Chapter 343

Whoooooosh.

“This wind is fucking brutal. Goddamn it.”

I shuddered as the bitter cold pierced straight through my leather clothes. Unaffected by Cold and Heat, my ass. More like Very Much Affected by Cold and Heat.

“Pfooh-chew!”

I turned around, wondering what bizarre sound that had been, and found Hyuk Mujin rubbing his blue-tinged nose.

When our eyes met, his eyes curved into hooks.

“What? What is it?”

“……”

“What are you looking at?”

“No, I was just fascinated by the sound of your sneeze…”

“Seriously? You find the strangest things fascinating. If you have that much time to spare, dig up another herb.”

“…All right. My bad.”

I quietly looked away and scanned the area for another herb.

It had already been five days since I had taken a job as a herb slave in Cold-Ice Land. The hierarchy between us had reversed a long time ago.

“Ah, what are you doing? There’s one right over there. There!”

“Oh. So there is.”

“Get your head in the game!”

Ugh. It wasn’t like I could punch him.

If he had followed a friend to Gangnam, at least the land prices would have gone up. Instead, Hyuk Mujin had followed me to Cold-Ice Land and was suffering through the worst ordeal of his life.

He had been dragged into all kinds of fights before and always stopped after grumbling a few times, so the fact that he was now glaring at me with murder in his eyes said everything.

“I’ll dig for herbs beyond that hill. Don’t stop working. I’ll come back and check on you every so often.”

“…Got it, you punk.”

Repeating the character for patience to myself, I gently dug through the snow and pulled up an herb.

The moment I placed it in the basket our exploitative employer—or rather, the Divine Physician—had issued to each of his herb slaves, a System notification rang out.

Ding.

System

• Chain Quest, Herb Slave of Cold-Ice Land, successfully completed!

• Achievement, Mountain Herb Gatherer Who Returned Alive from Hell, acquired!

• You acquired 10 bonus points for earning an achievement!

System

• You gathered Cold-Ice Herb.

• Remaining quantity: 100 / 100.

• Gathering Cold-Ice Herb is complete!

“Whew. Finally finished another one.”

At least the finish line was coming into sight.

As I checked the Quest window to see how much remained, Gung Gibang approached me, shivering violently.

“Hey, how many are left?”

“About two hundred roots. If things go well, we might finish today.”

“Two hundred roots are still left?”

“Only two hundred. Hang in there a little longer.”

“No. Two hundred roots is far too many. By then, I’ll be a frozen corpse buried somewhere under this snow.”

“……”

What a load of crap.

Still trembling, Gung Gibang pulled a fire striker from inside his clothes and lit it.

He brought his face close to the tiny flame and murmured wistfully, “I miss my Master. I miss the days when I begged in the alley outside a warm inn…”

Was he the Little Match Girl?¹

I muttered, dumbfounded by his behavior.

“You were still a beggar back then.”

“At least I was a warm beggar. That’s a hundred times better than being a cold one.”

“…You have a point.”

“I want to go back to those days. A lazy noon, sunlight pouring down. A delicious-looking yellow dog strolling past…”

What the hell was a delicious-looking yellow dog?

Gung Gibang’s eyelids slowly drooped after he said something that would make any animal-protection group scream.

This bastard couldn’t possibly be—

“Hey! Hey!”

I hurriedly sent Scorching Yang Qi into his body.

He had to come to his senses somehow—

“It’s warm…”

“I said wake up, you lunatic!”

Smack! Smack!

It was no use. No matter how hard I slapped his cheeks, his eyes showed no sign of opening again.

I continued sending Scorching Yang Qi into him and shouted, “Is anyone there? Somebody get over here, quick!”

In response to my desperate cry, someone came sprinting over from far away.

“Benefactor! Benefactor!”

“Nice, Cheongpung! Quick, take this guy outside—”

Cheongpung ran over like the wind, beaming as he held something out to me.

“Benefactor, look! It’s the first snowman I’ve ever made!”

“You son of a bitch!”

The Divine Physician inspected all the herbs in the baskets and nodded.

“This should be enough.”

Ding.

Just look at that achievement title.

I didn’t even have the strength to get angry anymore.

The Divine Physician looked over our utterly exhausted group before his gaze suddenly stopped on one person.

“Why is Young Master Cheongpung so dejected?”

Because I had smashed the first snowman Cheongpung had ever made with my Flame Divine Palm.

I glared murderously at the still-sullen Cheongpung and asked the Divine Physician, “So, are all the preparations complete now?”

“They are. With this quantity, we will be prepared for anything that may happen later.”

“Prepared?”

The Divine Physician nodded gravely.

“We do not know what may happen.”

I suddenly realized something I had forgotten.

The Divine Physician had never once been certain.

He had only seen a possibility and said that he would do his best.

It isn’t over until it’s over.

The words I whispered to myself whenever I faced a crisis now became a dagger stabbing into my chest.

In the end, there was only one thing I could say.

“Please… Please do your very best.”

“This old man will do everything within his power. I promise.”

Mungyeong, who stood beside the Divine Physician, spoke with conviction.

“I will also do everything I can to assist my Master.”

“Thank you.”

“There’s no need. It is only natural for a medical apprentice to do so.”

“Then when will the actual treatment begin?”

The Divine Physician considered the question for a moment before answering.

“Probably in seven days and nights. Until then, Mungyeong and I will combine and refine the twenty-four types of herbs you brought us, preparing them as ingredients for the Life-Restoring Great Technique.”

“All of them?”

“This is only a portion of what we need. Fortunately, I already possess the remaining ingredients required for the Life-Restoring Great Technique, which allowed us to shorten the preparation time.”

