Chapter 213 - Because We Are Demonic Martial Artists

"He wouldn't have come all the way here unless it were truly urgent," I hastily told the Poison King.

Since this was the first time one of my subordinates had come looking for me, the Poison King told Sang Seon to bring Seo Daeryong at once.

A short while later, Sang Seon brought Seo Daeryong to us.

"Pavilion Master, I think you need to come immediately."

"What happened, Investigator Seo?"

"There's been a serious incident in Demon Family Village. A martial artist who had been drinking without any trouble suddenly started swinging his sword. Dozens have been killed or injured."

Startled, I demanded, "Where?"

"Yanghwa House."

Yanghwa House was one of the many pleasure houses in Demon Family Village.

"Was it a drunken brawl?"

"No. They say blood suddenly began pouring from the killer's eyes and nose, and then he went berserk. His martial arts were exceptional, which made the casualties even worse."

The instant I heard that, I recalled an incident from before my regression.

I immediately took my leave of the Poison King.

"Poison King, I'll have to leave early today."

Seo Daeryong and I hurried out.

When we arrived at Yanghwa House in Demon Family Village, enforcement martial artists were cordoning off the area. The heavy smell of blood hit us before we even went inside.

One boy among the onlookers caught my eye. He looked about thirteen or fourteen, and was shouting at the enforcement martial artists.

"My mother and little sister are in there! Please go look for them! My mother works in the kitchen! Mother! Su!"

Leaving the boy behind, I went inside with Seo Daeryong.

The interior was a sea of blood. Corpses lay scattered everywhere, and the enforcement martial artists were checking for survivors.

"Everyone was drunk, so the casualties were even worse."

The dead weren't all martial artists. Courtesans and even the cooks who prepared the food had been killed.

In a corner of the kitchen lay a middle-aged woman, dead with a little girl in her arms. The child looked just like the boy shouting outside.

I stared silently down at the bodies of the mother and daughter, then let out a sigh. The girl would have been running around the kitchen helping her mother.

Beside me, Seo Daeryong couldn't bear to keep looking. He turned his head away.

"Where is the bastard?"

"On the third floor."

I started walking again. Horrific sights lined the entire way.

He was dead, propped against the wall at the end of the third-floor corridor. He was a young man who looked to be in his early thirties. Blood from his eyes and nose had run down to his chin and dried there. His eyes had rolled back in death, and their whites were stained blood-red.

Seo Daeryong followed me up and spoke in a trembling voice.

"I've never seen anything so horrible."

I knew what had caused this.

'Berserk!'

Berserk was an internal-energy booster that temporarily increased the user's internal energy.

Depending on the dose, these boosters could increase internal energy for anywhere from the time it took to drink a cup of tea to half a watch. The increase was usually around ten to twenty percent. Of course, once the time was up, internal energy returned to normal.

Berserk's popularity had exploded because it provided a much greater increase: anywhere from thirty to fifty percent.

But its side effects were as deadly as its benefits were impressive. The result was right before my eyes.

The Unorthodox Alliance was selling Berserk. They also sold Black Consort, the energy-dispersing poison used against me in the martial tournament after my regression. Berserk and Black Consort were their two main products.

"Who was he?"

"One of the Demon Swords of the Northern Heaven Sword House. I'm told he had never caused any trouble before. He was even promoted last year."

That was probably the problem. He must have secretly taken Berserk to earn that promotion.

"Send his body to the Demon Physician right away. I'll leave the cleanup here to you."

"Pavilion Master, I don't know why this happened, but I want to get to the bottom of it."

The look in Seo Daeryong's eyes was the same one I'd seen when we first met, when he was an investigator at Yellow Springs Pavilion. The look of a man determined to uncover the truth behind his senior's death.

I met his gaze and nodded once.

"Take good care of that boy we saw outside."

Seo Daeryong nodded firmly in return.

* * *

I watched the Demon Physician examine the corpse.

After inspecting it from various angles, he offered his assessment of the cause of death.

"His dantian is badly swollen and damaged. It looks as though he used a powerful internal-energy booster. Losing his reason and attacking people with his sword seems to have been a side effect."

The Demon Physician had accurately identified the corpse's condition.

"Actually, this isn't the first body I've seen like this. One was brought in toward the end of last year. That man went berserk on his own and died. This one caused a massacre."

