—————————————————————–
Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Cyno
—————————————————————–
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The noisy day finally came to an end.
The delegation from the Kingdom of Robros, who had come to Kara, spent the first day recovering from the fatigue of their long journey, while the Kara side stayed up all night preparing for the negotiations scheduled to begin the following afternoon.
The main agenda for this round of talks between the two nations was the suppression of the “Great Desert Bandits.”
It was a subject that came up every time, so there was nothing particularly new about it. Still, Kara was preparing more seriously than in previous years. That was because, unlike other times, this delegation included Marquis Fabius, one of the real powerholders of the Robros Kingdom, as its representative.
To me, it looked more like the Marquis had stubbornly insisted on tagging along, but either way, Kara couldn’t afford to take this visit lightly.
Bustling, bustling.
From early morning, Kara’s palace was swarming with visiting local notables and nobles. Even after excluding all of the families ranked below the seventh among the twelve noble classes, the number of visitors already seemed to be in the hundreds.
Having spent the night in the Kara Palace, I wandered toward the side palace’s dining hall for a late breakfast.
I needed to eat, but there were also a few people I urgently had to meet.
Inside the dining hall, I spotted a massive figure sitting at a round table in the distance.
It was none other than Old Man Zenbe.
“Hey. You’re here?”
Zenbe gave me a sidelong glance.
“You came? So what did you want to meet about?”
“You know, so why ask?”
“I don’t!”
Zenbe snapped his head away. He clearly knew.
At that moment, the door banged open and a burly old man stormed in. It was Marquis Fabius.
But today, he was oddly wearing a hat decorated with feathers.
The Marquis looked around the hall as if searching for someone, and the moment he spotted me, he shouted at the top of his lungs:
“White Face—!”
It was a long, rhythmical cry filled with resentment and rage. I waved at him cheerfully as he came stomping toward me, snorting with every breath. The third guest had arrived: Marquis Fabius.
“Hey, old man, welcome.”
With murderous eyes, the Marquis slammed the table with all his strength.
“You. What medicine did you give me yesterday?”
Well, I did give him something. A hair growth tonic, to be exact.
“‘Seunghara’? Why?”
“You dare ask why?!”
Furious, the Marquis whipped off his hat. His bald, reddened scalp was covered all over with hives.
What a disaster. Looks like one of the ingredients in Seunghara had triggered a skin reaction.
That’s why you’re supposed to consult a proper healer before using medicinal herbs.
I swallowed dryly. If I wasn’t careful, today could be my last day alive.
So I decided to play dumb.
“Come on~ no way. Do you know what kind of medicine that is? I told you yesterday, didn’t I? That tonic was crafted by Master Miyul, a saintly figure of the Eastern Continent renowned for his divine skill. He aged it for ten whole years. It’s a peerless masterpiece of medicine!”
“And you can still say that after seeing these rashes? I even had a healer check it just now.”
I waved my hands frantically.
“Those quacks don’t know a thing! Old man, don’t you know Eastern Continent natural medicine is far more advanced than ours? And this is the pinnacle of that—crafted by none other than Master Miyul himself. That’s not something some back-alley healer has the right to judge.”
“You’re certain?”
“Of course.”
The Marquis’s anger subsided a little. He still seemed doubtful, but he was wavering.
Seizing the moment, I glanced at his scalp and said reproachfully:
“And what do you mean rashes? This is the initial sign of your hair roots reviving. Take a look in the mirror—don’t those bumps look vibrant and alive? Old man, can’t you almost hear your hair roots crying out, ‘Brothers, we have returned!’ and cheering in your ears?”
The Marquis pulled a mirror from his robes and examined his hive-covered scalp.
“Hmm…”
“I’m telling you, those bumps are proof your follicles are stirring. Sure, if you insist they’re just rashes, I won’t argue—but if withered roots are coming back to life, wouldn’t it be strange if there were no reaction? It’s just growing pains. Growing pains.”
“Hmm. Is that so?”
