WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Episode 21: Core Formation Preparations (5)
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* * *
“Eat slowly.”
Ise spoke gently to the child, who was hurriedly shoveling rice soup into her mouth in a corner of the tavern.
After finishing a bowl and a half, the child patted her stomach.
“Want another?”
“I can't eat any more...”
“Eat plenty. If you want to become a Daoist, your arms and legs need to grow at least another foot.”
“Yes, Daoist. But why do my arms and legs have to be long to become a Daoist?”
“Hmm...”
Smiling, Ise answered the innocent question.
“Daoists these days need to be good at fighting too.”
By the time the child had finished digesting her meal, Ise called Bisang over, helped her onto the bird's back, and securely fastened the straps around her.
“This bird will carry you to headquarters. Tell Buchun, who'll receive you, that you have a spiritual root.”
“Yes, Daoist.”
The girl bowed deeply to Ise, then hesitantly climbed onto Bisang.
Before long, Bisang spread its wings wide and soared into the sky.
“Eek!”
The child's scream rang out as she suddenly climbed to a dizzying height.
Bisang flew slowly through the air as if giving her time to adjust. Soon, the child's bright laughter drifted down.
She was an orphan girl from Sorok County, where she had been treated like a servant and abused.
The noble household that had mistreated a child of only seven had all been sentenced to have their tongues torn out. The girl had been rescued and sent to Great Exorcist Order headquarters.
‘That makes seven.’
There was the boy who had picked pockets under a thug who played king of the beggars, and the children who had begged in the mortal city.
He had only passed through four villages, yet he had already taken in seven orphans.
Perhaps because the world was so chaotic, there were more children whose lives were threatened than he could count.
Children who had lost their parents to the aftermath of war. Children sold away to pay debts. Children abandoned on the road because their families wanted one less mouth to feed.
Their stories differed, but every village had people who had been cast aside.
‘...There are more than I expected.’
Ise shook off his heavy thoughts and was about to leave for the next village when a Message Talisman fluttered over.
It had come from headquarters.
- Go to Ojuk County in Immortal Mountain and determine the cause of the epidemic.
It was an official mission. It seemed they had assigned him a nearby task out of consideration.
‘An epidemic, huh.’
The three great disasters that mortals spoke of were war, famine, and plague.
Thinking that mortals truly led tragic lives, Ise changed course for Immortal Mountain near the Southern Sea.
* * *
By the time Ise reached Ojuk County in Immortal Mountain, darkness had already settled over the sky.
The town had been named Ojuk County for its abundance of crows and bamboo. Even from afar, dense vengeful resentment seeped from it.
Screeeech!
A bizarre sound sharp enough to pierce the ears suddenly swept over him.
It resembled a demon's sound art, and Ise hurriedly circulated internal qi around himself.
The brush shook, and sand scattered through the air.
This was no ordinary noise.
It was a Ghost Wail.
When too many evil spirits gathered in one place, their vengeful resentment consumed the space itself, producing such sounds every night.
It gnawed at the minds of healthy people until they went mad, eventually devouring an entire city.
Ise quickened his pace.
The outer branch outpost had already retreated to headquarters.
With no other choice, he headed to the government office to seek the cooperation of the county magistrate who governed the place.
“...The county magistrate fled elsewhere.”
The government office had already lost its purpose.
The official responsible for the county had run away, and the strangely empty office carried an eerie air.
Only one clerk remained, and they looked far from well.
“Were no other officials dispatched?”
“Who would volunteer to come to a town gripped by plague...?”
The clerk pointed at a notice posted on one of the government office walls.
It warned that Ojuk County had been sealed off, and anyone who tried to leave would be executed.
Coin-sized black holes had opened in the clerk's jaw and on the backs of their hands.
The edges had turned pale and festering, and the sour smell was noticeable even from nearby.
Whenever the clerk moved, yellow pus seeped from the holes.
Most of the adults Ise encountered were in the same condition.
The plague had swallowed the entire town.
The streets were deserted, while groans leaked from every private home with its doors thrown wide open.
When Ise looked inside with divine sense, each room was filled with people soaked in cold sweat, their skin riddled with holes like honeycombs.
