Chapter 35

I looked around at the world gone colorless. Moyong Rin and Yeon Seo-ha, the Plum Blossom Swordsman beside her, had both been drained of color and stood frozen like statues. Look where I might, there was no sign of whoever had spoken.

“Show yourself. Where did you learn manners like that, speaking out of hiding?”

A low laugh came back at me.

Several cords of brilliant five-colored light came down into that colorless, stopped world. They gathered this way and that until they formed a human shape.

Was this what it looked like when an immortal came down to earth? However many times I saw it, the sight lost none of its beauty. Beautiful enough that I did not dare take my eyes off it.

With a laugh full of mischief, a man with a clean-cut look about him came down and set his feet on the ground. He had the sort of shameless smile that sticks in the memory, and a boyish mischief had soaked into every inch of his face.

Hm.

My first impression of him ran something like this.

This one didn’t listen to a damn word he was told as a child.

At the same time, he had the sort of face that goes around making women cry. Put kindly, a pretty boy; put unkindly, the face of a philanderer.

“Who are you?”

“Don’t make me ask twice.”

The wretch gave a faint smile.

There was sorrow in that smile. There was gladness in it too.

He drew one foot out to the side and bowed to me in a form of ceremony I had never seen. It differed from the one Ishtar had performed; apparently the etiquette was not the same for men as for women.

That was one more name my memory did not hold.¹

“No.”

…So that’s why the greeting felt like a prank.

The way he clowned around was deeply unlikeable.

“Did I hit you often?”

“…I think I can see why.”

I was certain of it. If this creature and I had known each other, I must have thrashed him to within an inch of his life at least once.

Whatever it was that pleased him so, Herion kept grinning away at me, in exact counterpoint to my own face screwing up. He had an outstanding gift for getting on a person’s nerves.

“And who is Kali?”

— Heh-heh-heh.

Whatever it was he found so funny, the laugh never left the creature’s face. I had a strong feeling he wore this same playful smile while he was smashing an enemy to pieces, and the feeling sat close to certainty.

Killing people as though it were a game? Here stood one worse than the Smiling Ghost.

This thing served under me?

What in the world had I been, in the past?

No — no. There was one like Ishtar too.

I was steadying myself when Herion let his laugh die away and pointed at my ear. At the star earring hanging from it, to be precise.

“Didn’t Ishtar tell you?”

Figures.

One look was enough to tell me he and Ishtar were a bad match.

Ishtar can’t stand him either, by the look of it.

No, it would be quicker to go looking for someone he was a good match with.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Stop your grumbling. I don’t want to hear it.”

Herion flopped down and sat right where he stood.

A diversion, is it….

Ishtar had said it would be a long journey. This one called it a diversion.

Who am I, and what did I come down here to do?

“No. It’s killing me.”

I was simply stating a fact. Only a few moments ago I had very nearly been killed by the dead risen out of the fog.

“You may well ask.”

“What is the internet.”

“It is not harmful.”

“It’s a feeling I have.”

I let Herion grumble on for a while, then asked.

“What is this place?”

“If my past is in that place where you all are, then is that place not the real one? And if so, is this nothing but a phantom? Like the fog just now?”

Herion stared at me blankly for a moment, then laughed out loud.

“You’re laughing?”

The creature broke off his cackling and spoke to me with amusement still lying thick on his face.

“Is that not Zhuangzi’s?”

Herion flapped both arms and did his impression of a butterfly.

He looked at me, smiling.

“What did I say back then?”

In that instant a memory came flowing into my head.

— Captain.
— What.
— I had a dream.
— What kind of dream.
— I became king of the galaxy, and drank myself fit to burst with beautiful women as many as the stars. It was a banquet as splendid as if all the starlight in the galaxy had been gathered into one place. Unlike those insolent wretches, they did not refuse the drink I poured. They wept, in fact, and called it the glory of ages.
— That’s you all over. Were you happy?
— I was happy.
— Then go out and live it up. Why stay at my side?
— You may well ask.

I said to the creature as he grinned.

— Rion.
— Yes, Captain.
— Have you ever heard of the Butterfly Dream?
— No. What’s that?
— Ignorant wretch. I keep telling you to read a book.
— So what is it, then.
— It is what an old sage who dreamed of a butterfly said.

And then I explained it exactly as Herion had just now explained it to me, without a single syllable out of place. It must have made quite an impression on him, to remember it word for word like that.

— So which of the two is real?

I answered.

— Both are true.

“And both are false.”

The Herion of the present laughed.

I answered with a hand to my forehead.

“Only fragments of them.”

A dream, is it….

Ishtar had said that dream and curse are bound up in one another.

Is this connected to that, I wonder.

Hup— Herion got to his feet.

He came right up to me in that free and easy stride of his and raised a finger.

Herion extended the finger slowly. It came in softly and tapped, ever so lightly, at the eye the lens was seated in.

— Flare!

“Kuh.”

For one instant a dazzling light flooded my whole field of vision. It burned like an absolute bastard, as though someone had laid a branding iron on me.

While I screwed my eye shut and waited for it to settle,

the nature of the power held in the lens came flowing into my head.

“…Fantastic.”

I muttered it as though chewing the word and spitting it out, one hand cupped over my eye.

Herion watched me with a contented smile and spoke as though it had only just occurred to him.

To hear him tell it, the device was as good as a divine treasure. Nothing was ever that convenient.

“How high is ‘a little’?”

Herion said it with such pride that a sigh came out of me all on its own. To think a piece of trash like this had been my subordinate.

“I’ll make good use of it.”

