Birds of a Feather
I told Dokgo Rin the secret I had been hiding from her all this time.
I explained that, for certain reasons, I knew about events that would happen in the future. Yet despite having enough time to prepare—using the excuse that things kept turning out differently from what I remembered—I had done nothing. When she heard this, Dokgo Rin looked visibly shaken. Of course she would react that way if I suddenly claimed I could see the future. Still, since she had always been honest with me, I didn’t want to keep deceiving her forever. So I waited humbly for whatever reaction she would show.
Would she get angry? She probably would. After all, if I had told her even a little sooner, her family might have been saved. But Dokgo Rin gave me a response I never expected—one completely different from anything I had imagined.
Surprisingly calm, Dokgo Rin simply accepted the truth I had revealed.
“Huh?”
When I made a bewildered face, she gave a bitter smile and asked,
“……”
Dokgo Rin looked straight into my eyes as she spoke.
“What is it?”
Right after that, in a calm voice, she continued.
I couldn’t have imagined it. To think that Dokgo Rin was a regressor.
Just as I knew the future because of the existence of the ‘original story,’ she had known what would happen through ‘regression.’ But the future she knew was slightly different from the original novel I remembered. That was because an ‘outsider’ who didn’t exist in the original story had been by her side.
And that outsider was none other than me.
The version of me from before her regression—the first-round Chilbok—had already struggled desperately once to change the future. The reason the future I knew had gone off track was because Dokgo Rin, who had experienced that first round with me, had acted one step ahead. In other words, we had been influencing each other without even realizing it.
“So… the me from before you regressed—the first-round Chilbok—worked really hard to save you?”
To be honest, my feelings were complicated. Hearing that a version of me who wasn’t me had staked his life to save her. At the same time, I felt pathetic. According to her description, the first-round me had been an incredible man who would risk everything for the woman he loved. Yet here I was—the same person—acting like a coward who had done nothing.
But that left one question. According to Dokgo Rin, the mastermind behind everything in the first round had indeed been Wiji Cheon, just like I remembered. Yet in this second round, Wiji Cheon had already died two years ago from alcoholism—before the original story even began. If the root cause of all the tragedy was already dead, nothing should have happened at all. Nevertheless, the Dokgo Clan massacre had occurred once again.
That meant the one who caused the Dokgo Clan’s slaughter wasn’t Wiji Cheon, but someone else—or some other organization.
When I laid out this reasoning, Dokgo Rin nodded, confirming that my thoughts were correct. She even said she knew the identity of the true culprit.
I hadn’t expected her to already have the answer, so I swallowed hard and asked,
“Who is it?”
“The Imperial Court? You’re saying the Imperial Court is involved in this?”
This was completely new information. It had never been mentioned in the original story.
As she spoke, Dokgo Rin pulled out the secret manual for the Nine Heavens Mysterious Sword from her robes.
“But if they needed powerful martial arts, wouldn’t the Imperial Library have plenty of others? Or does this technique have some special characteristic?”
“…Special characteristic?”
Apparently something had clicked, because Dokgo Rin opened the book again.
“A life-nurturing method?”
Immortality. Was there any story more tempting to those in power? Even the First Emperor of Qin, who had unified China, had been tricked by alchemists into taking mercury and died because of it. That was how irresistible the idea of eternal life was to rulers.
“If someone very high up in the Imperial Court is willing to secretly obtain it even at the cost of breaking the ‘no interference in martial affairs’ treaty, then that must be the only reason, right?”
“…That does make sense. So the ones doing the dirty work for the mastermind are the Eastern Depot or the Embroidered Uniform Guard.”
The Imperial Army was strong. Even the proud martial artists of the murim had no choice but to acknowledge that fact. They were the elite soldiers of the Imperial Court, created by pouring in systematically trained troops and resources gathered from across the entire nation. Especially when facing their spear techniques—known as the King of Close Combat—and their coordinated formation arts, even skilled experts would break into a cold sweat.
If they had mobilized those forces, even the Dokgo Clan wouldn’t have been able to hold out.
The more we exchanged the information we each possessed, the clearer the overall outline of the incident became. It wasn’t certain, but it felt quite plausible. I regretted not confessing sooner, but at the same time, I resolved to think and act carefully from now on. If I died during revenge like the me from the first round, it would all be meaningless.
After sitting on a tree stump atop the mountain peak and exchanging information for a long while, we finally realized the sun was already setting. It was too late to descend the mountain now, so we had no choice but to camp here for the night.
We gathered branches from around us, lit a campfire, and roasted the jerky we had brought as emergency rations. The jerky of this era was practically like chewing on rocks compared to modern versions. It was more accurate to call it food eaten purely for survival rather than for taste. Normally people would soak it in water first, but since we were on a ridge where water was scarce, we decided to save it.
After finishing that tasteless meal, I was staring blankly at the flickering campfire when Dokgo Rin suddenly asked,
It was a difficult question. At its core, The Heavenly Poison Witch was a revenge story packed with stimulating dramatic scenes, so the Dokgo Rin in the novel had never been a happy character. If anything, she was a pitiful woman who had lost her entire family and lived her whole life with nothing but revenge in her heart.
But I didn’t want to tell my lover that straight to her face. After organizing my thoughts, I gave a single answer.
“You were a lonely person.”
“Lonely…?”
“You had no one to rely on, so you trusted no one. You wandered the world as a vengeful spirit who sought only your enemies.”
The Dokgo Rin of the original story had never had someone like ‘me’ to lean on. That was probably why such a decisive difference had appeared this time.
“The me from the first round must have known about that unhappy future and wanted to save you.”
If he was fundamentally the same person as me, he would have thought this: ‘I hope Dokgo Rin can be happy.’ Even though he had failed midway, I still had a chance now. Just knowing that fact made me feel fortunate.
“……”
Dokgo Rin said nothing after hearing my answer. She simply hugged her knees, staring blankly at the campfire light, before quietly murmuring,
I glanced at her face and replied,
“It’s nothing.”
When I opened my eyes in the morning, the campfire that had burned all night had already gone out. As I was organizing our sleeping spot, Dokgo Rin—who had been sleeping soundly under a blanket—also woke up.
“Is it morning already?”
“Yes. Time to get up.”
As I spoke, I scattered dirt over the ashes to make sure any remaining embers were extinguished. Dokgo Rin got up groggily. Her appearance was a bit messy since she hadn’t washed, but her beauty still shone through. She washed only her face with the drinking water we carried, then wiped it with a dry cloth and said,
“Understood.”
While stuffing the blanket we had used as bedding back into my pack, something occurred to me, so I asked Dokgo Rin,
“By the way, what kind of person is your maternal grandfather?”
“When you say it like that, it somehow makes me nervous.”
With that, Dokgo Rin shrugged, slung the pack containing the blanket over her shoulder, and held out her right hand to me. I stared at it for a moment before taking it firmly, as if I couldn’t resist.