Berserk hadn't yet spread throughout Murim. At first, its side effects had been quietly brushed aside, but as more people used it, they had begun to become a serious problem.

"He probably wasn't in his right mind when he did it. You should have trained to increase your internal energy, man. Why get so greedy?"

He spoke reproachfully to the corpse, then turned away. This was one reason Berserk had continued to spread: he should never have taken it in the first place. Since the primary blame inevitably fell on the person who took the drug, the Unorthodox Alliance exploited that attitude to rake in even more money.

After covering the corpse with a white cloth, the Demon Physician washed the blood from his hands. The news that so many innocent people had died had dampened his spirits too.

As if trying to change the mood, he asked me, "How did things go with the Poison King?"

"I've been seeing him every day since then."

The Demon Physician was astonished.

"Every day? Really?"

"I'm learning the work in the Thousand-Poison Forest."

"I knew it. You really are different. Well, now that you've met him, what do you think of him?"

"He's more cheerful than I expected."

The Demon Physician nodded. Apparently, he too had noticed that cheerful side.

"It took me quite some time to realize that, but you've already seen it."

"These days, we're together almost all day."

"Do you really want to win your wager with the Cult Leader badly enough to go this far?"

Looking down at the covered corpse, I answered quietly.

"Now I have even more reasons why I must win."

* * *

Father and Chief Strategist Sima Myeong were waiting in Heavenly Demon Hall.

I strode down the Path of Blood and gave them my report.

"The Demon Physician has identified the cause of this incident as the side effects of an internal-energy booster."

Neither man looked remotely surprised. That meant they already knew about the symptoms of its side effects.

"You already knew, didn't you?"

Sima Myeong answered my question.

"Yes. Several incidents, both large and small, have been reported in the Central Plains."

"The Unorthodox Alliance is behind it, aren't they?"

"How did you know?"

"I was poisoned with an energy-dispersing poison during the last New Demon Tournament. When I investigated, I found that it was Black Consort, made by the Unorthodox Alliance. I suspected this was their doing too."

"It's an internal-energy booster called Berserk, sold by the Unorthodox Alliance."

As expected, Sima Myeong knew about Berserk.

I asked him another question.

"Who in the Unorthodox Alliance is responsible for producing Berserk? You know, don't you, Strategist?"

Sima Myeong looked at Father. After regarding me for a moment, Father nodded.

Only then did Sima Myeong reveal the man's identity.

"Ae Cha."

I knew Ae Cha very well.

"The Black Snake."

"That's right."

He was one of Yelü Han's four subordinates. Just as Ji Saeng, who had created Immortal Debt, had sworn loyalty by tattooing a golden pig on himself, Ae Cha had done so with a black snake tattoo.

This was my opportunity to speak.

As you can see, Yelü Han is behind every kind of evil. That bastard is absolute evil.

But I didn't say it. Unless I won the wager by persuading the Poison King to come before Father, the Black Snake would remain beyond my reach as well.

I remained silent for a moment. Through that silence, I showed my anger and strengthened my resolve.

"My pavilion will submit a detailed report on the incident. I'll report anything else we uncover."

I walked back down the Path of Blood and left Heavenly Demon Hall.

This was probably the first time I had met the two of them and left without a single joke. Quietly, I added the anger called Berserk to the anger called Immortal Debt.

Father and Sima Myeong watched me leave without a word.

I was taking Father's recent lesson to heart.

From someone else's perspective, my world was closed too.

Yes, I acknowledged it. Establishing a new Demonic Path and eradicating absolute evil was still something that existed only within my own world.

* * *

That night, I stood alone before the Fist Demon's cliff.

I looked up at it, just as he had.

Clenching my fist, I channeled internal energy into it.

WHOOOOSH!

Air currents swirled around my fist, accompanied by the sound of gathering rain clouds.

SWISH!

I started to throw a punch at the cliff, then stopped at the last instant.

I knew I couldn't bring it down yet. There would be only one time in my life when I truly struck this cliff.

Then a welcome voice came from behind me.

"Hit it with that baby hand now, and you'll only hurt yourself."

I turned with a smile.

The Fist Demon was walking toward me.

"Master!"

I was glad to see him after so long. After spending my days looking at the Poison King's youthful face, the sight of this fearsome face and enormous torso brought home the fact that I was in the Demonic Cult.

The Fist Demon's gaze went to my tightly clenched fist. Reading my anger, he spoke calmly.

"My disciple."

"Yes, Master."

