Chapter 163: Mountain Stronghold (4)
Translator: bjgoofy
Inside the cave raged a storm of raw madness, a sticky tangle of males who differed not in sex, but in species.
And because of that, the cave was thick with the coriander stench pouring off the bed bugs, yet the only thing drifting into my nose was a sweet fragrance.
Unlike over there, here we were a proper pair, a man and a woman.
Because I had Hwa-eun wrapped tightly in my arms.
Or rather, should I say Hwa-eun was the one holding me tightly?
Startled by their screams and the movements of the bed bugs, Hwa-eun had pressed against me and then pulled me into a tight embrace.
'So this is why they tell you to take your sweetheart to a horror movie.'
I felt like I finally understood why the sages of my past life had said to go watch a scary movie with the person you were flirting with.
I wished this moment could stretch on and on, but my wish went unfulfilled.
Because the unpleasant noises that had been coming from where the Five Poisons Sect men were had suddenly cut off.
'Why are these bastards so fast?'
I had to light the torch, and fast.
Right now those things were in a state where their lust outweighed their hunger, all thanks to the females' pheromones scattered in every direction.
But it was clear that once the females' burst pheromones dispersed completely into the air, they would snap out of their lust and turn to satisfying their hunger instead.
"Hwa-eun, we need to light the torch again now. If we're too slow, those things will come at us."
"Mm.... Ah, all right. Soryong."
With great reluctance, I barely managed to lift my head and tell Hwa-eun that we had to separate now, and only then did she gently pull away.
Normally she'd surely have jerked back with a startled little motion at my remark, but instead Hwa-eun drew away softly, in a voice dripping with honey, and gripped my sleeve tight.
It had been an embrace born of the bed bugs, but my line about how I could never forgive those bastards for insulting and coveting my woman seemed to have landed rather well.
'Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee! Ha.... nicely done, Soryong.'
-Hiss.
-Whoosh.
Praising myself, I slipped out of Hwa-eun's arms and quickly relit the torch lying at my feet.
As the light spilling from the torch, brought back to life, lit up our surroundings, I caught sight of the bed bugs that had crept up close scattering swiftly in every direction.
A little more delay and it would have been a real disaster.
I shuddered once at the sight of them scattering, then turned to Hwa-eun and said,
"Let me grab that first."
"Yes. All right."
What I'd pointed to were the two female bed bugs I'd stuffed earlier into a glove made from Yohwa's silk and tossed aside.
Driving off the swarming male bed bugs with the torch, I scooped up the glove with the females inside and headed for where the Five Poisons Sect men lay fallen.
-Thud. Thud.
As I closed in on them step by step and reached the scene the madness had clawed through, no, drilled through, the three Five Poisons Sect men lay dead, looking for all the world like a fruit salad tossed in mayonnaise.
Faces and bodies alike, left ragged and shredded all over.
'After seeing that, I don't think I'll ever be able to eat it again, but thank goodness there's no fruit salad anywhere around here....'
Even I flinched at the sight of them, and just then Hwa-eun's horrified voice came from beside me.
"Wh-what is this!?"
Since I hadn't given Hwa-eun any detailed explanation of what I'd meant by "punishing them with the very thing they loved", she was now staring in shock at their bizarre state and pressing me for an answer.
While I was debating whether or not to tell her that the "mayonnaise" was bed bug semen, Hwa-eun collected herself, took a Flying Needle in hand, and crouched down before the Five Poisons Sect corpses.
"Could this be another of the bed bugs' poisons? But how did you make them attack only these men? It seems connected to the way you threw that bed bug earlier.... Soryong, you really are an astonishing man."
Being of the Tang Clan, she seemed to think the whitish stuff was yet another bed bug poison and was about to collect a sample.
Startled, I grabbed Hwa-eun's arm and said,
"Th-that's not poison."
"Not poison? Then what is it?"
"Uh, well, the thing is.... it's the, the bug's... essence."
"Essence!?"
When I told her the whitish stuff was bed bug semen, Hwa-eun recoiled and clutched my arm, then jerked back again in shock and let go.
Hwa-eun asked again, her face full of disbelief.
"H-how did this happen? Why is it like this.... what kind of grotesque.... why? What on earth?"
Hwa-eun fired off question after question, as if her brain had short-circuited.
It really did seem I needed to explain exactly what I'd meant by "punishing them with the very thing they loved."
