Chapter 184 - The Addict I

1

Mirrors signify looking at oneself, seeing oneself objectively, enlightenment, self-awareness, attention, and the like.

Bathroom mirrors, however, are the exception.

A bathroom mirror signifies precisely the opposite: baseless confidence, a failure to see oneself objectively, an inflated opinion of one's looks, ignorance, and blind delusion.

And among my acquaintances was one individual worthy of being called “the bathroom mirror of the Korean Peninsula.”

Sim Aryeon? No. Compared to this person, even Sim Aryeon had to be considered normal.

The bathroom mirror of the Korean Peninsula. The master of blind delusion.

That person was none other than...

“I am the marquis of Yuldoguk.”

“...”

“Furthermore, I am the greatest under heaven, and the greatest of all time.”

The old Sword Marquis, whose extraordinary talent for lowering his listeners' SAN scores manifested every time he introduced himself.

“Old man.”

“...”

“... Your Excellency.”

“Hmm? Oh, my fellow practitioner Undertaker. There you are. I failed to sense your presence. As befits the practitioner with the greatest internal energy in all Korea, your skill at concealing your presence is exceptional indeed!”

“...”

The back of my neck was already aching, but I couldn't run away.

There were compelling circumstances involved.

It was run 671. Noh Doha, the civil servant dedicated to handling the Sword Marquis, whose social skills were maxed out exclusively when dealing with the old man, had unfortunately caught the void-poison epidemic and been laid up.

Of all the people in the world it could infect, it had crawled into Noh Doha. Now that was one extraordinarily courageous germ.

In any case, that left me as the only person capable of negotiating with the old Sword Marquis and securing an agreement.

Was the National Road Management Corps really that short on talent...? Yes. It was. What did you expect in an apocalypse?

After civilization collapsed, the Korean Peninsula's talent pool could have given the state of Shu immediately after the Battle of Yiling a run for its money.

Explanation over.

“Your Excellency. This week was your turn to come to the Gimhae Plain and tread on the soil. Why have you absented yourself without a word? At this rate, we'll lose this year's entire spring crop.”

“Insolence! Is the world not so corrupt precisely because everyone is preoccupied with such trivial pursuits? I have a far more important mission!”

If we abandoned those trivial pursuits, everyone in the Busan area would starve to death.

And once Busan fell, the entire Korean Peninsula's infrastructure would topple like a row of dominoes. A little bonus.

I engraved the character for patience on my heart and maintained my customer-service smile.

“... I failed to comprehend your noble intentions. If Your Excellency considers it important, it must indeed be a matter of great consequence.”

“Hoho. Now we understand each other. This is why I cherish you, Brother Undertaker.”

“If it would not be impolite, might I ask what this important mission entails?”

“Of course!”

THUNK

The Sword Marquis took something out of his sleeve—yes, the long kind you only ever see in historical dramas—and set it on the table.

“Look! You cannot imagine how much trouble this strange, wicked thing has caused me!”

I looked.

The object the Sword Marquis had described as a “strange, wicked thing” certainly looked unusual if you considered its appearance alone.

First, it had a long, slender body. Dozens of tiny, round things resembling insect eggs clustered along it.

The body was green, and the eggs were yellow.

Pop quiz: What was it?

“... Your Excellency.”

“What is it, Brother Undertaker?”

“Isn't this just... rice?”

That's right.

The “strange, wicked thing” was none other than a rice plant. The original form of rice, something no Korean could possibly fail to recognize.

At my question, the Sword Marquis heaved sigh after sigh.

“Ohhh. How lamentable. How truly lamentable. Can even a man of your caliber not recognize this at a glance, Brother Undertaker?”

What utter nonsense.

“My apologies. My humble powers of observation remain inadequate... What is this object that looks like a rice plant?”

“It is opium.”

“What?”

“Opium, I say. Opium. Have you never heard of it? A fiendish substance that brings great calamity if carelessly inhaled!”

