Requiem of Subdued Souls

“Senior? Who else is here?”

Seo Geom looked around.

“…”

Seol Young looked at him. Seo Geom was unaware of the situation.

Anyway, as long as Blue Rainbow had been brought back, shouldn’t they make sure to get out safely?

‘I need to explain it.’

So he said,

“Seo Geom-rang, I don’t have any spiritual power right now.”

“What?”

Seo Geom was shocked.

“What does that even mean?”

“The Ghost City Lord had put a curse on me. In order to kill that thing and regain my spiritual power, Oni is helping me.”

Seol Young brought out the baby dragon. Being the head of the Blue Dragon Troops, Seo Geom recognized it right away.

“The Dragon’s Nine Sons?”

“Right. This ring was created by On So-rang, a member of the Sun and Moon Troops, who has passed away.”

Seol Young said that and looked around since he couldn’t let his guard down.

“If Seo Geom-rang noticed it, then he must have noticed it too.”

Zaha said.

“The board we passed through is just a signboard for show. From here on out, the real thing starts.”

“Yes, High Governor.”

Seok Geom answered and looked around.

“But they said there is another sea. How come I did not see it?”

He was right.

Even if they tried to use their Taoist ways, they couldn’t see the other area. It was as if this area was the end.

Seol Young lowered his voice.

“There are many secrets here. To find them, we need to pretend to follow the rules and look for the clues.”

He looked at the young dragon, which was wriggling under the hem of his dress.

He thought giving up Oni was ridiculous, and looking at it, it had so many advantages.

“No matter where Senior Oni is, the moment I have this ring, I can get him back. He is a legacy of the Hwarang troops. Therefore, there are a lot of advantages if we raise our levels by using Senior Oni…”

“But?”

“The question is if selling Senior Oni would make him think like we abandoned him…”

“Does it bother you so much?”

Zaha took Oni away.

“You don’t have to worry about it. Like the troops before, this one is quite stubborn.”

When he was with Oni, though, it seemed like Oni was a thoughtless thing. It was quiet when placed on the ground and even when it was shackled.

“Do Cheol can eat a lot of things, so he lives without worries.”

Seo Geom nodded his head, and Seol Young agreed.

“Let’s sell it then. Also, do some research on the market.”

He was still feeling bad, but should they do this so that they could get out of there safely?

He hid Oni under the hem of his clothes and showed him sneakily as they walked.

When a baby dragon appeared in a market selling ghosts and monsters, the attention focused on them. As they passed, the conversations stopped, and all eyes followed them.

“… … .”

Seol Young coldly glared at them. Seo Geom also widened his eyes.

“What are you looking at?”

“Isn’t that a dragon’s child?”

There were ghosts approaching them through the cubicles. They had several cages with monsters.

“We will buy it.”

They suggested relocating.

The moment the three of them walked through the curtains and entered the cubicle, their expressions quickly changed, and they tried to wield their swords.

But before that, the soft sword swept past them.

Everyone screamed and dropped their knives. They didn’t know that Seol Young’s belt would turn into a soft sword.

“A sword for a lowly one…?”

“Stay unnoticed.”

Seol Young swung the soft sword one more time to punish the ghosts, and Seo Geom asked,

“How did you know to cut them down before they attacked?”

“If they wanted to buy, then the price would have been the first thing they would have asked.”

Seol Young replied.

“We won’t be able to follow the principles here either, Seol Young-rang.”

Zaha said, and he wasn’t wrong.

For example, they were curious about one thing in this Ghost City.

“Are you humans? Do you need rice? We have meat too.”

If one followed the whispers of the ghosts, there were some things from the human world here. However, the prices were three to four times higher than the original price.

Why would someone sell these in a city of ghosts?

There were even guest houses in this place. The rooms and the kitchens were all the same as in the human world.

“Why do the ghosts need this?”

Even for a person with wide knowledge, the curiosity wouldn’t die down, but Seol Young could guess it.

“There is a place where people are caught and sold. If a person comes into contact with a ghost or eats the food of ghosts, they will be stained with Yin qi, so to preserve their fresh human qi, they are confined here and fed with the food from the human world.”

After hearing that, both Zaha and Seo Geom looked shocked. It seemed that even these two hadn’t guessed that far.

Zaha looked around at a guest house and said,

“It seems like it hasn’t been long since the city started considering how the businesses aren’t booming. Thank goodness.” 𝘣𝘦𝘥𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝑐𝑜𝑚

They got out of there and headed to the actual trading place, and they could hear voices coming from everywhere.

“Are you interested in hanging ghosts? Or a vengeful one?”

It was full of people who wanted to sell their products at a high price. As they observed, they soon understood the law.

First, no matter what deal was made, they had to make sure to do it in a cubicle because doing it outside was considered smuggling, which could be punished.

Second, the higher the amount exchanged, the more black smoke comes out. That meant they had to sell it at a high price to raise their levels faster.

“To raise from level 6 to level 5….”

Seo Geom calculated.

“I think we need about 1,000 coins. It will take even more to raise from level 5 to level 4.”