“Exactly. The rashes are simply the process of your hair regaining its vigor.”
“Well, then. I see.”
Fabius stroked the hives on his head with care, then, face slightly flushed with excitement, sat down beside me. He liked the idea of “reviving follicles,” apparently. This old man couldn’t tell shit from intestines.
After ordering food from his attendant, he settled at the table.
“So, what did you call me here for?”
“Since we’re all gathered like this, I thought we could have ourselves a discourse.”
“A discourse? About what?”
Ha! Look at him playing dumb. He came all the way to Kara for exactly this, and now he acts clueless.
But no matter—I had to draw them out somehow. Today’s two guests were men who stood closest to the realm of the Mind Master. Just listening to their discussion could bring me great benefit.
“A Mind Master. Think about it. Opportunities like this don’t come often.”
Fabius shot a glance at Zenbe.
“Well…”
“Old man, you know the saying, right?”
“What saying?”
I jerked my chin at his scalp.
“That leaning on medicine is only ever temporary.”
“What do you mean?”
“All things in the world move by harmony and natural order. Unless the root cause is addressed, your hair roots will eventually leave again. They’ll vanish before they even bloom.”
Fabius’s eyes twitched.
“Is that true?”
“Sure is. And besides, there’s no more tonic. That medicine is far too rare—I can’t get any more. Which means there’s only one solution left: to resolve it at the root. You know what I mean, don’t you?”
The ultimate solution was to ascend to the state of Mind Master.
Once one attained that, lifespan lengthened, the body was restored to its optimal state, and even lost hair roots would return.
“Ahem. I know that much.”
“Then you should act on it. Isn’t that why you came here? To see if you could glean something from Old Man Zenbe?”
Fabius and Zenbe exchanged glances.
“Well, that is true…”
“Then instead of picking fights like yesterday, let’s have a constructive discourse now that we’re all here. Maybe we can fill in each other’s gaps.”
The two of them hesitated. Honestly, they were acting like awkward youngsters at a matchmaking meet.
In the end, I had to break the ice myself.
“The realm of the mind is vague and elusive. You think you know it, then you don’t; you don’t know it, yet you have some sense of it.”
Reluctantly, Zenbe responded:
“Moreover, the two are one, yet also two.”
Fabius added:
“But even that may be wrong. Or perhaps right.”
And so the discourse began, with Zenbe and Fabius passing the baton in a heated exchange.
Fabius argued that only the essence of the mind mattered, that the essence alone was the answer.
Zenbe countered that what truly mattered was its formation, that only formation held the answer.
The two clashed fiercely, each pushing their view.
And I listened intently from the side. Every word was precious—meat and blood for my growth. Not a single phrase could be missed.
“Listen! The human mind is already complete. There is no place for formation.”
“How could the mind be complete from the beginning? Just as a child becomes an adult, the mind must grow through a process of formation.”
“No. What grows is knowledge and temperament, not the true mind itself.”
Their quarrel raged on. So I summarized their positions:
“Couldn’t it be that you’re both talking about the same thing?”
“What do you mean?”
I picked up a piece of bread from the table and dipped it in jam.
“Like bread and jam coming together to become jam bread—perhaps essence and formation together create the true human mind.”
Fabius stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“Now that you say it, that makes sense. But surely there must still be a distinction.”
Zenbe quickly interjected:
“Then let’s do this. Let’s divide the human mind into an inner mind and an outer mind, and suppose that when the two combine, a complete mind is established.”
“Fine. Let’s go with that.”
I had a servant bring pen and paper. On the sheet, I drew a target-like diagram: essence written in the inner circle (inner mind), formation in the outer circle (outer mind). Since essence was fundamental, I placed it at the center.
Zenbe spread out several more sheets and copied the same diagram multiple times.
“Why make so many copies, old man?”
“You ever hear of wolf children?”
“Yeah, kids raised by wolves. But why?”
“Then it’s easy to explain. Imagine a human infant. If a pack of wolves takes it and raises it, will it grow into a wolf child or a human child?”