No, hold on.

Of course I knew perfectly well what opium was. Cut open a poppy capsule and the plant's sap flows out. Refine it, and you get opium.

It also had painkilling properties, so elderly people in the countryside used to grow poppies secretly in their vegetable gardens.

According to legend, given the Korean habit of turning anything into a seasoned vegetable dish, there was even such a thing as seasoned poppy back in ancient times. Or so the story went.

The problem was that the plant before me was rice, no matter how I looked at it.

“So what you're saying, Your Excellency... is that crunching up and eating these strange, wicked things that look like rice grains has the same effect on a person as smoking opium?”

“Precisely! Ah.”

The Sword Marquis added casually, as though it were an afterthought.

“Though its effects are not entirely identical to opium's. It is not addictive as opium is.”

“—Wait. Stop.”

My hand grabbed the Sword Marquis's shoulder without thinking.

“...? What is the matter?”

“It's not addictive? Did you just say this rice-opium isn't addictive?”

“Indeed.”

“Your Excellency. If this really is a plant similar to opium—if it contains some kind of narcotic substance—consuming it would make people feel very good. Correct?”

“Mm. Indeed.”

“But the fundamental problem with all narcotics is addiction and dependence. The more you take, the more you crave. You develop a tolerance, and your brain changes until you can't feel any happiness without the drug. For convenience, let's lump all those side effects together under ‘addictiveness.’”

“As you wish.”

“I'll ask again, Your Excellency. Does this rice-opium truly have absolutely no ‘addictiveness’ whatsoever?”

“Good heavens. I said it does not. Why do you keep asking?”

“...”

In a flash, an equation formed in my mind.

Narcotics - addictiveness - all side effects = ?

“Wait! Then this isn't a narcotic at all!”

“Hmm?”

The Sword Marquis tilted his head.

“What a strange reaction. When did I ever call it a narcotic? I called it opium. As is well known, opium is a plant that the wicked imperialists of Europe brought in to ravage the Central Plains...”

“Grow this! Right away!”

I seized both of the Sword Marquis's shoulders with both hands now.

“Go to the Gimhae Plain, and while you're catching up on the farming, grow this rice-opium or whatever it's called too!”

“What was that?”

The Sword Marquis snorted.

“Hah! Even burning this root of all evil immediately would hardly suffice. I only reported it out of consideration for your standing, Brother Undertaker, and now you ask me to grow it with my own hands? Impossible! Under no circumstances will I ever cultivate it!”

“We'll grow it and distribute it among the European imperialists, thereby settling an ancient score.”

“I shall begin cultivating it at once, brother.”

Fifteen days passed.

With the Sword Marquis throwing himself into farming with unprecedented enthusiasm, the rice-opium (ZERO addictiveness) flourished.

We immediately began testing.

“Wh-why did you call me here, Guild Leader?”

“The Sword Marquis swears there are no side effects whatsoever, but if he's bullshitting us, you'll need to deal with it, Aryeon.”

“Awww... I'm r-really busy these days. I only came because you asked, Guild Leader...”

“Right. Thanks.”

I more or less ignored Sim Aryeon's remarks.

Ever since she'd taken office as the Saintess of the North, she'd developed a fondness for broadcasting “I'm a very busy person” to everyone around her.

In any case, people from all walks of life gathered at the new drug's testing site.

Among them was Noh Doha, fresh out of his sickbed.

“But is opium with absolutely no side effects really possible? My understanding is that the very mechanism by which opium produces pleasure fundamentally damages the brain...”

“I don't know either. According to the Sword Marquis, it's a plant he happened to find in a void. Anything can happen in a void, so perhaps a narcotic without side effects was born there.”

“Sounds like total bullshit...”

I agreed.

But what if it wasn't bullshit?

Then we would need to revise the term “narcotic” itself. It would simply be medicine. A panacea, even.

“Now, everyone, may I have your attention?”

Everyone gathered at the testing site turned toward me.

