Chapter 110: Dang Yeo-eun-1
Chapter 110: Dang Yeo-eun-1
Two days later, I was once again free from the Flying Dragon Thirteen Squads and on leave.
And what's more, I was traveling with Lady Dang Yeoeun.
Of course, we couldn't leave the Thirteen Squads together, if only because of prying eyes.
So early in the morning, Lady Dang Yeoeun departed first. About half a sichen later, I too left the frontlines.
And a short while after that, when we met on the outskirts of Yunnan Province, the reality that we were now traveling alone together finally sank in.
"Lady Dang!"
I called out her name cheerfully as I landed beside her, and suddenly realized there was no one else around.
Deep in the heart of the forest, there was only her and me, just the two of us.
'Huh?'
As I looked around in bewilderment, I suddenly swallowed hard.
Gulp!
And then, all at once, a feeling of awkwardness began washing over me like a wave.
'What's this? Why am I like this, all of a sudden?'
I was flustered.
I couldn't even think of what to say.
It felt as if my mind had suddenly gone completely blank.
And when I glanced at her, I realized that this wasn't just my problem either.
She too was unable to meet my eyes, her own uneasy gaze darting here and there.
It was so incredibly awkward.
I felt like I had to say something, anything, but nothing came to mind.
So as I desperately racked my brain, I barely managed to squeeze out a single sentence.
"Ah, Lady Dang, have you been... waiting long?"
At that, she hurriedly waved her hand and replied.
"Not at all! You came much sooner than I expected."
"Ah, that's a relief."
And then silence descended upon us once more.
My mind, which had never lost its sharpness even in the most critical moments, felt as though it had turned completely to stone in this single instant.
After an awkward moment of trying to find something to say, I managed to put an end to the situation by being the first to speak up.
"Well then... shall we depart now?"
"Ah, yes. Shall we?"
And so, Lady Dang and I began our journey together.
It was an incredibly awkward start.
***
For a long while after that, even as we ran, we didn't really share any conversation.
No, it would be more accurate to say we couldn't share any, rather than we didn't.
There had been a few times when our gazes briefly met and we flinched and looked away, but each time, neither of us could think of anything to say, so we just turned away and kept running.
It felt strange.
'Why am I like this? Lately, this hasn't even happened with Lady Na... Could it be?'
The thought suddenly crossed my mind that maybe my feelings for Lady Dang had deepened.
But I soon shook my head.
If I were to give my heart to another woman when my feelings for Lady Na weren't even fully sorted out yet, wouldn't that make me absolute trash?
I didn't want to believe that I was that shallow.
'Well, it's probably just because I'm traveling alone with a woman, isn't it? It's the first time in both my lives, after all.'
I decided to chalk it up to just that reason.
It was around lunchtime after we kept running like that.
I felt a bit hungry and thought it might be good to have a simple meal and then be on our way.
"Lady Dang, would you like to eat something before we go?"
"Huh? Ah, yes. That sounds nice."
As luck would have it, there was a fairly wide stream flowing nearby.
I figured we could just catch some fish and grill them.
I asked Lady Dang for a favor.
"Sojeo, I'll go catch the fish, so would you mind lighting a fire?"
"Huh? Ah, a fire... you mean?"
Her expression as she repeated my request looked incredibly troubled for some reason.
Just in case, I asked.
"Is it that lighting a fire is..."
At that, her face flushed red and she hung her head low as she answered.
"Ah, I'm sorry. I've just... never done it before..."
It suddenly hit me that before she was a squad leader in the Flying Dragon Corps, she was the treasured jewel of the Tang Family.
Even in the Flying Dragon Corps, she would have always eaten meals provided by the mess hall, so she'd probably never had to light a campfire herself.
I nodded and asked again.
"Then, how about I light the campfire, and you go catch the fish?"
At that, she smiled confidently, as if that was no problem at all, and answered.
"Yes. I can do that!"
And then, just as I was about to gather dry leaves to start the campfire, I caught sight of Lady Dang pulling a small porcelain bottle from her pack.
Huh? A small porcelain bottle? Don't tell me?
Just in case, I asked.
"Um, Lady Dang!"
"Yes?"
"Uh, how exactly are you planning to catch the fish?"
At that, she smiled brightly and replied.
"Ah, this is a poison called Crane's Red. Even a single drop in the water will kill all the fish within a one-jang radius. I was going to use this."
It seemed my hunch was right on the money.
With a horrified look, I asked again.
"Is it, by any chance, possible for us to eat fish caught with that poison?"
"...Huh?"
"Pardon?"
"..."
Seeing her flustered expression, I felt I didn't really need to hear the answer.
In the end, I asked Lady Dang to gather dry branches and leaves, and decided to catch the fish myself.
Well, it wasn't that difficult.
After all, I'm a peak-level master now.
First, I leaped lightly into the air above the stream.
