Chapter 30 - Act 4. The Bamboo Tube Beauty (11)

"If you have any last words, say them."

"Thank you... honored elders..."

Yise replied peevishly.

"Enough with the honored elders. We're sixteen. We haven't lived even a fifth as long as you."

After sniffling for a long while, Geuma forced the corners of her mouth upward. She had realized he was joking to lift her spirits.

"... You are so kind."

Seol Ryeong gently held Geuma to her breast and patted her for quite some time.

"So warm. It has been so long since a human held me."

"Geuma."

"I will leave without regret."

"..."

"A lowly Qi Refining creature like me found a fated connection and received far more kindness than she deserved, so I am not sad. Humans gave me a name, taught me love, parting, and longing, gave me hope, and now, at last, offer me comfort."

Geuma prostrated herself before them.

"Thank you. Humans truly are lovable beings. Thanks to you, I leave having spent my brief life in happiness."

Her smile might have been laughter or tears.

"May you both remain safe and well. I will pray for you even in death."

With one last teardrop, she slowly closed her eyes.

There was no need to exorcise the Demon. As though unwilling to make them kill needlessly, she ended her life herself.

Rubbing his tight chest, Yise turned toward Seol Ryeong.

"..."

She was weeping more sorrowfully than Geuma, great fat tears dropping from her eyes.

"... Why are you—no. Never mind."

Yise sighed softly and patted her back, thinking that Demons really were unbearable in so many ways.

* * *

After the consolation rite for Geuma's soul, Yise sealed the Bamboo Tube Beauty's corpse in the Demon-Sealing Album as well. Then he approached Seol Ryeong, who sat with her face swollen from crying.

"Done crying?"

"... Yeah."

She rubbed her eyes, then addressed him with a resolute expression.

"Then let's get started."

"On what?"

"Collecting the spoils."

According to the Daemudo Basic Handbook, if a duel to the death between Cultivators ended with one of them dead, all remaining spoils belonged, in principle, to the victor. Neither the deceased's family nor acquaintances could claim ownership.

In other words, everything the Cultivator Kim Siwon owned was theirs.

They had suffered terribly and spent far too many resources on a mission worth two spirit stones and three contribution points—which they even had to split. He would have accumulated possessions over seventy years, so it only made sense to plunder them until they recouped their losses.

Yise had intended to do so even without her suggestion, but...

"So that's all right? You're not stopping me over Principle or whatever this time. I was just thinking I'd hog the whole damn lot and take the heavenly tribulation."

"... Winner takes all is the natural order."

"I'm just imagining it when I think you only invoke Principle when it suits you, right?"

"Of course you are. Let's go, fellow Daoist Yise. It's a shame the corpse is already in the Demon-Sealing Album, but there must be seventy years' worth of wealth hidden in his secluded abode."

"I already stripped the corpse clean. What do you take me for, an idiot?"

"... When on earth did you do that??"

"While you were busy crying."

Yise shook his bundle to show her the things piled inside. Seol Ryeong looked appalled.

In truth, he had astonished her during the fight. That remarkable nerve, courage, and decisiveness were beyond anything she could emulate. Watching him gain enlightenment and break through a barrier in mortal combat, she could only think what dazzling talent he possessed.

She could scarcely believe the mischievous boy before her was the same Cultivator she had seen earlier.

"You really do keep surprising me."

"He didn't have a storage pouch. I heard every Cultivator carries one, even if it's small."

"Independent Cultivators are terribly poor. We might not find much even if we strip his secluded abode bare."

"Then I'm really in trouble."

Yise furrowed his brow as though he truly were in trouble. His own body smelled of roasting squid.

Perhaps he should have kept the looting a secret after all. He swallowed that belated regret.

* * *

Still, they had to try looting the place.

Park Gangseo, his senior in Daemudo and a Qi Refining Cultivator, had told him that, frankly, killing Cultivators and emptying their pockets paid far better than hunting Demons.

At the time, Yise had thought it sounded like something a charlatan Daoist would say. Now that it concerned him, however, he had changed his mind.

Until now, he had believed himself free of material greed. But he had no desire to return empty-handed, without a single trophy from a battle in which he had risked his life.

Especially now that he knew what spirit stones could buy, now that he understood their true worth, now that he had experienced a world where the strong devoured the weak—Yise the ascetic was dead. He would be reborn a miser, an incarnation of greed.

"There are loads of consumables."

They gathered all the wealth in the secluded abode and dumped it onto the table. At first it had seemed empty, but the cowardly Kim Siwon had dug beneath his abode and hidden his valuables underground.

Some fifty spirit stones.

Several demonic cultivation manuals.

About twenty consumable ritual implements.

And one unidentified ritual implement.