The answer was obvious.
“A wolf child.”
“Exactly. The wolf pack, as its society, shaped that child into a wolf child. That’s why you can’t explain the mind’s formation without the ties and causes between people. That’s karma and connection.”
Zenbe connected the diagrams with lines, forming a network that looked like a tangled web.
But it seemed too uniform. In life, some ties are strong, others weak. The lines were too even. So I added thick lines and thin lines to show the difference.
Intrigued, Zenbe then added large partial circles at the ends of the thick lines, and smaller partial circles at the thin ones—thus completing the outer mind.
“Yes. This is the outer mind.”
“You sure?”
“Almost.”
I studied the drawing.
According to this, the human mind connects through ties and causes. My mind grows within relationships with others, and the mind that grows in me influences others in turn. In other words, my mind becomes part of everyone’s mind, and everyone’s mind becomes part of mine.
Complicated and vague, but when I thought about the wolf child example, it made sense.
A wolf child behaves like a wolf because it is shaped by the wolf pack, even though it’s human.
Fabius then spoke up:
“Now, let’s add the essence.”
He wrote “essence” again in the inner mind, then in parentheses added “desire and nature.” With a few more symbols, he finished, and both Zenbe and I stared with wonder.
From the drawing, we could see the conflict between human desire for personal fulfillment and the conscience formed within the community. One of the most universal struggles of the human psyche.
“Hmm. If we expand this model further, we might get somewhere.”
At my words, Fabius and Zenbe both agreed.
“Indeed. It feels tangible.”
“Yes. Very promising.”
I smiled and raised my glass of date palm wine, brought out as dessert.
“So, how about a toast to that?”
Zenbe waved his hand.
“No thanks. Date palm wine? That’s just juice. A real man drinks something like ‘Tears of the Iceberg.’”
This old man was pushing it. “Tears of the Iceberg” was the orcs’ brew—99.99% pure alcohol, lethally strong.
Fabius chuckled and joined in:
“Hmph. Tears of the Iceberg? Hardly. A man’s drink is ‘Flame’s Breath.’”
And there they went, another pointless pissing contest.
“Flame’s Breath” was the strongest liquor brewed by humans, also 99.99% pure alcohol. The problem with alcohol that strong is that no matter the ingredients, it all tastes the same—your mouth and throat burn out, and you can’t taste a thing.
But I couldn’t just sit out the contest.
“No, no. A man’s drink is the ‘Rebel Salamander EX.’ Only heroes can drink it.”
The two stopped their posturing and stared at me, puzzled. No surprise—they’d never heard of it. “Rebel Salamander EX” was a concoction that had appeared only in the Age of Ruin.
“What kind of drink is that?”
“A cocktail.”
“What does it taste like?”
“You can’t explain it. You have to taste it yourself to know—ah, this is truly a man’s drink. Want me to show you?”
“Fine. Make it.”
I quickly had a servant fetch the ingredients. The “Rebel Salamander EX” was made from very common items, so it could be prepared anywhere.
Soon, three flat beers were set down before us. Zenbe narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
“You’re not about to show us some cheap cocktail where you just mix in Eastern distilled spirits, are you?”
“Of course not.”
I cracked open some raw eggs, dropping them whole into the beer. Then I added half a spoon of mayonnaise to each glass, and stirred them thoroughly with a spoon.
And thus, for the first time in this age, the “Rebel Salamander EX” was born.
Zenbe recoiled from the smell, while Fabius, after a tentative sip, gagged with a face like he’d swallowed dung. The drink smelled and tasted like the slimy, pancake-like sludge often found rotting around the seedier tavern districts.
Both shouted at once:
“Hey! How the hell is anyone supposed to drink this rancid, reeking garbage?!”
And that, of course, was why people in the Age of Ruin came up with the “Rebel Salamander EX.” In those days, with resources critically scarce, it was made to cut down the number of mouths to feed.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
[Your Text Here]
