Clack, clack....
A small spiderling tidied medicinal ingredients with meticulous movements. And beside it, another slightly larger spider pounded the ingredients in a bowl with its forelegs.
Five such small spiders in all scurried about the Medicine Hall, each doing its own work.
And at the center of them sat an enormous ink-black spider, calmly rolling its eyeballs about.
By now the trees of Mount Daeung had changed their garments — green, then red, then bare — for the third time. Which is to say that Black Spider had already spent three years at the Grand Heaven Sect.
There was no longer anyone among the people of the Grand Heaven Sect who did not know of Black Spider. A spider cursed fiend who freely commanded dozens of puppets and unfolded sword formations.
The description alone was fearsome beyond measure, but in reality he was like a docile ox, a gentle beast that stayed quiet even when a hand stroked its head.
He was so clever, moreover, that he understood human speech and answered in writing, and since about a year ago he had settled into the Medicine Hall and was helping treat the patients besides.
For Black Spider, of course, this was simply learning what he wanted to learn. His sword arts and puppeteering had reached a certain level of attainment, so there was a high chance of stagnating on his own efforts alone; and so he had begun taking an interest in medicine instead.
Around autumn the year before last.
Black Spider had met the Grand Heaven Sect's Vice Sect Leader and received his teachings on the Heaven Pinnacle Sword Arts and on sword qi, and before that winter was out he had succeeded at last in attaining a new realization in the puppet arts.
That realization was to breathe his own consciousness into a puppet; taking the Vice Sect Leader's advice to place oneself into the sword and unfold one's will through it, he had converted it into a puppet art of his own.
Sword qi was by nature the will to ‘cut’ placed into an object outside the self so that it took on visible form; so Black Spider the Puppet Master had placed his own will to ‘handle’ into that object outside the self, the puppet, so that he could work a puppet as though it were another self.
After that he had concentrated on mastering this newly acquired technique, and in the hours left over he stopped by the Medicine Hall, treated patients, handled the work, and learned the physician's trade into the bargain.
It had already been a year of this, so by now Physician Bae of the Medicine Hall was quite used to Black Spider's presence. Or rather, he had come to rely on him about halfway.
For is a sect physician's work not ordinarily busy? A murim sect is a body formed by humans who spend all day striking and grappling with one another.
Hardly a day passed without someone — from brats to young men to men well into middle age — turning up hurt or broken in some fashion.
Amid all that bustle, along had come a crazy spider that handled every menial task without being told, replenished the depleted ingredients, and in between scurried about rolling its small spiders to clean the entire Medicine Hall building spotless. He could not have been more grateful.
Moreover, whenever this spider had a spare moment, it did not idle stupidly like the other assistants but always tried to learn something more, which made it dear beyond words.
In any case, as the spider scurried and the physician devoted himself to his medical arts as usual.
“Yo.”
A Grade 2 disciple with a blue sash at his waist came into the Medicine Hall.
That disciple's face was quite familiar to Physician Bae as well; it was the boy who, from the time he first entered three years ago, had come to the physician day in and day out battered, split open, and smashed to pieces — Yeon Pung.
Yeon Pung, who three years ago at about this time had just entered as a Grade 4 disciple, had recently forced his way through the fierce competition within the Sword Sect and passed his promotion to Grade 2 disciple.
Such a rate of growth was uncommon even within the Grand Heaven Sect, so he was already making something of a name for himself as a promising prodigy of the sect. His height, though, was still well short of his peers'.
In any case, seeing Yeon Pung arrive, Black Spider quietly rose from his place. Yeon Pung jerked his thumb toward the door he had come in by and tipped his chin. It meant: follow me out.
[Physician Bae. I shall be going out as I mentioned to you before. I expect to return in about three days.]
“Oh, yes. Thank you for all your hard work as always. One needs a leisurely rest from time to time, so put your worries aside and rest well while you are out.”
When he stepped outside, a strapping giant of a young man stood in the Medicine Hall yard.
That young man was none other than Seok Cheol.
Seok Cheol had once competed with Yeon Pung for the top place, yet when he was promoted to Grade 3 disciple, though he received the Exceptional grade, he chose the Fist and Foot Sect rather than the Sword Sect.
The reason was simple.
Seok Cheol's own heart had always leaned more toward fist arts, which handled the pure body, than toward sword arts; and above all, he had reckoned that going into the Sword Sect where Yeon Pung was would only make him stand out less.
Thanks to that rather petty political calculation, ill-suited to his steadfast looks, Seok Cheol had likewise been recognized as a prodigy of some note within the Fist and Foot Sect and had been promoted to Grade 2 disciple.
And these two had been selected to serve as instructors for the Grade 4 disciples entering this year.
