Best Left Untouched
She really was out of her depth. Ever since the shock of the Dongpayuk-and-Coke incident, she had been slowly growing used to this life in the mountains.
Of course, her purpose remained as clear as ever. That man's power. She needed to uncover its nature and its conditions, and in the end, make it her own. And to do that, she first had to understand how the man went about painting his pictures.
So for the past several days, she had stuck to Lee Hwabaek's side like a shadow, watching him work.
"...How do you do that?"
She asked the question of the man sitting in the courtyard, brush in hand.
"How do I do what?"
"Bringing paintings to life. What mind technique are you using? Or is it some incantation you recite? If not that, then is there some secret hidden in the brush—"
"There's nothing like that."
The man replied with complete indifference.
"You just draw. Draw it well, and it comes out well."
"...That's all there is to it?"
"Yep. That's the whole trick."
She furrowed her brow.
It made no sense. Every martial art in the world had its principles. There were mind techniques, form sequences, years upon years of training. A power that could send a dragon soaring into the heavens demanded, by rights, some staggering secret art worthy of it.
And yet this man did nothing but repeat the words you just draw.
Was he hiding something? That was possible, too. No one would simply hand over a secret art of such absolute power. In that case, all the more reason to stay by his side and observe.
That was what she told herself.
...That was the explanation she gave herself, anyway.
But something strange had happened over the past few days.
She had attached herself to him in order to pry out the principle behind the paintings. Yet her eyes lingered far longer on the man doing the painting than on the paintings themselves. More often than watching the movement of the hand gripping the brush, she found herself watching that absentminded profile, the way his face went blank when he lost himself in his work.
'...What am I even looking at?'
She flinched and pulled her gaze away, then forced her eyes back to the painting. That's right — what she should be looking at was that painting. The principle behind that power. This was no time for her attention to wander.
So the days passed, until one afternoon.
That day, too, the man painted while she sat beside him. Idle conversation drifted back and forth — talk of the weather, the vegetable garden, the village at the foot of the mountain.
And then, quite naturally, the topic turned to the martial world.
"...Well, I suppose you wouldn't know much about how things stand out there, living up in the mountains like this."
She said it with a casual air, easing into the subject.
The martial world — that was her territory. When it came to paintings, the man might have the upper hand, but when it came to the way the world turned, no one could rival the daughter of the Heavenly Demon. After days of being outclassed by this man at every turn, she was quietly eager to play the expert for once.
"This place called the martial world — on the surface, it's divided into Orthodox and Unorthodox factions, but at its heart sits the Demonic Cult. The strongest force in the martial world, with the Heavenly Demon at its apex. If you'll allow me to speak on the Demonic Cult—"
"Oh, the Demonic Cult."
The man cut in, still moving his brush, utterly unconcerned.
"Do they still keep that underground prison in the basement of the main hall? The one built back in the Third Cult Leader's time."
Her words stopped dead.
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"...How do you know about that?"
The woman froze, then narrowed her eyes.
Oops.
I bit my tongue inwardly.
It slipped out again. The underground prison beneath the Demonic Cult's main hall, built under the Third Cult Leader. Of course I knew it — I'd drawn it. I spent ten years drawing this world, and there wasn't a corner of the Demonic Cult I hadn't rendered. The underground prison was from much later, too — a background I'd painstakingly crafted for the scene where that girl gets imprisoned. An event that hadn't happened yet, mind you.
But that was not something I could say out loud.
Right now, this woman thought I had some kind of connection to the Demonic Cult. A cult spy, maybe, or an old cult loyalist. Better to brush it off vaguely than invite pointless suspicion and awkward questions.
"...Eh, I heard rumors."
"Rumors? The layout of the Demonic Cult's main hall basement — and that spreads as rumor?"
"The world's a big place. All kinds of stories get around."
She looked like she didn't believe a word of it. Fair enough — I wouldn't have believed me either.
The woman crossed her arms and glared at me.
"Then tell me. What exactly do you know about the Demonic Cult?"
It was a provocation. You, a mountain recluse who scribbles pictures all day, claim to know the Demonic Cult? Go on then, say something.
Normally I'd have let it slide. There was nothing to gain from pretending to know things. But I'll admit, being pushed around by this woman for days on end had started to grate a little. The trembling at every meal, the surveillance while she hovered glued to my side trying to extract the secret of my paintings.
Just once, I wanted to flatten that nose of hers.
"...Hm. Fine. Let me show you, then."
I spread out a fresh sheet of paper.
"Let's see. What the Demonic Cult actually looks like."
The woman snorted. Her face said go ahead, try.
I picked up the brush.
This one had to be done properly. Not some sloppy half-baked map — since I was showing off, I intended to show off thoroughly.
I started with the broad outline first. The treacherous mountains where the Demonic Cult had taken root — I swept my brush across their terrain. The jagged peaks, the valleys winding between them like threads. That labyrinthine mountain range where outsiders lost their way — I drew it as easily as if I were reading my own palm.
And at its heart, I set down the Demonic Cult's main hall.
Nine stories of pavilions. That majesty piercing the sky. From the demon-god statues along the eaves to the twelve satellite halls surrounding the main one — I knew where everything was. I'd spent ten years drawing the place.
The brush moved on its own.
The Cult Leader's chamber on the top floor. The Young Cult Leader's residence. The Council of Elders. The training grounds where martial arts were drilled. The underground prison that held the condemned. The secret chamber where hidden meetings convened. Even the escape tunnel the Cult Leader would flee through in an emergency.