"Hup!"
Then, the forms of the fish swimming beneath the clear stream came into view.
My eyes flashed, and I drew my sword with a strike like a ray of light.
The Seventh Technique of the Sail Sword Technique.
Black Sword Rain.
Shushushushuk!
Streaks of sword qi like beams of light poured down onto the water like a shower.
It was aimed at every fish above a certain size visible within a one-jang radius.
Sssshhhhhhh!
A moment later, the fish that had been pierced by the sword qi and were thrashing about had no choice but to float up to the surface.
There were exactly eleven of them.
After that, I asked Lady Dang, who had gathered the dry leaves and branches, to skewer them onto wooden sticks, and immediately went to make the campfire.
That too wasn't particularly difficult.
Once again, I say this because I am a peak-level master.
In the past, I would have used a fire starter or flint, but now there was no need for such things.
First, I took the dry leaves and focused only on the Yang energy within my body, concentrating it onto them.
And when the temperature had risen to a certain degree, I quickly rubbed them with the fingers of my opposite hand.
At that,
Hwareureuk!
The leaves ignited immediately.
"Woaaah!"
Lady Dang, who had been watching me with fascinated eyes, burst out in admiration.
She seemed quite impressed.
My shoulders straightened a bit, but I smiled leisurely as if it were nothing, and told her.
"It's nothing special. Anyone can do it once they know the trick."
Of course, I omitted the part about 'having reached the peak realm,' but it wasn't a lie.
It was a method a master of Lady Dang's level could replicate right away, after all.
A short while later, as we grilled the fish over the campfire that had burned down to a suitable size, we sat facing each other for a while.
Tsssssss!
Lady Dang, who had been staring blankly at the cooking fish, suddenly asked cautiously.
"Where did you learn all this? You seemed so very practiced."
I gave a slightly bitter smile at her question and replied.
"I learned most of it from Squad Leader Seolpung. He said he lived in the mountains for a long time before coming to the Flying Dragon Corps."
"Ahh."
These words were also the truth.
Of course, the time I learned it was in my last life, not this one, but still.
In my past life, the final few years at the frontlines had been very different from how life was now.
Back then, so many of my comrades had already died, and the number and level of the demonic beings attacking us had grown so high that, rather than staying at our lodgings, we spent most of our time wandering the forests, fighting like assassins, or hunters.
Because if you lay comfortably in the barracks, you'd just end up dying a dog's death to the demonic beings who came raiding.
Truly, back then, each and every day had been so hard and so bleak. Days where I had to become accustomed to the daily, repetitive deaths of my comrades, days where I couldn't even see a glimmer of hope that anything would ever get better.
It had been a time when I had endured with nothing but vengeance and malice left in me.
And this life might not prove so different.
If this situation were to continue until another Blood Demon appeared, that was.
So no matter what, I had to bring down the Blood Cult within the next five years.
It was while I was thinking such thoughts.
Lady Dang suddenly asked me,
"At this point, are they fully cooked?"
At her voice, I snapped to attention and saw the fish were mostly all cooked through.
"Ah, yes. I think the small ones are ready to eat."
At that, her eyes brimming with anticipation, she carefully picked up one of the branches with a small fish skewered on it and brought it cautiously to her lips.
Both the sparkle in her eyes as she looked at the fish like a child, and her small lips as she put the fish in her mouth and nibbled, were incredibly endearing.
I smiled faintly and asked her,
"Does it taste alright?"
She grinned bashfully and answered,
"Yes! It's so delicious!"
I suddenly recalled her cold, aloof demeanor when she had stood before the squad members yesterday, radiating a frosty aura like a winter wind.
That figure, so cold one might think she was the daughter of the North Sea Ice Palace's master...
Compared to that image, her current appearance seemed somehow even more endearing than before.
As I watched her eating with such delight, I too brought a fish to my mouth.
But after taking a smiling bite of the fish, I couldn't help but immediately scrunch up my face.
'What the hell? It's so bland?'
The fish tasted terribly bland.
Only then did I realize I hadn't sprinkled any salt on it.
I had brought it along but had completely forgotten to use it.
Freshwater fish without any salt added—it really tasted like plain water.
I suddenly felt a strange sense of wonder toward Lady Dang, who was eating it with such relish.
Perhaps she simply liked bland food by nature.
I decided to ask her.
"Um, Lady Dang."
"Yes?"
"Isn't it a bit bland? I forgot to put salt on it. Should we just eat it without?"
"...Pardon?"
That apparently wasn't the case.
Because once I sprinkled salt on it, Lady Dang began devouring it with an urgency that was incomparable to before.
Watching her eat the fish so deliciously, I felt both apologetic and endeared, and asked,
"If it was bland, why didn't you say so? You were eating it so deliciously, I really thought it tasted good."
She smiled and shook her head.
"No, it was really delicious earlier too. I think everything just felt so good."
