"......So the Seven Evils' experiences I felt when I touched the spirit nexus carried over as aptitude? And that's how I could take on that monster."
Of course, the Dark Wind Wolf had already been battered to pieces by the qi blast that erupted from the spirit nexus......
But the bone shard in its forehead was definitely my doing.
"Haha, this is ridiculous."
The seven absolute evils who drove the world to ruin. To think their aptitudes had moved in inside me.
I'd have been grateful for just one, so this was the jackpot of all jackpots.
"......But why can't I feel the Seven Evils' abilities?"
The Seven Evils I'd seen in the memories from the spirit nexus were incredible.
They split the sky with a single leap and ground granite as hard as cast iron to powder with one blow.
Truly beings who stood alone above all under heaven.
And yet.
"Right now I'm like a blank slate, fresh out of the womb."
My senses had definitely sharpened, but I couldn't feel any of that earth-shaking ability at all.
Unless I'd been scammed, there was only one answer.
"So it's aptitude after all, not ability?"
Martial realms and physical movement were 'abilities', built up through effort.
Aptitude, then, was an innate 'tool' that gave you an edge in building them.
"Which means I have to build the abilities myself, from scratch."
It was a shame, but it made sense.
Even the Seven Evils hadn't been strong from the start.
But there was one more problem.
"Top-tier aptitude doesn't mean a cracked vessel gets fixed too."
My body.
Eating the Heaven's Table Ginseng had at least sped up my recovery, but the underlying problem hadn't gone away.
My complexion was still cold, and my qi and blood felt so clogged that even breathing was a struggle.
I didn't know the reason, but it was clearly abnormal.
No matter how outstanding the aptitude, in the Murim a vessel without inner arts was useless.
Of course.
"......Even so, the Seven Evils' aptitude is still the greatest fortuitous encounter there is, something you couldn't trade for an untold fortune. Hmhmhmhm."
A grin stretched from ear to ear.
I still had a long way to go.
But that was fine.
Because this was only the beginning.
"In that sense, the living have to go on living, right?"
I grinned and pocketed a sharp shard of bone.
From here on, it was the victor's hour.
Humming a tune, I prodded the dead Dark Wind Wolf's belly.
"Where are you hiding, hmm? Oh, there you are."
Then I found the spot where something hard caught under my fingers and tore through the hide with the bone shard.
A dazzling black orb, slick with sticky blood, came into view.
"Hahaha!"
An inner core. And not just any inner core, but a fell beast's, said to rank among the very highest!
"Rest in paradise. I'll put this to good use."
After praying for the soul of the dearly departed dog, I turned the inner core this way and that.
"A fell beast's inner core is packed with demonic qi, so the orthodox factions won't touch it. But on the black market, it'll fetch whatever price I name. To demonic practitioners, it's a dream elixir."
I'd practically struck it rich overnight.
Of course, with Baek Do-gyeom's knowledge, I'd never have found the black market in the first place, but doesn't the saying go? Know the future, and you'll see the money.
For someone who'd read Chronicle of Villains, it wasn't all that hard.
"Well then, let's get going."
***
A sealed room thick with smoke.
"Y-Young Lady! His qi is starting to flow backward again!"
Old Kang, who had been fanning the fire under a simmering elixir, cried out urgently.
Drenched in sweat, Tang Seo-rin let out a breath, her face worn out.
It had already been several days since she'd thrown herself into treating him.
She had packed his limbs with needles and burned and poured every elixir said to be any good, but they had reached the limit.
"Nnnngh......"
The spiky-haired boy lying in the sickbed had already turned a livid blue, and his veins had swollen badly.
The spirit qi packed into his Jeonjung Acupoint could hold out no longer and had begun to flow backward.
"Young Lady, what do we do......"
What else was there to do?
"Prepare for a funeral."
"Ack!"
Tang Seo-rin set her large needle down in its case, grabbed the long pipe from the shelf instead, and stepped outside.
Now not even the Great Luo Immortals could bring him back. He was as good as a living corpse waiting for his day to die.
'Baek Do-gyeom. So you didn't come after all.'
Had she expected too much? Then again, it had been an absurd boast from the start.
Heaven's Table Ginseng, of all things. How was the likes of him supposed to get his hands on an elixir people only talked about in legends?
