The Little Baby Snake of the Vermilion Bird Family - Chapter 73

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 73
***
The path to Jangwangshin proved not difficult at all.
The Sacred Artifact of the Black Tortoise Family had guided them truly.
“It’s remarkable… Is it because he’s a tortoise god that the Black Tortoise Family can guide us?”
“Yes, there are stories that Jangwangshin is one of the retinue of the Divine Black Tortoise.”
Had Ju Jeokseo transformed and flown, they might have arrived faster.
But his body was not in a state to transform and take to the skies.
Baeksa didn’t mind. The child found riding in a carriage delightful.
Poking her head through the carriage window, she could see at once the roads she had never traveled before.
From the Vermilion Bird Family Estate to the Contaminated Zone. And from there, following the direction that the Black Tortoise’s Sacred Artifact pointed.
She kept her head out the window the entire journey, and by now she felt she could nearly recite the route from memory.
They rode on like this for quite some time.
The talisman nestled in Baeksa’s embrace suddenly gleamed.
‘Ah, it seems Doeui is using his power.’
Doeui had explained: the talisman contained a fragment of his soul.
Perhaps that was why—though she wasn’t connected to him in any direct sense—she could faintly sense when he wielded his strength.
The girl turned her head and gazed back toward the Vermilion Bird Family Estate.
Originally, the quest to find Jangwangshin had been for Baeksa’s own sake.
This Abnormal Ability that absorbed anything, and hair that darkened the more she absorbed.
She had thought Jangwangshin might hold the answer to all of it.
But that was no longer the case.
There was something more urgent.
‘Surely he must know how to defeat the Ghost Dragon.’
The Ghost Dragon, also called the Plague Deity, was said to bring pestilence in its wake and lay entire lands to waste.
If they could not return in time, fragments of the Ghost Dragon that had scattered in all directions would surely cause catastrophe.
“But Father.”
Hwaryeong spoke from where he leaned against the carriage wall.
“The Ghost Dragon Fragments—did they really escape on their own? I can’t stop thinking that someone must have cut the bindings and released them.”
“Someone must have released them.”
“Right? But who…?”
“Whoever released them, they had a purpose. For now, we resolve this calamity and uncover the culprit.”
“What if the culprit flees in the meantime?”
“That won’t happen. Patrols around the Contaminated Zone have been strengthened; it won’t be easy for them to escape Namto to another region.”
Ju Jeokseo answered calmly.
Just then, the carriage came to a halt.
A mounted soldier riding alongside the carriage confirmed something with the driver, then hurried over.
“Family Head, the Black Tortoise’s Sacred Artifact has lost its signal.”
“Here?”
“Yes, should we wait a moment longer?”
Ju Jeokseo looked around.
Black snow fell in thick flakes.
The heart of the Contaminated Zone.
There was nowhere here for turtle-kin to shelter, nowhere for Jangwangshin to hide.
Then why had the signal vanished here?
“No, we’ll disembark.”
He leapt from the carriage in one motion.
He lifted Hwaryeong and Baeksa down in turn, then instructed them.
“From here on, you must not be injured. Even small wounds allow Contamination to seep in and destroy your bodies.”
“Yes.”
He placed a Warmth Stone in each child’s arms.
The Warmth Stones, made from Vermilion Bird Feathers, warmed their bodies instantly.
“Father, is Jangwangshin really here?”
“I don’t know. Only that the Black Tortoise’s Sacred Artifact lost its signal in this direction.”
Yet Ju Jeokseo too felt at a loss.
This truly was the middle of a vast snowfield.
Not a trace of Baekryeonji, nor a single tortoise in sight.
“If only we knew where Baekryeonji lay…”
The Divine Vermilion Bird had told Baeksa: if she reached Baekryeonji, she would meet Jangwangshin.
But Baekryeonji was, literally, a pond from legend, and there was no record of its true location or how it was positioned.
They could only guess that somewhere in the snowfield before winter’s deepest cold, Baekryeonji existed.
“Uncle, may I hold your hand…?”
“Of course.”
