Chapter 480: I Don’t Believe in Legends (16)

Qing stared at An Yunjuk.

An Yunjuk’s pupils skittered, jittery.

She was the sort of woman who snatched a man out of the crowd on a whim.

It wouldn’t be strange if she swung a blade without warning.

Sure enough, Qing drew her sword with a sober face.

An Yunjuk’s head spun like mad.

Should he pretend to be crazy and slam into her?

But the grip that had seized his hair was steel—utterly unyielding. Whatever her inner force was, her outer force was monstrous beyond doubt.

An Yunjuk was a master of neither inner nor outer arts.

And it was nine against one.

Even taking out that famous Joo Ayo and the far more famous slaves, it was still five against one.

About as winnable as an ant brawling a human.

But he couldn’t just stick out his neck.

Hundreds, thousands of scenarios flickered and died in his head.

At last, finding a single possibility, An Yunjuk steeled himself.

And just as Qing was about to open her mouth—

An Yunjuk hurled himself with all his might.

Toward the floor!

“Mercy! I, An Yunjuk, am not a fool who doesn’t know his place. My martial arts are wretched, but if you order me—I’ll cook, wash, make beds, reserve tables at inns—anything. Let me serve you as a menial; I’ll work like a dog or a horse.”

Qing thought:

...What?

“Enough. Move.”

“Pardon?”

“I said move. Let me look at the door.”

Qing had been studying an automatic door that existed, impossibly, in the Central Plains.

Some fool had been hovering in front of it, and now suddenly he was kowtowing, begging to be worked like a dog or a horse.

“Ah. You were... looking at the door...”

Mortified to death, An Yunjuk peeled himself off and plastered to the wall.

Qing stepped up to the stone gate and inspected it from every angle.

Isn’t it just a normal stone door?

How does it even rise and drop like that?

Most likely the slab dropped through a pre-cut groove to seat itself.

Unbelievable as it was, the absolute sovereign of the Mechanism World, the Divine Sovereign Emperor of Mechanisms—Da Yeoreum—was in truth a compulsive liar and a con artist.

Her knowledge of mechanisms? About as much as the first letter of the alphabet.

Why does she even know that much? Because anyone from Qing’s homeland can look at a machine and grasp the basics of how it moves.

It isn’t an intelligence problem. It’s familiarity.

What complicated guts could a one-piece stone door even hide?

Even a mere pulley that opens up-and-down would count as breathtaking cutting-edge tech at Central Plains level.

But according to her master, the Shin clansman—the last Absorbing Qi Demonic Art heir who owned this tomb—had been dead for over a hundred years.

Frankly, a hundred years makes even Qing’s homeland’s hardware junk that won’t run anymore.

And here, in this backward Central Plains?

Qing slid her sword forward.

Through meridians fanned wide like an eight-lane highway, she poured out Guardian Qi at maximum output.

Her already thick Moonlight Sword No. 10—an inch of blade thickness—dripped with a brutal sheath of blade-qi.

The sword looked like it had swollen twice as wide, a savage, ugly thing.

The tip of that vicious weapon sank into the stone without a sound.

Slowly. Sloooowly...

Qing poured all of her mind into the feelings at her fingertips.

She was the sort of person who, when cutting through a soft human belly, could tell the difference between muscle, tendon, bone, small intestine, large intestine, liver, lungs, kidneys—the distinct feel of each.

All the more with stone—how hard could that be?

Huh. It’s just... stone all the way.

Then the tip slid and loosened.

The stone ended; it met empty air.

Qing withdrew at once and put her eye to the hole she’d made.

Beyond the darkness lay a pinprick like a needle-hole.

Faint light leaked through it.

What the—? That’s the other side.

I could just cut straight through.

Qing relaxed.

With a retreat secured, she could romp inside as she pleased.

Someone who knew her might wonder why she’d suddenly grown clever—did she eat something wrong?

But Qing had always been a petty coward about her own safety.

She always looked reckless, but she never failed to secure one escape route. A selfish bitch who’d run if it came to it.

It was just that, while disguised and playacting as someone else, she’d gotten a little drunk on it.

Eon Yeonyeong, Da Yeoreum—either way, those masks would vanish. She’d been charging in without thinking ahead.

It wasn’t because Qing was stupid.