“What exactly is this Life-Restoring Great Technique…?”

The Divine Physician stroked his snow-white beard and answered.

“As I mentioned before, my Master was once a martial artist. He primarily practiced medicine among the common people, but he was also deeply versed in controlling qi.”

Hearing that, I had a rough idea where this was going.

Hyuk Mujin suddenly cut in with an exclamation.

“Martial artists! The Life-Restoring Great Technique was created to treat martial artists!”

“That is correct. The Master of Strange Illusions was one of them. After recovering from severe qi deviation thanks to the Life-Restoring Great Technique, he installed the Mystic Gate Formation for us before departing.”

For martial artists, qi deviation was practically a death sentence. Their internal energy reversed course, their qi and blood became tangled, and all their acupoints and dantian were damaged.

The easiest way to understand it was to imagine a small bomb exploding inside a person.

But he cured qi deviation.

If the Master of Strange Illusions had suffered qi deviation severe enough for the Divine Physician to describe it that way, he must have been little more than a walking corpse at the time.

Just hearing the story gave me some idea of how effective the Life-Restoring Great Technique was.

Then Old Master will definitely—

I quickly shook off the thought before it could finish forming.

There was no reason to be certain yet, nor any need to worry.

“Please take good care of him.”

“Until preparations for the technique are complete, no one may approach the place where the patient is being kept. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“By then, the Life-Restoring Great Technique will be ready, and we should have a clearer understanding of the patient’s condition. Please wait patiently until then.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Remember. Seven days and nights.”

But the Divine Physician was unable to keep his word.

He reappeared with Mungyeong after only three days, and the moment I saw their expressions, I knew something had happened.

“…What is it?”

After a long silence, it was Mungyeong—not the Divine Physician—who finally spoke.

“Formless Ultimate Poison.”

“What?”

“There is an unidentified, extremely deadly poison inside the patient’s body. That was the true cause.”

“W-Wait.”

My thoughts twisted into a chaotic knot.

Formless Ultimate Poison? Out of nowhere?

I looked at the Divine Physician in confusion.

“What does that mean?”

“Exactly what you heard.”

Looking incomparably more haggard than he had three days earlier, the Divine Physician continued.

“While preparing the technique and monitoring the patient’s condition, I discovered something strange. The Scorching Yang Qi, which should have been growing more rampant, was gradually subsiding.”

“Then isn’t that a good thing? What does some sudden poison have to do with—”

“We have not even performed the technique yet. How could the Scorching Yang Qi be decreasing on its own?”

“That…”

“Did you not notice anything strange?”

At that moment, a thought flashed through my mind.

During our journey from Henan to Sichuan, I had periodically stabilized Jeok Cheongang’s qi with True Qi Guidance. Yet despite my efforts, his Scorching Yang Qi had continued to diminish.

I thought he was simply growing weaker.

The Divine Physician sighed when he saw my expression harden.

“When one type of energy gains the upper hand, the opposing energy naturally diminishes. But the patient was different. His Yin-Cold Qi remained unchanged, while his Scorching Yang Qi was gradually dwindling.”

“Are you saying that was because of the poison?”

“I do not know how it happened, but a Formless Ultimate Poison lies hidden within the patient’s body—one that even I would not dare touch. Whether by great fortune or terrible misfortune, the rampaging Scorching Yang Qi happened to envelop the Formless Ultimate Poison and counteract it like poison against poison. Otherwise, he would have melted into a handful of bloody liquid long ago.”

“…!”

I didn’t know when or how the poison the Divine Physician called Formless Ultimate Poison had entered Jeok Cheongang’s body.

But I understood one thing clearly: the Scorching Yang Qi was acting as a breakwater, holding back the spread of the poison.

“Then… then does that mean even the technique cannot cure him?”

“The Life-Restoring Great Technique can regulate his qi and untangle his disrupted qi and blood, but it is not enough to detoxify a poison like this. If we perform the technique as things stand… the Scorching Yang Qi will be calmed, but there will be nothing left to stop the poison.”

I shouted urgently, “I’ll find an antidote! The Sichuan Tang Clan is here, isn’t it?”

“…Young Master.”

The Divine Physician shook his head, his expression dark.

“I know very well that the Sichuan Tang Clan is the greatest authority under heaven when it comes to poison. But this poison…”

His voice trailed off, and my heart seemed to drop into my stomach.

Even the Sichuan Tang Clan isn’t enough?

Damn it. This was a truly fucking awful situation.

Right now, Jeok Cheongang had two savage wolves inside his body, each keeping the other in check.

If either one disappeared, the other would regain its freedom and run wild.

And now there was no way to detoxify the poison.

This is so fucked…!

Tap. Drip.

Drops of blood fell from my tightly clenched fist. My throat burned as though I had swallowed a fireball.

Just as I struggled to hold back the curses threatening to burst out, someone’s voice pierced my ears.

“There is a way.”

I opened my eyes and saw the boy’s face. Mungyeong continued, looking more serious than I had ever seen him.

“Let us go to the Sichuan Tang Clan.”

The Divine Physician looked at his Disciple with a dark expression.

“Mungyeong. As you know, this Formless Ultimate Poison…”

“I know, Master. I clearly remember you saying that the Tang Clan’s poison arts focus on killing and that their detoxification techniques are lacking. But…”

Mungyeong looked straight at me with clear eyes.

“If the Sichuan Tang Clan possesses a legendary treasure—a divine artifact said to detoxify any poison under heaven—then it is possible.”

Ding.

System

• Quest, Myriad-Poison Ring, has been generated!