WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Episode 9: Screaming Mountain Demon Beast Farm (1)

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Ise was now at Screaming Mountain, one of the mountain ranges in Suari, the easternmost country of the Three Peninsula Kingdoms.

Screaming Mountain lived up to its name.

In every valley, the wind howled long and low like the cries of beasts. Strange lights occasionally flickered deep within the ravines.

Rumors of unending strange occurrences had kept even a settlement worthy of being called a village, let alone a county, from taking root here. It was abandoned land.

The mountain was so remote that the Great Exorcist Order did not even maintain an outer outpost nearby. It was a mountain left entirely to nature.

From an unnamed ridge, Ise stared at the dozens of peaks rising around him.

Before beginning the mission, he checked the details once more.

Normally, he would have received and reviewed this document at a nearby outpost.

This was his first time carrying out a mission without passing through one.

[Mission Grade: Grade 4

Request Route: Secret Patrol Unit 7

Location: Near the thirteenth peak of Screaming Mountain, Suari

Objective: Confirmed presence of one demonic cultivator, Qi Condensation Realm, sixth star, suspected demon beast tamer, and multiple four- to five-star demon beasts including Three-Headed Chickens. Exterminate the demonic cultivator and all demon beasts.

Reward: 70 Spiritual Stones, 80 contribution points]

He folded the bamboo slip and tucked it back into his robes. The mission difficulty and reward amounts were clearly different now that he had come to headquarters.

These were nothing like the missions he received from the Training Compound administration office.

Most of those had offered single-digit rewards.

‘They say Foundation Establishment Realm seniors won’t even accept a mission to take a dump in a field for less than a hundred Spiritual Stones.’

He had thought it was a joke, but perhaps it had not been pure exaggeration.

Ise swept his gaze over the mountain range. His vision had grown far wider than that of ordinary people, but not enough to inspect every corner of these mountains.

He was looking for people.

No matter how remote a place was, there had to be humans somewhere. And humans left traces.

After searching the mountains for some time, Ise spotted a thin trail of cooking smoke and leaped toward it.

He wanted to see whether the Great Exorcist Order’s information had missed anything.

There were three villages near Screaming Mountain. They were not even large enough to be called hamlets, small clan settlements where barely more than a dozen people lived.

Ise changed into hunting clothes he had prepared in his storage pouch.

He put away his Daoist robes, slung a bow and quiver over his shoulder, and hung only his hatchet at his waist.

He was disguising himself as a hunter rather than a cultivator. The demonic cultivator might have planted informants in the nearby villages.

“Is anyone there?”

When he raised his voice at the village entrance, an elderly man smoking a long pipe slowly walked out.

“It’s been a long time since we had an outsider. What beast are you chasing all the way into these mountains?”

“I heard that someone strange has been traveling through the mountains lately. Have you ever seen a chicken with three heads?”

“...”

The old man stopped puffing smoke for a moment.

“Where would you find a three-headed chicken? What kind of chicken-brained nonsense is that? Would it have six legs, then? No need to fight over chicken legs, I suppose. Ha ha ha.”

The old man laughed for a long while, as though he had heard a particularly amusing joke.

“This area has plenty of strange rumors, but I’ve never seen anything suspicious in all my years.”

Ise asked a few more questions, but found nothing useful.

The man said no stranger had passed through the area, and that he had never heard strange cries from the mountains.

Ise visited two more villages afterward, but the result was the same.

They were ordinary people who had never seen a demon in their lives.

They were far too removed from such things to serve as the demonic cultivator’s eyes and ears.

‘There are no outposts and no witnesses.’

Ise rested his chin in his hand.

Then where had the information for this mission come from?

Did the order possess some sacred relic that could identify the aura of demonic cultivators?

No. If such an item were available on the market, the demonic cultivators of the Three Peninsula Kingdoms would have been uprooted long ago.

‘Shadow Agents.’