Believing him had been a foolish call, and unlike her.
She had simply been bewitched for a moment by the audacity in his eyes.
Unable to hide her resignation and disappointment, she was tapping poison herbs into her pipe when it happened.
"Um."
"Who goes there!"
Sensing a presence right behind her, she spun around fast and thrust out a palm.
Swish-swish-swish-swish!
It was the Tang Clan's Viper Palm, named because the arm, bending again and again, looked like the jaws of a snake going for its prey.
But.
'He dodged it......?'
Making a mockery of her wildly striking arm, the man who had slipped inside her guard and dodged every blow asked flatly.
"I'm not too late yet, am I?"
Disheveled hair and a body battered to pieces.
"You......"
That's right, it's me. Kang Woo-jin's lifeline, back from the brink of death!
"Who are you?"
Ugh.
"Come on, isn't that a bit much? It hasn't been that long since we met."
"Don't tell me, Baek Do-gyeom?!"
Tang Seo-rin asked again, as if she couldn't believe it.
"Who else would I be?"
"......I thought you were a beggar or a mountain bandit. So a person can change this much."
Was it from growing up on all those poison herbs? Her tongue sure was spicy.
"Try grappling with a mad dog all night. Anyone who came out of that looking fine wouldn't be human."
"A mad dog?"
"There was one. Anyway, how's Kang Woo-jin?"
"He's fine. Though he's due to die soon."
How could she say something that terrifying like it was nothing?
"Of course, if you didn't come back empty-handed, he may still have a chance."
Tang Seo-rin's eyes flashed coldly. She was asking whether I had really brought the Heaven's Table Ginseng.
But there was no need to look at me so doubtfully.
"I brought it. Heaven's Table Ginseng."
"......!"
Thunk! I pulled the medicine pouch from inside my robe and pressed it firmly into Tang Seo-rin's hand.
"So please, save him. With all his limbs intact, no matter what. Promise......"
With those words, I couldn't fight off the exhaustion flooding over me, and I collapsed.
"Baek Do-gyeom!"
With my head planted squarely in Tang Seo-rin's arms.
***
The next morning.
Tang Seo-rin blew out a thick stream of pipe smoke and went inside.
The moment she threw open the door to the sealed sickroom.
Something cold and sharp touched the side of her neck. A large blue needle. The Tang Clan's Azure Poison Needle, which she had stuck precisely into his forehead so he would sleep soundly.
"Don't move."
And naturally, only one person would pull a cute prank like this. The owner of the empty sickbed.
"Your body seems to be in one piece."
"Shut up."
A young man with spiky hair and eyes full of confusion. Kang Woo-jin.
He had pulled through.
"Explain what happened. Straight."
"You were dying in a sickbed, and now you're up and raising hell. Isn't that explanation enough?"
"I'm asking why I'm alive!"
According to Old Kang's investigation, the boy was clueless and had nothing going for him but a nasty temper. It seemed Old Kang had gotten it right.
"I hear you're only seventeen."
"How do you know that?"
"You're awfully rude to your big sister."
"What? Kgh!"
Tang Seo-rin's elbow drove precisely into the center of his chest. The Jeonjung Acupoint.
"Hrrgh."
Thump. Just like Baek Do-gyeom before him, Kang Woo-jin passed out slumped against her.
"Honestly, the pair of them."
***
"......So you're saying. That punk Baek Do-gyeom saved me? With an elixir, even? Wait, why?!"
Kang Woo-jin, who had woken up again a little later, heard the explanation and glared as if he simply couldn't believe it.
"Ow! Why'd you hit me!"
And asking why she'd hit him was dropping the honorifics as well. Tang Seo-rin rapped him on the head with her pipe and said.
"Ask him yourself. I'm curious too."
"No, that makes no sense, does it? Why would that son of a bitch save me?"
She had told him to ask the man himself. And she was quite sure she had told him to mind his honorifics.
"Seventy-five elixirs were burned for you alone. And among them, the Heaven's Table Ginseng that Baek Do-gyeom brought back is a spirit treasure you couldn't buy for a thousand in gold. You couldn't repay it if you worked your whole life."
At Tang Seo-rin's words, Kang Woo-jin swallowed dryly.