Some holes were as small as millet grains. Others had widened enough for a thumb to fit inside, exposing the flesh beneath.
Swarms of flies blackened the ceilings.
Every adult had fallen ill, but the children were unharmed.
Boys under sixteen had stepped forward, taking on odd jobs and volunteering to nurse the adults.
Still, there was only so much their small hands could do.
‘A plague by day, and Ghost Wails by night. This isn't something mortals can handle.’
He had a likely idea of the cause.
Still, neither plagues nor Ghost Wails were Ise's specialty.
That was why headquarters had sent him to identify the cause rather than resolve the problem.
In other words, he was here for preliminary intelligence gathering.
He had grasped the general cause, but this place did not have the luxury of waiting for headquarters to process the report.
- Come to Ojuk County in Immortal Mountain. Right now.
He immediately sent Message Talismans to Seolryeong, Hong Wonseo, and Pi Garam.
At the same time, he used Telekinesis Art to gather patients who looked as though they could stop breathing at any moment.
It was a fairly large county. Even as a Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator, he had limits alone.
“W-we'll help too, Daoist.”
Among the children, a sturdy boy named Jeong Uiryong stepped forward.
He had gathered other boys with some strength and volunteered to help.
Ise patted his head and spoke as though praising him.
“That's admirable. Then may I ask you for a favor?”
“Yes. Please save our parents and our village...”
“I'll do my best.”
A clear light shone in the boy's eyes.
He was a head taller than the others his age, and he carried heavy patients on his back with impressive steadiness.
It seemed children like him had endured by relying on one another in a village where every adult had collapsed.
“Until a Daoist skilled in healing arrives, gather as many patients as possible. Empty the government office and the nearby homes, then bring everyone together in one place. Don't overexert yourselves. Carry only one person at a time, with four of you working together.”
“Yes, Daoist!”
* * *
After receiving Ise's request for help, the three arrived in Ojuk County within half a day.
They first straightened their badly disheveled Daoist robes, evidence of how hurriedly they had come, then were appalled by the severity of the situation.
“Hmm... This is certainly something that needs cooperation. Still, it doesn't seem like a matter that calls for four Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators.”
Seolryeong immediately responded to Hong Wonseo's words.
“Why? It's nice. It brings back old memories. Not that this is a good situation, of course...”
“I thought it was something serious.”
“This is serious enough. Think like a Daoist.”
When even Pi Garam joined in, Hong Wonseo fell silent.
“Still... this is bad.”
Seolryeong surveyed the town.
“The urgent problem is the Ghost Wails. So many people are dying at once that the evil spirits are multiplying at an incredible rate. If we leave it alone much longer, the plague won't be the problem. The children will go mad. It could turn into a hellscape where they kill one another.”
At Seolryeong's warning, Ise immediately gave orders.
“Seolryeong, prepare a spirit requiem rite. Pi Garam, set up a warding barrier so the evil spirits can't escape. Hong Wonseo, treat the urgent cases first and investigate the cause. I've gathered the critical patients at the government office.”
The four split into two pairs.
Ise led the way, with Hong Wonseo following behind.
Hong Wonseo covered her mouth with cloth and approached a patient leaking pus from their wounds.
Without hesitation, she pushed her finger into one.
“Ugh...!”
The mortal groaned.
Something wriggled within the hole, pressing against her fingertip.
“I understand. Senior, gather every medicinal ingredient from the nearby apothecaries.”
“Alright.”
When Ise returned with a pile of herbs, Hong Wonseo pinched something between her fingertips and held it up.
It was a worm.
It was a plump, segmented creature like a beetle larva, with grooves running along its body.
Its finger-joint-long body glistened with slime as it slowly squirmed in the air.
At one end was a round, sucker-like mouth that repeatedly puckered and opened without pause.
“The cause isn't an epidemic. It's a parasitic demon.”
“A Sky-Piercing Worm.”
Hong Wonseo raised it to eye level. The parasitic demon opened its mouth wide.
She squeezed the worm between her thumb and forefinger, and its body burst with a pop.
Dark green fluid splattered across Hong Wonseo's face.
