On a Rainy Day
The Beast Palace of the Southern Barbarians, pride of all Nanman, had once looked every bit the part its grand name promised. Buildings unlike anything found in the Central Plains, distinct to these southern lands, had lined its grounds, and the residence where the Palace Lord dwelt would not have suffered the least by being called a true palace.
But when a monster of unknown origin descended upon the Beast Palace, its people had no choice but to swallow their tears and abandon their home. Even then, not many had died, and so they had rebuilt — raising up makeshift structures while clinging to the belief that if they ever slew that creature, they could take it all back someday...
Kaboom— Kabaaam—
The Palace Lord had ordered a welcome ceremony prepared for a most distinguished guest. And then, what in the world had happened...
"Mom... do we have to move again?"
"I know, right...?"
The building where the young Palace Lord lived had gone and collapsed, top to bottom. It wasn't as if it had been thrown together carelessly — they had raised it from the biggest, sturdiest trees the area had to offer — yet the wooden pillars had rotted clean through, as if decades of weathering had visited them overnight. And when the pillars go, what becomes of the roof above? Naturally, the ceiling failed to live up to its name and came thundering down, becoming the new floor...
"Protect the Palace Lord!"
"Yes, sir!!!"
The warriors of the Beast Palace came tumbling headlong into the ruins. There in the wreckage sat Maeng Sik, legs gone to jelly, and beside him a red-eyed youth — and dangling from that youth's grip, his throat seized fast, the young Palace Lord himself.
"Ghhhkk—"
A groan of agony drifted out, but not one warrior dared step closer. All around, blood-red monsters that were little more than mouths stood arrayed in ranks, and so they could only stare, faces drained white with terror. Just what curse had settled over the Beast Palace...? Despair had written itself across every face, and there was no helping it.
Still gripping the Palace Lord by the throat, I rattled him back and forth like a doll as I spoke.
"Take your pick. If you and your warriors all take your own lives, I'll spare everyone else. Or, if you'd rather, you lot can go fight that thing yourselves."
"Kkh... ghhkk..."
"I said, take your pick."
I had gone so far as to personally hand the man his choice, so why was he keeping his mouth welded shut? People like this always clam up the moment the disadvantage swings their way. Back then or now, this world or the next — how is it that people never change the things they do?
My face twisting into something ugly, I kept shaking the rag doll of a man and bearing down on him.
"If you and those men all die together, everyone else gets to live. Is picking between two options really that hard?"
"Gghhhkk..."
"Say it!!!"
I was in the middle of raising my voice when—
"Young master? Er... wouldn't he need his throat back before he could say anything?"
"Oh."
Thud—
"Kof... keh-kof... kof..."
Only then did the Palace Lord, dropped unceremoniously onto the ground, begin coughing over and over...
"Tsk..."
Clicking my tongue, I looked down at him. A scrawny frame, a face made to look pitifully frail — not a single thing about the wretch appealed to me, and I was shaking my head at the sorry sight when—
"Might you not... accept my one life in their place?"
Still gasping for breath, the Palace Lord was asking me to settle things with his life alone. Did he take me for some mountain god, that I would say...
'What a fine child you are. As a reward, I shall spare you both.'
...something like that? That was never what the question was for in the first place.
"Hey... I told you to pick one of the two."
"It is... all my responsibility. Please..."
"And those men are innocent? Hauling people out of other villages — whether they dragged them here by force or lured them along in a daze, every bit of it was done by their own hands."
"Without them, how is anyone left behind supposed to survive in a land this cruel!"
"And you knew that!!!"
At the sight of him screaming with the veins standing out on his neck, I fired back just as loudly — then my voice quickly lost its strength.
"If you knew all that, why did you leave nothing behind in the ruins but the children and drag the rest here..."
"That's..."
"It's a problem whether you knew or didn't. No... if you didn't know, then that responsibility you keep spouting about — it's proof the guilt was never yours alone to carry."
".........."
The Palace Lord's head dropped, and I swept my gaze around and bellowed.
"Who pulled that dog-shit stunt?!!!"
At that, the eyes of everyone ringing us turned toward a single point...
"W-we only did it... so the children might live..."
Squelch—
Before they could even finish, the things erupting from beneath their feet chewed them down. I watched it play out to the very end, and only once they had been reduced to a handful of bloody pulp did I turn back to the Palace Lord.
Haa—
And then, seizing by the hair a man who wouldn't give so much as a glance to his own men's final moments, I said:
"Responsibility? How exactly does a piece of trash like you plan to take responsibility for that many lives?"
"If there is... anything I can do, anything at all..."
"You should have come right out and owned it, shameless and all — 'We wanted to live, so we fed them other people.' What would have been so wrong with that?"
