Chapter 464: A Sad Legend, What Kind of Legend Is It? (14)

The weather was truly foul.

Even though the raindrops were thick, some damned wind just kept blowing through.

According to the homeowner, once or twice in ten years a heavy storm came with lashing winds.

Supposedly, this year was about the right time for it.

The moment Qing heard that, she thought—Isn’t that a typhoon?

Is it really fine to climb a mountain when a typhoon is raging?

But Cheon Yuhak dismissed it as nothing. No matter how hard the rain and wind lashed, was that really something a martial artist should even care about?

And Qing had to admit, well, maybe that was true.

Still, it wasn’t the kind of weather that made sitting on the wooden floorboards to watch the rain enjoyable.

Whenever the wind howled, the raindrops followed the gusts and came spraying in.

If you didn’t want damp skin, there was no reason to sit out on the veranda during a typhoon.

And yet, Murong Juhee sat there.

Even as the rain slashed in, she had been letting it soak her for a long time, sitting still, dripping rivulets of water from her chin.

At that moment—inside the village’s storehouse.

The women who had been kept inside—no, to be exact, it wasn’t even that they were truly confined.

The storehouse door wasn’t locked.

Strictly speaking, there had been no need to lock it.

When the door opened, what greeted them were countless stares, dull eyes already dead inside.

How much must one weep before even the moisture in the eyes is gone?

Women shriveled dry like living corpses.

Even when told they had come to save them, they just silently followed behind. Even when comforted with words like, It’s all right now, you endured so well, draw out your strength, they gave no reply.

It was enough to make one think, So this is what a jiangshi looks like.

But when they reached the village center, where the Tyrant Force Sect warriors had been subdued—

the women’s empty eyes began to fill.

With hatred. Icy blue hatred.

It was the moment the jiangshi turned human again.

In that instant, Murong Juhee realized.

Better than being hollow and empty—was to be filled with something.

Even if that something was nothing more than raw, blue hatred.

And so Murong Juhee moved.

It was something she did before she even knew it.

She stamped on the hand of a Tyrant Force Sect warrior already moaning with broken arms and legs—

Crunch.

The sensation of bones shattering and pulping beneath her sole surged vividly up through her foot.

And then the executions followed.

Though perhaps the word “slaughter” would be more accurate.

Only then did the women begin to weep.

Some wept quietly, some wailed as though their entrails were being torn apart, and others shrieked like beasts.

Crying, they tore the flesh of their enemies, dragged out their intestines to mash them, shattered bones, and smashed bricks while they howled.

And then, some eyes turned to Murong Juhee.

Eyes swirling with joy, sorrow, contempt, sighs, ecstasy, resentment—feelings she could not begin to understand.

But one thing was clear.

Those eyes gleamed with expectation.

A desperate plea that she show them the destruction, the agony of their enemies.

Why they begged her instead of doing it themselves she could not know.

Perhaps their bodies were too spent to join in the frenzy.

Or perhaps they simply had the kind of nature that preferred to watch quietly rather than take part.

So Murong Juhee did what had to be done.

She flayed skin, parted muscle, pulled bone, and drew out entrails.

She focused every nerve into her fingertips to keep them alive, so the slaughter, etched like a branding iron, would remain vivid.

Murong Juhee looked down at her hands.

It was then—

“Hm? Who’s there?”

She turned her head to see Qing with one hand thrust out, radiating guardian qi.

She extended one hand to emit the light, the other shielding her eyes.

When a lantern or torch is held up front, it blinds you to the surroundings, so she blocked the glare with her other hand.

Murong Juhee let out a little laugh.

Who ever heard of someone using guardian qi as a lantern? And it hardly even worked.

What a ridiculous luxury of a light.

Of course, Qing—with her superhuman vision—could do it.

“What are you doing? Letting all this rain drench you—oh, you’re soaked through. Why buy the rain just to wear it? You’ll catch a cold.”

“It just... feels refreshing.”

“Really? Then either get all the way soaked, or stay dry. What is this halfway nonsense, letting it splash all over you? Why?”

Qing answered that as she came over and sat with her back pressed against Murong Juhee’s.