Without changing expression, she tossed away the Sky-Piercing Worm and added, “Could you wipe this off? My hands are occupied.”
She held up both hands, covered in blood.
“Can't you use Jet Stream Art?”
“No. I don't have a water spiritual root.”
Ise adjusted the strength of his Jet Stream Art and washed Hong Wonseo's face.
The blast of water left her looking like a drowned rat.
“It couldn't be helped.”
“...Next time, please just use a cloth.”
Hong Wonseo shook her head and continued.
“With this many victims, the entire county has probably already become a breeding ground for Sky-Piercing Worms.”
Sky-Piercing Worms settled in a village and spread like an epidemic, burrowing into human bodies.
There, they fed on turbid qi, drained vitality, devoured the vengeful resentment produced by their hosts, and slowly killed them in agony.
Then they moved on to their next host without hesitation. They were parasitic demons.
The problem was that once they settled in, their numbers were immense and their reproductive power terrifying. If not dealt with early, they were infamous for easily devastating an entire village.
The reason children were not targeted was simple.
Young bodies contained little of the turbid qi and vengeful resentment the creatures craved.
“Everyone here will die.”
Hong Wonseo spoke calmly.
“Even if we kill the parasites, their vitality has already been completely drained. There's no way to save them. More than half the mortals in this town will die.”
The Sky-Piercing Worms had massacred the adult mortals of the town, and their vengeful resentment had created the Ghost Wails.
Now, those Ghost Wails were reaching for the children, continuing the cycle of disaster.
“Even so, we have to save whoever we can. Can you treat them?”
“I can make medicine to replenish their vitality after we get rid of the parasites, but we still need to remove the cause.”
“That won't be difficult. That's why I called Pi Garam.”
“...Using a precious formation master to catch worms.”
Hong Wonseo slowly shook her head, then began mixing the medicinal ingredients as if it were none of her concern.
In the meantime, Ise called Pi Garam with Voice-Transmission Art.
“What is it? I haven't finished setting up the formation yet.”
“This is more urgent. Can you set up an insect-killing formation?”
Pi Garam looked over the holes in the patients' bodies and the worm corpses, then nodded.
“Let me determine the range first.”
There was no need for Ise to explain every detail. They each knew what to do.
They could do that because they were cultivators with experience of their own.
Soon, Pi Garam spread a complex formation with four formation gates over a wide area.
As Ise watched with divine sense, the moment the formation activated, parasitic demons began bursting from beneath the mortals' skin like ruptured boils.
It was not a pleasant sight. Their flesh twitched as crushed worm remains seeped out with yellow fluid.
The backs of hands, napes, calves. The lumps that had pushed up from beneath their skin burst one by one, their segmented remains flowing out mixed with pus.
Even unconscious, the patients trembled.
It was a horrific sight, but it also proved that the creatures gnawing away at their bodies were disappearing.
Without a formation master, they would have needed to carefully send spiritual energy into each body and kill the parasites one by one without harming the mortals.
It was fortunate to have such a capable formation master as a companion.
Screeeech!
As night deepened, the Ghost Wails rang out again.
At the same time, dazzling light poured from Seolryeong's Spell Bell Staff.
Pale mist-like shapes tangled through every alley of the village. They stirred at once, rose in the forms of vengeful ghosts and evil spirits, and were drawn toward the light.
Letting out long, piercing screams, they were sucked into it.
Elsewhere, Hong Wonseo restored the vitality of those still clinging to life with Regeneration Pellets she had refined.
Now everyone handled their own part without needing to be told.
It was a moment that made Ise realize how much his companions had improved while he had not been watching.
“You've all grown up so well. It feels like just yesterday I was trailing after you, wiping your tears and snot.”
“When did we ever do that? Don't rewrite history.”
“Maybe not the others, but I can say it for you. Bamboo-Tube Beauty Geuma.”
The moment he brought up when they had been seventeen, Seolryeong immediately fell silent.
The initial measures were all complete.
Still, one problem remained.
“To deal with Sky-Piercing Worms, we have to kill the queen worm. You all know that, right?”
And the queen worm would be buried deep within an underground insect nest.
They would have to enter it themselves and exterminate it.
Footnotes:
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