Even now, nearly ten days after that day, restoration work was still underway at the Nanman Beast Palace.
The Inner Palace, its very heart, had been completely devastated. The Outer Palace had also suffered considerable damage in the aftermath of the battle.
Fortunately, by mobilizing all the warriors and beasts, they had managed to clear away most of the rubble in a short time. But considering all the houses and pavilions that still had to be built for the tribespeople who had suddenly lost their homes, the road ahead seemed endless.
“Right, we lift together on three. One, two.”
“Hngh!”
Grrrrind!
They combined their strength to lift a huge boulder, then hoisted thick timber onto bruised shoulders.
Despite the unending hard labor, no one complained. This was work for everyone’s sake.
The Nanman Beast Palace was a symbol to all who lived in this land, a home of the heart passed down from their ancestors. It no longer mattered which tribe the people beside them belonged to, what they wore or ate, or which local god they worshiped.
Everyone here had come for one purpose: to rebuild the Nanman Beast Palace.
That was why one middle-aged man had walked three hundred li1 to get here, too.
Whack!
The ax blade bounced off the thick timber, sending a sharp pain through his palm. He groaned before he could stop himself, and a young man came over.
“That’s not how you swing it. Let me see your hand.”
The middle-aged man held it out without thinking. He had inherited his family’s business and spent his life as a merchant. Now his palms were covered in blisters and blood.
“Ouch. That must hurt. You haven’t done much of this before, have you?”
“N-no, I haven’t.”
“You can’t do it with strength alone. Put your weight behind the ax and follow the grain. One clean whack. Want me to show you?”
The middle-aged man stared blankly at the young man speaking to him so affably.
Something about him felt unfamiliar. Not simply because they had never met. It was his appearance, and the halting way he spoke, almost like a child.
Then a thought struck him.
“Could you be…?”
“Han Chinese? Yes.”
“Ah, then you’re the one I’ve only heard about through rumors…”
“That’s right. I’m the one.”
“Oh! Ohhh!”
The young man gave him a warm smile.
“My name is Hyuk Mujin.”
“The Blazing Flame Divine Dragon, Jin Tae… Wait. Mujin who?”
“Hyuk Mujin. The famous Blazing Flame Divine Dragon Jin Taekyung’s right-hand man! The pillar of the great Jin Family of Taiyuan! The proud Vice Pavilion Master of the Murim Alliance’s Fire Dragon Pavilion!”
What the hell was wrong with this guy?
Hyuk…what?
Did Han Chinese people have names like that?
The middle-aged man stared at Hyuk Mujin with an uncertain expression, but just as he was about to pick up his ax again—
Tap. Tap-tap.
Raindrops suddenly began to fall.
At the same time, sighs escaped from the people working nearby. There was a mountain of work left to do, and rain would naturally slow them down.
“Damn it. Now it’s raining out of a clear sky.”
“What can we do? We’ll just have to think of it as a passing shower.”
“Come on! Let’s keep at it a little longer!”
The middle-aged man glanced up. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. Even for Nanman’s unpredictable climate, this was unusual.
Still, a little shower won’t hurt.
Perhaps it was because he was already soaked in sweat, but the sudden rain didn’t feel entirely unpleasant. The drops struck his palms and seemed to wash his wounds clean.
That feels good.
He closed his eyes without realizing it.
A hand clamped around his wrist.
Startled, he opened his eyes.
“What…is this?”
Hyuk Mujin’s face had gone rigid. He was staring at the middle-aged man’s palm.
Slowly.
The wounds were disappearing. No—healing.
The blisters that had filled both palms, the skin crushed and torn by swinging the ax…
The rain washed away the abundant blood, revealing new muscle and flesh beneath—paler and firmer than before.
“……!”
“……!”
They looked up at the sky at the same instant, eyes wide.
Boom. Boom. Booooom!
Through the sunlit rain came the sound of drums, announcing someone’s return.
A miracle.
Those two words explained everything. There was no other way to describe it.
Tap. Ssshhhh.
Rain had begun to fall. Warm rain that soaked buildings and earth, coaxed flowers and sprouts into bloom, and fell on the heads of every living thing.
It washed away their wounds and fatigue.
“My wound! It’s healed!”
“My body feels so light!”
“W-what in the world…?”
Grrr?
The people stood dazed until a lion’s roar rang out from somewhere.
“By order of the Palace Lord of the Nanman Beast Palace, everyone outside!”
The shout, charged with powerful internal energy, reached every corner of the Outer Palace. Drawn by the command, people came out to find a massive White Tiger and three men standing before them.
Jeok Cheongang. The Beast Miao King. And Jin Taekyung.
“I’ve called them all out, just as you asked,” Jeok Cheongang whispered. “Now what?”
“Wouldn’t it be enough to tell them to come outside and get rained on? They’ll understand once they experience it themselves.”
At the Beast Miao King and Jeok Cheongang’s whispers, Jin Taekyung shook his head without hesitation.
Unlike those two martial artists to the bone, he had been born and raised in the modern world. He knew what marketing could do.
“We can’t just let them get wet and call it a day. We have to dress this up and sell it first.”
“Dress it up? Sell it?”
“What in the world are you talking about?”
“It’s complicated. Think of it as a bit of political maneuvering.”
Martial artists could reach the end of their lives without learning a thing about politics. Anyone born in twenty-first-century Korea knew better.
It was a ruthless world. Being bad at a game was enough to make people wish you dead.
Jin Taekyung, who had been called an orphan dozens of times in games he had logged into just for fun, knew the importance of politics better than anyone.2
Make the guy who did well look like he failed, and the guy who failed look like he did well. And…
Make the guy who did well look even better. That was politics. Modern marketing.
