Chapter 23 - Act 4. The Bamboo Tube Beauty (4)

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Yise and Seol Ryeong headed for the bamboo grove the broker had described. It lay along a small mountain path at the far end of a hill stretching from South Mountain Village toward Gwangjin Village. Just as Demonic Energy began to register faintly, the outer affiliate Hong Sadeuk stopped.

“This is as far as I go. If you need any further assistance during your mission, please visit the outpost at any time. I will be waiting there.”

“Please interview the people in South Mountain Village who encountered the Demon once more. There may be something we missed.”

“Yes. I will do so.”

“Thank you.”

Hong Sadeuk bowed silently and departed, and the pair turned their eyes forward. Demonic Energy hung unmistakably over the grove. Despite the dry weather, damp mist rose like a sigh within the silent woods.

Yise looked around the grove. These bamboos were distinctly different from the others he had seen as a child. As they pushed farther through them, the Demonic Energy grew thicker, grating on his nerves. There was none of the woman's weeping the man had described, but a cold presence sent chills through him.

“I'm getting chills. I think we're getting close. Be careful, Yise.”

“We are. Demonic Energy is rising from somewhere around the center. Let's stop and watch for now.”

“You can sense Demonic Energy that precisely?”

“Yes. It's my constitution.”

“Can you gauge how much there is, too?”

“Very little. About as much as a Level Nine Demon, so the measuring device they used for the report seems to be working fine.”

“Wow... We had a walking ‘demonic power meter’ right here...”

What a truly bizarre constitution. Seol Ryeong swallowed that last remark and simply continued to marvel.

Settling at a safe distance, Yise asked Seol Ryeong, “How do you hunt an evil spirit?”

“First, you perform an exorcism rite to bind it so it can't disperse. Then you cut it with a weapon made for the purpose. Here, a silver-iron blade. To exorcise evil spirits, you need a weapon that's at least seventy percent silver.”

Yise gripped the short silver-iron blade.

“Protect me if it lashes out while I'm performing the rite. Usually, they flee... but this one might be a bound spirit. In that case, it'll attack.”

“All right. Let's move in when you're ready.”

Seol Ryeong took several deep breaths and swallowed hard. Their quarry was only a Level Nine Demon. But this was their first real mission as hunters.

The Sixth Principle of the Demon-Exorcizing Arts: Hunt with all your might, however weak the Demon.

Whenever an enemy's Demonic Energy felt insignificant, Yise reminded himself of the Ten Commandments of the Demon-Exorcizing Arts and the appalling one-year survival rate of Daemudo's novice disciples.

The cold wind strengthened as they approached the source of the Demonic Energy. Its direction was strange. It seemed to blow in a spiral, whirling through the grove.

Then Yise's eyes widened. Strangely, what he had taken for wind possessed a shape. No, more precisely, it possessed a color. Before he knew it, a black-tinged wind was lingering around him, weaving to and fro.

“It's coming. Start.”

At his words, Seol Ryeong immediately drove a ritual implement shaped like a bird-topped sacred pole into the ground and began reciting an incantation.

WHOOOOSH!

Auspicious energy pushed back the wicked energy, and the wind slowly retreated.

But the black wind's retreat was brief. In an instant, it swept over him like a tempest. This was unmistakably an evil spirit—a nearly formless Demon, at that. It was much as the witnesses had described.

And yet—

'Something's wrong.'

Most of the Demonic Energy he sensed in the bamboo grove was concentrated in the black mist, but a faint thread extended from it toward the grove's center. A slender yet densely packed strand of Demonic Energy.

Yise leaped out of the onrushing mist's path and immediately swung the silver-iron blade. He felt nothing. It was literally like slashing empty air. Contrary to what Seol Ryeong had said, the silver-iron had no effect on the evil spirit.

He swiftly opened up some distance and glanced at Seol Ryeong, but she was focused on chanting her spell. This time, he filled his hand with spiritual energy and struck the mist. Again, he merely sliced through air, feeling no contact whatsoever. The scattered mist promptly gathered again and floated about.

“It has been so long since a human with such strong energy appeared.”

A voice much like a human's seeped from the formless Demon.

“A low-grade Demon can talk?”

At the same instant Yise blurted out his bewildered question, Seol Ryeong cried sharply from behind him.

“Yise! The binding isn't working!”

The black wind took the form of a tiger.

“Give me your body!”

