Secret Cave 5
The first thing that caught my eye was the words “Never forget grudges,” but it seemed that was not what caught Seol Nui and Hwa Eun’s eyes first.
This was because there was writing on the stone wall that was different from the martial arts manual.
“What is this!?”
“It’s the secret of the Odokguiwonshinkong. Little Dragon!”
“Why is this here?”
“Is this the martial arts that Soryong learned?”
Clearly, as Hwa-eun said, these are the secrets of the Odok-Gwi-Won-Shingong and the advice needed to master them.
As I looked at them with astonished eyes, thinking that they might be helpful to me, there was something unbelievable written at the end.
“When you have accumulated the five poisons and reached the eleventh stage, cut the necks of the five poisons you have accepted, drink their pure blood, and boil them with ginseng, angelica, poria, and… for three days, make a pill and drink it. Only then will you be able to achieve great success in the Five Poisons and Ghosts Wonshin Gong.”
‘No, are these guys really crazy!?’
It is clear that the source is the Beast’s Heart, so the poisons and the spirits will be connected, but when you reach the level of the 11th, there is crazy advice to cut off the heads of the ones whose spirits are connected, drink their blood, and boil their bodies to make a pill.
They say that these guys were really horrible people who treated animals carelessly and caused their clan to be wiped out.
“Hwa-eun, can you lend me a lantern?”
“A lantern?”
He borrowed a lantern from Hwa-eun, took out the oil lamp inside, and immediately burned the words.
So that no one will ever recognize you again.
A phrase that immediately turns black with flames and smoke.
When I was in Haenam Island, I was hungry and ate snakes, but they were wild snakes. And there was no such evil as catching children that were raised, and boiling them like dog meat and making pills to eat them.
‘This kind of crazy content should disappear. Telling them to drink the blood of their daughters and eat their bodies is not some kind of unfilial martial art!’
I had mastered the Beast Heart itself, so I had no regrets about finding another method.
After I made it so that all the words were illegible, Hwa-eun and Seol patted me on the shoulder and made a face saying that I did a good job.
“Well done, Little Dragon.”
“Yeah, that’s my brother.”
And now, as if I had finally found the words I had first noticed, Hwa-eun and Seol looked at the letters that seemed to be written in blood, clutching their chins and making serious expressions.
“Oh, and it seems certain that there are survivors in the Odokmun.”
“That’s right. Hwa-eun. This definitely looks like it was written in blood···.”
This is very clear evidence.
Perhaps it’s a feeling of vowing revenge on those left behind on the other side since they can’t go back?
“I must be careful going forward.”
“Yes. And I’ll have to check, but from what I’ve read, it looks like we won’t be able to go back unless the other side opens it.”
“surely···.”
After a while, Hwa-eun, who had carefully checked the surrounding organs, said with a regretful expression.
“It looks like there’s no way to get inside from this side. I should have taken a closer look from the other side. What a pity.”
Hwa-eun seemed quite curious about how the organs worked, but she looked disappointed when she couldn’t confirm the principle from the other side.
I checked the closed stone wall and carefully checked the surrounding area, but I couldn’t find any traces of an organ that could open the door anywhere.
As Hwa-eun said, it feels like it only opens from the inside.
The devices that allow you to check the operating principle feel like they are tightly hidden.
“Then I guess we have no choice but to keep going forward? Judging from the lack of people up ahead, it seems to have been abandoned for a long time, but let’s proceed carefully.”
“Yes, Sister Seol. Then let’s go.”
At Seol Nu’s words, Hwa-eun nodded with a regretful expression and moved forward.
But after walking a few steps, we had no choice but to stop.
What appeared before us was a vertical pit that fell more than ten meters.
I wondered why something like a precious martial arts achievement was written on the door of the passage, but it seemed like this space was like a sealed room since you couldn’t get in from the other side.
First, with the help of Yohwa and Cho, I went back down to the bottom of the pit and tried to hurry up the road again, but Hwaeun, who had come down to the bottom of the pit, grabbed my shoulder and said.
“But, So-ryong, there’s something strange about this cave.”
“It’s definitely different from the natural caves we’ve seen so far.”
Let’s check the surroundings again. As Hwa-eun said, the long cave extending down to the pit was very strange.
It’s definitely not the natural feeling we’ve been experiencing so far, but it also feels a bit strange to call it artificial.
Although excavation technology was not that advanced at the time, it was surprising that a circular cave about three meters deep continued on.
Moreover, the wall surface is not made of dirt but feels as solid as a rock.
The surface was wavy in one direction, giving the impression of being melted rather than carved.
“It looks like it was melted from rock.”
A strange atmosphere felt from the cave wall, just like Hwa-eun and Seol said.
But somewhere in my head, this sight felt familiar.
I was thinking that I’ve seen this before.
So when I tried to recall when I saw this, a memory that I had pushed to the back of my mind vaguely came to mind.
‘I’m sure I’ve seen this somewhere… Ah! Could this be it!?’
I quickly checked the floor.
A solid floor that feels solid when you touch it.
But strangely enough, when I scratched the surface with the knife I had in my bosom, it was a rock that scratched.
It’s a stone, but should I say it’s a stone with a slightly soft feel?
Only then did I clearly remember where I had seen this.
This place clearly reminded me of the Cu Chi Tunnels, where I had stopped by as a tourist while going to Vietnam to collect grain in my previous life.
‘The guide clearly said at the time that Vietnam has a lot of clay soil mixed with lime, so it’s easy to dig, and once you dig and the surface hardens, it becomes very hard and you don’t need anything like supports, right?’
The Cu Chi Tunnels, a 250-kilometer-long tunnel built by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War, were one of Vietnam’s most famous tourist attractions. The walls of these caves felt like they were made of the hardened mud mixed with lime that I had seen there.