If I didn't explain it soon, it felt like she might be left with permanent brain damage.
In a careful voice, I explained it to the curious Hwa-eun.
What sort of mating habits bed bugs had and how they bred, and the method by which I'd taught these men their lesson.
With a little aside, too, about just how terrifying a man this Soryong could be when his temper flared.
"Ahem.... so, what that means is......."
When my brief explanation came to an end, Hwa-eun's face had flushed red.
With a reddened face that surely wasn't only because of the torch's crimson flames, Hwa-eun nodded.
"S-so that's what it meant?"
And without quite meeting my eyes, showing me only half her face, she conveyed her thanks in a bashful voice.
"Th-thank you. Soryong."
Hwa-eun's shy little thank-you was worth serious points.
I decided to land the finishing blow.
The mood today had been good, so it felt like I might be able to push things a little further.
Come to think of it, the place was pitch-black and looked just like a movie theater.
Wasn't a first kiss at the movies basically the unwritten rule?
Sure, there were some strange things strewn about, but as long as we shut our eyes tight, we wouldn't see them.
"No need to thank me. I only did what anyone ought to. You're mine, after all."
"Nnh...."
-Bang!
That was the moment.
Just as Hwa-eun's face took on a flustered, helpless look at my reply, the sound of something exploding came from the direction of the cave entrance.
'The timing, seriously....'
I'd been hoping that, riding the mood, I might get to have an experience that would let me forget the kiss I'd shared with the Golden-Furred King Bee, but the thunderous noise came crashing down on all my hopes.
As the roar drew our eyes to each other, Hwa-eun dredged up a memory she'd briefly forgotten.
"Cho must be here!"
"Ah! Seol noona!"
At Hwa-eun's words, I realized it was about time for Cho to arrive.
Hwa-eun and I unleashed our Qinggong and dashed toward the entrance.
It was obvious that a fight had broken out between Seol noona and Cho and the remaining Centipede Squad warriors the Centipede Squad Captain had mentioned.
Of course, as I ran for the entrance, I tossed the glove made of Yohwa's silk that I'd been holding into an open breeding pen.
With two female bed bugs inside the glove, leaving these last two females in the breeding pen meant the remaining males would gather into it one by one.
Once they'd all gathered, the plan was to wipe out every last one of them, whether by spraying poison or setting them ablaze.
I had no need for their paralytic venom, since I already had Yohwa's and Yeondu's poisons, and keeping the Five Poisons Sect's modified bed bugs around as a biological weapon was a bit too dangerous.
Though I had toyed with the idea of keeping a few around, so that the next time some bastards came sniffing after Hwa-eun, I could use them to teach the offenders a thorough lesson.
-Tsururur!
As I reached the cave entrance, still turning the matter of the bed bugs over in my mind, Cho's roar carried in from outside.
Then Seol noona's voice followed.
"Cho! Swat them down!"
-Pow! Crack!
"Guhhk...."
"Careful! Keep your distance and fight!"
At Seol noona's clear, ringing voice, I burst out of the cave into the light of the entrance.
Maybe because I'd been in the dark cave, my brow furrowed against the brightness.
As my eyes began to adjust, Cho and Seol noona came into view, rampaging like a tiger that had leapt into the middle of a wolf pack.
Seol noona and Cho were locked in a bloody fight, ringed by some twenty Five Poisons Sect warriors.
Ten or so of the Five Poisons Sect warriors already lay fallen and unmoving, and ropelike things dangled in tatters here and there across Cho's body.
"Cho! Seol noona!"
Hwa-eun mercilessly rained Flying Needles at the backs of the Five Poisons Sect warriors' heads to open a path, and together with me, Flying Dagger in hand, joined Seol noona at once.
"Seol noona, are you all right?"
"Soryong! Hwa-eun! Are you two okay!?"
"We're fine. What about you, noona?"
"We're fine. We were just about to finish them all off. Cho! Charge in over there and tear that one apart!"
Even while talking with us, Seol noona kept issuing commands to Cho.
At Seol noona's order, Cho darted in the direction she pointed, snatched a man up in her jaws, and slammed him into the ground.
-Tsurur!
-Bang!
"Gehhk...."
The force of Cho's charge shattered their formation completely.
When one man was left isolated against the massive wall that was Cho, Seol noona lunged at him, seized the nape of his neck in her grip, and tore it apart.
