A Snake-Oil Salesman Lives in the Dang Clan
Clang— Clang— Clang— Clang—
Inside the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang—dark as midnight, with night-shining pearls studding the ceiling like a spill of stars—two upstanding gentlemen were hard at work caving in the skulls of terracotta warriors with a pickaxe.
"Wow... this pickaxe really does deliver."
"If not for this, I would have died for real just a moment ago."
"Haah... let's rest a minute, then finish the job."
Of course, the terracotta warriors demolished by the mysterious pickaxe stayed demolished...
"God, there are so damn many of them. At this rate, won't our inner energy run dry first?"
"I was just thinking the same. At this scale, it practically is an army."
"Not practically—it flat-out is an army..."
Even with several dozen smashed to pieces, a good number still seemed to remain. I wiped the sweat from my face, kicked a few shards out of the way, and—
"Aigoo, my back....."
—clutched my waist and plopped down onto the ground. Letting out a groan, I stretched my legs out and slumped back, pressing my head to the floor and gazing up at the heavens overhead.
"I wonder what all those are worth? If we pried off every last one, we could probably buy the whole Dang Clan."
"I couldn't say what they'd fetch... though what a shame we can't take them with us."
"Strange they haven't dropped on their own. After this many centuries, you'd think a few would've come loose."
Dang Giyeong and I caught our breath like that, marveling at the celestial chart spread across the heavens.
A short while later...
I had just closed my eyes for a moment when a thunderous boom rolled in from somewhere.
BOOM— BOOM—
"Whuh...? Wh-what's going on?"
I sprang upright and asked Dang Giyeong.
"It would appear the White Heaven Squad Leader is close by?"
"Tch... then I suppose we'd best head that way."
Wiping the drool from the corner of my mouth, I staggered upright, grabbed the pickaxe, and we set off toward the noise.
"Agh... there's no fun to be had here at all."
"No fun, you say? I'm in a living hell over here!"
"These things haven't the slightest satisfying give beneath the blade..."
"Then save your breath for carving us a path, if you please!"
There stood Namgung Han, blasting apart the endlessly self-repairing terracotta warriors with a sulky look on her face, and beside her Dang Jihyeon, grimly pinching a throwing dagger and laboring through the demolition work.
Watching Namgung Han try to brute-force her way through the things, I hurled the pickaxe.
"SIS!!!"
Swish—
She cleaved the incoming pickaxe clean in half and turned to me.
"Oh! At last we meet. Come, lend me an arm."
"No—use that pickaxe to smash the terracotta warriors!"
"Hm? Must I truly take up such a thing?"
"Smash them with it and they stay smashed!"
As I roared, she paused to weigh it with a grave expression...
"That I cannot do. How could the Young Clan Head of the great Namgung Clan bear any weapon but the sword?"
"What kind of lunacy is that, you madwoman!"
At my shouting over such deranged nonsense delivered in a perfectly even tone, she frowned.
"I was only jesting... though 'madwoman' is a touch much, no?"
"Sis... what's with the wounded look all of a sudden?! You're the strongest one here—just take the pickaxe."
"As you say....."
And so the two pairs of us set to pickaxing in earnest, and as a result—
"Haah... I can finally see the end in sight."
Dang Jihyeon sighed as she surveyed the handful of porcelain figures still left standing around us.
I strolled over and offered what I intended as words of comfort...
"The White Heaven Squad Leader's had it rough, huh... nearly two whole days stuck with that lunatic..."
She smacked away the hand I'd reached out to pat her shoulder with.
"A Young Master is no different from a Young Clan Head, sir. It's hot and I'm sweating—kindly keep your hands to yourself."
"....."
I shuffled back to my pickaxe, wearing my most sheepish face.
Some time later.
We had—against all odds—ground every last one of the swarming terracotta warriors into powder.
"Muyeong, my A-woo! How could you call me a madwoman!"
It did come up that Namgung Han demanded an accounting of me...
"You're the one who said something crazy first, Sis!"
"Mine was but a jest, whereas yours seemed to carry no small sincerity..."
"Mine was a joke too... Good grief, we're not some famous skinflints—quit being so petty."
"Ha....."
"If you're that aggrieved, let's just call it even—factoring in that whole bolting-from-the-Zhuge-Clan-Estate incident and squaring everything away."
"....."
And with that, the whole matter passed without any great trouble.
Afterward, we wandered the tomb's inner ward, exploring this way and that, until we came upon yet another door leading down underground...
"That's supposedly where Qin Shi Huang himself lies..."
"Then we need only enter at once."
The moment Namgung Han laid a hand on the door—
"Who dares wake His Imperial Majesty from his slumber?"
We turned toward the voice drifting in from somewhere...