The soil composition reminded me of that place.
Moreover, if you think about it, Namnasan is a mountain located on the border of Yunnan and Vietnam.
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He spoke to Hwa-eun.
“It looks like this was made by digging into mud mixed with lime.”
“Are all these people?”
Seol Nu-ni looked surprised at my words, but when I thought about it carefully, the people of Murim were geniuses at hard work.
Since their bodies were no different from human cranes, it would be understandable if they were dug out by a body trained in martial arts.
He said that in his previous life, there must have been hundreds or thousands of Viet Cong who dug them out, but he thought that even a few dozen people who had learned martial arts could achieve that level of efficiency.
“If I do it wrong, this hole might be longer than I thought.”
“It’s long?”
“If a person dug it, how much would it cost?”
Everyone said nothing to what I said, but after we walked until we were sleepy, they all whispered with expressions of tiredness.
[Just as our ancestors said, those Odokmun guys really seem crazy.]
[It’s definitely not normal, Sister.]
It felt like we had already gone several dozen kilometers, and it seemed like we were really going to go two hundred kilometers.
***
-ping.
The spiderweb of the fairy in my hand was suddenly pulled behind me with a sharp sound.
Soon after, the panicked voice of Hwa-eun, who was following her sister Seol, was heard.
[Ugh. Why, Unnie?]
Hwa-eun was following behind, but when Seol-nu stopped, she bumped into Seol-nu’s back.
Then, tired of the mad digging of the Odogmun bastards, my sister’s voice, who had been walking quietly for a while, could be heard quietly in the darkness.
Even if you speak a little loudly, the sound will first echo off the cave walls, so lower your voice as much as possible and whisper.
[Dragon, how long has it been since we got here?]
Then, Hwa-eun’s answer was heard from behind on the right, followed by her older sister’s voice saying she was tired.
[Sister, I think it’s definitely been more than two days.]
[It’s dark and the same path just keeps going on, so I think I’m going crazy.]
As Hwa-eun said, it must have been more than two days.
And my sister, you seem to be feeling mentally exhausted, so I think you need to get some rest.
He suggested that we take a rest and go carefully.
[Let’s get some rest. Get some sleep.]
[I think that would be a good idea.]
[Yes, that’s right. Little Dragon.]
Then, two voices agreeing were heard in the darkness.
He also spoke to the boy who had stopped crawling in front of him.
[Hey, let’s rest and then go. Get some sleep.]
-Tsurut!
The reason we turned off all the lights and walked along the thread of the magic wand tied to the body of the candle was because we didn’t know what was ahead of us and we didn’t know how far we had left, so we couldn’t perform lightness techniques or make loud noises.
Kyung-gong had to distribute his forces carefully in case a fight broke out upon his arrival, because he had to be careful how long the tunnel would continue and whether the Odokmun guys would suddenly appear in front of him.
So this cave exploration was progressing extremely slowly.
Unlike how I came in curiously, I had to be careful because the cave seemed to be leading out.
I also saw the hateful writings of the Odogmun guys.
That’s why I turned off all the lanterns and slowly moved forward, relying on the guidance of the candles.
-Hwaruk.
As I lean against the cave wall in the darkness, I hear the sound of a lantern being lit.
Soon the surroundings became brighter, and perhaps because I had been in the dark for a while, my eyes began to hurt even from the dim light of the lantern.
[Ugh, my eyes hurt.]
[That’s right. I guess it’s because I’ve been in the dark for so long.]
As the lantern lights became familiar to our eyes, we each took out food from our cups.
All that was in my sister and Hwa-eun’s backpack was some beef jerky and some dried rice cakes.
But I still had to eat.
While we were eating like that, we talked about how much longer this damn cave would last.
[But how long will this damn cave go on?]
[Well, Sister, I wish it would end soon too···.]
[I hope the entrance starts to appear now.]
[Oh, but everything is good, but I want to eat something else. This is too hard. And more than anything, I want to eat grilled meat!]
Sister Seol, who is sick of jerky and dried rice cakes, puts dried rice cakes in her mouth and cries, saying she wants to eat something else.
The Beast Palace eats a lot of hunted meat, so it seems like you’re thinking of grilled meat.
There was a moment when I nodded my head because I was really sick of beef jerky and dried rice cakes.
Hwa-eun looked at the direction we were going, tilted her head, and said.
[When we go out, we’ll eat something delicious. Okay? But don’t you think a delicious smell is coming from somewhere?]
[A savory smell?]
[It definitely smells like grilled rabbit…]
Seol’s sister sniffled at Hwa-eun’s nice nose.
After a while, Seol Noo-niu nodded as if agreeing.
[That’s right! It definitely smells like rabbit meat!]
As expected, I could smell the delicious smell of meat.
We looked at each other and quickly moved towards the smell.
If it smells like grilling meat, then it’s a trace of people.
And that means an entrance has appeared.
I wanted to get out of this horrible place, and I also had to check to see if there were any traces of people ahead.
It was when I was walking quite a distance ahead.
A faint light begins to appear in front of me.
I turned off the lantern I had been holding without thinking and hurried my steps again, cautiously.
[From now on, let’s be careful.]
[Okay, I understand.]
[Okay, Little Dragon.]
The place I arrived at after hurriedly and carefully was, as expected, a dead end with a three-meter-long hole in the ground. I ran to it and looked down carefully, and saw smoke rising slowly along with light coming from below.
All three of us hung cautiously in the hole and looked down.
Then, what comes into view are six rabbits placed on a bonfire and people sitting around it.
Hwa-eun checked their faces and said with her eyes wide open.
[How about those people?]
Why are you so surprised? Looking down and checking the people’s faces, Hwa-eun could see why she was surprised.
Because those people were people we knew.
‘No, why are those people here?’