Baeksa grinned and gently took Ju Jeokseo’s hand.
He accepted the Black Tortoise’s Sacred Artifact from the driver.
The Black Tortoise’s Sacred Artifact had truly done its part; it no longer responded.
Ju Jeokseo’s mind churned. Where in this place could Jangwangshin possibly be?
Then.
Float.
The Black Bead that had hovered beside Baeksa’s head all along suddenly reacted to something and soared into the air.
It began bobbing away toward some destination. Startled, Baeksa called after her bead.
“Bead, where are you going!”
But in that moment, Ju Jeokseo’s eyes gleamed.
The Divine Vermilion Bird had bestowed a blessing.
A blessing that Baeksa would come to no harm and meet Jangwangshin safely.
Which meant the Divine Vermilion Bird had opened a path for them to meet Jangwangshin.
In other words.
“Follow it.”
If they followed that bead, anything might be revealed.
“What? The bead?”
“Yes, I believe that bead is showing us the way.”
Ju Jeokseo led the two children and the soldiers forward into the snow.
Already, black Contamination writhed around their ankles, as if yearning to seep into their bodies at any moment.
Time was running short.
***
After following the bead for a long while, a densely wooded forest suddenly spread before them.
The soldiers started at this strange sight, their eyes darting about.
“There was nothing here just moments ago…”
“A forest appeared out of nowhere. Aren’t we bewitched?”
Baeksa too seemed startled by the forest’s sudden emergence. But Ju Jeokseo shook his head.
“We’re not bewitched. This is the right path.”
The beast-kin who served Jangwangshin were turtle-kin from Bukto where the Black Tortoise dwelled.
And what manner of clan was the Black Tortoise Clan? A bloodline that for generations had summoned spirits and wielded Incantation Spells.
Illusion Magic of this caliber would be child’s play for them.
“Bead, is this really the place?”
When Baeksa asked carefully, the bead flickered as if in answer.
Ju Jeokseo trusted the bead and pressed deeper. Then it seemed they were treading the same ground in circles.
He saw the same tree he’d seen before. He halted, his face troubled.
“It seems we’re trapped here.”
Baeksa lifted her gaze to study the forest.
The dense trees surrounded their party like the walls of a prison.
Then, without being told, the bead naturally returned to Baeksa’s palm.
The girl stroked the Black Bead gently, then asked with care.
“Are we there?”
Flash.
The bead flickered once more, slowly.
‘Now we’re really talking.’
Before, it had merely felt like they were having a conversation; now their exchange had become so evident that others would acknowledge it as true communion.
Charmed by this, Baeksa wrapped the bead in the soft fabric of her own garment.
And the moment she raised her head.
Rustle.
Footsteps sounded from within the forest.
The soldiers immediately raised their feathers in alert and tensed for combat.
But who emerged from the brush was merely a young boy.
The Young Boy looked once at Ju Jeokseo, and once at the soldiers behind him.
Then his gaze found the small serpent-child standing in the center, and his face brightened at once.
The boy spoke with delight.
“We’ve been waiting for you! Young Dragon Lady.”
“…Um?”
“Please follow me. The clan elders are waiting.”
***
In Namto, in a certain family’s estate.
A Crane Humanoid who had just awakened blinked. His eyes were damp.
His wife, puzzled, asked.
“Honey, what’s wrong?”
The man sat in a daze, staring at the bed where he’d been sleeping.
Then memories of the brutal dream he’d had last night began to surface.
In that dream, he had been a Dragon-kin.
Yet rather than living in luxury, his own body was severed and slain by fellow members of the Dragon Tribe.
The memory of that moment—the sensation of his body being cut apart—remained vivid. He looked into a mirror.
He was not a Dragon-kin.
His body bore no wounds.
Having reassured himself of this, the phantom pain seemed to fade at last.
“Honey?”
“It’s nothing. Just a bad dream, I think.”
The man shook his head and rose from the bed.
Left behind on the mattress lay a mirror, abandoned.
In the mirror’s depths, a black dragon flickered briefly, then vanished.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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