The answer was not far away. Among Shadow Agent missions, he had seen many that involved patrolling designated routes and reporting traces of demonic cultivators and demons.

The Great Exorcist Order’s missions were running diligently beyond the scope of what Ise knew.

He gradually drew closer to the mission target.

He had checked for possible outside threats. Now it was time to take a closer look.

He climbed to the summit of the tallest peak near the thirteenth peak.

Then he took three types of talismans from his storage pouch. He had prepared two of each for this mission.

Spirit-Veiling Talismans, Far-Sight Talismans, and Concealment Talismans.

They cost fifteen Spiritual Stones each. That was no small sum. If he used all six, he would not even break even on this mission.

He had also thoroughly prepared poison pellets, Healing Pellets, and Message Talismans, essential supplies for any mission-taker.

‘Please let this end in one attempt.’

When Ise activated a Far-Sight Talisman, the scenery before him magnified several times over.

Despite the distance, he could see the rings in the trees and even the veins of their leaves.

He quickly scanned the slopes of the thirteenth peak from the south.

The talisman would last about two hours. He needed to hurry if he wanted to inspect all four sides of the mountain.

‘Nothing.’

The southern side held nothing he sought.

Ise stepped forward. The sudden shift in his vision made him dizzy for a moment, but he adapted quickly and increased his speed.

Next, he searched down the slope from the eastern side.

Fortunately, he found what he was looking for there.

The mission target lay at the mouth of a steep valley on the mountainside.

There was a passably disguised mountain hideout, a crudely woven fence behind it, and a building that looked like a livestock shed.

It had been blended into the surrounding terrain with some skill, but Ise could clearly see the demonic qi slowly leaking from within.

As he focused his eyes, his view drew closer. Through a small ventilation window, he saw a chicken with three heads.

A Three-Headed Chicken. It matched the target information exactly.

Ise narrowed his eyes and counted them all.

Eight were at the third star of the Qi Condensation Realm, four at the fourth star, and one at the fifth. He could sense the demonic cultivator’s demonic qi deeper within the hideout.

‘The information was accurate.’

He wanted to storm the place at once, slaughter the demons, and devour them, but Ise waited patiently.

On the third day, he used another Far-Sight Talisman to confirm that the target’s situation had not changed, then dropped from the tree he had been perched in.

He descended the peak and circled around to the base of the mountain on the opposite side.

Once he had closed the distance to where the demonic cultivator could sense his presence, he tore a Spirit-Veiling Talisman.

The talisman’s spiritual energy spread through his body, and he felt his internal qi being pressed down and stilled.

He used Dokkaebi Steps to silence even his footsteps, then approached one step at a time.

The hideout came into view. Only a little more than six hundred meters remained between them.

That was when the air beneath his feet twisted slightly.

Before Dokkaebi Senses could even warn him, thin writing surfaced in a layer across the ground beneath his feet, then vanished.

‘A trap?’

It was not some ordinary snare. This was...

‘A formation.’

When he focused spirit sight again, he saw thin formation lines stretching from where he stood to more than a hundred meters on either side.

‘...Damn it.’

He had been wary of traps and warding barriers, but he had not expected them to draw a formation on the ground and cover it with dirt and fallen leaves.

Formation placement was Ise’s weakest area among all cultivation arts.

In any other field, he could at least make a rough guess like a blind person feeling their way across a palm. Yet when it came to formations, he only knew the most basic theory.

‘I didn’t sense it at all.’

Even without any skill in the field, he could tell the formation before him was far from ordinary.

He had never imagined that a demon beast tamer who controlled demon beasts would also know formations.

The person who provided the information could not have approached this closely either.

He had fought cultivators a total of three times, and all three battles had gone differently from what he expected.

When hunting demon beasts, it was hard to find any real mistake in his actions. Against cultivators, there were simply too many variables.

He keenly felt his lack of experience.

Before that brief thought could fully settle, the Spirit-Veiling Art concealing his internal qi shattered under the formation’s power.

