Ch.248248. Dongrae (5)

After the commotion at the teahouse had finally settled down.

“Kyaa, kyaaaaaaaa─!!”

Cheong-i collapsed to the ground with a scream, apparently quite shocked by the horrifying appearance of the group whose presence was only now revealed after the barrier was lifted.

No, to be precise, her shock didn’t seem to stem from their monstrous appearance.

“M-Master… my father… my father….”

Now that the identity of the group that tried to sacrifice her to Indangsu had been revealed as monsters, she appeared worried that her father might have been harmed somehow.

Of course, objectively speaking, this wasn’t really something we needed to concern ourselves with, but….

‘Sophie, I’ve made up my mind. What about you?’

[Yes. Do as you wish. We’re high-ranking, aren’t we?]

‘…That’s right.’

We could easily handle most situations with our power, and above all, we couldn’t just abandon a precious child with druid aptitude.

‘…Taking on a disciple, huh?’

So I decided to help her for entirely personal reasons.

“This way?”

“Yes, yes! Over here!”

And so Sophie and I quickly made our way toward the slums of Dongrae Port where the Sim family was said to live.

Dongrae Port, one of the most prominent trading ports in the Kingdom of Corea and an international harbor, was developed around the port itself, making land prices higher closer to the sea.

But conversely, this meant that housing became more affordable further inland, and indeed, if one walked quite a distance inland from the port, one would find the slums.

In the Western Continent, slums typically referred to crime-ridden areas with poor security where authorities rarely intervened, but the slums of Dongrae Port were far from such lawless territories.

Certainly, the buildings were generally dilapidated and resembled shanty towns, and the streets were rather gloomy and dark, but….

Honestly, for a slum, this place was not just ordinary but in the top 1% of slums.

The typical slums of the Western Continent were sewers and garbage dumps where people whose lives had fallen into the abyss—or who were born there—gathered.

All sorts of criminal organizations and cults operated covertly, building their influence through drug trafficking, smuggling, illegal prostitution, robbery, and even human trafficking and murder, creating a hellish landscape.

Moreover, most authorities not only made no effort to stop these crimes but exploited these slums; it wasn’t uncommon to find slum-controlling organizations colluding with lords or city councils in severe cases.

But compared to such living hells, this place was practically paradise.

Even if we overlooked petty theft, fencing, smuggling, or illegal prostitution—things that couldn’t be prevented even in modern times—the streets were surprisingly well-maintained by someone.

It was also rather curious that there were no thugs or ruffians swaggering around openly, and it was impressive that not a single life had been extinguished despite us having been in the slums for ten minutes.

Of course, I could roughly guess the reason.

‘…Constables? In the slums?’

Seeing constables—similar to police in modern terms—patrolling inside was somewhat unusual, but thinking about it, this Kingdom of Corea was a bureaucratic society similar to modern ones.

‘Ah, they’re building their records.’

In other words, since they needed achievements to advance to higher positions through the eye of the needle, criminal organizations that could provide good results for constables had long been rounded up.

At most, there might remain some scattered petty thugs or small-scale smuggling operations in cell-like structures….

“…Here it is, Father!!”

My thoughts were interrupted at this point. As Sim Cheong called out to her father and stopped in front of a house, I also came to my senses and halted before the house….

“Life signs detected…. Cheong-ah, your father appears to be safe.”

“R-Really?”

Fortunately, it seems that in this short interval, Cheong’s father, Blind Sim, had not been captured by the Gia cult.

※ ※ ※

Cheong’s home, where only the two members of the Sim family lived, was… to put it bluntly, a thatched cottage on the verge of collapse.

The walls made of yellow clay were beginning to crack, the thatched roof made of rice straw was slightly tilted and rotting, and even the fence was falling apart.

If there weren’t signs of repairs with wooden boards or supports, one could easily mistake it for an abandoned house without much surprise.

“Ch-Cheong? Are you back?”