One by one, every detail was etched onto the paper.
It was almost done.
Finally, I put real force into the tip of my brush.
Since I was showing her anyway, the image on paper alone wouldn't suffice. There was a more convincing way to show her.
The moment I lifted the brush—
The Demonic Cult on the paper slowly rose to its feet.
/ / / / /
The Demonic Cult rose up in the middle of the courtyard.
It was a miniature model, no bigger than a palm. Rugged peaks towered up, valleys wound between them like veins of thread, and at the center, the nine-story main hall displayed its full grandeur. Twelve halls stood guard around it, and tiny demon-god statues bared their fangs from every eave.
The Demonic Cult, entire, rendered in ink-black.
I began explaining, pointing at the model with my fingertip.
"Alright, here's the main hall. Nine stories. The very top floor is the Cult Leader's residence."
The woman said nothing. She simply stared at the model, eyes wide open.
"This one here — the third hall to the left of the main hall. That's the Council of Elders. Except that wasn't originally its spot. Up through the Second Cult Leader's time, this was the armory, but after a coup, it got converted into the Council of Elders' seat. They moved it somewhere clearly visible from the Cult Leader's residence, you see — easier to keep watch on the elders who'd staged the rebellion."
"......"
"And down here, underground — the prison I mentioned. The Third Cult Leader built it, and it's no ordinary jail. Seven levels going down. The graver the crime, the deeper you go, but no one ever goes to the very bottom. Because down there—"
I paused for a beat, then went on.
"—that's where the Cult Leaders across the generations have thrown the things they 'erased.' Things that should never exist in this world."
The woman's shoulders gave a small shudder.
I kept going. Once I'd started, it all came pouring out. Well, it was a world I'd drawn for ten years. Who knows how many notebooks I'd filled with worldbuilding notes. I'd written out entire backstories just for the sake of a handful of panels.
"You see this escape tunnel? It runs from behind the main hall out through the rear mountain. Only the Cult Leader knows it exists. It was made for fleeing in an emergency — though actually, the First Cult Leader had a different reason for building it. Every night, he'd slip out of the cult in secret and—"
"S-stop. Stop it."
The woman spoke for the first time.
Her voice was trembling.
"Stop."
I set down my brush and looked at her.
Her face had gone deathly pale.
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She could not believe what was before her eyes.
The Demonic Cult, risen in the middle of the courtyard. The place where she had been born and raised. That vast world she had lived in for twenty years, spread out before her no bigger than a palm.
But that wasn't the problem.
The problem was the things this man was reciting.
That the Council of Elders' hall had once been the armory — she knew that. She'd overheard it once as a child, after all.
It was what came after that turned strange.
That the underground prison had seven levels — she hadn't known. Even she, the Young Cult Leader, had known it only as a place where criminals were held; she had never once heard what lay beneath. Yet this man knew what was buried at the very bottom.
The escape tunnel — same story. How could this mountain hermit of a painter know a secret passage that only the Cult Leader was supposed to know—
'...It doesn't make sense.'
Her head was spinning.
She was the daughter of the Heavenly Demon. The Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult. She had prided herself on knowing the cult better than anyone — she had been born within it, raised within it, lived twenty years inside its walls.
And yet this man.
This man who had been shut away in the mountains, doing nothing but playing with a brush, knew the Demonic Cult better than she did.
Things she could have lived her whole life and never learned. Secrets even her father had never shared with her. He recited them, one after another, as casually as if he were peering into his own open palm.
How?
How on earth did he know?
He said he'd only ever wielded a brush in these mountains. He said he'd heard rumors. What rumor in this world could carry word of the Demonic Cult's seven underground levels — of the First Cult Leader's secrets?
Something cold crawled up her spine.
It was a different kind of fear from that day the dragon had risen into the sky. Back then, what terrified her was this man's power. But now, more than that, it was this man's knowing that terrified her.
He conjured food that didn't exist in this world. He deflected martial arts with an umbrella. He knew the Demonic Cult — a place he'd never set foot in — as thoroughly as his own home.
This was no human being...
'...And no immortal, either.'
She swallowed dryly.
No immortal could know the world down to such trivial, tedious detail. Immortals stood aloof from worldly affairs — they were not beings who went around memorizing how many levels the Demonic Cult's prison had.
Which left only one answer.
'...A goblin.'
She had reached that same conclusion once before — sipping that Coke, watching that sly, crooked grin. Back then, it had been half a joke.
But now, she was certain.
This was a goblin, without a doubt. And no ordinary goblin at that — a terrifying goblin that saw through all things in creation.
A being shut away alone in the mountains, toying with the world in the palm of its hand through arts beyond the reach of human reason.
Without realizing it, she took half a step back.
The power she had been circling him for, so desperate to claim it as her own, suddenly felt impossibly distant. How could anyone hope to take such a being into their grasp?
To begin with, the very idea of possessing something like that—
"What's wrong?"
The goblin tilted his head and asked.
With a face so easygoing, it was hard to believe this was the man who had just laid bare every secret of the Demonic Cult.
"Did I get something wrong?"
"...No."
She managed to answer.
He hadn't gotten anything wrong. The problem was that he'd gotten everything right — more accurately, more thoroughly, and in more intimate detail than she herself, the Young Cult Leader.
She looked at the ink-black model of the Demonic Cult, then at the goblin beside it, yawning without a care in the world.
And quietly, within her heart, she reached her conclusion.
'...Yeah. Definitely a being best left untouched.'