Even in This Life (1)
The moment day broke, Sangun let out a long, heavy sigh at the gazes that came flocking toward him.
He had spent the last few days pouring out his strength just to do a little charity, yet every time mealtime rolled around they automatically fixed their eyes on nothing but his mouth, looking for all the world like baby birds waiting to be fed.
That was the problem. Baby birds at least had the excuse of having just hatched and knowing nothing of the world. These were fully grown humans.
Given the circumstances he was cutting them some slack, but it still didn’t feel rewarding. When he weighed the labor each act cost him against the things these people had done the first time they met, the feeling only grew stronger.
“How the hell did I end up like this…….”
“I didn’t tell ya to do it, did I?”
“Yes, yes… course not. Ancestor didn’t order a thing…….”
And right beside him sat the very being who, while never directly loading work onto his back, had still exerted a subtle influence on the whole mess.
Sangun shot a sidelong glance at the little tortoise and heaved another deep sigh.
Inside his head the memories of the day he had first arrived here unspooled in a rush.
“I’m hungry.”
He had climbed all the way to the border between the eastern and northern lands trying to reverse the damage the tiger had done. That journey was cut short by a sudden voice, forcing him to turn around again.
The fact that his body now rested in the very center of the east was part of the same chain of events.
“H-hey, keep that up an’ I’m really leavin’.”
“…That’s too much.”
Sangun kept moving endlessly toward the voice that continued to echo inside his skull. The closer he drew to the human crowd, the more their voices kept jabbing into his ears.
“At the time every single watchman testified that they experienced an unnatural magical sleep! Even so, you still claim you had nothing to do with the demon’s escape?!”
“But why’d ya only come now? I-I ain’t blamin’ ya or nothin’, I’m just genuinely curious…….”
Fortunately, given the structure of his body, ignoring spoken words was easy. What was hard was trying to catch a human voice with perfect accuracy. “Well, I don’t really remember.” “Maybe I was aiming to put the Demon Knight to sleep and just mistargeted them.” In any case, Sangun had long made a habit of hearing only the parts he wanted to hear. “Great Sage!” Sangun whipped his body about.
“I was asleep.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Slept a real long time. Long enough I even forgot about the cycle.”
“…What?”
Just a few more motions and he would reach the owner of the voice.
Yet Sangun momentarily stopped cold at the other party’s shocking remark.
“Is that something you can even call speech?!” the human standing right beneath him shouted.
“Ah, let me correct that. I didn’t forget—it was more like I was forced not to be able to tend the cycle.”
Meanwhile the one who had been calling for Sangun kept talking as well.
Considering the speaker was Sangun’s ancestor, his root, his very origin, the whole thing was more than a little absurd.
“What a strange question. I conveyed my thoughts through vocal symbols, so if that isn’t speech, what else would you call it?” Anyway, that was how it was.
“My other half kept putting me back to sleep. Even when the time of the cycle arrived and I tried to wake, even the many times after that when I tried to open my eyes—over and over and over…….”
So that was why the one who had given birth to his ancestor had vanished.
At the confession of the being humans called Yukgui, Sangun’s mouth opened and closed a few times with nothing coming out. “Great Sage, I wasn’t trying to play word games……” There really was nothing to say.
“Eventually there came a point where I didn’t even have the strength to open my eyes. So I just kept sleeping.”
“Then… you don’t know why you woke up this time……?”
“It’s not like that. Even while I slept I was still aware of my surroundings.”
“Ah, is that so.”
“Yeah… I watched every bit of it—my other half draining away all the life I’d accumulated so he could enjoy immortality. Every single bit.”
Yeah. There really was nothing left to say.
“Hah… how the hell am I supposed to even put this.”
Just like the human right under him, Sangun smacked his own forehead a few times with his tail, then slowly began to move again.
“How unpleasant. To dismiss my words as mere wordplay. If you’re going to keep this up, I’d rather stop talking and just do what I came to do.” The half-ruined city and the clusters of humans slipped past between the coils of his body.
“What the—so I didn’t mishear? Real, actual immortality……?”
“You didn’t mishear. Real immortality. My other half hated the idea of having to pass life on to a child with every fiber of his being.”
“Holy hell…….”
Meanwhile every single sentence of Yukgui’s endless monologue landed like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. Immortality ran counter to the natural order of the world—another word for corruption itself.
“If you keep talking that way, Great Sage, you’ll come to regret it later.” The human’s voice, thick with spite, scattered into the air. “What, planning to put me on trial for heresy? Suit yourself. At the very least I won’t be the one regretting anything.” A knowing sigh followed right after.