“First, we will conduct tests on five inmates infected with the ‘Murder Addiction’ anomaly in the National Road Management Corps prison. We intend to test rice-opium's efficacy in solid, liquid, and gaseous forms.”

“...”

“Since side effects might emerge only after a prolonged period, the experiments will run for one, three, ten, twenty, and fifty years respectively. Yes, you there, student Sim Aryeon. Why is your hand raised?”

“Guild Leader. C-could I try taking a hit too...?”

“No. Let the tests begin.”

The inmates were isolated individually.

Dark, sealed chambers. The inmates entered one by one, each into a room where nothing but darkness was visible once inside.

They had each been given a plentiful bundle of rice-opium.

“L-let me out of here!”

“I was wrong! I'll never kill an innocent person again! Please, forgive me!”

BANG BANG

The sound of pounding on the walls reached us very faintly. It was too faint for an ordinary person's hearing to pick up.

A single “red button” stood before each of the five sealed chambers.

They were [Buttons That Make One Year Pass When Pressed].

Pressing a red button caused a literal year's worth of time to pass inside its chamber.

Two presses meant two years. Two hundred meant two hundred years.

In theory, even hundreds of millions of years were possible.

Naturally, these chambers and buttons together constituted a single anomaly.

Inside those chambers, you could survive without drinking water or eating food.

Sleeping, however, was impossible.

So was escaping unless someone opened the door from outside.

You could call it the perfect prison.

It was one of the National Road Management Corps' frequently used anomalies.

With this, even if we handed down a thousand-year prison sentence, we could actually incarcerate the criminal for a thousand years.

Ever since this prison had been introduced, the crime rate had plummeted. As it turned out, imprisonment could be more frightening than execution.

“Then, Commander Noh Doha. Please begin with the one-year sentence.”

“Sigh. Understood...”

Noh Doha pressed the button in front of Chamber One.

The banging on the wall inside accelerated into a rapid barrage.

But only for a moment. In less than 0.01 seconds, the pounding fell silent.

“One second has passed. Shall we let him out...?”

“Yes, please.”

Members of the National Road Management Corps approached and opened the door to Chamber One.

In most cases, inmates emerged mentally ill immediately after completing their “prison sentences.”

Of course they did. No one could stay sane locked alone in a sealed chamber for anywhere from two months to 150,000 years—and there really was a criminal who received that sentence.

They drooled, endlessly muttered to themselves, or became as unresponsive as corpses, their minds having died altogether.

But this time was different.

“Huh?”

The inmate who had served his sentence in Chamber One looked perfectly fine.

He was crunching on grains of rice-opium that had been treated to prevent spoilage.

“Has it been a year already?”

“...”

“Wow, what a relief. I seriously thought I'd die of boredom. Ahaha. I'm free now, right? I'll never commit another crime!”

The inmate from Chamber One beamed.

There were no signs of mental illness or void-poison infection anywhere. The inmate genuinely appeared healthy, without a single side effect.

“Hmm...”

“Mm.”

Noh Doha and I exchanged glances.

We immediately moved on to the next experiments. Noh Doha pressed the red buttons three, ten, twenty, and fifty times respectively.

The results:

“F-finally, I'm free!”

“Mo Gwangseo Christ! Thank you! Thank you so much!”

“I'll be good from now on!”

Amazingly, every inmate released after serving their sentence exhibited “good mental and physical health.”

We conducted thorough examinations, even bringing in Sim Aryeon, but could find no side effects whatsoever.

The inmates had endured their isolation in the sealed chambers, feeling happy, with nothing but rice-opium to take.

“Awakened Undertaker. This is...”

“Yes.”

I nodded at Noh Doha.

“Let's start growing this on a massive scale. Immediately.”

“...”

“From now on, this new plant will no longer bear the wicked name ‘rice-opium.’ It will be called ‘Dopamine.’”

I am invincible.

The Sword Marquis is a god.

And we can duplicate Dopamine.