WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ SSS-Class Revival Hunter ◈
Chapter 74: The One Who Gathers Death (3)
──────
"My lord..."
Preta looked up at me cautiously.
"Bringing back 112 dead is excessive. You've become noticeably emaciated in just a few days..."
"Why? Has your loyalty grown to the point of worrying about my body?"
Preta hesitated. It seemed she was pondering how to respond.
Should she flatter or lay bare her true feelings?
"...If you disappear, my lord, I too will cease to exist."
Preta spoke up.
"I will no longer be able to dwell in my small paradise. My life, memories, meaning, everything will vanish. Everything depends on you, my lord. I worry about myself, hence I worry about your well-being too."
"I appreciate your honesty."
I smiled.
"How is it? Living well these days?"
"Excuse me...?"
"You're living in Ester's village now, aren't you? The people you treasured more than your life have also returned. How are you getting along?"
After gaining exclusive rights to the 20th floor, I had let Preta stay in the village. Except for times like now when I needed her, she would continue to reside there.
Preta answered nervously.
"I am... living well."
"Any troubles?"
"If you mean troubles... Ah."
Preta blinked.
"Hunters stormed in once, claiming there must be a secret behind the sudden surge in the King of Death's power, or a treasure hidden by the Five Great Guilds... However, the Witch you brought and the hunters following her intervened, preventing any major disturbances."
As expected of the Black Dragon Guild. Their after-service is reliable.
"The petty lords of the neighboring kingdoms no longer meddle with us. They're having a terrible time with the nomads they brought in to attack us... Even aside from that, the empire and the temple have both declared my village a holy site. Lizardmen and elves sometimes visit and leave gifts as well..."
It seemed things were progressing smoothly in this world.
"But, since I have lost my powers..."
"Hmm."
"Sick people who heard rumors about me keep coming, and since the declaration of the holy site, pilgrims hoping for miracles have joined them. For now, the hunter-priests who followed the person you introduced as the Heretic Inquisitor are caring for them..."
"Don't worry, I have plans in mind."
More specifically, I intended to establish a new apothecary shop for the Apothecary on the twentieth floor.
'I've got the Apothecary's word that she will only accept new clients through me.'
Once this expedition concludes, the Apothecary's position will solidify.
'I need to manage the traffic properly.'
With patients continuously visiting, the Apothecary will gain a wealth of experience in various diseases.
'It won't be possible for the Apothecary to handle the workload alone. Hiring staff is inevitable. Attaching Preta as an assistant or accepting aspiring hunter pharmacists as apprentices could work. As the pharmacy grows, it'll naturally become a major branch...'
It wouldn't take long for the new pharmacy to be recognized as a branch of the Alchemy Castle and eventually evolve into a headquarters.
'I should take care of my people.'
I smiled.
"Anything else?"
"Nothing specific... Ah, Dajenna, a child from my village, has taken a liking to tteokbokki brought by the hunters. And Garchev, they're an older person guarding an orchard; they've been sharing fruits with the Black Dragon hunters guarding the village, and in return, they bring fruits from your world---."
The wind blew.
Snowflakes fluttered, and under the moonlit night, Preta's voice flowed like the snow. I listened to her story to the end under the moonlight.
Preta bowed her head.
"---That's the situation."
"Sounds like you're living well."
Preta cautiously replied.
"Yes, it is bearable."
I nodded.
"The people of this world should start living well too."
"......."
"Go and gather the corpses."
Golden hair spilled below Preta's shoulders as she bowed her head. A voice escaped her bowed lips.
"I shall obey your command."
3. There's a saying about putting the right person in the right place.
Summoning Preta to collect the dead turned out to be a very good decision.
The Fallen Constellation, once known as the [Demon King of the Autumn Rain], who at one time brought destruction to this other world. She knew well how to harvest death.
"I will start with villages or cities that have offices."
Preta commanded thousands of skeletons with a gesture.
"There should be maps where the administrators work. They might be crude, but they should be sufficient for cross-referencing the geography. I plan to gather fragmented maps to pinpoint remote farming and fishing villages."
Three days into the search, zombies began to be delivered. They were not corpses of martial artists, but ordinary farmers and commoners. The corpses of people who once were just that.
"An instance where a mother, unable to bear watching her starving children, hung herself along with her children... I will bring her corpse."
The skeletons' bones were white. The white bones brought the corpses in a line. In the middle of the snowy plain. The whiteness of the bones and the snow was hard to distinguish. From a distance, it seemed as though the corpses were moving toward me on their own.