“But acts that go against the order always call corruption… and my other half ended up the same way. Predictable, really.”
Just as expected. Yukgui continued exactly as Sangun had feared.
Yukgui’s other half—probably the one called Heugsa—had truly fallen to corruption.
“Out of curiosity, though—if the standard for heresy is cooperating with a demon, then how many people in this city aren’t heretics……?” Sangun’s eyes drifted downward in a rough approximation of a glance.
“Aigoo. So that’s how the city got into this mess…….”
“My other half contributed a bit. Not all of it, but some.”
No wonder the dwellings were half-destroyed and the humans were huddled off by themselves.
Sangun clucked his tongue and thrust his head into the tent where the voice’s owner ought to be. “How could you say such outrageous things…!” The humans nearby screamed and shouted so loudly his head rang a little, but long experience let Sangun simply shut his ears.
Instead, the eyes that had pierced the tent peered inside.
“So you were here… after all…….”
Yet the Yukgui he finally laid eyes on was such a pitiful sight.
The claim that every scrap of accumulated life had been stolen from him was clearly no exaggeration—he was tiny.
The mountain-sized body of legend, the steel-hard shell, the great arms that could churn the sea—all of it gone. All that remained was the form of an ordinary baby tortoise.
How much power must have been drained for him to end up like this?
Sangun held his tongue for a moment. Yes, the other party’s condition was truly wretched.
Even if the other half’s schemes had tormented Yukgui himself, the fact remained that he had failed to stop it.
“You don’t have to look at me like that. Losing all my power is miserable, but thanks to that I at least avoided corruption.”
Lucky or unlucky—before Sangun could speak rashly, Yukgui opened his mouth first. Unlike the earlier whining about hunger, his tone was remarkably calm.
“Of course, if the rescue had come any later, even the strength to stay alive would’ve been stolen and I would’ve simply died… but well, Heugsa did make an effort to keep me alive.”
“Damn… you’ve been through a lot, haven’t you.”
“Hardly. More importantly, I’m hungry.”
“Yes, yes.”
Apparently even he had a limit to how long he could endure an empty stomach.
Sangun hurriedly moved his tail. The tip that passed through the tent took on physical form the instant it touched the tortoise.
The little tortoise latched onto the end.
“Let’s get goin’ already.”
“Do we have to go far?”
“Not far—just somewhere the humans can’t see us.”
His body straddled the boundary between material and immaterial, so everything could pass through him, but the sight of humans walking in and out between his coils still wasn’t exactly pleasant.
So Sangun decided to leave the vicinity. The white snake with a tortoise dangling from his tail tip slipped out from among the human crowd.
“Why’d you stop? You said we had to get where no humans can see.”
“I know, but…….”
There was something even more uncomfortable than humans wandering through his body.
Before completely leaving the land the humans occupied, Sangun took a quick look around their shelters.
Crude tents, worn and filthy skin, stick-thin arms and legs, dying expressions—none of these were sights he ever saw among the tribes under his care in the Great Forest.
Even when the Great Forest tribes fought one another over who would become Great Chief, they at least received the minimum food—thanks to the abundance of nature he himself maintained.
That was why their wretched state hit him hard, and when he recalled the cause—though he hadn’t done it himself, his ancestor still bore some blame—his heart grew even more unsettled.
Sangun’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“Thinkin’ on it, as a descendant I oughta do at least a little somethin’ if I want my heart to sit right.”
“…?”
Besides, a certain knight he was fond of would never have left people like this alone. Just thinking of that knight made it hard to stay still.
Sangun lifted his head, remembering the grace he had received.
“Ground’s gonna shake, so hold on tight.”
Then the head he had raised came slamming back down into the earth.
All sorts of fruit and a few grains meant to share life with the starving humans burst up in a shower.
“Wh-what in the…!”
“…Remarkable. Just who could have done this……?”
“Do we really have to……?”
“Heehee.”
The humans were stunned by the sudden appearance of food, and Yukgui, not understanding the situation, simply looked puzzled.
But since the choice hadn’t been made for their sake, Sangun merely laughed to himself.
If the knight who had given him even a precious heart for the sake of the east saw this, he would surely say Sangun had done well.
That alone was reason enough for his actions.
“This is—ah!”
“The humans spotted us.”
“Whoops.”
The only slight problem was that right after using his power his body became visible.
And this place was a flat forest, practically a plain with nothing to hide behind. Once a gigantic white snake appeared in full view, no amount of luck could keep him from being discovered.
