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◈ A Wandering Warrior's Survival Guide ◈
Chapter 16: Since It Has Come to This, I'll Steal the Elixir (3)
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Changchun's dark night.
The night was just right. Clouds veiled the moon, leaving a faint halo around it.
Cheon Hwi gave himself a full day before beginning the operation.
For that day, he did not mention the pharmacy at all. Instead, he trained his footwork.
It was a way of walking quietly by using inner energy to lessen the weight in his feet. Cheon Hwi named it the Cat-Walking Step and practiced it on his own.
A footwork technique that strengthened the muscles in his toes and kept his heels from touching the ground, so they made no sound.
He studied how to advance slowly and silently with such precision that even stepping on fallen leaves would make no noise.
The moment he learned how to circulate inner energy, he was practicing something as trivial as a cat's slow walk.
If Yi Mu-gwang had seen it, he would have slapped his forehead and shouted at him. Fortunately, Yi Mu-gwang had little interest in Cheon Hwi's pointless training. More precisely, Yi Mu-gwang was not even beside him. He had a philosophy of resting the day after completing a job, so he was busy with gambling and revelry.
Thanks to that, Cheon Hwi could practice climbing walls, getting over them, and walking while reducing his presence with the Cat-Walking Step for hours without worrying about anyone watching.
He also learned to focus internal energy into his eyes, allowing him to see faint shapes more clearly in the darkness.
Cheon Hwi did not know it, but controlling one's movements while walking precisely was the basic starting point of all footwork. Focusing internal energy into one's eyes to see farther and more accurately was the foundation of every Eye Art.
Yi Mu-gwang had thought there was no way Cheon Hwi, who had not even learned a proper footwork technique, would dare such a thing.
What Yi Mu-gwang did not know was this.
If there were low, middle, and high ranks among madmen, Cheon Hwi was the highest rank of madman. Having lost even his fear of death, he was a lunatic who had completely lost all sense of self-preservation.
Of course, anyone who could keep his sanity after dying over and over again was no ordinary person.
Instead of his usual sword, Cheon Hwi wore only the short dagger he had taken from a Blood Serpent Gang member a few days ago.
A long sword would be nothing but a cumbersome hunk of iron when searching a narrow, pitch-black underground medicine vault.
To perform the finest Cat-Walking Step possible, Cheon Hwi even removed his shoes and went barefoot.
Yes. He was serious.
Martial artists were the sort who stopped at nothing to grow stronger, and Cheon Hwi, having already tasted an elixir's effects, had gone completely mad with desire.
.
.
.
The next evening, deep into the night, Cheon Hwi watched the pharmacy from a rooftop across the street for a long while.
There were no gatekeepers or patrols, and not even a guard dog in sight.
This was a pharmacy well known throughout Changchun.
‘Such confidence.’
No guards meant they did not even need human hands to defend the place.
After scouting it out, Cheon Hwi carefully climbed down and headed for the point of entry he had identified beforehand.
Shhk.
Though he had named it the Cat-Walking Step, it was closer to the sluggish pace of an old turtle than a cat's nimble movement.
He sprang up, caught a gap in the wall, and slowly moved his body until he climbed atop it. Anyone who saw him would have thought he was doing strength training while clinging to a wall in the dead of night.
He climbed over without a sound or trace of presence.
Along one side of the courtyard stood drying racks that had been used to dry medicinal herbs late into the night.
Bamboo screens and straw mats hung in long rows.
Softly.
His feet touched the dirt.
Cheon Hwi's gaze settled on the enormous medicine cabinet in the corner of the decoction room, nearly reaching the ceiling.
It was packed with dozens of drawers. Though it looked fixed to the wall, Cheon Hwi realized it had been designed to slide sideways. There was noticeably less dust beneath it than beneath the other cabinets.
‘Surely not.’
Holding his breath, Cheon Hwi approached and pushed one corner of the cabinet. It did not budge, but he could feel an empty space where force seemed meant to be applied sideways.
If it had been an ordinary cabinet, he should have felt some sign that it could move. The fact that it would not move at all was stranger.
As he looked over the countless drawers, one stood out. Its handle was unusually polished from frequent use.
‘A lock?’
When he lightly pulled the handle.
Click.
He heard a mechanism release.