"In the morning, children who wake up to find their mother's corpse. Those who cried beside her until they died like wilted wildflowers... I will bring their corpses too."
The procession of corpses continued.
Deaths were lined up.
"Villagers who cursed the mother for failing to fulfill her duties as a parent."
"Those who hid down inside wells to escape the epidemic, only to find themselves unable to climb back out."
"Prisoners who starved to death without ever getting a chance to escape."
Preta selected the poor with exquisite care and presented them to me.
Like a vassal presenting only the most precious things to the emperor.
When a week had passed, Preta kneeled again on the snowy field.
"I have brought them, my lord."
I looked out over the snowy plains.
-Groooo...
-Ugh, ugh!
-Kiwooo...
Numerous deaths were lined up. The corpses thrashed while the skeletons held their arms and legs. Some faces were old and others young. Hunger discriminated against neither age nor sex. “...Good.” I loosened my tie, took off my suit, and discarded my underwear. In the dark night, I stood naked and ordered the skeletons, “Release them.”
The corpses, once released from the skeletons' grip, rushed in. Instinctively. Toward the place where the scent of flesh was strong.
Toward where I stood.
"Alright."
I smiled.
"Come all!"
Crunch!
A young corpse leaped at me. It bit into my calf. As the agonizing pain was about to surge up my leg, it was interrupted by an old corpse tearing at my thigh. The pain from my calf was cut off at my thigh, then intensified again in my abdomen.
"-----."
I must have screamed. But I couldn't hear it myself as a corpse had torn my ears.
My lips were devoured. My tongue was devoured. Unable to hear, unable to speak, I just watched as numerous shadows burrowed into my body.
[You have died.]
I looked up at the night sky.
The moon seemed eternally snow-covered.
[Re-enacting the trauma of your killer.]
The last night sky an older person saw was probably just like this.
They had spent their entire life fishing on the river. When a gangsi bit their finger, the older person did not panic. They calmly steered their ferryboat.
-Lying on this boat as I die won't be a burden to the world.
Near the riverside village, the older person's boat gently rocked.
They lay on the boat. As comfortably as if in a coffin. It would have been fine to die, capsized by the waves. To die as if falling asleep... The older person considered it a blessing to be born in the river and die in it.
The last moon they saw was peaceful.
[Re-enacting the trauma of your killer.]
How the world had come to such a state was a mystery.
The young prefect walked the city walls at night, pondering. Originally, they had not even been a local functionary, but a scholar who knew a few lines of text and ran a village school. Then the prefect died, the prefect's functionaries died, and the functionaries' underlings died.
Death followed death. At the end of the trail was themselves.
-Lord of the Castle.
A soldier approached. He had not originally been a soldier either, but a tavern's kept man. He bossed underlings around, but he was quick-witted and useful.
-What is it?
-The granary is empty. In a fortnight, there won't be a single grain of millet in the storehouse. Fishermen occasionally catch fish, but it's not enough. What should we do...?
-Reduce the rations given to the elderly first.
The young castellan ordered.
-The zombies are numerous. We must conserve those who can still fight. Reduce the food for the old and children to one-third.
[Re-enacting the trauma of your killer.]
The young prefect was ruthless, sometimes seemingly colder than the gangsi. The soldier sometimes wondered where the village scholar who had only recited the classics had found such resolve.
-There will be much resistance...
-Reduce the food for the young by half too. If everyone cuts back together, it'll be bearable.
-But won't there still be complaints?
-I will fast first.
The castellan spoke shortly.
-I won't eat anything. If the leader abstains, the complainers will lose their strength.
-...Are you sure?
-This place won't last long anyway. What difference will a few days of fasting make?
The moon viewed from the city walls was tranquil.
[Re-enacting the trauma of your killer.]
-We'll all starve to death at this rate!
A little girl frantically shouted. She was a beggar, and now that the distinction between rich and poor had vanished, she became the leader of children her age.
"The lord forbids the children from eating. It's like they're telling us not to live!"
"So, what should we do, sister?"
"Even if we're going to die, we should eat something before we do. That way we'll at least become healthy-looking gangsi."
The kid spoke energetically.
"I know a recipe I learned from the Beggars' Sect. It's called togwa, meaning 'earth cake.' It is literally a mud cake."
"A mud snack...?"
"It's a snack you can make with just mud."
The kid's eyes sparkled.