So when they took on the duty of escorting the incoming Grade 4 disciples and set out for the village of the mundane world at the foot of the mountain, it happened to coincide with an outing Black Spider had already planned, and they decided to travel together.
The truth was that not long ago a letter had arrived at the annex where Black Spider stayed, and the sender was none other than Gaeddong-i.
Six years had passed without their seeing each other since they parted in Yulu County, and now word had come to the Grand Heaven Sect where Black Spider lived.
The letter said that over the intervening years Gaeddong-i had worked alongside Gwak and earned a fair sum of money, and that they were no longer mere peddlers but had built a proper trading company.
It said the company was due to visit the Gangryu Province region before long, and asked whether they might meet then, so Black Spider had sent a reply and arranged it.
And so one spider and two disciples came down the mountain together.
Yeon Pung and Seok Cheol were still rivals who snarled at each other, and Yeon Pung still thought he had not a single friend, and Seok Cheol went so far as to address Black Spider as Elder and speak to him formally, treating him half as one of the elders — with the underlying calculation of currying favor with a superior to score points.
But what of it? If they get along and knock about together like that, that is what a friend is.
Walking the same path down the mountain road, one felt anew that spring had arrived.
Descending the green slope, a broad plain spread out below, and somewhere far off sat a large village.
It was a settlement formed at the foot of the mountain where the Grand Heaven Sect stood, and so its name was Grand Heaven Village.
All the various goods used in the daily life of the Grand Heaven Sect's disciples were brought into the sect by way of Grand Heaven Village. It was, so to speak, the gateway linking the sect and the mundane world.
The young boys who now entered that gateway would climb the mountain and become Grade 4 disciples of the main sect.
Clack, clack.
An Ink Spider hanging at Black Spider's side controlled two humanoid puppets, making them walk along beside him.
These puppets had been brought along as porters, and apart from the wooden swords hung at their waists they carried no arms to speak of.
Above them, on Black Spider's back, Gok Hon sat calmly as he always did on outings; thanks to being kept carefully in a room for most of the intervening time, no part of him had taken any further damage.
In any case, they arrived at the village. Having come down a few times before, Black Spider knew the village's layout well.
They went straight to the sect office where the entering disciples were to gather. This office was in principle a branch managed by the Grand Heaven Sect, functioning in ordinary times as the channel of communication between the villagers and the Grand Heaven Sect's main headquarters.
Here, this year too, some fifty-odd boys and girls sat gathered, thoroughly tense. Exactly three years ago, Yeon Pung himself had cut the same figure.
Into that place stepped two instructors and one spider.
Shock welled up in the eyes of the young prospective disciples. Ordinarily they might have screamed, but because the two instructors who entered first were so utterly unruffled, they managed to stay calm instead.
The startled look on the young entering disciples inwardly satisfied Yeon Pung and Seok Cheol. The two of them had brought Black Spider along in anticipation of precisely this moment.
“Well met. I am Yeon Pung, Grade 2 disciple and instructor of the Grand Heaven Sect's Sword Sect. From now we shall ascend to the main mountain, so each of you follow closely.”
“Ah, I am the instructor Seok Cheol. I belong to the Fist and Foot Sect, and....”
“Be sure that none of you leaves behind anything important.”
“...Follow closely.”
Putting on their airs, they led the young disciples off toward the entrance to the main mountain.
Black Spider followed them only as far as the vicinity of that entrance, then slipped away as they reached the mountain path and turned back toward the village.
The day he had arranged to meet Gaeddong-i was one day off. He stayed near the village entrance on the side opposite the Grand Heaven Sect and idly watched people going about their lives until the trading company arrived.
***
The next day the trading company reached Grand Heaven Village. Gaeddong-i — a familiar face, though over the years he had changed completely from a boy into a grown young man — welcomed Black Spider.
“Black Spider! How long has it been!”
Gwak too looked delighted. That was only natural: six years ago in Yulu County, thanks to that spider, he had carried out his dealings well and secured a decent sum, and on that foundation he had grown the present trading company.
The other members of the company, however, could not believe it, even though the company head and the vice head had explained the existence of this spider to them in advance. Seeing it with their own eyes was a marvel, and they all looked astonished.
In any case, ties reunited after long years shared their pent-up stories.
Since Gaeddong-i had learned letters over the years as well, proper conversation was possible when Black Spider wrote his replies on the board.
What had happened after they left Yulu County, the great success they struck in a large town, the near disaster of running into a band of bandits, being rescued by a martial artist who happened to be passing at the time, and so on.
Gaeddong-i too had evidently been through a great deal and grown over the past six years.
Even so, he had not yet obtained thunderstruck jujube wood — though it was not as if there were no news at all.
“There's talk that a market where precious goods are traded opens in a place called Taeeul Prefecture. It's a story from more than ten years back already, but they say thunderstruck jujube wood was traded there once.”