It’s human instinct. Human nature.

Anon.

Anonymous, a person fears nothing; anonymous, a person can do anything; anonymous, a person becomes the leading authority in every field and a fin-de-siècle world-class genius.

Then the stone door settled behind her.

The retreat sealed.

At that instant, survival instinct—exiled by the turf-confidence of anonymity—returned home.

A sudden spike in IQ in the face of danger!

A truly cockroach-like woman.

Of course, there’s no scientific basis for cockroaches getting smarter under threat.

In that sense, Qing might be worse than a cockroach.

Qing turned around.

Her operating system always booted from “escape.”

If it won’t work, bail—irresponsibility incarnate.

And now, if it wouldn’t work, she could bail.

Flight was god; Qing was invincible.

“Mr. An. I’ll call you Mr. An from now on? No, wait—why am I using polite speech with a servant? Right?”

“Y-yes? Yes, that’s true, but...”

“What’s that? Your face looks a little sour.”

Of course it did. An Yunjuk had panicked and declared himself a servant of his own accord.

But they say a man’s word is worth more than a thousand gold.

Which tells you a Central Plains woman’s word isn’t worth much.

Which is why Qing can let any bullshit that leaves her mouth count as “speech.”

“What, didn’t you see me plant a sword in the stone wall? Is your body tougher than rock? Then—forget servant—want to be a scabbard? Let’s see... where should I sheath?”

A scabbard’s job is to hold a sword.

Obviously, a human servant beats a human scabbard.

“N-no! It’s an honor to serve!”

“Right?”

“Yep!”

“Good. Nice loud voice. Let’s do well.”

“Yep! I’ll do well!”

What exactly they were supposed to do well—neither Qing nor An Yunjuk knew.

But they both got the gist. Good enough.

“Now then. The inscription said ten make a company, so there must be a reason for a ten. Let’s exchange names. I’m Miss Anything-Goes.”

Lee Hyhye’s face went blank.

Miss Anything-Goes? Why “Anything-Goes”?

“And this elder here is a Thief.”

Elder Cheon Yuhak averted his eyes.

Joo Ayo’s brain stalled.

A thief?

He is a thief—fine.

But why announce it?

While Lee Hyhye floundered, Qing barreled on.

“This tiny little brat is my kid sister, Small Change.”

Jin Jangmyeong’s face turned feral.

“Tiny little brat”—in short, small small small.

And she was already sensitive about not growing tall.

“This here is the young lady, and this is my sword friend, Sword-Friend.”

Murong Juhee’s eyes drooped.

Elder, little sister, sword friend.

But “this here”? “This here”?

While Murong Juhee sank into dejection, Lee Hyhye finally understood Qing’s nonsense.

Introductions!

“If you’re going to use aliases, couldn’t you at least put some effort into it?”

They were aliases that screamed “alias” to anyone’s ear.

Qing was at the point of just making up names wholesale.

And she was shameless about it.

“Ahem. ‘Alias’? Don’t play games with people’s names. I like this name very much—Joo Ayo—no, I like it.”

Lee Hyhye pinched a wrinkle between her brows.

“Joo Ayo is a byname, not a name.”

“That’s why I played with the byname.”

With her retreat secured, Qing was grinning and drunk on anonymity again.

In other words, spouting crap.

“For the love of—no, hah... fine. Per your logic, we’re in the same boat anyway. You know me, right? I’m Joo Ayo—Lee Hyhye.”

She used a unique closed-fist art with massive iron talons—claw and fang, “Joo A.”

And “yo” marks a demoness; it’s usually slapped on young female demon-heads.

A demoness? What part of her is “demonic,” exactly?

“These are One-Slave, Two-Slave, Three-Slave.”

Everyone’s eyes narrowed.

Who names people “Slave One,” “Slave Two,” “Slave Three”?

When the party blinked, Joo Ayo cocked an annoyed brow.

“I didn’t name them. These filthy bastards named themselves.”

“That’s right. Serving our mistress is our sole destiny. From the moment we beheld her, we chose to live as mere slaves and abandoned our names.”

“Mhm.” “Exactly.”

At One-Slave’s words, the other two nodded solemn agreement.

Qing looked at Joo Ayo again.

What is she—some succubus?

