The Black Dog and the Mother's Gaze
I had dreamed.
For the first time, I understood something.
That the landscapes glimpsed only in dreams, after countless repetitions, felt as if they were fragments of a past life I had actually lived.
“When will he come?”
My mother had not looked at me today.
She simply exhaled white mist from the corner of her mouth, gazing endlessly at the distant horizon beyond the vast snow-covered fields.
I sat there beside her, unmoving.
Beneath the blue sky lay a colossal winter plain blanketed in snow.
I felt the faint trembling at the tips of my fingers and toes as they slowly froze, murmuring through chattering teeth.
“This place is winter, as it always has been.”
“And it will remain so.”
I glanced sideways.
Beside me sat a massive black dog, sitting primly.
The dog also stared toward the far horizon.
“So you were always this big?”
“As you say, Host. You always begin with that.”
“Who are you?”
“I wonder. Even I do not know. If I must define it…”
The black dog flickered its faint red glow and whispered softly.
“You are the beginning of his life… and the observer who watches over him.”
The dog spoke words I could not comprehend.
I, the child, tilted my head in confusion.
Yet I felt an overwhelming familiarity.
“When will he come?”
Now, strangely, the mysterious black dog beside me seemed more familiar than the woman next to me.
Still, even in that familiarity, something was different.
“Oh no, he’s grown so much bigger.”
“Is that so?”
It was now so immense that looking up at it felt overwhelming, its presence crushing.
It could not be… I muttered as a child.
It kept growing.
Even crouched, its enormous black shadow enveloped my entire body.
The dog opened its mouth.
“How long will you wait?”
“…”
I looked at the woman beside me.
“I wonder.”
“The Host has become twisted. Too much. Even if you demand he live a normal, ordinary life now, that wheel of his will not stop; it will simply roll forward.”
The dog spoke to me.
“What kind of being does the Host wish to become?”
“Me?”
I felt my whole body drained of strength.
It was as if vitality coursed through me yet I remained like a patched-together doll.
I reached up to scratch my cheek.
My hand would not move properly.
“…At first, all I wanted was to be happy.”
I looked at my hand.
The fingertips trembled faintly.
Suddenly I understood.
Even though my appearance remained intact, I was clearly being torn and worn down on one side or the other.
No matter how loudly I proclaimed myself fine and healthy, in the end I was like the head of a household gradually crushed by the winds and waves of a harsh world, being worn away and diminished bit by bit.
I thought this kind of life could not last long.
I was an endlessly ordinary person.
Different from the peerless hero.
I was not a Guardian.
Nor was I one of those boasting 10th-level inner energy.
Not a genius overflowing with talent and divine talent.
Not the head of one of the Five Great Families, nor the leader of the Murim Alliance, nor the Cult Master of the Blood Cult.
I was simply someone who had somehow ended up walking this path—an endlessly ordinary warrior and a passing ordinary individual in this world.
“But now, more than that, I…”
Far in the distance, a single duck crossed the winter plain.
Behind the mother duck, a flock of yellow ducklings waddled along.
One of the ducklings slipped into a snowdrift and flailed helplessly.
The brown mother duck approached, poked at the snowpile with its beak, and pulled the struggling chick out.
A weasel suddenly leaped like lightning.
The mother duck tried to block it, but it was useless.
In an instant, the ducklings fell, bleeding red.
The mother duck thrashed and resisted until the weasel seized her neck and dragged her away into a corner.
“Even if I’m foolish. Even if I’m annoying. Even if I’m a fool. Even if the entire world, lagging behind the times, points a finger at me. Just… that’s all.”
Watching all of it, I muttered.
“Even if only I exist in this world that only looks out for itself…”
Everything disappeared, leaving only traces of violent struggle, plucked feathers, and the frozen corpses of the yellow ducklings on the white plain.
“…A being who listens to the voice of the weak and represents their plight, pursuing righteousness.”
I muttered, gazing from afar upon the snow-covered hill.
“I want to become that kind of being.”
“A lunatic who wants to start a war is saying such things.”
The dog flicked its red glow and stared at me fixedly.
“…Tragic.”
I gazed at the winter plain.
The dog drooled white mist from its mouth and murmured again, looking toward the distant horizon where dawn was breaking.
“Truly tragic.”
***
I opened my eyes.
What filled my vision was a ceiling utterly unfamiliar to me.
I blinked.
The fluffy bed and the sky-suspended curtain swayed gently in the breeze drifting through the open window.