A dog-like creature, a horn jutting from its head, was crawling toward us on all fours.
"A Hou...?"
"It would appear so..."
"Then why is that thing so huge?"
In truth, the tomb of Qin Shi Huang did have a watchman standing guard, and going by Hell difficulty standards...
"Hou are supposed to be this big on Hell difficulty?"
There existed a monster called the Hou—a steel-blue, dog-shaped beast—but the one now barring our path, quite unlike its usual horse-sized frame, was showing off a bulk the size of a house.
"Sis! For now let's just run—"
"Oho... that one should be satisfying to cut."
Watching her charge sword-first at the big blue doggy, I stood there dumbstruck.
"Young Master, this way!"
By then Dang Giyeong had already flung open the door to the burial chamber and tumbled through.
"I'll hold this side for now!"
As Dang Jihyeon shouted after me and Dang Giyeong slipping through the door, I yelled back while plunging into the tomb:
"See you in a bit, then!"
Thud—
Before long the door to the burial chamber swung shut, and Dang Giyeong and I descended the stairs, following the low-burning flames kindled here and there around us.
Just how far did we climb down.....
At long last, we arrived at the deepest chamber of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang.
"Whoa... looks like we're about to be rich?"
Starting with the countless gold that filled every corner of the room...
"Young Master, found some!"
...Gongcheong stone oil... human-shaped snow ginseng... some ginseng or other... some inner-core pill or other... chests brimming with countless elixirs stood packed wall to wall,
and every legendary blade under heaven was displayed in meticulous splendor.
"Crank up the difficulty and the rewards really do get out of hand."
Marveling at a scene that looked as though every treasure in the world had been gathered into a single room—
"Let's check out the far end first, then load up on the way back."
"Understood!"
Dang Giyeong answered in a voice practically dancing with excitement, and with a small snort of laughter I turned my steps deeper into the vault.
And so, when we reached the very end of the deepest chamber...
"Huh...? What's that fellow doing over there..."
What spread before my eyes was not the coffin of Qin Shi Huang that should have been there—
"Hoooo....."
—but someone seated upon a throne, letting out a long, long sigh.
"Don't tell me that's—"
SHWEEEEEAAAH—
"Gahk!"
Before my sentence could even end, a sword strike came flying in from somewhere...
"Young Master!"
"It's fine—let's back away nice and slow..."
Cradling the strangely hollow space where my left arm had been, I retreated one careful step at a time.
And in that moment...
"How dare....."
The thing seated in the chair slowly raised itself and began to speak.
The moment he rose to his feet with sword in hand—
"Hnngh..... fuck...... okay, now that's crossing the line."
The pressure he exhaled put me in mind of the Dang Clan Head at the peak of his fury, and I swore under my breath as I muttered:
"Seriously... the Profound Realm..... those sons of bitches at the dev studio....."
Plod— Plod— Plod— Plod—
With every step Qin Shi Huang took came a dread as though Death itself were walking toward us. I stole a glance to my side.
"Hah... hahk... haaahk... hahk-hnk."
Dang Giyeong had worked himself into hyperventilation, gasping for air with a complexion that said he'd die of asphyxiation long before that blade ever touched him.
Before I knew it, he had advanced right up to me and set the sword against my chest, and he opened his mouth.
"Base creature—die in gratitude, for it is Our own hand that takes your life."
With those words as his finale, he drove the sword into me...
"AAAAAAAAGH...."
And in that instant, Dang Giyeong shoved me backward—running himself onto the blade in my stead—and spoke to me.
"Y-Young Master... run... hurry..."
Faced with his tear-jerking sacrifice, I addressed the already half-dead man in a voice of pure disbelief.
"Gahk... you idiot... if you're going to shove me, shove me to the SIDE..."
Because Dang Giyeong had pushed me straight back and caught the sword himself, the two of us now found ourselves, quite suddenly, skewered on Qin Shi Huang's blade like a pair of heart kebabs...
"Hah..... Are you two jesters, then?"
Even Qin Shi Huang, beholding the sight, was so utterly dumbfounded that he barked a hollow laugh and jeered at us.
"Ah... this f—ing... wanted to at least go out looking cool..."
Dang Giyeong's head lolled forward, strength gone, his final words left unfinished.
SPLOOOOSH—
Having confirmed his breath had fled, Qin Shi Huang drew out his sword—and a fountain of blood gushed forth...
Seeing me, too, collapse limply backward in a heap, he promptly turned and made his way back to the throne.
And then, from behind him—
"Ta-daaa!"
At that cry, Qin Shi Huang whirled around once more.
The stab wound he'd hammered into me moments ago was nowhere to be found; and beholding me standing there with both arms flung wide, proudly presenting a perfectly whole belly—
"Hah... now you are an amusing one."