“The rain’s hitting, so I’ll just hide behind you.”

Murong Juhee smiled faintly at the warmth pressing against her back.

If you hated the rain coming in, you could just go inside.

Why come out here only to crouch behind someone’s back?

But she understood, now, what Qing had felt down in the cellar back then.

It had been her greatest comfort.

To say: let it all out, all the pain, all the grief, all the hardship.

The memories from the cellar revived fully in today’s butchery.

The trembling agony made flesh, the silent screams of mouths sealed shut, the hot blood splattering across her face.

It was still horrible enough to make her body tremble.

Even those ordinary women vomited up their fury through vengeance.

And here she was, direct bloodline of one of the Five Great Houses,

quivering just from the butchery of villains, pouring her own pain, sorrow, and fear onto Lady Seo Mun Surin instead.

“...Am I just too weak?”

Murong Juhee confessed quietly.

Her back had gone stiff.

“Nah, I wouldn’t call that weakness. It just means you’ve got high empathy. Hard for you to watch others in pain, that kind of thing.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“But you still did it, right? Even when you didn’t want to. You did it for those women, to ease their resentment even a little. Normally no one would call that weakness. Doing something you hate for someone else—that’s real chivalry, isn’t it?”

“Ah...”

Murong Juhee’s back softened again, and this time she leaned her full weight against Qing.

A serene smile settled on her face.

Yes—her safe haven, the one she was always grateful for.

But now Qing’s back stiffened.

Wait... what did I just say?

So what I do—does that mean it’s fake chivalry?

If I kill people because I love it, only hunting villains, is that really “proper” villain-slaying?

Qing felt a bit wronged.

It’s only torture and slaughter that make it sound that way.

What if you swapped it for “attention”?

What if someone just loved receiving attention so much—

they threw themselves into charity and service just to bask in it?

What if they shouted it from the rooftops—Look at me, I’m donating, I’m volunteering—and the world showered them with thousands of “likes,” giving them euphoric thrills?

Even if that made them an attention addict, if the means were charity and service, weren’t they still a good person?

Or say, in an extreme example—what if someone had a kink where they felt pleasure from gratitude?

So they did good deeds just to earn thanks?

They’d just be chasing pleasure, but still—wouldn’t that be good deeds?

But Qing still felt stifled.

Because this kind of thing only mattered when someone else said it.

Coming from your own mouth, it was just self-justification.

But so what?

You couldn’t exactly confess this to anyone, could you?

The truth is, I love torturing people more than anything. Hearing screams makes my heart pound, my nerves tingle with electric bliss—I’m a pleasure-killer.

There are things you can never say, even to the closest friend.

That line about true friends and family should bare everything to each other—that was just a pretty lie.

Some truths must be held inside, kept alone.

For yourself, for the other person, for both.

And then irritation began to simmer.

What’s so bad about it?

That even if they’re villains, torturing them to death is “too cruel”?

What, like I do it because I hate it? No, I love it, but even I didn’t know I’d turn out a pleasure-killer.

And then another thought struck her.

But is that even what happened?

Maybe this was just who she’d always been?

Maybe she’d never had the chance before—never had to kill, never had to torture—so she’d just never realized it?

Qing thought it over, then decided.

It was better if she’d always been this way from the start.

Because if she hadn’t, and this damned system screen was corrupting even her mind—

that would be terrifying.

And besides, it didn’t force her to do anything.

It didn’t say Fail and you die. It just let her choose, Do it if you want, or don’t, whatever.

If it could really control her mind, why would it leave her free? Why let her harbor such blasphemous doubts?

So she must have been a pleasure-killer from birth!

Somehow, that thought gave Qing peace.

If she’d been born this way, then so what? In fact, hadn’t she been born into the perfect world for it?

Pity she had to be born a woman.

With so many beautiful women in this world.

Feeling wistful, Qing turned and groped Murong Juhee’s chest.

Fake breasts anyway. She’d made them herself—they were hers to play with.

Murong Juhee didn’t flinch.

It was just heavy underclothes beneath her robes.

“Mm. As I thought. No matter how well made, fake is still fake. Feels a little off.”

