Chapter 819: Our Wish Is Slaughter (10)

Qing deliberately put on a show, hamming it up.

“Wow, a secret passage! How am I supposed to resist this. Where does it lead? Alright, everyone—when a man sees a hole, he’s supposed to dive right in. Now, step forward one by one: who’s the most manly man who’ll be the very first to enter this unknown passage?”

The mine workers all turned their eyes away at once.

Some lowered their gaze. Some pointlessly looked around, avoiding Qing’s eyes.

Qing raised a finger and waved it back and forth.

“No volunteers? Then—whaaat shaaall weee choooseee, gues-s it if you caaan! Ta-da. Winner.”

“M-me? But you said a man—I’m not even a man, I’m—”

“Oh, come on. A woman can do anything! No—big things are originally done by women. Aren’t all men the sons of women? So don’t refuse. Here.”

TAP TAP.

With her sword tip, Qing knocked twice on the mouth of the vertical shaft.

The woman who’d been singled out flinched hard, trembling and hunching her shoulders.

“Don’t worry. We’re all going in together anyway, nice and friendly—when you’re with everyone, what’s there you can’t do?”

Qing slid one foot forward.

She shifted her center of gravity and, at the same time, drove power into her toes and shoved the ground with all her might.

To cross a zhang’s distance took no more than the time it took to blink.

WHOOSH—wind skimmed past.

In the instant the woman’s stunned face snapped into arm’s reach, Qing shot her hand toward the woman’s hair.

A brutal, vice-like grip—

“Eek...! Kyaa! Let go—this—KYAAAH!”

The woman screamed shrilly, clutching and clawing at Qing’s forearm, thrashing in a frenzy.

It was a truly pointless resistance.

How could fingernails possibly scratch the Minor Water Art’s diamond-unchanging demon hand—something even blades couldn’t cut?

“L-let go, let go—eek—sir, let go—please—let go.”

“Wow. You must be so happy you don’t know what to do. Makes sense. Cave exploration is a journey into an uncharted new world—every step is a chance to plant humanity’s very first flag. Of course you’d be excited.”

“Eek—please—I was wrong, I was wrong, so please!”

With her hair seized, the woman rubbed her arms together like a fly, pouring out wet, broken sobs—over and over, saying she was wrong.

Qing acted like she couldn’t hear.

And then—

“Wait!”

Isn’t “wait” casual speech?

But if your heart’s urgent, it can’t be helped. I’m broad-minded, so I have no choice but to understand.

Qing turned her head. Among the workers, a fairly older man—back in Qing’s hometown, the kind you’d call an “uncle”—was staring this way with trembling eyes.

“What is it?”

“Sir, that girl has done nothing wrong. She’s just a girl who cooked meals and did laundry. Please... show mercy.”

The older man’s words were polite—no, strictly speaking, only the words were polite.

On his twisted face and in his shaking voice, bitterness, rage, humiliation—everything was laid bare.

But to Qing?

Even better.

“She’s done nothing wrong? Because she’s a bitch who only cooked and did laundry?”

“Sir, that girl doesn’t even know what’s happening here. She only came because they said the mine needed hands. She’s never even set foot in the mine—”

“Elder!” “You bastard!” “Shut your mouth!”

Before the older man could even finish, angry shouts burst out from all around.

Some were filled with worry. Others were packed with fury.

Of course.

Didn’t the older man just say it?

That this woman was completely innocent—someone who didn’t know what was happening here.

Which meant the opposite, too:

That some people here were not innocent—an admission that they already knew what was happening here.

And more than that—

Up until now, it hadn’t been just one or two who’d only been watching the room and then suddenly lunged to shut the older man up.

Even if the worst happened, they must’ve planned to hide their identity, their Blood Cult status—keep lying to the end that they were just miners who’d come to work, and die that way.

Or else they’d planned to plead innocence and injustice, trying to save their own lives.

Whether they’d been forced, brainwashed, or had simply agreed among themselves—wasn’t it obvious they’d already settled on that story?

So the older man’s words were an offer like this:

“You want me to spill everything I know, and I’ll even point out who you should kill—so spare the innocent ones?”

“““”----!!””””

Instantly, the place churned with noise—kill him, traitor, the cause this and that—buzzing chaos everywhere.

