The Lady of a Prestigious Clan Conceals Her Heritage (3)
Following the elderly man's lead, I stepped into the estate's grandest building. He walked down the corridor with practiced ease before coming to a halt before a set of ornate doors.
"The Family Head wishes to prepare a dining table. Please wait inside for a moment."
Following his instructions, I pushed the door open and walked in. The room bore clear signs of having been lived in for quite some time.
"Is this your room?"
｢How'd you figure that out?｣
Well, it was pretty obvious. That old man had been acting fairly warm toward Jeonghye the entire time. Besides, this was Jeonghye's ancestral home; there was no reason to put her anywhere else. Stepping fully inside, I plopped down onto the bed.
"Can you tell me what happened?" I asked point-blank. While it was true I still kept plenty of secrets from her, the circumstances were simply too strange. "I might not be the sharpest guy around, but even I can tell something's off here. It's been weird since the moment we arrived."
Silence hung heavy in the room. Even as the seconds ticked by, Jeonghye refused to open her mouth.
"...If it's too hard to talk about, I won't pry," I offered gently. If she didn't want to speak, I wasn't going to drag it out of her by force.
｢...It's nothing special. Just—｣
"Young Lady, the meal is prepared."
Just as Jeonghye was about to speak, the old attendant stepped through the doorway to announce that everything was set.
"Right. Thank you."
Giving him a brief nod, I stepped outside into the hallway.
'If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to.'
｢......｣
Jeonghye remained utterly silent the entire way down the hall.
I followed the old man down the corridor until the savory aroma of freshly cooked dishes began wafting through the air.
"They are waiting inside. Please enter," he said, bowing low at the waist.
Pushing the door open, I was greeted by a table laden with an extravagant spread of food. Four chairs were set around it, suggesting a private dining hall designed for intimate conversation. Sitting on the far side across from the entrance were a middle-aged man and Jung Ah-yeon.
'Is that the Family Head?'
｢...Yeah.｣
When I asked if that man was her father, Jeonghye answered in a flat tone. Since I knew next to nothing about her family background, I was going to need her help just to hold a decent conversation. Taking note of how I stood there frozen instead of taking a seat, the patriarch furrowed his brow.
"Sit."
His tone was unmistakably commanding, carrying an edge that made me instinctively want to refuse. But reading the room, I figured I had no real choice, so I quietly took my place in the chair. The moment I sat down, he spoke.
"I will not ask how you have spent your days. I am already well aware."
His eyes bored into me, barely bothering to conceal his deep-seated contempt.
"So. Are you satisfied?"
"...Pardon?" I muttered, caught off guard by the abrupt question.
"I asked if running away from your clan to enroll in an academy satisfied you."
Hearing his cutting words, Jeonghye muttered faintly from within my mind.
｢...So he knew.｣
Regardless of our reaction, the Master of the Changgeom Gate pressed on relentlessly.
"Even with the full backing of our clan, you failed to break out of your shell. Did you truly believe going to an academy would make something of you? When you finally quieted down, I assumed you had accepted your fate at last. Bearing the esteemed name of Jung, I thought you would quietly accept an arranged marriage to serve the sect. Yet what? The greatest plan you could muster was fleeing to an academy?"
I had walked into a dining hall, but there was zero intention of sharing a meal here. It was obvious they had brought me in purely to serve as an emotional punching bag. And through all this venom, Jeonghye stayed completely silent. It felt jarring. This wasn't her usual abrasive self at all.
Beside the patriarch, Jung Ah-yeon chimed in with a sneer.
"Well, seeing her crawl back like this, perhaps she has finally learned her place, Father. Truly, aren't academies merely places where third-rate failures gather? By the looks of it, she has been dragged through the mud quite thoroughly out there... Surely it is high time she realized how the real world works, wouldn't you agree?"
This wasn't a dinner table. It was closer to a guillotine.
I had no idea what kind of history plagued this dysfunctional family, and for all I knew, Jeonghye might have caused plenty of trouble in the past. But what annoyed me most was the fact that she was staying dead silent through all of it. Why the hell was I sitting here listening to these people insult me?
Fed up, I slammed my hands down and shoved my chair back as I stood up.
BAM!
The sudden crash startled Jung Ah-yeon, but the Family Head didn't flinch in the slightest.
"Honestly, I don't even know what to say to this. Treating your own flesh and blood like that makes zero sense to me."
The patriarch merely stared back at me with cold, lifeless eyes. Honestly, I didn't care about that old man; I didn't even know who he was. Pointing my finger straight at Jung Ah-yeon, who was hastily schooling her startled expression behind a smug facade, I narrowed my eyes.
"Oh, and you."
"...Me?"
"Look, I don't know how hot shit you think you are. You must be fairly strong to be considered the heir of the Changgeom Gate, but..."
"...Ha. What, are you finally dropping your pride and pretending to be nonchalant? If that is the case—"
"Three months," I interrupted, cutting clean through her condescending smirk.
"What?"
"Took me six days to beat down that fat bastard named Henry. Pretty amusing experience, honestly."
"...What meaningless drivel are you babbling—"
"Straightening out an insolent little sister ought to take me about three months."
