Slightly Sincere
What I remembered was my master’s face flushing such a violent crimson it looked ready to burst. And the undeniable fact that something really had gone bang right in front of me. It happened so fast I couldn’t even mount a proper defense. The only thing I managed was to raise my protective qi at the last second to shield my body. Even then I couldn’t absorb the full force of that colossal impact, so the entire world plunged into perfect darkness.
“Have you come to?”
When light finally leaked back through that blackness, Master’s voice drifted down from above, faint and hazy.
“…”
The moment I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was her crimson pupils staring straight into mine.
“…This is embarrassing. I never thought I’d actually faint.”
“Don’t worry. It hasn’t been long. A few minutes at most.”
“Still, it’s mortifying. Losing consciousness without even bracing myself.”
Only then did I realize I wasn’t simply lying on the ground. With a silent huh? I looked at Master again, and no matter how I interpreted the angle, the truth was obvious. I was resting my head on her lap.
“Master?”
“…Wasn’t it this seat’s fault? We had both withdrawn our energy and made it look like the spar was over. Then I suddenly launched a surprise attack. Even I have nothing to say for myself. Ten mouths wouldn’t be enough to talk my way out of this.”
“The spar hadn’t officially ended. So the fault is mine as well…”
I answered her words and tried to sit up. But Master clicked her tongue and pressed her index finger firmly against my forehead. The overwhelming strength behind it pinned me in place.
“I’m fine now. I can get up…”
“Shut your mouth and stay still. You’re being noisy.”
Her voice had dropped into that low, dangerous register. I knew from experience that acting stubborn right now would only earn me a scolding. So I had no choice but to obediently keep using her lap as a pillow.
“Where is Iris?”
“You mean that impudent girl.”
“She’s an impudent and slightly clueless disciple, yes.”
“When she saw you lose consciousness she panicked and tried to rush over. I sent her off to fetch fresh water.”
“…But I already prepared a canteen in advance.”
“Ahem! Ahem! How could we possibly drink that kind of water! It’s far better to bring back something fresh!”
It wasn’t as if we were in the mountains with a stream right under our noses. The canteen wasn’t some thirty-year-old military relic either; the water inside had been drawn only yesterday and was perfectly fine. Yet Master had stubbornly sent Iris away to fetch new water, and Iris had actually gone. Both of them were truly something else.
“Is your body truly unharmed?”
“There’s nothing to be harmed or not harmed about. There wasn’t any problem to begin with… Ow.”
Suddenly stars burst across my vision. The pain was so sharp that tears welled up without warning. When I looked up, Master was glaring down at me with her fist raised.
“I told you there is nothing more foolish than failing to take care of your own body.”
“…That’s not something you should be saying, Master.”
“This brat. This seat is far stronger than you. It is only natural for the strong to worry about the weak, but the weak worrying about the strong is absurd. Do you not even understand that much?”
She was right. Master was stronger than me. No matter how many user perks I had brought with me to this world, no matter how thoroughly I understood the Heavenly Demon NPC before me, I still could not stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the supreme ruler of the murim.
Yet even so, neither Master nor I could fight a Fragment of the Demon God. This game, this world, simply did not permit it. Not for an outsider like her by the rules of the system, and not for a true outsider like me.
“Even so, Master, weak as I am, it is only natural for a disciple to worry about his master.”
“This, this guy, pushing it to the end…”
“Am I wrong?”
“…You are not wrong.”
“Then let’s call this a draw for today.”
A long silence settled over us after that. Iris, who I expected to return quickly, was still nowhere in sight. I wondered if something had happened, but Master told me not to worry. She had already swept the entire area, she said, so I could rest easy.
I took the chance to study her expression. She had been somewhat angry about Iris stubbornly insisting on the ring matter, but unlike before she wasn’t showing any excessive wariness toward her.
“Master.”
“Speak.”
“How much did you hear?”
“…”
“You said you followed me. Then you must have overheard my conversation with Iris as well.”
I hadn’t expected her to tail me. Because of that I hadn’t been especially careful with my words around Iris. And if it was my master, she would have been more than capable of listening in.
“…I did not hear everything. There were parts I wouldn’t have understood even if I had.”
So she had listened. That was just as well. There was no need to tell the disciples everything, but Master had already vaguely sensed something strange. It would be better to speak with her—at least up to an appropriate line.
“Iris is an existence similar to you and me, Master.”
“Similar to this seat and you? You mean she is not a being of this world?”
She is a being of this world. It’s simply that the time she originally belonged to was not the present.
“That’s correct. What I was discussing with her earlier was about that very subject.”
“…I thought as much. That alien aura and all those inexplicable things. So that was it.”
“The aura of the Posalgwi you mentioned also seems connected. It looks like she fell here after experiencing a great tragedy.”
