One Night's Sleep and I Saved Her
"The Magyo of this era has been defeated."
Cheonma spoke at the gathering of the orphans we'd been rounded up into.
"Until just a few years ago, This Seat proclaimed myself as such, but after my defeat in the life-and-death duel, I crawled back to Magyo in disgrace."
The black long-haired man, who appeared to be in his mid-thirties, stripped off his martial robe right in front of us kids, me included.
"Behold these scars. The marks of Sword Saint Geomseong etched into my flesh."
It was horrific. More gruesome than the corpses of my family, slaughtered by mountain bandits.
The cross-shaped wound across his chest looked deeper than the width of my fingers. It had been crudely stitched with a needle, and if those black threads came loose, the gash would surely split wide open.
"Sword SaintMoyong Cheon. This Seat fell to him."
Sword Saint Moyong Cheon. A name I knew.
"He is the greatest under heaven, and I am merely the second."
The Cheonma of Magyo had lost to the supreme master of the righteous factions.
"This is the defeat of Magyo. With no one in Magyo who can surpass This Seat, it is the defeat of Magyo itself."
Could the failure of one man spell defeat for an entire group? I didn't really understand concepts like Cheonma or Murim Alliance Leader, so I just stared up blankly at the men standing behind him.
"Even my Guardian Beasts fell to their worthy foes. The elites of Magyo lost to the sect leaders of the Nine Great Sects and the patriarchs of the Five Great Families."
So that's how it was. We'd lost.
But why was he telling this to us 'orphans,' locked away in a cave?
"I see the curiosity in your eyes. Why we brought you here. Why we gathered orphans from every corner of the Central Plains."
Unlike the rumors, Cheonma seemed almost kindly.
"Fear not."
He had no choice but to be kind.
"You are the future of Magyo, its hope—and the latent poison that will drag the righteous factions to ruin."
In Cheonma's gaze upon us, I glimpsed a flicker of 'hope.'
"We will implant Godok into your bodies. Using Seophonsul, we will hypnotize you. You will be unable to defy orders."
There was a hint of madness in it somewhere.
"If the Magyo of today cannot win, then the Magyo of tomorrow shall."
Not just Cheonma—the Guardian Beasts felt the same.
"The rising stars of the next generation. Fine words, aren't they? The hidden dragons of the righteous factions who will lead their golden age. Those who will one day become soaring phoenixes, basking in the acclaim of the masses."
Cheonma extended his hand to the side.
"Kill them."
He raised his hand like a blade, exuding a murky, viscous energy as he mimed slicing a throat.
"Masters and disciples. Childhood friends. Distant branch family kin. Children of old comrades. Offspring of enemies. It matters not how you make contact. You have two missions."
Cheonma had gathered us orphans for a clear purpose.
"First: Infiltrate their factions. Fabricate pasts to avoid suspicion, hide among them, and report back to Magyo regularly."
One. He planned to use us as spies.
"Second: This is your primary duty. The most classic example... yes."
Of all people, Cheonma pointed at me.
"How old are you this year?"
"T-Ten."
"Ho."
I answered because he asked. But the Guardians' eyes widened in shock, and Cheonma grinned, flashing his white teeth in amusement.
"Infiltrate Moyong Sega. By any means necessary, kill Moyong Cheon's poisoned daughter, Moyong Seol."
Cheonma hurled a dagger at me.
"Your Guardian mentors will explain the details."
With that, Cheonma left the cave.
"...What're we gonna do with him?"
"Hardly any martial talent among these kids. If it weren't for orders, not even a last disciple... tch."
"Heh heh heh. Actually, that's for the best. If we taught them half-baked demonic arts, those sharp ones would sniff it out."
As the saying goes, ten people, ten colors. The Guardians, each with their varied demeanors, stepped aside one by one, ignoring me.
"Our lives depend on your missions. Heh heh."
Each Guardian seemed to have their assigned kids.
"Poison Demon. What about the kid for Sacheon Dangga? Gonna infiltrate as a poison arts expert?"
"Hmm... maybe through cooking."
"Poison in the food?"
"No. Make 'em sick with food. Ruin their bodies for life by force-feeding them flour."
"Ha, that's your big idea...?"
"Better than that seductress planning to rape them once they're grown."
Were they demons, after all? Or had their brute-force methods failed, forcing them to agonize over novel approaches?
"I'll take these kids."
"Fine. I'll handle these. More girls, the better."
"...Follow me."
All ten Guardians departed with their selected children. About a hundred young orphans had been brought here, but I was the only one left in the cave.
"......"
I gripped the fallen dagger. It held no warmth whatsoever.
Was this a death sentence? Or had even this demonic cult cast me aside, stirring some impulse in me?
"Planning to die?"
A woman crouched before me and seized the dagger in my hand.
"Or just kill anyone with it?"
Her face was deathly pale, almost sickly. Beautiful—but the ghostly aura emanating from her made it feel like a corpse was speaking.
"If so, why not entrust that life to this Demon Physician?"
Maui Baekmyeon. I became her disciple and received the order to kill the forbidden treasure of the world's greatest warrior.
Three years passed. I turned thirteen, and the Guardians gathered periodically to raise their disciples while agonizing over "how to kill the next generation."
