Chapter 458

P-please, save me…

Like a dying ember, the voice was tiny and faint.

But that alone was enough. My heart, weighed down by the helplessness of having failed to save anyone, began pounding fiercely, and strength surged through my limp body.

I launched myself toward the voice.

Inventory: Open. Summon!

Thud!

One of the few remaining fragments of the ferryboat skimmed across the moon’s reflection on the water.

I leaped through the air like a bird, drew up the last of my internal energy, and focused it in my eyes.

My drastically enhanced vision took in the scene below with perfect clarity.

That’s…

Wreckage and corpses.

Though the vessel had been smashed apart beyond recognition, there was no doubt it had once been the largest and most splendid ship I had seen on Dongting Lake.

There’s a survivor somewhere among them.

The problem was that there were far too many corpses and pieces of wreckage in sight.

But there was no time to hesitate.

System

Time Limit: 59 seconds

Fifty-nine seconds. The survivor’s life depended on this brief span of less than a minute.

I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing. Then I drew up every last bit of my internal energy, which was already nearly depleted.

Fwoooooosh!

Qi Sense.

The Scorching Yang Qi extending from my entire body raced across the rippling water.

It swept through more than a hundred corpses whose souls had already departed and the countless pieces of wreckage, searching every inch.

And finally—

“……!”

I saw it.

No—I felt it.

Dozens of zhang away,¹ a faint presence was sinking farther beneath the surface with every passing moment.

I opened my eyes halfway.

System

Time Limit: 32 seconds

The Scorching Yang Qi circulating through my body rushed toward my lower half.

When I stepped on empty air with the tips of my toes, the compressed air exploded outward, and a cold wind swept across my entire body.

Boom! Fwoooooosh!

I shot forward like a meteor. The wind split apart, and space vanished.

The scenery flashed past on either side, but my gaze remained fixed on a single point.

The rough, surging black water.

There was a survivor in there.

Damn it. I can’t even swim.

The thought had barely crossed my mind when the waters of Dongting Lake slammed into my entire body.

Splash! Gurgle!

The impact knocked the breath out of me.

If I had not learned martial arts, my bones would have broken and my internal organs would have been badly jarred.

I sank beneath the surface, trailing a cloud of bubbles.

A school of fish scattered in alarm at the sudden arrival of an unwelcome visitor, revealing two figures slowly sinking into the depths.

System

Time Limit: 20 seconds

More. More. More…

I summoned every last ounce of strength and pushed forward. Grabbing the wrists of the two unconscious, limp figures, I surged upward with all my might.

Ten seconds. Nine, eight…

The faint moonlight reflected on the surface drew closer.

My arms and legs felt as heavy as if iron balls had been tied to them, while the two people in my hands weighed like thousand-catty boulders.²

And then—

Splash!

“Puaaah!”

I expelled the breath I had been holding.

Air cold enough to sting flowed deep into my lungs.

But pulling the survivors out of the water did not mean everything was over.

System

Time Limit: 3 seconds

In that moment, I instinctively realized what I had to do.

Save them.

That single thought moved my body, which had briefly gone still.

I thrust both palms, infused with what little internal energy I had left, toward the two people.

Boom!

Their bodies jerked, and water splashed.

But the survivors showed no response. Instead, the number on the System window floating in the air changed.

System

Time Limit: 2 seconds

One more time…

Boom!

System

Time Limit: 1 second

Everything slowed down.

That paltry digit, 1, seemed larger and heavier than ever, crushing me beneath its weight.

I stared blankly at the System window, eyes wide, when—

“Puh.”

“Cough, cough.”

The survivors finally began breathing again. At the same moment, the System window froze just as it was about to change to its final number.

Then a bell rang out like a celebratory salute.

Ding.

System

• You succeeded in Rescuing Lives!
• You completed the unexpected Quest The Tragedy of Dongting Lake!
• You have successfully completed the Quest. An appropriate Reward will be granted!
• You acquired a considerable amount of EXP and Fame!
• You acquired the Title Water Rescue Worker!

As the notifications rang in my ears, I muttered,

“Fuuuck.”

Joy and relief at having finally succeeded were secondary. Worn down by the forced march that had begun at the Zhuge Clan, my body felt unbearably heavy.

Maybe it was because the tension I’d barely managed to hold suddenly let go.

…Damn it. It’ll take forever to get back to land.

At this rate, would I end up needing to be rescued too?

I was floating there with the two survivors, buoyed by the water, when—

Whoooooosh!

Something sliced through the water in the distance as fast as a jet ski and stopped right in front of me.

A pure-white body and scales, along with two horns.

“A water snake…? No, a Thousand-Year Poison Horned Snake?”

Hiss. Hiss. Hiss-hiss!

No, don’t go!

I hurriedly shouted at the creature as it flicked its tongue and turned away.

“Hey! Hey! Water snake! Thousand-Year Poison Horned Snake!”

Hiss!

“You little bastard, did you just spit at me—wait.”

Was this its way of showing that it was sulking?

One thought suddenly came to mind, and I opened my mouth in an earnest yet cautious voice.

“Mimi… Mimi-chan?”

Hiss-rik! Hiss-ririk!

Only then did the Thousand-Year Poison Horned Snake—or rather, Mimi-chan—nod in satisfaction and extend its tail toward me as if telling me to grab on.

Right on cue, someone shouted from far away.

“Mimi! Rescue Benefactor!”

Hiss-rik!

“…….”

Yeah, fuck it. I didn’t care what the move was called. Just get me out of here.

I sat on a damp rock and stared at the rippling water.

