A Long and Scholarly Tale
The higher a martial art’s realm climbs, the more drastically the number of those who reach it dwindles.
How many, then, could truly be counted among the supreme masters of their age?
In every era alike, the answer seldom strayed far beyond ten or so.
Gu Mang-gyeol, the Lord of Ten Thousand Poisons.
He too had reigned as one of those few.
Even across the whole of history, most would agree that none had ever equaled him where poison was concerned.
A single gesture of his hand could claim dozens of lives as if it were nothing. The number he had killed almost certainly ran past ten thousand without effort.
Yet he was never known solely for slaughter. The greatest reason he could display such cruel methods without being branded a public enemy was that, through poison alone, he had achieved extraordinary advances.
Poison and medicine are two faces of the same coin—used well, they become indistinguishable.
Would anyone believe that two-tenths of every known poison had been born from a single man’s hands? Yet it was a famous fact, and none could deny it. Two-tenths might mean little to some, so put another way: the number ran into the thousands.
How many events had sprung from that influence alone was beyond even the richest imagination to grasp.
And that was not the end of it. He had reached into pill refinement and medicine as well, leaving behind countless achievements. That his path could be called that of a great man was no secret at all.
The boy swallowed a faint smile.
Don’t tell me even that grass field was made by the Lord of Ten Thousand Poisons? If so, its strangeness suddenly makes sense.
A name that made the incomprehensible feel inevitable. And the man himself stood before him.
“You seem to have sorted your thoughts well enough. Then I may attend to this old man’s business, yes?”
“I am listening.”
“No need to stand so stiff.”
Gu Mang-gyeol grinned.
“It is merely a proposal. You may refuse if you wish—but I would prefer you think carefully before answering.”
“Whose words do you mean?”
He had already decided, inwardly, that the being before him was Gu Mang-gyeol. Ordinarily he would have doubted and doubted again. That he did not was something like instinct. Anyone placed in this spot would have reacted the same way—he could not explain why, yet he simply knew.
“I would have you learn this old man’s divine art.”
Even a boy could not help but start at those words. A divine art stood at the very pinnacle of martial cultivation. Strictly speaking there were ranks within that pinnacle, yet for most people it was something they would never so much as glimpse before they died. To be asked to learn one—anyone who understood the meaning would lose their composure, no matter how rare their emotions.
Of course, doubts remained. Frankly, it was fortunate the speaker was Gu Mang-gyeol; anyone else would have been dismissed as a swindler. Even now the thought lingered a little. Was this not far too good a situation for him alone? He could not accept it at once.
In a short span he ordered his thoughts, and a single conclusion emerged.
“Yes. I will learn the divine art.”
“Indeed. You must find it suspicious. Still, it would be wise to think once more—what did you just say?”
“I said I would learn it. Is that a problem?”
“Hah. No. Merely an answer I did not expect. Very well. What matters now is not the process by which you arrived at the thought.”
There are moments in the world when, though something seems doubtful, one must not doubt. At least the boy believed so. And this was one of those moments. Gu Mang-gyeol was not a man he could second-guess in any case.
“At any rate, it is good that the talk moves quickly.”
“What is this divine art I am to learn?”
“You seem to know who this old man is. Then you can already guess what follows. It is a poison art. Disappointed? It cannot be helped. It is the path I walked my entire life—how could I cast it aside? Heh heh heh! And one day I wished to prove it as well.”
“I have never been disappointed. Poison is a path of its own. And it is a divine art, is it not?”
“Hah. Divine art this, divine art that. What if this old man were deceiving you? You have no proof.”
“Then my judgment would simply have been wrong.”
“Kh-heh-heh-heh! What a specimen you are. I tested you without meaning to. Now I am curious how that brain of yours is put together.”
The words were faintly chilling, yet somehow a sense of ease brushed past. Perhaps it was simply that the tension had eased.
“Am I strange? I only spoke the thoughts I hold, without reservation.”
“Huu. Do you know? Every word of yours strikes home. As if you are scraping away the old grime this old man has carried all his life. I wonder whether you intended it.”
“What do you mean by—”
“Of course you did not. It is a story I have never told a soul. No one knows.”
“What do you mean, no one knows?”
“……Prejudice. Looking back, prejudice followed this old man’s life wherever he went. At birth it was the word ‘bastard’ that trailed after me—though I never asked for it. So I strove to overturn that prejudice.”
The boy sensed it at once by instinct. This was a secret history. A secret history of the giant called Gu Mang-gyeol that no one had ever known.
“I took up the sword. A month of effort brought no improvement. Next I took up the spear. The same. Axe, whip, bow…… all the same. I wondered whether Heaven itself had laid a curse upon me.”
“Like the affliction of severed meridians?”
