Chapter 215 - Be Part of It From the Start

The Wicked Laughing Demon was sitting alone in his white room, staring at the wall again today.

Once I learned that the white wall helped with his martial training, I stopped worrying that he might go mad.

The first thing I said upon entering his room was, "Laughing Demon, let's go fight."

His eyes behind the mask lit up with a smile at the news that I had obtained permission. He had gone so far as to don the Undying Ghost Mask to meet Father for my sake.

"Gladly."

He answered without hesitation. Even knowing our opponent was Yelü Han, he showed no fear whatsoever. He was simply delighted to be going into battle with me.

"We'll be dealing with not only Yelü Han, but his four henchmen as well."

His eyes smiled through the mask's eyeholes. The stronger the enemy, the happier he was. That did not mean he was arrogant or had failed to assess our opponent accurately, however.

"Yelü Han is strong. This may be a harder battle than the ones we've fought before."

The Wicked Laughing Demon was not letting his guard down in the least. He understood the danger of this undertaking better than anyone. That made me all the more grateful. He had stepped forward for me despite knowing exactly what it entailed.

"The problem is that we have to kill them without leaving any evidence that we did it."

"You're clever, Second Young Master. You'll find a way."

"You'll have to help me."

"I'll just handle the killing."

He said it lightly, but I sensed his gaze deepen. Our opponent left him no choice but to think carefully. He spoke to me in a calm voice.

"Sometimes, in battle, I forget who I am. That's when I'm most at risk. From what I've seen, you know who you are better than anyone, Second Young Master. That's why I'm not worried."

"And I'm not worried because I'll have you with me."

We smiled at each other, treating one another with goodwill and appreciating the kindness we received in return.

I found myself wanting to banter with him, to make jokes.

But I held back. This was precisely when people made mistakes. Closeness made courtesy all the more necessary, yet all the harder to maintain, so I treated him with even deeper respect than before.

"Oh, another Demon Supreme will be joining us on this mission."

"Who?"

"Father has ordered the Poison King to accompany us."

At the mention of the Poison King, the Wicked Laughing Demon's eyes took on a slightly awkward look.

"I'm not personally acquainted with him."

Who was? That applied equally to the Poison King and the Wicked Laughing Demon.

"In the course of making this happen, I got to know the Poison King a little. I thought he was a decent man."

The Wicked Laughing Demon still seemed uncomfortable. His fondness for me was one thing; his relationships with the other Demon Supremes were quite another.

He walked to the opposite wall and stood before the line he had drawn there.

"With the Poison King, I'd be about here."

He pointed to the beginning of the line.

"At least he's on the line."

He laughed at my remark. It was already decided, after all, and he accepted the situation.

"Let's hope his poison doesn't accidentally kill us."

I couldn't easily picture the two of them together either. Finding a good pairing among the Demon Supremes was no simple matter. Which two would get along best?

"When will you be ready to leave?"

"Anytime is fine with me."

"Then let's leave tomorrow morning."

"Very well."

As I turned to leave, I said to him, "This is happening thanks to you. Thank you again."

"If we don't make it back alive, you'll have to say I'm to blame rather than thank me. Save your thanks until it's over."

With that, the Laughing Demon turned his gaze back to the wall.

I looked at the white wall with him for a moment, then said goodbye and left the room.

As I walked out of Villains' Valley, the Faceless Wanderers I encountered regarded me with greater warmth than before. Some even bowed and told me they had enjoyed what I'd done earlier. My barking at the main training ground had made me even more popular. They really did prefer strange antics.

* * *

After leaving Villains' Valley, I went straight to the Thousand-Poison Forest.

The Poison King was busy packing. I had come to tell him we would depart tomorrow morning, but he seemed to have anticipated it already and was bustling about gathering his things.

"How did you know we'd be leaving tomorrow morning?"

"You made all that fuss to get this chance. Of course you'd leave right away."

"You really are clever."

"If I were clever, would I have landed myself in this predicament?"

To him, the predicament was not facing Yelü Han. It was leaving the Thousand-Poison Forest.

He packed poisons into a shoulder bag: poisons in pouches, in containers, and in bottles. He gathered all sorts.

"Do you need to bring so much poison?"

The poisons he normally carried on his person alone could probably kill an enormous number of martial artists. Yet he was packing what seemed an excessive supply of spares.

"Who knows what might happen?"

His utter reluctance to go did not stop him from preparing thoroughly. That was his nature. Without such meticulousness, he could never have made all those poisons and antidotes.

He put on a thin, long robe to conceal the poison pouches at his waist. Several pockets were sewn into its lining, and he filled those with poison too.

"I'll be carrying a leather bag. If you pack some for me, I'll carry them as well."

"Are we out to destroy the Unorthodox Alliance? Never mind."

"You already look well equipped to do that."

Pretending not to hear, he gathered something else. This time, he strapped on a leather belt holding some twenty poison-coated daggers.

"You throw daggers too?"

"Better than you, I'll wager."

That was hardly likely, but I was surprised that he used daggers.

He also packed a fan.

Called the Avici Fan, it was his signature weapon, used primarily to administer poison. Scattering poison and killing everyone was easy. Killing just one person with poison in a room full of dozens was the difficult part.

I would have to be careful whenever he gently waved that fan. There was no telling where the breeze that led to hell would blow.

In the future, the next Poison King would describe his master, the current Poison King, as the greatest master of poison arts in three hundred years.

"Let me make this clear beforehand: I'm not killing Yelü Han. I'm only coming along. I'm just going to watch!"

"If you're only watching, why are you packing so much poison?"

"So I can watch with peace of mind."

This was his nature—both his meticulousness and his anxiety.

