The Demon Realm (1)
At the northern border, where a colossal rift hung in the air.
"Ha... my wife..."
On the watchtower stood Moo Jeongwoon, head of Hyunmu Hall.
He'd come here because he couldn't sleep after being rejected by his wife—when he tried to go to her, she turned him away, and when he retreated to his own quarters, his heart still wouldn't settle. No matter how you looked at it, it wasn't easy to sleep when you were the man who'd allowed another man to touch his wife's body.
"...If I'd refused the position of hall head..."
If he had, then Muharin, the vice-head, would have become the hall head. And within the bloodline, she would have married a man she favored.
"Yeah. It was inevitable."
That man wasn't likely to have been Moo Jeongwoon himself. He was far younger than her—he probably looked like a boy in the eyes of a woman so much his senior.
"Haaah..."
The night deepened with each restless breath, and before long the sun rose above his head.
"Mother... was I right to make that choice?"
There's a saying that divine beasts turn away once they've completed their duty. Moo Jeongwoon sighed, remembering the previous hall head—the woman who was no longer in this world.
—CRACK!
A sound of something breaking reached his ears. At first he thought it was a problem with the watchtower itself, but he quickly realized it wasn't.
"Is it time to repair this tower too..."
—SHATTER!
"No way...!"
The disturbance was felt before long. Right ahead, through the rift, the energy from beyond the gate seeped in with a faint, creeping menace.
It happened occasionally, but there was no way to stay calm about it.
"Damn it... Gate Breach! Sound the alarm!"
—WAAAAAAAH!!!!
When the sentries took action, the alarm echoed through all of Hyunmu Hall. Everyone inside would seal every gate that could be breached from outside the outer walls, and the defense squads would wait for the head and himself to handle the problem.
...My wife would come here soon too.
I didn't know what expression to wear when I saw her. She'd definitely been raging at the man I'd seen yesterday—the one who called my daughter his servant—cursing him as a lowlife while he defiled her.
Moo Jeongwoon's heart wouldn't settle.
Until the woman who had flown through the sky from far away, clutching the last scraps of clothing she'd caught, stood before him.
"I'm here."
"...You came quickly."
Muharin approached, carrying the deep scent of night-blooming flowers. All I could do was ask her how she was, plainly.
Their reunion was the worst possible outcome.
***
"Hey, Hwanhyeon. So what's the plan?"
"...I don't know."
"You're serious...! You're going to do this without any strategy?"
As we ran toward the widening rift, Yu-ryeon kept muttering at me.
"Don't yap. An S-rank Gate Breach is dangerous, sure, but we should be able to protect Hwanhyeon."
Yeryung noona spoke to Jinyul in her usual measured tone. It stung to realize I was still just someone being protected, dragging everyone toward danger.
"I'm sorry, everyone. I was the one being so stubborn."
"It's fine. If Master's stubborn unilateral decision couldn't be stopped, well, he said it was because of the ability he inherited from his father."
"...Thanks."
They all believed in me and followed. This was built not on the Command skill but on bonds and trust.
The gate to the northern border was already firmly shut. The soldier guarding it spoke sharply.
"Stop! No one passes through the north gate while the alarm is raised!"
"Please open it. I need to reach the hall head."
"Ah, Miss? Even if you go now..."
"Goddammit, open the damn door! The vice-head of Hyunmu Hall is trying to pass—what gives you the right to stop her?"
"...I'll open it for you."
Thanks to the combined efforts of Jinyul and Yu-ryeon, we made it safely outside the outer walls. The rift in the sky, stretching from the sacred sandalwood tree in the south, was nearly upon us.
—THUD!
"Master, wait. We can't go any further."
"Hm? Why, Jinyul?"
Jinyul stopped us when there was almost nothing left. Something we couldn't sense must have been there.
"Just, just wait a moment, please."
It seemed we couldn't pick up on something that was there. Perhaps... Hyunmu Hall's innate power, or something like that.
—BWOOOOM!!!
[Water element energy (?) is surging.]
Water energy erupted inside my body. But it wasn't moving chaotically—it flowed and circled, much like the faint water energy I could feel from the surroundings.
"Th-this is..."
"Hwanhyeon, you can feel it too. An energy this vast and orderly... it must mean the Hyunmu Hall head has arrived."
Jinyul's father. Moo Jeongwoon, if I remembered right.
He'd looked a bit small and slender for a grown man, but standing out there, the sheer energy pouring off him was overwhelming.
"Yu-ryeon! Fire!"
"...Huh? What?"
—FWOOOOSH!
