Heading to Meet You
I jolted awake with a gasp, only to find myself lying on a bed with my head resting on something incredibly soft.
"…What the hell is this?"
The one who answered my bewildered question was Dokgo Rin.
"Oh, you're awake?"
She looked down at me with a perfectly calm face, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
"Young miss, why are you here?"
"Because you're using my lap as a pillow, obviously?"
Dokgo Rin said it so naturally while gently stroking my hair with a tender hand.
"……."
So I really was using her lap as a pillow. Even though it was covered by fabric, her thighs—soft and plush like any child's—cushioned my head with surprising gentleness.
"How long was I out?"
She tapped her chin with her index finger, making a thoughtful humming sound.
"Probably about one tea's worth of time?"
Since one tea's worth was roughly fifteen minutes, I hadn't been unconscious for as long as I'd feared.
"I'm sorry. I must have caused you trouble."
As I spoke and tried to sit up in a hurry, Dokgo Rin pressed her right palm gently against my chest, holding me down.
"It's fine. I actually enjoyed it. Besides, you won't be able to move properly right now, so just lie down a little longer."
"…Huh?"
I tried to lift my arm to see what she meant, but it wouldn't obey me.
"While you were asleep, I took a quick look at your body. It seemed like you'd built up a lot of fatigue, so I lightly performed chugungwahyeol on you."
"Chugungwahyeol, you say…."
"Yeah. I released all the tension in your knotted muscles."
Now that she mentioned it, my body really did feel much lighter than usual. It was like I'd gotten a full-course Thai massage.
"Thank you. I can't believe you went through all that trouble for me."
"It's nothing. If you want, I can do it for you anytime."
Dokgo Rin smiled sweetly and began softly stroking my hair again with her small palm.
"By the way, Chilbok, can I ask you just one thing?"
"Of course. Ask me anything."
"When you saved me from drowning last time, did you already know I was the daughter of the Dokgo Clan?"
"Ah, that."
I hesitated for a moment, but decided to tell her the truth.
"I knew you were roughly the daughter of the richest family in the village. I'd seen you a few times while going back and forth through town."
"I see."
Dokgo Rin nodded as if she'd expected that answer, then added,
"When you saved me, were you hoping for some kind of reward?"
I realized what she was worried about. She must have suspected that her life-saving benefactor had actually saved her with some kind of expectation in mind. But I had nothing to hide.
"I just saw someone drowning and saved them. If I'd been after a reward from the start, I wouldn't have said anything and just left, right?"
I wasn't the kind of calculating person who would do that, and honestly, I'd saved her because I couldn't just watch a child die—original story progression be damned. And it seemed my sincerity got through to her. After hearing my words, Dokgo Rin nodded with a somewhat proud expression.
"Yeah! I'll believe you!"
The childlike smile she showed for the first time in a while made me unconsciously smile back with warmth. To think this girl would one day become that cold-blooded vengeful demon with no blood or tears. The more I thought about it, the more I cursed that bastard Murim Alliance Leader.
While I was lost in thought for a moment, Dokgo Rin suddenly let out an "Ah!" as if she'd just remembered something.
"By the way, Chilbok, we've been invited to the Murim Alliance Leader's sixtieth birthday banquet. Me and my second brother. Do you want to come with us?"
"Me?"
"Yeah. It's a pretty long trip, and I thought it'd be lonely without someone to talk to."
"…Do I really have to go?"
To be honest, I didn't want to leave this village. The saying "leaving home brings hardship" existed for a reason. But when I showed even the slightest reluctance, Dokgo Rin looked up at me with big, watery eyes.
"Do you… hate being with me?"
"No! No! Of course not! Young miss!"
Even someone as dense as me knew how ridiculous it would be to ditch the young lady I served when she was going on a trip.
"Hehe, so we're going together, right?"
They say if you cry and then laugh, you'll grow a horn on your butt, but watching how quickly Dokgo Rin switched attitudes left me feeling a bit empty.
So it was fake crying after all.
Thinking that girls really were cunning even at a young age, I half-resigned myself and asked carefully,
"So where is the Murim Alliance Leader's house?"
She smiled brightly and answered,
"Shaanxi!"