“There are three of us, so it should be around 3,000 coins.”

For the first time, Zaha seemed worried about it.

“How many times do we have to sell Oni?”

At that time, a demonic being went close to them.

“For how much will you sell this Do Cheol?”

Unlike the previous one, this one seemed to want a real deal.

The three had to discuss it for a while.

/p>

“How much do we sell him for?”

“I had seen earlier that a 300-year-old snake got sold for 100 coins.”

“What? Just 100? High Governor, shouldn’t we be aiming for more?”

“Right. If the entire world is searched, maybe another snake can be found, but Oni, this baby dragon with the right horns, cannot…”

“Then…”

After discussing it, Seol Young said,

“3,000.”

The two were shocked.

‘Haven’t we decided to set it around 1,000?’

They sent such a gaze at Seol Young. These two nobles knew less about business than anyone else.

“I will get it.”

The other person, with high silk robes and studded jewels, said. At first glance, he appeared to be wealthy.

Look at that.

Seol Young sent the two that kind of gaze and began to trade.

“Now, here you go.”

After confirming the money and the ‘Good,’ they made an exchange at the same time. At that moment, black smoke rose and was sucked into the cards of all three at the same time.

They had successfully traded a rare species, and they went up to level 5 at once.

Everything happened as they had expected up to that point, but then…

‘What?’

Seol Young felt dizzy.

He had gone through the same process several times in this world, and he had almost gotten used to it, but he had never experienced this kind of feeling before.

‘Is it because I went up one level at once?’

Zaha and Seo Geom looked worried.

‘Because I am a commoner?’

First of all, he had to retrieve Senior Oni and put him back in the ring. He went to the other side of the market to find another merchant to sell Oni.

The moment the transaction happened, he felt a lot dizzier than earlier. This time, even though his level didn’t go up, he thought he’d collapse.

“If we get caught cheating…”

“… If needed, we can use the Divine Dragon arrow.”

He looked at Zaha and Seo Geom, who were talking.

“What is it?”

Seol Young thought.

‘As I thought, this is odd.’

Calming himself, he asked them,

“It didn’t happen in the previous realm, and it just suddenly began happening here. Have you felt dizzy when the black smoke gets sucked into the card?”

“No.”

Both of them said, and Zaha made a guess,

“Is it because we cheated?”

“I had felt it before retrieving Senior Oni. Besides, it wasn’t like I was the only one cheating.”

“Then, are you tired?”

Seol Young shook his head.

“No. It is different from that. It isn’t like that, but it’s a strange feeling…”

Well, he still called Oni back right away. Before being discovered, they moved away from that place.

Zaha was lost in thought.

“We followed the rules, but Seol Young-rang alone experiences an odd sensation. Is it a clue to finding out the secret of this place?”

“I will try one more time. Then we can figure out what this sensation is.”

Seol Young said,

Thinking this would be the last, they found a remote place and made a trade again.

From level 5, he went up to level 4. At the same time, all of the veins in his entire body were pounding, and he vomited blood.

Zaha and Seo Geom were surprised.

“There’s blood now too?”

Seol Geom waved his hand to say he was fine. After taking Senior Oni back, he wiped off the blood with a towel.

“Now I understand. These are the symptoms when one uses more spiritual power than their body has.”

Seo Geom asked, unable to understand.

“But you said you lost your power? Then how is this even happening?”

“Well, there is a little…”

Seol Young looked at his left hand.

But there was nothing. The spiritual qi was stable.

“So strange.”

Zaha said.

“When the black smoke that raises the level appears, it is like my spiritual power is being consumed. I didn’t feel it back in the first realm, but now that we moved over to the Immortal Realm…”

Seo Geom heard that and asked Seol Young,

“Doesn’t that mean that you are still a commoner here and there? So the rules would be the same too? Could it be that you just didn’t realize it?”

“Maybe.”

Seol Young nodded.

“I raised my level little by little there, but after coming here, I am raising it at once. Maybe that is why I am feeling…”

“We need to think carefully.”

“The first world is where the strong ones raise their level. The second is where the strong people who have been selected trade their prey.”

“The rarer the item you trade, the more money you will get, and the faster you will rank up.”

“In other words, it is a place where you can sit and collect rare items from everywhere.”

Seo Geom, who summed it up, asked,

“Then where do those rare items go?”

“…”

The three of them looked in the direction where the huge colossus that had just bought Oni disappeared, and Seol Young thought,

“The city’s Lord? Because he collects all kinds of monsters and spirits and uses odd techniques…”

They followed it. The market was crowded, but these three were skilled at following someone.

They were soon able to find a group of colossi. The group walked for a while and stopped at a certain point. It was a place where the sea was exposed between the structures that supported the floating market.

What were they doing here?

They looked at them in wonder, but the colossus suddenly vanished.

“They went into the sea.”

Zaha said.

“Isn’t the Heavenly Demon Realm there?”

That was something they hadn’t even thought of.

Seol Young went close and peered inside.

At that moment, an illusion arose from the depths of the water.

They were the five tomb ghosts that had been horribly burned.

“….”

Seol Young stepped back in shock.