Step Back! Master is Here! - Chapter 50
Chapter 50: The Path of Showiness
“Hurry and go over to help!” Mico told K anxiously.
Master Xuanzang looked like he was having a very hard time.
“How am I supposed to do that?” K was very irked.
He thought, ‘It’s not like I can defeat them!’
His ire was because he had discovered that he couldn’t take part in the battle between the monk and the bronze-armored zombie.
He had to admit that if he went forward, apart from throwing his life away unnecessarily, there wouldn’t be any other effect.
This made the extremely self-important K rather displeased.
How he wished he could sigh and shout, “If God had already made someone so excellent, why did he make someone else even better?”
Why did they have to group two veterans in one mission?
It was obvious that he alone would have been…
Fine, it wasn’t enough.
“Their fight isn’t important. We should take care of the corpse transporter first!” K found a reasonable and logical excuse for himself.
As the saying went, “To catch a gang of bandits, first capture its leader.” Yes, this made a lot of sense.
“…”
The problem was—where was the king?
As if in response to K’s words, the bell ringing that was originally quick and distant got near in a mere moment.
There was now a clear direction from which the ringing was coming.
K turned around and noticed a man who had appeared at some unknown point in time near the tiny room.
He was dressed in a set of loose black clothing, whose style strongly resembled grave clothes. His head was down half of his face covered by his longish hair. Only the lower half of his face was exposed. His mouth was slightly open, exhaling strange white vapor.
Unlike the driver who had two little bells hanging on his wrist, this particular corpse transporter was holding a handbell in his right hand.
His hand was shaking as though he was suffering from epilepsy. He was using the rapid ringing of the bell to manipulate the bronze-armored zombie.
However, he didn’t bother to watch the fight between Tang Luo and the bronze-armored zombie. Instead, he stared right at K and the other two.
“Who are you!?” K asked an utterly meaningless question.
“And who, are all, of you?”
The corpse transporter countered with a question of his own. His voice sounded somewhat mechanical as he spoke in short phrases. “Actually daring to, come to the boundary of, the Feng Clan’s territory after killing, people of the Feng, Clan. How audacious and, reckless.”
“Feng Clan? What Feng Clan?”
K felt very wronged. It wasn’t like they had wished for this either!
There was a fearsome, powerful, and mysterious existence above them, you know.
What could they do when it told them to come to the terminal and stay here for a night?
Besides, it wasn’t them who had struck first. It was clearly the driver and bus conductor who had held malicious intentions.
They, the Feng Clan, had wanted to kill and snatch the bodies, yet they weren’t a match for others and ended up getting themselves killed instead.
Was this even their fault?
All the above-mentioned emotions came together to form a question.
Which was—what Feng Clan?
Some of the mission worlds in the Game of Gods And Demons felt like worlds that were purely used for players to carry out missions, similar to dungeons in games—for example, the first Jack the Ripper mission Tang Luo had experienced.
Some, on the other hand, was more like a complete and intact world.
Employees of Gods and Demons were merely thrust into the world to carry out certain tasks.
“You don’t, even know, of the Feng, Clan,” replied the corpse transporter. “Looks like, you’re just—”
Before he even finished, K had abruptly raised his arm at him. Blue light flashed across his hand.
Cutting Gale!
A sneak attack was simply just this easy!
The arched wind blade reached right in front of the corpse transporter in an instant.
Against this sudden sneak attack, the corpse transporter seemed like he wanted to duck, but his speed was a notch too slow. He only managed to dodge half of it.
The wind blade severed his arm.
His black robes were torn, revealing a line across half of his chest. Then, it gradually expanded and formed a hideous wound.
‘What a shame,’ K remarked silently in his heart. He had wanted to severe the corpse transporter into two, but he had managed to evade his attack.
Not just that, the hand that was holding the handbell was unscathed. The ringing of the bell continued.
“There shouldn’t be any more danger for the time being.”
K watched the corpse transporter.
With such a deep wound, just the loss of blood alone would be enough t—wait!
Where was the blood!?
Why wasn’t there any blood flowing from the severed arm and wound!?
“Inter-esting.”
The corpse transporter raised the stump of his severed arm. What gushed out wasn’t blood but wisps of black aura.
The nauseating stench of corpses reached them.
K and the other two retreated several steps.
“I kind of want to make all of you into corpses for my collection now.”
This sentence of his came out very smooth, showing his passion for corpses. It had the professionalism of one who loved his job.
The corpse transporter had only just spoken when he rushed forward with great momentum.
An explosion rang out next to K.
It seemed like some kind of invisible object had exploded and stirred up strong gales.
It was his second skill—Air Explosion. It made use of the power of air to execute a charge.
K dashed toward the left instantly, putting a distance of ten meters between them in a mere moment.
The corpse transporter, who had brushed past K, glanced at him. However, he didn’t change the direction he was going in.
K could evade the corpse transporter, but Auntie Shufen and Mico evidently couldn’t.
Upon seeing the terrifying corpse transporter right in front of her, a look of viciousness suddenly appeared in Mico’s eyes.
Reaching out, she pushed Auntie Shufen on the back forcefully. Then, she ran to the back without even looking back.
The corpse transporter let out a soft mocking laugh and casually kicked Auntie Shufen, who was falling toward him away.
Auntie Shufen flew through the air like a ball and landed on the ground, becoming still and motionless after that.
At the same time as Auntie Shufen landed, the corpse transporter had already caught up to Mico.
Upon raising his severed arm, the black aura coming out from within fluctuated as though it was alive and enveloped Mico’s head.
It rushed toward her mouth and nose.