He wasn’t about to waste this opportunity.
It’d be a shame if everyone just went, “Wow, a miracle!” and left it at that.
He muttered inwardly, then took a deep breath. He shouted toward the people, filling his voice with internal energy.
“Listen, everyone! This holy rain was bestowed by the Earth Mother Goddess!”
The Earth Mother Goddess?
People blinked at the unfamiliar name. Beside him, the Beast Miao King frowned.
“What’s that?”
“A god.”
“We don’t have a god like that here.”
“We do now.”
“……?”
What the hell is wrong with this bastard?
While the Beast Miao King stood speechless, Jin Taekyung went on.
“The Earth Mother Goddess is the mother of this land, and she is the One God!”
“……!”
“……!”
The One God.
The crowd gaped.
Nanman was home to thirty-two tribes and more than a hundred local gods—far more gods than tribes. And Jin Taekyung was telling them there was only one?
Nanman might have suffered a disaster and the Nanman Beast Palace might have gone to shit, but the faith they had held all their lives remained.
“What nonsense!”
“I’ve never even heard of an Earth Mother Goddess!”
“I know you have worked hard for Nanman, but how dare you utter such blasphemy! The Wood God I worship is the One God!”
“Don’t bring the Wood God into this! The Fire God is the true god!”
“You little bastard!”
Yet Jin Taekyung looked pleased as he watched the believers grabbing one another by the collars and fighting.
Idiots.
Nanman’s religious landscape was as chaotic as the era of the Five Barbarians and Sixteen Kingdoms.3 That would make things easier. Unlike them, he had evidence to back his claim.
“You fools! Can you stand in this holy rain and still not feel the Earth Mother Goddess’s grace?”
His stern reprimand rang across the courtyard, and the noise vanished as if it had been washed away.
One tribesman, his fist drawn back for an uppercut, looked at the sky in confusion.
Ssshhhhhh.
Rain fell from a cloudless sky. It healed the sick and brought new shoots out of the earth. The sight gave him pause.
“B-but the Wood God…”
“So what did your Wood God do ten days ago? Even when I was setting fire to the mountain, it didn’t do much.”
“W-well…”
Jin Taekyung cut him off with another shout.
“Everyone gathered here must have seen it! The dazzling radiance of that day! The warmth!”
“……!”
“The miracle then and the miracle today were both blessings from the Earth Mother Goddess, who took pity on you!”
Uncertainty flickered across the people’s faces.
They had seen and felt it all. And the rain falling on them now was another miracle.
“The Earth Mother Goddess…”
Even the name sounded warm and familiar. Saying it brought a mother’s embrace to mind.
And she was the One God, too. The one and only One God.
“Th-then what are the other gods we’ve worshiped until now?”
Jin Taekyung answered without a moment’s hesitation.
“You can’t compare the great Earth Mother Goddess to a bunch of lesser gods.”
“L-lesser gods…!”
“The Earth Mother Goddess bestowed this miracle and gave me a divine message: ‘Useless gods. The kind that aren’t worth knowing.’ She told me to protect you from them.”
“Oh! Ohhh!”
“A miracle, and a divine message too!”
Excitement swept through the crowd. They were all shouting together now.
Jin Taekyung seized the moment and threw both hands into the air.
“Shout together! Earth Mother Goddess!”
“Earth Mother Goddess! Earth Mother Goddess!”
“Louder!”
“Earth Mother Goddess! Earth Mother Goddess!”
“Repeat after me. Mother Goddess Heaven! Unbeliever Hell!”
“Mother Goddess Heaven! Unbeliever Hell!”
“Those in Nanman who believe in the Earth Mother Goddess will be saved even after death, while those who do not believe will fall into a pit of fire when they die!”
“Woooooah! O Mother Goddess!”
“Save us! Save this land!”
The tribespeople had become the Earth Mother Goddess’s sons and daughters before the Beast Miao King’s eyes. He stared at Jin Taekyung, stunned.
What the hell are you doing, you lunatic?
He wanted to stop him. He had to stop him.
He didn’t know what political maneuvering or dressing things up had to do with this, but the look in everyone’s eyes had already gone frighteningly wild. They screamed to the Earth Mother Goddess as though their throats might tear, their voices shaking heaven and earth.
“Mother Goddess Heaven! Unbeliever Hell!”
“Where’s that guy who said he believed in the Wood God?”
“There! That’s him! Throw him in the fire!”
“Gasp! No! I-I’ve already converted!”
“Prove it!”
“M-Mother Goddess Heaven! Unbeliever Hell!”
“He’s one of us! Stop tying him up! Now find the one who worshiped the Fire God!”
A wave of conversions overflowed in every direction.
The oppressive force radiating from thousands—tens of thousands—of people was so great that even Jeok Cheongang, who had privately wondered whether he should try believing in the Fire God, fell silent.
The Beast Miao King desperately wanted to put an end to this madness.
“E-enough now…”
He had barely managed to speak when Jin Taekyung’s voice rang out.
“Everyone, quiet! The Palace Lord of the Nanman Beast Palace—the priest chosen by the Earth Mother Goddess—is about to speak!”
“Enough… What?”
“Please speak, Priest.”
“What kind of boss?”
Priest? Me?
Before the Beast Miao King could make sense of the word, countless eyes turned toward him.
A suffocating silence settled over the crowd. He was a well-liked Palace Lord, but he had never seen his people look at him with so much love and trust.
“……!”
He stood frozen as a statue. Then his lips parted.
“Mother Goddess Heaven. Unbeliever Hell.”
“Waaaaaaaaah!”
And so, under the care of the great Earth Mother Goddess, Nanman achieved true unity at last.
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