Black Spider committed the information Gaeddong-i passed on to memory. Having shared their stories, the next day it was time for Black Spider to return to the Grand Heaven Sect.
For the road back, Gaeddong-i gave Black Spider all sorts of things as gifts. A person would have declined a few times to save face, but Black Spider did nothing of the sort and simply gathered them up in silence.
Among the gifts was a peculiar toy as well, a strange device made from the bones and sinews of some beast.
If one adjusted the device's clamps and blew air into its breath hole, the tightened sinews would tremble with the breath and produce the cries of various beasts; a remarkably wide range of animal cries came out of it, which was a marvel.
“It's a toy some artisan made, and I had a feeling you'd like it, Black Spider, so I paid a good sum for it.”
It was just as Gaeddong-i said. Black Spider took quite an interest in this curious device.
The cry of a beast was by nature produced by breath setting its vocal cords trembling, so the structure of this device had surely been modeled on a beast's vocal cords.
In any case, they parted. Black Spider took Gok Hon on his back, had the puppets carry the gifts he had received, and left the village.
Climbing the mouth of the mountain path, he played with the toy that made beast cries. Since Black Spider could not exhale, he connected threads directly to the sinews and applied force.
Whine, whine, yelp, yelp, grrrr.
Strange sounds came out, hard to pin to any particular beast. With careful adjustment, though, he might be able to produce a desired sound well enough.
Climbing on along the ridge, he saw the entrance of the Grand Heaven Sect some way ahead.
But something was wrong. The gatekeepers who should always have been standing guard at the entrance were nowhere to be seen.
And that was not all. From within the sect came the sound of blades, here and there.
Such noise in itself was hardly strange, of course, at the Grand Heaven Sect where martial arts were trained.
But that noise was normally heard only from Training Peak; it was rare for it to carry all the way to the front of the Grand Heaven Sect's gate.
There was also the smell of blood. At that, Black Spider put away the toy he had been playing with and stretched out his divine awareness to probe inside the Grand Heaven Sect's gate.
Since realizing the technique of placing his own consciousness into a puppet, Black Spider's divine awareness had grown mightier once again, and he could now sense a radius of three hundred feet in a single sweep.
In the divine awareness he stretched out, human bodies were sensed.
Bodies fallen, and bodies come apart. Severed forearms, and legs. Someone's trunk had been split in half at the waist.
“GRAAAH!”
Just then a scream carried from far off as well. For an injury taken while sparring, that scream was far too desperate.
Black Spider knew at once. Whatever had happened, something serious had certainly happened.
SHIFT.
Black Spider's gaze sharpened. He checked his own strength.
Five Ink Spiders, and two humanoid puppets bearing wooden swords.
And Gok Hon, one unit.
He had brought all his core puppets, but the humanoid puppets for actual combat were far too few. And they carried wooden swords rather than real ones, which would mean little in a real fight.
Black Spider weighed it and judged. The most fitting response to the present situation was to hide himself for now.
But at that moment.
CREAAK....
The closed gate opened, and someone appeared through the gap. A familiar face. It was Seok Cheol.
And behind him came small boys and girls, thoroughly terrified.
Black Spider's eye caught the sword wound slashed across Seok Cheol's face. Because it happened to cross his eye, one eye appeared to have lost its function.
The rest of him was in no better state. He was wounded here and there, and a deep sword wound lay on his left shoulder. In that condition, Seok Cheol spotted Black Spider.
“Elder Black Spider...!”
Seok Cheol spoke with effort. Black Spider hurried over and examined his condition. He loosed the Ink Spiders to staunch the wounds urgently, but Seok Cheol stopped him.
“There was an attack by the unorthodox sects. Some of the elders and disciples turned traitor and a civil war broke out. I do not know the details either. Yeon Pung... is dead. I saw the Sword Sect Leader cut off his head with his own hand. Do not go in. It is dangerous. Rather than that....”
As he spoke, Seok Cheol looked at the young boys and girls. Black Spider knew them too. They were the newly entered young disciples he had seen in Grand Heaven Village just three days before.
“...These children are innocent. They have not even formally entered the sect yet. And you, Elder Black Spider, are only a guest of our sect, so you have no cause to take part in this affair. So only... please help these children escape safely.”
As he said it, Black Spider felt the resolve held in Seok Cheol's eyes. It was almost like looking at Elder Gok of old.
Raising a foreleg and tipping it briefly, he used a humanoid puppet to send a hand signal to the young disciples.
‘We go down.’
At the signal the disciples followed after Black Spider and the puppets. Watching them go, Seok Cheol wiped away the blood running down his chin once, then stepped back in through the sect gate.
He was, whatever else, a formal disciple of the Grand Heaven Sect, and he had a duty to answer the present situation. Even if the end of it was death.