He advanced on me again, sword in hand.
At the sight, I dropped flat against the ground in a flash and opened with:
"Y-Your Majesty! We did not come to wake you from your slumber—we have come to pay tribute of the Herb of Immortality to Your Majesty!"
The edge of the blade slid up against the throat of me, still prone...
"Amusing. Come, then—lift your head and keep talking. We shall hear you out."
With Qin Shi Huang declaring he would lend an ear, I raised my head just a sliver, reading his face, and began peddling my wares.
"Right... then allow me to begin the explanation. What we have brought for Your Majesty is, strictly speaking, not an herb at all—it is, if anything, a Water of Eternal Youth..."
"Hmm... a Water of Eternal Youth."
"To be perfectly precise, it would be something closer to a Water of Eternal Youth, Immortality, and Regeneration."
"How entertaining. Yet how are We to believe such a thing?"
By then the atmosphere had loosened up considerably. I flung both arms out with theatrical flourish and slapped at my left arm as I talked.
Tap tap—
"You see this left arm, do you not? The one Your Majesty so gloriously lopped off with your sword qi—yet here it is, reattached as if nothing had happened, no?"
Tap tap—
"And what of this chest here? Did Your Majesty not skewer both my heart and that fellow's with a single thrust? And yet... oh my, what's this? Pierced clean through the heart, and somehow still alive?"
"Hoo..... so it would seem."
Watching Qin Shi Huang drift further and further under my spell, I thought to myself—
He's almost completely hooked....
—when, at that very instant—
"Yes... and where, then, might this Water of Eternal Youth, Immortality, and Regeneration be found?"
Beholding a fish with my hook firmly in its mouth, I declared with perfect confidence:
"You need only drink my blood, and then I shall cast the spell!"
"Hoo?"
At the look of profound suspicion that suddenly crossed Qin Shi Huang's face, I scrambled onward with my explanation.
"Just close your eyes for one moment, drink my blood, and after the briefest of incantations from me, the glorious age of Your Majesty's reign shall come again!"
"....."
Watching the blade drift back toward me, inch by inch, I blurted in a rush—
"If you truly cannot bring yourself to believe it, shall I demonstrate upon that dead fellow lying over there?"
"Very well... go on, then. Show Us."
The instant his permission fell, I took hold of Dang Giyeong's blood-soaked, sprawled-out body and worked it like a puppet as I spoke.
"Now... you can see this is quite certainly a corpse, yes? The heart is thoroughly destroyed, even... Allow me to bring such a corpse back to life."
I laid Dang Giyeong's body back down on the floor and let my blood pour into the hole in his chest.
"Naturally, this fellow is in no state to drink anything right now, hence this method... Your Majesty need only drink."
"Hmm....."
So saying, I waited until a fair measure of my blood had pooled in the hollow where his heart had been, then began to chant in a quiet, solemn voice:
"Suri Suri Masuri... Asura Balbalta..."
"Ttara-dan, Ttara-dan, kung-chak-chak, kung-chak-chak!"
⟨ Spell of Resurrection ⟩
".........."
"Keh-hurk... hurk... hurk."
And with that, Dang Giyeong—whose heart had been bored through and whose body had been going cold mere moments before—broke into a fresh fit of coughing and pushed himself upright.
"Wh...what the..."
To the gaping, flabbergasted stare he leveled at me, I fired off a pointed wink by way of saying zip it, then spread my arms wide toward Qin Shi Huang once more.
"How about it! Truly remarkable, wouldn't you say? Surely that counts as proof enough of everything?"
".........."
Silent for a long moment at the sight of the dead rising up whole and healthy, Qin Shi Huang then burst out—
"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
—in thunderous laughter, beckoning me closer. I sprinted over to him at once.
"Very well... go on, then. Show Us."
"Then would Your Majesty care to open your mouth?"
"Granted."
I let my blood trickle into Qin Shi Huang's mouth, then recited that incantation once more.
A little time passed...
"I truly have come back to life. Heh heh heh....."
Qin Shi Huang roved his hands across his body, chuckling all the while.
"Young Master... what in the world is going on?"
"Shh."
Dang Giyeong couldn't make heads or tails of any of it.
Thoroughly satisfied with the state of his own body, Qin Shi Huang spoke in his most dignified voice:
"Now then... what was it you two desired? Whatever it may be, We shall grant it."
The moment those words left him, I scratched my head, looked the man up and down, and murmured:
"Ha... look at this bastard, talking all casual to his master?"
At the utterly unprovoked shift in my attitude, Qin Shi Huang was struck speechless for an instant—and I too lowered my voice, letting it drip with menace:
"Shall we start by planting that proud, upright head of yours into the floor?"
WHAM--