“Perhaps. Far vaguer than that, though. Even I never grasped its true nature. Whether it was real, I still do not know.”
“So the Lord of Ten Thousand Poisons even allows for the possibility that it was pure delusion.”
“Kh-heh-heh. When things go wrong, people refuse to look within and insist the fault lies outside. This old man was no different.”
A hollow note colored the voice.
“At any rate, let us return to the tale.”
“I did not know the Lord of Ten Thousand Poisons was a bastard son. Was my study simply lacking?”
“No. That was by design—more precisely, the family’s design. If the greatest genius in their history had been born a bastard, it would lower their standing. Their thinking is always so transparent, is it not? Disgusting creatures. They tore me down and tormented me without end, yet the moment I proved my strength their attitude flipped completely.”
“Did they not say you had no talent?”
“Indeed, I had none. The same with poison. Compared to the rest it was better, at least. Study one thing and I would grasp one—ordinary ability, nothing more.”
“Hah. That the Lord of Ten Thousand Poisons was a mediocrity……”
“Does it amuse you? Yet it is fact. What I lacked, I made up with time. Several times more than others.”
“How, exactly?”
“Others call poison inferior. Yet its possibilities are endless. Even the secret I hid until the day I died was born from this: using poison to dull the mind to an extreme degree. With it, time flowed more slowly for me than for anyone else. While all others lived through twelve double-hours, I alone possessed dozens—hundreds—of them.”
“If that could be applied to combat……”
“Regrettably, it could not. It demanded intense concentration, and I could not freely start and stop it. Moreover, only thought slowed; the body remained the same.”
“True. Had even that been possible, the Lord of Ten Thousand Poisons would have ruled that entire age.”
“A remark that stabs like a dagger.”
“Because it is true. Or have I misunderstood?”
“No. You are correct. Still, even with such ability I seized control of the family at a young age. The second problem—prejudice—began there. Perhaps I judged too lightly. In a place that already discriminated against bastards, how could they not call the use of poison arts cowardly? Even when I won fair and open contests, many refused to submit. Had it ended there, I might have spent time and somehow settled the matter.”
But the family was ancient, and there were many things never taught to a bastard like Gu Mang-gyeol. Among them were the retired elders.
The family members he had defeated refused to accept their loss and went straight to those elders. By every means they persuaded the elders to re-enter the fray, and Gu Mang-gyeol, caught unprepared, was helpless.
“At first it was still manageable.”
“Because, rotten or not, they were still of the same family?”
Gu Mang-gyeol nodded.
“Correct. The elders had no intention of killing me. At first they meant to ‘enlighten’ me and turn me into family strength. The problem was that neither the elders nor I were in any position to show mercy.”
“I roughly understand. You killed one of the elders?”
“Thanks to that, the elders changed their purpose. The family rose against me in full force almost overnight.”
The elders were the pillars of the house. Retired or not, their influence was immense.
“Even those who had held to neutrality until the end—and the ones I had already won over—turned their backs.”
“So the entire family became your enemy?”
“It went beyond that. The main house of that era was an ancient clan long rooted in the land, naturally entangled with many other powers. Once the elders moved, drawing those powers in took no time at all. That may well have been one of the most dangerous moments of this old man’s life.”
The tale was simple, yet he had surely been hunted by a thousand men or more. How he had overcome it—the boy judged that if he himself had faced the same, surrendering everything would have been the easier path. Most people would have felt the same.
“Yet fortune turned in my favor. I overcame it in the end, and I learned a lesson: handle a matter halfway, and they will climb back up.”
“Handle a matter halfway.”
“Heh heh heh! The me who returned slaughtered every last one who had actively joined the hunt—elders included. A bloody purge. Even that name falls short. Those who resisted met the same end. Whether thanks to that or not, three-tenths of the family’s members at the time were wiped away.”
“It is almost strange you never became a public enemy.”
“Did I not say? I do not handle matters halfway. I sealed every crack that might leak outside before I acted. Barring a mistake, I judged it would hold for at least ten years.”
What followed was well known even to the world at large, and the boy remembered the broad strokes. Gu Mang-gyeol seemed to think it unimportant as well, and passed over it with a brief account.
The corner of his mouth curled upward as he continued.
“Do you know why this old man told such a long and scholarly tale? Because it was only half a success.”
“Why only half?”
Anyone who knew even a fraction of what he had achieved would never make the mistake of speaking lightly of Gu Mang-gyeol’s life.
“Half a success is the same as half a failure. Poison—this old man—never conquered that age.”
“What is it you want, then?”
“Child. You shall inherit this old man’s true transmission.”
And then:
“Finish what this old man could not. Make the world know of poison. That it can stand as the greatest of the age.”