What Is a Hero? -1
The banquet hall, left in a shambles by a thoroughly drunk Hyeok Gi-rin's rampage, had been cleaned up neatly. Sama Yeom sat alone at his place, pouring himself a drink with an air of quiet dignity.
In that brief span of time, the flush that had colored his face had vanished without a trace. Had the smell of liquor not still clung to him, no one would have believed he had been drinking heavily only moments before — his bearing was that composed.
So this is the dignity of the Prefect of Sichuan.
I took the seat across from him, and Sama Yeom poured me a cup.
"It's ordinary wine, chilled cold. Think of it as a palate cleanser, if you like."
We each drained a cup. As the ice-cold liquid slid down my throat, a chill swept through my whole body, and my mind snapped into sharp focus.
"How long have you been stationed in Sichuan?"
"A little over seven years now."
"Forgive the presumption, but I had someone look into your background. Whoever handled it did an excellent job burying the trail — all I could dig up were the incident at the main gate of the Hwanggeumga and what happened yesterday."
Sama Yeom let out a hearty laugh, as if my record genuinely amused him.
"Your path has been peculiar and startling, but in the end I found myself thinking — here is a man who lives like a true hero."
"...I wouldn't call any of it heroic. I simply moved according to my own interests."
"Hahahaha. Indeed, so it seems."
The more I spoke with Sama Yeom, the more I felt as though I were being reeled in, and it did nothing for my mood. It was like being Sun Wukong, dancing in the palm of the Buddha. More than that, the information he had passed along still left my head in chaos.
But the thought that had struck me the moment I heard it was not denial — it was acceptance.
The massacre at the Yeo Family Mountain Villa had taken place during a period of fierce conflict among Sichuan's martial factions. Sichuan itself was the perfect stage for ambitious men willing to dirty their hands if it meant climbing higher.
Even if the culprits behind the bloodbath had been two or three rather than Hwanggeum-seon alone, there was nothing strange about it.
Gae Myeong-bu was the sort who had hired wandering warriors to smash the Tangsu Sect and had even set his sights on the Jajang Sect — a man of exactly the character to take part in the Yeoga Manor massacre. Back then he had been a nameless nobody. How else could he have afforded such well-connected mercenaries and the cost of hiring them? The money looted from the Yeo Family Mountain Villa explained everything.
As for Yu Ji-gyeong, the master of Seongrak Pavilion — he had always been a creature of the shadows, so of course he would have expanded his power by any means necessary. And Hwanggeum-seon needed no further comment.
In the end, the men who had orchestrated the massacre at the Yeo Family Mountain Villa had seized upon the chaos, committed every manner of evil across Sichuan, and thrived.
"What do you believe chivalry is?"
"I don't know."
My thoughts were already tangled enough, and the sense of being led by the nose only made me less inclined to give a serious answer, so I brushed it off.
"When one serves in an official post, one collides with the Murim more often than you might expect. And every time, they are fond of invoking the word chivalry."
"It is not something a magistrate ought to say aloud, but since we are in private, I will speak freely. There are more than a few occasions when that so-called chivalry leaves me feeling thoroughly refreshed."
His words caught me off guard.
"The law cannot contain the whole of human duty. There is no perfect being in this world, so the Empire had to make a choice — whether to restrain the great, or the small. That choice was for the great. A small framework is easily raised; a great one can only be built with difficulty."
"If a man is being beaten in the marketplace, stepping in to save him is chivalry. But is that justice? The man being beaten may well have done something that earned him those blows. Yet the human heart, seeing someone under a thrashing, cannot help but feel — shouldn't someone save him? — and when that man is rescued, the crowd applauds."
Sama Yeom set down his cup and looked at me.
"That is what chivalry is. It has no absolute standard. Strip away the surface and more often than not it is nothing more than the expression of impulse — and far from settling matters, it tends to start them. And yet people go wild for it. Do you know why?"
"...I don't know."
"Because it is refreshing. Just like this cold wine."
Sama Yeom drained his cup in a single swallow.
"It soothes the smoldering rage inside a person so cleanly that people throng to the existence of the hero. How joyful must it be, to watch the villain who beat you and stole your money receive his punishment right before your eyes?"
Is that why he calls me a hero — because my actions have been so bracingly direct?
"At breakfast, after hearing what I had to say, you looked thoroughly shaken."
"...I suppose I did."
"And at the banquet, you said nothing of note. The Jade Dragon Hero's account of the Nine Great Sects was the sort of tale that ought to have made anyone's blood boil, was it not?"
What is he getting at? I looked at Sama Yeom. He smiled faintly back at me.
"Why do you not grow angry?"
The words struck home.
"I am curious. A man once so full of heroic spirit — why does he only bury that rage inside himself?"
I... did that?
I looked down at the hand holding my cup. My face was reflected in the ice-cold wine, twisted into an expression of ineffable displeasure.
Why am I making a face like this?
...The truth was, I already knew.
Before I had reached the First-rate realm, I had been freer — reckless, even. I had held nothing in my hands. But once I climbed to First-rate, everything changed. The conditions were difficult, but I now had a sure method of reaching the Peak Realm.
I wanted to surpass Peak and become Super-Peak, and then keep climbing higher still. Becoming a master who commanded the world — that was the entire point of playing Murim Cheonha.
After escaping the underwater cave, assessing the situation, traveling with Hyeok Gi-rin, and clashing with Gae Myeong-bu alongside the Sichuan vagabonds — up to that point, I had never truly collected myself. I had simply been swept along by events.
