Shin Tu and Chae Ok-hyeon
The cleanup of the Cheonghae Iron Pavilion was finished in the blink of an eye.
The corpses of the demon cultivators led by Jo Jinkwang, the documents the Pavilion Master had handed over to the demonic cult, even the bodies of the children... Everything was gathered and laid in order.
Sama Baek, watching the martial artists move with flawless discipline, let out a quiet sigh.
A physician who had been summoned was examining the Guest Dragon's condition, while the mother and daughter of Nakhwajeong looked on with unmistakable worry.
Sama Baek approached and asked, "How is the Guest Dragon faring?"
"Hmm..."
The physician's expression, as he pressed his fingers to Jin Seongun's pulse, grew rather grave. At once, concern flooded the faces of Sama Baek, White Sword Hall Master Do Won-hyeok, Chae Ga-hee, and Chae Seo-ryeong.
When the physician hesitated to speak, Chae Seo-ryeong demanded anxiously, "What? What is it!"
"...The trouble is that he is entirely unharmed. Right now, he is simply asleep."
Sama Baek's eyes went wide. "What did you say?"
"Well, you see. After a battle of this scale, if a man collapsed at the end of it, it would only be natural for his dantian to be damaged. His meridians and muscles would surely be torn as well. And yet he is perfectly sound. Moreover..."
The physician deliberated for a moment, then fell silent.
He, too, belonged to the Martial Alliance, and so his understanding of the murim ran deep.
Astonishing as it was, the Guest Dragon was even now, in his sleep, rebuilding his internal energy. And that energy seemed to be restoring his body of its own accord.
It was truly uncanny. He could not begin to guess what peerless divine art the man had mastered.
But still.
I had best not say it aloud.
Was the Guest Dragon not himself a man of the murim? For a physician to speak freely of another's martial arts or condition would be a grave discourtesy.
Before long, the physician offered an awkward smile. "He is in excellent health. So much so that there is nothing left for me to do."
Only then did relief settle over everyone's faces.
A small room. Jin Seongun, lying on the bed, opened his eyes.
"..."
An unfamiliar ceiling. He looked around for a moment.
His head throbbed faintly. He had no idea whether this was the world of the living or the dead, nor how long he had been asleep.
Jin Seongun sat up. Perhaps he had heard someone stirring outside, because the door swung open with real force and Chae Seo-ryeong burst in.
"H-he's awake!"
Jin Seongun regarded her steadily, then asked, "Where is this?"
"Nakhwajeong. Wait, but are you all right?"
"Nakhwajeong, you say."
Jin Seongun felt a flicker of disbelief. The distance from the western annex of the Cheonghae Iron Pavilion all the way here to Nakhwajeong was hardly short.
How long, exactly, had he slept?
Come to think of it, since learning martial arts, he had never once slept more than a single si period in a day. There was no particular reason for it. He simply never felt tired no matter how little he rested.
But having collapsed after emptying his internal energy completely, it seemed all the fatigue that had accumulated in his body had come crashing down on him at once. From now on, he supposed he would have to sleep a reasonable amount whether he felt tired or not.
Just as Jin Seongun was nodding to himself, Chae Ga-hee entered, having heard her daughter's shout.
"...Thank heavens you've woken at last."
Chae Ga-hee exhaled a breath of relief.
How could a person sleep for over a fortnight? She had summoned the physician again and again to check on him, and each time the answer was the same: he was merely sleeping, nothing was wrong.
Still, considering the carnage at the Cheonghae Iron Pavilion, it was not easily understood how the body of the man who had accomplished all that alone could be unharmed.
"Are you truly quite well? Just to be safe, take your time and check yourself over."
Jin Seongun lightly circulated his energy through one full cycle. He was more than fine—his condition was actually quite good. After sleeping that long, it was only natural.
"Perfectly sound."
"Goodness..."
"Wow, you really are built like a rock."
Chae Ga-hee and Chae Seo-ryeong each marveled in their own way.
Before long, Jin Seongun asked, "What became of the Nakhwa?"
"Better to see it with your own eyes."
Chae Ga-hee walked out, wordlessly beckoning him to follow. At that, Jin Seongun understood: the Nakhwa had returned safely to this place.
The oldest smithy in Nakhwajeong.
Unlike before, when dust had lain thick over everything, it had been cleaned to perfection and now looked immaculate.
And in one of the hearths, a truly golden flame was blazing fiercely.
It was a mystical hue, enough to stir the heart of anyone who beheld it.
Gazing at the Nakhwa, Jin Seongun thought of Shin Tu.
So Master finally returned this flame to its rightful place.
The one thing Shin Tu had never managed to steal in all his life. And in the end, he had accomplished it through his disciple—truly, Shin Tu was the greatest thief of all time, past and present.