Those flared eyes and fierce mouth promised a harsh, domineering temper—poisonous, violent face-reading all the way.

“Ahem, I am An Yunj—”

Whack. Qing cuffed the back of his head just as he started introducing himself.

“Hey, Mr. An. Why act grand now? This is my newly adopted servant, Mr. An.”

Qing pressed and tousled the flat back of his head.

Exceptionally flat—he must sleep like a corpse, straight on his back.

“...I am Mr. An, servant to Miss Anything-Goes.”

“What’s this? Slow response. And what’s ‘Miss’? I’m not some precious lady.”

Said Qing—the not-precious lady. (Emperor’s daughter.)

“Uh, then ‘madam’?”

“Madam my ass. Do I look that old?”

“Then... what should I call you...”

“Just call me ‘Master.’ You said you’d work like a dog and a horse, right? I’ll treat you like a dog—real casual.”

Miss or madam would’ve been better.

“Master” meant he wasn’t a servant—he was a slave.

But the term cleared An Yunjuk’s head.

He’d fallen into the hands of a vicious bitch.

One misstep and he’d wind up a real scabbard.

“Y-yes, hehe—Master, please work me like a dog. Hehe.”

“Good. Let’s do well.”

“Yep! I’ll do well!”

He had no idea what he was promising to do well, but his replies stuck like glue.

“Uh, Master? That young lady—she’s glaring daggers at me. Did I commit some grave discourtesy?”

Qing glanced at the young lady.

Warm eyes, brimming with affection, were fixed on Qing.

Like a large dog begging for a treat.

Qing smacked the back of An Yunjuk’s head.

“Cut the crap. Who’s glaring?”

“Ghh—”

An Yunjuk was wronged.

He’d said the truth and got hit for it.

And when Qing turned, Murong Juhee immediately glared with an axe-blade gaze.

But Qing didn’t care about An Yunjuk’s wounded feelings.

Why had she picked him up in the first place?

His karma numbers were high for being an easy mark.

She’d chosen him precisely because he was something she wouldn’t mind tossing away.

“Alright, Mr. An. Move out.”

“M-me?”

“Can’t you just listen while I’m being nice? You still don’t get the situation? If you don’t like it, you can go alone. Then I’ll have no choice but to send you first. Either way you’ll be up front; better to have stout company behind you.”

Either get thrown out of the party and get shoved to the front anyway—same outcome.

The world went black before Mr. An’s eyes.

How was he supposed to take point with traps likely ahead?

He’d gotten snagged by a crazy woman. He was screwed.

So Mr. An took the lead, while Joo Ayo plus slaves brought up the rear.

A corridor subtly carved in curves.

Qing understood why Elder Cheon had sighed about the nasty design.

It wasn’t just the sly bends that hid their bearing.

You couldn’t see a damn thing of what lay ahead.

So how was the man in front?

Expecting traps at every step, his feet dragged.

Qing cracked the back of his head.

That nicely flat angle—perfect for knocking.

“Hey. Step it up. What kind of man’s got a chest that small?”

“T-there might be traps...”

“Ah. Traps. Right. Elder, give me a rope. Our servant might be in danger.”

Qing tied a rope around An Yunjuk’s neck.

“Ta-da. Now move with confidence!”

“Um... what is this, exactly?”

“A lifeline. If a trap goes off, I yank and save you. That way you’re safe from any trap, right?”

An Yunjuk, now wearing a lifeline (collar), fought to control his face.

Even if a trap sprang and she yanked, his neck would snap first.

Was she just going to kill him?

“M-Master? Could I put a cloth under it?”

“Oh! Good idea. Wow, Mr. An—I didn’t take you for it, but you’re clever.”

“Heh... hehe...”

Cold sweat rolled down An Yunjuk’s spine.

She didn’t want to kill him—she just didn’t care either way.

And what chilled him wasn’t only Qing’s attitude.

“Um, I truly don’t know, so—about that young lady? If I’ve offended her somehow, I’ll apologize. Could she maybe put away the killing intent...”

“Eh?”

Qing looked back.

She met Murong Juhee’s eyes—smiling pretty—and thwack, she smacked the back of An Yunjuk’s head.

“What? Seeing things already, Mr. An?”

“Ghhh—!”

An Yunjuk was really, truly wronged.