At once, Mico’s face turned bluish-white, and she fell to her knees. She grabbed at it with her hands, but it was all in vain. The only thing she managed to grab was air.
As the black aura entered her brain, Mico’s eyes began to turn white. When matched with her original look created by makeup, it was indescribably strange.
Those vibrant red lips started to turn black bit by bit. The struggling of the body curled up on the floor slowly weakened. Then, as though one last spurt of strength before her death, she spasmed a couple of times violently. And then, all was still.
The corpse transporter walked over to Mico. The black aura, as though strings, connected the two of them and turned Mico into his puppet.
As the black aura moved and twisted, Mico slowly got up.
Her lips were now fully black, though her skin remained fair. Her eyes were pupil-less, just like the other zombies.
What remained in there was just an expanse of ghostly white.
“Eh?”
The corpse transporter looked the animated corpse that he had created up and down. Those eyebrows hidden under his hair drew together.
He was rather dissatisfied. There was no difference between this corpse and the others.
‘Could it be that…’ The corpse transporter looked at K. ‘Among this group of people, only this man and that… monk who is currently battling the bronze-armored zombie are a little special?’
“One of them can be used to create a new bronze-armored zombie.” The corpse transporter glanced at Tang Luo before looking back at K again. “I wonder what this one can be.”
The monk had good moves and was able to fight on par with the bronze-armored zombie.
He could totally be used to create a brand new bronze-armored zombie that was even better than the current one.
As for this one in front of him… Even the corpse transporter himself wasn’t sure just what kind of special zombie would be created out of him.
“Go,” he murmured and raised his severed arm.
Mico, who had been turned into a zombie while she was still alive, moved. She rushed toward K.
Under the corpse transporter’s purposeful manipulation, Mico’s combat ability was higher than those cannon fodder zombies.
K, who no longer had his skills, was somewhat pushed into a corner for a moment there.
His face even sported quite a few new scratch marks. Mico’s manicured nails caused them.
Due to the corpse transporter diverting some of his attention to manipulating Mico, the situation on the other side changed slightly.
The sound of palms hitting against the bronze-armored zombie started to ring out frequently.
From the original crisp and clear sounds, they became dull and muffled.
Without any change in his expression, the corpse transporter diverted most of his manipulation ability back to the bronze-armored zombie again.
K seized the opportunity at once and kicked Mico away. He flung out the rock that he had grabbed at some point and crushed Mico’s head with it.
Nevertheless, this didn’t stop the zombie’s movement. But it could at least take away one of the other party’s weapons.
K had nearly been bitten quite a few times just now.
Mico, whose head had been struck, stood where she was and stopped moving.
Compared to when she was alive, her body at this point had obviously shriveled up significantly. It made one unable to come up with any ideas of taking advantage.
K panted lightly and wiped off the blood trickling out of the wounds on his face.
After a couple of times of wipes, K’s actions stopped.
“You…” He stared at the corpse transporter.
The corpse transporter started to laugh. His laughter was very continuous and also very creepy. “Have you, felt it? The corpse poison.”
What K had felt wasn’t the so-called corpse poison or whatever. What he felt was just his cheeks slowly beginning to turn numb.
When he had raised his arm and wiped his cheeks just now, he didn’t feel any pain. In fact, there wasn’t any feeling at all.
So it was because he had fallen victim to corpse poison?
A spell of dizziness started to come over him. K’s world began to sway and spin.
“Actually, turning into a zombie while one is still alive is a very painful process.” When it came to talking about his profession, the corpse transporter’s speech was very smooth. “It feels about the same as being hacked to death. Don’t be fooled by her silence. That’s only because I’ve already destroyed a few things.
“My corpse poison has already corroded and numbed your brain, so you won’t feel that much pain and agony during the refining process that’s coming up.
“Don’t you bite off your tongue or anything else. As part of my collection, I want you to be in perfect condition.”
As the corpse transporter spoke, K found himself unable to stand anymore.
He dropped onto the floor, supporting himself with his hands with much difficulty. He shook his head hard, attempting to match it to the world’s frequency in his vision.
That way, the world in his vision would no longer sway anymore.
The rustle of footsteps rang out.
The corpse transporter walked over to K. His severed arm slowly rose and aimed at K’s head.
The black aura that had been fluctuating all this while slowly approached K.
As part of his collection and not cannon fodder, he must be more serious during the creation process.
It wouldn’t do for him to botch it.
“Eh?”
The expression of the corpse transporter, who had just licked his lips, suddenly changed. He spun around and looked at where Tang Luo and the bronze-armored zombie were fighting.
The ringing of the bell that had been going on all this time paused for approximately half a second.
Then, it continued to ring again.
The ringing became even more frantic than what it was just now.
If the ringing earlier could only be considered frantic, then the ringing now had already reached the point of being chaotic, as though the sound of demons engulfing one’s ears.
But no matter how the ringing changed, the bronze-armored zombie continued to keep its back to the corpse transporter, remaining still and motionless.
Tang Luo stood next to the bronze-armored zombie, one hand held vertically upright in front of his chest, and watched the corpse transporter.
There was an expression of one who lamented the times and held compassion for all of mankind on his face.
“I’ve actually… sunk this low.”
Who Tang Luo felt compassion and sadness for wasn’t anyone else but himself.
‘Who would have thought that I, the great Tripitaka, had also finally embarked on the path of showiness?’
It seemed like the One Punch Tang Seng[1] of “Master Xuanzang found you too showy and blew your head apart with one punch” philosophy had gone far away?
[1] A reference to Japanese superhero anime, One Punch Man