"Listen up! Kids who can swim keep catching fish. Don't offer them to the adults, let's just share among ourselves. The rest go to the riverbank and scoop up soft mud."
"What are we going to do with it?"
"Let me show you."
[Re-enacting the trauma of your killer.]
The children scooped up mud from the riverbank. The mud was mixed with sand. They sifted the mud through a sieve several times, removing the gravel.
"Roll this mud and spread it on a mat."
The child leader worked busily with her hands. She rolled the mud into a ball and flung it onto the mat with a thump. Then she spread it wide and flat as if applying plaster.
"Good. It's done!"
"Done? What do you mean?"
"Just let it dry in the sun. Then you'll have mud snacks."
The children were incredulous.
"It's just sun-baked mud!"
"How is this a snack?"
"Quiet. It's a secret recipe passed down in Beggars' Sect. Just watch and learn."
The kid leader pulled out a pouch. It contained salt. Salt, already precious, became even more valuable since the rations stopped. To the kids, each grain was as valuable as gold. The kid mixed a little salt into the mud dough.
"Alright!"
After half a day, the mud dried up.
"Now it's done. Try eating one! But be careful. If you eat too much at once, it tastes bad! Just nibble it sparingly."
The children bit into the mud snacks with skepticism.
[Re-enacting the trauma of your killer.]
"...Surprisingly, it's edible?"
One child nibbled at the mud cake with their front teeth like a hamster.
[Re-enacting the trauma of your killer.]
"The saltiness makes it good."
Another child licked the mud cake, eyes wide, as if licking ice cream. The edge of the mud cake grew thoroughly soggy with the child's saliva.
[Re-enacting the trauma of your killer.]
"It's tasteless..."
Another child simply looked sad.
The kid leader giggled.
"It's fine. Being able to eat it is enough. From now on, we have to secure all our own food. Most days we'll eat togwa, and whenever we catch fish, we'll eat fish too. Got it?"
"Yeah, sister..."
The children comforted their hungry stomachs with mud.
The human mouth is deceitful. Mud imbued with saltiness was accepted by the children's esophagus as food.
To swallow the mud, the saltiness had to deceive the tongue. So, the children didn't bite into the mud snacks right away. They licked them first, savoring the salty taste.
"Don't lick too much! The taste will be gone. You need to nibble while licking."
The children kneaded mud every day by the riverbank.
"Huh?"
The riverbank.
"Look over there. A corpse."
It was the same river where an older person had drifted away in their boat.
The older person, born from the river, died in it. They considered it happiness. They thought dying in their boat, turning it into a coffin, would be a way not to bother the world.
They hadn't thought about one thing. Sometimes, drowned corpses drift to the riverbank.
If dying in the river was the older person's happiness, then being washed up on this side of the riverbank was their misfortune.
And everyone's misfortune.
"Looks like an older person drowned."
"Poor thing..."
"Maybe a fisher."
The children approached the old corpse with fear and curiosity.
"Huh?"
It was early dawn.
"Wait, just a minute!"
"Hmm?"
"It's a zombie! Not just a corpse!"
The children ran away as the corpse, smelling their tender scent, began to wriggle.
"Run!"
Some children managed to escape.
"Ah..."
One child could not.
[Re-enacting the trauma of your killer.]
That was the end.
[Re-enacting the trauma of your killer.]
A castle by the river, cut off from the imperial capital and nearby villages, perished that way. The older person died. The last lord died fighting. The soldier trying to flee the city gate died. The kid leader died protecting her younger sibling.
[Re-enacting the trauma of your killer.]
They fought to live.
[Re-enacting the trauma of your killer.]
They struggled.
[Re-enacting the trauma of your killer.]
They endured hunger because they wanted to live.
[Re-enacting the trauma of your killer.]
The children's fingers scooping wet soil by the river, their hands spreading the mud dough on the mat, and their fingertips tightly clutching the dried mud cookies.
[Re-enacting the trauma of your killer.]
112 deaths.
Among them, not a single gesture was free from hunger.
[Trauma re-enactment complete.]
[The target’s ego has remained intact.]
[Ending penalty.]
I slowly opened my eyes.
"......."
The snowy plain was silent.
In the quiet night, my murmuring voice softly flowed.
"I thought about learning how to boil tree bark, but..."
Reality surpassed my imagination. In a world heading towards destruction, was tree bark not even worth being a trauma? Pushed to the brink, humans could eat even mud.
"Yeah. That's possible."