Sure enough, the medicine cabinet that had shown no sign of moving began to slide slowly to the side.
‘Good. I was right.’
It was too simple.
That made him uneasy.
Scrape.
With a heavy scraping sound, the huge medicine cabinet slid aside, opening a dark maw.
A narrow, steep stone staircase led down, barely wide enough for two people to descend shoulder to shoulder.
His heart pounded.
He would die. How many deaths would he have to repeat this time?
Was he afraid?
Of course he was.
But what he feared more than countless deaths was being unable to consume the elixir and remaining weak.
Cheon Hwi gripped his dagger and slowly descended underground. Damp cold seeped through the soles of his feet and climbed up his ankles. He pushed the Cat-Walking Step to its limit and erased his presence, yet only his own thump, thump echoed in his ears like a drum.
After descending a little over ten steps, he noticed that the texture of the floor in the narrow earthen corridor had changed.
There was a stone slab with a strangely different texture. Its surface was so unnaturally smooth that not even a thin layer of moss had formed on it.
Cheon Hwi held his breath and widened his stride to avoid the slab. Then he carefully set the ball of his foot onto the mound of dirt beyond it.
Click.
The firm dirt beneath his feet suddenly sank with an unpleasant scraping sound.
The smooth slab was a decoy meant to draw the eye. The entire area where one would naturally step after avoiding it had been connected to the trigger of a Mechanism Formation.
Whizz! Whizz! Whizz!
The basement filled with the sound of small, sharp objects slicing through the air.
Dozens of blue-black poison needles rained down from the walls and ceiling on both sides of the corridor.
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
“Ghk...!”
Terrible pain pierced through his flesh and blood.
The instant the poison needles struck his skin, Cheon Hwi drew his dagger and aimed it at his own neck.
What he had feared most was paralytic poison.
But it was venom so deadly that there was no need to worry about paralysis.
“Cough!”
A lump of congealed blood burst from his mouth.
The moment the needles lodged in him, every muscle in his body stiffened like stone. His airway clogged, and his blood began to blacken.
Clatter!
The dagger fell onto the dirt, and Cheon Hwi's body crumpled helplessly.
His vision turned red in the excruciating pain of his organs melting away. Yet even while coughing up bloody foam, Cheon Hwi worked out the exact spot where he had stepped.
‘Found one...’
The paths of the poison needles that filled the corridor. Even the sensation of the floor beneath his foot.
Soon, his breath stopped, and the world went dark as ink.
Cheon Hwi snapped his eyes open.
The thick scent of medicinal herbs reached his nose, and he relaxed.
His ability, A Moment's Regression, did not return him to exactly one gak earlier.
It seemed to send him back to roughly one gak before, to a branching point before disaster struck.
Creak.
Cheon Hwi had returned to the moment when he opened the cabinet.
Phantom pain from the poison needles shot through his veins, but Cheon Hwi smacked his lips like a beast and wiggled his bare toes.
After repeating death twice, then three times.
He lightly kicked off the wall, launched himself into the air, and landed softly on the edge of the third stone slab beyond it.
The first safe route he had found.
‘It's long.’
Yet the corridor ahead remained long. How many times would he have to die before reaching the end?
A chopping blade shot from the wall and coldly sheared through his neck. Strongly corrosive sulfuric acid poured from the ceiling until his head melted away.
The grotesque footwork he honed with death as fertilizer unfolded in the darkness.
‘Half a step left, three steps right, then kick off the wall and jump.’
Cheon Hwi could not help wondering how anyone intending to carry medicine in and out of this place managed it.
He narrowly avoided blue-tinged chopping blades cutting through the air, then stepped and leaped over bamboo spikes erupting from the ground as though performing an acrobatic act.
Without realizing it, Cheon Hwi was training footwork and body movement techniques beyond those of a third-rate martial artist.
After dozens of horrific deaths, Cheon Hwi finally reached the end of the corridor.
When he pushed open the heavy door, the underground medicine vault finally came into view.
Hundreds of rare medicine bottles and wooden cases sat neatly displayed in the cool air. In the center of the room stood one wooden case that gave off an especially foreign aura.
Among all those items, Cheon Hwi opened the one that called to him most strongly.
Click.