"Disciple. What ways are there to kill the righteous factions' rising stars?"
Maui was embalming one of the dead disciples—meticulously wiping the corpse with cloth—as she asked me.
"Become a master and crush them with martial prowess."
"Correct. That's why disciples like you and the other orphans keep dying."
The orphans captured with me had been killed. Beaten to death by another orphan's hand.
"Raise strong disciples to break their techniques. Only thick-headed martial artists stuffed full of inner energy would think that way."
To become the disciple of Document Demon.
The other Guardians' disciples met the same fate.
"Lust Demon Yoyeop plans to rape them once they're adults. Ah, maybe too early for my young disciple?"
"......"
"Heh heh heh. But that's a method of killing too. Poison them with lust, or trap them with mechanisms and formations. Or like this..."
My master, the Demon Physician, drew a long needle.
Pok.
"Kill with medicine."
She jabbed the corpse repeatedly with the long needle, imparting her lesson.
"Memorize the vital points. You must become a physician."
"Pretend to be a doctor and kill with needles? If I fail, master, you'll die."
"Disciple. Humans die anyway."
My master sometimes seemed utterly detached from life.
"Death comes early to some, suddenly to others, or can be delayed. That's how it is."
"......"
"Have hope. No matter what the other Guardians say, you will survive."
"Why?"
"Your master reads faces. You've got the look of one who overcomes feminine hardships."
A joke, probably.
Seventeen years old.
"They say Moyong Cheon's daughter has Gu-eum Jeolmok."
For me, it was hope. For others, a bolt from the blue—a crushing despair.
"His only daughter is on borrowed time."
Gu-eum Jeolmok.
"No cure in sight, so they even sent to Magyo seeking help. Looking for the Demon Physician."
A disease twisting the meridians due to excessive Yin energy, blocking qi circulation until death.
"The Demon Physician said she doesn't know how to cure Gu-eum Jeolmok either. Congratulations. You completed your mission without lifting a finger."
Cheonma mocked me.
Jeolmok Jeong often afflicted children of martial artists, and its terminal stage, Gu-eum Jeolmok, meant no hope.
"But we can't just let her die like that."
Seated on his jade throne, withered and frail with age, Cheonma's eyes burned with madness.
"This is an order. Before Gu-eum Jeolmok claims her, you kill that bastard's daughter."
Cheonma commanded.
With Godok embedded in my heart, it was an absolute command.
"Yes."
Unless I extracted the Godok from my heart.
"Let's go, disciple."
As the Demon Physician's disciple and assistant physician, I headed to the Murim Alliance.
There, I met a white-haired girl.
She was beautiful. Honestly, love at first sight.
Like a flower at its peak before wilting, she shone despite her sickly pallor.
"Alliance Leader. Even going to the Demon Physician..."
"Listen, Sword Saint. Lady Moyong Seol is the hope of the righteous factions."
The righteous had their own troubles, it seemed.
"Demon Physician and disciple, hear me. You are not from Magyo—you hail from Kunlunpa yonder. You'll be presented as winners of the medical arts contest who found some answers to Moyong Sega's Jeolmok Jeong."
"Kunlunpa is acceptable?"
"The Kunlunpa sect leader is I, the Alliance Leader. Who among my disciples would defy my will?"
I didn't know the details, but Maui and I disguised ourselves and infiltrated the righteous factions. Only the Murim Alliance Leader and Sword Saint knew.
"Are you a disciple of the Thousand Cloth Immortal Fairy?"
"Yes, miss."
"Don't call me miss. Just... call me Seol."
And so, I approached my assassination target as the promising disciple of a skilled physician.
"No progress on the treatment, right?"
"Yes, Lady Moyong."
Studying medicine let me see it.
"I see. So I'll die soon after coming of age. Might barely make adulthood."
Treatment is useless when patients give up on themselves.
"I have a favor. Lots I want to do before dying—will you help?"
The girl wished to experience as much as possible before death.
"If death is fate, I want to squeeze in more before it comes."
I felt the same. Anything but killing Moyong Seol in the cruelest way to shatter the Sword Saint's heart—either way, Cheonma would kill me.
"Understood. What can I help with?"
"Everything that comes to mind!"
The night before Moyong Seol came of age.
"...Lady Moyong?"
"Shh."
Near midnight, Moyong Seol slipped into my room wearing only thin sleeping robes.
"Tomorrow, I die. Or tonight."
"......After midnight, it's your birthday, miss."
"Exactly. For my birthday gift, I want to try something I've never done."
Moyong Seol pushed me—half-risen from bed—back down.
"Will you help?"
"......."
Doing it means death.
But if we're dying anyway.
If it's the dying wish of someone with a death sentence.
"Not just Gu-eum Jeolmok—you might die from the shock."
"Pfft, would that be a happy death?"
And so, I spent the last night of my life with a terminally ill woman.
Yes.
The forbidden treasure of the world's greatest.
On the eve of the terminally ill woman's coming of age, I spent the night with her.
Awaiting her final moments, her deathbed.
... ...
......
"Huh?"
The meridians... opened.
"How...?"
I saved her.
.........
I'm fucked.