"When you're truly angry, open your clenched fist wide, like this."

His enormous palm opened before me. It was larger than my face.

"And then!"

CLAP!

The Fist Demon clapped loudly.

"Clap once, then clench it again. That fist will hurt more."

"You wouldn't need to clench it again. If an enemy were between those palms, it would be no different from getting punched."

The Fist Demon, of all people, was telling me to unclench my fist. I engraved that profound, weighty lesson in my heart.

Then I gave him the banter I'd been unable to offer Father and Sima Myeong.

"When you stood here, Master, I thought you were thinking of nothing but bringing down the cliff."

"And?"

"Didn't you just come stand here whenever you were angry? That's it, isn't it?"

Unable to deny it, the Fist Demon laughed.

I said goodbye and walked away. Both fists, which I had clenched so tightly, were now wide open.

* * *

The next day, I went to the Thousand-Poison Forest as usual.

The Poison King was strolling through the woods near his house with a collecting container.

"About what happened yesterday..."

Then he said something surprising.

"Berserk, wasn't it?"

Just from hearing about the side effects yesterday, the Poison King had known Berserk was responsible.

"You knew?"

"Of course. As you know, the Poison Fangs travel throughout the Central Plains gathering poisonous herbs and substances. Those Unorthodox Alliance bastards go around gathering herbs for their drugs too. That's why we know their movements better than anyone."

The Poison King frowned slightly.

"I even warned them not to make that damned drug."

"Do you know who makes it?"

"I do. There's an idiot called the True Poison Recluse."

The True Poison Recluse was a poison-arts master renowned among the unorthodox factions. The Poison King grimaced, as though even thinking about him was unpleasant.

"Even poison users have things they won't do, but that bastard is behaving like a third-rate hack."

"His third-rate antics killed many innocent people. One woman died with a child in her arms. That fact won't even make it into the Cult's report. 'Total fatalities: so many!' The deaths of that mother and daughter will be buried in that single line. If they become restless spirits and watch this world, the child will ask her mother: Why does no one care that we died?"

Whether he was listening or not, the Poison King was looking at a poisonous insect on a tree. I no longer got angry at that. He was living in his own world, just as I was living in mine.

"What's that poisonous insect called?"

I asked about his world, and he answered in terms of mine.

"What would avenging them accomplish?"

"I remember it being an ingredient in Blue Death Poison, but I can't remember its name."

"It's hypocrisy. The self-satisfaction you get from helping someone."

Neither of us listened to the other. We each said our own piece.

"Ah, what was it? It's on the tip of my tongue."

"The dead are dead. That's the end of it."

The Poison King looked at me, and I looked back. We held each other's gaze in silence. It was the longest he had looked at me since we met.

Then we returned to our respective worlds.

"Su. That's the name of the little girl who died in her mother's arms today."

"That insect is a white-spotted bug. It's an ingredient in Five-Poison Incense, not Blue Death Poison."

With the most serious expression I'd seen on him since we met, the Poison King asked me a question.

"Tell me. What's the real reason you're doing this?"

"Whenever I speak about it, everyone asks whether I belong to the orthodox factions. Whether I'm some righteous hero. When they do, I find myself asking questions too, like that child turned restless spirit. Helpless women are dying. Children are dying. Young people are dying one after another. And we're supposed to ignore it because we're the Demonic Cult? If those are the thoughts of the orthodox factions, then what the hell are we supposed to think as we live our lives?"

The Poison King gave no answer.

I didn't press him any further. Clapping my hands once, I said briskly, "Let's go. We have plenty of poisonous insects to catch today, don't we?"

But he didn't move on. Instead, he sat down right where he was.

I had no choice but to sit beside him.

The Poison King watched the poisonous ants passing beneath his feet. Since I was sitting there anyway, I finished saying what I wanted to say, whether he listened or not.

"The little girl who died has an older brother. He was outside the pleasure house, which had become a sea of blood, shouting to ask whether his mother and sister were safe. I want to tell that boy that I killed every last person responsible for his family's deaths and came back. That they were people no one could otherwise kill, but we could, because we are demonic martial artists."

Still watching the ants, the Poison King said, "I really can't understand you."

"Never support me. One wrong move, and someone like me will be the next Heavenly Demon."

"I wouldn't support you even if it killed me."

But the truly incomprehensible one was the Poison King. Because he added:

"Do I really have to bark five times?"