Inside lay a blue-black pearl the size of a walnut, glowing brilliantly. It could not even be compared to the pea-sized Small Shell Pill.
Fine golden patterns like a turtle's shell were carved over its surface.
It could only be the true spiritual elixir, the Black-Shell Softshell Turtle Elixir.
Before he could even reach out and grasp it, Cheon Hwi's lower dantian reacted violently.
‘This is it.’
Though he had not consumed it, his body already recognized its overwhelming value and cried out for it.
A smile curved across Cheon Hwi's lips.
The moment he picked up the Black-Shell Softshell Turtle Elixir with trembling fingers.
Tick.
An irreversible snapping sound rang out beneath the pedestal.
Cheon Hwi flinched and stopped moving, but instinct told him something had gone wrong. He had heard a thread connected to the bottom of the wooden case snap.
Sure enough, in the next moment, scarlet flames burst from the wall behind the pedestal with a deafening explosion.
“You son of a...!”
It was Cheongmok Pharmacy's self-destruct trap.
A cache of gunpowder had ignited.
Along with the elixir, Cheon Hwi's body was reduced to ash so completely that not even his bones remained.
“Phew.”
Cheon Hwi stood before the medicine cabinet once more, rubbed his face, and nodded.
Of course. It could not have been easy.
Though he had already died more than dozens of times, just seeing the Black-Shell Softshell Turtle Elixir had made those deaths feel worthwhile.
After examining the area around the medicine cabinet, Cheon Hwi found an empty wooden case that seemed to be of similar weight and took it with him before heading underground once again.
And so, he stood before the Black-Shell Softshell Turtle Elixir again.
‘It probably detects the weight.’
He weighed the elixir with utmost precision. Cheon Hwi's lips went dry.
‘Now.’
The Black-Shell Softshell Turtle Elixir entered his hand.
At the same time, the empty wooden case and the medicinal herbs he had put inside to match the weight replaced it.
Cheon Hwi had died countless times trying to account for the damned difference in weight.
He would add one piece of angelica root and die. Remove half a piece and die.
After that arduous process, finally.
Click.
Several seconds that felt like eternity passed.
No flames erupted. Everything remained quiet.
‘It worked.’
The Black-Shell Softshell Turtle Elixir was cold.
The instant he held it, his dantian roiled. His lower dantian surged as though drawing something toward itself from the depths.
The urge to swallow it immediately rose to his throat, but Cheon Hwi gritted his teeth and endured.
If he ate it here, he would die.
Not yet.
He wrapped the Black-Shell Softshell Turtle Elixir in cloth and tucked it deep inside his clothes.
As Cheon Hwi caught his breath and worked out his escape route in reverse in his head, he began looking around at the other medicinal ingredients.
Since he was already robbing the place, who said he could only take one thing?
Nothing else had the same imposing presence as the Black-Shell Softshell Turtle Elixir, but he wanted to see whether there were at least more Small Shell Pills.
Sure enough, there was a small wooden box containing Small Shell Pills. Beside it, he found a letter that had once been sealed and then torn open.
Smaller writing appeared beneath it.
Dried Child Hearts, ten geun.
Dried Child Hearts.
Ten geun of dried children's hearts.
Cheon Hwi's eyes slowly darkened.
“Those pieces of trash.”
Those dreadful objects, dried hearts that had been transported to the Black Dragon River.
It seemed this pharmacy had been involved as well.
In the medicine vault filled with the scent of herbs, it felt as though a foul, fishy stench was rising.
Could he quietly rob a place like this and leave?
No.
Before leaving the vault, Cheon Hwi gripped the Blood Serpent Gang dagger. He had never learned a throwing knife technique, but he threw it toward the wooden case whose weight he had replaced, then swiftly fled outside.
It did not matter as long as it struck roughly where he aimed.
There were two breaths until the explosion.
Cheon Hwi already knew how far he had to run within those two breaths to survive.
Then.
KABOOM!
Heat surged up behind him with a deafening roar, but Cheon Hwi had already almost escaped.
The next day, the pharmacy was thrown into an uproar.
“The Blood Serpent Gang looted Cheongmok Pharmacy's underground vault!”
Cheon Hwi grinned inwardly at the unexpected windfall.
Footnotes:
A geun is a traditional unit of weight, roughly 600 grams or 1.3 pounds.
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