*Swish.*
The sound of water came from somewhere.
The clattering noise of water.
Sometimes the *slosh* of a basin being poured echoed distantly.
“…”
I tried to recall where I was, but my half-asleep mind could not form quick thoughts.
I simply kept sinking back into the soothing warmth spreading through my entire body.
[You have awakened.]
Mumyeong’s calm voice entered my mind.
[The Host has not slept so deeply in a long time. Taking this opportunity, I have repaired the parts that were not recovered. For a moment, there may be lingering weakness in the limbs, so be cautious.]
“…”
I tried to clench my fist, but it was like grasping a ball of air; no strength entered.
The room was silent.
Apart from the faint sound of water coming from somewhere, I heard only my own breathing.
*Rustle.*
A thin red cloth hanging from the bed’s ceiling flapped in the wind.
I turned my head to the right.
Through the open window, a blue sky stretched out.
It seemed to be past noon.
The sky was so bright it was almost dazzling, the blue so vivid.
The wind brushed my bangs softly.
I thought I had slept so deeply for a long time.
I thought it felt incredibly soothing to wake up.
It had truly been a long time since I had slept with my legs fully extended.
The soft scent that tickled my nose melted away the tension coiled in every corner of my body.
I guessed that if I had truly slept, it must have been because of that scent.
“What kind of scent is this?”
I felt too lazy to move even a finger and simply rolled my eyes around the room.
In one corner of my vision, a pile of red clothes lay discarded on the table.
Beyond it, a wooden door was closed.
The sound of water came from beyond.
*Hiss.*
A single red incense stick burned steadily on the table, its flame flickering faintly.
The fragrance drifting from there.
I inhaled deeply and exhaled.
I had lived crouched in fear of everything.
Even when I opened my eyes or rested, training upon training was what remained; it was meaningless to speak of any rest.
For me now, if I did not possess martial arts strength relatively superior to others, nothing would remain.
Given the hastily accumulated strength, I feared it might vanish like a mirage the moment I woke the next day.
*Rustle.*
The bed was truly vast.
There was plenty of space to stretch my shoulders and lie down.
The soft scent at my nose and the fluffy warmth of the blanket against my skin made me feel good, so I lay there for a long time, staring blankly at the ceiling even after opening my eyes.
I could not recall what dream I had been making such a racket in just moments ago.
That was why I thought of something that should have been obvious too late.
“…Where exactly is this?”
*Swish.*
The regular sound of water stopped.
*Creak.*
The sound of a dry wooden door opening near my ear.
“You are awake?”
“…”
I thought it impossible for another person’s voice to reach the room.
A sudden female voice startled me, and I lifted my head.
“Again, why are you staring with those rabbit eyes?”
“…Eh.”
Steaming mist billowed from the narrow gap of the open wooden door.
A woman wrapped in a white towel, wiping water droplets from her wet hair, emerged from there.
I jumped up in shock, horror.
“W-What?! This is ridiculous! Eek!”
I flailed up and tried to back away, only to sense the empty space beside the bed and tumble backward with the blanket.
More precisely, the moment I felt the empty space, I kicked my lower body and performed a mid-air somersault to land properly.
My body had stiffened completely.
My flesh could not execute the movements I had envisioned in my mind.
*KRA-BOOM!*
In the end, with a huge noise, I rolled around on the floor as if to advertise my presence.
[You said to be cautious about the momentary weakness, but…]
Mumyeong let out a small sigh.
The woman, rubbing her hair dripping down to her waist with a towel, stopped her movements and frowned.
“What? Ridiculous? Is this the trend now? To talk about wanting to commit suicide with such creativity? Fourth-grade field investigator, sir?”
I lay entangled in the blanket on the floor and muttered to So Yeomgyo.
“Ah… No, that’s not it. It was just so shocking—cough.”
So Yeomgyo swung her leg wrapped in the towel and kicked a pillow at my face.
*Smack.*
With a solid impact sound, I was sent flying backward.
Mumyeong muttered.
[It seems the sound was indeed smack just now.]
The pillow had inner energy stored in it, so it was hard.
Rather, it was So Yeomgyo who was startled at seeing me unprotectedly knocked away and tumble.
“Oh my. With your strength, it would have been fine if it just slipped off. I never thought you would take a direct hit.”
“…My sleep was not fully deep, so my body was not fully relaxed.”
She knew all my circumstances, but at this moment, the more I explained in detail why I had been helplessly hit by the pillow, the more pathetic and lame my excuses would sound.