"I don't know what happened between you two, but you ought to go to Baek Do-gyeom and bow down in thanks. If not for him, you would never have seen today's sun."
"Wait, hey!"
Tang Seo-rin walked out coldly.
"Tch......"
Leaving behind only Kang Woo-jin, still lost in confusion.
***
Another day went by.
When Baek Do-gyeom came to, he saw a very pretty woman sitting there with a long pipe in her mouth.
"Awake?"
A woman with graceful looks but, strangely, a gaze so frightening it was deadly.
'Tang Seo-rin?!'
It was her.
"Why am I lying here like this?"
"Nothing cures a lack of sleep but sleep. You seem to have run here without sleeping at all."
That much was true. Saving Kang Woo-jin had been the top priority, after all. But that was that.
"Fwoo."
"Cough, cough!"
The smoke she blew right in my face made me cough.
What made it so harsh? Even weed wouldn't be this strong.
"What is that?"
"Short-Life Herb. Care for a smoke?"
No, who asked for that? Did people here have no manners toward nonsmokers?
"No thanks. Go ahead and finish yours."
Dumbfounded, I pinched my nose and turned my head away, and she smiled gracefully as she spoke.
"It's dried Black Severance Herb mixed with dried leaves of Poison Ghost Flower. Harsh, but the taste isn't bad."
"Wait, what's with those names? It's not like they're poison herbs."
With a snort of laughter, I picked up the cup of water beside me and wet my throat.
"They are poison herbs."
Pfft! I spat it right back out, though.
"Excuse me?"
"Without immunity, breathing the smoke alone will burn your throat and curl your tongue back."
What the hell!
"Don't worry too much. You won't die right away. Living long might be hard, of course."
So that's why it's called Short-Life Herb?!
"Gahk!"
In that instant, my throat stung as if it were being torn apart. It was just as that crazy woman had said. She'd just blown poison-herb smoke at me.
"What...... why......?!"
Drowning in pain, I asked in a voice gone completely hoarse. No matter how I thought about it, it made no sense.
"Because I got curious."
"About what......"
"About why you did all this."
Hold on, isn't that my line?! But what she said next made my heart skip.
"Baek Do-gyeom, the useless eldest son of the Baek Clan."
"......!"
"What wind blew through a boy they called a scoundrel, to set him running around trying to save the young man he wrecked with his own hands."
"Well, that's just my conscience......"
"And whether it was worth handing over Heaven's Table Ginseng, which no one would part with for a thousand in gold."
When she pressed me like that, I had nothing to say. But it had been more than worth it.
If it could stop the birth of the Slaughter Evil, what was a thousand in gold? The whole world was about to come crashing down.
"Of course, all it turned out to be was one scrap with teeth marks in it, after somebody gobbled up the rest."
Ugh.
"See, what happened was......"
"No need. I already know you ate it."
"Pardon?"
"Otherwise, there's no way you'd be this fine after breathing in Short-Life Herb."
"Ah. I see."
Sure enough, the sting had only lasted a moment, and now I felt fine.
It neutralized most poisons on its own in no time, so it really was a fortuitous encounter worth having.
"Baek Do-gyeom."
"Yes?"
"Are you really Baek Do-gyeom?"
"Wait, where did that come fr...... Hup!"
My face went cold at the question she'd suddenly thrown at me. No, to be precise, it was because of Tang Seo-rin's breath as she abruptly pushed her face right up to mine.
How should I put it? For a smoker, she smelled amazing. A sweet, mature, and extremely dangerous kind of scent.
The feeling that my uvula was burning a little had to be my imagination, of course.
"Um...... Isn't this a little too close?"
When I tried to edge away to the side, she lunged and slapped her hand against the wall beside my head, blocking me.
Then she slowly stroked my cheek with the back of her hand. Was I the only one who thought this was weird?
Just as dangerous fantasies were starting to unfold in my head.
"Not a human-skin mask."
"Pardon?"
"Then you must be Baek Do-gyeom after all."
"What are you......"
She snorted and stepped back.
"If you're done here, you can go."
Ha. I'd heard plenty about how dangerous the Tang Clan was, but now I could see it wasn't just their poison that was scary.
I shook my head, got up, and asked seriously.
"What about Kang Woo-jin? What happened to him?"
That was what mattered most.
And this was her answer.
"He's gone."