Jin Seongun asked, "What of our wager?"
"..."
Chae Ga-hee stared at him in exasperation. Of all moments, what did the wager matter now?
But to Jin Seongun, it was a serious matter.
"The wager."
"It was Seo-ryeong who carried the flame back from the Pavilion. But..."
Chae Ga-hee and Chae Seo-ryeong had appeared together with Sama Baek. After everything had been settled, it was Chae Seo-ryeong who had ladled the Nakhwa into a lantern and carried it all the way here.
Yet the winner of the wager was obvious to anyone.
"You won."
The moment Jin Seongun had swept away the entirety of the Cheonghae Iron Pavilion, the Nakhwa was as good as his.
Chae Ga-hee bowed deeply toward Jin Seongun. "...Thank you, truly."
A long-cherished wish of her family, finally fulfilled. And the promise to send her daughter home unharmed had been kept as well.
Jin Seongun would be, for as long as he and the girl lived, the greatest benefactor Nakhwajeong had ever known.
Before long, Jin Seongun spoke, in the same placid tone as always. "It was only a wager."
Even so, he had seen Shin Tu's request through to the end.
He did, in truth, feel satisfied and unburdened. Only, at the same time, he worried a little about how difficult the requests of the other Martial Gods might prove to be.
Chae Ga-hee spoke up suddenly. "Why not stay here in Shaanxi for a few days before departing? I would like the first sword forged from that flame to be yours."
"I'm grateful, truly, but..."
Having used the Nokhwa Sword, he knew it was a rather splendid blade. So the offer to forge another such sword and gift it to him was a welcome one.
But lingering for days on end was out of the question.
"I have a business to run. The inn's construction should be finished by now, or close to it. I can't delay any longer."
"...A business? Right now, Chief Strategist Sama Baek and the Daoists of Mount Kunlun are waiting for you at the Martial Alliance's Shaanxi branch."
"Ah..."
The look of irritation on his face was plain to see.
Chae Ga-hee, watching him, was dumbfounded. Why else would they be waiting for him in Shaanxi? Naturally, they intended to bestow lavish rewards upon him while at the same time making all manner of enticing offers.
Within the orthodox murim, Chilmacheon—the Seven Demon Heavens—stood as an existence equal to the Five Great Clans. The one difference was that the Five Great Clans had the Nine Sects and Five Noble Clans standing beside them as powers of comparable strength, whereas the demonic cult's Seven Demon Heavens were seven unrivaled families who alone bore the entire cult upon their pillars.
And he had killed an elder of the Seven Demon Heavens.
It was a feat that even the most formidable master of the orthodox path would struggle to achieve in an entire lifetime.
"The Martial Alliance will surely repay you handsomely. They may even make offers you can hardly imagine."
"I see."
Utterly unmoved, as expected.
From the very beginning, Jin Seongun's joy in life and his goal had been simply to run his inn without a hitch. He was already earning more money than he needed—enough that he wondered what he would even do with more.
Nor did he covet fame or power. The idea of a famous innkeeper, an innkeeper with influence, was frankly laughable.
Jin Seongun asked, "What of the children?"
"...The Alliance has undertaken to hold a memorial rite for the ones who already passed. Thankfully, every child who still lived was rescued."
"I see."
Jin Seongun nodded. The horrific atrocities that had unfolded at the Cheonghae Iron Pavilion—and the fact that their victims had been young children—left a bitter taste in his heart.
Before long, Jin Seongun returned to the room with the two of them. In one corner, his dragon-scale armor and his original martial attire lay neatly folded.
Only then did Jin Seongun look down at what he was wearing. It was a set of sleeping clothes, soft to the touch. His gaze shifted to Chae Ga-hee and Chae Seo-ryeong.
"...A male blacksmith changed my clothes, not us. Kindly don't look at me like that."
"Ah. Of course."
Jin Seongun nodded, picked up the martial attire set aside in the corner, and looked at the two of them again. Before long, they coughed awkwardly and hurried out of the room.
Jin Seongun, changed back into his martial attire, said lightly, "I'll be off, then."
"R-right now?"
Chae Seo-ryeong blinked rapidly. Chae Ga-hee, too, seemed visibly flustered beneath her composure.
Paying them no mind, Jin Seongun nodded. "Business is business."
"I really wanted to forge you the finest sword in the world..."
Chae Seo-ryeong's voice was sullen. It was no empty boast.
Nakhwajeong had, in fact, once been the greatest smithy in the world. Its standing as a forge had weakened in recent years, but with the Nakhwa recovered, reclaiming its former glory was only a matter of time.
Jin Seongun asked, "How long do you suppose it would take?"