Two people. Only two.

Of the countless people who had buried their bones in Dongting Lake today, the two I had saved were the only survivors.

…Only two out of all those people.

I had suspected it from the moment the Quest was completed, but reality was even more brutal and merciless than I had imagined.

And the countless deaths left behind by today’s tragedy had given rise to even greater sorrow.

“Ugh…”

“Sniff, sob!”

“Oh, poor Chil-Sam’s father!”

“What kind of monstrous bastard could have done this?”

By then, over a thousand people had gathered along the shore of Dongting Lake, giving voice to every kind of emotion.

A Confucian scholar lamented, unable to continue speaking. Behind a government soldier clutching a fallen comrade’s corpse and weeping came the wails of a woman with an infant strapped to her back. An old man, the veins standing out on his neck, even swung his long-stemmed tobacco pipe at some unseen culprit.

There was no longer any laughter or singing to be found at Dongting Lake, one of the most famous scenic sites under heaven.

Only the sorrow and lamentation of those left behind remained, along with the anger carried in all those emotions.

But nothing changed.

The waters of Dongting Lake had grown calm, as if nothing had happened, while the faint dawn mist spreading across the lake created a beautiful scene.

Is this what the Wuling Peach Blossom Spring, where immortals are said to live, looks like?

I stared silently at the scene before me, then spoke without warning.

“This feels like… something, doesn’t it?”

I was not talking to myself.

Cheongpung, who had not left my side for more than fifteen minutes, answered,

“Yes. It feels like shit.”

Under normal circumstances, I would have snorted with laughter despite myself. But now, there was only emptiness.

I fidgeted with a pebble and asked,

“I only said ‘something.’ I didn’t know Cheongpung knew how to swear.”

“I didn’t at first, but I know a little now. I learned by watching someone.”

“You’d better keep that a secret from Great Hero Mae Jonghak.”

“Why, Benefactor?”

“Why do you think? How would you feel if Mimi suddenly called you a fucking bastard one day?”

“Hmm. I don’t think I’d like it.”

“……Wouldn’t most people be surprised that a snake was talking before getting angry? Either way, you’d be surprised and angry. Great Hero Mae Jonghak would feel the same.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Yeah. That’s how it is.”

“What should I do if I accidentally swear in front of Grandpa?”

“Say Gung Gibang taught you. Or Hyuk Mujin.”

“Okay.”

Silence descended.

That conversation had been nothing more than whatever nonsense came to mind. I had felt that I needed to say something—anything. Maybe doing so would make things a little better.

Both Cheongpung and I knew the truth.

We also knew that none of this would make us feel any better.

“Fuck…”

I muttered the curse like a lament.

I did not know whether today was simply an unusual day, or whether those creatures also understood the circumstances and were grieving.

There was no birdsong.

Only the wails and sobs of the people filled the air around us.

I listened quietly to those stifling, unbearable sounds, then clenched the pebble in my palm as hard as I could.

Crack. Crunch.

A handful of powder spilled from my fist.

No—it was carried by a breeze that had blown in from somewhere and settled lightly on the surface of the water.

As if they were mortal remains imbued with someone’s spirit.

Cheongpung watched in silence before suddenly speaking.

“Benefactor.”

“What?”

“What should I do at times like this?”

“…….”

“So many people have died. In Henan, in Sichuan, at Donghu Stronghold, and today, here.”

His voice trembled faintly as he continued.

“I keep thinking about the dead. And I get angry. I hate the people who keep killing others, and I feel pathetic because I can’t do anything.”

“……I was like that too. No, I still am.”

“What did you do whenever you felt this way, Benefactor?”

“Me?”

I turned my head and finally met Cheongpung’s gaze.

His usually crystal-clear eyes were swirling with a mixture of emotions.

Within that confusion, I saw my past self—and the present me staring at Cheongpung now.

Was I like this?

The person I saw reflected in Cheongpung’s eyes was simply impassive.

I was not exhausted like Gung Gibang or Hyuk Mujin, nor was I trembling with anger and sorrow like those who had lost their families and companions.

No, it was not that I could no longer feel emotions.

I had merely learned to contain them.

There I stood, like a rock battered again and again over the years, worn and ground down until it had finally grown accustomed to the blows.

“Who knows? What did I do back then?”

After thinking for a moment, I slowly continued.

“I wasn’t any different from you, Cheongpung. I swore nonstop at those bastards who deserved to die, blamed myself for my helplessness, and then made a vow.”

“A vow?”

“Yeah. A vow.”

I raised a finger and pointed at the grieving people and the corpses laid out along the shore.

“I vowed to kill every last bastard who did this. That was my vow.”

“……!”

“I’m no saint. I won’t be satisfied until I pay them back at least in equal measure. This time is no different.”

The words slipped from my lips in a dry, cold voice that sounded foreign, almost as if it belonged to someone else.

Just then—

“Captain.”

Hyuk Mujin approached us, exhaustion plainly visible on his face.

“The survivors have regained consciousness.”

“That’s good. Both of them?”

“No, sir. Only one of them, for now.”

It was unfortunate, but I had suspected as much. The treatment I had given them after the rescue had only been an emergency measure.

“Then let’s go.”

“Yes, sir. This way.”

Cheongpung and I followed Hyuk Mujin.

At last, we came face-to-face with the survivor who had regained consciousness.

“We’ve met again rather quickly, haven’t we?”

At my greeting, Honglan, the dazzlingly beautiful singing courtesan, bowed with the utmost respect.

“It is an honor to see you, Benefactor.”