Of course—

“GWAAAGH!” “AAAGH!”

It was chaos that got suppressed fast, thanks to a demonstration drop of a nuclear forehead-flick.

With workers clutching their heads and rolling on the floor in agony, everyone swallowed hard and snapped their mouths shut.

“When adults are talking, you’re loud as hell—desperate to show how uneducated you are. So—old man?”

“Sir, there are innocent people here who’ve never even practiced martial arts, who’ve never held so much as a sword once, or even a club. We’ve already got blood on our hands, but the ones who still don’t know anything—kids, and women who know nothing—please show mercy. I beg you.”

It was a decision with a spine.

Rather than keep the secret to the end and be wiped out, he was trying to save at least the women and the kids (more like teenagers than kids, but still).

Qing rubbed the chin of her face veil.

She pretended to think over the offer, while what she was actually thinking was, Man, this is such a waste of good silk. But it’s soft—feels nice...

After enjoying the silk’s softness for a while, Qing finally tossed out a single line.

“Fine. Talk.”

“First, let the women and children go. Then I’ll tell you everything.”

“I’m the kind of person who keeps my promises no matter what once I give them. Trust me.”

“But—”

“If I let them go, will it be safe outside? Do you think there are only five of us? Or what—do you want me to peel one person off our side to escort them?”

The older man’s expression darkened.

Like Qing said—if they knew their identity, would they have attacked with only five?

If you thought about it, could only five people have subdued and gathered this many?

Three of them were releasing aura—at minimum, three transcendent masters.

A transcendent master was top-tier combat power treasured by any sect—so he’d assumed they must have brought at least an entire combat unit.

How could he even imagine they’d really attacked with only this handful?

“And if you don’t trust me, what are you going to do about it? Honestly, do I even need to find out what you Blood Cult bastards did? If I just kill you all, it’s solved.”

That wasn’t a threat. It was sincere.

These were obviously bottom-of-the-bottom nobodies—guys who hadn’t even learned proper martial arts. Even the “best” among them might barely count as second-rate.

Why would you bring someone who could actually fight and make them swing a pickaxe in a mine?

So even if they spilled everything they knew, it didn’t feel like any “big” information would come out.

And even if they confessed willingly, there was no guarantee it was the truth.

Then why bother talking at all?

Because you never knew.

“...I’ll tell you everything. We are...”

The older man calmly started laying it out.

They were simple labor pulled from a Blood Cult village.

They weren’t part of the organization chart of Blood Cult cadres led by the so-called “high-and-mighty ones.”

They were just ordinary Blood Cult riffraff.

They’d just come to this mine because the high-and-mighty lords told them to. Most days, they mined coal, and sometimes, when Central Plains people came in, they killed them all and threw them into the hole. That was it.

“And the ones making corpse poison? There had to be people checking how well it was maturing.”

“Well... the cadres don’t exactly announce their visits in advance to lowborn trash like us.”

“So what? What do you even know?”

Sure enough.

There was nothing with any nutritional value.

There weren’t any real martial artists here. They stood night watch loosely, without any real system.

And now he was saying they weren’t even attached to an official Blood Cult branch—just manpower mobilized from a Blood Cult village.

There wasn’t a single piece of proper information.

It even sounded like they hadn’t known stacking corpses like that was corpse poison manufacture.

Which Blood Cult branch was behind it, how many cadres were involved for it—

Or where the “treatment medicine” went—

Or whether the whole “luring people with medicine” scheme existed at other mines, too—

Nothing.

Qing let out a long sigh.

Maybe because they were nameless Blood Cult trash, even their tricks were shallow as hell.

Because look.

The guys who’d been loud earlier, bristling at the older man’s surrender—if you wanted to describe them, Blood Cult zealots—weren’t they sitting there now with their mouths shut?

Why?

At first, they’d gotten loud because they were scared the older man would actually open his mouth—scared he’d spill something they had to hide.

And now, since they’d realized the older man’s “confession” had no meat—

Since they’d caught that he had no intention of spilling the real information—

They weren’t interfering anymore. They were clamping their mouths shut.

“Haa. What a waste of time. Alright—dawn’s coming soon. Now, one by one, climb down the ladder. Go.”