"You choose first. If you pick a ritual implement, I'll take its equivalent in spirit stones. I need spirit stones more urgently than implements."

With a resolute expression, Yise immediately swept every spirit stone and ritual implement toward himself.

"Have you completely forgotten I came here to help you...?"

Looking regretful, Yise pointed to the sole implement with an unusual shape.

Single-use ritual implements generally came as spheres activated by breaking them, bombs activated by throwing them, or talismans infused with spiritual energy. Strictly speaking, talismans and spheres were ritual items rather than ritual implements, but many lumped them together as implements for convenience.

Among all the single-use ritual items they had acquired, this implement alone was made of metal shaped like a sickle.

"This one first, then."

He did not know what it was, but a reusable ritual implement was worth at least thirty spirit stones. Sure enough, Seol Ryeong took thirty.

When Yise infused it with spiritual energy, it gradually grew and took on the shape of a saber. A saber, yes, but one with a broad, flattened blade. How to describe it? It rather resembled a kitchen knife from the Jeong Empire.

He could not discern any other use for it. He would have to ask a ritual-implement merchant in Azure Mountain Capital later.

Seeing him infuse spiritual energy into the implement, Seol Ryeong tilted her head.

"Did you advance in realm?"

"Yeah. During the fight earlier."

"... Good heavens. The way you answer so casually makes it even more infuriating."

A monster who had broken through to the third star of Qi Refining a mere fortnight after becoming a Cultivator had killed a man who remained at the fifth star after seventy years of practice, and was now looting his secluded abode.

Could anything in the world be more unfair?

She could not bring herself to say it aloud.

Whether or not he understood how she felt, Yise took ten spirit stones and several consumable ritual implements. After deciding to hand the demonic cultivation manuals over to Daemudo, the two headed for South Mountain Village.

* * *

Hong Sadeuk emptied the outpost's entire stock to treat Yise's burns. Then, urging them to give him a good outer-affiliate evaluation, he supplied them generously with money and food.

Yise naturally promised the highest possible score. He also thanked Hong Sadeuk for all his practical and moral support, gave him several of Seol Ryeong's talismans as a gift, and left South Mountain Village.

Having run all the way to Azure Mountain without rest, the two headed for the Daoists' street. They intended to visit the ritual-implement merchant Hyeon Unja to exchange unwanted implements for spirit stones and have their strange new acquisition appraised.

"Old Hyeon! We're here."

Despite Seol Ryeong's cheerful greeting, the old man ignored her and kept smoking his short pipe.

"I keep telling you to smoke outside."

"If you're here to nag, get the hell out of my shop."

Hyeon Unja waved her away irritably.

Apparently accustomed to his reaction, Seol Ryeong set the implements they had decided to sell before him. Yise placed the one he wanted appraised beside them.

"I'd just like an appraisal for this one, please."

"The appraisal fee is one spirit stone."

"Old Hyeon, do you really have to? You could at least appraise it for free, for my sake."

"Does doing you a favor put spirit stones in my pocket? Ritual implements? If you don't like it, go let some amateur rob you blind."

"..."

Yise intervened, holding out a spirit stone.

"She won't let anyone haggle over her fortune-telling fees, but she's happy to drive down someone else's wages. Please bear with her, sir."

Hyeon Unja chuckled at that and took out a magnifying glass.

"Sir, have you known Seol Ryeong long?"

"Enough with the 'sir.' I'm just an old man who doesn't act his age. Call me Old Hyeon."

The answer to his question came from Seol Ryeong.

"We didn't really know each other before. He knows my mother."

"I've seen this little one a few times since she was shitting on the floor."

"What are you talking about...?"

Yise clutched his belly with laughter.

A short while later, Old Hyeon emerged with the appraised implement. When he picked it up and infused it with spiritual energy, the blade turned triangular, then rectangular, and even split into two blades like scissors.

"Master Hyeon, what exactly is that used for?"

"It's just a kitchen knife."

"... Pardon?"

"A multipurpose kitchen knife made from a spirit beast's claws and bones. Feed it spiritual energy and it'll take whatever shape you want. Perfect for cooking."

"Wait, sir. Why would anyone use precious spirit beast materials to make something like a kitchen knife?"

"Using ordinary tools to prepare immortal cuisine—food without impure energy, eaten by Cultivators—diminishes its effects. Don't you know even the basics? If you don't need it, sell it. I'll give you five spirit stones."

Which meant...

He had picked a kitchen knife worth a measly five spirit stones and been fleeced for thirty.

He hastily looked at Seol Ryeong. She was suppressing a laugh, a wicked look on her face.

"I really didn't know. What can you do? Just accept it as fate."

The sages of old had been right: there wasn't a soul in this world you could trust.