Iris is a regressor. Someone who crossed over from a future timeline. I was intimately familiar with the concept of regression. Master, however, might not understand it. Above all, Iris herself had never once spoken the word “regression” aloud. Even when I hinted that I already knew, she kept her mouth shut. That meant there were circumstances I shouldn’t pry into. So I chose to stay silent on that part as well.
“The disciples around you really are strange, each and every one.”
It was an observation I couldn’t possibly deny. All I could do was offer an awkward smile.
“Um, Master… I think it’s about time I got up…”
I tried to rise again. Showing this to Iris would be awkward, and staying this close to Master felt strange too. My mind kept telling me this was wrong, yet my instincts refused to listen. One wrong move and I had no idea what kind of thunderous rebuke might follow.
Once again Master’s index finger pressed firmly against my forehead. Understanding the silent order to stop the nonsense and lie still, I finally surrendered.
“My disciple.”
“Yes, Master.”
“There was a time like this once before, wasn’t there?”
“What do you mean?”
“The time you dared to use this seat’s lap as a pillow.”
Ah, that time. Now that she mentioned it, there had been such an occasion. Once, when Master had provoked me too much, scratching at my pride by calling me weak, I asked what she would do if I so much as brushed her collar. She answered that she would do whatever I wanted. So I decided to give her a proper taste of her own medicine. I knew the Heavenly Demon was unmatched in combat, but when it came to matters between men and women she was no better than a countryside child. Therefore I had asked for a lap pillow if I managed to touch her collar.
The result? I succeeded, of course. After gritting my teeth and throwing myself forward, I cut her collar even as four of my ribs snapped. In the end Master had no choice but to give me the lap pillow.
“Your face looked like a perfectly ripened persimmon back then.”
“This guy. Are you daring to tease your master?”
“Tease? I’m simply stating the truth.”
“You’ve grown quite bold. Shall we see if you can take another hit?”
Ugh. I really didn’t want to taste Master’s knuckle. I quickly covered my head, and soon her laughter rang out.
“How did such a cowardly fellow become this seat’s direct disciple?”
“You’re wounding your disciple’s heart.”
“And narrow-minded too. A grown man who is both fearful and petty. How lamentable.”
Master had never been this bright before. When we first met she had been gloomier and more melancholic than anyone. It was only because I knew so much about the Heavenly Demon NPC that I had survived. Otherwise I would never have become her disciple; I would have been nothing but ancestral offering rice in the afterlife.
“…Hyeon-ah.”
She called me by my name instead of “disciple.” This was probably where the real conversation began. Knowing that, I wiped every trace of playfulness from my face.
“Yes, Master.”
“…I know well that this kind of question is not good. Nevertheless, I want to ask. No… I must ask. And I must hear your answer.”
“Please ask anything.”
“What you said to me earlier… about being an important existence.”
So that really had been the trigger. The Heavenly Demon, for whom the word “dense” was an understatement when it came to romance—if someone like her heard herself called an important existence, it would have been stranger if she hadn’t exploded.
The reason I had said it was simple. I wanted to fluster her and stop the spar from continuing. Besides, while she might not be able to face a Fragment of the Demon God, she could certainly handle anything beneath that. There had also been genuine sincerity in calling her important.
And although I knew such emotions should not exist between master and disciple, because of the affection I couldn’t help but hold—even if only a small part of it—I answered.
“…It is exactly as I said, Master. To me, you are an important existence. That is why I didn’t want to expose you to the enemies any sooner than necessary.”
“What a foolish thing to say. There are enemies before whom you may hide your full power, and enemies before whom you must not. From what this seat sees, the foes you must face are not the former but the latter.”
“That is precisely why I am keeping you behind me.”
“Then show me the reason for speaking such words.”
“I intend to make the enemy lower their guard.”
“Lower their guard?”
“Yes. So I revealed myself. I made them believe I am the final bastion. That I am everything they need to worry about.”
“…In other words, you will not reveal your full strength.”
“Exactly.”
Not revealing one’s full strength was part of Master’s own teaching. I planned to use that lesson as a convenient excuse. The truth was that neither I nor Master could fight the Fragment of the Demon God. So I would step forward openly while she waited for an opening from the shadows.
“It was this seat’s teaching as well.”
“‘If the enemy is not one you cannot resist, do not show more than eighty percent of your power.’ That is what you said.”
“…Yes. I understand. If you are following your master’s teachings, I cannot stop you. Then…”
“And Master, I truly do not want to see you get hurt.”
“This guy is playing tricks again to make this seat feel awkward.”
“No.”
The disciples were incredibly precious to me. If I had to describe the feeling, I would say they were like younger siblings with an age gap. Since I had raised every one of them, such emotions were inevitable.
But Master was different from my disciples. Although she was an NPC within the game, because we stood in similar situations, because we had spent more time together than with any of them, I couldn’t help but hold emotions toward her that were different from what I felt for my disciples.
“It is sincere, Master.”
Of course, that didn’t mean every part of it was romantic attraction. There was also admiration and respect, so I quickly added one final line.
“Slightly, that is.”