...?
With the floor now risen so high I had to run bent nearly double, I was in the middle of swearing my lungs out when—
"Young Master! I-I can see the end up there!"
Sure enough, just as the man wedged against my side said, pointing ahead, the end of the corridor was coming into view.
But the floor had climbed far too high to keep sprinting upright...
"Ngh!"
"Ugh... motion sickness..."
Gritting my teeth, I kicked off the walls themselves and ran.
Screeee—
As the end drew closer and closer—
"I'm throwing you!"
"Pardon?"
I hurled Giyeong from under my arm toward the opening—
"Oof... agh, my back..."
—and a heartbeat later, I slammed into the wall at full force.
CRASH—
The wall shattered, and my new body pitched forward with the momentum, dropping me squarely on top of Giyeong, who lay sprawled across the floor.
"Kheh—!"
THUD— rumble... rumble-rumble...
Moments later, the corridor we had come running through sealed itself shut, ceiling and floor pressing together as if the two of them were deeply, desperately in love...
"Ha... and how exactly are we supposed to get out now."
I stared blankly at the stretch of stone that had become our newest wall.
"There will be another passage... won't there?"
"Beats me. And more to the point — I told you to be careful, and you couldn't even last a minute before setting off a trap?"
"Haha... well, these things happen, don't they? Speaking of which, could you kindly get off me now..."
I rose slowly, brushing the dust from my clothes as I spoke.
"Set off one more trap and I really will leave you behind..."
"Aw... you wouldn't."
"I'm saying it because from where I stand, you look ready to lay hands on something else again."
"That's not it... you would not seriously abandon me and run for your life alone, would you?"
......
"Young Master?"
"Well, that side should be fine, at least. They have a genuine Transcendent Realm over there, so short of something truly absurd, they can punch their way through anything."
"Young Master?"
"Quit calling me that and get up already!"
How long did we walk...?
After a good long stretch of walking with Giyeong, I stepped into a space that was slowly widening out.
Just then, the man at my side abruptly began hacking and hawking, spraying spit with tremendous enthusiasm.
"Hk-hrm... hk-hrm-hrm."
"What? Why are you suddenly coughing?"
"Are you quite alright, Young Master?"
When I gave him a baffled look at the utter non sequitur—
"Ah... right. You have the Ten Thousand Poisons Immunity."
—he said, and then popped some strange pill into his mouth, all on his own.
I asked, dumbfounded.
"What the... why are you coughing to yourself and then eating something to yourself?"
"It seems there is mercury mixed into the air. If I do not take this, I will be collapsing before long?"
"Aha! So you just went and ate it without me?"
"Well, you have the Ten Thousand Poisons Immunity anyway, Young Master."
Banter concluded, we kept walking.
Another long stretch of walking later—
"What's a fortress wall doing inside a tomb?"
A wall of considerable height had barred our way, and I scratched my head and asked Giyeong:
"Wow... I could probably get over this, but think you can manage it?"
"I don't think I can, Young Master?"
"Tch... then I suppose we turn back."
"Turn back? After coming all this way? What kind of nonsense is that!"
"No — I mean we follow the wall around it. Honestly, is failing to take a hint a basic qualification for the Dang Clan? What is wrong with you kids these days."
"You could have led with that..."
And so we kept walking along the towering wall.
We had already walked farther than our desperate sprint through the corridor when—
"Young Master, look out!"
Giyeong shoved me without the slightest warning.
Clatter-bang—
Thanks to him, I stumbled over my own feet and crashed down, and as I looked up at him—
Fwoosh—
—a crossbow bolt came slicing through the air.
The bolt buried itself in the wall, and I muttered quietly at the sight of it.
"But this time I didn't even touch anything...?"
As I stood there dumbly talking to myself, Giyeong scratched his head with a sheepish look.
"My leg gave out just now, so I braced my hand against the wall, and something over there glinted and a crossbow bolt came flying... It seems that touching the wall sets the crossbows off."
Hearing that, I began to genuinely ponder a question: was abandoning Dang Giyeong right here, right now, the path to a brighter future?