I wasn't exactly an expert on Chinese geography, but Shaanxi was where Hanzhong—the place where Liu Bei and Cao Cao fought in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms—and Chang'an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty, were located. Situated right in the middle of China's vast territory, it was practically a transportation hub. Traveling from Sichuan, where the Dokgo Clan resided, to Shaanxi on foot would easily take a full month.
So as someone with weak stamina, I naturally wanted to avoid a long-distance journey. But life never goes the way you want it to.
…Damn it.
Before I knew it, I had joined Dokgo Seok's traveling party heading for Shaanxi.
The second young master of the Dokgo Clan, Dokgo Seok, whose appearance alone made the term "playboy" come to mind. And the precious youngest daughter of the Dokgo Clan, Dokgo Rin, who would one day stand among the Ten Great Masters of the World. Essentially, all the key members of the Dokgo Clan except the eldest son—the next clan head—were participating in this birthday banquet.
"Seok, don't go picking pointless fights with people from other sects or clans."
"I will keep that in mind, Father."
Originally, the clan head Dokgo Jin should have attended the Murim Alliance Leader's birthday banquet himself. But his aging body didn't seem up to such a long journey, so he had no choice but to send his son and daughter in his stead.
After exchanging farewells with the family members who had come to see them off, Dokgo Seok noticed me standing awkwardly beside Dokgo Rin. He smiled brightly and extended his right hand.
"You're the servant boy I saw in Rin's room last time. So you're coming along on this trip too?"
"Yes. Please take good care of me, Second Young Master."
"I don't like stiff titles. So if you don't mind, you can call me Brother in private."
"How could someone as lowly as a mere servant dare to address you that way?"
"Haha, what a sharp kid. Do as you please then."
With that, Dokgo Seok unfolded his fan decorated with plum blossoms and mounted the horse that had been prepared in advance, fanning himself lightly.
Huh? We're riding horses?
I'd assumed we'd be walking the entire way, so I'd packed several pairs of spare straw sandals. I stood there with a dumbfounded expression. Regardless, the rest of the party began mounting their horses one by one. I looked at Dokgo Rin—my last remaining hope.
But she mounted her horse with practiced ease. Come to think of it, she was still the daughter of a martial clan. She would have learned basic riding skills along with general martial arts.
As I stood there not knowing what to do, looking back and forth between the others, Dokgo Rin—already seated in her saddle—readily extended her right hand.
"Let's go, Chilbok."
It felt like a lifeline being offered from the heavens in a moment of crisis. I quickly grabbed her hand and climbed up behind her.
"Ahem!"
The clan head cleared his throat at the sight, but when Dokgo Rin asked, "Are you saying Chilbok should run the whole way? Everyone else is riding," he fell silent as if nothing had happened.
"T-take care on your journey."
I could indirectly feel the father's heartfelt emotions as he watched his beloved daughter grow up, but since riding with Dokgo Rin was clearly the only viable option, I avoided the clan head's sharp gaze. After all, a little discomfort now was far better than long-term suffering.
Finally, the two siblings Dokgo Seok and Dokgo Rin passed through the main gate of the mansion and spoke to the family members who had come to see them off.
"We'll be back."
It was the beginning of a long, long journey.
Dokgo Rin felt a quiet happiness from the warmth of Chilbok's arms wrapped around her waist as she recalled their upcoming schedule.
It'll take roughly a month to reach Chang'an from here.
Until now, she'd only been able to train basic internal energy techniques and external arts in secret to avoid the eyes of the household servants. But once they were outside, she could train her original martial arts as much as she wanted.
The clan's secret technique, the Nine Palace Matchless Sword Art, was excellent, but her top priority was mastering poison arts. Having inherited a strong affinity for poison from her mother, who came from the Sichuan Tang Clan, Dokgo Rin possessed a powerful resistance to toxins. In her previous life, she had completely transformed her own body into a perfect poison vessel.
Of course, reaching her former level in just one month was out of the question. But creating enough poison to assassinate the Murim Alliance Leader was entirely possible.
And that was because she had one trump card up her sleeve.
Come to think of it, this was something Chilbok told me about.
A completely tasteless and odorless deadly poison that even the Sichuan Tang Clan—who claimed to know every poison in existence—couldn't identify. It was called uranium—or Heavenly Poison.
A lethal toxin made from a rare metal. No matter how strong a Transcendent expert might be, they wouldn't be able to escape death from it.
This birthday banquet will be your funeral, Wiji Cheon.