And from inside, Blind Sim, presumably having heard Cheong’s voice, carefully pushed open the creaking door and poked his head out.

He was so emaciated that he looked like he might become a corpse at any moment, with cloudy eyes that seemed afflicted with cataracts….

“Ex-Excuse me. Who… might you all be?”

“….Oh?”

Surprisingly, despite having completely lost his eyesight, he still seemed able to sense my and Sophia’s presence.

‘…Was he a fisherman?’

Thus, my conjecture was that he had once been a fisherman working at this port.

Based on scars that appeared to be from harpoons or small blades, and marks that looked like bite wounds, I made this assumption and then addressed him with a measure of respect.

“Sir, I am a Taoist… or rather, a magic user similar to one, who has come here from the Western Continent for tourism.”

“….! Oh my, how could such an honorable person come to such a humble place…!”

“I happened to meet Cheong at the port, who offered to guide me. And… I came to learn about the talent your daughter possesses.”

“T-Talent, you say…?”

“….Talent?”

“Yes. And a very rare talent at that.”

Blind Sim seemed to look at his daughter as if to reproach her, but when I mentioned that she possessed a rare talent, he turned toward me with a question.

“And at the same time, I learned that your daughter got entangled with some strange fellows while trying to cure your eyes.”

“Cheong…. No, more importantly, strange fellows? What do you mean…?”

“Minions of the Gia cult… a type of cult. They probably approached her deliberately, intending to deceive her, targeting her talent.”

“Cheong’s….”

As I spoke of the various complicated stories and truths entangled in this incident, several complex emotions appeared on Blind Sim’s face.

Fear and anger from learning his daughter had been targeted, relief that she was safe, and the sense of helplessness from knowing all this but being unable to do anything.

As a father, as a parent, unable to properly protect even his own child, Blind Sim looked at me with eyes that revealed a complicated mix of despair and gratitude….

“And I believe there’s a high possibility that your blindness is also the work of that cult.”

“…What?”

As the two showed such reactions, apparently unable to predict I would say such a thing, it was Sophia who spoke instead of me.

“Hwagyeong poisonous water dropwort. It’s a subspecies of poisonous water dropwort found in mountainous regions. While the original poisonous water dropwort is so toxic it can kill when ingested, the toxicity of the Hwagyeong variety isn’t quite that severe.”

“…Its main symptoms include reducing digestive capacity, causing people to lose weight and become thin, and creating symptoms similar to cataracts, making one unable to see.”

Indeed. The symptoms I observed in Blind Sim were not due to natural causes.

To begin with, while Blind Sim’s face looked aged, he was only in his late 30s—certainly too young for cataracts.

No, setting everything else aside, if this was all planned as I suspected, then the reason for his blindness was likely also connected to this conspiracy….

“Sir, about that meat hanging from the ceiling….”

“…Is, is there a problem with it?”

“I can faintly smell Hwagyeong poisonous water dropwort. Where did you get that meat?”

“From the butcher next door…. The owner said it was leftover meat… he gave it to us because he thought it was admirable how bravely we were living despite our circumstances….”

“I see. Then that butcher shop is also involved in this incident.”

Having pieced together the background of this incident through the circumstances, I reached that conclusion, while swallowing what I couldn’t bring myself to tell them.

Hwagyeong poisonous water dropwort… no such thing exists. There is a plant called poisonous water dropwort, but it merely causes paralysis.

Then the true identity of that dried meat that blinded Sim… was probably human flesh.

The reason Blind Sim lost his eyesight was presumably damage to his physical body during soul damage, and his emaciated body was likely due to the progression of ghoulification.

The fortunate thing was that if rehabilitation therapy started now, he could somehow recover….

“Sir. With that in mind, I will heal you. I’ll also deal with that cult directly. In exchange, if possible, I’d like to take Cheong as my disciple.”

“…I see.”

I proposed such a deal to Blind Sim and Cheong.

Of course, neither of them were shameless enough to refuse such an offer.