"How long will it take?"

"I don't know. I intend to finish as quickly as possible, but I don't know what the situation will be when we arrive."

"Let's finish as quickly as we can and come back. Understood?"

"It would be quicker if you helped."

"Whatever else happens, I'll have to deal with that bastard, the True Poison Recluse."

The Poison King seemed irritated by this incident.

"If he's going to sell that drug, he should at least make it properly. This is why people curse us. It's why the Cult Leader dislikes me."

"But you mustn't leave evidence that you used your poison arts."

"What, am I going to leave a corpse on display?"

He meant that he would dissolve even the corpse, leaving no trace.

In any case, if he dealt with the True Poison Recluse, I would not have to reveal my immunity to all poisons.

"Then I'll see you tomorrow morning."

Leaving him busy gathering poisons he had forgotten, I headed out of the Thousand-Poison Forest.

As Sang Seon escorted me out of the forest, he said, "Please take good care of the Poison King."

I knew how much he cared for and worried about the Poison King. Since this would be the man's first trip outside the Cult in a long while, he would be all the more concerned.

"I think that's something I should be asking of the Poison King, but yes. I'll look after him and bring him back safely."

"This is the last time I'll guide you. From now on, come on your own."

He had always led me along different, confusing paths, but today he took me out by the easiest and best route.

* * *

After leaving the Thousand-Poison Gate, I stopped at the clinic.

At last, I could say these words to the Demon Physician.

"Tomorrow, I'm leaving to kill Yelü Han."

Stunned, he stood blankly for a moment, then swayed. I released my internal energy to support his body, helped him into a seat, and brought him water.

He asked in a trembling voice, "How did you know it was him?"

He had asked me to kill someone, but had yet to tell me the name.

I said nothing. Soon, he let out an "Ah!" He had once asked Father to do this and been refused, so he naturally assumed I had heard it from Father.

"Has the Cult Leader given permission?"

"Yes. Six Demon Supremes helped me with this. That was also why I went to the Poison King—to obtain permission."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wanted to tell you after I had permission."

His face filled with overwhelming emotion.

"This day alone is what I've lived for."

He had spent his life tormented by having survived alone after losing his family before his eyes, dreaming of revenge and treating patients as though punishing himself. He must never have enjoyed a peaceful night's sleep. Even delicious food must have brought him no pleasure.

I had never had a child, but I could not even imagine how vast and deep the grief and hatred would be if I saw my own child murdered before my eyes.

"I could have killed him, come back, and told you the result. But I'm telling you before I leave because I know how important this is to you. That's why I'm telling you from the start. It's beginning now. I want you to be part of it from this very beginning."

Until the day I returned, he would tremble with nerves and worry. He would be unable to sleep. Even so, I believed telling him was the right thing to do for him.

The Demon Physician recalled the day he so desperately wanted to forget, yet could never forget.

"I was young then. Yelü Han burst in while I was treating a critically ill patient. He ordered me to treat the person he'd brought immediately. I told him I couldn't. If I stopped the treatment, my patient would die. Even with a blade at my throat, I held to my convictions as a physician. And that day, I saved both of them. I saved the patient I was treating, and I saved the man he'd brought."

"Then why?"

"He said he had never allowed anyone who defied his orders to live. That was his personal principle, he said, and he would always uphold it. Since I'd saved his subordinate, he would spare my life. But in exchange..."

Tears ran from his eyes.

"I regret it. I should simply have done what he told me. Dozens, hundreds of times every day, I regret it. If only I could return to that day... I'd obey him. Even if the patient I was treating died, I'd obey him."

I said nothing. I knew no words could comfort him.

He took me to his sleeping quarters in the clinic. The room was so small and shabby that it was hard to believe it belonged to the Demon Physician. A hard bed, a small desk, and a single chair were all it contained. The few books and worn oil lamp on the desk seemed to lay his whole life bare.

There was a secret door in the room. He opened the small door hidden in the wall, and we went inside.

Within that hidden space, his old home had been recreated exactly: the place where his wife had cooked, the place where his son had run and played, and the room where the three of them had slept.

He was still there, on that day. He had never left it, not for a single moment.

"My little boy always wanted to play with me. Every time, I'd tell him Daddy was busy. Daddy had to save a patient. Daddy had to go buy medicinal herbs. I put him off, again and again. Yet he never hated me. That little boy said to me, 'You'll play with me when you're not busy, won't you? Right? You're working this hard for us, aren't you?' I still can't forget the look in his eyes that day. At times like that, my wife would tell me not to overwork myself. To take care of my own health first. What kind of physician am I, when I couldn't even save my own child and wife?"

At last, the tears he had held back streamed down his face. He tried desperately to stop them, but the harder he tried, the more they flowed. It was the first time I had seen the Demon Physician cry.

I stepped closer and embraced him. Holding him tightly, I patted his painfully thin back. He squeezed his eyes shut and wept without a sound. I was not embracing him as the Second Young Master. It was the me from before my regression, who had lived far longer than he had, embracing a younger man living this hard, lonely life. Demon Physician, suffer no longer. I'll put an end to it.

After a while, he calmed himself.

Our gazes met. There was a measure of relief on his face. He had kept that pain buried within himself for far too long.

"... I'm sorry. For making you undertake something so dangerous for my revenge."

I told him firmly, "I will kill him and come back. I promise."

Today would be the last time I saw his face wet with tears.

"He probably doesn't even remember I exist."

That would make him all the more maddeningly angry.

"I'll remind him."

I was not someone who sought to give any meaning to a villain's death, but this time would be an exception.

"As he dies, I'll whisper in his ear that this death is your answer to that pathetic principle of his."