“A-a monster!”
“Another monster’s come to kill us!”
“Doesn’t… seem like a demon, though.”
“Great Sage, that enormous snake……?”
“Do I look like I know everything in the world? Still, it does remind me of an Ancient Beast said to dwell in the Great Forest.”
“…Your guess is right.”
“Oh, so it really was?”
And so Sangun was suddenly called a monster.
Coming right after Heugsa—Yukgui’s other half—had wrecked the city, the misunderstanding was understandable… but the wound it left in his heart was just as natural.
At least a few humans recognized him; that was some small comfort.
“Could we ask you to use just a little more power? If the amount of fruit could increase even a bit…….”
Yet once his identity and safety were confirmed, the way they immediately tried to exploit his power still felt unpleasant.
“First time I’ve ever missed those thick-headed priests of mine…….”
For a moment Sangun found himself missing his old attendants.
“Haa… I really do need those thick-headed priests after all…….”
The short recollection ended, and Sangun, looking at the humans of Bemyurhen, once again longed for the humans of the Great Forest.
Back then he had thought they were nothing but chatterboxes, but looking back now, every word had been for his sake. Even the attitude of telling him he could just stay quietly in the nest because there was nothing that needed doing—that was the same.
They hadn’t been trying to make him bored; they had simply wanted to rely on him without becoming a burden. Unlike the humans here.
“Aigoo.”
But they say even the earliest regret always comes too late.
Missing the residents of the Great Forest, Sangun raised his tail. The white scales catching the light glittered like clouds in the sky.
“He’s moving!”
If he put just a little more strength into it, the tip of the tail stiffened like a spike. Sangun slammed the sharply pointed tip straight down into the earth.
“It’s growing!”
Yet the instant the tail met the ground there was no proper noise or vibration.
The tail simply merged with the earth and poured his power into it.
Shhhhhhhk!
All manner of grains and fruit trees began shooting up over the once grassy ground.
“Halt, halt! Don’t pick them recklessly!”
“Just until we finish counting the numbers… don’t eat them yet!”
Roots and branches spread, and before long the trees even began bearing fruit. The fruit ripening took only an instant as well.
Hands shot out competitively to seize the produce. Their owners were all residents who had been living under the control called “protection.”
“We’ll distribute them, so just hold on a little longer for n——!”
“Don’t hide any! Anyone who hides will be punished!”
And the soldiers started restraining those residents. It was to stop a few of them—the healthy ones strong enough to win the scramble—from monopolizing the fruit, but the number of disturbances this had already caused was more than ten fingers could count.
Including this time, they would now be able to open their fingers again and count another ten.
“Aigoo… the thickheads are fightin’ again, fightin’ again.”
He hadn’t handed out food just so he could watch this kind of spectacle, yet humans really did have endless greed.
If you added the supplies brought by the support units that kept joining, the resources they hunted, and the fruit he provided, the situation was enough for everyone to get through each day without starving, even if it wasn’t exactly abundant.
“Maybe I just shouldn’t give ’em any more?”
“I’d like to, I really would… aigoo.”
If he stopped now, how would they react? There was a difference in power, so they wouldn’t dare try to harm him, but still…….
“…I just can’t stand watchin’ those blockheads praisin’ the tiger, y’know?”
With a weary air Sangun rested his face between the coils of his body.
Simply reviving a forest would have been one thing, but rewinding time again and again just to bring only the harvest each time was quite a burden even for him.
“The lives the knight went through all that abuse to save… leavin’ ’em to die just don’t sit right either…….”
“You’re making work for yourself.”
“True enough. But unlike beasts that only follow the law of the strong eating the weak, humans sometimes use their strength for the weak—ain’t that lovable?”
Of course, for now he could still endure this level of fatigue. He liked humans who, despite possessing great power, still knew how to stand in low places, and he liked the results such humans created.
“So you’re stayin’ put?”
“Nah, I won’t go that far. I like humans a little, sure, but even that has a limit.”
Yet the human in question wasn’t here, and the results he had achieved were so disappointing that Sangun’s patience was slowly reaching its end. Moreover, he had already fulfilled his duty toward that knight.
“Then?”
“From what I heard, the fourth support force is comin’ soon, right? Once they arrive, I’m pullin’ my tail out.”
And so Sangun reminded himself of that line and drew his final boundary. If any human present had been able to interpret his vocal language, they would have fainted on the spot.
Well, since no one here could, it never got across anyway.