If we went like this, we'd be affected by the crushing cold energy manifesting ahead. To counter it, we needed Yu-ryeon's flames.
—CRACKLE!
A sound of something freezing and splitting at high speed echoed. Then an even greater shockwave hit us.
—KWAHHHAAAAAANG!!!
"Ughhhhh!"
Small ice fragments exploded in the distance. The shockwave must have slammed into us.
"I'll block it!"
—SSSSHHHH.
Black mist seeped out and blocked the view ahead. Thankfully, it was enough to shield us from the shockwave and ice shards.
"Phew..."
"Jinyul. What was that just now?"
"The hall head's power. You could say he unleashed the 7th Mansion of Hyunmu Hall."
"...Impressive."
"Alright, we can move forward now."
And so we headed toward the place where an utterly one-sided violation had just occurred—a place that had once been a gate.
Ahead, a rift was split open just like the gates we knew, and the open space in front of it was littered with the remains of what had once been monsters.
"Hall Head! Hyunmu Hall Head!"
Jinyul called out to Moo Jeongwoon, head of Hyunmu Hall. She addressed him as "hall head" rather than "father"—the formality of the situation was evident.
"...Jinyul. What brings you here?"
From the cliff that ringed the clearing, the voice of the Hyunmu Hall head rang out—familiar from yesterday.
Only now did I look up to see armed figures densely packed along the cliff edge, and at their center, Moo Jeongwoon and Muharin.
—THUD.
The hall head and Muharin jumped down. The two of them approached us as if there were no impact at all.
"Daughter. Why didn't you run when I told you to?"
"I, I couldn't... Master..."
Muharin's and the hall head's eyes turned to me. Muharin stared at me with eyes full of scolding—*why didn't you run and instead come here?*—and Moo Jeongwoon glared at me with bloodshot, hollow eyes.
"...Did you sleep well last night? I wanted to take more care of you in many ways, but I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about the sleeping arrangement I provided."
In any other situation it might have been fine, but right now there was another meaning to those words. If you interpreted them loosely, it would be something like "I had sex with my wife all night—did you sleep well?"
"I didn't know one could sleep so peacefully on another man's pillow. Thanks to your consideration, I rested comfortably."
—GRIND.
The sound of teeth gritting came faintly. No wonder—she'd been subtly throwing back "your wife is going to be ruined" at him.
"Hwanhyeon. You came all the way here for a reason, didn't you?"
"Oh, right."
Yeryung noona explained the situation. That I, having inherited the previous generation's ability, had sensed something and come here because of it.
"I see. But unfortunately, the situation is already over. You've made the trip but there's nothing left to be done, and I find it truly regrettable."
"..."
That was a bit much. No matter how much I'd had all-night virgin-harvesting-through-the-virgin-tunnel-with-my-wife's-daughter, I couldn't say I was happy to hear it.
And the reason I'd come here was still there. My skill was still pointing toward that gate, that yawning rift, with an intense intuition I couldn't ignore.
"I didn't come here to fight. My purpose is—"
—CLICK.
I pointed at the gate spawned by the rift with my finger. A powerful, nameless instinct was pulling my entire body toward that place.
"We have to go through there."
"...Huh? Did I hear that right?"
"I said we have to go through that gate."
"Are you serious? You're saying we go beyond it?"
The reaction was strange. We were just talking about conquering a gate—what was the problem?
And even the others—Yeryung noona and the rest—were staring at me as if I'd lost my mind.
"Master, are you sure? I can't accept going through that gate."
"Cheonghwa's right. Hwanhyeon, how do you plan to get to the demon realm?"
"Demon realm? What's that?"
I'd never heard the term before. The demon realm?
"It seems you don't know, so may I explain?"
Muharin, who had been silent until now, stepped forward. It seemed there was something I didn't know.
"Surely you know that the rifts in the sacred sandalwood tree and the gates beyond them are being held back by the Four Halls, don't you?"
"Yeah, I know that."
"Isn't it strange? Why they don't exterminate the gates and only catch the monsters that occasionally slip through."
"Huh? So this kind of thing happens often? They don't actually conquer the gates?"
They deliberately didn't exterminate them, taking on the long-term risk. I couldn't understand that.
"That's correct. But we of the Four Halls have no choice but to leave the gates alone."
"Why?"
Why didn't they sever that evil at its root? Why did they leave the perpetual threat unaddressed?
The reason was clear.
"Because until now, only two people have ever been able to enter inside."
Only two people have ever entered the rifts.
The gates are not conquered. They are only contained.
The monsters are only managed, never eradicated.