“S-sir! Your promise...!”

“Hey. You have to listen to the end when someone’s talking. First, everyone goes down. Then you pick out the innocent ones you talked about and send them back up.”

“But—”

“That’s enough. What—women are ignorant because they only cook and do laundry? Then from now on, they need to know. Even if I’m going to spare them, they need to see with their own eyes what you were doing down here, what kind of bastards the ones they cooked for and washed clothes for really were—and come back up after they’ve seen it clearly.”

The older man’s mouth twitched like he wanted to protest.

But in the end, he only dropped his head.

Because he could read it—thick killing intent, and a rage etched cleanly into Qing’s voice.

A grave warning meant to be obeyed while she was still using words.

A final notice: she wouldn’t keep warning with her mouth.

Qing clapped twice, pulling everyone’s attention back.

CLAP CLAP.

“Alright. I’ll tell you in advance what’s going to happen to you. Once all the people we have to spare come back up, we’re going to remove the rope ladder and set the mine on fire.”

Once fire caught the coal seam, there was basically no way to put it out with manpower.

But once the mine couldn’t withstand the heat and collapsed with a roar, oxygen would stop flowing, and after that it would go out on its own.

Even in the middle of all that chaos, the deep underground cavity would be safe.

Heat rose upward, so it wouldn’t reach the natural cave deep underground. And even if the mine collapsed, the corpse poison workshop beneath it would endure firmly.

So even if the tunnels collapsed, these Blood Cult dregs would be safe.

They just wouldn’t have any way to come back out.

“I’m curious. How long do you think you can last? That water down there looked pretty deep, right? You know bedrock water is a ‘tonic spring,’ right? You’ll have drinking water, and air to breathe must connect from somewhere—so hang in there with as much hope as you can. Who knows? Maybe those Blood Cult dog-bastards will dig through the collapsed mine and rescue you.”

It was a plan for a living burial—horrific beyond measure.

Air flows, water exists. It’s underground, so the temperature isn’t terrible. If you can somehow get food, you could live, right?

What would you eat to hold out?

Well, there are piles of rotting corpses right there?

No—poison has already seeped in, so maybe they’ll draw lots and start eating each other?

Wow. Seriously. Just thinking about it makes my heart pound.

A perfect ending for bastards like this.

The Blood Cult zealots’ eyes trembled.

But even knowing the horror that awaited them, they had no choice but to go down quietly.

Because the people who were supposed to live had to live.

Even these bastards must have someone they wanted spared.

“Alright, old man. Who goes in first? The ones who live go in first; the ones who die go later. Now—underground exploration, begin.”

At that, the older man turned his head.

The first was the woman whose hair Qing had seized.

The woman who received the look stifled her sobs and began lowering herself, fumbling down into the gaping hole in the mine floor.

Qing watched until the woman disappeared, then spoke again.

“Alright. Next. And, by the way—you should hurry. I don’t know what the rope ladder’s capacity is, but if too many people hang on it, it might snap.”

And so the mine workers, one after another, climbed the rope ladder and vanished below.

Partway through, screams started—

“Kyaaah!” “Aaaagh!”

And then—

“UWEGHH!” “GHEK!”

Great explosive retching, vomiting from deep in the torso, began rising up from the depths underground.

Even for Blood Cult dregs, it had to be a spectacle worth about a million exclamations.

A hill of corpses stacked from human bodies—plus all kinds of bodies piled by “sample,” kindly teaching you the stages of human decay.

Mm. Around here, if the rope ladder snapped—

That would be fun, too.

The rest would have no choice but to jump down.

And the so-called “innocent ones” who were supposed to come up later wouldn’t have a way back out, so—ah, there’d be no way to keep the promise. Too bad.

But, unfortunately, the rope ladder was a very sturdy masterpiece.

“The promise—”

“I’ll keep it, so don’t worry. You’re last, old man, right? Once everyone’s down, send them up immediately. But don’t get greedy—don’t start thinking you’ll use this chance to save even one more bastard, or my mind might change. You know what I’m saying, right?”

“...I understand.”

And then, the older man disappeared.

Now the tunnel was empty.

As Qing stared at the black hole yawning open in the floor, an ominous, ill-starred color—something that did not exist in this world—quietly flickered in her eyes.