A long cry rang out from the hideout.

Kiaaak!

The demon beasts inside the fence began shrieking all at once.

The Three-Headed Chickens’ three voices fell out of rhythm by half a beat, shaking the entire mountain valley.

The beasts tied to the ground all raised their heads.

The hideout door flew open, and a demonic cultivator stepped out. She appeared to be in her thirties.

As Ise prepared for battle, he assessed his opponent.

She wore old Daoist robes with one sleeve carelessly rolled up. A small flute-shaped spirit artifact hung from her neck.

A jade hairpin had been stuck haphazardly into her hair.

‘Don’t approach yet. Test her methods with basic spells first.’

The enemy might have prepared a treasure artifact like Needle-Launching Armor.

Ise slipped a hand into the storage pouch inside his Daoist robes and sharpened his senses as he prepared for battle.

The demonic cultivator’s tense gaze found Ise standing at the edge of the rocks’ shadow.

Her expression changed from moment to moment. Fear came first, then confusion, then relief and delight.

She looked him over once. Then twice. Her gaze grew stranger, and the strength slowly drained from the hand holding her flute.

“...Hmm.”

The woman let out a low sigh. Her guard eased considerably as she spoke.

“Senior, may I ask what faction you belong to?”

Senior? A demonic cultivator was calling a cultivator Senior?

A respectful title was only used among those who walked the same path.

Ise was briefly at a loss for words, then understood why she had asked and let out a hollow laugh.

She must have seen the faint demonic qi spread through his body.

Demonic cultivators could not read spiritual energy, so she had mistaken Ise for a demonic cultivator like herself at the seventh star of the Qi Condensation Realm.

She could not have imagined that demonic qi and spiritual energy coexisted within one human body.

‘...This has become interesting.’

Ise took his hand away from the storage pouch at his waist, then silently slid the half-drawn hatchet back inside.

It would be a great help if he could learn something about demonic cultivators while he had the chance.

Perhaps he could disguise himself as one to complete missions in the future.

“What faction do you belong to?”

Ise spoke down to her naturally and stepped forward. The demonic cultivator spread both palms.

“Ah, Senior. I’m sorry, but could you refrain from approaching until you reveal your identity?”

Ise raised an eyebrow. The demonic cultivator met his gaze directly without backing down.

“I’m glad to meet you, but it’s still frightening, isn’t it? You may be one minor realm above me, but as you can see, I’m not alone. Wouldn’t it be better for both of us to settle this peacefully?”

“You’re threatening me with nothing more than these little creatures?”

“How could I be? I was simply startled because I never expected to encounter a demonic practitioner in a place like this.”

Demonic practitioner. So that was what those who cultivated the demonic path called themselves.

Ise remembered the term.

“I belong to the Suari branch of Cheoryang Thunder Gate. And you, Senior?”

Ise considered the question for a moment before answering. Cheoryang Thunder Gate was the only demonic sect whose name he knew, so a careless lie would be easily exposed.

“I’m an independent cultivator.”

“A demonic practitioner from an independent background in the Three Peninsula Kingdoms. That’s surprising. And you’re at the seventh star? Wow. How did you manage it? What cultivation art did you practice? Curses? Essence harvesting? Ghost arts? Seeing how ridiculously you’re disguised, is robbery your specialty?”

“Why would I tell you that?”

“Ha ha ha. I was only asking because I was curious. But what brings you here?”

Ise quickly considered what information he could get from her, then reached a conclusion.

“I want to join Cheoryang Thunder Gate.”

“Ah...”

“How does one enter?”

“Our sect’s doors are open to talented demonic practitioners.”

She smiled with her eyes and tilted her head.

“But, Senior. There’s something I should ask.”

Her eyes suddenly rolled as she stared fixedly at Ise.

“How did you find this place? It isn’t somewhere one could stumble upon by chance.”

Footnotes:

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