“Maybe that’s just because you know they’re fake? I don’t notice much.”

“Really? Could be.”

Qing tilted her head.

Come to think of it, Himhae and Guneongyi had completely different feels anyway. Maybe somewhere out there someone really did have this exact texture.

Maybe it only felt wrong because she knew it was fake.

But putting a bean at the tip?

Was a bean really the best option? Wasn’t there some material, firm yet not too hard, maybe a little chewy?

And Qing never left curiosity unsaid.

“Lady Murong. For the tip here—what could we use instead of a bean? This part just kills the illusion.”

“Mm. I was thinking that part needed improvement too. What about cartilage?”

“Oh? Not bad. But it’d rot quickly. Needs to be something that won’t spoil.”

“Then maybe...”

The pouring rain drowned out their low conversation.

Murong Juhee’s face—dead serious—and Qing’s—casual, as though just chatting—were both swallowed by the pitch-black night under heavy clouds.

A foul night, yet a comfortable one.

****

For some, a comfortable night—for others, a night of horror.

Deep beneath Mount Lao, so it was.

“Report the flooded sectors!”

“Flooding in Gap-2, Eul-6, Eul-9, Byeong-3, and Mu-2!”

“Damage?”

“The pitfall traps are filled with water, so they have no killing power for now. That can be fixed once the water is drained, but...”

“But what? Spit it out!”

“Some of the poison-spray vents are submerged.”

The middle-aged man’s face twisted.

“No... don’t tell me...”

“Sixteen poison tanks have been flooded—”

“What? Give me a clear report!”

“Other than the Jeong sector traps, we can’t guarantee any effectiveness. The venom’s already leaked.”

“How is that possible? Just partial flooding—why would the whole system fail? Don’t tell me you designed the venom tanks to share supply?”

“It... couldn’t be helped. Poison is hard to manage. If each tank were separate, the maintenance channels would multiply. And venom is so costly—if a line clogged and couldn’t be used, all of it would go to waste. Combining them in a shared system was far more efficient...”

“You idiots! And you buried the tanks underground? Why would water even get in?”

“The upper rock was unstable, so we had to dig lower...”

The man pounded his chest.

“My mistake was trusting you. Leave you one simple design and look at the mess you’ve made!”

The subordinate bowed his head low.

But though he lowered it, his face brimmed with resentment.

Of course, to this man—nicknamed Rock-Dragon of Mount Gui, the greatest engineering and mechanism expert in the Central Plains—it would be simple.

Not merely the best—when people said Gui-san-man-bak Rock-Dragon, they meant there was simply no equal in the world, a genius of mechanism and civil works across all ages.

But if it was so easy, why didn’t he do it himself?

Why dump the work on others, only to rage later about how poorly it was done?

Still, Rock-Dragon himself fumed.

If he had to handle every single detail from start to finish, why even keep subordinates?

But entrusting them with details only revealed how useless they were.

Granted, the men of the Blood Sect’s Gonghyeoldang were skilled designers in their own right.

But to a true genius, they were still nothing but clumsy fools.

“First get the water out! Drain it all!”

He drew sharp lines across the wall-spanning schematics.

“Excavate drainage here, like this.”

The subordinate’s eyes went wide.

Above ground, a drainage channel was simple—dig from high to low and let water flow.

But underground facilities weren’t so easy.

And the lines Rock-Dragon scratched out so casually would have taken any mechanism engineer weeks of agony to devise.

As expected of the master.

Resentment turned into awe.

But awe was awe—the reporting wasn’t over.

“Uh... sir...”

“What now?”

“The floodwater mixed with venom... if we wait until the level rises more, it will dilute, and then—”

“Are you talking nonsense!?”

Rock-Dragon roared.

“Water’s rising and you’re thinking of sleeping on it? Mobilize everyone now and pump it out! Wear the gas suits and drain it!”

The subordinate’s face soured.

Gas suits—designed airtight so not even air could pass—were thick, heavy, suffocating leather armor.

And now they were to wear them while hauling out water?

While the rain kept falling outside?

Darkness filled the subordinate’s vision.