It roared in his face, but Yise passed straight through the mist and thrust his silver-iron blade toward a bamboo tube lying in the very center of the grove, where the thread of Demonic Energy led.

“What!”

An urgent cry sounded behind him. Just as he had thought, the mist was merely a deception. The real thing was here.

Just as the silver-iron blade was about to smash the bamboo tube, a wail like a scream erupted.

“Wait! I'm sorry! Please don't break it!”

It was the voice of a little girl.

Instead of shattering the bamboo tube, Yise struck it with the back of his blade.

THUD!

The tube went rolling away. A moment later, a tiny woman about two finger joints tall crawled out.

The woman knelt demurely and clasped her hands politely, as though begging. Seol Ryeong, who had come up beside him, rubbed her eyes and let out something between a sigh and a groan.

“... What on earth is going on?”

“It wasn't an evil spirit. The mist was an illusion this Demon created. This seems to be the monstrous thing's real body. It seems capable of conversation, so let's take it alive and hand it over to the main mountain.”

“Capable of conversation? What do you...”

Seol Ryeong's eyes widened as she saw the Demon's true form. It had a mystical appearance, like a celestial maiden. Each feature was perfectly formed on its tiny face, and shimmering, translucent silk wrapped its small body.

Yise picked the Demon up between two fingers. It squirmed and gave a silly little smile.

“Hehe, I got a little carried away, didn't I...? Spare me just this once, and I'll live so quietly you won't know I'm alive.”

The display might have seemed rather cute, but Yise ignored it completely. Seol Ryeong spoke, her eyes round.

“This is impossible. It's really talking—a low-grade Demon at Qi Refining!”

“You've never seen this either?”

“Of course not. I heard Demons have to reach at least Foundation Establishment before they can speak...”

Whatever else it was, this discovery had to be close to a fortuitous encounter. The sort of thing that would drive Daemudo's high-ranking Cultivators wild with the desire to chew on it, tear it apart, taste it, and dissect it. At the very least, surely their mission reward would change.

“What exactly are you?”

“I am a spiritual being from an immortal mountain, the guardian spirit of the bamboo grove, known as the Bamboo Tube Beauty.”

Still dangling from his fingers, the Demon took hold of its skirt and jacket in both hands and offered a shy, girlish greeting. Its harmless appearance made Seol Ryeong chuckle despite herself. Then she started in surprise.

“A spiritual being? Not a Demon?”

“Yeees...”

“W-wait! She says she's a spiritual being. Don't hold her like some bug!”

Daemudo was a sect that revered and protected spiritual beings. If this really was one, they must not mistreat her. Seol Ryeong hurriedly took the Bamboo Tube Beauty in both hands and examined her from every angle.

“It's true. I can feel spiritual energy, faint as it is. In that case, developing speech at Qi Refining is possible... But if most of her power has become Demonic Energy—”

Corruption.

That meant this Demon was a spiritual being undergoing corruption—one that had lost its Principle and fallen, yet still retained some spirituality. Seol Ryeong could not help sighing in pity. Whether Yise understood the implications or not, he merely asked an indifferent question to satisfy his curiosity.

“Where's this immortal mountain?”

“W-well, it's a mountain near the southern coast...”

The southern coast would put it in Gamori, at least a thousand li away. How had a spiritual being from the southern sea ended up dragged all the way here, corrupted and reduced to tormenting ordinary people?

“The southern sea is a thousand li from here. What brought you all this way?”

“There were circumstances...”

“And once you got here, you should've lived quietly. Your spiritual power seems badly depleted, so why torment innocent people? Didn't your elder bamboo spirits teach you to beware of corruption?”

“There were circumstances behind that, too...”

“What damned circumstances? You're a Demon with an awful lot of circumstances.”

“Yise, she was a spiritual being, after all. Shouldn't we show her a little respect...?”

He knew he was supposed to show respect, but what could he do when the creature was such a dolt that he couldn't muster any? Yise shook his head and stopped pressing her. There were questions aplenty, but finishing the mission came first. He asked the Bamboo Tube Beauty,

“We're taking you to Daemudo now. Can you travel? I'd rather get you there alive if possible.”

“Well... I cannot leave this place. I would likely fall ill and vanish before we had gone even ten li.”

Yise and Seol Ryeong exchanged glances.

“What should we do in this case? Wait until she becomes a Demon, then exorcise her?”