"It is all... because I fell short..."
"If you'd laid that black heart of yours bare, it would have been better than this."
"I'm... sorry."
"Scum that can't even manage goodness — or even the pretense of it..."
The exchange went on, the words never once meeting. Somewhere along the way the air had turned grave; even those who had been screaming in fear or fury mere moments ago now held their silence.
Pit— pat— pit-pat—
Raindrops began to fall, one, then another, sliding down my face. And with them, the tears of blood — shed who knew when — were washed away too.
"Huk... huuuhuk..."
Shhhhaaaaa—
Through the sheets of rain pouring down as though the sky itself had torn open, the only sound left was the Palace Lord weeping...
Tok—
Before long, the hand twisted in his hair went slack.
"Young master, are you quite all right?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little tired."
Perhaps it was because he had never once seen me come apart like that. Dang Giyeong edged carefully toward me, worry written all over his face. So the man did have some sense in him after all — and watching him fuss over my condition in his own fumbling way, I brought my mental count down to two, then fixed the Palace Lord with a frostbitten stare.
There he lay, collapsed limp on the muddy ground, wailing. What on earth had I once seen mirrored in this creature? There had been a lord once, respected by every soul in his domain — until that incident, after which all of them came to loathe him without end. In the end, if memory served, he died at his own people's hands...
And his last words, back then, had surely been...
"The knights only followed orders; they bear no guilt. So be satisfied with my head."
Was that how it went...? I can barely remember anymore, so I honestly couldn't say why I'd turned so emotional either. I suppose... I suppose I was just tired. That must have been it.
Squelching through the rain toward the edge of the settlement, I found everyone clearing a path of their own accord. And so Dang Giyeong and I left the Beast Palace behind once more.
"AH-CHOO!!!"
That damned thrall of mine — if you're going to sneeze, at least turn your head first. Why must he spray spit all over my face?
Three.....
Wiping my face with a look of pure fatigue, I said:
"In all my life, this is a first — a thrall catching a cold from a spot of rain."
"A spot, you say! It is coming down in sheets as we speak, if I may say so!"
"Not one drop is getting through to us. What does it matter how hard it's falling?!!!"
We had made it out of the Beast Palace, true enough — but where in the middle of a jungle was there anywhere to hide from the rain? If this had been a mountain in the Central Plains, I could have punched out a cave. Unfortunately, out here there wasn't a cave to be had; with tree roots snarling every span of earth, I couldn't even dig a proper burrow. In any case, there was no need to stand there and take the downpour head-on, so I conjured up a great half-dome of blood, a wide canopy stretching overhead...
"Oh... not a single drop's getting through."
"Well, it'll do for a night's shelter."
And so Dang Giyeong and I were waiting out the deluge beneath it. And yet somehow, in the middle of all this, the idiot had gone and caught a cold...
I found myself pondering what I ought to feed that frail-bodied thrall to toughen up his constitution once we returned to Sichuan. In any event, the rainy night closed in around us, and with exhaustion thick on my face, I murmured to Dusik:
"The moment the sun rises tomorrow, you head back to Sichuan."
"I beg your pardon?! How could I possibly leave you, young master, alone in a deathtrap like this and go on without me?!!!"
"Go fetch your father. Or bring back a few of the clan heads."
"What in the world..."
Dang Giyeong stared at me, his face a portrait of incomprehension, his tone edging on indignation...
"I can deal with that jellyfish one way or another. It's what comes after that might turn a little... uneasy."
"Don't tell me you're expecting the Beast Palace to come stabbing us in the back?"
"Not expecting. Certain. The way that Palace Lord's heart was hammering earlier — one listen and I could tell it was an act."
I answered with a short, incredulous laugh. Of course, Dang Giyeong still couldn't quite bring himself to believe it; he prodded playfully at my shoulder, hamming it up as he quipped:
"Aw, come on... that wailing was an act? With acting chops like that, he'd have run off to join a Chinese opera troupe instead."
"Act or not, I was always going to kill the Beast Palace's lord and its warriors anyway..."
"Young master... I know it isn't my place, but if I might offer just one word..."
"It isn't your place, so don't."
"But..."
"Dusik. You remember the little ones we brought out to Yunnan?"
At my abrupt change of subject, Dang Giyeong nodded and answered.
"Yes... well, I remember them."
"They begged me to find their parents. And if I couldn't manage that, they begged me to avenge them instead."
".........."
"So between those bastards and those little children — whose words am I supposed to honor?"
"Even so, that's..."
"Just keep it in mind, that's all. I haven't settled on an answer myself yet."
It was a night when the rain poured down as though it had lost its mind.