Chapter 86

I looked around with the Poison King at my back.

First, the ground was flat. It didn’t feel like an ordinary stone floor; it felt like it had been worked over several times.

‘...And the height isn’t all that high.’

At best, stacked two or three people tall.

Meaning, nothing particularly lofty.

‘It’s wide, sure... but it’s bare and open, so it’ll be quick to take in.’

Aside from the night pearls set into the ceiling, nothing stood out.

What in the world did this place exist for? Only that question kept bubbling up.

‘...It doesn’t feel like it was made to store anything in particular.’

Then what was it for?

That thought flicked across my mind when—

[So, what was this place made for, then?]

As if he’d been waiting for it, Yoo Cheongil put my question to the Poison Sovereign. It felt like a cork popping out of my chest.

“Oh, this is just a corridor. I set doors here and there so it’d be easy to move to other places.”

He set doors? At the Poison Sovereign’s words I checked the surroundings.

I looked this way and that, but I didn’t see anything you’d call a door.

“You have to trigger the mechanisms to go elsewhere. There are eight doors in total, but only three are actually used.”

‘...Three.’

Fewer than I expected. Was that a relief or not?

From my side, a relief was a relief.

I glanced toward the Poison King when I heard that.

He happened to be looking at me, too.

“...Do you see anything?”

At the Poison King’s question I shifted my gaze slightly. Cheon Eujin and Do Hyeong were there, and on that side I fixed on where Do Hyeong stood.

A large firefly drifted around Do Hyeong.

A guardian spirit. And a fairly high-ranking one at that.

I tracked the light’s movement minutely.

‘It doesn’t look too agitated.’

The guardian spirit wasn’t issuing warnings. If there were a dangerous situation, it would have reacted; whether that was fortunate or not, the guardian spirit was quiet.

In that case—

‘So what now?’

While I weighed what to try from here, I looked back to the Poison King.

“I don’t see anything definite yet.”

I stuck to playing dumb. It was to see his reaction, since there was something about the Poison King that snagged at me right now.

Hearing me, the Poison King knit his brow slightly.

“Search the perimeter first.”

He ordered the Tang personnel who had come in with us to search.

At his words, people moved at once. Those two earlier—one a formation master, the other a mechanism engineer?

With their faces tight with tension, they began to sweep the surroundings.

They were so cautious that each step looked like a thousand-li trek.

You could call it overdoing it, but in a way it was only natural.

‘He said people blew apart trying to open a door.’

They said people died touching the Poison Sovereign’s secret archive.

What devices lay hidden inside? Considering that, moving like that was right.

Even Do Hyeong and Cheon Eujin were visibly keyed up, ready for whatever might happen.

If something went off, they looked set to respond immediately.

Not bad. It was a good posture for dealing with danger, sure, but—

“...Huh. I didn’t set up anything here.”

“...”

At the Poison Sovereign’s follow-up, I had to rub my face without meaning to.

‘...He didn’t set anything here, either?’

He kept saying he’d rigged every other place, yet again it was only here he hadn’t?

I mulled it over.

‘Should I tell them?’

People were poking around with cold sweat running, determined not to miss so much as a speck of dust on the floor.

Left like this, they’d keep at it for quite a while.

‘Mm...’

I hesitated to the end, then nodded.

‘Leave it for now.’

If I stepped up now, I’d have nothing to say, and it would only get weird.

So let’s leave it for the moment.

‘Once they slow down soon, I’ll step in.’

They’d probably stop before long.

That’s what I thought—but...

...the search took longer to stop than I expected.

****

How much time had passed?

I couldn’t say exactly, but when roughly four hours had gone by—

“...We don’t see anything.”

A man drenched in sweat reported to the Poison King.

From how soaked he was, you’d think he’d been out in the rain, but in truth it was all cold sweat.

“You didn’t see anything?”

“We looked as much as we could, but for now we found nothing out of the ordinary...”

“...”

Even at the man’s words, the Poison King only scowled.

Apparently he didn’t find it very convincing.

They’d searched this wide a place and nothing had turned up?

Not even a small trap or oddity—now that was strange in its own right.

“...Curious.”

The Poison King stroked his chin as if sunk in thought.

Even hearing the report, it seemed he couldn’t make sense of it.

Watching that, I rose from where I’d been sitting on the floor.

“Oof...”

I’d been sitting so long my whole body was stiff.

I thumped my lower back as I stood.

‘Is it over now...?’

As I loosened up, I looked toward the Poison King. Seeing the men soaked in sweat, I had to swallow my expression, embarrassed.

I’d thought they’d do a cursory search.

‘I didn’t think they’d keep at it for hours...’

I hadn’t expected them to comb the place for hours straight.

I’d figured it would end before long; looks like I’d underestimated them.

Which made me feel worse.

‘I should’ve just told them.’

I should’ve said it from the start. That thought flickered for a moment, but—

‘...No. I didn’t really have a pretext.’

It wasn’t the moment to say it. You have to play “I can see it” to a point.

Lies are like that.

‘Even a lie needs at least a good quarter truth mixed in.’

To pass a lie off, you have to lace it with truth.

So this time, not moving was the better calculation.

Of course—

“Come now, isn’t it time you moved? Boy, go on and walk!”

—listening to the Poison Sovereign whine from above for hours on end had been a bit of an ordeal.

[Ah, shut that mouth. You’re scrambling my head. How long do you mean to whimper?]

Yoo Cheongil did snap at him here and there, but it didn’t stop the Poison Sovereign’s mouth.

Gods, what a racket.

Hearing it once or twice is one thing—hours of whining?

‘...From a dried-up old man, no less.’

If a lovely lady did that I’d still be mad.

With that old man going on and on, my temper had spiked.

Honestly, I wanted to help him cross over right then and there.