I chuckled and asked again,
"What's so good about this? It's just a bland fish roughly grilled over a campfire."
She smiled happily and answered,
"Just... being together with Young Master Seonu..."
But as she answered my question unguardedly, she stopped mid-sentence and suddenly froze like a stone.
And the same went for me, who had been listening without much thought.
Huh? Being with me... is good?
I asked again, wondering if I had misheard.
"...Pardon?"
"Huh?"
"..."
As we were both just blinking at each other in embarrassment, Lady Dang, her face turning bright red, hurriedly poured out her words.
"What I mean is! When I'm with you, Young Master Seonu, I don't have to force myself to pretend to be perfect, and that's what's good... I mean..."
"Ah? Ahh, so that's what you meant?"
"Yes, yes! That's what I meant!"
Watching her nod her head vigorously, I thought that it indeed made sense.
For someone whose usual self was like this, putting on such a cold and haughty front couldn't have been easy.
Relieved that I had nearly misunderstood her words, I let out an inward sigh of relief.
'Gotta be careful. I almost got the wrong idea, didn't I?'
I then asked her, whose face still seemed flushed red,
"Keeping up that kind of front must be quite uncomfortable?"
She flinched slightly, thought for a moment, and then answered with a somewhat bitter smile.
"It's because I'm deceiving everyone, after all. The real me is such a weak and insignificant person, yet I'm pretending to be perfect, pretending to be strong. If everyone were to know the original me, they would feel betrayed."
The way she said that looked deeply melancholy.
It seemed like a feeling that had built up over a long time.
"Lady Dang..."
It was when I was about to say something to her.
Suddenly, voices came from afar.
"There he is! Get him!"
"Don't let him get away!"
It was a sound from quite a distance, but for the two of us who were peak-level martial artists, there was no difficulty at all in hearing it.
In an instant, Lady Dang and I locked eyes.
She asked me,
"What should we do?"
This area was near the border between Yunnan and Sichuan Provinces, and since we had long since left the frontlines behind, there was a high probability it was something unrelated to us.
But I immediately overturned some dirt to extinguish the campfire and answered,
"Let's go take a look first."
If it turned out to be something unrelated to us, we could just pass on by.
But we couldn't just pass by without even confirming it.
There was a chance it might be connected to us in some way, and also because if we just passed by, we might allow an unjust death to occur.
For someone like me who had been taught by the Sword Saint Elder to create a world where righteousness and humanity still lived, I thought we must never simply pass by.
We flew across the treetops, racing toward the source of the sounds.
Before long, we spotted a man surrounded by a group of martial artists.
"It's over now, Do Mun-seung!"
"Did you think you could dare run away from us?!"
The name of the surrounded man seemed to be Do Mun-seung.
He was a man who looked to be in his mid-to-late twenties with a composed face, and it appeared he was acquainted with those who had surrounded him.
With a dark expression, he asked the martial artists,
"Wonwang, Upo. Do you truly intend to kill me?"
Then one of the large-built men among the besiegers scoffed and answered,
"Hah! Ridiculous! It was you, you bastard, who refused the order because you wanted to die—so why are you asking us about it?!"
"And on top of that, you ran away?! And you still hope to live?!"
At their words, the youth called Do Mun-seung asked back with a frustrated expression,
"Don't you also know that if I go, the future of my sect, the Yeongnam Sword Gate, will be in peril?! In such a situation, how can I alone enter the Hoe?! And moreover, to summarily sentence me to death just because I didn't join the Hoe—where is there such an absurd practice?!"
I couldn't make out the details, but it seemed that young man Do Mun-seung had some kind of injustice behind him.
But even at his desperate words, those surrounding him only continued to scoff.
"Your sect is in trouble so you're going to break the rules? If that's not your wicked selfishness, then what is it?! Because of that selfishness, you've broken the noble rules of the Hoe that has protected our Sichuan Province from the Six Ghosts Hall, so isn't it only right to make an example of you with execution?! Say no more! Seize that bastard at once!"
"Yes!"
At the large man's command, the warriors began approaching the youth called Do Mun-seung, radiating a menacing aura.
At that, the youth gripped his sword hilt with a resigned expression, and the large man shouted again with a sneering look,
"The goal is to capture him intact, but if he resists, chopping off an arm or so is perfectly fine!"
"Yes!"
At the same time, all the warriors drew the blades from their backs.
Chang! Chachang!
It was a hair-trigger situation.
Just then, Lady Dang's telepathic transmission came through.
[- Young Master Seonu, what should we do?]
Since the exact situation hadn't been grasped yet, I was in a state of indecision about whether we should intervene or not.
But I answered Lady Dang for now.
[- Let's reveal ourselves first. I think we need to see their reaction after we show our faces.]
With that, I immediately leaped down alongside Lady Dang to where they were.
Tadak!