I had done this and that, but fine — let me be honest. All I had really wanted was an environment where I could train my martial arts in peace, without having to worry about anything else.
So I had accepted Hyeok Gi-rin's commission, hoping she would handle things.
I had followed Yu Sa-yeon's plan without adding a single refinement of my own.
Someone else will take care of it. That was all I had thought.
After the clash with Gae Myeong-bu, when I learned that Hwanggeum-seon, Gae Myeong-bu, and Yu Ji-gyeong had been running Sichuan as they pleased, I had felt a crushing sense of futility and disgust — and I had swallowed it. Why? Because the enemy was too vast. Because it would interfere with my training. Because if I died fighting people like that, I would end as nothing more than Ho Cheon-an, a First-rate warrior who never even reached Peak.
When Hyeok Gi-rin had denounced the immorality of the Nine Great Sects, I had held my tongue. I had already felt the weight of that vastness and had no desire to step forward.
When Yeo Il-ye had shed tears, I had said nothing. Rather than act myself, I had only been calculating how to use her to break through the present situation.
"All manner of rage accumulates in the human heart. That is only natural. One can endure it, or one can let it out."
I drank the ice-cold wine.
Is this the life I wanted in Murim Cheonha? Looking the other way because it is someone else's problem, pursuing only my own training — is that the martial artist I pictured in my head when I read those wuxia novels?
Even as the cold wine went down my throat, nothing inside me felt refreshed. Sama Yeom said nothing, only refilled my cup.
The hope offered by a method that could raise my realm, and the desire to become more than a Peak master — those things had made me cowardly and foolish.
But what's so wrong with that? People are supposed to look after their own affairs. If I go poking my nose into every little thing, when am I supposed to protect my own life, train, and raise my realm?
Yu Sa-yeon has had it rough, sure, but the seeds she's sown all this time might still bear fruit. The Sichuan vagabonds will be fine. They can just go back to their hometowns and live as underpaid wandering warriors. Though honestly — Jeong Sam and Yeo Jinsang, earning that kind of money with their skills? Those two should be out in the countryside working for copper coins.
I drained the cup again.
And the people and sects of Sichuan? Same thing. There isn't another place under heaven without bandits except this one province. They've enjoyed that long enough — they ought to be grateful.
Hyeok Gi-rin is due for a life lesson, too. Being cute and pure doesn't mean life is over. She needs to understand that the Nine Great Sects are sects, not a league of heroes, if she's going to survive this turbulent jianghu. And Yeo Il-ye...
Fuck.
I drained the cup again.
"Fuck it."
I threw the cup aside, snatched up the jug, and put its spout to my mouth. With every bob of my throat, ice-cold wine poured down.
"That's enough."
When had she finished circulating her energy? Heukmyo took the jug from my hands.
"...Senior. I've spent my whole life as a bystander. No matter where, no matter what happened, I just watched everything quietly from the dark, memorized it, and stayed out of it."
Right. That's the life of an information broker. An observer who never interferes.
"I've lived that way... but lately, every time I look at Hyeok Gi-rin, my heart gets restless. Maybe it's because I've never met anyone as adorable as a cat before. I've started... wanting to help her a little."
Heukmyo lowered her head.
"Because I'd lived my whole life as a spectator, even when I learned about Yeo Il-ye's enemies on Hyeongwi Mountain, I never told you. I thought if you found out, you might go charging off. The way you learned my circumstances and forgave me and took me in — I was afraid that if you learned someone else's, you'd throw yourself into danger all over again."
"I thought that, and said nothing... and now I'm sorry for turning around and saying I want to help Hyeok Gi-rin."
"Yeah."
Sichuan was as good as Ho Cheon-an's hometown. From the entry of the Second-rate realm, I had taken commissions, raised my stats, trained my martial arts, and climbed to the very edge of Second-rate. Listening to the vagabonds nag me to train and Yu Sa-yeon scold me, I had gone to the gambling dens and run into Yeo Il-ye. I had unlocked enlightenment, Heukmyo had appeared, I had gotten tangled up with Tang Do-gyeong, formed ties with the Tang Family, met the old poison master...
And arrived here.
"Let's do it."
No — none of that mattered. I was sick of watching human garbage thrive. Yu Sa-yeon had suffered for years; her enemies needed to pay. Those vagabond bastards — maybe I'd grown a soft spot for them, because seeing them collapsed and bleeding had pissed me off. What had Hyeok Gi-rin ever done wrong, that a good kid like her had to drink herself senseless out of heartbreak? The people of Sichuan looked so listless it barely felt like Sichuan anymore. And Sichuan without bandits was the only Sichuan worth the name.
I was just frustrated. I was just angry.
Yes. Sama Yeom had been right.
I was a terminal case of catharsis addiction.
I just wanted that sweet, clean payoff.
This body of Ho Cheon-an — even when I played characters with no arms, no legs, a ticking bomb in the brain, or severed meridians — I had never bent my will, and I had always reached the end.
So I would do it my way. Sweep everything clean in one satisfying stroke, reclaim the wood-attribute elixir, and raise my realm while training in peace.
I looked at Sama Yeom.
"You've egged me on this far. I trust you won't pretend you know nothing now."
"I had already been thinking that the power of the law alone was a little insufficient."
Sama Yeom smiled and clasped his fists in a martial salute.
"At last, the chivalry is complete."