‘...What is he even looking for?’

What was he chasing that he was this obsessed?

‘He’s been dead ages already.’

The dead always have their regrets, sure, but...

‘And he said it was just one sword.’

All he’d asked for was to bring out a single sword.

What reason did he have to be this frantic?

‘And besides...’

The Poison King wasn’t much different.

As soon as he heard nothing had been found, his face changed visibly.

Half “this is troublesome.”

Half “this is pissing me off.”

I’d only watched the Poison King for a few days at most, but it was the first time I’d seen his emotions show this clearly.

‘Him and him both.’

Every one of them was acting strange.

I clocked that and straightened my back.

Then I strode for the wall.

“Uh...! Moving like that is dangerous!”

One of the sweaty men cried out in alarm at me.

“You said you’d already checked everything anyway.”

I waved my hand in lieu of an answer.

“Young Master Bang!”

Cheon Eujin hurried after me.

Do Hyeong didn’t speak, but he came too.

I took a few light steps and stopped before the wall.

“Mm...”

I pretended to scrutinize it deeply, but my eyes were already fixed on a single spot.

A simple gap in the wall.

I slid my hand in like it was nothing.

“Gah!”

The man who saw it gasped.

An obviously suspicious hole. No wonder he panicked when I stuck my hand in there.

They had checked this spot, too.

Earlier I’d seen them try pushing and pulling.

But—

‘...Too bad, that wasn’t the answer.’

This wasn’t something you opened like that.

According to the Poison Sovereign—

Kk-rik!

—this door wasn’t for pushing or pulling; first you had to turn it.

One of the men had tried that part too, but the important thing was—

‘How many turns?’

The number was exactly four and a half.

You had to turn it precisely that much.

So I set my hand, put strength into it, and the circular gap widened as it ground around.

After four and a half turns, I pulled straight back.

KUGUGUGUNG—!!!!

The door opened. Dust billowed up. I held my breath quick.

“Nrgh...”

The door was heavy besides. Maybe because it was stone—opening it wasn’t easy.

After a while of straining and grunting, I managed to get it open somehow.

I didn’t get it all the way, but it was enough to see cleanly inside.

“...Huh...!”

“How did you...?”

The men who’d scoured every direction stared at me, aghast.

The Poison King’s eyes went wide as well.

“Whew...”

Holding the door hard and wide, I looked at them and said,

“...I saw it turn earlier. Figured if I spun it roughly a few times it might work, tried it, and... it did?”

Ha ha ha.

I gave a sheepish laugh. No answers came back.

What I saw were the hangdog faces of the °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° men, Cheon Eujin’s eyes shining at me,

and Do Hyeong, still plainly surprised, and—

‘...Those eyes are vicious.’

—the Poison King glowering at me, for some reason.

****

We all moved toward the room that had opened.

Even then, we didn’t let our guard down.

It had opened suddenly, and no one knew what might be inside.

‘Dark.’

Even if not for that, unlike outside it was so dark I could barely see.

‘Is it the night pearls?’

Outside, the night pearls lit the place, so maybe it was that—but

even so, this was too dark.

Even with the door open, the light didn’t seem to enter the room at all.

I felt a strange wrongness and strained my eyes.

Sssssss—

Qi moved from my dantian and the Moon Eyes lit.

‘Oh.’

Only then did the dark space come properly into view.

It’s good to use what you’ve learned.

With the stifling sense relieved, I took in the space in detail.

‘Mm...’

It was clearly narrower than the space outside.

Especially with objects filling it, it felt even more so.

Right—objects.

‘There’s stuff.’

At last, inside the secret archive, I was looking at things.

Not just one or two—nearly packed full.

What was filling the space like this? I hardly needed to check to know.

“Swords...?”

Cheon Eujin spoke. He seemed to be seeing poorly; his eyes were screwed up tight.

“These... look like they’re all swords, right?”

“Yeah. That’s how it looks to me, too.”

From wall to floor.

What filled the space, astonishingly, were swords.

Here and there I did spot other kinds of weapons that weren’t swords, but most of them were swords all the same.

And—

‘...The look of them is different.’

They weren’t on the same level as ordinary swords.

At a glance they were more than worthy of being called famed swords.

Even I, who didn’t know swords well, could feel they had a quality above the blades I’d seen at Iron River.

If people who knew swords well saw these, wouldn’t they judge their value even better?

“This is...”

“Senior... all of these swords...”

No sooner had I thought that than Do Hyeong and Cheon Eujin were exclaiming over the blades.

Cheon Eujin, sure—but if even quiet Do Hyeong reacted out loud, they had to be fine swords.

‘Then is this where the Poison Sovereign kept his treasures?’

If there were this many famed swords, wouldn’t that be the obvious answer?

Judging so, I looked toward the Poison King.

‘...Hm?’

Catching sight of the Poison King, I narrowed my eyes.

He looked around the space, as if searching for something, but—

his expression was as poor as before.

Which meant—

‘...What he’s looking for isn’t here?’

Did this place not have what the Poison King wanted?

‘So he didn’t come for treasures?’

Then what did he come to the secret archive for?

I couldn’t read the Poison King’s intent at all.

Just as I started to work my head—

‘...Where in the world is it?’

—came the voice of the archive’s owner, the Poison Sovereign.

He hurriedly checked the stored swords, busy peering here and there.

Right. He’d come to find a sword.

‘What sword could it be...’

What blade was he searching for to make him whirl around like this?

As I watched, puzzled—

‘...I should’ve left it around here somewhere.’

—the Poison Sovereign murmured quietly.

‘I’m sure I left the Heavenly Demon Divine Sword... somewhere around here, so where in the world...’

“...Sorry?”

At that, I froze where I stood.

...What sword...?