[Host. Blood is coming from your nose.]
“Oh dear.”
So Yeomgyo picked up a handkerchief from the table and reached for it.
She saw moisture on her own hand and frowned.
She lifted one foot through the gap in the towel, kicked the table, and blew a gust of wind pressure toward the floating handkerchief, sending it flying.
With a *swish*, the towel wrapped around her body retracted behind her, wrapping her one leg again.
[Why is the blood still coming out?]
“…It’s noisy.”
I tried to forget the leg I had forgotten about behind the towel and wiped the handkerchief at my nose.
Facing me, So Yeomgyo said with disappointment.
“Are you a warrior? You slept like someone who had stayed up all night for a week, then even took a direct hit from such an attack and rolled off the bed. You always boasted of being 4th grade, 4th grade. Do you really not tense up like a normal 4th-grade investigator? You must have ten lives, right?”
“…It feels strangely like I’m being scolded by a superior. And I also stayed up late last night.”
“You made that ridiculous barrier?”
The thing she pointed to was a wall of pillows set up between the beds.
Next to it rolled another pillow that had been covering my ears.
I muttered weakly.
“…Ridiculous. It was my best effort. I couldn’t find anything to block the nose with, so I couldn’t stop it.”
“Quiet. And eat this. The sun is already high in the sky.”
So Yeomgyo pointed to one side of the room while rubbing her wet hair with the towel.
There was originally a late-night special dish placed there by Jeomso.
It was gone, replaced by something else.
“Was the late-night special still there?”
“Ah, that? Jeomso came in the morning, said this would get cold and tasteless if eaten as is, that it would mock his people, and that he would make it again and bring it tonight. That’s just the morning meal Jeomso brought as a substitute while taking the late-night special. Eat it before it gets cold. Look at you—you look weak.”
The food on the tray was extremely simple.
Stir-fried noodles, a small grilled freshwater fish, and stir-fried vegetables.
Since the quantity was not much, I ate it quickly.
While I ate, So Yeomgyo moved to the side of the wardrobe hidden by the curtain and changed her clothes, tidying up.
“You cook well in this house.”
I said, chewing diligently.
So Yeomgyo gathered her hair, twisting it upward to tie it, but peeked out with one stray strand and asked.
“Is it delicious?”
“Yeah.”
“If you finish it all, you can bring the empty bowls to the lower-floor kitchen. Jeomso said he might not be able to come up here during lunch break because he’s busy, so I asked him in advance. After delivering it, I’ll talk to you about the matter of starting the cleanup operation for the Unwol Jiju branch starting today.”
My chopsticks, which had been moving busily, slowed down subtly.
“…About the four branches, right?”
So Yeomgyo looked at my face and chuckled.
“Yeah. Just as I thought, your eyes change the moment you see the food. The quantity is fine, right? Should I ask Jeomso to make more next time? Men eat more than women anyway.”
“No, it’s fine. But it really is delicious. Especially since I prefer noodles over rice, and there are noodles here too… I’ll bring the empty bowl right away.”
“Your hair is a mess. You really look weak. Go look in the mirror before meeting anyone else.”
So Yeomgyo nodded and disappeared behind the curtain again.
“…That much?”
“That much.”
She answered from behind the curtain.
“Hmm. Then…”
Before leaving the room, I roughly combed my messy hair into a shape like a raven’s nest with my fingers and descended the stairs.
“Ah, you’ve finished. The empty bowls are over here. Thank you for bringing them.”
The energetic Jeomso, who had been running around receiving bowls, quickly came over and took the tray from me the moment he saw me.
“You ate neatly.”
His words reminded me that I had not eaten the special dish he had worked hard to prepare for me. I felt guilty.
I hesitated a little, scratched my cheek awkwardly, and said.
“Um… The food is really light and delicious. Please tell the Young Master that I ate it well. And I’m sorry I couldn’t touch the late-night special yesterday…”
“Eh? What are you talking about?
Jeomso looked at me with a confused expression.
His expression made me even more flustered.
“No, along with not touching the late-night special, there is the breakfast you prepared as a substitute. It was really light, and especially since I like noodles, you made it and served it so deliciously that I ate it and want to express my gratitude…”
“Ah, I see. So that’s what you’re talking about.”
Jeomso finally understood and clapped his hands.
“That is not what we made. The person in the group asked to borrow the kitchen to make it. We do not provide breakfast separately.”
*Heavenly Demon Copies Martial Arts*