"Kraaagh...."
"When you stand before the King of Hell, tell him Seolpyo of the Beast Palace sent you!"
The Beast Palace's Beast Fist, the one I'd seen before, wasn't it?
That Centipede Squad Captain had talked so big about facing Cho, as if he had some hidden trump card up his sleeve.
But that had plainly been a bluff, because no matter how I looked at it now, Seol noona and Cho were utterly dominating.
Then, when one of the men moved to hurl hidden weapons at Seol noona, an urgent cry burst out.
"Hidden weapons! Cho, block them!"
At her command, Cho swiftly moved to shield Seol noona.
The two of them were in such fantastic sync that the sight left me a little put out.
'Hold on, why is our daughter in such perfect sync with Seol noona? Hurting her dad's feelings like this? And that Centipede Squad Captain, turns out he was just bluffing after all?'
Just as I was settling on the conclusion that the Centipede Squad Captain had definitely been bluffing, Seol noona's steady stream of detailed commands made me realize exactly why she and Cho were so completely dominating the situation.
Seol noona was someone who had trained in martial arts and fought alongside the beasts of the Beast Palace ever since she was a child.
In terms of a robot anime, Seol noona was a technician who'd fought all this time piloting a general-purpose unit. So what becomes of the game when a technician like that is handed an SSS-grade machine like Cho?
You could pretty much call it game over.
The pressure and power that surged from Cho's six-meter body.
And on top of that, the Beast Palace's ferocious-beast Combination Technique.
Seol noona kept the combined assault going with Cho in ways I never could have dreamed up.
Telling Cho to bite a warrior, soar into the sky, and drop him; or to bite one and fling him at the others.
She wielded the Combination Technique with Cho in ways I'd never once imagined.
Under Seol noona's detailed instructions, Cho didn't simply run wild; she ran wild with intelligence, and the Five Poisons Sect warriors fell one after another in rapid succession.
The moment the Five Poisons Sect's defeat had all but settled in.
Hwa-eun snapped at them, her expression frigid.
"The Centipede Squad Captain is dead too, so you'd best throw away any thought of getting out of here alive!"
"Th-the Captain!?"
-Bang!
"Gehhk...."
It was a no-brainer, really; if we'd come walking out of the very cave their Captain had gone into, they should have put it together.
Only at the news that the Centipede Squad Captain was dead did the warriors finally waver.
When three or four more dropped in an instant, the remaining warriors traded glances and then quickly began scattering in every direction.
"Everyone scatter and report this to the Sect!"
And with that, the battle at the Mountain Stronghold came to an end.
***
Cho and Seol noona gave chase and took down a few more, but we couldn't deal with every last one of the Five Poisons Sect men.
A few of them got away in the end, and once I'd returned to the water stronghold, I wrote a Letter and, through Lee Tae, swiftly reported the matter to the Murim Alliance.
Their home base lay in another country, so the Five Poisons Sect men wouldn't be coming back, and there was no real need to borrow the Murim Alliance's strength to clean up the area as thoroughly as possible.
The leftover bed bugs would die off on their own in time, but there was still reason enough to let the Murim Alliance know what the Five Poisons Sect had been up to here and what kind of people they were, to put the Alliance on its guard.
Whatever the Five Poisons Sect was up to, it was clearly no small matter.
Even after the ship's repairs were finished, it took about another fortnight of waiting before the Murim Alliance's investigation team arrived.
Among the investigation team were faces I knew well.
"Soryong!"
"Little brother! Have you been well?"
"Wait, Wisdom Dragon? Brothers?"
Wisdom Dragon Zhuge Qiao, Fist Dragon and Sword Dragon, Sound Phoenix and Bow Phoenix had all joined the party.
It was just after we'd traded warm greetings.
Wisdom Dragon sidled up to me discreetly and asked,
"Young Hero Soryong, would I be able to buy some more of that Lip Balm of yours?" [TL Note: The product's formal name, 접문고, literally means "kiss paste".]
'Lip Balm? "Kiss paste", what kind of a name is that.... wait, more to the point, he's used it all up already?'
Even though there was already a perfectly good word like Rouge, the lipstick seemed to have wound up saddled with this bizarre name, and either way, it looked like I was going to have to teach Wisdom Dragon and Sound Phoenix to save some for their lips instead of devouring the whole thing.
*****
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