I stood up and started digging through the snow. I wrapped my bare hands with aura and dug through, reaching the frozen soil beneath the perennial snow.
The first ground I saw since falling into this world.
"Let's see..."
Digging up years-old frozen soil wasn't easy. I had to use aura. I scooped up a handful of soil and heated it with aura, mixing it with the perennial snow as if boiling a broth. After a while, the soil granules began to soften.
Literal mud.
I carefully sifted out the sand and gravel. I followed what I saw in the dream. I rolled the mud into a ball and spread it wide on my overcoat used as a mat.
"Hmm."
Time passed. The morning and noon sun baked the mud cookies. I carefully picked up the mud cookie, which looked like dalgona, with both hands.
"......I'll enjoy this."
I nibbled at it.
The sound crackled in my mouth.
"......."
I licked the edge of the mud cookie with my tongue. It softened a bit. But as I received the crumbling mud cookie with my tongue, the soil granules stuck to the roof of my mouth. My entire mouth crackled.
"......."
After a while, I got the hang of it. This food wasn't meant to be chewed with molars. It was to be nibbled with front teeth and then slowly swallowed. The warmth of the sun and the scent of the soil, a food that contained only these two elements, I slowly devoured.
Hmm.
"......It tastes bad."
I bit it.
"It's tasteless."
I nibbled it.
"Really, it's tasteless."
I swallowed.
"......."
My shoulders trembled.
My heart trembled.
“……, ……. ……”
An indescribable emotion enveloped my body. Was it anger? Sadness? Or perhaps hatred? Humans, originally born from the earth, why can't they eat the earth? Why are the scent of the earth and the texture of the soil so miserably poor?
Why.
"......."
Before I knew it, my right hand was tightly clenched. Whether it was anger, sadness, or perhaps hatred, the emotion clenched in my hand. That's when I realized. Emotions that can't be spoken are meant to be clenched in hands.
Not to be expressed but to be swung.
Martial arts was simply swinging what remained in one's hand.
"......."
Let's go back.
I drew the holy sword. I aimed the tip at the center of my neck.
I'll return and show the Heavenly Demon my sword. No, not my sword. It is the sword of the nameless older person, soldier, city lord, and children who died.
I've never read a martial arts novel, so I don't know the subtle principles of yin, yang, and the five elements. If there is any principle in my martial arts, it's just their screams. If there is any heavenly principle in my blade, it's just the gestures of humans abandoned by the heavens.
Because it's resentment and grudge, it's Demonic.
Because it's the sky looked up to in mere resentment and grudge, it's Demonic Heaven.
I stabbed the holy sword into the center of my neck. Carrying the deaths of 112 people in my heart, I returned. What I had to do was no different from the previous loop.
I requested the Heavenly Demon to accept me as a disciple.
Just like before, the Heavenly Demon pondered for a night.
After one night, the Heavenly Demon presented me with a test.
"What is the test?"
"There."
The Heavenly Demon pointed to the bottom of a pit.
"I threw a gangsi down there. In our cult, they were a highly promising young talent, and in the martial world, a peak-level master who had made quite a name for themselves. Defeat that gangsi. Then I will accept you as an inner disciple."
However, the Heavenly Demon added,
"Fight while feeling hunger. Fight the zombie, but only hunger should reside in your heart. The pain of hunger alone should occupy your mind. I forbid any other emotion or thought to infiltrate your mind. Can you do it?"
I didn't respond.
There was no need to articulate what couldn't be spoken.
Instead, I quietly jumped into the pit.
-Groooooar!
A zombie charged at me.
I looked at the zombie with an indifferent gaze.
"......."
The scent of mud in my mouth.
The feel of a lump of earth in my gestures.
Only the hunger of the children encapsulated in my heart.
Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven.
The First Form.
Sword of Starving Death.
I swung my sword.
With one strike, I severed its legs.
With a second, its arms were cut off.
With a third, I beheaded the zombie.
In each movement, not a gesture was free from hunger.
The former supreme expert of the Demonic Cult lay silenced at the bottom of the pit.
"......."
I looked up.
The Heavenly Demon's mouth was agape. She was staring at me with an expression even more astonished than when she first saw our group. Her eyes wavered. After such wavering, her heart must have been tumultuous.
The meaning of life she thought she had lost forever.
She saw it beginning anew before her eyes.
Becoming visible.
"Heavenly Demon."
I slowly opened my lips.
"What kind of death shall I present next?"
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