The time to part had come.

“Yes.”

“I did no such thing.”

He had every reason to resent me, and still he did nothing but smile, right to the end.

“Herion.”

“Thanks.”

The smile vanished from the mouth that the laugh had never once left. He looked at me with a face gone dead serious.

“Joking to the very last. You could stand to be serious just once.”

I closed my eyes gently and said my farewell.

“See you later.”

The voice scattered away into the distance. When I opened my burning eye, the pale world had put its colors back on again. I was blinking, getting used to my renewed sight, when….

“Huh? Huhh?”

Moyong Rin shoved her face into mine.

“Hey! What’s wrong with your eye?”
“What is.”
“Your eye’s gone weird!”

With that, Moyong Rin pulled out a bluish hand mirror of cast bronze and thrust it in front of my eyes.

“…Huh?”

The one eye reflected in the mirror was shining in the shape of a star.

“So — you’re saying you’ll stay on longer?”
“Yes.”
“And how long do you mean to stay?”
“Until I smash through my limits?”
“And when is that?”
“Well, I wouldn’t know that.”

I had decided to do some training in the fog-filled room, the place Herion said they also called the ‘Training Room’, and go back after that. There was no letting an opportunity this precious go.

“It’s tight even if we set off now. Are you serious?”
“It doesn’t much matter either way whether we get back inside the time limit, does it? Let’s just take our time going back.”

Yeon Seo-ha let out a deep sigh.

“All right. Suit yourself.”

As I went up to the training room, Moyong Rin came after me.

“You’re really going to do it?”
“I told you. I’m going to win the Dragon and Phoenix Conference, whatever it takes. How could I turn down a chance to get stronger?”
“You could die, I said.”
“So?”
“…”

The tone was that of someone stating the obvious. You train, sometimes you die. Is that such a big deal?

I will never understand the way murim warriors think.

I went up to the fog-choked door. Until a little while ago the thick fog had let me see nothing an inch ahead, but now my eye cut straight into it, like a shaft of light piercing the dark.

This should do it.

That was the power of the star eyeball Herion had given me.

I can watch, and step in when Moyong Rin is in danger.

“Let’s go.”
“Mm.”

We walked into the fog.

Time to get stronger.

Before the Azure Sea Bamboo Forest.

— Clack—

The three heads, each representing one sect or family, were seated together playing xiangqi.²

“About time they started coming back.”
“I hope none of the children are hurt.”
“Coddle them like that and I’m sure they’ll rise above hardship and grow splendidly.”

— Clack—

“Who do you think will come first?”
“Our Paeng Family, obviously. Our children take after me — there’s a fire in their nature.”
“Does it matter who comes first? What matters is who brings back the greatest quarry.”

— Clack—

“I’m bored. Shall we have a wager?”
“A wager? We’ve already put up a prize for the winner.”
“That is hardly the same thing. I only mean a light one, to pass the time.”

— Clack—

“A wager, indeed. You want to bet on the children?”
“Well, if you’re feeling chicken, sit it out. I won’t force you.”
“What was that?”

— Clack!

“Chicken, my eye. Ten coppers on our Moyong Family’s children taking the win!”
“Ha ha! That’s the spirit. And I’ll put ten coppers on our Paeng children bringing back the biggest, most fearsome monster.”
“Ho ho. Have you no confidence? A mere ten coppers. If we’re playing, why not play a little bigger?”

— Clack—

“How big were you thinking of playing?”
“Three silver taels — how’s that?”
“Come now, who stakes silver on a children’s wager?”

— Clack—

“No confidence, I take it?”
“It isn’t that.”
“I won’t force you. If you haven’t the confidence, there’s nothing to be done. Let’s just play small, at ten coppers.”

— Clack!

“Three silver taels! I’ll stake it! Because I believe in our children.”
“Ha ha! Now that’s spirited! I’ll gladly put up three silver taels myself.”
“Bet!”

— Clack—

“Bet? What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not entirely sure. Our children use it at times like this.”
“In any case, I shall take the wager as struck.”

— Clack—

“I’ll say it now, late as it is. I am certain our Mount Hua Sect will win.”
“That is a great deal of confidence. You must have something to fall back on.”
“Indeed I do.”

— Clack—

“There’s a boy called Ju Jeo-ha. There is a ruin site near our Mount Hua Sect as well, and that Jeo-ha keeps hanging about near it.”
“That’s dangerous. Why did you not stop him?”
“Of course I stopped him. But stop him as I might, he kept going back. And then one day, would you believe it, he brought a monster back with him.”

— Clack—

“Sect Leader Seomun. That joke goes too far.”
“It was a small one, mind.”
“Small or not, come now.”

— Clack—

“I understand your not believing it. I was startled myself, the first time.”
“You mean it is true?”
“What would I gain by lying to you all? The trouble is that Ju Jeo-ha will not spar with the other children at all — he only ever goes off to the ruins and plays with the monsters. It has given me no end of a headache.”

— Clack—

“Why would he chase monsters instead of fighting people?”
“I was curious myself, so I asked. And do you know what the boy answered?”
“What did he say?”

— Clack—

“He says sparring with people is no fun.”
“Why?”
“Too predictable.”

— Clack—

“An arrogant little brat.”
“So he means he can see it all coming, so it bores him? A thoroughly arrogant little brat.”
“Well. Whether he is arrogant or not, we shall have to see. Be that as it may. You have lost the xiangqi.”

— Clack—

“Ah!”
“Moyong family head. It’s my turn now. Move aside.”
“My children will avenge me!”