Catching the meaning behind my words, Jung Ah-yeon flushed bright red.
"Ha! Maybe when you were ten years old, but you honestly think you can beat me now?!"
"Yeah."
"Has your mind regressed back to childhood as well? Here I thought you might have gained some sense, yet you are still wallowing in the past!"
"The past doesn't matter much to me. I don't even know how it went anyway."
The composure Jung Ah-yeon had tried so hard to maintain shattered entirely, her face twisting into a furious scowl. Good. My objective was met—I just wanted to see that smug look wiped clean off her face.
"Personally speaking, I don't even think you're that great of a genius," I tossed out coolly. "At best... you're maybe Bella's level?"
"Excuse me...?!"
Leaving a fuming, red-faced Jung Ah-yeon behind, I turned on my heel and walked out of the room. Man, that felt good.
The moment I stepped out into the corridor, Jeonghye's voice rang in my head.
｢...What the hell were you thinking, pulling a stunt like that?!｣
"Did that really warrant being called a 'stunt'? Was it that big of a deal?"
｢...You clearly have no clue how much influence those two wield! If they make up their minds to suppress us—｣
"Then all we have to do is get strong enough that their influence doesn't mean shit."
｢...?!｣
Our fate was to take down the Cheongcheon Cult anyway. While the Changgeom Gate was undoubtedly a formidable sect, they were nowhere near the scale of the cult.
"If I were going to get held back by small fries like them, I wouldn't have bothered starting in the first place."
Which meant I had earned the right to live a little freely. Consider it a hero's privilege. I wasn't entirely sure how she interpreted my words, but Jeonghye's mental voice sounded noticeably lighter than before.
｢...Right. If we grow strong enough, we'll be free.｣
Taking a deep breath, Jeonghye spoke up with renewed vigor.
｢Head to the training hall.｣
"Not heading straight back to the Academy?"
｢I wanted to wrap things up quickly because I couldn't stand looking at their faces, but since things ended up like this, we're draining them dry of every resource we can take.｣
"Now that's more like it. Having you mope around with your mouth glued shut was getting on my nerves."
｢Shut up.｣
Shaking off the stifling gloom from earlier, Jeonghye and I made our way toward the training grounds.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor of the training chamber, I reviewed the principles of the Po Chang Kwon.
"I haven't grasped it completely, but I think I understand the gist."
｢It's not an overly complicated martial art to learn. The prerequisites are just batshit insane.｣
Looking through the manual gave me a rough idea of what kind of person that big-eared madman had been. At its core, every single attack in Po Chang Kwon was focused entirely on total destruction. What made it unique was that it didn't define what it was meant to destroy; it simply carried the unyielding will to obliterate whatever dared stand in the practitioner's way.
After turning the core principles over in my mind, I rose to my feet. It seemed best to test it out with my own hands.
"Guess I should give it a shot."
｢You think you can pull it off right away?｣
"A wise mentor once told me that real combat is the best teacher."
Tossing her own favorite phrase back at her, I closed my eyes.
The circulation pathways I hadn't known moments ago—now freshly illuminated in my mind—began guiding my body. Instead of the usual colorless aura flowing through my meridians, a deep purple radiance seeped from my flesh. Clenching my open hand into a tight, solid fist, I channeled that raging energy directly into the blow and thrust forward, imbuing it with the single-minded concept of shattering everything.
Spear-Breaking Fist — First Strike
BOOOOM—!
The moment the punch tore forward, a violet fissure etched itself into empty air as though space itself had cracked wide open.
KABOOOOM!
A heartbeat later, the fissure collapsed, violently sucking in the surrounding atmosphere to fill the void.
"It really lives up to its name."
Just as the Spear-Breaking Fist implied, the sheer concussive shockwave packed enough raw force to rupture the very fabric of space.
｢Hey, you see that massive stone slab over there? That's solid adamantine. Try hitting it with everything you've got.｣
Witnessing the technique's sheer destructive force, Jeonghye eagerly suggested a test.
"Won't they complain if I break it?"
｢Those bastards care too much about saving face. You think they'd stoop so low as to bill you for a training stone?｣
"Fair enough."
Chuckling at her reasoning, I channeled the full intent of Po Chang Kwon and drove a straight punch directly toward the slab of adamantine.
Jung Ah-yeon, the esteemed heir of the Changgeom Gate, was currently marching toward the training hall. Having a rare meal with her father completely ruined had left her thoroughly enraged. The moment dinner ended, she had stormed out into the corridor, aggressively questioning the servants on where 'that woman' had gone.
The servants had answered that she went straight to the training grounds.
Hearing that, Ah-yeon had scoffed in mockery.
'Ha! Does she honestly believe training now will change anything?'
Sneering at the thought, she threw open the doors to the training hall. Yet the vast chamber was completely empty. Had she already quit and fled?
"Just as I thought. A rotten failure who lacks even an ounce of grit—"
Midway through mocking her sister, Jung Ah-yeon froze dead in her tracks, words dying in her throat.
Standing in the center of the room, her eyes widened in utter disbelief.
"What... on earth is this...?"
Resting before her was the adamantine slab, thoroughly pulverized into a tragic pile of worthless gravel.