In truth, he did covet a Nakhwajeong sword. He had lost count of how many blades he had shattered by now—ordinary iron swords tended to break the moment he poured even half the Fire Dragon Escaping Sword's energy into them.
"Hmm..."
Chae Seo-ryeong considered for a while. She could turn out several ordinary iron swords in a single day. But with the Nakhwa restored, if they set out to create the supreme divine blade of the era, it would take far longer.
Skipping meals, cutting sleep, even having her mother and herself sleep in shifts so the forge never went cold...
"A... a month?"
It was a figure that reflected her absolute utmost effort.
Even so, Jin Seongun answered firmly. "I must go run my inn."
"..."
A divine blade, forged with painstaking devotion by the Manor Lord and Young Manor Lord of the greatest smithy in the world—any martial artist under heaven would covet such a thing.
But Jin Seongun was an innkeeper.
"An inn has no days of rest, you see. We've already been closed for over a fortnight because of the construction; I can't let it stretch any further. Just as a martial artist must train every day, I must do business every day."
Chae Seo-ryeong pulled a sour face. But Chae Ga-hee's face was nothing short of deeply moved. After all, she was an artisan, yes—but she was also, in her way, a merchant, running a great forge called Nakhwajeong.
"Then when the sword is finished, Seo-ryeong can bring it to you."
"Oh, that works!"
Chae Seo-ryeong's face lit up at once. Jin Seongun nodded as well. They were offering him a sword this eagerly; there was no reason to refuse. If anything, it was a kindness.
"Then I'll treat you to a proper meal. Come to think of it, you've visited Seongun Inn twice now and still haven't tasted my cooking."
Chae Seo-ryeong coughed awkwardly. One of those two visits, after all, had been to steal the inn's signboard.
Just then—
Jin Seongun noticed Chae Ok-hyeon walking out into the courtyard and gave her a small bow.
Before long, she spoke to him. "...Before you leave, might I have a word with you?"
"Of course."
Jin Seongun was curious as well. She was, after all, someone his master Shin Tu had known.
He had never once imagined there would come a day when he met an acquaintance of the Martial Gods.
The two of them walked along a quiet little lake behind Nakhwajeong.
Over the past several days, Chae Ok-hyeon's movements seemed to have grown slightly unsteady, so Jin Seongun offered his arm for her to hold as they walked.
As they strolled side by side, Chae Ok-hyeon spoke. "For decades, I lived in atonement and regret."
"..."
Her voice was heavy. Jin Seongun simply nodded and listened.
"Even so, it does not undo that man's death. Even in death, I suppose I will never finish repaying that sin. I deceived him. I provoked him deliberately. I made use of his heart."
"..."
"That it was done for the sake of the family, that I regretted it too late and tried to erase the wager as if it had never happened—none of it can serve as an excuse."
No one knew this better than Chae Ok-hyeon herself. No words, no matter how many regrets she piled upon them, could change the simple fact that Shin Tu had died because of her.
Yet somehow, Jin Seongun found himself thinking that if it was Master Shin Tu, then he had not been deceived by her, nor had he merely taken her bait.
Had he not set out for the Cheonghae Iron Pavilion of his own unclouded judgment? His reason, if one could call it that, would have been to win the heart of a woman.
If a man staked his life on something he wished to attain, then it was no one's fault—not hers.
Of course, it was only conjecture, and so he could not carelessly say it aloud.
Chae Ok-hyeon's words continued. "In his final moment, he must have cursed me. He must have regretted ever being bound to me. He was not a man who should have died like that."
"..."
"I am grateful to you. For fulfilling the family's long-cherished wish, for saving Seo-ryeong, and... for avenging that man."
With those words, Chae Ok-hyeon wept.
A woman of more than a hundred years shed great, heavy tears, like a child. They were tears steeped in regret and guilt, in lingering attachment, in gratitude, in self-reproach, in resentment of herself—all of it tangled together.
Jin Seongun thought of Shin Tu for a moment, then spoke. This much he could say with certainty, for it was more than mere conjecture.
"Shin Tu did not resent you."
"..."
"That would hardly have been stylish of him, after all."
It was, in fact, something Shin Tu had actually said. And in his eyes at the time, there had truly not been a single trace of resentment or regret.
Only then did Jin Seongun understand why Shin Tu had sent him to Nakhwajeong in the form of a wager.
It had never been about stealing the Nakhwa, nor about taking revenge on the Iron Pavilion.
Perhaps it had simply been to deliver, at long last, the words he had left unfinished decades ago.
Before long, the two of them walked a while longer along the lakeshore—the very same shore where Chae Ok-hyeon and Shin Tu had so often walked in his lifetime.